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Wow, the propaganda machine is on overdrive today

Projecting much? Your response is disingenuous scaremongering. You guys are like Intelligent Design advocates, constantly shifting from one justification to another as each is debunked, each one flimsier than the last, with the only constant being the judicious abuse of scientific language to instill fear and doubt in ordinary people. Yes, you are exactly like Intelligent Design advocates.

It produces CFC114 emissions in the enrichment process.

Enrichment consists of passing vaporized uranium through membranes to separate out the heavier isotopes. It doesn't emit CFFs or anything else as a matter of course. That one older plant does is an artifact of that plant and not the process itself. The USEC plans to replace that plant.

Also, the one primary source I found for the CFC114 information mentions 800,000 pounds per year for two plants, which means that it's around 400,000 pounds now, equivalent (using your numbers) to 1.5e9 kg of CO2. That refined uranium generates 8e8 megawatt-hours. Coal generates 1,970 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour. So had the electricity supplied by nuclear been produced by coal, we would instead have emitted 7.1e11kg on CO2. That's approximately five hundred times less CO2, and starting to get into negligible territory. And that's 1) using a relatively inefficient enrichment process, and 2) not recycling the enriched fuel in any way. Do you want to compare that to the CO2 used to manufacture and maintain wind turbines (don't forget transportation), or the quite toxic chemical soup used to manufacture photovoltaic cells?

The rest of your post is similarly misleading, and not worthwhile to debunk in detail. In brief, the noble (I don't know why you capitalized it) gas fission products are managed and harvested (as we've known how to do for 50 years --- read the date on that paper), not simply emitted into the atmosphere. Even if they were emitted, they have very short half-lives, and would contribute insignificantly the background radiation level. Remember, noble gases are insert and don't bioaccumulate. But since they're not simply vented, it's a moot point anyway.

Your phytoplankton reference is the worst kind of scientific pandering. It's not CFCs that are the primary danger, but rather the acidification of the oceans caused by their absorption of CO2. We've already established that coal emits quite a bit more CO2.

As for Yucca mountain: a granite facility with no groundwater permeation probably would be better, sure. Let's use or make one.

Nevertheless, Yucca isn't bad. Even a 5.5 "aftershock" is hardly enough to damage a secure facility. (If these shocks even exist: a source would be nice here.) Long-term corrosion information, because it's a gradual process, can be extrapolated from short-term experiments. Corrosion doesn't suddenly accelerate three hundred years out, as you imply. And remember: by the time nuclear waste even gets to a storage facility, it's already radioactively decayed into longer-lived isotopes that simply aren't that dangerous. As for groundwater permeation: first of all, the waste is put in containers specifically designed to avoid water contact. Second, even if water were to erode these containers, the radioactive waste within is highly insoluble and vitrified, so contamination would be low. And even if contamination were something

Carbon Dioxide Emissions were (2007): 2,433 million metric tons emitted to produce gridpower, and 3,557 for other uses, mainly transportation (no car/plane runs on nuclear fuel!). Source: EIA

In other words building 400 new nuclear reactors, a major ordeal, only reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40% and there is no further potential gain without an even much more major retrofit: only using gridpower-fed transportation means. Is it an "effective" approach?

Nuclear: 8.5 percent of the total primary energy used. Renewable (7.3%) are not ridiculous, especially given their long history of lack of founding.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions were (2007): 2,433 million metric tons emitted to produce gridpower, and 3,557 for other uses, mainly transportation (no car/plane runs on nuclear fuel!). Source: EIA

In other words building 400 new nuclear reactors, a major ordeal, only reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40% and there is no further potential gain without an even much more major retrofit: only using gridpower-fed transportation means. Is it an "effective" approach?

Nuclear: 8.5 percent of the total primary energy used. Renewable (7.3%) are not ridiculous, especially given their long history of lack of founding.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions were (2007): 2,433 million metric tons emitted to produce gridpower, and 3,557 for other uses, mainly transportation (no car/plane runs on nuclear fuel!). Source: EIA

In other words building 400 new nuclear reactors, a major ordeal, only reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40% and there is no further potential gain without an even much more major retrofit: only using gridpower-fed transportation means. Is it an "effective" approach?

Nuclear: 8.5 percent of the total primary energy used. Renewable (7.3%) are not ridiculous, especially given their long history of lack of founding.

Let's take a look at ANWR...

Oil reserves are estimated at 5 to 10 billion barrels of oil, with the number of those barrels that are economically feasible to extract rising and falling in line with the price of a barrel.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.htm

Now let's take a look at our oil consumption...

We are the leading consumer of oil in the world, with a consumption rate of around 20 million barrels a day.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

Hypothetically speaking, if all 10 billion barrels are extracted in ANWR, this gives us 500 days worth of oil. This is not something that will make a bit of difference to our reliance on foreign oil reserves, especially when you consider that it wouldn't be possible to add this oil to the market all at once.

"If I may be allowed to pursue the idea of 'addiction to oil,' I think the nation just reached the point where we sold our wedding ring for one night's fix."

Well, since you asked...

Assuming one heavy waste atom per neutron converted to energy, and for the sake of argument let's say these atoms have an atomic weight of about 300:

1 neutron x c^2 = 1.67e-27 kg x 9e16 = 1.5 e-10 J/atom =

1.5 e-10 / (300*1.67e-27 kg) = 3e14 J / kg pure waste

Now, granted the efficiency with which we can extract pure waste from the rest of the spent fuel rod knocks down by a few orders of magnitude that figure. I don't know that number, but let's call it a thousand. So we have 3e14 J / metric ton waste. That's 3e5 GJ/metric ton.

For reference, total electricity produced per year in the US (source: DOE, http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html) is about 1.5e19 J / year = 1.5e10 GJ / year. If we're going to use all nukes, that would amount to 50,000 metric tons per year of the contaminated stuff, assuming 1 kg pure waste pollutes 1 metric ton of spent fuel.

Now, for coal:
1/2 of our electric output is coal right now. That's 0.75e19 J/year of coal. Coal uses a chemical reaction, not a nuclear reaction, so the mass of hydrocarbons is far greater than the number quoted above. For simplicity (and since I never took organic chem in college), let's approximate it by saying it's all clean-burning methane gas. ie CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H2O. The internets tell me (at http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Companion/E06.1.pdf.xpdf) that this reaction yields 55 GJ/ metric ton methane.

Dividing through,

7.5e18J/year / 5.5e10 J/ton = 1.4e8 ton methane burned per year. Coal has higher energy content, but I'm going to make the unfounded guess that the inefficiency of the generator will balance out my assumption of using methane.(Corrections from chemists are welcomed.)

To review, we can spew out 1.4e8 ton of carbon (roughly), or 5e4 ton of dilute (factor of 1000) radioactive waste. So now the question is, how much radiation in that 1.4e8 tons of carbon. (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4991532/radioactive-elements) tells me this is on the order of 10 ppm for thorium. So that's about 1.4e3 tons/year of pure thorium vs 5e1 tons/year of pure radioactive waste.

Again, corrections to false assumptions and math mistakes are most welcome from people who actually know what they're talking about more than I do (I'm an EE/software guy from 9-5).

significantly cheaper at the pump

I don't think that's correct.

Yet in Canada, diesel is ~ 10 cents less per litre (or roughly 38 cents per US gallon) cheaper than regular unleaded. Source MJ Ervin Weekly Pump price survey

Seems odd to be the reverse in the US ....

significantly cheaper at the pump

I don't think that's correct.

Sure, but here in Indiana we only pay $0.09/kWh or $4/year/device or just over a penny a day, a penny a day for the convenience of being able to toss the phone on a pad instead of plugging it in. Given my failure rate at actually getting the phone plugged into that darn cable, I'd gladly pay a penny a day for a more reliable convenient method.

[ source http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html ]

Joe

By that you mean the California voters who voted to deregulate to the system we got? I really wish I could blame the officials, but we did that to ourselves... sort of like our current budget.

Lest we forget...

Electricity deregulation began in 1996, not with an initiative as you implied, but rather with The Electric Utility Industry Restructuring Act (Assembly Bill 1890). Perhaps you were confused with 2005's Proposition 80 that re-regulated the industry.

Lest we also forget that this deregulation law was primarily written and supported by Enron and the utility traders. From that perspective, it worked perfectly. (Now tell me again why deregulation is axiomatically good?)

As a California resident and a voter, I agree that the initiative process is a crock and prone to manipulation (Perhaps not quite as trivially easy as Oregon's. (I'm looking at you Bill Sizemore!)) using the extreme rhetoric ("Oh won't someone please think of the children!") and feel good measures that it's wrought the current budget crisis. Initiatives that tie the hands of the legislature when making budget cuts, a 30 year old initiative that limit property taxes at essentially 30 year old levels, and requires an asinine two-thirds majority to increase revenue in order to pass a balanced budget? And oh yeah and the minority party is so beholden to Grover Norquist's dogma to become completely irrational and oppose any long term solution to the state's sadly predictably recurring and worsening budget problems.

We are state ruled be the extremes of the political spectrum, and thus so throughly a reflection of the schizophrenic political views of the populace. We are state that wants it all, but at the same time refuses to pay for any of it.

Or as Walt Kelly put it, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Not everywhere uses coal when nuclear isn't available. Tons of places use hydroelectric which is comparatively MUCH cleaner than coal.

Tons of places?

Sadly, Hydro rates a distant 4th place, producing less no more than 7% of US power.

See http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p2.html for current US electrical capacity by source.

The problem is electricity prices are wildly variable. According to the DOE, prices range from 20.43 cents for kw-hr in Connecticut (also 22.19 in Hawaii) down to 7.28 in Idaho, with a national average of 11.59.

9.6Kw = 63lbs of carbon? there's no fucking way that's right. "The 1999 national average output rate,(4) 1.341 pounds of CO2 per kilowatthour generated" according to this government study. So it should be more like 12 lbs, you're off by a factor of more than 5x. And these numbers can only get better as the country moves to cleaner power sources (such as nuclear)

Napkin math time:
8 Hr charge @ 200V and 50A? gives 80kwh
looking at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html I see an average of 11.59c per kwh gives $9.722 per charge
100 miles per charge mean a direct charging cost of 9.722 cents per mile

Similarly my 1994 minivan gets 23mpg. @ $2.549 per gallon according to http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/
thats 11.08 cents per mile

now if i drove something smaller that got maybe 28mpg (not an unreasonable number) that would drop to 9.104 cents per mile

Talk to me when I can save some money and drive an electric vehicle.
Obviously none of this includes taxes, infrastructure maintenance or any other costs,. just cost per mile for the charge vs gasoline.

I have to agree with you. It's a bullshit story with no regards to facts. Matter of fact, some of those "leaked" info had to be available publicly. For instance, the list of nuclear facilities in US is by COMPLIANCE with IAEA's nuclear nonproliferation agreement. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/nuke1.html Regardless, none of those listed sites entails any of US nuclear weapons facility or infrastructure or security protocol.

It's a global economy buddy, the USA consumes 378 million barrels per day. Increasing oil prices in the middle east affect our prices too even if we import 500k per day.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

The OP Mentioned Iraq War 1 and 2, that's a nearly 20 year timeframe to look at.

Assumptions:
- They can actually generate 20,000 gallons per acre per year
- 1 gallon of biofuel will get you the same mileage as 1 gallon of gasoline

US gasoline usage = 378,000,000 gallons/day = 137,970,000,000 gallons/year
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

Area needed: 137,970,000,000 gallons/year / 20,000 gallons/acre/year = 6,898,500 acres = 10,779 sq.mi.

Comparative area: Massachusetts is 10,555 sq.mi.

So, we'd need an area slightly larger than MA to generate the needed biofuel. This may seem like alot, but...

Farmland in US: 922,095,840 acres = 1,440,774 sq. mi.
Source: http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm

Percent farmland to convert to biofuel: 10,555 sq. mi. / 1,440,774 sq. mi. = 0.73%

This isn't much, if you ask me.

Now, for the financial incentive to do so:

Value of 20,000 gallons of biofuel at $50/barrel: 20,000 gallons = 476 barrels * $50/barrel = $23,000

Corn yield of one acre: 162 bushels/acres (Iowa)
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a1-14.pdf

Value of 162 bushels of corn: 162 bushels * $4.77/bushel (Estimated 2008 Calendar Year Average) = $772.74
Source: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/pdf/a2-11.pdf

So, converting one acre of corn farmland to one acre of biofuel farmland will increase the revenue from $773 to $23,000, a nearly 30-fold increase.

So, this looks like it might be worth it depending on the cost of conversion and cost versus revenue. It'll certainly be interesting to watch.

Anything that moves us away from non-renewable energy sources and imported resources to domestic energy production is good. But we have to consider costs and space.

For instance, the Nevada Solar One solar thermal power plant cost about $266 million to build, covers 400 acres of land, and generates about 129 GWh per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One

The US used over 22 quadrillion BTU of coal power in 2005 http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html which converts to about 6450 TWh so if we wanted to replace coal use with Solar Thermal Plants, that's 6450 TWh/129 GWh = 50000 copies of Nevada Solar One at a cost of $13 trillion and covering 30,000 square miles of land. Solar isn't exactly a quick fix either.

The US uses about 1.1 billion tons of coal per year ( http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/feature.html ), or a minimum of (http://www.reade.com/Particle_Briefings/spec_gra2.html - assuming solid anthracite, the densest form of coal) 35 billion cubic feet of coal per year. Total US spent nuclear fuel by the year 2015 is projected to be about 75,000 metric tons, or 82,500 US tons ( http://www.sdi.gov/lc_nucle.htm )

So getting about 50% of our electrical power from coal per year requires us to burn over a cubic half mile of coal.

I think it's clear that nuclear is the winner here.

They may be mining the "renewable energy" incentive program.Some outfits in Texas pay the grid operator to take the power..

Wind is very expensive, and it is highly variable, which makes it a royal pain to tap. When someone plans a major energy storage facility to level the output, then you'll know they're actually serious about using wind as a power source. The most economical storage systems of that scale are compressed air and pumped hydro-electric.

They may be mining the "renewable energy" incentive program.Some outfits in Texas pay the grid operator to take the power..

Wind is very expensive, and it is highly variable, which makes it a royal pain to tap. When someone plans a major energy storage facility to level the output, then you'll know they're actually serious about using wind as a power source. The most economical storage systems of that scale are compressed air and pumped hydro-electric.

Jeez. Where do I even start....
1. Don't reference Other Countries nuclear programs. This is the United States, where the costs of regulation, permitting, licensing, buying land, paying off neighbors, etc outweigh the material cost of a reactor. Don't compare France. Japan, Korea, or all those others, to the US, it's apples and oranges when it comes to nuclear acceptance. The issue was a wind farm in the US, not France. A nuke in America costs 30-40 billion dollars, stem to stern, full cost. That's the cost of a FULL COMPLETE nuke plant(including water treatment, balance of plant, turbines, etc), but I'll forgive your ignorance on that. People who read wikipedia and don't know power generation often make that mistake.

2. You got your numbers wrong: Financing referenced in that wikipedia article is only for construction phase, which is the CHEAPEST part of building a nuke. Permitting isn't there, startup (which is WAY expensive) isn't there, commissioning (which is RIDICULOUS expensive) isn't there, NRC approval and licensing (which is THE most expensive piece) isn't there. If you worked for a utility or in the nuclear industry (like me) you'd know this.

3. If you want to reference a source, use one with some TEETH. Something like http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/analysis/nuclearpower.html, or http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/82975.pdf. Some dipshit's blog doesn't count, especially when he admits a full bias and doesn't disclose his credentials. BTW: I'm a computer engineer with 5 years of experience in control systems, power generation, and the economics of electric power.

4. Seriously? OFFSHORE wind farm budget numbers up against LAND BASED wind farms? Lets' see, we'll put a wind technology that is designed, constructed, and operated in one of the most harsh environments on the planet, which you have to helicopter maintenance personnel into, against a wind technology that is built on solid ground, with standard materials, and can be maintained with guys in trucks. Gee, that's a real valid comparison. My wind numbers are accurate, I know because I work in the industry.

5. Fine. Assume that they produce 1500 MW 10% of the time instead of 90%. Still a break even with my ACCURATE numbers.

6. Definitely not an engineer. Megawatts are always comparable, they are absolute quantities. A MW produced by a wind farm is the same MW produced by a nuke. Yes, while wind provides a smaller percentage of it's capacity factor when compared to nuclear, that can be (supposedly) be defeated with large numbers of geographically dispersed wind farms.

Nukes cost a lot of money. That is the operational reality. Get over it. Until someone decides that nukes are a good investment for their cost, we will not see a nuke plant. Other countries can do what they like, they are 20 years ahead of us. The NRC rules all, and nobody wants to finance something we can't figure out how to get rid of the waste for. And that's sad, because nuclear power is the future of baseload generation and will help end our dependence on fossil fuels.

~Sticky

Nuclear power plants in the 1500 Megawatt range cost 30-40 Billion dollars just to build.

Nonsense. The new French reactor, 1650 MWe, has a pricetag of $4.8 billion. Recent Japanese and Korean reactors were in the same range - $2-3/W (PPP), as surveyed by MIT CEEPR (under "update on the cost of nuclear power"). The accompanying study (2009) predicts costs for new US reactors to be $4/W. In short, the numbers are consistent. You can look up cost figures, levelized cost studies (here's a start) up and down, and you will find this is true.

Wind Farms in the 1500 Megawatt range cost 300-400 million dollars to build.

Also nonsense. Just take one recent UK wind farm, which came in at £111 M for 60 MWe - $2.07/W, or extrapolating, over $3 billion for 1500 MW. You can survey costs all over the web, and this is typical. Whitelee, Europe's largest onshore farm, cost £300M ($496M) for 322 MWe, $1.54/W. Lynn and Inner Dowsing - UK's largest offshore farm - came in at £300 M ($496 M) for 194 MWe, $2.56/MW. The famous London Array is now at £3B ($4.96 billion) for 1,000 MWe: $4.96/W. (To be fair though, this represents a 200% cost overrun over the original estimates.) (Sorry about the angstrom signs: they are supposed to be British "pound" symbols)

Also, besides the fact that your bogus figures for wind are 10 times cheaper than reality (and for nuclear, 10 times more expensive than reality), your comparison is bogus in yet another away. You comparable incomparable quantities: a megawatt of baseload yields far more energy than a megawatt of wind power - because it yields power continuously, whereas the wind turbines are very frequently down, or generating at fractional capacity. This is represented by the "capacity factor", which is the fraction of the nameplate capacity actually achieved by a power plant - ratio of [average power output]/[power capacity]. And while nuclear power plants, as generally reliable baseload plants, run at 90%+ capacity factor - that is, average 0.90 MWe of generation for each 1 MWe of nameplate capacity - wind farms, becuase of the obvious intermittency of wind, average only 20-30% capacity factors, with some exceptional offshore locations yielding 40%. Those megawatts are completely incomparable: 1 MWe of nuclear yields 2-4 times more energy than 1 MWe of wind power.

U.S. Motor Gasoline Consumption
8,989,000 barrels/day (378 million gallons/day)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

Well, if solar electricity is generated and transmitted to 400 miles away where it is then used in 1000 blenders, toasters, etc, the heat effect of that sunlight is now displaced. The effect of moving the sun's heat energy from places which currently receive it the most (best candidates for solar panels) to other regions, the effects is evening out the delivery of the sun's energy, thus effecting weather patterns and ecosystems in many ways.

We already have that occurring with the existing system, and it's nothing compared to Urban Heat Islands. Greenhouse Gases play a role in UHIs, but so do the materials cities are made of.

According to the first link, waste heat may be responsible for up to 1/3rd of the UHI effect. This will certainly get worse as we use more energy, but I have hope that reduction in greenhouse gases will help relieve the UHI problem.

If anything, I'd say that moving solar energy around the globe in large scales has to have less of an effect than pulling sequestered carbon out of the ground and burning it on large scales.

Has anyone considered the meteorological effects of removing all that energy from the atmosphere?

Yes, and it's insignificant.

According to the NOAA, an average hurricane releases roughly 14 Terawatt-hours of energy per day. According to the EIA, annual global electrical production comes to about 20 Terawatt-hours.

To summarize, one single hurricane can power the entire world (with room to grow) for an entire year if captured for two days.

Now consider how many hurricanes and typhoons there are in a year, how long they each last, and do the math. And don't forget about lesser weather phenomenon like thunderstorms (An average thunderstorm releases about 10 gigawatt-hours) and wind in general, which also release a non-trivial amount of energy.

Lets say a typical computer running BOINC contributes 1 GFlop at 100W (1e2W). So at 2e6 GFlops, tats 2e8W or 2e5 kW.

According to the energy department, we can assume that 1.4 pounds of CO2 per KWh, so that says BOINC is at ~3e5 pounds/hour of CO2, or about 140 tons/hour of CO2.

I get a very similar number if I back of the envelope what a coal plant should be based on ~500 tons/1 GW.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html

Honestly, after all the money we've spent, I don't see them just plopping it into the ocean

Right, because that would be like spending five billion or so on disposing of nuclear waste and then shutting the program down after 25 years without disposing of any nuclear waste and leaving the United States as one of the few countries in the developed world without an ongoing waste disposal strategy.

Surely no government would ever do that!

Politics is probably in play here: with the shuttle phased out, there will be no big $ for American contractors to support the IIS, because launch costs are going to be the greater part of ongoing costs. So the US government would be in a position of spending a lot of money on foreign launch vehicles, which means "No pork for you!" with regard to domestic campaign contributors.

Ergo, the US government would be supporting an international effort that would not feed back much of anything in terms of pork barrel spending into the domestic economy. Since pork is one of the major means by which the Party maintains control of the state, this is unacceptable.

Furthermore, because the US is an imperial power, it can't afford to be seen as weak or second-rate, so if it ceases to participate in the ISS the station must come down, because otherwise foreigners would have "the high ground."

If something doesn't make sense, there is usually politics behind it, and behind the politics there is usually money.

Why do you insist on posting your own fantasies as if they had anything to do with the truth?

Have you told Penn State College of Agricultures Diary and Animal Science you know more than they do yet?

The UMass link you provide says nothing about greenhouses gases. The closest it comes to the word "gas" is "gasketing". And though the other link does us "gas" and "carbon dioxide" it says nothing about whether greenhouse gases, which is not used.

You have provided no links to evidence to support your position but I have, including the Penn State link above which you obviously did not read or you're just acting like a troll. Just in case you're not trolling here are some more links:

• What is the Greenhouse Effect?
• Water Vapor Confirmed as Major Player in Climate Change
• Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, and Energy
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Everglades: The Role of Hydrologic Conditions

Now unless you provide links to support your position I can only conclude you are trolling. And the 2 links you did provide did not do so.

Falcon

However, the linked article suggests that targets will be very easy to meet and that the cost will not change much. This is really great news for conservationist because it means that we can set total pollution targets and meet them at very low cost.

Except for the bit where we democratically elect the people who tell us how much we pay to offset excessive emissions or can choose a more energy-efficient computer that doesn't pollute, yeah, that's how it works.

except the US federal government has absolutely no constitutional authority to do so which makes it no different then some random ass imposing whatever fees they want.

Actually, I have to abide by the law also. We left-wingers don't get a little pass in the mail that entitles us to free carbon-dioxide emissions for being Right Thinking or any bullshit like that.

That's not what I was implying and you know it. You left wingers can just go and buy the stuff yourself for a carbon-dioxide free life. Instead, you want to change the rules that society has came along with in order to satisfy your own little needs and wants. But again, as I said before, there are other ways to achieve the same damn goals without creating the fucking mess or putting so many people in catastrophic hardship. I'm actually suspecting it being done this way because it will create a need that the left wingers claim to be filling when they advance the rest of the agenda.

And "innocent" people? This is a political, economic, and technological one. It isn't an issue of sin or ritual purity. .

This is an attack on the poor and middle class. It is nothing more then a grab for power, control, a redistribution of wealth and a recipe for disaster. You can't claim otherwise, especially when there are other ways with less of an impact on the poor and working poor to achieve the same goals. This is why it was rushed through the house without any real comment in 1/20th the time a normal bill has to comment and study, this is why there was a 30 page amendment added on at the last minute with no opportunity for comment or to even read that god damn thing.

You know, it's crap like this that sparked the tarp legislation in which the democrats specifically placed rules allowing huge bonuses to be paid with TARP money and then acted like they had no clue was was going on until it was pointed out specifically to them.

We're still Americans, not Fremen. Get your head out of the fantasy world where a radical Communist government has tried to limit everyone's standard of living by rationing energy.

What the hell are you calling? Get your head out of the sand and quit pretending it isn't happening. The entire idea behind this bill is to increase the costs of energy in order to force people to use less and look for alternatives. If that doesn't hurt the poor, take things away from people, and place an unprecedented level of control onto people, then you tell me exactly what it does do and how it does it.

The right-wing demanded a free market approach to limiting emissions, and your request was answered.

You do realize that the US GHG emissions increase between 1998 and 2006 was less then Europe's and that even though most of Europe has been involved with Kyoto and purposely attempting to lower it's emissions, it hasn't done any better then the US. Inn fact, from the same time span 1998-2006, the US actually did better.

Deal with it, delay the problem until energy rationing becomes the only workable solution, just don't keep trying to ignore the problem.

Who the fuck said anything about ignoring the problem? Just because we don't jump in head first on the words of some shaky claims does not mean the problem is being ignored. I just showed a link where the US actually did better then Europe countries in using less Co2 and we didn't get baptized into the new religion. Of course actually

You're kidding right?
Electric cars and Solar Panels and such are derived from what energy source?

You do know that most of the US's current energy is derived from coal power, right?
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/consumption.html

This graph here makes it quite clear: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/fig5.html

So seriously - when you talk about electric cars or things like this, you need to remember that the *idea* is fantastic - but the current effect is simply to increase coal use.

Combustion engines aren't the long term answer. Massive batteries that introduce lead, mercury, and various other nasty chemicals into landfills aren't the answer either. Nobody has the longterm answer yet, IMO.

Once we get a non-coal powered economy bootstrapped, maybe it will be different.

So no - I'm not being dishonest - I've just done more research into this than some people.

You're kidding right?
Electric cars and Solar Panels and such are derived from what energy source?

You do know that most of the US's current energy is derived from coal power, right?
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/consumption.html

This graph here makes it quite clear: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/fig5.html

So seriously - when you talk about electric cars or things like this, you need to remember that the *idea* is fantastic - but the current effect is simply to increase coal use.

Combustion engines aren't the long term answer. Massive batteries that introduce lead, mercury, and various other nasty chemicals into landfills aren't the answer either. Nobody has the longterm answer yet, IMO.

Once we get a non-coal powered economy bootstrapped, maybe it will be different.

So no - I'm not being dishonest - I've just done more research into this than some people.

Well, I counted in the fact that the US gets more than half its oil from itself ;-) http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

Fair enough, though "American oil companies" is still misleading, as Shell's behaviour in Nigeria demonstrates. Given the chance, large corporations from anywhere often behave poorly.

I am no huge supporter of oil corporations, believe me. But I do get tired of the monomaniacal obsession with demonstrating how evil the US is in all things. It is frustrating to meet people who honestly believe that the US "steals" all of its oil.

By the way, Canada supplies about 23% of US petroleum, and 22% of crude oil, not 9% as you stated: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

I'm not American, in case it matters.

Nuclear... forget it, politically it just isn't going to happen.

There are currently proposals for 20 new nuclear reactors in the US under review. Still, a pretty sorry state considering China has 20 already under construction or planned to enter service in the next 6 years or so, India has 16, heck Bulgaria and Romania each plan to have a new power plant in service by 2015. Internationally, the climate for nuclear power is improving significantly. I only hope a pro-nuclear Secretary of Energy can help push America back into establishing a complete fuel cycle and expanding its nuclear generation capabilities.

Put a cap on the emissions that industry can output, then create a market where companies can trade the right to pollute. Cap and Trade.

The big question is, what is this Change going to do to the US economy?

1. Create asymmetry between US industry and global industry for future growth. Why should I build my factory in the USA and go through the regulations when it just became more profitable to build it overseas?
2. Existing price structures are scrambled. Estimates from the power industry say that once you add in the costs of Cap-and-trade, this will make Coal more expensive than Natural Gas fuel, completely flipping the fuel makeups of almost all electricity production markets. Since Coal is used as fuel for about half of the energy production in the US, this will be disasterous to the wholesale markets. Since corporations always pass costs down to consumers, expect to see your retail electric bills go up by 5-15%, or an average of $700-1400 per family per year.
3. Who exactly is benefitting here? Estimates are that about $50 to $300 billion is getting ready to change hands, with the government running the auction for the "rights" to pollute. It essentially puts extra costs on industry that uses polluting fuels, and the claims are that some of the money will become subsidies to cleaner/greener energy producers. Since zero-emission technology is currently 3x as expensive as fossil based technologies, there will not be any savings to the public, hense the comparisons to a "tax" for the public.

While all of cap-and-trade appears very poorly thought out, Pres. Obama actually fully intended this to happen, as interviewed almost a year ago. So, hold on to your wallet, change is coming...

Still the economics of this are a bit puzzling. In 2008, California used 285 million megawatt-hours of electricity, so even if this project could generate 200 MW 24x7 that still comes to just 511,000 megawatt-hours per year, or a little under 0.2% of Californian consumption. At a wholesale price of $50 per megawatt-hour, that would earn Solaren about $25 million per year. Even over the fifteen year projected lifespan that comes to just $375 million (actually less if you take inflation into account). Is $375 million anywhere near what the actual cost of this project will be? Space engineers, please help here.

Except for the fact that only around 1.5% of the US electricity generation comes from the use of oil. Take a look here: Net Generation by Energy Source by Type of Producer. Out of a little more than 4,000,000 MWH of electricity generated, about 65,000 MWH came from petroleum.

Oil is used as a transport fuel. Once supplies become too low for much oil to be used for that anymore, then electricity will be needed to power a lot of the cars. Ergo electricity prices go up.

Dude- you use 2500 kWh a MONTH? In MAY? Yes, you are correct, you could be more energy conscious!

According to the EIA residential consumption survey,, the region with the highest electricity consumption is the South (due to A/C); a typical house there uses about 15,000 kWh / year.

15k is an average of 1250 kWh per month, but of course there's a strong seasonal component. If you're using 3500 kWh a month, though, consider an energy audit (often free or cheap through your utility) or turning off the 24/7 toaster, or something- you're throwing money out the window, even at $0.05/kWh or whatever you're paying.

Brian

Power rates vary quite a bit state to state and California one of the most expensive. It's about 50% more than in Georgia:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

But there's no hard guarantee. Sure there is. Go read up on Peak Oil. Then go read what anybody's doing about it. (Hint: Apart from mostly singular projects like the one in TFA, mostly jack shit.) Electricity prices will go up.

Except for the fact that only around 1.5% of the US electricity generation comes from the use of oil. Take a look here: Net Generation by Energy Source by Type of Producer. Out of a little more than 4,000,000 MWH of electricity generated, about 65,000 MWH came from petroleum.

Electric companies shouldn't be directly linked to Gulf politics. Most of the electricity in the U.S. is produced by coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric energy sources according to the Department of Energy. Petroleum makes up only 1.3% of U.S. electricity production. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html

Your point is a good one though, that energy prices will most likely go up per kWh.

Not only that but if not for massive government subsidies nuclear power would not be profitable, it may actually loose money.

Falcon

That is a funny thing to say considering that in 2007 the U.S. gave 4,875 million dollars to renewables (81% in Tax credits) opposed to 1,267 million dollars to nuclear (72% R&D) and 5,451 million dollars to Coal/Petroleum/Natural Gas.

Energy Information Administration Report

"Ugly? Ugly? As opposed to what?"

I think you aren't grasping the number of turbines that are being proposed. Assuming G.E. could even build them (so far, they've only built 12,000 units, world-wide).

Here's the actual link to the paper:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/19/0904101106.full.pdf+html

Using their numbers for the US, 3,815.9TWh / 2.5Mwh turbines / 20% utility = 7.63 million turbines required.

Or about one turbine for every 40 people.

Even more amusing is that the G.E. turbines being discussed, the 2.5xl, http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/2xmw/index.htm, they cost about 3.5M U.S. each, according to this article: http://www.goodenergies.com/news/-pdfs/Good-Energies-GE-turbine-deal-release-final.pdf, and only have an operational lifetime of 20 years.

So that works out to about $26,705,000,000,000 US (yes, that's ~26.705 trillion dollars). Or slightly less than twice the U.S. GDP of $14,264,600,000,000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal).

You could buy a lot of nuclear power plants for that kind of money. Heck, you could buy 13,352 Ohio-class submarines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_class_submarine with 1 Gigawatt pressurized water reactors, and float them to where you wanted to hook them to the grid. But of course, you'd actually only need 400 of them to produce all the power the U.S. uses: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/reactsum.html.

-- Terry

The only requirement to generate EMPs is a nuclear weapon - the bigger the better.

Well, there are other ways, but I don't think they're close to being implemented yet.

Now as for doing it with nukes: here's a discussion I participated in a while back. It forced me to do some reading on the subject, and I made an interesting discovery. If you hope to do even minimal damage, you have to have at least a 1 megaton device. That's not easy. In fact, only five countries have managed to build 1-megaton bombs. And guess what? Iran isn't one of them.

And to actually implement a real back-to-the-stone-age scenario, you'd actually need bombs that are much bigger. Such bombs have been built and detonated, but they're physically huge. Not suitable for mounting on an ICBM. Which, BTW, Iran doesn't have the technology for either.

You really need a big industrial base to build this kind of technology. Outside of Russian and China, all such countries are allied with the U.S. Some smaller countries have built nukes (India, Pakistan, South Africa, probably Israel, maybe North Korea), but none with a yield of more than 50 kilotons. That's about 5% of the yield needed for even marginal EMP warfare.

The Iranian's best weapon against the US is economic manipulation of oil.

True. Or Al Qaida's for that matter. If ObL had any sense, he wouldn't have his minions setting off truck bombs and flying airplanes into buildings. He'd be scattering radioactive dust over the Strait of Hormuz.

Mercury is "easy" to "scrub" from power plant emmisions? Citation needed.

Just one Example

But basically I thought I could rely on other people having common sense here. It's only a few smokestacks that need mercury reduced to acceptable levels, vs. (to repeat the point you seem to not understand) the 100% certainty that most CFL's will end up in many landfills all over.

With CFL's not CANNOT STOP mercury from entering the environment from multiple sources, vs. a coal scenario where at least it is possible.

The possible trumps the impossible, every time.

it's that internal combustion engines are that incredibly dirty.

Someone hasn't been doing research on output from power plants compared to engines with modern emissions systems. BTW, it's you.

Kind of funny that CFL's are also "incredibly dirty" compared to coal plants but you'll not admit that point.

As for the locality of the pollution -- wrong again. When you burn coal, the mercury goes into the atmosphere.

Citation needed to prove that it goes further than 10 miles. It's still local, you have to prove it would get into the upper atmosphere - it's a heavy metal, remember? It gets pulled out of the air quickly.

You might want to actually follow the link to the resources provided. The data is from the algae industry experts themselves, and most was very recent, including data as early as late 2008 and early 2009.

petrosuninc may be operating a plant, sure. Honda is building fuel cell vehicles too... the cars cost OVER $1M without the government subsidies! petrosuninc is using government funds to offset their costs. They're also a research firm. Sure, they're selling fuel, but they're selling it under cost (they do have to do SOMETHING with the gas after its made, and noone's going to pay $14 a gallon. look at the real numbers, not the marketing fluff... In NJ I can get solar panels on my house for a few thousand dollars and pay them off in 6 years. Same solar panels in SC cost 6X the price, and have a 31 year payoff, in a BETTER sun zone. That's due to the subsidies. Those government subsidies are fine when 3,000 people get fuel from it. When 300 million are, who's going to pay for it?

I don;t care WHERE you grow tha algae... you still have billions of metric tons of waste to deal with... only 34% of the mass is oil, and it;s DIRTY oil that requires expensive processing to be used in cars and creas tons of highly dangerous byproducts.

The DOA also said we could get H2 for $3 per gallon equivalent by 2010 too... They also said we'd not go over $2 a gallon for gas before 2018. They also said fuel cells would be economical by 2009. The technology HAS improved since the DOE made it's statement, but it's imporved marginally, not by the 2 orders of magnitude required to meet the $3/gallon line. Also, other costs have spiraled upwards.

Before you debunk my data, I suggest you read the sources I referenced you to. Since you;re too laze to click 1 link and ready the article I suggested, here's it's own sources for you:

Biodeisel from Algae at $33/gallon, Feb 2009:http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/algae-biodiesel-its-33-a-gallon-5652/

Article by Bob Grant, chief scientist working on het fuels under AirForce grants, and one of the leading scientists in the entire Algae Oils field:
http://www.the-scientist.com/2009/02/1/36/1/

Keynote Address Photosynthetic Biohydrogen, Paul D. Frymier, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Tennessee:
http://aiche.confex.com/aiche/2008/techprogram/P134919.HTM

GreenFuel Technologies: A Case Study for Industrial Photosynthetic Energy Capture
Krassen: March 2007 http://www.nanostring.net/Algae/CaseStudy.pdf

Carbon Recycling Forum, Department of Energy: Sept 2008: http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/08/H2/index.html

A history of the US DOE's Algae Research, publiched by NREL: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf

There are more citations available on dotyenergy.com. They all back up the extreme costs and failed research and failed promises. Considder the source man, the DOE has continually lied and lied and overpromised. THEY'RE A BUNCH OF BIG OIL NUTJOBS ON BIG OIL PAYROLLS!!!

An African grey parrot, we're probably going to be adopting another one. He's between 15 and 17 in age.

First up you're wrong regarding it takes more to refine diesel, par the DOE: http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/oil.html#How%20used
Based on this you can't get a single product from a barrel, while your logic is semi-correct in that if we only refined diesel we'd need to import more oil, we can easily offset that by using any number of renewable crops -- several of which have no human consumption traits, or are not frequently used as food oil -- soy and RME come to mind, followed by Jathropa and Hemp.

Secondly, the Biodiesel Board has something to say regarding emissions with just a 20% blend of renewable fuel in the mainstream: http://www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/fuelfactsheets/emissions.PDF

I don't really care how you slice it, when you look at a 2.0L Gasoline VW beetle that gets 28/32 and the 1.9L Diesel Beetle that gets 44/51, it's hard to say that the lightly higher NOx content is going to be critical given that the Diesel goes 220mi farther *on the same number of gallons* as the gasoline vehicle.

I'd love to take a look at your papers. You also dismiss condo/townhome owners, Home Owner's Associations that can regulate such things as solar panels or other electrical modifications to your home (such extremes do exist), and the fact that no builder is going to start incorporating it into the home building process as "main stream." On the one hand, I liked the idea of converting our old 89 Golf into an EV, but then I realized that I'd have to throw a 50ft cord from the balcony to the parking spot in front of the building -- assuming I could land that spot every time I come home -- to charge it, and likely deal with vandalism/stolen power in the process (happened before when I was charging the battery on the same car). The end result was, it's just not worth the effort and the savings aren't worthwhile with a midsized sedan getting 41+ economy on a regular basis off more to less vegetable oil.

In 50 years, I fully expect us to be on something electric. For the next 10-15 I would like to see us moving towards diesel powered technologies to drop the number of gallons of oil we use, for the average person a diesel option is $2k more a Hybrid is $4k extra and a pure EV is around $15k more as an option. If You can get a 4x4 SUV with 30 to 40MPG economy with a clean exhaust for $22k, why get the electric for $35k? The problem is neither are truly available right now. I drive more highway than city, and until EVs make sense in that kind of environment (and that applies to about 90% of southern car owners), they won't be popular.

One last thought, your concept is that you "never have to go" to the "inconvenience" of the gas station could hurt those small store owners. Fuel has never been profitable, the soda pop and candy bar were. While I have my own issues with such foods, I think that it's a bad idea to keep isolating society (the iPod's done enough damage) by never forcing social interaction with rituals like refueling your vehicle or grocery shopping.

Greenpeace opposes anything with co2 exhaust AND hates the one solution to the co2 problem that might actually work (today, not in 50 years) : nuclear power

There are at least two problems with this statement. Nuclear power is not a solution to CO2, and it will not work today. It takes years and years to build a nuclear power plant. The last one to go online in the US took more than 20 years to build. But even if you could build one in 5 years, that's still not today. However today you can erect 5 megawatt wind turbines quickly. If you erect 20 a month, in 1 year you'll add 1,200 megawatts of capacity a year and in five years you'll have added 6 gigawatts of capacity. Even if the energy captured comes to half that that's still 3 gigawatts. According to Infoplease the largest plant in the US is Palo Verde 2, Ariz. which has a capacity of 1,335 megawatts. It took more than a decade for Palo Verde 1 and 12 years for Palo Verde 3 to go online, it doesn't say how long Palo Verde 2 took.

They are also already decided : they oppose nuclear fusion, if and when it becomes available.

If true I think Greenpeace is wrong. In general I think fusion may provide much of our energy, however I'd like to see a life cycle analysis when it does become feasible.

Also greenpeace ignores massive co2 exhaust where it is politically inconvenient : ever looked at a wind turbine ? Every last square millimeter you see is reprocessed oil. On the inside, tons of components are made with oil, and the remainder, the steel supports, are made by burning coal (that's how cast iron is still made, coal is just too cheap and convenient. Everywhere you mine iron you will find coal deposits on top of it, between it, ...)

The same applies to nuclear power, even more so. Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of concrete and steel, which requires massive amounts of coal to burn.

Falcon