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Expanding the Electricity Grid May Be a Mistake
Perhaps T. Boone Pickens was onto something. Al writes "An article in Technology Review argues that plans to string new high-voltage lines across the US to bring wind power from the midsection of the country to the coasts, could be an expensive mistake. What's needed instead are improved local and regional electricity transmission, the development of an efficient and adaptable smart grid, and the demonstration of technology such as carbon capture and sequestration, which could prove a cheaper way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than transmitting power from North Dakota to New York City."
Yes, because we all know that every locale has magic electricity faeries just waiting to produce low-carbon-footprint electricity.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
All this talk about solar and wind energy being "free" and building these giant wind farms and turbines has had me wondering about something that I never see addressed. Has anyone considered the meteorological effects of removing all that energy from the atmosphere? I mean wind and solar energy serve a FUNCTION, they move our weather systems around, melt our snow, power our rivers, etc. You start taking a significant chunk of that energy out of the atmosphere, couldn't you end up with climate changes that could be even more devestating than the global warming you're trying to avoid?
No energy is truly "free," after all. But environmentalists keep talking about wind and solar as if there's NO downside whatsoever. It seems to me that there might be a pretty big one.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Made a quick template for you, could come handy for future posts. "What's needed instead is $buzzword1 and $buzzword2, the development of $buzzword 3 and the demonstration of technology such as $buzzword4, which could provide a cheaper way to reduce $buzzword5."
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
I spell carbon capture "c o a l s u b s i d y".
It's not going to work, it's just another way to subsidize coal companies, as if letting them blow the tops off of mountains wasn't enough.
Installing renewables local to where the power is needed is, of course, a great idea.
Absolute statements are never true
Decentralized generation seems likely to offer more jobs at the local level, both for construction of smaller, more numerous generating facilities and for on-going staffing and maintenance.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
(the only possible reason for the link to youtube showing 'visited' for me :P)
But the last time I checked, energy cannot be created or destroyed - it can only change form. It all ends up as thermal (see heat death of the universe), so surely it'd be a better idea to convert it from renewable sources (wind, solar, etc.) than adding to it from chemical sources. Yes, IAAP (physicist).
Every time someone suggests that we should continue burning carbon and just store the CO2, I can't help but think of Mars Attacks .
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The CBI in the UK has been railing against our governments focus on wind power as well.
They were also keen on carbon-capture and also nuclear.
It's funny how big corporate interests are not so keen on projects where any little group of people could afford their own small-scale generation capacity. Although I could be talking through my tinfoil hat.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Alfred_P._Sloan,_Jr.
Nuclear Power.
Just about anything but nuclear is a mistake.
Smart Grid technology is actually just around the corner. I was just listening to the CEO of Cisco talk about how they're trying to make a big push into this industry, a quick search turned up this; http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/energy/smart_grid_solutions.html
With to days grid all it takes is a homer Simpson to mess it up.
There was that time he spilled food all over his control board and took out new york.
The slowing of the Earth's rotation is already the cause of those damnable leap seconds. You want more?
You start taking a significant chunk of that energy out of the atmosphere, couldn't you end up with climate changes that could be even more devestating than the global warming you're trying to avoid?
No. The wind is surface wind, so imagine how much wind is actually in the atmosphere. The wind pushing your clouds is a bit higher up. With sunlight, the energy is either heating your tiles, or charging them. It is a preference, not a robbery of some sort. And we find charge has more uses than hot tiles.
Free, though, it is not, and you are correct about there being a downside. It is in the form of cost, infrastructure, and energy efficiency, among others.
You're absolutely right, and that's why we need either nuclear power or a large power transmission grid to lower CO2 emissions.
The problem with the large power grid is that power is generateed at a 60 Hz frequency. This corresponds to a 5000 km wavelength. A quarter wave line has a length of 1250 km (about 780 miles for the unit-challenged).
A quarter wavelength line has the property that a short circuit at one end appears as an open circuit at the other end and an open circuit appears at a short. This makes it very difficult to transmit 60 Hz power over a line of approximately that length, the line must be "impedance matched", by putting capacitors and/or inductors at several points along the line. Worse still, the line impedance varies with load, because when a higher current runs through the wires they heat up and, by dilation, lengthen and rest at a lower position, thereby increasing the capacitance to ground, which means those capacitors and inductors must be variable.
One solution is to use direct current, but that's as expensive or more than matching the impedance, although the grid becomes easier to stabilize when direct current is used.
All in all, any solution for making more electricity available is expensive. Conservation is the easiest and cheaper way to implement technically, but it seems, at least in the USA, very difficult for the people to accept.
We keep going after the same model over and over again. Search Finster's Law: A closed mouth gathers no feet. Big conglomerates produce and consumers buy. They get to set the rates and raise prices when they can come up with an excuse (weather, maintenance, etc) and commodities traders can bet on the spot prices. It's an old and broken model that benefits corporations while sapping money from consumers. With all the billions they keep mentioning wouldn't it be nice if someone had a clue and said: "if we give people a big enough incentive to use renewable sources at their business, home, government offices, etc we would not need more expensive transmission lines" Instead of wasting OUR tax dollars on supporting a broken model let's support a self sufficient model. We give tax incentives to homeowners, landlords, apartment owners, builders, etc to incorporate solar, wind, geothermal, etc into the actual buildings. Schools and local governments can get grants to become producers of energy (solar, wind, geothermal, etc) and sell excess to the business next door or the house down the street. With schools being closed during peek hours of daylight, there is a lot of potential. Government buildings can be retrofitted to be energy neutral or even produce excess (considering they work 9-5 there is a lot of potential to produce excess energy after hours in the southern sunny states) for the local community. In high demand hours a local message to clean energy buildings can ask them to reduce their own usage to increase output to the grid. The smart grid that is needed is updating local utilities to buy excess from anyone who provides clean energy. not what some utilities do, offset your own usage but anything extra they get for free. Germany started a solar revolution by allowing anyone that wanted to install solar to get a set price for 20 years. after the 20 year period imagine what their energy costs will be, from the highest in the region to possibly the lowest. Farmers are installing solar arrays and getting additional income, banks are financing the installations, over a million jobs created from the solar industry. Other countries are starting to see the long term potential of getting off this energy roller coaster. http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/04/solar-incentives-could-ontario-be-the-next-germany It's OUR tax dollars they are using so let's put it to use in the right location, our local towns, schools, grocery stores, government buildings, libraries etc and not to support antiquated models fo they produce and we consume.
Not to mention the Galvin Electricity Initiative, from the family that founded Motorola.
Being overly optimistic (I know), but once the fusion (NIF or similar facility) research succeeds and the fusion energy is tamed we would actually need such a hight voltage grid in place. Of course it will probably not happen in our lifetimes.
Would it work?
Microwaves to send it wirelessly across the air? To a floating blimp? To space and back again?
LASER?
How efficient would it be?
If it could work well enough, it would be a much better idea than digging out miles of ground just to place some wires down.
Yes, anyone has indeed considered it, at least considered the possibility, which is more than one can apparently say for some of the experts producing reports and studies like the last one about giant wind farms here on /. in the last week or two. They seem to have rather optimistic tunnel vision, which seems to be a common affliction with too many people who become too emotionally attached to ideas. They want so much to "make it so" (to mimic Jean-Luc Picard) that they become a bit delusional in the process.
What you suggested as a consequence is something that should be addressed and investigated in depth to rule it out. Trying to mention such issues is sometimes like being a protester trying to stare down a steamroller with its clutch released.
I agree. District energy is the future! It's wasteful to push electrons down miles of wire, and if the owners are local then they have a vested interest in making sure the district energy system is efficient and nice to live around.
We need to do both, and sequestering with current technologies will not last long term.
We need to be using solar thermal and not wind.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Capturing CO2 simply requires running smokestack emissions through a chilled ammonia bath at the cost of 25% input power... i.e. we get to pay for a 125% increase in the amount of coal burned.
How do we move all these gigatons of CO2 to disposal sites and store it forever?
Big, high pressure pipelines. Odd that nobody talking up a "clean" coal future ever talks about the comparative costs of a national pipeline network vs a smartgrid.
We have massive unused heavy manufacturing capability in terms of both idle car factories and a trained labor force that can be converted to building renewable generation capability. The question of replacing coal with wind/concentrated thermal solar is a question of political will, not technological capability.
Tech Public Policy stuff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How soon before you have a Lake Nios effect?
make em small, enough to power a city and indestructible, tamper-proof, very low maintenance, who said power plants have to be HUGE monoliths, just think a nuclear power plant about the size of two shipping containers could manage an entire city or burrough, wind and solar is great but is not practical for everything...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It would be better to focus on doing the local network while pushing research on Superconductor. Once we have superconducting wire, then it becomes much easier to move electricity around.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
He makes one interesting point: it would take a long time to build transmission lines that could carry large amounts of power all the way from the midwest to the northeast. In that time, technology could improve in a way that could make the project pointless.
On the other hand, improving the existing grid from 1940's tech to modern tech is guaranteed to be worth doing. (Is he correct that a major chunk of our existing grid is 1940's tech?)
On the subject of clean and decentralized power, how much longer before we get those solar roofing tiles that can contribute a useful amount of power? Even if we didn't wait for the improved tiles, would today's solar tiles provide a useful increment of electricity to feed into the current grid?
He quotes a price of $60 billion to build the new transmission lines. What would be the effect of using $60 billion to subsidize people to put solar tiles on top of existing buildings? How about $60 billion worth of pebble-bed or similarly safe small reactors, each one in a piece of the grid?
I'm not an expert on any of this stuff, but I'm inclined to agree that this project sounds like a way to put a whole bunch of eggs into a single basket. If we're going to do something big, let's try to make our electricity grid more decentralized, instead of adding one more frakking huge centralized source (however eco-clean).
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
It's ALL from the Sun. ALL OF IT. Fossil fuels? Where did that energy come from? THE MOTHERFUCKING SUN.
There are three sources of energy that are not directly or indirectly solar - nuclear, hydro and geothermal. If you want to be pedantic, you could conceivably include lunar tidal effects in the latter. Otherwise, between gravity and the Sun, ALL of that energy was at one point, Solar. Those Cheetos you're eating right now? Solar. That gas you put in your car this morning? Solar. Solar, solar, solar.
The human use of energy is so miniscule compared to the total amount of solar energy hitting the Earth, it's a total non-factor. In fact, you're using LESS energy by taking it directly from they sky because the energy doesn't have to go through several state changes before we harness that shit as electricity. Any time you change energy from one form to another, you lose efficiency. This notion that we are using hydrocarbons for energy, after letting organic matter cook for several million years, is absolutely absurd. That stuff is not only inefficient, it's DIRTY.
As for wind. Simple thought experiment. What is the mechanism by which a wind turbine takes energy from the air? Air pushing in the blades. Only the surface area of the blade can take energy from the sky.
Now, think about the volume of air. All of it. The A T M O S P E R E. Take your fan blade. Look at it. What's it's surface area. Now look up. See the sun there? Slap yourself in the face.
Really, I weep at the failure of basic science education. This is stuff that should be learned in 9th grade by every child. Yet, here we are.
Buildings of the future will have to simulate what plants do, and that is live on the solar energy available within their footprint, or pay for solar energy gathered from a radius of a few hundred miles. Anything else is probably unsustainable.
The only other alternative would be solar energy beamed from something in orbit, which is probably the real winner. The amount of energy that the sun transmits to the earth is truly a drop in the bucket compared to what it generates in total. This is a naturally occurring fusion reaction that should be stable until the Andromeda galaxy wipes our solar system out. Hopefully we'll be space-faring post humans by then.
Whatever the bridge is to sustainability, it must happen before all of the super old biomass of the earth (coal, oil, natural gas) is exhausted, or the problem will be solved with the third and final world war.
it is stupid
it is immortal
and it may be a self destruct
... just "it will create more jobs" shouldn't be counted as one of them.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Or, according to this NY Times article:
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just look at it.
Turn off the proposed new lines and tell me how that's our grid today in essentially 2010. On that map, the only route between the east and west coasts is a little line, under 500kV in western Nebraska.
The ONLY ONE.
So what's the solution to our energy problems? Biofuel, captured coal, wind, fission, fusion, space, treadmills? It doesn't matter!
If we can generate limitless power in Montana, but can only get it to North Dakota (next door) by either really small lines or by routing it though Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Idaho (again!), Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, then North Dakota... how can we do anything?
It doesn't matter if we should be using wind and carbon sequestration (I question wind as the panacea it seems to be these days), we'll still need a modern grid. That mess than happened in the north east a few years ago shouldn't be possible.
It's not a choice between better lines and green energy, unless you only count stimulus money. And isn't big interstate utility projects the kind of thing the federal government should be doing?
Clean power isn't useful if we can't transmit it more than 100 miles. The areas not near some sort of clean power source will just keep using coal.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Arguments against DC power lines is based on ignorance.
Québec and Manitoba have big power lines and they save tons of money. The cost of the converters on both ends is offset by the lower cost of the power lines. DC power lines have less loss and only need 2 wires instead of three. You don't have the inductive losses in DC lines.
When the line exceeds 1000km the savings are huge.
Another reason to stay away from a National grid is the effect of linking all the grids together into one system means a single catastrophic failure becomes possible. We have already seen this sort of problem on both coasts. The bigger the sandpile, the bigger the avalanche. We should be pushing into smaller more local stuff. Right now individual solar is still too expensive, but if we say no to more power lines, the power companies might do more in the line of peak pricing, buying back and conservation helps that some utilities are already doing.
-John Van Voorhis
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not saying this is a certain danger but it is a significant one, local energy companies are more likely to be able to set up monopolies - where they charge consumers WAY beyond what it costs them to produce the energy - than their larger multi-locality counterparts. In large part because they are more successful in arguing that they are meeting specific market conditions or are additionally hampered by costs others in the industry don't face. This argument fails more often with larger companies because they are forced to charge a relatively level price across all regions and are more tightly regulated by Federal and State agencies. In any solution to the electrical problem, it would be nice to see some sort of price constraints set on big utilities and small ones forcing them to stop using regulatory agencies to provide indirect subsidies.
carbon, NEG or toxicity, when suddenly it isnt all that...and the fuel is also not limitless.
look sig is kool
Nuclear is only a partial solution (currently) also. It is all mostly in your wiki article, but the high points IMHO:
1) shortage of Uranium mining (used at 2* the rate it is mined currently.)
2) shortage of manufacturing capacity (containment vessels)
3) many reactor technologies that can reduce #1 just haven't been proven to be viable yet(breeder reactors, fast reactors, etc)
I agree objections to any nuclear expansion are just wrong. But we can't just drop any options, because their is clearly no one solution to cover our energy addiction, let alone to get us through the next 20 years.
Both high voltage AC and high voltage DC lines would work in terms of reinforcing the network. This is not where the criticism presented in the article is aimed at. It's borrowing off an idea poorly expressed in Hot Flat and Stupid in a book by Thomas Friedman that there should be smart "green" electrons. This totally fails to address a key point about electricity and network security which is the point at which the network passes from 100.000% load to 100.001% load ... something you all experienced a few years ago when the US power system went DARK. An overloaded electricity system does clog up and gently reduce capacity like - say - you local water supply. IT JUST TURNS OFF and the cascade effect takes down the rest of the network.
The very real benefit of a strong network is that once you have it in place, then you can put your green energy into it. And parking photovoltaics on your house, calling the power green and ignoring the mining and energy costs associated with building them is not *really* green, just *feel good* green.
[/rant]
The whole smart grid idea gives me the willies. First, it will be used an excuse to block the building of generating capacity of any type. All electric generators have an environmental downside. The existence of a "smart" grid will be another excuse to not boost generating capacity. If the wind mills don't produce electricity, so what? we will just turn off your computer. Problem solved.
Second, the smart grid is a new avenue for government intrusion into our lives. Members of "minority" groups will claim that any action to cut power to their neighborhoods is racism. Power cuts to the districts of Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha and Barney Frank will be rarer than hen's teeth. Don't bother to buy a new refrigerator if you live in John Boehner's district.
Non-union factories won't get electricity, but Government Motors and Fiatsler will have all they need. But wait, there is more. Too fat? No electricity for your kitchen. Want to stay up late. Sorry, lights are out at 10 p.m. in this town.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
While I understand the jokes, so much information is contained in the article and replies.
A few:1) Nuclear is so expensive it will never be built anywhere but France and Japan. $20B for 2000MW in Georgia vs $60B for a national grid?? Can't find the article on the expense of nuclear - it's at work;
2) DC lines are viable solutions. A 1500MW DC line from Vancouver CANADA to SF Bay was proposed a few year ago for $3B. Seemed like a lot at the time but barely covers CAISO's overhead and won't even touch local LAP prices (read extortion by Goldman Sachs of urban areas);
3) The US has huge reserves of natural gas and the import of LNG by the oil companies has collapsed;
4) Renewable resources require transmission such as the $2B line LADWP is proposing to bring solar and geothermal energy to LA;
5) Huge amount of hype around Smart Grid. Putting solar and plug-in electric and hybrids (portable storage) will have an impact but can't replace baseload (17% capacity factor vs 90% CF);
6) Wind has a 33% CF and is usually firm to 100% with hydro power (no the dams shouldn't be torn down;
7) Solar thermal has huge possibilities but requires transmission. Deutsche Bank et al have proposed solar thermal in North Africa and DC lines to serve 15% of Europe's electricity for $600B to be completed in about 6-8 years; etc etc
I'm going to have to write my book on renewable electricity - "Positive? Not!!"
Uncle Al
Nobody proposed to, we can't replace every coal facility with wind / solar this year, it's physically impossible to do so.
As I recall, EU countries are running up to 30% intermittent power and only starting to run into trouble. If we make a serious national commitment to renewable energy, serious enough to put all our idle heavy manufacturing capacity to work, we might get there in a decade. So far, I don't see any such commitment on the part of the Federal government. Certainly there is no such major commitment in the energy bill wandering through Congress right now.
Given a decade and adequate research funding as needed and funding for deployment when we have a manufacturable smartgrid design, and given the substantial progress already made in high-density electrical storage, I regard it as ridiculous to assume that we won't know how to build either a smartgrid or the electrical storage desirable to buffer it by 2019.
But given a more likely generational timeframe, assuming we actually get a Congress which is willing to listen to scientists and engineers instead of corporate lobbyists, the only people who can reasonably argue that these problems are unsolvable within the timeframe in which they actually need to be solved can only do this on the basis of Big Coal talking points on the basis that they are paid to do so.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Just push more incentives for the local sector to initiate a solar panel installation in each and every home...once every home has solar panels, not only recycling its energy, but putting back into the grid, we will see the need for the grid to be much less then what it is now, and would then be unnecessary to expand...only to adapt the new introduction of power into itself.
2) So what? Build more manufacturing plants.
3) Breeder reactors aren't viable because uranium is cheap. Uranium is cheap because #1 isn't a problem.
Reprocessing fuel rods, which have had only about 5% of usable energy extracted, will extend the Uranium supply considerably. Uranium reserves have increased over the last decade because the price has gone up, triggering exploration. And the Japanese are working on a technology to extract Uranium from seawater (it works, they just need to get the price down).
In addition to the advance reactor technologies, Thorium is also a viable fission fuel, and it is about four times as abundant as Uranium. India, which has significant Thorium reserves, has been developing a 300MW Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, which they expect to be fully operational in 2011.
Breeder reactors? They'd do the trick.
Not too many years ago, in Africa - lake Nyos to be specific - an event happened that wiped out entire villages, adults, children, cattle, even flies. A deadly cloud of poison gas was released and killed everything, where it lay, or stood, or roosted. What was the evil enterprise, you ask, that released this killing cloud on all those people? Well, it wasn't a corporation (this time), it was the lake itself. The gas was Carbon Dioxide.
The lake had been "sequestering" carbon dioxide gas from volcanic vents for years, until one fateful night, a disturbance came along and the lake gave up it's deadly cargon into an invisible cloud of death, that enveloped villages along the shoreline and killed everything in it's path. Just a year or two ago, it happened again, this time in Yellowstone park. Elk and bison died where they stood, killed by a cloud of this invisible poison.
Now, "clean coal" advocates are suggesting that we should capture and "store" this poison by the millions of tons. And unlike nuclear waste, that can be stored for only 100,000 years until it becomes harmless, CO2 remains deadly forever. It has to be stored, in quantities tens of thousands of times as great as any nuclear waste, until the end of time.
One release from a power plant in an urban area could kill millions of people in an hour, with no chance of escape, no warning, and no way out. Of course, there probably won't be a release.
Just like aircraft probably won't crash. Just like wildfires probably won't happen near your house.
Do we want to trust the same engineers who designed the Pinto car, or Firestone tires, or the Tacoma Narrows bridge, to keep oceans of deadly gas stoppered up for all time?
Coal is the enemy here. "Clean Coal" is just the enemy in sheeps clothing.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
If the midwest can support large windfarms, great... then manufacturing and other heavy industry that have high energy requirements can move there for cheap energy. Why is anyone even considering transmitting it to the coastal regions...
The coastal regions have tidal power available to them or offshore wind farms. Yes these are likely more expensive, but also less expensive than current power generation (in TCO terms) and should be enough to power residential and non-manufacturing industries.
My overall point is that each region has access to 'green' power sources but with varying levels of total potential. Economies and populations can and will adapt to the available resources as they always have. Look at the locations Google and Apple and others are choosing for their large datacenters... locations that have the cheapest energy costs due to local sources of sustainable power generation (hydro, etc). This will continue and adapt to things like windfarms, large solar arrays (whether Stirling or not), tidal... There is no need to invest in large transmission networks or infrastructure. Just allow the distribution of cheap energy to affect the distribution of cheap industry and a balance will be achieved.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
France regenerates almost all of it's nuclear material, producing virtually no waste. Ie It's been done. What are we waiting for?
Trojan shows a case where even "standard" reactor technologies are deficient. In the case of Trojan, the steam system (generators and transport tubes alike) broke down long before the anticipated lifetime of either the plant or the specific items.
A more important objection to Nuclear power is waste disposal. If you think siting a plant meets objections, it ain't nothing to siting a disposal repository. Vitrification, while it holds promise, isn't there yet. Subduction disposal has higher-level objections: countries would have to collectively pull their heads out, over Law of the Sea objections.
The idea that nationwide transmission of electricity is too expensive, therefore we need to do CCS... is laughably stupid. We don't even know HOW to do CCS - the only concepts so far have involved injecting CO2 back into underground rock formations. And no one has any idea how long CO2 injected in this fashion would STAY sequestered. And just CAPTURING C02 is really, really expensive. The only justification for this, as you say, is to give taxpayer dollars to the coal industry.
Maybe building super long-distance transmission isn't cost-effective - I don't know. But to say such transmission lines are too expensive, therefore - CCS - is beyond dumb. It's a non-sequitur.
... that no one has any idea whether the "sequestered" CO2 actually stays out of circulation for any length of time. It seems likely that the first earth tremor in the area of the "sequestration" site would cause an enormous CO2 belch, as new cracks form and let out the stored gas.
3) many reactor technologies that can reduce #1 just haven't been proven to be viable yet(breeder reactors, fast reactors, etc)
I do believe that we already did this years ago in Idaho
Less containment vessels would need to be made with facility reprocessing, like France does with PUREX
except that we do not, because some dumb reason. Instead we will just take it whole and bury it in someones backyard.
Australia has 23% of the worlds uranium and are stepping up their mining. Besides if India gets there way with Thorium
there will be less demand for uranium.
start taking a significant chunk of that energy out of the atmosphere
The largest conceivable wind turbine will be perched atop a tower, at most, several hundred feet tall.
But most of the earth's wind energy is in the jet stream -- totally untappable by wind turbines, because it's far above the accessible altitudes.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The reason we shouldn't "build wind farms as fast as possible" is that they don't provide a good return on investment. And when capital is diverted from a high-return project into a lower-return project, the unemployment rate becomes higher than it otherwise would be. Mindless devotion to everything "green" has consequences: human beings who become more impoverished, and more dependent on coercive transfers of wealth!
As the cost of manufacturing wind turbines decreases, a wind farm's return on investment increases. So sure, we should periodically re-evaluate the feasibility of these projects, and proceed when it makes sense to do so.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
massive quantities of CO2 displace air in a neighborhood with people in it? If this scam is adopted, I hope the author of that article finds this out from experience.
Are all our electronics similarly safe from disruption/destruction by the microwaves from space? If not, this could be a very serious problem. Imagine if a stray microwave beam wreaks havoc with electronics in stoplight controls, hospitals, etc.? Or lucky souls with pacemakers?
--PeterM
there is one extremely low carbon footprint technology that we know works and scales well. Too bad the people who oppose it do so without offering any real alternative besides the "renewables" that we've been waiting decades for or the prospect of a lower standard of living.....
Except nuclear power is not scalable. I can't install one on my roof or in my basement. Nor is it only those who want "renewables" who oppose it. Freemarket and business proponents also oppose it. The Freemarket CATO institute republished the Forbes article "Hooked on Subsidies" explaining why "Why conservatives should join the left's campaign against nuclear power." Quite simply without massive subsides nuclear is not profitable and Wall Street would not fund it. Even in nations that do not have the regulations the US does nuclear power is not profitable. As TFA says:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Oh but I suppose you and or others will say CATO and Forbes are really environmental organizations that oppose nuclear power. Or maybe Finland will be cited, saying nuclear power is profitable there. However "After four years of construction and thousands of recorded defects and deficiencies, the price tag on the reactor in , has climbed at least 50 percent." And "Nuclear dawn delayed in Finland" What's more is that the company building it is Areva and is owned by the French government.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
just wrong.
Objecting because nuclear power is dirty is wrong? Objecting because nuclear power is "Hooked On Subsidies" and is not profitable without those subsidies is wrong? Objecting because cost overruns quadruple the cost of building plants is just wrong?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yeah, reversed in that there is no problem.
Nuclear power doesn't need a massive transmission system"? How does it transmit all that power then, pixel dust? Couldn't solar and wind use the same dust?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You're absolutely right, and that's why we need either nuclear power or a large power transmission grid to lower CO2 emissions.
A new smart grid is needed whether nuclear is used to generate the power or other methods are used. At least using a mix of different energy sources, geothermal, solar, tidal, or wind where appropriate can mitigate it. A national grid can transmit power from where it's being produced in abundance to where it's needed.
The problem with the large power grid is that power is generateed at a 60 Hz frequency.
Not all electricity is produced at 60 Hz. Heck not all is produced as AC, solar PVs produce DC. And over long distances transmitting power via HVDC, High-voltage direct current there is less power loss that AC. Thomas Edison's electric company originally delivered DC power. He got into a war of currents with Tesla when Tesla pushed for AC power. He went so far as to cruelly execute Topsy the elephant with DC.
Oh, I see you mention using DC.
All in all, any solution for making more electricity available is expensive. Conservation is the easiest and cheaper way to implement technically, but it seems, at least in the USA, very difficult for the people to accept.
Agreed! Both with conservation being cheaper and with getting Americans to conserve being hard. One possible solution would be to tax emissions then give ratepayers a refund. Say, if the tax raises the average ratepayer's power bill $100 a month then they receive a $100 refund a month. They can then use the money to improve efficiency. The more energy they save the more money in their pockets.
Falcon
Notice I didn't say I like or approve of the proposal, all I'm doing here is making it. Maybe others can share problems with this one or their own proposal.
Should there be a Law?
You stay within _your_means_ not force me to stay within your means.
But are you paying for everything to support your life? Or are you using cheap subsidized power that passes external costs on to others?
Then why are "conservationist" attempting to take my freedoms away and impose their morality onto me?
As long as you pay for all the costs, and don't pass costs on to others, you can do whatever you want. But when my tax dollars support your life style then I will speak up.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
HVDC can carry about 40% more power over the same lines, compared to AC. The main drawback is that you need to convert to/from AC on either end.
No, you don't need to convert DC to AC and back. Thomas Edison's electric company used DC. The old DC power system wasn't fully converted to AC until 2007. Even today Off the Gridders use DC. It's cheaper and loses less power if you use DC appliances with DC power than it is to convert DC to AC and use AC appliances. Of course this only matters if you only use solar PVs. If you use a hybrid system, solar and geothermal, micro hydro, tidal, or wind, then you'll need an inverter. You'll also need one if you use batteries to store energy.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
All you have to do is build them thar local transmission lines with tax payer money or else he'll drop it to focus on his water monopoly already in place!
I support Picken's plan to erect wind turbines but I don't support government paying to install transmission lines just for him. Instead the whole national grid needs to be rebuilt. In other words I disagree with the writer of TFA.
Oh, another thing, "T. Boone Pickens Wants to Sell Water He Doesn't Own".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Benefit - to whom? Certainly not to the people who have to pay to replace their perfectly good homes...
If it's not efficient then it's not perfectly good. Of course would it be more effective if the home was insulated better and had more efficient heating and cooling or if it is rebuilt will the increased efficiency offset the embedded energy in the home?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Tell that to the freemarket CATO Institute and "Forbes". CATO republished "Forbes'" article "Hooked On Subsidies". Are you going to tell them there's a difference as well?
Especially read where it says "How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Solar panels need subsidies so that people can pretend that they're economical.
Nuclear plants need loans because they are economical,
Nuclear power gets more than loan guarantees. They also get other subsidies. This includes limited liability. The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act limits the amount the industry has to pay in the case of an accident, taxpayers pay anything over $10 billion. Do you really think AIG would insure nuclear power with a big premium? Do you think the industry has paid the Navajo when they were harmed by spills? Or any other indigenous groups?
it's just that the chances of some politicians bowing to the pressure from idiot NIMBY's
Oh so now you want to say CATO, Forbes, as well as other business, capitalist, or freemarket groups are idiot NIMBYs?
killing the construction or making expensive changes to the requirements half way through are so high and the amounts of money so large it's more practical to get the loans from the government.
Reread the part above copied from the CATO and Forbes article about how China, France, India, and Russia do not have profitable nuclear power, and they don't have the requirements the US does. Those governments say what gets built not businesses or the market. Oh, but I've already ascertained you think they are idiot NIMBYs.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"Do you really think AIG would insure nuclear power with a big premium?"
Would any sensible insurance company cover something to the point where is could bankrupt them no matter how unlikely the event in question is?
Navajo
Another person who can't figure out the difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
During the cold war the US government wanted material for weapons, the navajo got screwed.
Oh so now you want to say CATO, Forbes, as well as other business, capitalist, or freemarket groups are idiot NIMBYs?
Where did I call them idiot NIMBYs?
I was saying they know damn well that any investment they make in such projects could be lost due to idiot politicians who know as much about physics and engineering as the average 5 year old and protesters who know less.
which will factor into any risk reward calculation.
Where did I call the french government idiot NIMBY's? they made the smart decision with nuclear power.
Sure the nuclear industry gets some special liability legislation but it has it's downsides, if you build a damn on one river and I build a damn on another and my damn collapses killing thousands of people then you are not liable for my fuckup.
If we both owned nuclear plants and I fucked up then you'd foot part of my bill.
Solar has it's used, as does wind but for powering the grid they're both terrible, no amount of subsidies or happy thoughts are going to change that.
From your own link:
"For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and 'clean coal' $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59."
Calling nuclear bad because (counting fusion research) it gets 1.59 per megawatt hour when your own pet uselessness gets 24.34 isn't in the same league as the pot calling the kettle black.
Nuclear is right down there with the "real" energy sources. You know. The ones which produce the sort of power we need to keep our civilisation going.
If you choose to live in places that are susceptible to flooding and hurricanes, then you can use insurance, pay for it yourself, or live somewhere else in the first place.
Like the people of Bangladesh can pack up their belongings and move to higher ground. And of course they're so wealthy they can afford to pay for land twice, first the land flooded then the land on higher grounds.
Property rights do not generally extend into bodies of water such as these, so it does not surprise me that they are allowed to become contaminated.
Then you think those bodies of water should be privatized? And what of the Inuit? That's what regulations are about, to protect the commons and those who can't protect themselves. I don't like regulations in general, many are advocated by big businesses to keep out competition among other things, but without some there is no way to protect some who are harmed.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"Do you really think AIG would insure nuclear power with a big premium?"
Would any sensible insurance company cover something to the point where is could bankrupt them no matter how unlikely the event in question is?
That was my point, without government subsidies nuclear power would not be able to get their own insurance.
Navajo Another person who can't figure out the difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. During the cold war the US government wanted material for weapons, the navajo got screwed.
Okay how about Yucca Mountain. With the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Ruby Valley between the Western Shoshone and the United States the Shoshone has treaty rights to Yucca. And despite the Shoshone opposing the storage of nuclear waste there it is being forced on them. Yucca is about storing used fuel from power plants not nuclear weapons.
Oh so now you want to say CATO, Forbes, as well as other business, capitalist, or freemarket groups are idiot NIMBYs?
Where did I call them idiot NIMBYs?
You didn't directly but you did imply it when you said how politicians would bow to the pressures of NIMBYs who oppose nuclear power. CATO and the others oppose government subsidies, and without them there would be no nuclear power.
Calling nuclear bad because (counting fusion research) it gets 1.59 per megawatt hour when your own pet uselessness gets 24.34 isn't in the same league as the pot calling the kettle black.
I don't call nuclear bad because it is subsidized. It is bad because it is environmentally bad. Now you may not care about the environment but it is what gives you life. As for subsidies I oppose virtually all subsidies. I don't care whether it's agriculture, coal, corn based ethanol, nuclear, solar, or wind. They should not be getting subsidies like they have been year after year after year.
Instead of my tax dollars going to these subsidies I'd rather keep the money and spend it on what I what. I'd rather support local farmers by going to the farmer's markets or coops than have billions of my, and your, tax dollars given to Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. I'd rather be able to choose to buy my electricity from whomever I want rather than have government give power companies and industries I oppose subsidies. And I want externalities accounted, paid, for by those who create them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
So you oppose government funding(subsidies) of nuclear fusion research?
Environmentally nuclear is vastly better than all the other serious energy sources.
Wind and solar are not serious energy sources as is hinted by how much subsidies they need and unless you want to spend the whole GNP of the US on building solar panels for a few years we're not going to get any serious ammount of energy from it.
Now you may not care about the environment but it is what gives you life
I also hate freedom, America and fluffy kittens.
Cut the crap.
And I want externalities [wikipedia.org] accounted, paid, for by those who create them.
ok
So if you paint your house pink and knock some off the property value of your neighbours house then you're fine with getting a bill for however many thousand the value of their property dropped?
Guess what.
I give a fuck about the environment too but I have the sense to realise that having a little bioreactor in your neighbourhood for you to drop your bucket of crap and garden clippings into isn't going to provide enough energy to run much of anything.
Adding "distributed" to the description of a power source does not make it magically practical.
Something is still going to need to provide the power to run the aluminium foundries and nuclear is the cleanest, safest long term solution for that.
People like to go "but but but DISTRIBUTED!" or "lets use lots of sources!!!"
When you point out that even if you ignore the price and upkeep the basic problem with renewable is that you can't get enough power out of them, there simply isn't enough extractable energy in the waves that hit our shores, the wind that blows over our hills or the rivers that flow down those hills.
Lets run through the check lists.
Nuclear:
Short: It's cheap, it's predictable, uranium can be obtained in effectively unlimited quantities once the price hits 150 dollars a pound and it becomes economic to extract it from seawater, it's clean, if you provided the entire worlds energy needs from nuclear and reprocessed then the entire high level waste for a year could fit in one swimming pool.(though you wouldn't want to pack it quite this tight)
Nuclear waste isn't some mystical evil that has to be imprisoned for all eternity away from everything that lives. You can burn it up in special reactors or if you want a cheap option just bury it for a thousand years out in the desert and wait for it to decay into something no more dangerous than natural uranium ore.
There are lots of alternatives.
Now personally I'm not mad on the above simply because I can imagine people in the future wanting to dig the waste back up again to make it into more useful fuel like we dig up old roman slag piles from their mines to get the useful material they couldn't.
Wind is nice but it's unpredictable and bigger wind farms kill migrating birds.This isn't that bad a problem since lots of things kill birds but it's also expensive to maintain. Offshore wind farms suffer from the salt water and need a lot of maintenance.
Solar is cute but it's expensive and unpredictable and once it gets serious we can expect some "save the desert" campaigns. It'd be nice to coat the sahara in solar panels but you'd need some sort of international superconducting power grid to make any use of it which would be very very very expensive.
Together they can never provide more than 20% of the grids needs simply for stability reasons. This is pretty much a hard cap, once you get more than that from unpredictable sources rolling blackouts start to become a real problem.
Hydro is nice and predictable but we're already using most of it's available energy and it takes land and screws up things for river life.
Tidal is nice and predictable but destroys coastal ecosystems and there's only a tiny number of places where it could generate decent power.
Fusion is a work in progress but will be expensive and won't be here for decades.
Coal is cheap and easy but dirty, same goes for other fossil fuels and they're gonna run out pretty soon.
Nuclear is the only realistic option long term unless fusion makes some very very big advances soon.
Environmentally nuclear is vastly better than all the other serious energy sources.
Prove it.
Now that I asked fro proof I'll provide my own evidence which supports my position as well as contradicts yours. "Report: Wind the Best Energy; Nuclear, Coal and Ethanol the Worst". "For Cheap Clean Energy, Go Geothermal, Study Says". "Oregon Geothermal Energy = Baseload Energy".
Wind and solar are not serious energy sources as is hinted by how much subsidies they need
By that criteria nuclear power is not a serious energy source because it needs massive subsidies. Not only does it need guarantied loans but it also needs it's liability limited and government disposal of it's waste. All alternative energy sources put together including geothermal, solar, tidal, wind, even biofuels only get a fraction of the subsidies nuclear power gets. "While renewable energy may require subsidies for the immediate future, nuclear power needs subsidies forever." From the Financial Times:
"'But those hoping for handouts would be disappointed. The "incentives" for nuclear and carbon capture and storage are only there to "help a nascent sector grow', he said."
"We are not going to achieve a competitive [nuclear] sector by handing out subsidies... we are not in the business of giving out subsidies. We are in the business of maintaining a level playing field."
"It's telling that the 'level playing field' the industry wants and the one the government wants bear little resemblance to each other."
Something is still going to need to provide the power to run the aluminium foundries and nuclear is the cleanest, safest long term solution for that.
Neither you nor anyone else has proven that nuclear power is clean yet I have provided evidence solar and wind are clean. Such as 2 of the links I provide above. Studies linked to say both wind and geothermal and cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. Now will you provide links to evidence says nuclear is cleaner?
Lets run through the check lists.
I provide evidence that this list is wrong, where is yours saying you're right? And for one on that list, "Wind is nice but it's unpredictable and bigger wind farms kill migrating birds", buildings cats, and cars kill more birds than turbines.
Try again.
Together they can never provide more than 20% of the grids needs simply for stability reasons. This is pretty much a hard cap, once you get more than that from unpredictable sources rolling blackouts start to become a real problem.
So you know more about solar power than the writers of the SciAm article "A Solar Grand Plan", and know more about wind power than the writers of a new study in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science" as well as those who created the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States at the National Renewable Energy Lab? What is your degree in and where did you get it so that you're smarter than they are? The SciAm article says that by 2050 solar energy can provide 69% of the US's electrical needs. The National Acad
Should there be a Law?
Prove it.
Government-2006 energy review
http://www.carbon-info.org/carbonnews_100.htm
Also I take it you couldn't re arsed reading this when I linked to it earlier.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/cft.pdf
read it.
for the love of god read it.
Your sources seem to be nothing more than opinion pieces with broken links.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-wind-the-best-energy-nuclear-coal-and-ethanol-the-worst-5352/
If Jacobson ranked nuclear bellow tidal and solar for "overall potential to generate electricity" then he's a moron.
Jacobsen makes some fairly heroic assumptions ? even charging civilian nuclear power generation with the carbon emissions (and loss of life) of a 50x15-kiloton nuclear war! By contrast, he charges his favored power sources with no "opportunity cost emissions", as though they faced no delays in permitting, environmental reviews, transmission-line construction, and equipment backlogs.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/for-cheap-clean-energy-go-geothermal-study-says/
An MIT study that's much more extensive suggests geothermal is damn risky; loss of water to the formation, loss of heat over time, dry (cold) holes that are non-productive; difficult drilling conditions (hot etc). And, geothermal is rarely near city the user base... so add long transmission lines...
Sure geothermal is great for some things, it may cause small earthquakes but that's not too bad but depending on how you use it it can be more like oil drilling, you extract all the heat from a given area and it takes thousands of years to replenish.
I wouldn't complain at seeing a fair investment in geothermal but can it provide what we need? only a little.
We need power everywhere, not just where there's pleanty of geothermal near the surface.
By that criteria nuclear power is not a serious energy source
By the grand total subsidies or the subsidies per megawatt? the second is what matters and by that criteria nuclear is very good. You know why solar and wind don't get as much total? because they're no hopers. They get money to placate people who know fuck all about generating power for the grid but want a symbol of how very green their power is.
Studies linked to say both wind and geothermal and cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. Now will you provide links to evidence says nuclear is cleaner?
Did you even read my post?wind+solar cannot be used for more than 20% of the grid. Add in some kind of smart grid and you might, might just push that up to 30% and that's at an insane cost.
Geothermal is fantastic for the few places where there's magma near the surface, otherwise drilling a hole 15km deep and keeping it open can be a problem.
Plus you use up the heat in a region and you stop getting geothermal power out and you have to drill a new hole.
This isn't that bad a problem since lots of things kill birds but it's also expensive to maintain. Offshore wind farms suffer from the salt water and need a lot of maintenance.
I know reading is hard but try it some time.
This isn't that bad a problem since lots of things kill birds but it's also expensive to maintain. Offshore wind farms suffer from the salt water and need a lot of maintenance.
I made the point that is isn't a big problem.
The bigger problem is how expensive it is and how short the lifetimes of turbines is.
Off shore ones suffer particularly badly.
Try again.
A Solar Grand Plan
Government-2006 energy review
http://www.carbon-info.org/carbonnews_100.htm
That is from 2006 when the then president, Bush, waged a war against science. I also noticed it says "nuclear energy produces significantly less CO2 compared to the normal fossil fuels" and says in the graph that wind emits 10 grams of CO2 per KWh and nuclear only emits 7. There is nothing there about solar.
Also I take it you couldn't re arsed reading this when I linked to it earlier.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/cft.pdf
Three hundred and eighty three pages? My eye's be killing me after 10 pages. I did go through the chapter on solar and the paragraphs themselves focus on solar in Great Britain. Figure 6.16 only lists 2 locations in GB for average sunshine, W/m^2, the greater of the 2 is London with 109. New York City and the rainy city of Seattle, WA, on the other hand each show 147. LA, CA, shows 225. The chapter on wind says that though it doesn't provide enough energy to power the UK it can provide some and provide it economically. However SciAm's article "A Grand Solar Plan" says that by 2050 solar power can provide 69% of the US's electrical needs. And the study Global potential for wind-generated electricity published by the National Academy if Sciences of the USA says wind can provide "40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms."
You know why solar and wind don't get as much total? because they're no hopers. They get money to placate people who know fuck all about generating power for the grid but want a symbol of how very green their power is.
Only those who know nothing about solar and wind support it? Those who live Off the grid know nothing? They're only source of electricity is alternatives sources but they know nothing? John Doerr, appointed a member of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board knows little? As venture capitalist and partner of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers he has invested billions in alternative energy but he knows nothing? Vinod Khosla, cofounder of Sun and another venture capitalist also knows little?
Did you even read my post?wind+solar cannot be used for more than 20% of the grid
Did you read the science links I provided saying solar can provide 69% of the electricity of the USA by 2050 and that wind could provide 400% of the world's energy?
Add in some kind of smart grid and you might, might just push that up to 30% and that's at an insane cost.
According to the article "Lifeline for Renewable Power" by Tech Review currently because the grid is now failing it costs businesses $80 billion dollars a year, so the grid needs to be rebuilt and made smart period. Even with more nuclear power plants that's true. But you're only using it against solar and wind, which is hypocritical.
Geothermal is fantastic for the few places where there's magma near the surface
I agree geothermal is not usable everywhere, no energy source even nuclear power is good everywhere. That's why I want a mix of different energy sources used. Biofuels can be used for fuel for things like aircrafts. The US Department of Defense is working to create biodiesel for jets.
Should there be a Law?