We have 24" of insulation in our roof, 16" in our walls, and our windows are triple-paned with a overall U value of.10 (equivalent of R-10). Our base power comes from hydro. There is actually no controversy I'm aware of about methane digesters—they are good for the environment, and while they probably release the carbon faster than it would be released through normal bacterial decomposition, they are still carbon neutral, because they represent a complete carbon cycle, from photosynthesis through to combustion. We pay the 14% extra in order to avoid buying energy from Entergy.
BTW, site-generated solar means that even though I'm running the AC right now, I'm exporting 2400 watts to the grid. This is being used to run other peoples' air conditioning. But consuming the power I generate on-site means that we don't pay the tranmission penalty, so it's a bigger win than it appears to be.
The plant is ancient and creaky. In order to continue operating safely, a new plant would have to be built. If there were no opposition to such a plant, it would still cost far in excess of $1.1b. So sure, if you think continuing to operate a creaky old nuclear power plant just like the one in Fukushima is a good idea, then that $1.1b is just wasted money. As a neighbor of VY, I don't agree—I would prefer not to have my home rendered uninhabitable as a result of an accident.
It's certainly true that there is the NRC, which in theory regulates heavily, but they are widely considered to be in the pocket of industry, and relatively toothless. My experience certainly supports this theory.
A lot of people would love to see a real cost comparison between nuclear and other power sources. Also between oil, coal and natural gas and other power sources. It's a source of great frustration that we always see the comparisons done with all the externalities unaccounted for. So nuclear gets a pass for waste storage and for indemnity. Gas gets a pass for the damage fracking does to the environment. Coal gets a pass for the shit it dumps into the atmosphere and groundwater. Etc. A real cost comparison would be great. It's even possible that nuclear would come out ahead of coal.
Of course, the next trick is to get the nuclear generator company to actually spend the money on safety and containment, and not pocket part of it. Right now they pocket _most_ of it, and that's why nuclear is as cost-competitive as it is.
I don't know, I suspect 100% taxation doesn't even begin to cover the externalities that a nuclear power plant imposes on its neighbors. Funny how those externalities never get called "free market manipulation" when they are granted to nuclear power companies by government fiat.
Practically speaking, OP is probably correct in assuming that in the long run, the state of Vermont or the Feds will be stuck with some substantial costs. If they have to, Entergy will probably declare bankruptcy or get their local legislators to relieve them of the responsibility to pay the full cost through some bit of legislative chicanery.
Solar thermal, perhaps, except that solar thermal generally uses a high-temperature fluid for heat transfer, not water. Solar electric doesn't generate excess heat. I don't know of any solar thermal plants in Vermont.
We're pretty strongly and effectively opposed to fracking in Vermont. I used to live on the Connecticut river south of VY, and it kept ice from forming on the river, which really changes the ecosystem, so that's a real concern. If we were switching to natural gas, that would be a problem, but we aren't.
I think this interpretation is unlikely to be true. We've been trying really hard in Vermont to get Vermont Yankee shut down, and I think it's been quite expensive for them. We've been working on making our energy infrastructure independent of Vermont Yankee, and we've done a good job. So yeah, you can call it economics, but what it really is is an effective decision on the part of the people of Vermont to stop using nuclear power by voting with our pocketbooks.
Prices for solar are dropping, though, and Vermont has been aggressively pursuing carbon-neutral sources for power. This is the "market flaws" they cited in their announcement. We green mountain boys aren't so keen on shoring up their broken business model at the cost of our farms.
Somewhere far, far away, yes. The offshore contamination in Fukushima prefecture doesn't just affect people who live there, you know. Fish don't pay attention to legal boundaries.
Yes, we're really happy. (I assume by "greenies" you mean citizens of the Green Mountain State.) Of course, decommissioning the reactor will probably release more radioactivity into the environment than operating it did, but in the long run this is good news for the region. The middle of a major agricultural producing state is a really dumb place to put a nuclear reactor. We produce a shitload of solar, and are putting in more, and we produce a lot of power with methane digesters (there is no shortage of manure in Vermont). And Hydro Quebec's prices have been competitive with Vermont Yankee. So yes, this is really good news from a Green Mountain State citizen's perspective.
It would of course be a shame if this resulted in burning more coal, but in practice I don't see that happening. Some power companies do use diesel backup generators; that concerns me more, but given that VY has been having trouble selling power in Vermont, I suspect this isn't a real issue—there is _no way_ that diesel would be cost competitive with nuclear, with all the subsidies nuclear gets.
Actually, Vermont is building out more and more solar capacity, and also wind (with some resistance), and cow power (methane digesters). A lot of our power comes from Hydro-Quebec. I don't know of any new coal plants being proposed—I expect they would see massive resistance.
The "flaws" in the market that Entergy is complaining about are that nobody wants them here, so nobody is giving them preferential treatment, whereas we are giving solar, methane and wind preferential treatment, generally on a voluntary basis. For instance, my wife and I pay a ~14% premium to get cow power rather than nuclear, and we generate most of our power on-site with solar, but relying on Green Mountain Power to satisfy our nighttime needs rather than using batteries.
Vermont opposed renewing the permit, but the NRC overrode us. We refused to certify the plant for continued use, so the federal government overrode local law, on the basis of conversations legislators had outside of the legislature, which I thought was pretty lame. So unfortunately there is no love lost between Vermonters and Entergy, and that's no doubt part of why it's been expensive for them to continue to do business here.
Sure. But I know lots of cases where a large windows shop has Linux because they have to. The cases I'm aware of where a large Linux shop has a copy of Windows to run Exchange, that's the _only_ windows machine in the shop, and it does nothing else, and it isn't even an outward-facing SMTP server. If you have data to the contrary, by all means trot it out.
Added bonus: they can use it to heat their building in the winter. I once spent a couple of months sitting next to one of those babies in an un-airconditioned space in the summer. Despite being close to the water, where it was consistently cool outside, that machine kept it nice and toasty inside. I still twitch a little if you say dazzdee. You can keep amortizing a machine while it's powered off and in a warehouse, and save yourself a bunch of money emulating a 370 in software on some reasonably powerful Xeon server. Or just sell the thing for scrap and write it off as a loss.
Rachel Maddow is great fun, but she's also just another talking head. Do you really need to spend an hour listening to her every night, live? One of the things that I stopped watching when I dropped cable was TV news. I don't even watch the Daily Show anymore. More time for slashdot!:)
Yeah, give that time. As soon as it starts to look like it's costing them more money than it's getting them, or as soon as ESPN can't afford to pay what they want anymore, they'll change their tune.
For people for whom this is a deal-breaker, they simply won't be the first ones to abandon cable. Life goes on.
Huh, I live in a town with a population of 10k, and my internet connection supports streaming just fine. If you don't have even comcast-grade internet where you are, start organizing and complaining. My mom set up a wireless Internet service in her town; with any luck they'll be getting fiber in a year or two, and that's a town even smaller than mine.
Ha! My wife does the same thing. And yes, binge-watching is one of the big pluses of no cable. Waiting all season to find out how it ends? Who wants to do that?
That hasn't been my experience on Verizon. But the main thing they are doing is stifling competition, and colluding to avoid raising bandwidth or lowering prices. End result to you: no improvements in network performance, and, as you say, bandwidth caps. I haven't had an issue with this because I don't have much time to watch TV; if you're spending four or five hours a day in front of Netflix, you'll probably run into trouble. Of course it doesn't hurt that things like Dexter and True Blood are only available on DVD, so while I prefer streaming, I don't watch all my TV that way.
Slashdot Mirror
We have 24" of insulation in our roof, 16" in our walls, and our windows are triple-paned with a overall U value of .10 (equivalent of R-10). Our base power comes from hydro. There is actually no controversy I'm aware of about methane digesters—they are good for the environment, and while they probably release the carbon faster than it would be released through normal bacterial decomposition, they are still carbon neutral, because they represent a complete carbon cycle, from photosynthesis through to combustion. We pay the 14% extra in order to avoid buying energy from Entergy.
BTW, site-generated solar means that even though I'm running the AC right now, I'm exporting 2400 watts to the grid. This is being used to run other peoples' air conditioning. But consuming the power I generate on-site means that we don't pay the tranmission penalty, so it's a bigger win than it appears to be.
The plant is ancient and creaky. In order to continue operating safely, a new plant would have to be built. If there were no opposition to such a plant, it would still cost far in excess of $1.1b. So sure, if you think continuing to operate a creaky old nuclear power plant just like the one in Fukushima is a good idea, then that $1.1b is just wasted money. As a neighbor of VY, I don't agree—I would prefer not to have my home rendered uninhabitable as a result of an accident.
This is unlikely to happen, but it would certainly be preferable to continuing to operate VY as it is.
[citation needed]
It's certainly true that there is the NRC, which in theory regulates heavily, but they are widely considered to be in the pocket of industry, and relatively toothless. My experience certainly supports this theory.
A lot of people would love to see a real cost comparison between nuclear and other power sources. Also between oil, coal and natural gas and other power sources. It's a source of great frustration that we always see the comparisons done with all the externalities unaccounted for. So nuclear gets a pass for waste storage and for indemnity. Gas gets a pass for the damage fracking does to the environment. Coal gets a pass for the shit it dumps into the atmosphere and groundwater. Etc. A real cost comparison would be great. It's even possible that nuclear would come out ahead of coal.
Of course, the next trick is to get the nuclear generator company to actually spend the money on safety and containment, and not pocket part of it. Right now they pocket _most_ of it, and that's why nuclear is as cost-competitive as it is.
S/he also didn't actually analyze the local energy market, which is in fact not particularly dependent on fossil fuels.
Hardwood certainly burns longer. But it's a crappy substitute for clean energy sources. Those signs would be funny if they weren't so sad.
I don't know, I suspect 100% taxation doesn't even begin to cover the externalities that a nuclear power plant imposes on its neighbors. Funny how those externalities never get called "free market manipulation" when they are granted to nuclear power companies by government fiat.
Practically speaking, OP is probably correct in assuming that in the long run, the state of Vermont or the Feds will be stuck with some substantial costs. If they have to, Entergy will probably declare bankruptcy or get their local legislators to relieve them of the responsibility to pay the full cost through some bit of legislative chicanery.
Solar thermal, perhaps, except that solar thermal generally uses a high-temperature fluid for heat transfer, not water. Solar electric doesn't generate excess heat. I don't know of any solar thermal plants in Vermont.
We're pretty strongly and effectively opposed to fracking in Vermont. I used to live on the Connecticut river south of VY, and it kept ice from forming on the river, which really changes the ecosystem, so that's a real concern. If we were switching to natural gas, that would be a problem, but we aren't.
I think this interpretation is unlikely to be true. We've been trying really hard in Vermont to get Vermont Yankee shut down, and I think it's been quite expensive for them. We've been working on making our energy infrastructure independent of Vermont Yankee, and we've done a good job. So yeah, you can call it economics, but what it really is is an effective decision on the part of the people of Vermont to stop using nuclear power by voting with our pocketbooks.
Prices for solar are dropping, though, and Vermont has been aggressively pursuing carbon-neutral sources for power. This is the "market flaws" they cited in their announcement. We green mountain boys aren't so keen on shoring up their broken business model at the cost of our farms.
Somewhere far, far away, yes. The offshore contamination in Fukushima prefecture doesn't just affect people who live there, you know. Fish don't pay attention to legal boundaries.
Yes, we're really happy. (I assume by "greenies" you mean citizens of the Green Mountain State.) Of course, decommissioning the reactor will probably release more radioactivity into the environment than operating it did, but in the long run this is good news for the region. The middle of a major agricultural producing state is a really dumb place to put a nuclear reactor. We produce a shitload of solar, and are putting in more, and we produce a lot of power with methane digesters (there is no shortage of manure in Vermont). And Hydro Quebec's prices have been competitive with Vermont Yankee. So yes, this is really good news from a Green Mountain State citizen's perspective.
It would of course be a shame if this resulted in burning more coal, but in practice I don't see that happening. Some power companies do use diesel backup generators; that concerns me more, but given that VY has been having trouble selling power in Vermont, I suspect this isn't a real issue—there is _no way_ that diesel would be cost competitive with nuclear, with all the subsidies nuclear gets.
Actually, Vermont is building out more and more solar capacity, and also wind (with some resistance), and cow power (methane digesters). A lot of our power comes from Hydro-Quebec. I don't know of any new coal plants being proposed—I expect they would see massive resistance.
The "flaws" in the market that Entergy is complaining about are that nobody wants them here, so nobody is giving them preferential treatment, whereas we are giving solar, methane and wind preferential treatment, generally on a voluntary basis. For instance, my wife and I pay a ~14% premium to get cow power rather than nuclear, and we generate most of our power on-site with solar, but relying on Green Mountain Power to satisfy our nighttime needs rather than using batteries.
Vermont opposed renewing the permit, but the NRC overrode us. We refused to certify the plant for continued use, so the federal government overrode local law, on the basis of conversations legislators had outside of the legislature, which I thought was pretty lame. So unfortunately there is no love lost between Vermonters and Entergy, and that's no doubt part of why it's been expensive for them to continue to do business here.
Sure. But I know lots of cases where a large windows shop has Linux because they have to. The cases I'm aware of where a large Linux shop has a copy of Windows to run Exchange, that's the _only_ windows machine in the shop, and it does nothing else, and it isn't even an outward-facing SMTP server. If you have data to the contrary, by all means trot it out.
Added bonus: they can use it to heat their building in the winter. I once spent a couple of months sitting next to one of those babies in an un-airconditioned space in the summer. Despite being close to the water, where it was consistently cool outside, that machine kept it nice and toasty inside. I still twitch a little if you say dazzdee. You can keep amortizing a machine while it's powered off and in a warehouse, and save yourself a bunch of money emulating a 370 in software on some reasonably powerful Xeon server. Or just sell the thing for scrap and write it off as a loss.
Most likely _all_ of the world's largest organizations run Linux. But only _some_ of them run Windows Server 2012. So I think the OP got it right.
C:\YOU\LOSE> tar cf - . |ssh windoze2 "tar xvf -"
Broken Pipe
C:\YOU\LOSE>
Rachel Maddow is great fun, but she's also just another talking head. Do you really need to spend an hour listening to her every night, live? One of the things that I stopped watching when I dropped cable was TV news. I don't even watch the Daily Show anymore. More time for slashdot! :)
Yeah, give that time. As soon as it starts to look like it's costing them more money than it's getting them, or as soon as ESPN can't afford to pay what they want anymore, they'll change their tune.
For people for whom this is a deal-breaker, they simply won't be the first ones to abandon cable. Life goes on.
Huh, I live in a town with a population of 10k, and my internet connection supports streaming just fine. If you don't have even comcast-grade internet where you are, start organizing and complaining. My mom set up a wireless Internet service in her town; with any luck they'll be getting fiber in a year or two, and that's a town even smaller than mine.
Ha! My wife does the same thing. And yes, binge-watching is one of the big pluses of no cable. Waiting all season to find out how it ends? Who wants to do that?
That hasn't been my experience on Verizon. But the main thing they are doing is stifling competition, and colluding to avoid raising bandwidth or lowering prices. End result to you: no improvements in network performance, and, as you say, bandwidth caps. I haven't had an issue with this because I don't have much time to watch TV; if you're spending four or five hours a day in front of Netflix, you'll probably run into trouble. Of course it doesn't hurt that things like Dexter and True Blood are only available on DVD, so while I prefer streaming, I don't watch all my TV that way.