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Because you can place nuclear power closer to people's homes.

It still needs a massive distribution network. Two gigawatts of power needs to be distributed no matter how it is generated. Small scale generation can be located in more places as well as closer to some places that need it.

It isn't dependent on wind speed.

A national distribution network with a bunch of small scale generators wold help here. Geothermal, which is a steady energy source, can be used where feasible. The west and southwest has enough potential solar power it can provide the 48 continuous states with power. The Rockies too have enough potential wind power to do the same. However that's not all the conceivable wind energy. The "Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States" details more wind potential.

Now until storage is worked out the problem is having a baseload. Geothermal can serve as part of the baseload. As much as I hate to say it so can natural gas, unlike coal and nuclear power, it can be ramped up fast.

Just cooling water

Yeap, nuclear power needs more water than any other power generation system, well except maybe corn based ethanol. However as it is now water shortages are being experienced throughout the USA. For instance the water level of the Ogallala Aquifer which runs from South Dakota to Texas is is dropping fast. Yet T Boone Pickens of the Pickens Plan for wind wants to pump the water from his west Texas ranch and use the power of eminent domain to seize other people's land to pipe the water to Dallas.

Falcon

It's true. The Fraunhofer Institute itself has produced more efficient cells. And all use multiple junctions.

Examples:
Fraunhofer - triple junction
NREL - triple junction
University of Delaware - bream splitting

All claim to be the record because there is no standardized way to measure power efficiency. However, the concept of quantum wells used in solar cells is a new concept.

Probably a lot less impact than the drag created by buildings already.

Replacing coal power plants with the equivalent turbines would also have less impact on the weather because there would be less carbon in the air.

We are already experimenting far more with our ecosystem with the status quo than the worst of the Green alternatives.
You would also harvest wind energy, from places with more wind energy; http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html
Tethered devices can get them off the ground.

There are better and less dangerous designs than the wind turbine. Up in the trade winds, you can have a spiral structure that gets spun by the wind, rather than blades.

Here is an obvious improvement, that gets rid of gears; http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell.aspx
The turbine becomes the generator itself. I was thinking of this years ago, but considered it too obvious and thought if it would work, someone would already be building it -- well, now they are.

The statements about costs and resources bases these estimates on current technology and not the cost savings of creating a million, nor the cost savings of actual investment, that gets more people designing and building turbines. It's expensive now because it's little more than a hobby.

Our carbon-based energy system, is heavily subsidized, has an infrastructure that is massive and taxpayer assisted, and requires we send troops around the world to procure resources -- factors that don't make the cost estimates.

Luddite civilization into the stone age, and then complain about the lack of affordable power. Californians are the worst at this -- in the US, anyway.

No, I think the East Coast beats California in NIMBYs. While CA has wind and solar farms operating now, and have been running for years, on the East Coast NIMBYs do everything they can to stop wind farms off the coast from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras.

Placing that many turbines in very remote areas is going to be ridiculously expensive to run transmission lines to

The Tech Review article "Rebuilding the Power Grid says "Grid-related power outages and problems with power quality reportedly cost the nation $80 billion to $188 billion per year" already so the grid needs to be rebuilt anyway.

we need to take a serious look at MODERN nuclear power, especially with re-using the waste,

I'll support reprocessing the waste we have now but I don't support building other new nuclear power plants. We have enough potential energy from geothermal, solar, and wind to power the US. The wind potential in the Rock Mountains alone is enough to power the 48 contiguous states. And other ares for wind as well as the west coast for solar and that's plenty of energy. Until energy storage is worked out natural gas fired and nuclear reprocessing plants could provide the baseload.

Falcon

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!!!

Read that again. $14 a gallon in MAINTENANCE costs, not total cost for fuel production.

Right, that's why petrosun is currently operating an algae-to-biodiesel plant. Because it cannot be made profitable! Clearly you are teh sooper genuis!

Beyond that, we'd need millions of acres of temerate climate or indoor growth facilities, producing hundreds of billions of tons of algae a year in order to meet fuel demands.

Not really. You can grow algae in the desert using saltwater. Don't let the facts interfere with your astroturfing, though. The ponds could be covered with plastic tents, but then you have to circulate air, a non-trivial problem but one which is even harder in "closed" reactor designs.

We're also talking algae being competition for oil at values not less than $800/bbl, given a few more decades of reasearch yet.

Also patently false. Even the US DOE let us know years ago that biodiesel from algae should be profitable by the time diesel fuel hit $3/gallon. Nothing much has changed since, except that the technologies for making biodiesel from algae have improved since then.

If you have any more lies to spread, you could just save them. I can keep coming up with citations all day.

I know you have an ax to grind with nuclear power for some reason - but calling it "dirty" compared to it's alternatives is just silly and you should know better.

BS! Nuclear power is dirtier than either solar or wind. With both there is no waste to be stored. And there is no processing or reprocessing of fuel. The sun or wind is the fuel.

Does it create some potentially hazardous materials that have to be dealt with? Yes
Are they in reality THAT HARD to deal with? No

Yes it is hard to deal with. Even the French, who have gone further with reprocessing nuclear waste has problems doing it. "France is aggravating both problems: spent fuel and separated plutonium stocks." "Reprocessing [pdf] and MOX fuel use are uneconomical and will remain so for the foreseeable future;"

"Nuclear France - The Myths Uncovered"
"France gets nearly 80% of its electricity from its 58 reactors. However, such a heavy reliance on nuclear power brings with it many major, unsolved problems, most especially that of radioactive waste. Despite assertions to the contrary, the French nuclear story is far from a gleaming example of nuclear success. The example, set by the French nuclear infrastructure - and best exemplified by its giant nuclear corporation, Areva, is not to be emulated."

Are they really that bad for the environment? Not really

If you believe that you haven't seen the effects of uranium mining. "The Effects of Uranium Mining are Disastrous."

biggest problem with dealing with nuclear byproducts is NIMBY.

The biggest problem with wind is NIMBYism. The government's National Renewable Energy Lab has produced an atlas of wind potential through the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to power the continental US. Which I might add that Texas Oil Man T Boone Pickens is pushing with his Pickens Plan. But that's not all. The Pacific Northwest has a lot as well. If you draw a line south from there to Southern CA then turn east to Texas, you'll see more potential. Now go east, the Appalachians is a good location for wind as well. The mountains up the east coast have good locations. Offshore from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod there's another line of good cites.

Oh, I think it's rather telling that so called environmentalist activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr is one of those NIMBYs fighting wind farms in Cape Cod, from that first link on Nimbys.

wind turbines are rated by thier output under ideal wind conditions.

According to howstuffworks "At 33 mph, most large turbines generate their rated power capacity". In places it is windier than that. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details by region wind potential.

Also relying on wind puts your grid at the mercy of whether the wind blows or not.

Ah, the use of solar and geothermal can help. I once heard that when the wind doesn't blow it's usually sunny. I'd add that solar and wind energy can be harvested at the same tyme during the day. And geothermal can be used as a baseload.

Falcon

wind turbines are rated by thier output under ideal wind conditions.

According to howstuffworks "At 33 mph, most large turbines generate their rated power capacity". In places it is windier than that. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details by region wind potential.

Also relying on wind puts your grid at the mercy of whether the wind blows or not.

Ah, the use of solar and geothermal can help. I once heard that when the wind doesn't blow it's usually sunny. I'd add that solar and wind energy can be harvested at the same tyme during the day. And geothermal can be used as a baseload.

Falcon

But if we have to burn the coal (and right now we do), why not see if there is some way we can lessen the environmental impact?

We have a way already, it was developed at Sandia national labs on the behalf of the USDOE, and you can read a bit about how to deal with the carbon here. We capture 80% of the CO2 and then at least get to use it again. And a percentage of the algae becomes fertilizer. Of course, that assumes that such an approach fits into our national agenda — only time will tell. Is it as good as a complete "clean coal" solution? That very much depends on who you ask.

As for new coal-fired power plants, they are an aberration and should be avoided at all costs. If we must build new power plants which are not inherently sustainable, let us build plants to reprocess nuclear waste, and plants to run on the resulting fuel. Yes, the technology could be used to produce weapons-grade materials. No, this is not relevant, because we already have more of that than we could possibly need.

you of course left out a few steps in the electric, IE electric power plant 40% efficient, power grid 95% efficient, (not to mention the costly endeavor in land and materials of maintaining the growing need for more grid) and of course the wasted effort of carrying a 800 pound battery instead of a 16 pounds of gas+ 40 pound generator. I am sure you would say something about charging by night or solar, that works as long as only a few cars and eventually... currently renewable energy is taxed over 100% with natural gas/coal needing burned 24/7

And you left out a few steps too, from well head to tank.

As far as renewables being taxed, correctly if I'm wrong but I'll take that to mean they can't provide all the electrical needs. If so, SciAm's article "A Solar Grand Plan" says solar energy can provide 69% of the US's electrical needs by 2050. Another abundant source of energy is wind. The Rocky Mountains along have enough potential wind power to provide the 48 continuous states with electricity. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details wind potential in various regions of the US. As a baseload geothermal energy can be used.

Falcon

you of course left out a few steps in the electric, IE electric power plant 40% efficient, power grid 95% efficient, (not to mention the costly endeavor in land and materials of maintaining the growing need for more grid) and of course the wasted effort of carrying a 800 pound battery instead of a 16 pounds of gas+ 40 pound generator. I am sure you would say something about charging by night or solar, that works as long as only a few cars and eventually... currently renewable energy is taxed over 100% with natural gas/coal needing burned 24/7

And you left out a few steps too, from well head to tank.

As far as renewables being taxed, correctly if I'm wrong but I'll take that to mean they can't provide all the electrical needs. If so, SciAm's article "A Solar Grand Plan" says solar energy can provide 69% of the US's electrical needs by 2050. Another abundant source of energy is wind. The Rocky Mountains along have enough potential wind power to provide the 48 continuous states with electricity. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details wind potential in various regions of the US. As a baseload geothermal energy can be used.

Falcon

Developing commercial uses will only encourage us to build more.

Yes. And used responsibly that can be a good thing. We might even see new nuclear power plants, which is definitely a good thing.

Citation needed.

More nuclear power plants are not needed. Alternative energy sources can generate plenty of electricity, even for electric vehicles. According to the article "A Solar Grant Plan" in SciAm by 2050 solar electricity can provide 69% of the US's energy. And the wind potential in the Rockies is enough to provide the 48 continuous states with electricity as well. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details by region the wind potential of the US. And for a baseload geothermal can be used, though the SciAm article also goes over energy storage.

Falcon

Developing commercial uses will only encourage us to build more.

Yes. And used responsibly that can be a good thing. We might even see new nuclear power plants, which is definitely a good thing.

Citation needed.

More nuclear power plants are not needed. Alternative energy sources can generate plenty of electricity, even for electric vehicles. According to the article "A Solar Grant Plan" in SciAm by 2050 solar electricity can provide 69% of the US's energy. And the wind potential in the Rockies is enough to provide the 48 continuous states with electricity as well. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details by region the wind potential of the US. And for a baseload geothermal can be used, though the SciAm article also goes over energy storage.

Falcon

In a , all of the "free" energy sources are more expensive than coal in terms of $ per MWh.

Funny, that doesn't say anything about the subsidies coal gets. I wonder how cheap coal is if you add in those subsidies. Then there's all the external costs of coal.

the U.S. wind plant figures on page 55 look good simply because the U.S. rates wind plants with a 40 year lifespan, vs 20 years for the rest of the world

There are Jacobs Wind Turbines older than 40 years old still working. People look for Jacobs made in the 1930s and '40s to use.

About $45/MWh for wind vs. about $30/MWh for coal and nuclear.

And I bet subsidies are not included in the cost of coal and nuclear but they are for wind.

The problem with the wind and solar is that they are very sparse.

This is not true in the US. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists what regions are good or bad for wind, and the only region in the US that is not good for wind is the southeast. However Florida is part of the southeast and it's great for solar. Also good for solar is Texas west to California then up the coast.

Hydro, geothermal, and biofuels (which is really using plants as your solar collectors) look like much better candidates long-term.

I disagree about hydro but agree about geothermal. Biofuels might become good later but as it's done in the US today it sucks. Corn, which is what's used in the US, is a bad feedstock, sugarcane is better and switchgrass is currently the best.

Falcon

Oh and the coastal transmission lines need to be larger if you are going to transmit all the way to Kansas.

Transmission lines don't need to run from the east coast to Kansas. Kansas is near the Colorado Rockies, Colorado and Kansas share a border, and the Rockies have enough potential wind power to supply all 48 continuous states. According to the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States about the only place in the US that isn't good for wind is the southeast. However Florida, part of the southeast, is terrific for solar power.

Nuclear is (or should be), without a doubt, the biggest part of the picture.

No, solar and wind should be the biggest part of our energy supply.

In it's current form it's relatively clean and safe.

There's no waste and no mining?

We should be breaking ground on dozens of new reactors, not looking to stick windmills in the middle of the atlantic.

If private businesses want to then they can without government subsidies. However without subsidies nuclear power would not be profitable.

Solar and wind have their place, but they're simply not a viable alternative if your goal is to stop burning fossil fuels.

TFA says wind farms in the Atlantic can provide a quarter of the US's electricity, what it does not say is that the Rockies can provide all of the US's electricity. And the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists more good places. In "A Solar Grand Plan" the writers say solar can provide 69% of the US's electricity by 2050. Solar and wind are vary viable.

Falcon

Also, even if there is enough wind out there to meet our energy needs in the most technical sense (something like the same kWhs in wind per year as the US uses in a year), it doesn't account for daytime peak and seasonal usage changes.

While TFA says offshore wind farms in the Atlantic can provide a quarter of the US's electricity it doesn't say the Rockies can provide all of the need for electricity. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists more wind potential. Then the Sciam article "A Solar Grand Plan" details how solar power can provide 69% of the US's electricity by 2050. Add geothermal and tidal and alternative energy sources can provide all the electrical needs of the US.

We need a mix of power plant types in order to function.

Agreed!!!

base load

Geothermal can be used as a base load. And the Sciam article covers energy storage from solar.

Falcon

Not only that...I'd hope we'd NOT try to put all our country's energy eggs in this one basket.

talk about single point of failure. If another country (or terrorist) wanted to seriously hurt the US, they'd just have to target a broad swath of these offshore windmills. A pretty easy target I'd think?

Something I noticed about what TFA says, how wind power off the east coast could provide a 1/4 of the national demand, though it says that it doesn't say the wind potential of the Rockies could supply all 48 continuous states with electricity. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists wind resources regionally.

Falcon

Midwest? Are you sure you don't mean Southwest? http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/ Arizona and New Mexico are the only two continential states consistently different from the national average in almost all solar data. 70,000 homes is very small scale in the world of energy, and they admit they can't compete with oil/coal unless Congress hands them money. If Solar were a good energy source, these would be springing up without subsidies from congress.

Oh please. I bet you're the sort of person who believes that we can replace all our coal plants with Wind and Hydro by 2015 if we spent enough money.

In "A Solar Grand Plan" Sciam lays out how Solar power could provide 69% of the USA's electricity by 2050, about 35 years after your 2015. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States by the Renewable Resource Data Center (RReDC) of the government's National Renewable Energy Lab details the potential wind power of various areas of the US. As T Boone Picken's Picken's Plan lays out the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind energy to also provide electricity to the 48 continuous states.

First you have to get the liscensing for all these power plants. For Hydro, this is mostly impossible since someone will stand up and say that the turbines chew up fish at a ridiculous rate and destroy the river. For wind, people will complain about the birds. These drawbacks were true in 1960 but they aren't anymore. You'll be tied down for at least 3 years trying to get the permits and approval to build. And that's being optomistic.

Dams do mess up rivers. However some years ago there was a story on /. about how hydro can be used to generate electricity without dams. Instead water mills like egg beaters are lowered from a boom into the river then the moving water spins the mills. I wonder what's happened with that, I haven't heard anything about it since. What's stopping wind, especially offshore wind farms in places like Cape Cod in so called "liberals", who are not liberal, backyard are NIMBYs. And I bet many of them say they're environmentalists.

Coal is mostly clean now

Coal is no where near being clean, and never will be. Sure emissions from coal-fired power plants may be cleaner than before but coal mining is not clean what so ever.

As for natural Gas, its completely clean.

Gas is not clean either. Sure, like coal, CO2 may be captured and stored. Nitrogen oxides also have to be captured. Gas, at least Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG, also needs the same sort of infrastructure as oil.

I *want* one of these plants in my backyard.

I'd rather have PVs on my roof and a wind genie in my backyard.

If you want to turn this country into Vermont, maybe you should just move to Vermont.

No, the state for the Free State Project is New Hampshire, next door.

Falcon

(how do all those space guys breath?)

They don't, they breathe. In any case, making those scrubbers is a high-energy-cost activity and would be a net loss. Instead, you use the CO2 output to produce Algae, a process already tested by the USDOE at Sandia National Labs, where they were able to capture over 80% of the CO2 output in the algae. Then you can in turn make the algae into biodiesel and fertilizer, fixing some of the carbon and getting a second use out of the rest. In other words, your idea is stupid, and slashdot is a stupider place for having to hear it - but there is a similar, working solution.

My idea was an example, and yes, your idea... or should I say the idea you mentioned is much better. The point I was making is that even if you could make 100% clean, with no CO2, no mercury or anything else, these guys would still oppose it for no other reason than they've been brainwashed to think that it's evil.

(how do all those space guys breath?)

They don't, they breathe. In any case, making those scrubbers is a high-energy-cost activity and would be a net loss. Instead, you use the CO2 output to produce Algae, a process already tested by the USDOE at Sandia National Labs, where they were able to capture over 80% of the CO2 output in the algae. Then you can in turn make the algae into biodiesel and fertilizer, fixing some of the carbon and getting a second use out of the rest. In other words, your idea is stupid, and slashdot is a stupider place for having to hear it - but there is a similar, working solution.

Corn Ethanol? uses more energy to produce than it provides.

No, corn ethanol's EROEI, Energy Returned on Energy Invested, is about 1.5 or 1.6 to 1 or 1.2 or 1.5 to 1, about the same as oil sands. While it does make more energy than the energy required to make it, it doesn't even double the energy. Brazil gets from 8 to 10 units per unit of energy used from sugarcane.

PV

PV's produce as much energy in 5 years as it takes to make. PVs are warrantied for from 10 to 30 years depending on the manufacturer, so over their life they produce more energy than they need for manufacturing.

Wind - sure if you're lucky to live where it's windy and you use energy in the spring and fall (you don't).

Wind blows year round not just in the spring and fall. Wind also blows in a lot of places. As the Picken's Plan details the Rocky Mountains alone have enough potential wind energy to provide the 48 continuous states in the US with energy. That's not all though, the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States gives wind's potential in other parts of the US. The Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Southern California has an abundance of potential, along with Southern CA eastward to Texas. In the east the Appalachias and Cascades have good potential as it does off the coast between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras.

Falcon

Plants use solar, but very few natural things use wind or tidal power. Nature has had a very long time to try and fill these energy niches, so it is a safe guess that they can't produce enough energy to sustain a large population at a reasonable standard of living.

It may not be true in some parts of the world but the US has plenty of potential wind energy. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists the potential of various places. For instance just as the Picken's Plan covers, the Rocky Mountains alone have enough potential to supple the 48 continuous states with electricity. There are plenty of other places as well.

Falcon

Okay, in advocating that there's enough NG to replace coal and nuclear you post a link that says "but LNG will not be a panacea for North American natural gas shortfall" ?

It wasn't meant as a permanent replacement for coal or nuclear, only as a way LNG can be used until there is a better method of generating a baseload of energy.

Second link - aren't we trying to gain energy independence from the middle east?

Both the first link and third list places where LNG come from that are not in the Middle East. The first one lists Trinidad and Tobago which is in the Caribbean. The third lists Barents Sea which is between Greenland and Northern Europe.

Besides - Natural Gas Imported To US For Electricity Generation May Be Environmentally Worse Than Coal.

That's for the link, I didn't see that before. However as you quoted in your post as a baseline capacity it should not matter if LNG plants operate at a low capacity. They are after all only meant to serve for when alternative sources do not provide enough energy.

By the way, that also increases costs for people trying to heat their homes with 97% efficient NG systems.

Properly insulated building reduce if not eliminate the need to heat with LNG. There are other ways to heat as well. Former President Bush used geothermal heating to heat his Crawford, Texas ranch. People in New York City use geothermal heating. People also use solar thermal heating, even in Northern Europe.

We'd need 27 trillion cubic feet per year to replace the coal & nuclear plants.

Only if LNG were to replace coal and nuclear, but not if it is only used as a baseload. That means when alternative energy sources do not provide enough energy. However as I said earlier SciAm has the article "A Solar Grand Plan" that says "solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." For wind power, the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supple electricity to the 48 continuous states. On the East Coast Cape Cod, Cape Hatteras, and points in between the Carolinas and Mass are good places for offshore wind farms. On the West Coast, between British Columbia and southern California there are also good sites for wind, and solar power.

People like you are looking for the next big thing in energy when a bunch of different technologies can be used instead. You're focused on one solution when there are many others.

Falcon

If you covered every inch of the US desert with solar panels you still wouldn't generate the electricity we need to power this country. Wind/Solar is a nice addon but that is all.

"A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050."

The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to power the 48 continuous states: Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States

Falcon

Those wouldn't be as tall as the 200-300 meter towers you'd need to be able to replace your prototypical 1GW nuke plant with less than a couple thousand towers

Offshore wind farms wouldn't need to be as high, but on land there are good places in the mountains. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States lists good places for wind farms, most in mountainous locations. The Rockies contain enough potential wind power to power the 48 continuous states in the US. However that's not all, on the Pacific coast from British Columbia to southern CA is good as is Southern CA east to Texas. In the east through the Appalachias up the trail to Canada there are good cites. Using 5 megawatt wind turbines, these are 120 meters off the ground, erecting 20 a month in one year you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of capacity. And that with only 200 towers, not your "couple thousand towers". Having worked in construction subcontracting in concrete and masonry I'd say that should be pretty easy. One of the jobs we worked on was at Cape Canaveral building pads for rockets, and I dare say they were required to be better constructed than pads for wind genies.

Falcon

Except that there are not any safer viable alternatives.

BS, solar and wind are safer.

More radioactivity has been released into the atmosphere through burning coal than has ever been released by Nuclear means. More deaths have occurred due to Fossil fuels than nuclear energy.

I can imagine, just look at how many die in mining accidents. However uranium mining is also nasty.

No more than 20% of a countries supply can be powered by wind and have a stable grid (frequency fluctuations).

Improving energy storage can help. However increasing the efficiency of power plants can have a big impact. "American Scientist" has an article in the current issue, January-February 2009, about this. "Getting the Most from Energy: Recycling waste heat can keep carbon from going sky high" goes into how inefficient power generation is today in the US. Literally gigawatts of power go up smoke stacks, when a lot of that power can be captured.

That leaves 80% to be made up by Solar, Water and Geothermal.

SciAm had an article, "A Grand Solar Plan" about how solar power can provide 69% of the US's electricity by 2050. That's not enough? The Rocky Mountains alone has enough potential wind power to supply all 48 continuous states with electricity. Several places in NYC are already using geothermal power for heating and cooling. With a properly insulated building though body heat is enough to keep a room warm. Check out the "American Scientist" article linked to above. More than 100 years ago Thomas Edison's ConEd's power plants were more efficient than many plants are today. Not only did the plants produce electricity but they also provided heat to buildings with Combined Heat-power Plants, CHP, today called Cogeneration.

Falcon

The amount of concrete and steel used to build a plant is nothing. Consider the amount of materials used to build and maintain windmills, dams, etc.

In one post I said dams also require a lot of concrete and steel. I said in another dams weren't clean either. Wind genies on the other had don't require nearly as much of either. Neither the genie nor the tower use much steel and no concrete. The pad does use both but not much of either. Check "Home Power magazine, many people erect their owe wind genies. Here's their Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide. I didn't check to see if it said anything about them but there are a number of turbines up to 5 megawatts in capacity. The CNet article "GE reshapes the future of wind power" has a quote saying 2 to 3 megawatt genies are the "most efficient and the best cost per kilowatt" by Stephane Renou "who manages research and development for General Electric's wind technology platform." Wind genies don't need to be cited in the middle of nowhere either. Here in Minnesota , as can be done elsewhere, produce farms such as corn farms have wind genies cited on them. This actually helps farmers, the pads for the genies don't take up much space yet the farmers get paid for how much electricity is produced. So far MN has 615 megawatts of wind power installed, California has 2,096 megawatts. And whereas it takes years to build a nuclear power plant wind genies can be mounted on erected towers in months if not weeks. Erect 10 5 megawatt genies a month and you add 600 megawatts a year. Say it takes 5 years to build a nuclear power plant in that tyme enough wind genies can be erected to generate 3 gigawatts. The Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station was the last nuclear power plant to go online in the US. Construction started in 1973 and wasn't finished until 1996. It took more than 30 years yet it's capacity is only 1,167 megawatts. Enough wind genies can be erected within 2 years to generate the same amount of electricity. Check out T Boone Pickens' Picken's Plan. While I don't know much about it myself, I've been following alternative energy some 30 years. The Rocky Mountains alone, which the plan considers, has enough potential wind power to power the 48 continuous states. However as the Wind Atlas shows there are plenty of other states with abundant wind power.

Mining for uranium can be and is done safely and cleanly.

Oh really? What happens to the tailings? Do they disappear? The Navajo have nothing to worry about? Neither do any of the other indigenous people on who's land uranium is mined?

Waste is "bad" because it's still radioactive.
This is where smaller plants, like the ones being developed for neighborhoods, come into play.

And where are these plants? Can you show me one?

Hell, Chernobyl was deemed fine in 2005, less than 20 years after the worst-case scenario, which doesn't even apply in modern plant designs.

Claimed fine by whom? Certainly not by Belarus. Oh but I guess the Zone of alienation means nothing.

There is simply nothing we have a handle on that can compete with nuclear power.

Okay then, let Wall Street pay for them. They won't, unless they get more massive subsidies. Give alternative sources of energy as much in subsidies as coal and nuclear power gets and I be

Russia, for example, has plenty of oil

So we should turn to Vladimir Putin for our energy needs? I don't know if you've noticed or not but relations with Russia have gotten a bit frosty lately....

I think our buying power would surely influence the markets if we were to just set up some viable competition, even if it had just a percentage of the output as OPEC

You could have all the competition in the World but it isn't going to change the fact that demand for oil is going to outpace supply again in the very near future. That's going to drive up prices regardless of how many competitors to OPEC we can establish. Unless you think you can talk the Chinese and Indians out of their industrialization. In any case, how does your "plan" address the fact that we are sending $700 billion dollars a year out of our country to pay for all that oil?

Nuclear power doesn't really fund terrorists, last I checked. Neither does hydroelectric

I don't have a problem with either of those power sources. I've often advocated for nuclear power. Hydro is just about a tapped out resource in the United States though. It's great where it's available though.

No "alternative" energy solution has yet proven itself as a viable solution.

Where did I advocate for an "alternative" energy? I was talking about the Pickens plan -- which calls for using wind to displace natural gas used for electrical production to free up that natural gas for the transportation sector. There's nothing "alternative" about wind -- the technology works and we are using it right now. We also have pretty abundant wind resources.

Subsidies have no impact on the energy payback of the solar system, just the monetary payback. Either way, a solar PV system produces as much energy as it took to produce the system in 1-4 years. Nowhere near the 20-25 years you claim. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

While the difference in performance is minimal to negligible (40.7% vs 40.8%), these two are not the same cell. From TFA:

NREL's Mark Wanlass invented the original inverted cell, which recently won a R&D 100 award. His design was modified by a team led by John Geisz that further optimized the junction energies by making the middle junction metamorphic as well as the bottom junction. Metamorphic junctions are lattice mismatched â" their atoms don't line up. The material properties of the mismatched semiconductors allows for greater potential conversion of sunlight.

See also http://www.nrel.gov/features/0707_rd100.html for the award-winning cell, which seems to be the 2006 one.
But I agree, 0.1% difference does not really seem like much.

The only way to get power in that kind of quantity is harnessing the atom.

The US has enough potential wind energy to supply the 48 contiguous states with electricity. And wind can be developed faster than nuclear power.

Fslcon

there is only one short term solution. We need an Apollo type national commitment to building Nuke plants.

Nuclear isn't a short term solution, unless you call 5 years short term and can build one that quickly. However a 5 megawatt wind turbine can be erected in weeks. Erect 20 a month and in one year you'll add more than a gigawatt of power*. Apply an Apollo project to wind and you could produce more power quicker than you could with nuclear.

As Texas oil Billionaire T Boone Pickens has intimated in his plan for wind farms, the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind energy to supply almost if not all of the 48 contiguous states with electricity. If that's not enough all along the Pacific coast then through AZ and NM to Texas there's more. Then there's the Mid Atlantic states on up to Maine. For instance the wind potential between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras is estimated to be 330 Gigawatts.

Quite simply wind beats nuclear.

Falcon

*I use 1 gigawatt because in California 4 reactors, 2 each in 2 power plants, generate 4.324 Gigawatts. That's just over a Gigawatt per reactor. It's the same in Alabama, 5 reactors generate just over 5 Gigawatts.

I found an article that has much more information about the actual mechanism of the TiO2 anti-bacterial effect.

The nice thing is that the titanium acts as a catalyst, so ideally it isn't consumed in the reaction.

The bad thing is that this requires UV light (below 385nm), which is really only present from "ordinary fluorescent lights" because they have bad phosphor coatings. All fluorescent lights really generate tons of UV, which is downconverted to visible via that white phosphor coating on the glass. But some UV escapes, and that's the stuff that triggers this anti-bacterial reaction. So good for anti-bacterial, but bad for skin cancer.

In any case, maybe this is the kind of thing where some dedicated UV lights could turn on when no people were in a given room, and that would make for the best of both worlds?

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

...or is at least using typical troll tactics. I've seen this before every time a discussion about electric cars or alternative fuels comes up; a clean(er) technology comes along and suddenly it's held to a higher standard.

So here's the answer: of course you CAN use polluting or non-polluting energy to produce hydrogen.

From http://www.nrel.gov/learning/eds_hydro_production.html

Hydrogen Production

The simplest and most common element, hydrogen is all around us, but always as a compound with other elements. To make it usable in fuel cells or otherwise provide energy, we must expend energy or modify another energy source to extract it from the fossil fuel, biomass, water, or other compound in which it is found. Nearly all hydrogen production today is by steam reformation of natural gas. This, however, releases fossil carbon dioxide in the process and trades one relatively clean fuel for another, with associated energy loss, so does little to meet national energy needs. For high purity needs, a small amount of hydrogen is produced by electrolysis, but this again is only as good as the energy source used to produce the electricity used. There are, however, many possible ways to produce hydrogen with renewable energy. Some of the most promising are the following:

Thermochemical Hydrogen

Heating biomass (or fossil fuels) with limited or no oxygen present can gasify it to a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as synthesis gas or syngas or liquefy/pyrolyze it to a liquid known as pyrolysis oil or bio-oil. Syngas can then be catalytically converted to increase the amount of hydrogen with a "water-gas-shift reaction." Pyrolysis oil can be converted to hydrogen using steam reformation and the water-gas-shift reaction.
Electrolytic Hydrogen

Electrolysis can electrochemically split water into hydrogen and oxygen in essentially the reverse of the reaction in a fuel cell. To make sense for large-scale use, this process must use an inexpensive source of electricity. Because wind energy is currently the lowest cost renewable energy, it is the leading candidate. It is also an intermittent source that would benefit from being able to produce hydrogen when its electricity is not needed and to add fuel-cell generation when electricity demand exceeds what the wind turbines can provide. The combination also benefits because electrolyzers require direct current and wind turbine power must be converted to direct current before conversion back to alternating current suitable for the electric grid.
Electrochemical Photolytic Hydrogen

How about short-circuiting the process to have renewable energy such as solar power produce hydrogen directly? Photoelectrochemical (PEC) hydrogen production replaces one electrode of an electrolyzer with photovoltaic (PV) semiconductor material to generate the electricity needed for the water-splitting reaction. The efficiency loss of separate steps is done away with, as is the cost of the other components of a solar cell. PEC is elegantly simple, but finding PV materials both strong enough to drive the water split and stable in a liquid system presents great challenges for researchers.
Biological Photolytic Hydrogen

Another way to directly tap solar energy for hydrogen production is to take advantage of ways in which nature does so. Certain microalgae and photosynthetic bacteria do sometimes use photosynthesis to make hydrogen instead of sugar and oxygen. Among challenges here is the fact that the algal enzyme that triggers the hydrogen production is inhibited by oxygen, which of course, the organism also normally produces. Another biological research avenue is to develop microorganisms that will ferment sugars or cellulose to hydrogen instead of alcohol.

I am not sure about "Satellite-grade" solar panels, but for your normal rooftop cystalline-silicon PV solar panels, the energy payback is 1-4 years. On a product that is warrantied for 25 years and expected to last well beyond 50 years. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf

Not based on this new technology, but here's the info:

From http://www.nrel.gov/pv/pv_manufacturing/cost_capacity.html

National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Photovoltaic Research - PV Manufacturing R&D
Cost/Capacity Analysis

The PV Manufacturing R&D Project Coordination Team measures and tracks the progress of the Project's impact on module cost and production capacity. The module-manufacturing partners voluntarily provide the team with two types of critical information: direct costs of module manufacturing and manufacturing capacity. The direct costs are those costs directly associated with module production and do not include such costs as research, sales/marketing, or general administrative expenses.

Direct costs of module manufacturing dropped from $5.89 per peak watt in 1992 to $2.73 per peak watt in 2005 dollars. These results represent a total cost reduction of about 54%, or an average annual drop in direct cost of about 5.5 percent. In addition to supplying the most recent year's data, these partners supply their projections for the coming 5 years.

The cost/capacity graph below shows the 2005 data of 14 Project participants with active module manufacturing lines in 2005. A participant in this case refers to a subcontractor with a manufacturing line. The graph shows continued progress toward meeting the Project goals of decreasing direct costs of manufacturing and increasing production capacity.

PV Industry Cost/Capacity (DOE/US Industry Partnership)

The production capacity shown is the total capacity of the 14 participants. It represents the potential production if all the plants were running at full capacity. Through 2005, the graph shows that total module production capacity grew from 14 MW at the start of PVMaT subcontracts in 1992 to 251 MW at the close of 2005. These results represent a 19-fold increase or about 26% average annual growth in production capacity among these Project participants.

From the perspective of technology learning curves, these data reflect an average 17% drop in direct costs of manufacturing for every doubling of production capacity.

the biggest problem is that it's very expensive to buy sufficient panels to generate 1000W of power

It depends on what you consider expensive. Five Sharp 224W Solar Panels, each costing $1200, would cost $6000 and generate more than 1000W.

The biggest problem with solar power is that we can't generate enough power and not the fact that we can't store it.

Do you know more than those who write for SciAm? SciAm published an article, "A Solar Grand Plan", detailing how the US can produce "69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy (which includes transportation) with solar power by 2050." Potential wind power is even greater. The Rocky Mountains from Canada to Texas alone, Oilman and Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is proposing this, has enough potential wind energy to provide the US with electricity. Actually his plan is for independence from imported oil. Use of the wind would allow natural gas fueled power plants to be closed then the gas coulf be used as vehicle fuel.

Falcon

Then your Solar Energy Analyst was wrong. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf Shows that the energy payback for most PV systems is about 4 years, and it only takes about 600 kwh/square meter to manufacture the panels. 22MWh per panel? Ridiculous.

No, energy payback is *much* shorter than that (See this DoE paper for example). And as the article states guaranteed energy production is 90% after 10 years and 80% after 20.

PV production will never by high enough for Middle America to bid on them, they will never provide Energy Independence

So you are more qualified than the researchers than came up with "A Solar Grand Plan"? Their plan says solar power can generate 69% of the US's electricity by 2050. You also know more than the billionaire Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens, Jr? He's announced a plan to eliminate the need for imported oil. His plan is to erect wind turbines through middle America from Canada to Mexico. The electricity that can be produced is enough to close all the LNG, liquefied natural gas power plants in the US. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States published by the National Renewable Energy Labs details the wind resources in the US. Picken's plan is to use all the LNG as fuel for vehicles thus replacing imported oil.

Falcon

A massive country wide nuclear power plant building spree would need to take place. Right now we have over 100 nuke plants that supply 20% of our electricity

Nuclear power isn't needed. By 2050 solar power could provide 69% of the US's electrical needs. Wind can also supply a lot, I read where the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the lower 48 states but I didn't find a reference. Then a lot of waste heat goes up smokestacks daily. Here's a quote from TFA: "Here's a Maxwell House coffee roaster in Duval County. They're roasting beans, so all that heat has to go somewhere. About twelve megawatts' worth of potential electricity is going up the stack." In Hawaii about 30% of the big Island's, Puna, is from geothermal power. Geothermal sources produced about 13,000 gigawatt hours in California in 2007, with more available.

Add all these together and every coal fired plant should be able to be closed without any more nuclear power plants being built and still have plenty of electricity.

Falcon

Every time there is a discussion about solar, someone comes on and begins to spout the usual nonsense that the panels never produce as much power as they use during production, a claim that has been disproven repeatedly. Given that this time it was an AC shows that the message might be getting through. Avg payback in energy for crystalline-silicon PV systems is 1-4 years. On a product that is warrantied for 25 years and expected to last well beyond 50 years. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf

About the only thing I agree with McCain on is that we need one heck of a lot more nuclear power plants.

I totally disagree with McCain, and you, on this. More nuclear power plants are not needed, and those in operation now can be shutdown. Sciam has the article "A Solar Grand Plan" explaining how solar power can provide "supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." Then the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the wind energy potential of the continental US. The Rocky Mountains alone contains enough potential wind power. A sizable portion of energy can be sourced by geothermal sources as well. Then there's recoverable waste heat. Many megawatts of wasted heat goes up smoke stacks daily. But possibly the biggest source of energy is the negawatt, energy that's not needed. Combined with tidal and other energy sources there is no need for nuclear power plants.

But our global diplomatic stance, Iraq (drawing down), Afghanistan (stepping it up), health care, taxes, net neutrality, education, Supreme Court nominations, transparency and information availability from government - all of these are why I'm voting for Obama.

These are the same reasons I currently support Bob Barr as the Libertarian candidate. If the election were today or tomorrow I'd vote for Barr. But between McCain and Obama I'd vote for Obama.

About the only thing I agree with McCain on is that we need one heck of a lot more nuclear power plants.

I totally disagree with McCain, and you, on this. More nuclear power plants are not needed, and those in operation now can be shutdown. Sciam has the article "A Solar Grand Plan" explaining how solar power can provide "supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." Then the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the wind energy potential of the continental US. The Rocky Mountains alone contains enough potential wind power. A sizable portion of energy can be sourced by geothermal sources as well. Then there's recoverable waste heat. Many megawatts of wasted heat goes up smoke stacks daily. But possibly the biggest source of energy is the negawatt, energy that's not needed. Combined with tidal and other energy sources there is no need for nuclear power plants.

But our global diplomatic stance, Iraq (drawing down), Afghanistan (stepping it up), health care, taxes, net neutrality, education, Supreme Court nominations, transparency and information availability from government - all of these are why I'm voting for Obama.

These are the same reasons I currently support Bob Barr as the Libertarian candidate. If the election were today or tomorrow I'd vote for Barr. But between McCain and Obama I'd vote for Obama.

Like any resource wind distribution is irregular; you can't just plop an industrial wind farm down anywhere.

4> Along with that new infrastructure, you will have an entirely new level of security issues. I invite you to consider the explosive potential of a hydrogen tanker being used by "youths" as an improvised FAE.

"If Hydrogen-Fueled Aircraft Were Used, the Collapse of World Trade Center would Not Have Happened".

But I am in agreement that we should be building nuclear power plants

And create more problems?

I would try to find more ways to replace fossil fuels with electricity as well as finding more non-fossil alternatives.

In "A Solar Grand Plan" Sciam lays out how solar power can provide the US with 69% of it's energy needs by 2050. And the US has enough potential wind power to supply a lot of energy to the US as well. Other sources of energy are biofuels including hydrogen produced by algae, geothermal, and tidal power.

your other arguments seam to be wind power can't make this country self sufficient (agreed.) But their are not enough known nuclear material in the US to be self sufficient in nuclear, so it definitely can't (currently) solve the US energy problems either (unless were willing and able to kick South Africa's ass next.)

Wind can provide provide the US with a lot of energy. And an article in Sciam, "A Solar Grand Plan says that by 2050 solar can provide 69% of the US's energy needs. And while I don't like nuclear power, there's no need to go to Africa, Canada has some rich uranium deposits. According to the World Nuclear Association Canada mines more uranium than any other country.

But thats where putting them on buildings sounds smart. IE supplement the power as close to the demand, and knock down one of the big problems of big buildings (they channel wind) at the same time.

I don't know if you saw it but one of the proposals for a new World Trade Center had a wind generator in between two buildings with other proposals also including wind power.