And where is the coal going to come from? Mining that's where and mining is dirty, especially Mountain Top Removal. As for the link you provide it says almost nothing about "zero-emission and near-zero-emission coal plants". One thing I did notice was that it said the CO2 was going to be stored underground. How in the world is anyone going to be able to keep it there? In a release of a massive amount of gas stored underground, in a methane burp, at Lake Nyos, Cameroon more than 1700 were killed up to 25 km away.
Somehow France manages to get by.If we reprocessed nuclear fuel in a rational way, there is very little that is unused.
Yes but even the French, who have gone the farthest, haven't got it yet. According to TFA in the IEEE's "Spectrum" article " Nuclear Wasteland" they are still having troubles. Perhaps with Vitrification the nuclear waste can be encased in glass however there's still a lot of toxic chemicals leftover. Simply even the French don't have the magic wand yet.
And back in the real world, conservation is never, never, EVER going to happen. Civilization is not going to revert back to metaphorically living in caves -- and that's the only way conservation could ever fix the problem. A couple of CF bulbs is not going to do it.
Nor does civilization have to live in caves. One simple step can reduce people's energy usage. Switching light bulbs to CFLs can reduce the energy for lighting by 75% to 80%. And LED lights, though they aren't good for area lighting yet, use only 10% of the energy an incandescent light does. By improving insulation of buildings heating and cooling needs can be significantly reduced, then geothermal energy can be used for what heating and cooling is needed in many places. Then there's solar, wind, and other alternative sources of energy. In the US the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind energy potential to provide all of the 48 continuous states with power. And that's just the Rockies. There plenty of other places that can provide wind power.
The only way forward is preserving our way of life using sustainable technology.
Oh, I TOTALLY AGREE!!! But nuclear IS NOT sustainable. Solar and wind both are though.
Quite aside from the tortured English, I didn't see how they accounted for the energy required to obtain, for instance, petro. Digging, refining, transporting the material as well as bringing workers and equipment to and fro, etc. For instance, to get gasoline to your car from the filling station, it typically will move in a tanker that spends X amount of fuel doing the moving, then electricity is spent pumping it to your tank, etc. A solar panel, once purchased, just sits there and supplies energy. There's no continually recurring costs the way there are with consumable energy supplies barring outright system failures.
Maybe it's tortured logic but I don't see the relevance of petro to whether electricity is transmitted as AC or DC.
Sure - if you only want to furnish your home from the limited range of DC appliances available
While choices for DC appliances aren't as big as there are for AC there are still DC appliances available and as any semi-free market the more people demand them the more businesses will offer them. Those who build Off the Grid have to go through this.
But that's the problem: In most places, traditional solar prices simply don't have savings greater than the interest. That's the big deal about these: that the savings *is* greater than the interest almost everywhere.
Ah but it does, the savings in solar is greater than the interest otherwise mortgage lenders wouldn't allow higher mortgages for buildings that incorporate alternative energy. A responsible lender, not one of those subprime lenders, has to calculate the costs of the operation of a building into how much they will lend. And as I said before this ignores tax writeoffs and inflation. The feds and many states also allow the costs to be deducted from taxes up to a certain level. Some utilities also will pay part of the costs, then there's net metering wherein the utility pays for power fed into the system.
Apparently you failed to read my post before you made your comment.
Wow, you can read my mind. But you did poorly because I did read your post, and all you say of alternative energy sources is that there's no market, then you go on about granola eaters bash coal calling them piss-ants.
I simply invite you to do some research into current and upcoming pollution controls for coal fired power plants.
And I invite you to do research on what coal mining, especially Mountain Top Removal, does to the environment. Such as how it buries streams with the waste, or pollutes the streams. Or how it makes picturesque mountains into parking lots, or golf courses.
As I understand it, AC won out over DC (which Edison championed) for the very reason that DC loses so much voltage (and power for that matter) over long distance.
"The advantage of HVDC is the ability to transmit large amounts of power over long distances with lower capital costs and with lower losses than AC. Depending on voltage level and construction details, losses are quoted as about 3% per 1000 km. High-voltage direct current transmission allows use of energy sources remote from load centers."
I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure my energy use peaks in the evening.... you know when it's dark and I have to turn on lights... and I'm home... and I'm heating my home... and doing laundry or washing dishes...
So, you have to heat your home? What about those who have to cool their home? Living in Florida we used AC much more than we did heating. Seeing as how it's hotter during the day more energy is needed to cool a building then.
What we effect today is what things are going to be like in 2050, 2100, not the next decade or two.
No, some of the effects are being seen today. Because of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic polar bears are drowning as are Inuits who break through thin ice. Then there are locations that depend on glaciers for fresh water. People around Mount Kilimanjaro depend on the glaciers there for their fresh water, however those glaciers are melting and will soon be gone. Those people's fresh water will then be gone as well. The same thing is happening in the Andes of South America. Cities in Bolivia, Peru and others SA nations depend on glacier melt for their fresh water. On top of that because of the risk of melting glaciers bursting ice dams many who live downstream are threatened. And that overlooks the possibility of extreme weather.
Your ideas about the environmental impact of coal are better suited for the 19th century, not the 21st. Coal is cleaner than ever and if Clinton had not shut off America's source to the cleanest available sources in Utah, it would be cleaner still.
Thus, even with $1/W panels, general-purpose solar power is still 8-10X the cost of coal. I'm terribly doubtful that solar power will ever be economically competitive with coal, UNLESS you factor in the ecological costs. Unless we start taxing utilities for the carbon that they emit, we will not see solar become competitive, beyond little feel-good projects, and home-hobbyists.
You left out inflation. Burning coal will only get more expensive not less.
No - that only pays for the panel in 6.5 years. Now factor in shipping & handling, installation, the equipment to convert the panels DC output into AC, maintenance...
Why convert the DC produced into AC? Just use DC. Then you'll be eliminating 2 inefficiencies, converting to AC then reconverting to DC again.
As chance would have it, I came across this very informative chart from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I am astounded at the amount of loss (transmission being a major factor).
I see a problem with the chart. No where on it do I see whether the electricity is transmitted AC or DC or the distances. At high voltages over long distances AC looses more than DC does.
However, from what I read, coal is still cheaper to burn for power in utility plants. I read that it costs utilities between $0.01 and $0.02 per KWh to produce when burning coal, even when taking the cost of the plant into account.
It's only cheaper because utility companies get to pass on External costs to others. If coal miners had to pay for the cleanup of coal mines and power companies had to pay for their emissions electricity would be more expensive.
The problem with traditional solar is that the capital costs are so high, you'll never catch up with the interest.
While the capital costs of solar is high, the interest can be paid for in savings, for those who build off the grid. More and more mortgage lenders are offering interest rates lower for building that are energy efficient and have a solar or other alternative energy system built in. Many also offer higher mortgages to pay for them, they are able to do this because such a system reduces or eliminates the the monthly expense of power. The cost of solar is rolled into the cost of the building and what interest is paid is tax deductible. Some solar systems have a payback period as low as 7 years, ie the cost of the system is paid for in 7 years because of the lower costs of power. However this ignores inflation, the costs of electricity continues to rise whereas the cost of solar is in the equipment only has to be paid occasionally. The warranty of equipment can be 20 years or longer, the shortest period I've seen is 7 years. However because of the progressive march of technology equipment only gets more efficient and prices drop, so even if something has a 20 year warranty the owner may still want to replace something with a new one.
The legislation that is about to pass in Wisconsin, and probably any other state, was bought by direct solicitation of the elected representatives by AT&T and via a sponsored, directed TV ad campaign referencing a website called "TVForUs.com".
That may be true of Wisconsin but do they give one company a monopoly, ie is it exclusive, or does it allow more than one provider?
Hopefully, Governor Doyle will do a line-item veto and bring back the Customer Protection items that were so skillfully deleted.
I don't know about this, but I support customer protection, and choice!
By the way, "praying for exclusivity" in a market is the corporate dream of the Southern Boys Club, as it would be for any company. Don't need anything to back that up - history is a good teacher.
Notice how above I said I support customer choice? And lots of them, instead of simply having the choice of getting service or not getting it I support the ability to choice who provides the service. Actually in the case of a physical infrastructure such as cables, phone lines, and powerlines I'd prefer they be owned locally by say a coop. Then whoever owns it allow anyone who wants to provide a service that uses it to do so. Say I want to start an electric company that generates electricity via solar or wind gennies, I should be able to connect to the powerlines and sell the electricity to whomever will pay me. I'll then pay whoever owns the powerlines. A good example of this, for communications, is the Broadband Utopia in northeastern Utah.
Extending this to the airwaves, I'd have the FCC abolished and would get rid of the requirements that broadcasters and others that use the airwaves not have to have a license to use those airwaves. If someone wanted to start a radio station they would be able to as long as they didn't interfere in someone else's radio station.
Well, that's a typical Republican sentiment lately, and the Republicans do manage to be succeeding at failing. It's kind of funny to put Bush at the top then complain that government "isn't working".
First off, I'm not Republican and though I voted twice for a Democrat presidential candidate I have never voted for a Republican candidate for president. Once I even voted against the Republican, in 2000 instead of voting for who I wanted to I specifically voted against Bush. So secondly I don't like and didn't want Bush to be president period!
As for me, I think government can and has done vast amounts of good in "greasing the wheels" of capitalism.
Yea, the government giving big agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland, ADM and Cargill billions of dollars in subsidies in taxpayer money is capitalism. NOT!!! How about this, try to start a dry cleaning business, and watch a bunch of regulations get in your way. While it may be easy, all that needed are customers, to start some businesses it difficult to start others because of regulations. At least it's not as bad as it is in some countries including in the EU.
A libertarian country would be a great place to live, with everyone shacked up in their Freedom Cabins living freely on home-grown potatoes.
Or in their own McMansion they were able to build because the government didn't make it hard to start a business and they were able to make a lot of money by providing a product or service people wanted to pay for, and didn't have to compeat with another company that received massive government subsidies. Such as ADM and Cargill.
I supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive.
So is the Saudi government. When are we going to invade? What about China, Burma, Pakistan...?
Ah, but the Taliban went further than all of these others you list. For instance, the international community sponsored and built a soccer stadium. But it wasn't used to play soccer, instead the Taliban used it to do public executions. Even Iran, which also has executions, didn't have as many or use facilities built by the international community for them. Also Iran, though actually ruled by the mullah, is at least nominally democratic. Afghan was still in a state of civil war, with various factions making up the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban.
It's more a of a revival of the Opium Wars, and pipelines, etc. And Britain has a much deeper interest in the area than the US.
Oh, I agree we're not in Afghan simply because the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, however that is the state purpose for the US being there. Chevron was part of a group who wanted to build a pipeline through Afghan, however the Taliban wasn't letting them have their way.
All of which is quite scary, but to be honest with you, something that scares and annoys me more is the fact that our idiotic (Australian) federal government literally jumped at the opportunity to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.
I agreed with the US going to Afghanistan but not Iraq. However I supported Afghan for a different reason than what was used to justify, HAHA!!!!, the invasion. When Bush asked the Taliban to hand over bin Laden they asked to see any evidence he was guilty, but Bush refused. I supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive. However instead of invading I'd rather have supported Afghans who wanted democracy.
No offence to our military, but on the world scale, our military might is equivalent to a slightly miffed lunch-lady with a rolling pin.
And people can't even protect themselves Down Under. The Aussie sharp shooters can't even practice their sport in their country. At least they couldn't for the 2000 Olympics, instead they had to go to another country to practice from what I heard.
Try a logged GPS in the truck.. seriously.. RFID is totally inappropriate here.
Trucking companies do this now, use GPS in trucks. Shipping can be made more efficient and for long hauls companies can make sure drivers don't drive too long.
Slashdot Mirror
Look, you can claim that all you want, but it's just not true.
I'll switch that around, no matter what you claim it's not true! People who build Off the Grid are proving you wrong every day.
FalconNo, I'd say zero-emission and near-zero-emission coal plants are 'clean.'
And where is the coal going to come from? Mining that's where and mining is dirty, especially Mountain Top Removal. As for the link you provide it says almost nothing about "zero-emission and near-zero-emission coal plants". One thing I did notice was that it said the CO2 was going to be stored underground. How in the world is anyone going to be able to keep it there? In a release of a massive amount of gas stored underground, in a methane burp, at Lake Nyos, Cameroon more than 1700 were killed up to 25 km away.
Somehow France manages to get by.If we reprocessed nuclear fuel in a rational way, there is very little that is unused.
Yes but even the French, who have gone the farthest, haven't got it yet. According to TFA in the IEEE's "Spectrum" article " Nuclear Wasteland" they are still having troubles. Perhaps with Vitrification the nuclear waste can be encased in glass however there's still a lot of toxic chemicals leftover. Simply even the French don't have the magic wand yet.
And back in the real world, conservation is never, never, EVER going to happen. Civilization is not going to revert back to metaphorically living in caves -- and that's the only way conservation could ever fix the problem. A couple of CF bulbs is not going to do it.
Nor does civilization have to live in caves. One simple step can reduce people's energy usage. Switching light bulbs to CFLs can reduce the energy for lighting by 75% to 80%. And LED lights, though they aren't good for area lighting yet, use only 10% of the energy an incandescent light does. By improving insulation of buildings heating and cooling needs can be significantly reduced, then geothermal energy can be used for what heating and cooling is needed in many places. Then there's solar, wind, and other alternative sources of energy. In the US the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind energy potential to provide all of the 48 continuous states with power. And that's just the Rockies. There plenty of other places that can provide wind power.
The only way forward is preserving our way of life using sustainable technology.
Oh, I TOTALLY AGREE!!! But nuclear IS NOT sustainable. Solar and wind both are though.
FalconThe only practical, proven, immediate solution to carbon production is nuclear power.
Nuclear creates more problems than it solves. Nuclear power IS NOT NEEDED. What is needed is conservation.
FalconQuite aside from the tortured English, I didn't see how they accounted for the energy required to obtain, for instance, petro. Digging, refining, transporting the material as well as bringing workers and equipment to and fro, etc. For instance, to get gasoline to your car from the filling station, it typically will move in a tanker that spends X amount of fuel doing the moving, then electricity is spent pumping it to your tank, etc. A solar panel, once purchased, just sits there and supplies energy. There's no continually recurring costs the way there are with consumable energy supplies barring outright system failures.
Maybe it's tortured logic but I don't see the relevance of petro to whether electricity is transmitted as AC or DC.
FalconIf you don't seriously advocate nuclear power, then you don't take global warming seriously.
Wrong, I take both global warming and long term storage of nuclear waste seriously.
FalconSure - if you only want to furnish your home from the limited range of DC appliances available
While choices for DC appliances aren't as big as there are for AC there are still DC appliances available and as any semi-free market the more people demand them the more businesses will offer them. Those who build Off the Grid have to go through this.
FalconBut that's the problem: In most places, traditional solar prices simply don't have savings greater than the interest. That's the big deal about these: that the savings *is* greater than the interest almost everywhere.
Ah but it does, the savings in solar is greater than the interest otherwise mortgage lenders wouldn't allow higher mortgages for buildings that incorporate alternative energy. A responsible lender, not one of those subprime lenders, has to calculate the costs of the operation of a building into how much they will lend. And as I said before this ignores tax writeoffs and inflation. The feds and many states also allow the costs to be deducted from taxes up to a certain level. Some utilities also will pay part of the costs, then there's net metering wherein the utility pays for power fed into the system.
FalconApparently you failed to read my post before you made your comment.
Wow, you can read my mind. But you did poorly because I did read your post, and all you say of alternative energy sources is that there's no market, then you go on about granola eaters bash coal calling them piss-ants.
I simply invite you to do some research into current and upcoming pollution controls for coal fired power plants.
And I invite you to do research on what coal mining, especially Mountain Top Removal, does to the environment. Such as how it buries streams with the waste, or pollutes the streams. Or how it makes picturesque mountains into parking lots, or golf courses.
Just do the research.
Do research yourself!
FalconAs I understand it, AC won out over DC (which Edison championed) for the very reason that DC loses so much voltage (and power for that matter) over long distance.
"High-voltage direct current"
"Advantages of HVDC over AC transmission"
"The advantage of HVDC is the ability to transmit large amounts of power over long distances with lower capital costs and with lower losses than AC. Depending on voltage level and construction details, losses are quoted as about 3% per 1000 km. High-voltage direct current transmission allows use of energy sources remote from load centers."
FalconI don't know about you but I'm pretty sure my energy use peaks in the evening.... you know when it's dark and I have to turn on lights... and I'm home... and I'm heating my home... and doing laundry or washing dishes...
So, you have to heat your home? What about those who have to cool their home? Living in Florida we used AC much more than we did heating. Seeing as how it's hotter during the day more energy is needed to cool a building then.
FalconWhat we effect today is what things are going to be like in 2050, 2100, not the next decade or two.
No, some of the effects are being seen today. Because of shrinking sea ice in the Arctic polar bears are drowning as are Inuits who break through thin ice. Then there are locations that depend on glaciers for fresh water. People around Mount Kilimanjaro depend on the glaciers there for their fresh water, however those glaciers are melting and will soon be gone. Those people's fresh water will then be gone as well. The same thing is happening in the Andes of South America. Cities in Bolivia, Peru and others SA nations depend on glacier melt for their fresh water. On top of that because of the risk of melting glaciers bursting ice dams many who live downstream are threatened. And that overlooks the possibility of extreme weather.
FalconYour ideas about the environmental impact of coal are better suited for the 19th century, not the 21st. Coal is cleaner than ever and if Clinton had not shut off America's source to the cleanest available sources in Utah, it would be cleaner still.
Cleaner =! Clean.
FalconDo me a favor, pull you head out of (the sand) and be realistic.
Who has their head in the sand, one who discounts alternative energy sources or one who encourages them?
FalconThus, even with $1/W panels, general-purpose solar power is still 8-10X the cost of coal. I'm terribly doubtful that solar power will ever be economically competitive with coal, UNLESS you factor in the ecological costs. Unless we start taxing utilities for the carbon that they emit, we will not see solar become competitive, beyond little feel-good projects, and home-hobbyists.
You left out inflation. Burning coal will only get more expensive not less.
FalconNo - that only pays for the panel in 6.5 years. Now factor in shipping & handling, installation, the equipment to convert the panels DC output into AC, maintenance...
Why convert the DC produced into AC? Just use DC. Then you'll be eliminating 2 inefficiencies, converting to AC then reconverting to DC again.
FalconAs chance would have it, I came across this very informative chart from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I am astounded at the amount of loss (transmission being a major factor).
I see a problem with the chart. No where on it do I see whether the electricity is transmitted AC or DC or the distances. At high voltages over long distances AC looses more than DC does.
FalconHowever, from what I read, coal is still cheaper to burn for power in utility plants. I read that it costs utilities between $0.01 and $0.02 per KWh to produce when burning coal, even when taking the cost of the plant into account.
It's only cheaper because utility companies get to pass on External costs to others. If coal miners had to pay for the cleanup of coal mines and power companies had to pay for their emissions electricity would be more expensive.
FalconThe problem with traditional solar is that the capital costs are so high, you'll never catch up with the interest.
While the capital costs of solar is high, the interest can be paid for in savings, for those who build off the grid. More and more mortgage lenders are offering interest rates lower for building that are energy efficient and have a solar or other alternative energy system built in. Many also offer higher mortgages to pay for them, they are able to do this because such a system reduces or eliminates the the monthly expense of power. The cost of solar is rolled into the cost of the building and what interest is paid is tax deductible. Some solar systems have a payback period as low as 7 years, ie the cost of the system is paid for in 7 years because of the lower costs of power. However this ignores inflation, the costs of electricity continues to rise whereas the cost of solar is in the equipment only has to be paid occasionally. The warranty of equipment can be 20 years or longer, the shortest period I've seen is 7 years. However because of the progressive march of technology equipment only gets more efficient and prices drop, so even if something has a 20 year warranty the owner may still want to replace something with a new one.
FalconThe legislation that is about to pass in Wisconsin, and probably any other state, was bought by direct solicitation of the elected representatives by AT&T and via a sponsored, directed TV ad campaign referencing a website called "TVForUs.com".
That may be true of Wisconsin but do they give one company a monopoly, ie is it exclusive, or does it allow more than one provider?
Hopefully, Governor Doyle will do a line-item veto and bring back the Customer Protection items that were so skillfully deleted.
I don't know about this, but I support customer protection, and choice!
By the way, "praying for exclusivity" in a market is the corporate dream of the Southern Boys Club, as it would be for any company. Don't need anything to back that up - history is a good teacher.
Notice how above I said I support customer choice? And lots of them, instead of simply having the choice of getting service or not getting it I support the ability to choice who provides the service. Actually in the case of a physical infrastructure such as cables, phone lines, and powerlines I'd prefer they be owned locally by say a coop. Then whoever owns it allow anyone who wants to provide a service that uses it to do so. Say I want to start an electric company that generates electricity via solar or wind gennies, I should be able to connect to the powerlines and sell the electricity to whomever will pay me. I'll then pay whoever owns the powerlines. A good example of this, for communications, is the Broadband Utopia in northeastern Utah.
Extending this to the airwaves, I'd have the FCC abolished and would get rid of the requirements that broadcasters and others that use the airwaves not have to have a license to use those airwaves. If someone wanted to start a radio station they would be able to as long as they didn't interfere in someone else's radio station.
FalconWell, that's a typical Republican sentiment lately, and the Republicans do manage to be succeeding at failing. It's kind of funny to put Bush at the top then complain that government "isn't working".
First off, I'm not Republican and though I voted twice for a Democrat presidential candidate I have never voted for a Republican candidate for president. Once I even voted against the Republican, in 2000 instead of voting for who I wanted to I specifically voted against Bush. So secondly I don't like and didn't want Bush to be president period!
As for me, I think government can and has done vast amounts of good in "greasing the wheels" of capitalism.
Yea, the government giving big agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland, ADM and Cargill billions of dollars in subsidies in taxpayer money is capitalism. NOT!!! How about this, try to start a dry cleaning business, and watch a bunch of regulations get in your way. While it may be easy, all that needed are customers, to start some businesses it difficult to start others because of regulations. At least it's not as bad as it is in some countries including in the EU.
A libertarian country would be a great place to live, with everyone shacked up in their Freedom Cabins living freely on home-grown potatoes.
Or in their own McMansion they were able to build because the government didn't make it hard to start a business and they were able to make a lot of money by providing a product or service people wanted to pay for, and didn't have to compeat with another company that received massive government subsidies. Such as ADM and Cargill.
FalconI supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive.
So is the Saudi government. When are we going to invade? What about China, Burma, Pakistan...?
Ah, but the Taliban went further than all of these others you list. For instance, the international community sponsored and built a soccer stadium. But it wasn't used to play soccer, instead the Taliban used it to do public executions. Even Iran, which also has executions, didn't have as many or use facilities built by the international community for them. Also Iran, though actually ruled by the mullah, is at least nominally democratic. Afghan was still in a state of civil war, with various factions making up the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban.
It's more a of a revival of the Opium Wars, and pipelines, etc. And Britain has a much deeper interest in the area than the US.
Oh, I agree we're not in Afghan simply because the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, however that is the state purpose for the US being there. Chevron was part of a group who wanted to build a pipeline through Afghan, however the Taliban wasn't letting them have their way.
FalconAll of which is quite scary, but to be honest with you, something that scares and annoys me more is the fact that our idiotic (Australian) federal government literally jumped at the opportunity to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.
I agreed with the US going to Afghanistan but not Iraq. However I supported Afghan for a different reason than what was used to justify, HAHA!!!!, the invasion. When Bush asked the Taliban to hand over bin Laden they asked to see any evidence he was guilty, but Bush refused. I supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive. However instead of invading I'd rather have supported Afghans who wanted democracy.
No offence to our military, but on the world scale, our military might is equivalent to a slightly miffed lunch-lady with a rolling pin.
And people can't even protect themselves Down Under. The Aussie sharp shooters can't even practice their sport in their country. At least they couldn't for the 2000 Olympics, instead they had to go to another country to practice from what I heard.
FalconAh, Johnathan Swift.
FalconTry a logged GPS in the truck.. seriously.. RFID is totally inappropriate here.
Trucking companies do this now, use GPS in trucks. Shipping can be made more efficient and for long hauls companies can make sure drivers don't drive too long.
Falcon