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Future Looks Bright for Large Scale Solar Farms
Hugh Pickens writes "The economist reports that Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems that capture and focus the sun's rays to heat a working fluid and drive a turbine, are making a comeback. Although the world's largest solar farm was built over twenty years ago, until recently no new plants have been built. Now with the combination of federal energy credits, the enactment of renewable energy standards in many states, and public antipathy to coal fired power plant, the first such plant to be built in decades started providing 64 megawatts of electricity to Las Vegas this summer. Electricity from the Nevada plant costs an estimated 17 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), but projections suggest that CSP power could fall to below ten cents per kWh as the technology improves. Coal power costs just 2-3 cents per kWh but that will likely rise if regulation eventually factors in the environmental costs of the carbon coal produces."
Concentrated solar power isn't competing with coal for cost-efficiency. Coal isn't an option, and we are (or should be) working to run the hell away from coal as quickly as possible.
The real competition is other forms of clean power generation, like nuclear. Nuclear's costs are about the same as coal; why build a concentrated solar plant when you can just build a nuke plant?
We're actually going to start charging industries for the environmental cleanups that tax payers have to pay for? What a novel concept.
How many acres of desert ecosystem are plunged into permanent shade to provide this 64 megawatts of power?
Solar is practical once we tax all of its competitors and mandate its use. No thanks.
Uranium ore is also a finite resource, and like coal will eventually run out. Also, utilizing several technologies at once to produce power has its benefits. Relying on a single energy source for power doesn't have the same inherent security of having many different kinds of energy sources. My opinion is we should spend the mega billions needed for building a large Nuclear power network when you could spend that and develop a large, multi-pronged sustainable energy system that requires no imports.
Once we dispose of existing waste, we can dispose of new waste the same way.
Sorry, but those costs suck donkey dick. Consumers aren't going to be very happy about doubling or tripling the cost of electricity, no matter how much better it makes people feel about screwing up the environment.
This sounds like a waste of money on a technology without much hope of being economically viable. I'm quite certain that photo-voltaic is a lot cheaper than this, and wind power definately is. It sounds like there's a good reason why this technology was abandoned.
AccountKiller
They could increase their efficiency above the Carnot limit and also improve profitability.
Deleted
Coal has hidden costs, such as the effect of the additional carbon in the atmosphere and the pollution from the plants. We should un-hide those costs, and put them right in the purchase price so people can make informed decisions when choosing their energy sources.
Anything less is willful ignorance.
Blar.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Solar Tower - Large Scale Renewable Energy Animation
also take a look at this discovery channel video - @ about 3mins in
It's Nevada, couldn't they just detonate an old warhead and give everyone a small piece of the fireball to heat their home? Most of Nevada, Arizona and SoCa wouldn't need any so it would cover the people that need two pieces like in Boston or Pittsburgh. Com'on little boots, get a real energy policy. Coal and oil is sooo your father's era.
From the links.
"We have the ability to transition to a zero-carbon electricity future without moving the electricity price around," O'Donnell says. "That hasn't been part of anybody's conventional wisdom."
Let me quote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power:
"A British Wind Energy Association report gives an average generation cost of onshore wind power of around 3.2 pence per kilowatt hour (2005). Cost per unit of energy produced was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to the cost of new generating capacity in the United States for coal and natural gas: wind cost was estimated at $55.80 per MWh, coal at $53.10/MWh and natural gas at $52.50."
3.2 pence is 6.4 cents. So why build a plant with technology that can only do 17 cents with hope that it might scale down to 10 cents?
The direction of the sun moves so the angle at which the mirrors provide shade changes. If you're worried about permanent shade you better get rid of your garage, carport, and dig up your foundation. I mean, the dirt below your house never saw any sun since it was built. Boo hoo. You pesky human you!
I watched a documentary or special of some sort on the subject of solar power, and I was surprised to learn that, according to the program, the first (and longest running) solar power plant in the U.S. was built by the Carter administration.
;-)
That's Jimmy Carter, the guy who was thrown up against an oil crisis and decided to do what any rational, thinking person would do: develop alternatives. And not start any wars.
I lived through those days, but I don't remember reading any headlines on the subject of alternative energy sources, or any of Carter's initiatives in that regard; most of the talk concerned people having to trade in their gas-guzzlers (station wagons, in those days), the high price or unavailability of gas, and, of course, the unrest abroad. The rest of the talk concerned Carter's inistence on "doing nothing".
The power plant in this article, AFAICT, is the same plant referred to in the documentary.
In principle I agree that coal is not a fuel of first choice (or second or third...) from an environmental perspective. It's dirty, dangerous to mine, hard to clean and has other problems besides. Unfortunately the two biggest manufacturing economies in the world (China & the USA) have HUGE coal reserves and are relatively poor in most other economically competitive fuels. (note the word relatively, obviously both have access to oil, gas, uranium and any other fuel you care to mention) Coal's simple abundance and the installed base of coal fired power plants means it's not going away any time soon. I'm fully in favor of regulating coal to be as clean as technology allows, even at some economic cost. But hoping that the worlds biggest economy will turn its back on a cheap, abundant energy supply, even if it is dirty and undesirable, is just not realistic.
Depending on where you get your figures, as much of 50% of US nuclear power is generated from recycled Soviet uranium, either extracted from decommissioned warheads or excess manufactured product that was in the pipeline at the time of collapse. The US also has a large number of vintage-era nuclear weapons that are no longer considered militarily viable (the trigger mechanisms decay quite a bit) and so could be recycled. Finally, if the going ever gets really bad, we can always reprocess our spent fuel for Plutonium and/or use breeder reactors to make the stuff - this is the primary mode in which the Japanese nuclear industry sustains itself without outside supply, although the cheap price of Uranium makes them feel kind of dumb.
In short, the US does not need to import a single gram of fissile material to run indefinitely. Solar/Wind/etc. . are fine ideas for the long term but do not meet our power needs today. We should absolutely invest in these alternative technologies and, while we are at it, invest in conservation and efficiency. Unfortunately, right now, we are making almost 50% of our power from coal that is massively environmentally destructive from the second it is strip-mined out of the ground to its large final carbon contribution. Nuclear power is the only technology currently available that can put a dent in coal usage. If you show me an alternative that can scale to 400 TerraWattHours, I'll withdraw that claim.
References:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
http://www.usec.com/v2001_02/Content/News/NewsTemplate.asp?page=/v2001_02/Content/News/NewsFiles/04-13-03.htm
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-215.html
I'm told somewhere in Illinois a very large sized wind farm is being built.
I'm also told you don't want to live near it.
There are various ways of storing heat over night.
e.g.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982STIN...8323793C
Deleted
62MW of Solar power. That's laughable, when your average gas turbine peaker cranks out a few hundred MW, and a big coal or nuclear station can crank out a 1000. Look at the energy portfolio of the USA, and its obvious, you need to have nuclear power if you want to get rid of coal.
I would further dispute the idea that there is a "cost" of global warming that should be recovered by the government by raising taxes on carbon. If that is not a liberal act of theft, I don't know what is. "Hi, your act imbalances the environment, so give me and my friends some money." That's what these messages are.
The real reason liberals are against nuclear power as a solution to global warming, rather than carbon taxes, is because, at the end of the day, they just want to steal your money for adding no value to the economy, just like they always do. I'm not disputing the science, but the salespeople pushing this are a bunch of fricking crooks.
Let's say for a minute, that global warming does come to pass, antarctica and iceland melt, the oceans rise, and even a billion people drown. My answer is: so what. The world population will still be higher than it is today, and, if it isn't, that's not a bad thing either. If the oceans rise up, sure, a bunch of people will have to move from the coastlines, but, look at all the construction jobs you'll get, and you'll have cities built with better transportation and newer technology. New York, London, and other coastal cities are all old anyway and its time to just move on.
Besides, you could take all of those disasters, and I'd almost rather have that, turning the whole world upside down, than give an extremist socialist liberal one thin dime. Let's see. Give the liberals money, or trash the planet. Sorry Earth.
It's just a no brainer. Better Dead than Red, means something to this day!
This is my sig.
Since most of those captured photons will eventually be converted back into photons, via low pressure neon tubes.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The only reason Yucca mountain isn't accepting nuclear waste now is because of this absurd notion that we have to have the waste be safe for all time. You don't need to worry about 10,000 or 100,000 years down the road, as the enviros would have us believe. It's just absurd.
Honestly, if we build it for a thousand years, that's plenty of time. After a thousand years of technological progress, there will probably be some machine that just zaps it into ashtrays. Or, we'll be overrun by the Chinese and we'd want them all to get cancer anyway.
So screw them. Dump the waste into the ocean, actually.
This is my sig.
The anti-coal fanatics need to get a grip. New environmental implementations on coal plants make these units very environmentally friendly. The united States is the Saudi Arabia of coal - If we want to reduce our foreign dependence on fossil fuels - we have an answer in coal. Coal plant construction is at an all time high - so statements that we are "running away from coal as fast as we can" are ridiculous. Wind and solar are good ideas in concept - but are not ready to supply even a fraction of the energy requirements used by the US. We enjoy relatively low cost energy in the united states - if we keep up the process that make it hard to build the necessary capacity to serve the needs - we WILL see energy prices increase drastically.
It's interesting how we have to be held captive to the whims of big capital players when such proven and ideal technologies are already in existence. You notice that SEGS was one of the links here. Doesn't the SEGS story seem a little strange? Doesn't it seem like part of the story is being left out?
If it worked so well and is still producing to this day with a parabolic revenue curve then why did they stop at 350MW peak? The answer is plain as day. The oil crisis ended. Back in the seventies when the first oil crisis hit, private investors decided to hop on the solar thermal gravy train. When the oil crisis turned out to be a big global confidence trick and the price collapsed, that was the end of the money for SEGS. Sure, you can argue that solar thermal competes with coal and natural gas rather than oil, but the truth is that energy markets aren't rational like that. Not then and not now either. The collapse of the oil in the eighties price killed off expansion funding for SEGS.
It's not that the technology failed or proved unworkable, the funding dried up because of the deflation of the seventies energy bubble.
This is a good example of how so-called free markets and energy policies don't match. Our market structures are predicated on the interests of corporate shareholders which is fine for some things, but that's no way to set a coherent long-term policy on vital core utilities. Corporations plan quarter by quarter not decade by decade. It's a simple fact of corporate accounting that the focus is three months at a time. Well that may be fine for Mattell and Pepsi, but energy policy is about a fundamental resource that every single citizen of the country is guaranteed to need for the rest of their lives and not just the latest marketing trend.
Think about the things that we do agree to pay for with taxes and compare them. Let's take education for instance. Does every member of the community benefit from the public school system? How about adults who have no kids? Why should they have to pay for public education? And yet those same people sure as hell do need electricity, don't they.
How about public funding for highways? Does it really make sense that we publicly fund the highway systems with tax dollars which clearly benefits both the auto and petroleum industries but we find it impossible to create a clean energy system using tax financing? Why is that?
Let's not even mention direct tax dollar funding for oil companies.
If we don't direct public money towards this direction, I can predict the future. The oil thing blows away. All the paranoid bullshit about peak oil turns out to be just that, just as it was in the seventies. Oil drops and all the other energy markets do the same for no logical reason and th funding for solar thermal dries up and blows away for twenty years before we get back on this fucked up cycle. Let's put an end to this ridiculous game by funding energy policy with public monies to build out a nationwide solar thermal energy supply.
"Coal power costs just 2-3 cents per kWh but that will likely rise if regulation eventually factors in the environmental costs of the carbon coal produces."
Analysts say it will also likely rise if monkeys fly out of my butt.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
We're actually going to start charging industries for the environmental cleanups that tax payers have to pay for? What a novel concept.
You pay either way, the cost shows up in your tax bill or your electric bill.
This is old and proven technology as there have been CSP systems in operation for over 20 years. They have increased efficiencies in the collection systems slightly over recent years with better glass insulators/collectors and better transmission fluids, along with heat storage mechanisms. But, those systems have been operating in the 90% efficiency range already yet the whole system runs at around 14% conversion efficiency. Fourteen percent is where Solar PV is and that number hasn't changed much in 20 years for CSP. Funding new CSP plants with tax $$$ is not what's needed and won't solve anything.
From what I've seen, these people backing the CSP systems like or insist on steam turbine generating systems because that is what's used for coal, gas, etc. The existing utilities know how to spec these generating systems and their TCO( total cost of ownership ) is well known. Unfortunately, these are not so efficient and there seems to be opposition to other technologies for conversion from heat to electricity. It's an old school mentality which will keep this out of mainstream use and that is really what the existing energy industry wants anyways.
So the only thing I have heard is that government funding making this an option because it is "green" technology. That is the wrong approach IMO. Until someone puts a $$$ value on carbon, health, environmental effects on a per KWh basis, this will remain more expensive than other energy industry owned power systems and remain a fringe and subsidized player. Again, just what the status quo wants. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I have had a question about this for quite some time that I have never gotten a good answer for.
Where did all of the carbon in the coal come from?
From dead plants, right?
OK, but where did THAT carbon come from? The environment, right? So how can we be damaging the planet by liberating carbon that was once free in the environment?
How many acres of desert ecosystem are plunged into permanent shade to provide this 64 megawatts of power?
Shade is a natural resource that many desert critters use to varying degrees. It is conceivable that this artificial shade may be of use to local critters. It may turn out to be an interesting thing for a biologist to study. Consider the old cars, plains, and ships that have been cleaned and sunk as artificial reefs.
How about we look at an old concept - put the collectors in orbit and microwave the power down to the surface? Might even help a bit with global warming.
No they don't. Coal produces the most carbon-dioxide of any major fuel. This is elementary chemistry, because coal is mostly carbon.
The water levels are forecast to rise a meter, no matter what we do. So why bother at this point?
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RQKV7O0&show_article=1
If we can, over the next 100 years, get used to a rise of a meter a year, then we can get used to that for ever. By 2050, we'll have fusion - for real, and then the whole greenhouse gas thing goes away.
This is my sig.
That's Jimmy Carter, the guy who was thrown up against an oil crisis and decided to do what any rational, thinking person would do: develop alternatives. And not start any wars. ;-)
Uh, Jimmy Carter invaded Iran. He went in with too few troops, and tried to micromanage things from Washington, and got our ass kicked. Of course you are correct in the sense that he did not start the war, the islamic fundamentalists started it and this same war is still going on today.
The right question to ask is where that infrastructure can be built:
Some 30 billion pounds of steam every year flow beneath the streets of Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. While it is unknown to most New Yorkers, Con Edison's subterranean steam system is the biggest steam district in the world, larger than the next four largest U.S. steam systems combined and boasting an annual steam production more than double that of Paris, Europe's largest system.
Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the United Nations [use steam] for heating and cooling - along with some 2,000 other customers and 100,000 buildings, from residential low-rises to commercial skyscrapers. All are in Manhattan, primarily because steam is most efficient and cost effective for high-rise buildings.
The number of steam customers has not increased in the past few years. "A lot of people don't know about it or don't know it's an option, or building owners don't want to go through the conversion process and don't want to spend the money to convert."
And so, for now at least, steam remains New York's neglected power source. "The steam system is a great asset to the city and delivers clean energy. We can clearly be doing more with it." Steam [2003]
Manhatten is a compact island with a population density of 67,000 people per square mile.
Manhatten is not hurting for lack of water - one gallon of water equals about eight pounds of steam.
The steam system is fueled by oil and natural gas. Manhatten draws its electricity from enormous hydroelectric plants upstate and in Canada.
Wheres the increased cost here? You build it, it's practically self contained and surely requires less maintenance, etc than other sources like coal.. wtf? Wheres the extra costs come from?
The first system referred to in the article is at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert. Links: 1, 2. Angelenos, next time you're passing by that way, keep an eye peeled. It's really cool.
Find free books.
I am a liberal.
I am not against nuclear power. Specifically, I think we need to heavily invest in many new nuclear power plants using the latest designs (that is, less to no waste leaves the building).
Well, that makes some sense! Now, here's the question. Would you be willing to spend 100 billion dollars a year for like, say, a few years, to completely replace all coal plants with nuclear power, and have enough surplus plants to allow for all cars to be replaced with electric cars? This substantially cuts US greenhouse emissions, allows us to pull out of the Persian gulf, and we can go on our merry way. I've not met a conservative who wouldn't take that deal, even if they are normally opposed to big government projects, but liberals on this tend to be opposed?
I don't want to steal anyone's money "for adding no value to the economy". I'm not sure what this means
It's a troll, no lie there. Basically, many liberals, and you might not be one of them, advocate redistribution of wealth solely for redistribution of wealth. I think it was Keynes that said, that, if you wanted to have a consumer economy, you could just tax the rich people, then have the government pay one guy to dig a hole, and another guy to fill it in. That doesn't work.
I will say that, there ARE times when government spending does work. Clearly, spending on the highway system, is both redistributive, AND, economically efficient.
So, gasp... for putting up with my troll, I will concede that redistribution of wealth does work, so long at improves the overall economic efficiency of the country or has some geopolitical gain.
This is my sig.
According to TFA the improvements are in simpler and more robust construction methods. Also, the manufacture of semiconductors is extremely toxic and high-energy; CSP plants use less toxic raw materials and more conventional manufacturing techniques. The manufacturing capacity to cover thousands of acres with PV cells would have to be developed; the capacity to cover thousands of acres with CSP exists already.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
The climatic situation is desperate. Feedbacks such as Siberian Methane, the loss of Artic Sea Ice and the Amazon Forests disintegrating will interact. Siberia's already 5 degC hotter; Artic Sea Ice at an all time low; and the Amazon has had summers that are dangerously dry.
Don't argue about the cost. Just get on with doing something. Tax carbon so until energy sources are carbon zero or carbon negative.
The USA carries about 3% of the world reserves (@$80/kg). At > @$100, we are carry something like 15%. We have mined the easy stuff. But we have LARGE quantities at the more difficult mining. In addition, we have LOADS of plutonium and "waste" that is to be buried. If we get the IFR going now, then all the "waste" will generate over 100 years of power for USA and that would be if we converted the entire country right now to 100% IFR (which is impossible). The advantage is, little waste left over.
With all that said, I think that the big mistake that countries like us make is that we depend on 1 technology. Right now, we depend on oil and coal far too much. And yes, alternative esp wind and geo-thermal should be massively used.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In fact, one of the better places to build these are next to nuclear power plants. Skyfuel is looking to build a number of these, but they want to use salts for thermal storage. I have coresponded with the CEO and suggested that they approach nuclear power plants. Turns out that they had the same idea and were in the process of doing so. The idea is to use the waste heat from the plant to drive up the temp of the salts. Then the sun is used to lift it further. Now, you have a great different in temp. In this case, they can even use 2 vat of salt to run the temps back and forth, while dropping the waste heat at night. In light of the having to shut down recently due to high temps on a river, this will have some interest to power plants in the southern USA as well in EU.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A coal power plant generates enormous problems for its surrounding community and for the planet as a whole, and they do not pay for this
What really set me off, in the original post, was the linking of the difference in price between the solar panel and the coal plant to the supposed environmental cost of the coal plant. There is a block of people that sell this idea that a CO2 tax designed roughly to address economic disparities between the likes of coal and solar panels accurately captures the cost of global warming. It doesn't.
What is the cost though? That's the whole problem. You can't objectively arrive at a cost because, there is no market to set the price! Essentially, what you are asking for is price controls, and that, we already know, doesn't work. Everyone will say that they are damaged by the coal plant, once the government starts passing out money for that. You could never get an accurate assesment. Even if the sea levels rise, you also get a better growing season with it, in areas that still have water. In general, if we go by the fossil record, the biodiversity of the earth will ultimately increase. More growing time, more plants, more insects, still more plants, and finally more animals. There's a lot of benefits to THAT. Plus, we haven't even calculated the economic benefit of being able to exploit two rather significant land areas. We'll have the whole of Greenland and Antarctica, if the worst should come to pass.
So, people want to have a tax to cover some cost, that may not even be a cost, but a benefit, and the question really is, if there is no cost, then, why do they want all of this money? That, to me, is what makes carbon taxes a theft, more than a real solution to a (potential) problem.
This is my sig.
Gee, someone call me when they build something that's actually substantial? 64 MW is just about zero use. Get it up to ten times that and it might actually get close to replacing a plant somewhere. What is this, just a publicity stunt or government grandstanding?
And don't point out to them either that CO2 levels were over 4000 ppm (over 10 times our current CO2) towards the end of the Ordovician Period. That coincided with one of the deepest ice ages ever and so won't fit their global warming theory. :-)
It's a funny old world.
"New environmental implementations on coal plants make these units very environmentally friendly."
Haven't seen the effects of strip mining lately, have you?
Each of us owns about one six-billionth of the atmosphere and oceans.
No, you don't. I own the atmosphere, and my brother owns the oceans. You don't get any. In fact, you are lucky that I let you breath for free. Really, you owe me about a dollar for the air you've used.
This is my sig.
Translation: We're going to make what you have now more expensive, so that solar power is a comparative bargain, but you'll still be paying a huge increase on your electrical bill so we can feel good about ourselves.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Firstly, this is slashdot.org, not slashdot.us. In the UK many customers are already paying twice the 'current prices' alleged in the US posts here.
Secondly, the price of coal, gas, and oil are all rising, so even if the solar price stays at the current level, it will soon become the cheapest option simply by standing still.
Thirdly, when carbon markets gain more momentum the power companies will focus on low-carbon options, which will accelerate the pace of solar development immensely. In effect, the companies will be paid for not burning coal; clearly this will have an effect on the market. Europe is ahead of the US already here...
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
We got some tax credits out of it (a lot of people took advantage of them back then to install active alternative energy devices, (I sold some and helped set some up), and that era also saw the true beginnings of the dominance of japanese fuel efficient cars. They had been around, but that is when they really started grabbing massive market share and repeatedly kicking detroit in the nads (like they deserved, both the unions, management and "investors", all clueless about mileage and durability for years). When all the oil companies saw what was happening, they dropped prices (starting with huge production increases), and they stayed dropped for a long time, until around 2002 or so, just marginal cost increases. They didn't want to lose out, and we had the nasty whammy of the government allowing tax deductions for SUVs to be applied to like-anyone with a Llc corporation and on up. It has been (generally speaking) cheaper to run one of those things than a cheap car with better mileage for years now, that's why you saw such a boom in big vehicles that most of those folks didn't need. Now that that's going away and oil prices got so expensive, people are switching back and going to hybrids and biofuels so on.
There is no where near the concensus they claim on man made global warming. coal and oil are still our best source of energy, it's not running out so quickly that we need to be pushing rediculous idea's like this, claiming "the future is bright" when it will infact cripple the economy.
Since when does C02 drive weather anyway? they ignore basic high school science. I found it amusing to watch a show the other night harping on about increased C02 raising sea water acidity, when in fact a warming ocean results in c02 ESCAPING the water.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
http://www.universetoday.com/2005/11/04/greenlands-ice-sheet-is-growing/
I did a single google search and found credible evidence that there is no such desperate situation, and that global warming is not as cut and dry as it's made out to be.
Do i need to remind you of the recent debarcle where climate models once used as a baston of global warming cult memebers as PROOF we are all going to die in a bad hollywood movie, actually had a 2yk bug which once corrected showed preindustrial times as the hottest on record.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Dr. Robert Bussard has made demonstrable progress in doing this very thing. To quote him, "We are probably the only people on the planet who know how to make a real net power clean fusion system, and we are out of support! Somewhat ironical!" Indeed.
http://www.rexresearch.com/bussard/bussard.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606
For $200M in funding, Bussard can build his final prototype and change the entire world.
yes - "strip mining " has its own environmental regulation to meet. The land after it is "strip mined" is recovered with top soil. essentially - the land looks very similiar to its original state - only a little lower in elevation. also when the last time you heard of miners getting trapped in a pit?
I think the most promising future energy sources, beginning with the best, are. . .
1. Aneutronic fusion / IEC Polywell reactors. If this works -- as seems likely, based on experimental results thus far -- it could begin displacing *all* other forms of power generation within 15 years. The potential is mind-boggling. This could make coal, fission, natural gas, wind, and the majority of solar power and petroleum fuels hopelessly obsolete. Rapidly.
2. Enhanced geothermal. According to a study from MIT, a relatively small R&D investment could open up enhanced geothermal energy production, at competitive costs, over wide geographical areas, including large parts of the USA. It could scale to meet a very large portion of electrical demand. An enhanced geothermal plant is conceptually similar to a nuclear plant, except that the atomic pile is safely tucked away under the earth's crust.
3. Nuclear fission. If fusion doesn't work out, there's good old fission, and you can build it anywhere, even places where enhanced geothermal won't work. We've learned a fair bit about designing and managing fission reactors, but very little has been put into practice in the USA since we haven't broken ground on any new nuclear plants for several decades. We need to start building *now* just to hold our ground as aging plants come up for decommissioning.
4. Solar. It's intermittent, expensive, and requires large amounts of land. And yet, the hype around solar is scary. Nuclear and geothermal have so many practical advantages, I have a hard time imagining solar providing most of the world's energy -- something all the faithful sun-worshippers expect. Still and all. . . Solar technology is being researched, progress is being made, and there's no question it will work at some price level. It may be useful for rooftop systems and assisting peak power demand, at the very least.
5. Biofuels. This is an inefficient method of gathering solar energy, and it competes with food production for the same resources. Realistically, we're not going to power our whole industrial society off this stuff. However, it does produce concentrated liquid fuels, which are highly useful for certain tasks. There will probably be some kind of long-term role for biofuels -- especially if we can get away from food crops and move to cellulose or algae.
Like, the hell of hell? Temperature-wise, I mean.
My science teacher taught me that carbon is positive and zinc is negative.
Can't you see what you're doing? You're casting me as your stereotypical enemy even though I haven't expressed any sentiments which are particularly radical or even particularly different. Open up your mind. You don't have to agree with me at all, but at least realize that my point of view might be valid, and I'm not your mortal political enemy just because I disagree with you on one point. I'm just trying to come up with a fix for one particular pervasive market inefficiency so that we can all work out the best way to live our lives as individuals.
I don't think you are evil. I think your viewpoint is well reasoned, certainly, but I think that a carbon tax is not the best solution to the problem of national energy independence and global warming. You are just wrong. The ironic part is, that yours is the position that I held for a long time on this issue. Slap a tax on CO2 and use the money to clean it up. That makes perfect sense, if it would work. The problem is, it can't, with the technology that we have.
A carbon tax does not reduce carbon dioxide. It can't. That's the whole problem. The idea is that we can put a tax on carbon, and either pay a third world nation to sequester carbon dioxide, or sequester it ourselves. Sure, there's some that argue that we could just reduce our output and pay the third world to use less, but, with the current CO2 level approaching quadruple the pre-industrial age levels, it stands to reason that we need to bring the carbon dioxide level DOWN. We have to sequester to correct what we've already done, and we have to sequester for what we will continue to do.
I would love to believe that we could slap a tax on carbon to pay for national sequestration. But, I've yet to see a reasonable plan to actually sequester the 4 gigatons of carbon we produce per year. Planting trees ultimately doesn't work, the science on that is clear. And I really do not trust plans to pump it into the ground. The iron filings into the ocean plan seems like it could work, but what happens with a big earthquake or some other disturbance, launching all of this carbon back skyward like so much soda fizz. The only thing that could work, in my mind, would be a brute force approach to breaking carbon dioxide back into carbon and oxygen, but that would require more magnesium than we could possibly have. A back of the envelope calculation, that if you could do it, anyway, would require the full electrical output of at least 500 NEW nuclear power plants.
On a smaller scale, could the above work? Yeah, sure. But 4 gigatons is an aweful lot. Right wingers talk about Krakatoa blowing 25 cubic kilometers of dirt in the air, and say that there's no way that humanity can do that. But, humans have never had a look at a coal mine or driven past a coal fired generating station. They ARE mountains of coal getting burned. Trains MILES long haul coal from Wyoming Powder River Basin, and that area of the country looks like someone just took a monster sized spoon and ripped a bite out of the planet. They drop it all off that coal plant, once a month, and make a mountain of coal that looks almost like an ancient egyptian great pyramid, and then they burn it, all of it, over the course of a month, until that next train comes along. 4 gigatons - it's just an enormous amount. I know there are those that say that all the gold that has ever been mined could fill a room, but I guarantee you that it would take a mighty big room to house all the coal that has ever been mined.
SO, yeah, I wish I could believe in sequestration. But I don't. I see Mount Coal getting torched every month as I drive past the local coal fired generating station, and I'm just like "sequester all that - no f--- way." It's just easier to not make a mess, than it is to clean it up.
We have to work with what we have. Yes, being able to sequester carbon dioxide completely would be the ideal thing. In this case, you would think of a tax or a user fee for all atmospheric emissions, that push the lev
This is my sig.
It is kind of deceptive to compare a new solar plant (built today) with an old coal plant. The correct comparision is with new coal capacity which may come in closer to $0.04/kWh. With carbon capture and sequestration, $0.08/kWh might be expected. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070504151722.htm. Further, at present, solar competes with gas rather than coal because gas is used to meet peak demand. Gas costs less for construction than either coal or solar but it has volitile are rising fuel costs owing to declining production in North America. Over the long term, $0.15/kWh probably compares favorably with gas. Several recent studies have also noticed that coal energy (though not volume) production is declining in the US owing to substitution of lower grades of coal: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/three-cornered-ghost.html. This video on the coal resource is even more startling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTUcxYdMmj4. If, within the lifetime of the new solar power plant, coal becomes scarce as gas is already doing, then the cost of power from the solar plant will be quite competitive. It is not that we lack coal but rather that we have begun to exhaust the coal that is cheap to mine. This is why salvage operations like the one that led to the disaster in Utah are becoming more common. Higher coal prices make these marginal operations more economical.
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Rent solar power for your home: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html
The real competition is other forms of clean power generation, like nuclear.
Nuclear power isn't clean! Just as with coal, the material used in nuclear power plants have to be mined. The building of nuclear power plants are energy intensive. This is because they use a lot of concrete, concrete is made from cement, and "Cement production is one of the most energy intensive of all industrial manufacturing processes." Then you have to have someplace for long term storage of the nuclear waste.
why build a concentrated solar plant when you can just build a nuke plant?
Why because you don't have to deal, or leave to your children and grandchildren, with the radioactive waste, as well as the reasons above.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Our consumption of coal has far more consequences than most people have considered:
The mining techniques we use are reprehensible, and the long term environmental damage incalculable
Especially Mountaintop removal mining.
The subsidies and tax breaks for the coal industries are substantial
As are the subsidies for nuclear power.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"The mining techniques we use are reprehensible, and the long term environmental damage incalculable "
You don't know what your talking about.
Neither do you. Mountaintop removal mining is very destructive.
FalconShould there be a Law?
enough
So, it's fine with you to place nuclear waste somewhere that can be struck with an earthquake thus spreading radiation for hundreds of miles?
The long-term (tens of thousands of years) issue is only true if the plutonium is buried with the waste, instead of burned in new fuel rods, the way any sane fuel cycle will do.
So you don't care if some of the waste has a half-life of hundreds of millions of years either? Neither do you care if it's taxpayers that have to pay for it, I guess.
FalconShould there be a Law?
We also need to be building less hydro plants that rely on blocking rivers to generate power
I don't recall exactly when or what the title was but early this year or last year /. had an article about a new type of plant to generate power from rivers. Instead of building a dam and channeling water through turbines, the new idea was to have a boom over the water and lower turbines shaped like egg beaters or blenders. The water running by would spin them thus generating electricity.
Even FRANCE primarily uses nuclear power, so why shouldn't we?
"Nuclear Wasteland"
FalconShould there be a Law?
Solar is practical once we tax all of its competitors and mandate its use. No thanks.
Solar is practical now, either stop subsidizing all other energy sources or give the same subsidies to solar and I bet it will be cost competitive. Nuclear however would never survive without subsidies.
FalconShould there be a Law?
using solar as a "peaking" generator, and then using something like nuclear as the base load would likely work okay without being unbearably expensive.
Using solar is one thing but in a freemarket without subsidies nuclear wouldn't survive. If a builder and operator of a nuclear plant had to buy and pay for their own insurance as well as pay for storage and environmental cleanup the cost would be too prohibitive.
FalconShould there be a Law?
From what you've posted so far you don't like socialism yet you support a socialist program to build and operate nuclear power plants. Oh I see you say later to privatize it, and how's that going to work, like how Russia's Yukov was privatized instantly creating a billionare? Reminds me of the Russian oil tycoon in Val Kilmer's "The Saint".
There's not going to be a single replacement for gasoline.
Oh, I agree. However instead of spending all that money on nuclear power instead develop energy different sources for different areas. Take the money and install solar where it's sunny, wind farms where it's windy, tidal wave machines on the coast and so on. That's after all of the steps are taken to increase efficiency.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In the EU and US "most timber comes from plantations now anyway" (pine plantations in Oz are a common sight too). France actually does have a 350yr cycle for their Oak trees and the US does gets most of it's timber from plantations that were once forests. It's a pretty sad and sorid story of corporate greed, political corruption and grinding poverty elsewhere.
...but tropical and temperate rainforests don't unless great care is taken to sustain them, they are "valuable" to all of mankind and not just as a tourist attraction. Texaco in Bolivia, Shell in Nigeria, BHP in Papua, Exxon in Prince William sound, the collapse of Atlantic and other large fisheries, the ongoing "resource wars", rapidly dissapearing Artic ice, desertification, are all examples of what I would call the "accidental evils" of unregulated "global capitalisim" combined with an exponentialy growing "industrial revolution". This "economic system" has the fundemental flaw otherwise known as "the tradgedy of the commons", it fails to affix a reasonable value to the environment that makes it possible.We have seen a couple of billion new members added to this evolving "economic system" since India and China started doing our dirty work for a fraction of the "price" in the 80's.
"tree's grow back"
I agree the attitudes of many corporations and the laws of many governments have improved markedly over the last decade or so, but we need "world leaders" and "economic systems" that can effectively deal with this "accidental evil" before it comes home to roost in every nation on a scale that makes Iraq look like a pub brawl.
In other words we cannot - as a species - continue to shit in our nest and avoid a massive "population crunch" this century.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
New environmental implementations on coal plants make these units very environmentally friendly.
Oh, yea, right. The Mountaintop removal for coal is so environmentally responsible. NOT!!!
If we want to reduce our foreign dependence on fossil fuels - we have an answer in coal.
A better answer is energy efficiency. With coal you're just substituting one problem with another.
We enjoy relatively low cost energy in the united states
Yea, because energy users never actually see how much the energy they use costs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
http://www.universons.com/
Exploiting new knowledge in physic. New laws.
Lookup also Testatika from the Methernita group,
or the Joe Cell.
Well, if we charge companies (rather than after-the-fact charging the public) maybe they'll choose not to pollute in the first place?
Charging companies is an illusion, costs of cleanup or prevention merely get baked into the costs of goods or services. Companies don't really care one way or the other as long their competition has to work under the same rules as them.
For all intents and purposes, there's no such thing as a seismically dead area in North America. I run insurance simulations all the time, and, forecast out to 10k years, everyone will incur some damage from an earthquake.
This is my sig.
t is easy to be critical and not actually try to be part of the solution. Does your house have the most efficient heat and air conditioning?
Right now I don't own a home, I rent. While the whole building is heated from one gas unit, there is no air conditioning. Why I don't own it now the plan is that I will buy the building, which contains 4 apartments. Currently my sister owns the apartment building, because I'm on disability and don't work I wouldn't qualify for a mortgage to buy it. However once there is enough equity in it it will be transfered to me and I will take over the mortgage. Once I do I plan to save as much money as I can for a few years then hire an architect to create a better design. Reusing as much of the material as I can I'll gut out the interior and rebuild the interior adding more insulation ceiling fans for air circulation and radiant floor heating each unit can control themselves.
Prior to my disability I was roughly designing the home I wanted to build, being that I wanted to build it Off the Grid I was designing it to be as energy efficient as possible, then it would of been powered by a hybrid system using PVs and a wind genie, generator, with a battery bank to store the energy.
Are you driving a vehicle that gets 50+ MPG?
No, my car only gets about 30 mpg city. However I drive it less than 5,000 miles a year, I got it new in 2000 and I haven't yet put 40,000 miles on it. I'd love to have gotten a better mileage vehicle, such as a hybrid, however being on disability I couldn't afford it. Even when I attended college and worked though, I still rode my bike most of the tyme. Though I had a car, I rode my bike more than 200 miles a week. Actually that's how I ended up with my disability, while riding my bike I was hit by a moving van, the apartment movers sort, and I was not expected to survive. While in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. Instead I survived a Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, and my life has been a living hell since.
Your comments stating,"Yea, because energy users never actually see how much the energy they use costs." is a little ambiguous. Do you pay an electric bill?
Yes, I pay an electric bill. And nowhere on it do I see anything about paying for the pollution my use causes to be released. Frequently though the power company does include pamphlets on what they're doing about it, or tips on conserving energy. Actually my power company gets a lot of it's electricity from wind genies, the state I live in is Minnesota and it generates several megawatts of wind power. And it can be ramped up to produce more, which helps farmers as they get paid for the property rental the towers use.
FalconShould there be a Law?
...but keep trying.
Blar.
If they don't like it, the gov't takes them over. These companies exist to serve the people. The companies will be taxed, and they WILL ABSORB THAT TAX FROM THEIR PROFITS. If they are caught passing the cost along, they get fucked hard by the government.
of course, this all assumes that the government will stop 69ing corporate industry to the detriment of the people.
Blar.
Do you still support what we have done to the people of Iraq because you think they want our way of life? That's a few hundred thousand people.
Have you ever heard of World War 1, the Holocaust, Stalin, or the Kmher Rouge? Put them all together, and it's still a pittance compared to a billion people. So are you telling me those don't matter, either? look at all the construction jobs you'll get, and you'll have cities built with better transportation and newer technology. New York, London, and other coastal cities are all old anyway and its time to just move on. If you think that the destruction of America's major coastal cities (hmmm... New York=center of finance, DC=center of government, LA= ok who cares about LA
I'm sorry, I was giving serious consideration to your wisdom before you said you were OK with a billion people dying!
Don't cry "Oust Bush," cry "Restore Freedom!" Don't support a candidate who isn't doing anything to unravel Bush's web.