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The Presidential Candidate With a Plan To Run the US On 100% Clean Energy
merbs writes: Thus far, no other candidate has said they're going to make climate change their top priority. Martin O'Malley has not only done that, but he has outlined a plan that would enact emissions reductions in line with what scientists say is necessary to slow global climate change—worldwide emissions reductions of 40-70 percent by 2050. He's the only candidate to do that, too. His plan would phase out fossil-fueled power plants altogether, by midcentury.
Thus far, no other candidate has said they're going to make climate change their top priority.
Ever notice how politicians' plans are always far out in the future? Sure, 35 years is within the scope of of most of our lives, but usually they are well past the time that the politicians proposing them will be around to face the consequences. We hear the same thing all the time about balancing the budget and paying down the deficit ever since Reagan, but neither one has happened yet.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Then it's not a plan. It's just a bullshit pipe dream that he's selling you for your vote.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
His Op-Ed doesn't mention nuclear even once. Going full renewable in 35 years is one hell of a goal to shoot for. We have all the renewable energy we will ever need available but we don't currently have any way to store it in a grid scale type of way - and he only mentions storage once.
Nuclear isn't clean by any stretch, but it is 'clean air' which is what we probably need most right now. I'd love to see full renewable but a more reasonable plan would be nuclear in the short (30-50) year term while renewable/storage becomes grid capable.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
We hear the same thing all the time about balancing the budget and paying down the deficit ever since Reagan, but neither one has happened yet.
At least 50% false (because I have no idea what was done with the "surplus" in those years): http://www.heritage.org/multim...
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
AKA the ruin-the-economy candidate.
Human progress since the Industrial Revolution has been based on cheap energy. While in principle I'm all for clean energy, on the timeline he's talking about it will result in a massive increase in energy costs, essentially running us backwards. (It does create jobs, but only in the broken windows sense)
He needs to find a position that's still progressive, but realistic. Voters, even the ones that are actually well-informed and think this through, are not going to pick a candidate that puts clean energy over the economy and their individual well-being.
Thus far, no other candidate has said they're going to make climate change their top priority.
Ever notice how politicians' plans are always far out in the future? Sure, 35 years is within the scope of of most of our lives, but usually they are well past the time that the politicians proposing them will be around to face the consequences. We hear the same thing all the time about balancing the budget and paying down the deficit ever since Reagan, but neither one has happened yet.
Amen to that.
If we are gonna claim to be serious about cutting emissions, France has already proven the technology to do so has already existed for a long time. We can start funding the deployment of nuclear power on a large scale now. The technology all existed to transition years ago already when France did it and used it to this day to sell energy to the rest of Europe.
Meandering mouth service to researching solar or wind or some other solution isn't bad per se, but it is absolutely inadequate to stop there. There are real concrete actions that can be taken today by anyone that is truly motivated and convinced of the importance to do so.
The Presidential Candidate with an Unrealistic Campaign Promise
bonus: you can reuse it for any of them
Many of us in Maryland know this character ALL too well already. Typical liberal "tax and spend" agenda is what you can expect from him. "We're the government and we know what's best for you."
Thanks, but no thanks.
Look, "climate change" may be the hot discussion topic right now - but it's crazy thinking we can put a serious dent in it and "turn it around" simply by shutting down a bunch of our nation's power generation plants! (Right now, we're finally coming around in energy self-sufficiency, largely because of the discovery of large natural gas and shale oil deposits. Folks like O'Malley would discard all of this as "bad fossil fuels", even though much of the rest of the world will keep on using fossil fuel energy sources anyway. That means we're at a big economic disadvantage. Will be far cheaper to get things done in the nations that have lower cost energy to get them done for us -- so leads to more outsourcing of manufacturing and jobs, not to mention job loss in our country for people in the business of gathering, processing and selling those forms of energy.)
Fossil fuel usage will decline as better alternatives become economically viable. (Who wouldn't rather get "free energy" from the wind, the natural flow of water, or the sun shining down on us?) Those options are being worked on by lots of people and we're putting them into use as fast as it makes economic sense to do so. But you can't just "legislate them into exclusive usage" and pretend that's a problem solver! Whenever you're legally FORCED to use a technology that doesn't make good economic sense, you just increase the cost of living, destroy job availability and drive people to find other places in the world where alternatives are still allowed.
Frankly, I think nuclear power is still the obvious best option for large scale centralized power generation -- but the type of reactors needed to do it safely are VERY costly to construct and still have to overcome a lot of negativity from "OMG, nuclear! It's gonna kill us all!" types who don't understand the technology very well. Again, it's something that will naturally come with time (and as given fossil fuels become scarce enough to run their price up enough to make these alternatives look better).
yeah exactly. stop with the plans that take place when you have no control anymore
tell me what you are going to do to clean up the messes that the previous presidents have made in your actual term
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
but a candidate's position on clean energy is only like 1% of the reason to vote for them.
This is politics at it's best, say something which everybody agrees with, even if it's not possible. Claim you have a plan! We can pass a law! Never mind that what you are promising is simply not possible.
There is no such thing as "CLEAN" energy on an industrial scale. Literally EVERYTHING has negative environmental impact. You simply cannot avoid it. Of course you can just declare that some technology is clean (i.e. "Clean Coal") if you want, but that doesn't make it so, nor does it mean you fulfilled your promise.
Now when some candidate comes out and starts saying things like "environmentally responsible energy sources" and mentions that he likes fracking for natural gas because it's domestic, fairly clean and we have a lot of it, that's the politician I'm going to pay attention to. The guy that starts talking about conservation of the energy we now use is more likely to get my vote than this nut job. They are thinking about the issue, not just dropping politically correct phrases on us.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Nuclear power. Full Stop. For small scale, Optio-electric Atomic batteries have a power to weight ratio in theory equivalent to a gas turbine and fuel. Larger scale, and you can go to Pebble-bed, and then to things like ESBWRs. A combination of these provide A) Constant power. B) a replacement of most every size of petrol engine, C) Clean air.
If you dump a lot of the baggage about reprocessing, then the volume of nuclear waste is greatly reduced.
Also, Coal, methane, Bio-mass, and nat gas are all non-petroleum energy sources that are mature. In fact, Petroleum is replacing coal in a number of applications. Please do continue to paint with a wide brush, and thus make Petrol-heads such as yourself look completely idiotic, kind sir.
In all honesty, a mix of fossil fuels strictly for peaking, or backup power, with nuclear for baseload, and what renewables are economical, is likely an ideal solution from an environmental standpoint, because constructing enough storage to shift the peaks of usage to the peaks of production for renewable energy is massively expensive, and as yet requires either geological scale construction, or megatons of toxic battery chemistries.
Insert lecture on the difference between technical and pointlessly pedantic here...
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
Followed the link, searched for nuclear, didn't find it in the story. Closed the page.
If you are espousing 0 emission energy in the next 35 years, and you don't mention nuclear as a necessary component, then you are lying.
The first candidate for President of the Intergalactic Council who has a plan to run the Intergalactic Confederation on dark energy.
Hate to be technical
This is Slashdot. You are supposed to be technical.
but a "balanced" budget be $0. So we've had 4 years out of the past 35 that had a surplus
In many of those 35 years, most of the debt was purchased by the Federal Reserve, which pays all interest back to the treasury. So that is more like transferring assets from one ledger book to another, rather than real net debt. Or, to put it another way, since the effect was to dilute the money supply, that debt was already paid off by taxing cash.
Ah, well, our choice is easy then. Do not vote for the guy.
Making the country's citizenry suffer for the sake of solving a non-existing problem — well, thank you for making it so easy to dismiss you, Mr. O'Malley.
Yes, I said it. It is a non-existing problem. And until you can find and post here a set of materialized predictions of the Global Warming "scientists", it shall remain non-existing. To qualify, each entry of your list must have two separate links: first to the prediction, the second — to the confirmation of it materializing within 80% of the predicted value(s). The texts must be dated at least a few years apart — predicting tomorrow's weather does not count.
Don't undertake this lightly — my past requests for the same list have resulted in a shit-storm of denunciations, name-calling, and down-modding (just watch the fate of this post), but no list... Somehow, nobody is able to find a link to a prediction published before it materialized. And some resident climate researchers on /. have even grudgingly admitted of being unable to fulfil the request — blaming the deficiencies of my pitiful mind for their failure, of course.
(To avoid overexposing myself to the downmodding haters, I shall not respond to any follow-up, that does not contain the list in the format requested. Sorry.)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Hell, even the USA has a lot of solar and wind power. Just ramp that up. Best of all, local resources and easy to manufacture parts, therefore each state can manage to create its own industry of building and maintaining these things, without having to send money out of state.
And fitting a turbine blade can't be outsourced to India.
Followed the link, searched for nuclear, didn't find it in the story. Closed the page.
If you are espousing 0 emission energy in the next 35 years, and you don't mention nuclear as a necessary component, then you are lying.
I agree if you do NOT mention using nuclear power you are lying or stupid. Tim S.
I think you were being pedantic when you decided that because there was a minor exception, it derailed the bulk of the argument. It doesn't.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Do you leftists have a death wish?
No.
You can't control climate.
We aren't talking about controlling climate. We are talking about arresting a sudden impetus for rapid climate change.
There is no viable substitute for petroleum.
Then we are doomed because petroleum is not limitless. The cost will creep ever further from the average person's reach, then even from the rich's reach.
Unless we can manufacture more petroleum. The only way to do that, is with an energy source greater than the energy of the petroleum we're making...
(even other fossils can replace petroleum)
Get over it.
No. I'm not going to submit to a life of misery.
Nuclear power + renewables can relatively easily replace petroleum in just about everything except our flying machines (helicopters, airplanes, space launch vehicles) and emergency backup generators. Improved battery technology can help replace backup generators.
Not so much a comment as a clarifying question.... obviously the only potentially viable plan is nuclear. The others create more pollution than what they save... so they're out. But is there a solution to "spent rods"? Should we hope that Russia's "send them to the bottom of the ocean" technique works? What is the cost of making "spent rods" a non-issue? Just asking.... I understand some of the "dense storage" techniques that pushes the problem out... but won't this still be a problem? Also, is there or will there be a black market for the waste material that could be used by some crazy folks?
I heartily support the construction of all nuclear plants that have an competitive lifecycle cost. I'm sure they will a fill a niche in the market that the currently endless flood of solar, wind, and grid-storage bids at a quarter the cost cannot possibly fill.
Sarcasm aside, take a look at some of the recent studies showing how to decarbonize electricity production in the next 20 to 40 years with no new research, and coincidentally, very little new nuclear capacity. The ONLY barriers are social and political--even now the economics are so compelling that every call for projects solicits more than regulators and utilities want to accept. In another 2-5 years, battery tech will invalidate every last excuse they have been using to discourage wind and solar, and the fuel-free future will finally take off.
Why are 6 billion people likely to starve due to a 35-year plan to remove fossil fuels? That sounds like a grossly unrealistic consequence at first brush.
He'll never get elected and he sure won't get elected for 9 consecutive terms and won't be granted unilateral control over the rest of the world's power consumption.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I want to buy a RTG powered electric car...now!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Because http://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg
It is probably nuclear's horrific amount of deaths per terawatts that causes the politicians to run from it.
(/sarcasm)
In reality, unless there is a major battery improvement (where batteries wind up storing the same energy density as diesel fuel or better), countries will wind up having to go with nuclear power, or tell citizens that only some of them are allows to have electricity. While, some countries (Iraq), this is practiced due to circumstance, it won't go over well in the rest of the world. We already passed peak coal, and the coal in use is lignite, coal barely better than peat moss for impurities. Oil is going nowhere but up, as China is a thirsty country, and had put trillions of dollars into some major infrastructure improvements on par with the US highway system for the size of the projects.
So, we can get nuclear's issues worked out, or cease to matter as far as history is concerned.
You can thank Jimmy Carter for his executive order creating a permanent moratorium on any new power reactor construction due to his knee-jerk reaction to 3MI. This ceded the future of the US to the coal and oil companies, and will leave the country under their control for generations to come.
I don't get how we can talk about a plan for 35 years out and call that "literally overnight".
Yep, and in Maryland, O'Malley was famed mostly for talking out of his ass and raising taxes...and this after he finished screwing up Baltimore as mayor.
Something Something thorium something
How is most of your food transported?
How is most of your food refrigerated from farm to home?
How is most of the fertilizer mined (or made) and transported on site?
How are the machines that work the land powered?
How do you, personally, get to markets?
How do you power your refrigerator?
For more details, I refer you to this sweetly over-optimistic missive by those wild liberal radicals at the NIH ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm... ). A grimmer, more realistic picture can be found here: ( http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.u... )
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I would, if I didn't know that around half of the permitted reactors in the US were never built anyway.
No, it would be actual suicide. You can't feed 7 billion people in the world without fossil fuels and you never will. It would be prohibitively difficult even if it was confined to the USA. Food is not grown and transported by magic fairies. It gets from ground to plate, refrigerated because hydrocarbon fuel exists.
Given more time, and less population, this could change. Starvation would take care of the problem, and *boy* would we be green. Well, the dead folks would be, anyway.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
When there is absolutely no mention of the U.S. military, which is the largest energy consumer in the federal government, standing at over 80% of all consumption.
You want to move away from oil dependency? Well, 3/4's of military's energy use comes from oil, and it consumed 117 million barrels of oil in 2006. (That's 320 thousand barrels PER DAY) According to the 2005 CIA World Factbook, if it were a country, the DoD would rank 34th in the world in average daily oil use, coming in just behind Iraq and just ahead of Sweden. (!)
And he's worried about the Keystone pipeline and charging fossil fuel companies higher taxes? Really?
He's unlikely to make it past the Iowa caucuses if that's what he's banking his whole campaign on.
Don't underestimate the pull of the "ethanol as motor fuel" lobby and the corn farmer of Iowa..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
There was no surplus; at least not since the 1950s. The recent ones people like to pretend are real are due to the fact that the revenue collected by Social Security gets dumped into general revenue. While inlays exceed outlays for SSA, this creates the illusion of extra money coming in while being balanced on the back-end by hitting Intra-governmental Holdings. In essence, that money that's been taken from everyone's paycheck for Social Security each year gets handed out to current recipients (aka a Ponzi scheme) and the leftover amount is used to purchase US Treasuries (aka IOUs from the government to the government).
In other words, that "trust fund" is a rather large stack of IOUs we'll soon be cashing in to pay retiring Baby Boomers. And when that happens, deficits will soar. So in essence, debts were time-shifted such that we bought a smaller deficit yesterday (creating the "surplus") in exchange for a larger deficit tomorrow. That isn't a surplus. If I go to the bank and borrow $1 Million, I'm not suddenly a 1%er. Why? Because despite the sudden influx in cash, it's merely an illusion created by borrowing. I don't actually bring in $1 Million a year and the Federal government didn't actually run a surplus (though it got close at one point; within around $50 Billion).
Why are 6 billion people likely to starve due to a 35-year plan to remove fossil fuels? That sounds like a grossly unrealistic consequence at first brush.
It's called fertilizer.... MOST of it we use today come from Fossil fuel based sources...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And yet Germany is making even better progress with true, natural energy. No nukes needed thank you. Sun, wind and tide can get the job done. But I do fear that assassins will be used to keep big oil and big coal going.
The US produce somewhere around 19% of the world wide carbon emission. Are we taking over the world to enforce this plan? Russia and China are going to do what ever the hell they want.
We will reach out to them of course, and ask them to volunteer to comply with the emission reductions.
They will of course tell us to pound sand... Or better yet, agree to the emission caps, then hold us to ours while ignoring theirs...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You do know that the food does not care if it is transported in an electric truck? Or a fuel cell driven electric truck? Or in a truck run by bio diesel, probably harvested from algae with noting but sunlight. Or electric trucks with overhead lines, like many busses in european cities have? Or by train? Or by ship? By sailing ship even?
Frankly, you are the biggest idiot since weeks if not months here on /.
Perhaps you should read a book about physics ... the energy does not care how it is produced.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hey, Three Mile Island wasn't that big of an environmental issue. As it turned out, the radiation released from the plant was extremely small. It was, however, a serious economic issue for the operator.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And yet somehow every year since Eisenhower the national debt has increased. I guess you can have a budget surplus AND increase your debt if you redefine a lot of expenditures so they're no longer budgetary items...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
France has already proven the technology to do so has already existed for a long time.
Exists, yes, but at a substantially higher cost than what we in the U.S. are used to paying, therefore involving substantial economic disruption.
France didn't go to nuclear initially because it was cleaner, nor cheaper; they did it because they don't have fossil fuel resources.
We have cars coming off the assembly line now that will take 20 years to fully phase out. As much as I'd love to just throw fossil fuels out the window, the transition will take time.
Unless you believe in magic.
so how are you creating those pv panels without oil?
Unicorn blood?
Well yes, Russia under Putin *will* do whatever the hell he likes. But failing to implement policy based on the actions of a global pariah is not something to aspire to.
As for China, we buy their stuff. Using Tim Cook as a poster child, insist that any environmental standards that would apply to building an iProduct in the USA apply to the manufacturing chain from start to finish, including the sourcing of renewable energy. If that adds $75 to the cost of a manufacturing a $1500 Macbook then so be it. Other companies will follow.
What part of the concept "present tense" do you not understand?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Nuclear power has gone from "too cheap to meter" to "too expensive to matter".
There are many problems with nuclear but its high cost will end up killing it.
Solar and wind are cheaper and battery storage can match supply to demand.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The other alternative is an honest government is elected, audit the Federal reserve, point out it fraudulent and conspiratorial nature, seize it's assets, throw it's executives and investors in prison, seizing their assets and voilÃ, no debt, in fact likely a very high surplus. That money that is owed is owed to someone and when that someone can legally pretend to have money to lend and the claim repayment via real assets, logically that is fraud and a conspiracy and they should be in jail.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Or maybe Germany is awesome at propaganda.
They import 2/3 of their energy (including nuclear energy from France and Czech Republic). They are the fifth largest importer of oil. Over 70% of their domestic energy production comes from fossil fuels.
They of course shut down their nuke plants and are building lots of renewable energy plants, but that's far from the full story.
It is pretty easy.
And even if a little oil was used, it is a one time thing.
Unlike how much oil and electricity is used in the production of oil just to get used once.
Not everyone believes that CO2 emitted by man is having any significant effect on the planet
Yep, and some people think vaccines cause autism, both groups are factually incorrect and were initially motivated by a morally warped version of financial self-interest. Piers Corbyn uses "secret methods" to scam money from people who are mathematically/scientifically illiterate, he claims to be able to predict earthquakes and the weather but his track record does not match his claims. That you fall for such obvious technobabble just betrays how little you know about human nature, science, and maths.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Yes, perhaps we too can do it the German way. All we need to do is reopen all our old coal-fired power plants, while at the same time encouraging Mexico to install nuclear, so we can buy it from them.
Umm, the "rest of the world" have waited 20yrs for the US to stop obstructing international negotiations on climate change, all of a sudden it's now the rest of the world not pulling their weight?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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First, there's the obvious matter of how much said plant will cost, not only in nominal monetary terms, but also in terms of potential damage to the environment in order to acquire the materials necessary to build it. Solar has a reliance on rare earth metals and the DOE has pegged China as having about half of the world's estimates and they're rather protective of them, never mind their poor record on doing anything in an environmentally friendly manner. However, I'm rather optimistic that within 30 years we'll have solutions that work just as well if not better than what we currently have without these requirements.
Next, there's the obvious issue of constraints on energy production, which is where nuclear really stands out as it doesn't matter whether the sun is shining or which way the wind is blowing. To some extent you need a reliable source of power that can be tapped into regardless of what the conditions may be like, especially on a local level. I'm also fairly optimistic that we'll eventually solve many of the issues related to transmitting energy over long distances, but for now it's a good idea not to waste a lot of energy in moving that energy to where it needs to be.
Finally, we have nuclear solutions that can work today. The technology is already there and works well. It's not something that will be ready in five* years or some indeterminate point in the future. If I'm going to be just as optimistic here, nuclear can also get a lot better as well, especially if it were to get the same kind of money and mind-share thrown at it as some of the other alternatives.
Is nuclear the be-all, end-all solution? Of course not. Much like coal or any other fossil fuel, there's a limit to the amount of fuel we can extract from the Earth, but the energy density is rather good and many of the resources are untapped. I imagine that we'll get to some real space-age shit that we can't even comprehend at this point before we run out of nuclear fuel or that a combination of improvements in solar and general energy efficiency of products will be able to sustain humanity's needs over several centuries.
Not sure if that's the nonsense you were looking for.
Quite apart from the most dubious assumptions that go into such simplistic "100%" calculations, the notion of "jobs created" is nonsense. The 6 million jobs that this is supposed to "create" aren't created, they are diverted from other places. The time and effort they spend digging holes for onshore wind farms is time and effort that is unavailable for building the next space port, or fusion research lab, or highway, or whatever.
Worst yet, because it does not address other nations, the west's efforts will fail.
China's emissions are not only more on a yearly basis, but the most since 1850 as well as since the millinium.
If a president REALLY wants to stop CO2 emissions and save the planet, it is within their power. All they need to do is a tax that treats ALL nations the same way.
America is the world's biggest importer. We import from nearly ALL NATIONS. So, any tax that we apply to goods impacts all others.
First, we need to make all nation's REAL CO2 emissions known. Right now, China's is based on esimates from data that their gov. gave. So, instead, it should be based on OCO2 and shortly on OCO3.
Secondly, the normalization should be emissions per REAL $ GDP (not PPP). EMissions are far more tied to manufacturing, and GDP, then to individuals. Note that if a nation cheats by manipulating lowering their money against the $, then it will actually lower their GDP, which will increase their emission rates. So, with this, it stops nations from cheating on emissions and on their money.
#rd, A tax on goods based on where they and their subparts come from would solve this. This tax should rise by 5% of the good's worth each year. It should be applied to all goods. However, if a company wants, they can submit to a website that shows where all the parts come from. If it and the subparts come from a nation like sweden, then they would have ZERO tax. OTOH, if the good has ANY parts from CHina, they will get 100% taxed. If the company is caught lying, then they will be denied the right to sell in America. And if a nation tries to cover it up, then that nation will be barred as well.
This is the ONLY way that a president will be able to drop the CO2 emissions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
it's a welcome change from some politician who promises something he knows he can deliver just to get votes.
Hmmm. Oh wait.
And why should that make it acceptable to not care about the longer term consequences?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Nothing that is truly worth doing is easy.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If you are espousing 0 emission energy in the next 35 years, and you don't mention nuclear as a necessary component, then you are lying.
He's typical of the "we can run industrial civilization on sunny days when the wind is blowing energy" types... Arithmetic denialist.
You are either woefully ill-informed or are intentionally misrepresenting the situation. Pick one.
And if those previous presidents caused problems which take longer than 8 years to fix, they shouldn't be fixed, or even talked about?
The Presidential Candidate With a Plan To Run the US On 100% Clean Energy
They misspelled non-candidate.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Sarcasm aside, take a look at some of the recent studies
45% of energy coming from Solar? What happens at night, you know when people actually want to use electrcity?
You're doing a bit of a mash-up of facts. Germany's energy imports (gas, oil, coal, electricity, etc.) amount to about 100 M€ a year. But nuclear plant are mostly used for electricity (with a bitt of district heating on the side). And regaring electricty the situation is quite different:
"In 2013 Germany exported 77.3 TWh of electric power to its neighbours and imported 43.3 TWh, resulting in a net export of 34.3 TWh."
("Im Jahr 2013 wurden insgesamt 77,3 TWh Strom von Deutschland in benachbarte Länder exportiert, importiert hingegen 43,0 TWh. Dies ergibt ein Exportsaldo von 34,3 TWh.")
Source: Forschungsgesellschaft für Energiewirtschaft mbH
I'm going to blow your mind here - The sun doesn't get switched off at night, not does it disappear! Incredible I know, it turns out our planet is a sphere and the sun is carried around it by a sky dung beetle.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
That's kind of what "phase-out" means. It will take time, the sooner you start the sooner you finish.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
So you're going to stretch power lines from the solar panels in China all the way to the United States?
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Nuclear isn't necessary for zero emissions, because for example you can have zero emission coal. You simply capture everything that would have been emitted and store it indefinitely, similar to how you store nuclear waste indefinitely. Or at least until you figure out another way to deal with it in the future.
Nuclear is an option for zero-emissions, but it isn't a requirement.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
famed mostly for talking out of his ass and raising taxes
So you're saying he is a politician and a democrat .
Time to offend someone
Zero emission coal will happen when hell freezes over. Between the cost of carbon capture and storage and the 33% efficiency loss, no profit minded corporation would ever do it on their own. Maybe if they get approval to double utility prices AND the government forces them to do it, but I don't see the former happening anytime soon (Obama has pushed for the latter, but I don't think the Republicans will let it happen - he'll have to Executive Order it).
Actually, until very recently, the Social Security budget was running in the black and contributing to the ability of the US government to spend. Unfortunately, all of the Social Security surplus was invested, in accordance with the law, in US Treasury bonds, and those debts were not counted as part of the federal budget deficits. So the problem is not in the Social Security budget, per se, but in Congress having already spent all of the Social Security surpluses of the past.
Last I heard, the exact opposite was happening - manufacturers like Honda stopped making the Civic hybrid and were cutting back on Accord due to customers buying cheaper fossil fuel only models due to dropping prices of fossil fuels.
I'm a bit of a nuclear nut. However you are right, at least about the older technological nuclear facilities. They take forever to build, then take longer, cost a massive amount of money, then cost more. They do generate a massive amount of constant energy also.
Anyway that isn't what I wanted to say. I think a great deal of the problem could be solved with some pretty simple regulation. However it might make you a political enemy of some pretty big industry monopolies.
It all comes down to what you said about "near dense population centers". One thing forgotten much of the time in the whole power debate is that the power needs to be *distributed* otherwise it is pretty useless. How is this best achieved? Well the basic principle is the longer the distance, the more resistance, the more power you need to supply, and the less efficient it becomes...
Now I've never been a huge fan of solar, largely because of the hype and lack of real advancement. However, what would perhaps drive real results? Demand. It is also pretty simple so far as technology goes, there isn't a lot of moving parts so to speak.
Basically what I am getting at is *massive* roof top solar generation by residents. How does one achieve that? Well you make it easier. You do two bits of regulation. One that would allow government to issue cheap long term loans for the purpose of residential solar. Second would be to make it easier to connect to the grid, requiring distributors to A) allow for it, B) not dissuade it by charging exorbitant fees for hookups, inverters, etc... and make it easy to sign residential to long term contracts at a rate to which more than covers the initial capitol cost.
I think in doing so you would solve most of the power issues we have. Close to market generation, a very distributed and redundant supply, etc... It would also have the net benefit in the demand would drive solar technology to become better. It would also employ a ton of people long term for installs, maintenance, building solar panels, selling solar panels, etc...
You would however have the banking industry as well as the power industry supporting pretty much everyone but your political campaign.
Anyway as I see it, it would be a big deal insofar as solving power issues, with very little actual expense on the part of government, with change largely being driven by the market improving economic situations along the way.
The only problems really being the large capitol costs upfront, and the barriers to connecting to the grid, and uncertainty of power costs/prices. Solve those, and the People will produce their own power. If you really think about it, it is kind of crazy that this (and others) technology exists, and is largely unused and not a priority, and you have to ask why. Corporate interests and politics is my guess over any kind of logistics or technological issues.
Did you check to see if what you heard is accurate or did you just repeat it?
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
You are correct, except in your definition of a Ponzi scheme. Simply paying people out of current receipts is not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme involves creating the illusion of high returns on investment by paying out the capital from new investors and calling it profit on the old investments while claiming that all of the original investments are still there. The difference is that Social Security does not claim you have any capital invested nor that you are making any profit - it has always been portrayed as paying current retirees from a tax on current workers (albeit, with some money put aside to smooth out the highs and lows caused by the employment and retirement numbers). The numbers can deceive people about the federal budget deficit, but it is not a Ponzi scheme by Social Security.
The price of solar and wind construction is finally starting to get to parity with other energy forms and you tack on the expense and replacement cost of batteries, and probably patented designs that manufacturers will charge a fortune to use...
Your "2-5 years" is now pessimistically 22-25 years.
I'd put my money on mechanical storage in the short term (vacuum sealed flywheel). It is more lossy than battery storage, but for short term is cheap, gives on-demand energy, and well out of patent (though more efficient designs may be patented).
And why should that make it acceptable to not care about the longer term consequences?
It doesn't, but it does take the urgency out of the argument, which is my point there. We are NOT running out of oil, so making the argument that *we* need to deal with this issue with urgency is wrong. No we don't, there is plenty of time to work on the technology.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I don't think you understand economics. If it were so compelling there would be no need for regulators to get involved, unless its their subsidies that are required. The utilities would be doing this themselves because it would turn a profit. If it requires the regulators actions to make the economics compelling then the barriers aren't social and political but economic.
no profit minded corporation would ever do it
That's the problem, not the technology.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The opposite statement is equally bad. eg. "Ever notice that politicians can never accomplish long range goals because they only focus on short term results that will win votes"
I think politicians setting long range goals is a very good idea.
See? In fact you could say that this gentlemen is being very virtuous. He is proposing a plan that he probably won't be around to take credit for if it works.
Even though a new solar plant would turn a modest profit, utilities have no reason to build them because adding solar to the grid hurts the profits of their existing plants by a disproportionate amount. Unlike fossil power, the sun does not get more expensive during peak times of demand, and this has been shown to drive down spot prices and cut or eliminate the profits of existing peaker plants. This is partly an effect of the fixed-price subsidized power purchase agreements that solar farms are using now, but those agreements are designed to ensure utilities will even buy the solar energy at all, rather than exploit their existing plants.
Clean energy is approaching (and in some places has already reached) grid price parity even *without* rate or tax subsidies. Remember this is competing against the fossil industry, which is subsidized directly and indirectly to the tune of $5.2 trillion per year globally. When we finally put a price on carbon to reflect the harm fossil fuels do to public health and the environment, there will be no contest and only then utilities will voluntarily replace fossil plants en masse.
A rapid transition to clean energy would result in massive stranded assets, but in the end would mean far less of our GDP going to energy, pollution, and health care, and letting us invest in things like food, water, and education. Some utilities are forward-thinking, but most will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future by regulators--and the regulators can only achieve this if they have the social and political mandate to create a clean energy future. This is why I say that *large scale change* is only possible if significant changes in the social and political landscape occur.
Even if you ignore the effects of global warming, there are pollution issues as well... and the differences in that *ARE* readily perceivable in a person's lifetime.
Besides... urgent or not, as the saying goes, why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Of course I understand that it's really hard right now, quite expensive, and anything but convenient to do, but the reality is that something like this will not get any easier with time until people start caring about trying to do something about it (in fact, it's liable to only get harder as time goes by long as people aren't trying to do something about it, simply because of an ever-growing population and constantly growing energy needs). If we start using alternative energy sources now, then it seems to me there's a much better chance that we will be more ready and able to improve the technologies behind them as the demand grows, while if we just remain oil-based, then any possible advances are much more likely to remain undiscovered for much longer.
And at least this candidate cares enough about the issue to try and make a stand for it... and that much should be applauded, IMO. I am not American, but if I were, this position would weigh heavily among the factors that I would consider when I voted.... not necessarily outweighing everything else, but definitely enough to give the matter some serious consideration.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So.... Invest in research and development for tomorrow's technology, just stop with this "we got to stop using fossil fuels now!" hype and I'm not going to object..
It's not an emergency.... Won't be one for my lifetime or my grand kids lifetimes for that matter... Prepare for the future? Sure. However, it's not time to panic about the issue and run out and do something stupid and rash.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Clearly you've never been touched by a Someone Else's Problem field.
I plan on spending my retirement years validating people's future claims. I will get back to you in three years to see how close we are.
The "cleanness" of energy is determined by political expediency, not actual impact on the environment. And even if it were based on environmental impact, the negativity of those impacts would be debated. So really, there is no truly "clean" energy.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Except to the extent that every generation that believes that it's not vital to be doing something about it right now only ends up making things harder for the next generation, because that excuse, even if it true, gives us the best reason in the world to procrastinate. Eventually... not in my lifetime or my grandchildren's lifetime, or maybe even in my grandchilrden's granchildren's lifetime, it *will* be too late to do anything about it... because the energy resources of this planet will be too used up to sustain what we, today, would recognize as a modern level of industrialization, and the technology for alternative energy sources will be too immature to meet the demands of the time because the generations that preceeded them didn't invest the time and energy into it right now that is needed *so* that it can become a viable option in the future.
So whether or not the real danger is imminent, treating it as anything less than something that we should be doing something about right now only means that you won't.
And the kicker is that we have the technology to do it.... today. It's just a lot of hard work, oh... and it's a bit expensive. Of course, the price isn't going to come down unless we are actively pursuing the technologies, and it's not going to get any easier if we just sit around waiting for the next generation to look after it, even if there is enough time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As you readily admit, "We have the technology to do this" now, which is true, so as I said, it's not an emergency, not something WE must do now or else. We don't even need to develop the technology, because as you say, it exists now.
This is a self fixing problem, one that will solve itself when the time comes, economic forces will make it happen. You are trying to artificially force the solution too soon. Relax, enjoy the ride and let the grand kids take care of it.
Look, the only way this really changes world wide is when economic pressure forces it. Fossil fuels will keep getting more and more expensive and eventually it will make sense to start doing something else. Until then, all you can accomplish is unilateral suicide and surrender to other people who don't care one bit about you living or dying (except that they wish you dead.)
Don't be emotional and do stupid things... Just relax and let it happen on it's own.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You seem to be forgetting that the materials will not be just magicking their way to the manufacturing plant. This is a cost that constructing anything (pretty much) needs to consider and that includes the alternatives.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Cool. Now it's my turn, how do you get half a planet's demand for electricity from one side of the earth to the other? No seriously, what diameter cable do you think you'll need to carry 2 or 3 TW or electricity over 20000km? What sort of transmission losses do you expect?
I love all of these absolute, fatalist statements you spouted with not a single shred of hard data that backs them up.
"If we keep up at the rate we're going, we're going to cause a global wipeout of ALL HUMANITY...."
Uh-huh. Reads like a summertime Hollywood blockbuster.
We should just shut down a bulk of the power plants we rely on for energy (and presumably go back to washing our clothes by hand, down at the river-side, foraging for berries to eat), because POSSIBLY, it will "make things normal again" or POSSIBLY slow down the problem. No proof or anything but hey -- let's ruin hundreds of years of technological advancement in America and agree to go back to the dark ages out of fear!
Amen to that.
If we are gonna claim to be serious about cutting emissions, France has already proven the technology to do so has already existed for a long time.
Too bad it fails when it gets too hot - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/30/energy.weather, http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120815/nuclear-power-plants-energy-nrc-drought-weather-heat-water. Kinda sucks when you are dealing with Global Warming.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Or maybe Germany is awesome at propaganda. They import 2/3 of their energy (including nuclear energy from France and Czech Republic).
Funny thing: they export far more electricity than they import. https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm. In fact, they export more than France and Czech Republic combined.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Yes, perhaps we too can do it the German way. All we need to do is replace all our old coal-fired power plants with brand new, more efficient ones, while at the same time encouraging Mexico to install nuclear, so we can export our cheap electricity to them.
FTFY
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
You are right... in the sense that after a sufficient number of generations have passed with people expecting that the next generation will take care of it, the depleting resources of the world will be incapable of supporting what by that time will be a vastly larger population at what would be considered a modern level of industrialization... People will die because resource distribution won't meet people's needs, and all but the richest of our descendants will end up living much like people used to in the 16th or 17th centuries... without any ability to develop technology any further because there won't be enough resources left to do it.
So yeah... it's a self-correcting problem, as long as your idea of a good future for our society is having almost everyone live like the Amish.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So we should go back to living like the Amish now? Instead of waiting?
Oh, and because you might have missed it, I'm going to quote a previous post:
As you readily admit, "We have the technology to do this" now, which is true, so as I said, it's not an emergency, not something WE must do now or else. We don't even need to develop the technology, because as you say, it exists now.
So I'm saying that we already know how to make this work (for the most part) so returning to the 1800's isn't necessary.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Solar has a reliance on rare earth metals and the DOE has pegged China as having about half of the world's estimates and they're rather protective of them, never mind their poor record on doing anything in an environmentally friendly manner.
Incorrect in all regards.
Solar power does not need any rare earths and rare earths are not rare it is just a part of their name for historical reasons.
Shifting a existing nation with a low amount of nuclear power production to a high amount is quite difficult, similar as shifting it to wind and solar.
You simply miss the fact that the difference between the minimum load on the grid (that what is called base load) and the maximum is 2/3rd of the power production.
At night the grid only needs 40% at daytime peak it is 100%.
Funnily solar power cycles exactly with the day and night cycle. Surprised?
The variation of wind and solar is greatly exagerated. As you see Denmark, Portugal and Germany run just fine on wind power.
Nuclear power still has the drawback of waste and fuel recycling and deposits.
What you think is the reason that the western world is no longer building reactors ?
Waste ... no one knows what to do with the waste ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
We is everyone on this site so 100% sure that we need nuclear? I wasn't aware that there had been definitive studies done that concluded we had to use nuclear, despite the continual advancements in renewable. Sure, we'd need a smarter grid and a heck of a lot more energy storage, but I didn't think it was impossible.
These two guys are fairly smart, and they disagree on the matter. Interesting ted talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/debate_does_the_world_need_nuclear_energy?language=en
So what kinds of base load power plants do not produce CO2? Hydroelectric and . . . what? Solar thermal? Anything with enough battery storage?
Are you thinking of wind because of the magnets needed for PM alternators? The material costs for solar is low but the processing cost is high.
The only issue is cost of the infrastructure and who pays for it. It takes wire and towers as well as big transformers or high voltage DC conversion.
Power plants technology ha nothing to do with "base load".
Base load is the opposite of peak load, the minimum amount of power you feed into the grid.
So over day you can use Solar + wind for base load just fine and at night wind or what ever you feel for it.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Ya know, I am getting tired of people assuming that the government and its relationship to economics is the same as a family and its relationship to economics. No, they are not the same and not comparable. You, in your family, do not have to account for maintaining a standing army. You, in your family are not responsible for the safety, health and well-being of your family members from birth to death. Etc, etc. On the other side, while you have to pay your bills, those bills do not include roads that are used by the people who bring the food that you eat from the other side of the country. If you pay your water bill you expect water, but it is the government that provides the water and the infrastructure that provides that water to you at a cost that can be amortized over decades. Do you amortize your water bill over decades? I thought not. There is really, nothing in common between how uyou or I handle our home finances and how the government handles its finances. And there shouldn't be: repeat: and there shouldn't be. Different roles, different functions, different economics.
Ponzi schemes are a person trying to cheat another person. No relationship to government process.
Busting your budget: what happens when a person overspends their budget: No relationship to government process.
Bankrupting the government: for a person--to owe so much more than income that the possibility of repayment is decades in the future: No relationship to government process (bankrupting the government means that the entire economy of a country will not be producing and selling enough product and taxing that product in a sustainable way for that economy that debts can be repaid in a reasonable time frame as determined by negotiation between the debt holders and the country's government.
See what I mean? There is no point at which you can make a one to one correspondence between government economics and personal economics. Can someone take this message and make it clear to the 2016 candidates as well as the 2016 voters so we don't have to hear homespun BS for the next 18 months?
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.