Get solar! If you own your roof it will lower your bill no matter how you do it (pay cash, lease, solar installer becomes your power company). We get a ton of sun in CO so you're almost certainly a prime candidate for solar. My total energy bill (gas + elec) hasn't gone above $70 in the 2 years I've had solar. Summer months I have negative bills. If you own your house you will absolutely save money on energy and your rates will never increase!
That is not enough information. You could be losing money and all those statement still true. I am not claiming you are losing money, but please provide the critical facts..
What was your bill & total household energy usage before? What are they now? What was the total cost to you, and taxpayers? What size system was installed? What is the guaranteed feed-in rate and term?
the benefit of reporting bottoms up is you can see a list of your primary sources and work to clean up those sources. if you just get a tops down number, it doesn't provide any indications about how to start cleaning things up.
Meanwhile, while Fukushima FUD gets posted here on a regular basis, there is only one submission posted on the Flint lead poisoning situation, which has real health consequences. But, that carries no agenda......
For Christ's sake. 174 people got enough radiation that 1:200 people might die of leukemia.
No, not 1/200 people. The risk of dying of cancers of the types you get from exposure is about 1 in 100 or 1%. So, if that risk in increase by 0.005 percent, the elevated risk is now.01 x 1.005 = 1.005%. Which means 1 added cancer death maybe in 20,000 exposures.
- of those 174 workers exposed to the highest radiation dose, we can expect that one will get cancer -- pretty damn good for what's supposed to be one of the worst nuclear disasters!
No, we can expect NONE will get cancer, or at least statistically there will be no more cancers than if they were not exposed.. The already low risk of getting cancer is increased by 0.5%. So if the risk of cancer is 8%, the new risk is now 8.04%
Employees who work at a nuclear reactor during and immediately after a meltdown should get their healthcare and compensation for life, no questions asked We are asking them to stay and potentially risk horrifying deaths in order to give the public surrounding them time to evacuate; it is a heroic sacrifice for the good of the community and should be built into the cost and risk model of power companies installing nuclear plants.
"horrifying deaths"? I think you've seen too many science fiction movies.
I'm shrugging over here. This reads like a feel good fluff piece in a scary voice.
Its not even news. A bunch of workers at the plant got some very low exposure to radiation, on the order of what a pilot gets in his/her job. Throw in some minute mention of increase in cancer risk, and you have the recipe for a FUD meal served up for the uninformed.
The wording of the summary is a good indication of not even knowing the information.... "a level considered to raise the risk of dying after developing cancer by 0.5 percent". So, IF you develop cancer, your chances of death go up by 1/2 a percent? These are the front line workers, and there is essentially no danger. And this is from the same people telling us what a human health disaster Fukushima is? They wont' even try to reconcile that.
It was a rhetorical question, obviously, because we all know renewables need conventional sources to counter their transmittance. I fully understand the need for the integrated grid, but it seems that the role of the grid and the conventional sources gets overlooked when folks start cheering about having 100% renewable power. In fact, they were using power from non-renewable sources on a regular basis. Nuclear has nothing at all to do with that point.
It isn't the diver's safety that's the worst with this story. Imagine hostile divers sabotaging the cooling system.
The diver should never have reached the inside of the plant.
You can imagine such a thing, but actually pulling it off would be quite difficult, and even if you did the plant would remain perfectly safe as this cooling system is for the electrical turbine generator steam cycle, just like in a fossil plant, not the safety related heat removal systems.
turns out your link to a 'cause site' doesn't exactly provide any factual information backup to your statement, nor seem to discuss any of the challenges with their stated goal.
We are better off spending a lot more money and generating a lot more pollution? OK, if you feel that way.
No "incident" is not a euphemism for "accident". If your windshield wiper is faulty and you stop to replace it, you had an incident, not an accident. If you discover that your tire pressure is low and stop to fix it, you had an incident, not an accident. For nuclear, if you want to be accurate, and even care about accuracy, the proper term is 'event' and there are various classes of events depending on safety significance. If you want to ignore facts, and rather provoke fear, then you chose the right terminology.
It will be us in Schleswig-Holstein (North Germany), as we reached 100% renewable (for electricity) last year. And our friends in the north. Denmark are able to reach the same goal in a matter of years. By 2025 we will reach 300% of the electric energy production, which in fact would at least based on calculations cover all the primary energy used in Schleswig-Holstein.
Great, why don't you disconnect from the rest of the grid and use only renewables? Of maybe did you depend on coal plants to make your 'renewables' feasible?
Fessenheim is an old plant which had many accidents in recent years. For example they had to introduce large quantities of Bohr into the reactor cooling to inhibit chain reaction because they were unable to insert the regulator rods. Yes I know Bohr is also used during regular operation. However, in much lower quantities. They also neglected to report all details which would have been necessary for Germany to prepare in case of an accident. Fessenheim is directly at the border to Germany.
You might confuse 'accidents' with 'incidents'. Nuclear plants will have 'incidents' where parts fail to operate properly for one reason or another. They are designed diversity and redundancy to take that into account. Yes, older plants generally have more incidents. But just because a plant shuts down safely due to an equipment issue does not make it an 'accident'. Plants are designed to be able to remain safe even with stuck control rods.
And it is boron, not Bohr, that can be used as neutron poison if needed.
This plant is near the end of its 40 year original design life. It has produced a monumentally huge amount of CO2 free power, and we are all better off for it having been in service.
I am familiar with the Fraunhofer data, that is what I use because they have really good, accurate data. (Some Fraunhofer data is sometimes presented as Jan-Nov for some reason, so you have to be careful and if so use 234 days instead of 365, but also consider that December is a pretty poor month)
One reason, I believe, for the low CF is that a lot of residential panels are installed in sub-optimal orientation, parallel with the roof.
I accused you of clever deflection, not of lying, but of assigning an argument to "them" which really doesn't exist in any reasonable form, you showed as much when you could only refer to an old Fox News snippett. I guess you just hang on to that for defensive purposes. No you deflect more with talk of batteries and such. The topic at hand is the use of 'capacity' in the stupid manner in which it is presented.
And I am not sure why you brought up nuclear power. What does that have to do with the consistent misused of the term 'capacity'? What do batteries or anything else you mention have to do with the abuse of the term "capacity"? I think you just don't understand that term either, at least you've shown no indication you do.
So, you pick up on one snippet and apply it to everyone who speaks the actual facts? That is you attempt at a clever deflection.
I never said, nor do I know of anyone who typically discusses these topics with any insight, that Germany is sunnier than the US. It certainly is not and I have actually given Germany's specific insolation facts out on this site many times in the past, only for solar fanboys to tell me that they don't believe Germany's actual average solar CF is about 10%. In short, I've brought forth the true facts on this long ago. You are right, Germany isn't a great place for solar. Some folks here will disagree vehemently, but avoid backing up with any real data.
So stop your deflection. Solar doesn't perform any better or worse due to some news snippet, it doesn't make any kind of case other than show some inherent need for deflection on your part. I've seem tons of erroneous and misleading claims from reporters on TV and elsewhere about solar and wind's capabilities, and complete ignorance to what 'capacity' even means. You seem to think that is OK.
But at least I've seen you have back off on the claim that many were calling renewables usage 'physically impossible'. Nobody that matters ever said such a thing. I actually have spoken about my belief that solar and wind have an important role in our future energy mix. But I also am not afraid to talk about the things that matter, and there are costs and challenges when dealing with the indeterminacy and unreliability of some renewables. Those are undeniable facts. You can ignore them, as well as the true meaning of 'capacity' as much as you like.
I don't see anywhere saying it is physically impossible, and frankly today's renewables depend heavily on non-renewable to make up for their intermittent.
By the way, solar capacity factor in Germany is still around 10%, and their best solar plants only reach around 13 or 14%.
Another article talking 'capacity' but not talking about how many MWh's each source will actually produce. Capacity alone is a meaningless unit. Natural Gas is the biggest addition by far in terms of how much electricity will be produced.
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Get solar! If you own your roof it will lower your bill no matter how you do it (pay cash, lease, solar installer becomes your power company). We get a ton of sun in CO so you're almost certainly a prime candidate for solar. My total energy bill (gas + elec) hasn't gone above $70 in the 2 years I've had solar. Summer months I have negative bills. If you own your house you will absolutely save money on energy and your rates will never increase!
That is not enough information. You could be losing money and all those statement still true. I am not claiming you are losing money, but please provide the critical facts..
What was your bill & total household energy usage before? What are they now? What was the total cost to you, and taxpayers? What size system was installed? What is the guaranteed feed-in rate and term?
the benefit of reporting bottoms up is you can see a list of your primary sources and work to clean up those sources. if you just get a tops down number, it doesn't provide any indications about how to start cleaning things up.
I think we should monitor from the side in.
I thought it was a cool feature. I never had a use for it. I guess it was a solution in search of a problem.
Meanwhile, while Fukushima FUD gets posted here on a regular basis, there is only one submission posted on the Flint lead poisoning situation, which has real health consequences. But, that carries no agenda......
But, but, but... OMG RADIATION!!!!!!!!
For Christ's sake. 174 people got enough radiation that 1:200 people might die of leukemia.
No, not 1/200 people. The risk of dying of cancers of the types you get from exposure is about 1 in 100 or 1%. So, if that risk in increase by 0.005 percent, the elevated risk is now .01 x 1.005 = 1.005%. Which means 1 added cancer death maybe in 20,000 exposures.
- of those 174 workers exposed to the highest radiation dose, we can expect that one will get cancer -- pretty damn good for what's supposed to be one of the worst nuclear disasters!
No, we can expect NONE will get cancer, or at least statistically there will be no more cancers than if they were not exposed.. The already low risk of getting cancer is increased by 0.5%. So if the risk of cancer is 8%, the new risk is now 8.04%
Employees who work at a nuclear reactor during and immediately after a meltdown should get their healthcare and compensation for life, no questions asked We are asking them to stay and potentially risk horrifying deaths in order to give the public surrounding them time to evacuate; it is a heroic sacrifice for the good of the community and should be built into the cost and risk model of power companies installing nuclear plants.
"horrifying deaths"? I think you've seen too many science fiction movies.
I'm shrugging over here. This reads like a feel good fluff piece in a scary voice.
Its not even news. A bunch of workers at the plant got some very low exposure to radiation, on the order of what a pilot gets in his/her job. Throw in some minute mention of increase in cancer risk, and you have the recipe for a FUD meal served up for the uninformed.
The wording of the summary is a good indication of not even knowing the information.... "a level considered to raise the risk of dying after developing cancer by 0.5 percent". So, IF you develop cancer, your chances of death go up by 1/2 a percent? These are the front line workers, and there is essentially no danger. And this is from the same people telling us what a human health disaster Fukushima is? They wont' even try to reconcile that.
From 2009 through end of 2013, The period of biggest renewable expansion, Germany's coal use increase steadily. It has not dropped off since then.
It was a rhetorical question, obviously, because we all know renewables need conventional sources to counter their transmittance. I fully understand the need for the integrated grid, but it seems that the role of the grid and the conventional sources gets overlooked when folks start cheering about having 100% renewable power. In fact, they were using power from non-renewable sources on a regular basis. Nuclear has nothing at all to do with that point.
You know what that tells us regarding the original point? Absolutely nothing.
It isn't the diver's safety that's the worst with this story. Imagine hostile divers sabotaging the cooling system. The diver should never have reached the inside of the plant.
You can imagine such a thing, but actually pulling it off would be quite difficult, and even if you did the plant would remain perfectly safe as this cooling system is for the electrical turbine generator steam cycle, just like in a fossil plant, not the safety related heat removal systems.
turns out your link to a 'cause site' doesn't exactly provide any factual information backup to your statement, nor seem to discuss any of the challenges with their stated goal.
We are better off spending a lot more money and generating a lot more pollution? OK, if you feel that way.
No "incident" is not a euphemism for "accident". If your windshield wiper is faulty and you stop to replace it, you had an incident, not an accident. If you discover that your tire pressure is low and stop to fix it, you had an incident, not an accident. For nuclear, if you want to be accurate, and even care about accuracy, the proper term is 'event' and there are various classes of events depending on safety significance. If you want to ignore facts, and rather provoke fear, then you chose the right terminology.
It will be us in Schleswig-Holstein (North Germany), as we reached 100% renewable (for electricity) last year. And our friends in the north. Denmark are able to reach the same goal in a matter of years. By 2025 we will reach 300% of the electric energy production, which in fact would at least based on calculations cover all the primary energy used in Schleswig-Holstein.
Great, why don't you disconnect from the rest of the grid and use only renewables? Of maybe did you depend on coal plants to make your 'renewables' feasible?
Fessenheim is an old plant which had many accidents in recent years. For example they had to introduce large quantities of Bohr into the reactor cooling to inhibit chain reaction because they were unable to insert the regulator rods. Yes I know Bohr is also used during regular operation. However, in much lower quantities. They also neglected to report all details which would have been necessary for Germany to prepare in case of an accident. Fessenheim is directly at the border to Germany.
You might confuse 'accidents' with 'incidents'. Nuclear plants will have 'incidents' where parts fail to operate properly for one reason or another. They are designed diversity and redundancy to take that into account. Yes, older plants generally have more incidents. But just because a plant shuts down safely due to an equipment issue does not make it an 'accident'. Plants are designed to be able to remain safe even with stuck control rods.
And it is boron, not Bohr, that can be used as neutron poison if needed.
This plant is near the end of its 40 year original design life. It has produced a monumentally huge amount of CO2 free power, and we are all better off for it having been in service.
I hope they don't replace it with 50 km^2 of solar panels...
They'll depend more on coal, like Germany, spend a bunch of money but make only minimal net progress on CO2 reduction.
I am familiar with the Fraunhofer data, that is what I use because they have really good, accurate data. (Some Fraunhofer data is sometimes presented as Jan-Nov for some reason, so you have to be careful and if so use 234 days instead of 365, but also consider that December is a pretty poor month)
One reason, I believe, for the low CF is that a lot of residential panels are installed in sub-optimal orientation, parallel with the roof.
You dont understand. The average CF for all solar pv in germany in 2014 was around 10%. That means some installtions are higher, some lower.
I accused you of clever deflection, not of lying, but of assigning an argument to "them" which really doesn't exist in any reasonable form, you showed as much when you could only refer to an old Fox News snippett. I guess you just hang on to that for defensive purposes. No you deflect more with talk of batteries and such. The topic at hand is the use of 'capacity' in the stupid manner in which it is presented.
And I am not sure why you brought up nuclear power. What does that have to do with the consistent misused of the term 'capacity'? What do batteries or anything else you mention have to do with the abuse of the term "capacity"? I think you just don't understand that term either, at least you've shown no indication you do.
You can take what you want from the correct facts I presented.
So, you pick up on one snippet and apply it to everyone who speaks the actual facts? That is you attempt at a clever deflection. I never said, nor do I know of anyone who typically discusses these topics with any insight, that Germany is sunnier than the US. It certainly is not and I have actually given Germany's specific insolation facts out on this site many times in the past, only for solar fanboys to tell me that they don't believe Germany's actual average solar CF is about 10%. In short, I've brought forth the true facts on this long ago. You are right, Germany isn't a great place for solar. Some folks here will disagree vehemently, but avoid backing up with any real data.
So stop your deflection. Solar doesn't perform any better or worse due to some news snippet, it doesn't make any kind of case other than show some inherent need for deflection on your part. I've seem tons of erroneous and misleading claims from reporters on TV and elsewhere about solar and wind's capabilities, and complete ignorance to what 'capacity' even means. You seem to think that is OK.
But at least I've seen you have back off on the claim that many were calling renewables usage 'physically impossible'. Nobody that matters ever said such a thing. I actually have spoken about my belief that solar and wind have an important role in our future energy mix. But I also am not afraid to talk about the things that matter, and there are costs and challenges when dealing with the indeterminacy and unreliability of some renewables. Those are undeniable facts. You can ignore them, as well as the true meaning of 'capacity' as much as you like.
I don't see anywhere saying it is physically impossible, and frankly today's renewables depend heavily on non-renewable to make up for their intermittent.
By the way, solar capacity factor in Germany is still around 10%, and their best solar plants only reach around 13 or 14%.
First it was this is physically impossible.
then it was there isn't enough wind or solar - Germany is sunnier than the USA.
Can you provide a reference to any of those? I never heard those claims before. I think you just made them up in an attempt to sound clever.
If you don't care about actual production, then what do you care about?
Another article talking 'capacity' but not talking about how many MWh's each source will actually produce. Capacity alone is a meaningless unit. Natural Gas is the biggest addition by far in terms of how much electricity will be produced.