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Harry Reid Pushes Nevada As "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy"
An anonymous reader writes "Of all the 'mainstream' forms of renewable energy, it seems that geothermal power is always left in the shadows compared to solar and wind power. However, that looks set to change with news that the US Department of Energy will fund geothermal projects in northwestern Nevada and southeast Oregon. With funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the DOE has stated a 'conditional commitment' to provide a partial guarantee for a rumored $98.5 million loan to the Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP). According to US Senator Harry Reid, 'Northern Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy.'"
... that kind of kills it for me. Any politician making such proclamations must be taken with a pound of salt. Wasn't Nevada also proclaimed as the dumping ground for nuclear and toxic waste?
Las Vegas is the Saudi Arabia of prostitution, booze, gambling, and insane energy use.
It looks like Harry Reid is trying to use the Saudia Arabia of geothermanl energy to power the Saudi Arabia of prostitution.
As long as nobody tries to put a veil on the hookers this plan sounds good to me.
is that unlike wind and solar, it's always on. This makes it much more difficult to explain why it won't meet baseline demand.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
There are far too many women driving around in Nevada!
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Of course it is. Since it's your state, Mr. Reid, it couldn't possibly be anywhere else, right?
That's one of the things I always hated about politicians. They always think their state is the best at ::insert arbitrary thing here::. I got news for you, bud: it's America. Hardly anything here is the best. A lot of it is very good, some of it is even awesome, and some things are even legendary in how amazing they are...but I think saying best is generally pushing it.
-American who loves his country, which is why he can be honest about it
Living With a Nerd
Only if you've never been to Iceland (everything is expensive there except electricity and hot water).
How much is that in sensible scientific measurements like Libraries of Congress or Football Fields per Square Barleycorn?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Geothermal isn't really that renewable!
I don't pretend to any knowledge on the subject, but wouldn't the Yellowstone Caldera be the picture perfect place for the development of geothermal energy?
ideopath @ play
On behalf of California, I'd like to ask you to please restrict your funding of drilling holes into the crust to the other side of the country, or maybe like the middle, y'know? Really far away from fault lines, basically.
If you accidentally tick off The Big One and Southern California falls into the ocean, all you'll have left are those crazy Northern California people, and we'll -so- become a Red State.
Trust me, your boss doesn't want that.
Yeah, I know its possible to do geothermal energy safely. Its also possible to make earthquakes with it. Let's side over on the cautious end in the west coast, shall we?
And where pray tell does he propose to get the necessary water for this project?
Here are a few more sources for info. regarding the contract...posted for no other reason than my own annoyance with Inhabitat =P
DOE Press Release with Media Contact Number
Sustainable Business Blog, apparently the initial plant will produce 49.5 MW in capacity
Home website of NGP, the contract winner
Write up from EON, with quite a bit more info, including contact info. for various parties involved.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Nevada.
How baked was he? Seriously, was the bong still in his hand?
Or central New Mexico (the Socorro Seismic Anomaly), where there's another honking huge magma chamber. Or pretty near anywhere in the Cascades, or any of Arizona's volcanic fields, or anywhere near Pacific subduction zone, or ...
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
From the Colorado River -- Nevada has been trying to get a greater allocation for a long time and this would get the Feds in on their side. Or, of course, there's all the sewage from Las Vegas. Whenever the wind is headed out of state they can just use that for coolant.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
In Saudi Arabia geothermal energy pushes Harry Reid?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
cool!
You guys should read "Solar" by Ian McEwan.
'conditional commitment' to provide a partial guarantee for a rumored $98.5 million loan
News, huh?
Please be assured that it is statistically unlikely that drilling holes to capture geothermal energy will cause a large enough quake to send southern California into the ocean.
Additionally, please be assured that, should an earthquake send southern California into the ocean, we will ensure northern California follows. With nuclear weapons, if need be.
Sincerely,
US Department of Energy
I was part of a crew that put in a geothermal installation at New Mexico State University the still provides hot water to the dorms and heats the 2 swimming pools. Four and a half miles of insulated pipe, a heat exchanger and a 25,000 gallon hot water tank. The University Presidents house has it's own system. So this isn't all that new. The only things that would improve it are better piping and shallower hot water. We had wells delivering 142 degrees F at the wellhead but they were in the 950 foot range and that is expensive.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Earthquakes in San Fransisco will be the least of your worries. The last eruption of the Yellowstone caldera 640,000 years ago
shot 240 cubic miles of rock and dust into the sky.
Geothermal energy is everywhere. The Earth has about 5000 years' supply. The skills and equipment for getting it are the same as drilling for oil. The only downside is that geothermal production brings up nasty stuff (such as sulfur) that has to be handled.
Geothermal would be a good activity for the oil drillers displaced by the moratorium on gulf drilling or more generally if we switch to electric cars and alternative fuels.
Geothermal is not always on. It turns off, once the heat is drained to a level where it needs be re-heated from deeper down in earth. And that re-heating is so slow that renewable Geothermal will always be a small-sized contribution in the energy mix:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c16/page_96.shtml
has the coolest fucking name. . We are lacking in specific security concerns with Geothermal, however. It is clean, and available everywhere, but we are not fully prepared for the inevitable moleman and oversized fire-breathing and/or acid spitting lizard contingencies. But these risks are nothing compared to 20 cascading boneheaded mistakes at a nuclear power plant.
another republiCUNT.
Seriously... if you only see failure in the party you hate, you're not seeing the whole picture.
Take that hate, and hate them ALL with us. Not just Obama, or the democrats... but the republicans to.
Lets put aside "Jesus" and "Abortion"... and lets actually pick up shovels and start filling the fucking hole left by the these criminal con artists we call elected representatives.
And so is this one!
The Arab world doesn't need prostitutes. They just rape any woman they feel like and if she kicks up a fuss, they sentence her to death by stoning for allowing herself to be raped and shaming her family. It's a very efficient system.
Can you take geothermal energy, put it in a container and ship it to Atlanta? Saudi Arabia it is not. But more power to Nevada if they want to sustain their own state and nearby neighbors with geothermal.
Actually when it comes to Geothermal energy production you don't actually need volcanic activity at all. Another method of collecting and converting geothermal energy is the hot dry rocks (HDR) method. The advantage with HDR is that you dont have to install power converters in geologically unstable environs like in iceleand etc thus you can imagine the insurance costs are way lower.
"Sharron Angle is fucking crazy. [huffingtonpost.com]"
Well, if the HuffPuff said it, then I'm sold.
BTW, if you think Sharon Angle is crazy for wanting to eliminate several departments in the Federal government, and phase out Social Security as it currently exists, then you're going to be mighty shocked at how many crazy people there are.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
That seems far less useful, she won't even know what to do. The whole point of a pro is that they are pros.
The Sheldon National Antelope Refuge is that area.
The environmentalists will fight it to the end. The land outside the refuge is all Federal, and it will take 10 years to permission to begin the EIS. then another 10 years minimum to finish that and be ready to start construction.
If we are lucky, Congress will decide to start selling all that Federal Land so they can fund their pork and/or SS for awhile longer, then you might see some activity.
There is a lot of nice scenery out there, once you calibrate to desert values. I used to live in Winnemucca, and still sort of miss it. I'd move back for a geothermal project.
He's had 40 fucking years to make Nevada "the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy". Now all of a sudden he wants to?
Just another pitiful politician saying anything to win.
power companies, some of the most profitable industries around, ie they will always be making money because you need your lights on, are getting a subsidy! this goes to show you how corrupt the US really is. If Geothermal was the next fossil fuel, it would be making so much profit it wouldn't need the government to inject imaginary money into it. The little guy would never get 98 million. What if you came up with element zero in your garage and could solve the worlds energy problems? no $$$ for you, and you would be quickly regulated out of business by special interest controlled politicians.
"Harry Reid Pushes Nevada As "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy""
Plenty of cheap energy, but they cut your nuts off if you're caught kissing in public. Isn't the crazy theocracy thing supposed to be the Republican's shtick?
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Current generation (ie. already built) breeders are also utter crap in terms of energy production and only really useful for making material for nuclear weapons if you don't already have a huge stockpile of that material or other ways to make it. Iran and North Korea might contemplate them but nobody else would bother - other nations with nuclear ambitions are happy enough with CANDU since they won't need a lot of bombs in a hurry.
Upcoming technologies such as accelerated thorium on the other hand are reported in the press as breeders but are completely different to dead ends like superphoenix (the French extended a middle digit in the direction of the ban as they can be depended on to do).
They're building 2 BN-800's over the next few years. We know that Integral Fast Reactors eat nuclear waste. We could shut down uranium mining and still run the world for 500 years just burning today's 'waste', which is actually now a $70 trillion dollar resource. Today's nuclear power can also burn nuclear weapons. 10% of American electricity comes from old Soviet nuclear weapons.
The final IFR waste product burns itself back to safe levels in just 300 years. GE has a plan for the S-PRISM 300 MW reactor which can be cheaply mass-produced on the production line (where one can go to town on inspection standards) and is then delivered to the site off the back of a truck! This smaller reactor is also ideal for smaller 3rd world electricity grids. Want to replace a large coal plant? Just order 5, and you might even get free fries!
The IFR is the silver bullet that could solve peak oil, global warming, and our nuclear waste problems in one hit. It's taken me 6 years of greenie activism and reading to realise that renewables just can't cut it on their own, and that we need a new approach. This is it, my old arch-enemy, nuclear power! Who woulda thunk it?
The Arab world doesn't need prostitutes. They just rape any woman they feel like and if she kicks up a fuss, they sentence her to death by stoning for allowing herself to be raped and shaming her family. It's a very efficient system.
So much for civilized government and an educated society.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
but apparently it's a deadly neurotoxin.
And here like sheep we simply drink it. Well I don't, I have an reverse osmosis water filter.
The Burglar Class runs our nation now. See, as one minor example, this excellent narrative of the highly profitable takedown of Bear Sterns and Lehman Bros (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64824). This means that no measures that actually would diminish the role of money as the prime determiner of national outcomes will be allowed to be passed, or if passed, enforced. It's over. Change will happen only when we crash hard against the wall of reality, after which perhaps some will be able to make something of the fragments. Reality is not of the opinion that money = merit. And as a consequence, we and the other kleptocracies are going down. Changing direct election of senators is only a minor rearrangement of deck chairs. It's nothing more than a shiny object offered to keep attention directed at the delusion.
If we get a spill, could we break the record of 190 km in length.
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article156753.ece
I mean, come on already - Nevada Salt Flats - Sun - Mirrors, Salt - Salt - Salt - let's get some salt a molten
The recent issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine passes the engineering trade offs between energy and fresh drinking water. Isn't Nevada somewhat deprived with the chunk of the Lake Meade aqua resources heading into California?
The actual state most likely to qualify as a "Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy" is Wyoming. Remember the Yellowstone supervolcano? The caldera is tens of miles wide. We need to drill into the magma at a thousand places and extract heat, not only for the energy , but also because reducing the temperature down there relieves the pressure, and makes it less likely that the volcano will go off!
I am not a dentist either, although I did just take both of my kids to the dentist today, and got a sweet estimate for 1400 bucks worth of work on baby teeth (woo hoo!). Gotta love private medicine.
The little mountain town I live in does not fluorinate the water, maybe this has something to do with my kids teeth issues. Maybe it's genetics. I don't know, but regardless, we have some very clean water, as indicated by the annual water quality report I received a couple of days ago. The water tastes pretty darned good and given the generally low temperatures here year round it's quite cold right from the tap, which is a plus.
I do run RO/DI for my aquarium, and considered dual purposing the RO portion for drinking water, but opted not to, as I don't like the taste of RO water. To each his own.
Ocean is land, covered with water.
...and if you think huffington post is a reliable source of information...
And if you look around, nearly all the radio stations that were around 30 years ago are now gone completely or their call letters used by Cumulus, ClearChannel or similar propaganda engine. If you look around at newspapers, you'll see that nearly all the newspapers have disappeared in all but title. Some still kind of exist, but are something more like the bare minimum to expect from a high school paper. How can any country have open and democratic elections with out a forum for discussing facts and debating positions?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
So I guess we should expect geothermal jihadists from Nevada blowing up BP (occupiers of the Nevada holy land) gas stations with Ford Expeditions. So beware of Nevadans who want to learn how to drive but not park.
That whole 'Saudi Arabia' thing is getting to be a tad overused. I, for one, am the Saudi Arabia of sexytime. Ladies, please. Not all at once. Mecca is down there, if you know what I mean.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Does Reid intend to pretend to develop geothermal energy in Nevada while discreetly funding terrorist drilling platforms? Reid is a giant douche. He is exactly what's broken about politics, and now that he's about to get his ass handed to him by the voters who are no longer interested in being bribed with pork he's grasping at whatever he thinks can save him. Guess what, Harry? You're finished. You had your chance to be a public servant and you chose to serve yourself and your own massive ego instead. You might as well just step in front of a train tonight, you worthless bum.
Goodbye. I'm moving to a state that doesn't punish me for being successful. I can live like a king in FL or TX instead of the $800k shit shack I currently live in in LA, and I'm sure they'll welcome the revenue my small business will bring.
Sincerely,
Millionaires
What the FUCK is a partial guarantee?!
Support my political activism on Patreon.
He thinks it's full of beer-dodging polygamous fundies? That's totally unfair.
He must have it mixed up with Utah.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
According to Open Secrets Reid was the #1 campaign funds recipient from alternative energy. At $52,730 he garnered over 4 times as much as the second place recipient, Barbara Boxer.
Perhaps that has something to do with Mr. Reid's sudden interest in geothermal energy.
Does this mean that in Las Vegas they will force all of the hookers into Burquas? I mean I guess this could be an improvement in some of the seedier parts of town. But the No Booze thing will totally kill the Casinos. Maybe they will ban gambling too. I know maybe instead or thousands of people circling the big squar black stone they can circle the big black pyramid that is luxor.
Of course with all of the money from the new energy source will they start sponsoring terrorists in other states?
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
While he's making statements about Nevada being the Saudi Arabia of Geothermal... remember that all these geothermal plants are in the 10's MW range. We build coal, oil, gas and nuclear power plants on the scale of 100's and 000's of MW. We need to replace 1000's MW of ageing coal and nuclear plants. Please, let me know when the geothermal plants are being built on that scale.
...then you're going to be mighty shocked at how many crazy people there are.
Oh, believe me - I AM shocked by how many crazy people there are.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Your post is inadmissible on /.
Please stay withing the accepted norms of hyperbole, divisiveness, and exaggeration.
I can confirm that this is true.
There is at LEAST an equal amount of planet Earth underneath Nevada as there is underneath Saudi Arabia.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
I can't wait to read page upon page of bashing. The evil have successful pulled the wool over the eyes of the ignorant in this country yet again.
Sharon Angle sure likes to see the words Sharon Angle on Sharon Angle's webpage.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You say 'Nevada' I say 'Nevada'
'Northern Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy.'
Neither the TFA nor Harry Reid back up that claim. Until facts such as how many terawatts geothermal can generate in Nevada versus California and Hawaii then Nevada will remain behind CA and HA in capacity. As for a Saudi Arabia of Geothermal energy, that title belongs to Iceland. However TFA MIT STUDY: GeoThermal to Supply 10% of Energy Demands says:
"You'll be happy to know that the United States is ahead of the rest of the world, being the largest producer of geothermal energy. And, according to Nafi Toksöz, a geophysicist at MIT, the combined energy of geothermal plants in California, Hawaii, Utah and Nevada is comparable to all the solar and wind power produced throughout the U.S."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Personally, I think we should have term limits, but that will never fly as Congress itself would have to approve it.
Congress does not have to approve an amendment to the constitution. Two thirds, 34, states can call for a convention. No congressional approval needed. Then three quarters of the states, 38, can approve the amendment.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Opposes fluoridation, the UN and the Department of Education.
Good, I'm not sure, and good.
Fluoridation causes a few health problems from weak, stained, teeth and skeletal damage, to cancer, fluoride is a mutagen.
I don't really care much about the UN. I especially don't like it when people say the US has to follow UN rules, even when they are unconstitutional and deny sovereignty.
The federal Department of Education? Where is it mentioned in the Costitution of the USA? It isn't so it isn't authorized.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Basically, show me the study. I mean, did you spot the error in this paragraph?
Where did he get the quote for 'clean coal'... the coal industry? Show me ONE full scaled "clean coal" plant in operation today! THAT's the industry that is a myth.
;-)
Now don't get me wrong: there have been nuclear cost blow outs on a massive scale. As the pharmaceutical companies say in their defence, "These pills might only cost 20cents each, but the first one cost us a billion!" Same with new technology nukes. However, climatologist Professor Barry Brook has been studying nuclear power avidly the past year or so, and documents his findings on the price of today's technology here.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/23/recent-nuclear-power-cost-estimates-separating-fact-from-myth/
let alone the enormous benefits of putting smaller, modular 300MW IFR's on the production line and then mass-producing them with world's best standards inspections, putting them on the back of a truck, and delivering them on site. If you order 4 you might even get free fries with that.
GE have a plan for a small version that could be produce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-PRISM
Don't get me wrong: I love renewables. But for that portion of the grid that just HAS TO be reliable, baseload power, independent of the fickle nature of the weather or less sunlight due to the wrong SEASON, I say we use nukes that can be built cheaper than coal, actually deal with the legacy of nuclear waste left to us from the previous generation's inferior plants. Add electric cars and fast rail to the mix and these could solve global warming, peak oil and nuclear waste in one hit!
No I didn't. I pointed out how both parties use filibusters but you only want Democrats to use them. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. You however only fault Republicans as if only Democrats can use them. As for my use of the citation, I used it because it was the second result for filibusters democrats republicans, the first being wiki. Another result says how Democrats used filibusters to block 10 Bush judicial nominees from a yes-or-no vote in 2003. Why is it alright for Democrats to use filibusters to block yes-or-no votes but not Republicans use of it for health insurance reform? You say how the article I first posted agreed that more people agreed when Democrats used filibusters than when Republicans do, but you neglected the health bill. A majority of people opposed the bill but Nancy Pelosi decided to ram it down people's throats anyway. She didn't care what voters wanted, and I hope she loses here seat because of it. Along with other Democrats.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
No. You are now creating several straw man arguments. I did not say that Democrats can use it but Republicans cannot - you did, and I pointed out already that straw man. I also didn't say it was OK to use it to block judicial nominees but not healthcare reform. Indeed I said nothing about the uses to which it's put.
I also didn't make the argument that Democratic use of the filibuster is OK because Democrats represent more people. You did, when you offered that article which consists entirely of that argument. I only agreed that argument has some validity, and that it certainly doesn't make the point you keep trying to make - it makes the opposite point.
There are plenty of arguments to be made in favor of those straw men you offer, like how the republic part of our governmental system is designed precisely to give representatives power to lead even when an action is not popular. I could back it up with polls showing that now that HCR is law, and opponents have stopped pumping time and money into fighting it (while proponents have stopped doing so to boost it), people actually learning about the actual law and its actual effects have reversed those earlier polls. HCR is now now popular than unpopular, growing in popularity faster than it became unpopular, and following the exact same trend as every other healthcare or other social protection programme, from Medicare to Social Security to universal education to universal electric or telephone service. Right down to Republicans filibustering it on the argument that it's "armageddon", while Democrats manage to eventually pass it.
All votes are "yes-no" votes. Republicans filibustered many more Clinton or Obama judicial appointees than Democrats filibustered Bush's or Reagan/Bush's, while only Republicans tried to "ram them down our throats" by trying to eliminate the filibuster itself.
But again, those are straw men. I debunk them only to show the weakness of even the fallacies you offer. If the best you can do is fallacies, evidence that argues against you but you offer because it's the second Google result (failing at even cherrypicking results), and chanting Republican buzzwords, you're not going to convince anyone of anything. Only your fellow Republicans will agree, and they'll obviously stick together on anything - that's how filibusters work.
--
make install -not war
No. You are now creating several straw man arguments. I did not say that Democrats can use it but Republicans cannot
Going up the thread this is where you say "I've watched it. But if you think it's 'fighting corruption' now, you should look into what the minority Republicans do to filibuster. They just notify Reid (the Senate Majority Leader) that they will filibuster, and Reid accepts that they will. Or they use any of the many points in the legislative path to refuse "unanimous consent" to some rule erected to create that option, and derail the process." As if only Democrats can use filibusters. You do not explicitly state it, it is implicit (implied though not directly expressed;).
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
No, I am not implying that. You are inferring that.
What I am explicitly saying is that Republicans have abused the filibuster, and that the filibuster rules must be changed to prevent its abuse. I have said it over and over again. I have also rejected your inference that the legitimacy of its use is determined by which party.
In fact what I have said over and over is that Republicans abuse the filibuster, so the rules must be changed.
You are the one who keeps trying to turn that into a purely partisan argument, that only X Party can/cannot use the filibuster. Because you are a Republican, Republicans like you always want special rules beneficial to your party and prohibitive to the other, and you want Democrats prohibited from using the filibuster just like your Republican Party wanted to eliminate it when Democrats had it available.
That's enough. You're just part of the pool of Republicans who want special privileges, and then blame Democrats when you don't get them.
Goodbye.
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make install -not war
No, you are the confused one. Verify it yourself, read the Constitution of the USA. Article 1 - The Legislative Branch lists the House and Senate as part of the legislature. The second part is The Executive Branch, and the last part of the federal government is The Judicial Branch.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If I make any kind of assertion I have to prove it not you. This is not really related at all.
Do you not recall what you said? Or do you not understand? I included it in my post. Specifically "I pointed out that if you make assertions of any kind you have to provide proof." If I assert you did not give me a million dollars, a negative assertion, I can not prove it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?