So what you're saying is that we need to make the solar to fuel conversion more efficient?
Sure, let's go with that. How long will it take to make that technology work as compared to, and I'm just giving this as an example, building some nuclear power plants to replace some natural gas power plants. We'd be burning less natural gas, and the gas we save would not have to be synthesized by some not yet proven viable technology. We'd still be burning some natural gas, but then we'd also be burning natural gas while waiting for this solar to fuel conversion technology to develop.
I keep hearing that nuclear power is worthless because it would take 10 years to complete a nuclear power plant if we started today. That's bullshit but I will concede that point for this discussion. I'll ask again, how long will it take for this solar to fuel technology to come? How long until we will see the energy storage systems of any type to get deployed and allow us to use wind and solar to replace coal? I keep hearing that it could take 10 to 20 years.
So, we can wait for wind and solar but not wait for nuclear? What a pile of bullshit. What happens if this technology doesn't come? Where is the plan B in this? Do we then allow nuclear power plants to get built? Or, can we wait another 10 to 20 years while we keep burning coal and natural gas?
We will need fuel synthesis infrastructure whether we deploy more nuclear or not. The difference is we can pray at the altars of wind and solar in the hope they will save us, or we can include nuclear power in on the deal just in case the gods don't smile upon us.
The Democrats are not supporting nuclear in Iran, they are supporting supervision so they don't make bombs.
What are they supervising? That's right, a civilian nuclear power program. So, you admit that the Democrats will allow Iran to have a nuclear power program. What does the Democratic Party say on nuclear power in the USA? Oddly nothing. I checked: https://democrats.org/wp-conte...
Trump wants to kill the supervision so he can claim they have the bomb and start a war.
That's irrelevant to the discussion. Iran has been quite successful in killing the supervision on their own, if they won't play by the rules then they need to be punished for it.
Iran has been violating every rule on the supervision of their nuclear power program. The Democrats aren't stopping Iran from building nuclear power but they are stopping nuclear power from being developed in the USA. So, which is it? Does the Democrat Party support nuclear power or not? It's quite obvious that they don't otherwise they would not have held up the construction of radioactive material disposal sites, and of nuclear power reactors, for the last 40 years.
The Democrats seem to think nuclear power is fine in Iran, so why not here? If they believe nuclear power is too much of a safety risk here then they are evil bastards for setting Iran up for their own nuclear accident.
As much as they claim this as a solution to global warming it should be obvious it is not. First of all they admit that this is limited to very short flights, the kind of travel better suited to rail. Second, they have to know this will not make it to market any time soon. Even if they had flying prototypes today no passenger service would be allowed by any regulatory agency in the world without considerable testing. Then, even if they are approved to fly, there is the problem of infrastructure. They plan to swap out the batteries on the ground to avoid having to keep the airplane on the ground for a recharge. That will limit the places it can fly.
At best we can get these electric planes flying in 30 years. We can get carbon neutral synthesized jet fuel far sooner, all we need is a government willing to make it happen.
I'm seeing the Democrats in America giving Iran support for their civil nuclear power program. They aren't working on fusion, they want fission, and the Democrats want them to have it.
Why would a nation so rich in energy need nuclear fission? They have lots of sun, and wind, and hydro. Why support a nuclear power program in Iran? If Iran can have nuclear power then why not Americans? If the American Democrats were consistent then they'd be supporting nuclear power everywhere, not just in Iran. And everywhere would include the USA.
When Iran does get this nuclear power then what will they do with the waste? We have our own waste problems here but the Democrats are opposing the construction of facilities to process and contain the waste. I assume Iran will need such facilities as well. Can't all nations have facilities to dispose of radioactive waste?
Fusion is a nice idea, and I'm not going to tell private individuals how to spend their money. It sure would be nice if the government spent some of the money I send them to solve this nuclear waste problem. There's only two ways to dispose of the waste, bury it or consume it in neutron bombardment. Both solutions require facilities to process the waste. Democrats won't fund it here but they will in Iran.
This makes me wonder what the Democrats plan to do with all this plutonium we are supposed to dispose of by treaty? Do they plan to sell it to Iran? That seems to be the plan if Iran can have these facilities but we can't.
Fission works, fusion doesn't. Whatever you have to say against fission it sounds better than global warming. If global warming is a threat then we need fission power. If you fear fission power than global warming then I say you have some messed up priorities. We can wait for fusion to become energy positive, we can wait for battery storage to make wind and solar viable, we can wait for global warming, or we can start fixing the problem now with nuclear fission.
These billionaires are investing in energy storage systems. They are looking on ways to efficiently release and collect the energy stored in the matter in the universe.
Fuel is storage.
Anything that uses fuel for energy is inherently an energy storage system. We store energy in the fuel, and we release it when we choose. Natural gas is an energy storage system. Coal is an energy storage system. Same goes for petroleum, nuclear fission, and hydroelectric dams. (Although water stored at a height isn't "fuel" but hydro is an energy storage system by it's very nature.)
If wind and solar power cannot be stored efficiently then maybe we need to reconsider their value as a viable energy solution for the future. There's a time limit on when this technology must arrive as dictated on the effects burning carbon based fuels have on the environment. We know that wind and solar power cannot replace coal and natural gas without storage. We know that, while pumped hydro storage is an excellent means to store energy, there are not enough rivers to dam up for pumped hydro storage to meet all our energy needs.
Where's our plan B?
We will need fuel based energy if we can't figure out how to store the energy from wind and sun in a means that is inexpensive and plentiful before time runs out. So, what's the plan B? I know what plan B should include. If nobody can admit that the future of energy storage isn't looking so bright then we have a serious problem. Or, rather, the wind and solar people have a problem because those that won't worship at the twin altars of wind and sun will just move on without them.
Maybe the problem isn't energy storage, but rather focusing on wind, solar, and storage when they might not be the solution.
If adopting English as the official language in the USA would not change anything then why do so many people oppose adopting English as the official language?
I have my own theories. The problems of French and English use in Canada is an example of what could happen in the USA if a single official language is not adopted. Those opposing a single official language are looking to produce in the USA that same kind of division of the public seen in Canada.
Who's going to pay for all this wind, solar, and storage? I've seen the math on this and one source is this: http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...
They computed, using the numbers from the wind, water, and sun advocates, that it would cost THIRTY TRILLION DOLLARS to complete.
How much would it cost for a 100% nuclear solution? $3 Trillion â" $6.7 Trillion
The "Roadmap to Nowhere" paper is not advocating for a 100% nuclear solution to our energy problems, that is not only impractical but far from ideal. They use the 100% nuclear solution as a thought experiment to show just how impractical the 100% wind, water, and sun solution would be. You think these people didn't see their own numbers and not realize it would not work? I believe they do know it would not work. They tried to hide the inevitable in the numbers and hoped people would not look close enough to see the failure it will inevitably become.
So, to answer your question, who's going to pay for the nuclear power plants? Ultimately you, myself, and everyone that uses electricity in the world. This will happen through paying the market rates to utilities, and they use that money to buy electricity from the people that invested in nuclear power in the hope to make a profit. If we don't deploy nuclear power, again using the numbers from the wind, water, and sun advocates, we can expect our electricity rates to be double, triple, or as high as ten times what we pay now.
The Obama administration was openly hostile to nuclear power, going back to when Obama was a state senator. The Democrat party is still openly hostile to nuclear power. They allowed these nuclear power projects to proceed in Republican dominated states to buy votes, because shutting them down would have put a lot of people out of work when things were not going well for them. I have to wonder if they didn't sabotage the projects after they lost in the elections in an effort to pin this on the Trump Administration.
I'm listening to talk radio right now and I hear the Democrats fighting hard for a nuclear deal with Iran. Why would they do this? Why does Iran want this technology? The stated purpose is to build a civil nuclear power program, but everyone knows that's only cover for a weapons program. Let's assume everything is on the level and Iran is honestly trying to build a civil nuclear power program. Why is it that Iran can have nuclear power but the USA cannot? If nuclear power is good for the Iranian goose then it should be good for the American Michigander. There isn't a lot of sun in Midwest winters, and there's not a lot of hydro around here either. We have wind but without hydro, nuclear, and/or natural gas to back that up it's worthless.
It's nuclear power or the lights go out. You can cherrypick a handful of troubled nuclear power projects but there's hundreds of successful projects that show nuclear power does work.
4. No, I didn't read the proposition, because, I could care less what it says. It's irrelevant. What matters is moving the ball forward with respect to all clean energy sources.
Ah, I see. You not only admit ignorance you admit willful ignorance. In the fine article was this:
Perhaps the loudest argument against Proposition 127 is that it would force the Palo Verde nuclear plant, the largest in the country, to shut down.
You were jumping up and down screaming, "Make THIS happen!" in a discussion about Arizona Proposition 127 and you expect people to extract from this that you support nuclear power? You emphasized "THIS" should happen, in a discussion on Arizona Proposition 127. A proposition that, as stated in the fine article, would force the largest nuclear power plant in the USA to close.
If you don't want to be accused of hating on nuclear power in the future then perhaps you should choose your words more carefully. Or, at least choose where you post your words more carefully, such as not in a discussion thread that is on killing the nuclear power industry in the USA.
Largely because it takes time to ramp up production of those things. The current power grid wasn't built in a day either.
Wind and solar power predate nuclear power. By several thousand years.
Solar thermal systems have been experimented on for a very long time and even photoelectric systems have been experimented with for nearly 200 years. Wind power has been used to drive machines and propel ships since before written history, and used to drive electric generation since there were electric generators. The promise of "free" energy from wind and sun has caused people to invest plenty of time and resources all through this time, so development never stopped. Ever since the energy shortages of the 1970s the US federal government has been dumping piles of money on people looking to bring this promise of energy from wind and sun to replace the energy we've been importing to power our economy.
Don't tell me that wind and solar power hasn't had enough time to replace nuclear power. Wind and solar power had thousands of years of development. Ever since we've developed nuclear power any technological advance in computing power, and development in infrastructure, benefited wind and solar power development as much as nuclear power.
If wind and solar will save us from global warming then how much longer must we wait? What happens if the promise of cheap and plentiful energy from wind and solar does not come? What criteria do we use to declare wind and solar insufficient to solve our energy problem? We can't wait forever because while we wait for wind and solar power to displace coal and oil we will continue to burn this stuff and release CO2 into the air.
This is looking like a religion, a worship of the wind and sun, more than any kind of scientific endeavor. We can continue to develop wind and solar power but in the mean time we need to make progress on reducing our CO2. That means nuclear power. We can build a nuclear power plant in less than 5 years, despite the claims otherwise. Let's let them get built. If wind and solar power gets to a point it can replace nuclear power then the people that made a bet on nuclear power lost. If wind and solar power don't advance as quickly as we had hoped then we are now 5 years ahead on replacing coal.
We've seen the federal government kick nuclear power to the floor while giving wind and solar power every possible advantage, yet nuclear power still dominates. This is religious fanaticism, not science. We need to let nuclear power develop because we can't wait for wind and solar to save us any more.
That phrase was added by AZ Attorney General Mark Brnovich at the request of energy company Arizona Public Service. Quid pro quo.
I noticed something in the opinion articles you linked to, they didn't claim the language change was a lie. That's because they couldn't. The phrase is an accurate description of what would it would do because there is no requirement in the proposition for costs of the energy to be considered when buying this wind and solar power.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The wind and solar lobby tried to get this by without informing the voters on what might happen, knowing full well that raising of the rates will be inevitable. They might claim the raising of rates would be temporary, or small, or to the benefit of the voters (from cleaner air and such) but the truth is that there is no "out" on this if electricity rates get out of hand. I read the proposition and there is no exit strategy that I could find, costs imposed or otherwise.
This proposition benefits nobody but those providing power from wind, water, and sun, they get a blank check from the pockets of the ratepayers.
What's the problem they are pointing out? That humans are changing the planet too much? I've seen what happens when humans change the planet, they turn deserts to fruitful soil. I don't see that as a bad thing.
This is just a bunch of hatred on humanity. If the impact of humans on the planet bother you so much then don't breed. I'd suggest going further but I wouldn't wish death on anyone, even self hating idiots that would like to impose misery on their fellow humans to save the wilderness.
You know who does the best on saving the wildlife? Hunters. Licensed hunting has done more to save the wildlife than these self hating fools. You know who has done the most in turning sand to soil? Farmers. You know who has done the most to keep trees growing? Loggers. Who has done the most to maintain the fish populations? Fishermen. People in business collecting the world's resources will fight for making sure that there are resources to collect. Setting them off limits makes them worthless and therefore no one has any interest to preserve it.
Making the wilderness off limits to law abiding humans only opens it up poaching, littering, and all kinds of criminal behavior by the not so law abiding humans. We've seen this happen, don't make history repeat because of your ignorance of it.
Then the proposition would not have excluded nuclear power, the safest and lowest CO2 energy source we have today. http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
He speaks for the wind and solar lobby. If the people behind wind and solar power truly believed that they could compete with coal, natural gas, or even nuclear, then they would not have bothered with this proposition. In one way I hope this proposition passes. It will prove beyond a doubt on if wind and solar can compete. If this drives up the cost of electricity even a penny then it's a failure. If it doubles the price of electricity, which the data shows is certainly possible, then people will be BEGGING for something else.
Go ahead Arizona, vote how you like, people get the government they deserve. Choose wisely.
Yes, that is true. Proposition 127 would destroy that fungibility.
People generally don't much care where their electricity comes from so long as when they flip a switch a light comes on. What we see people in Arizona doing is make electricity not fungible, making a distinction between different energy sources "irrespective of cost" based on an arbitrary distinction. This will inherently drive up costs, because there is no fungibility in the electricity any more as different kinds of watt-hours are treated differently. The utilities can't ship in electricity from where they choose, or ship it out as they wish. They are bound by the law to have at least 50% of their electricity from what the law defines as renewable.
The only way for Proposition 127 to not drive up energy costs is if the market prices for wind and solar power naturally become lower than competing sources by 2030. That's not going to happen. If the people writing this proposition had any faith that it would happen naturally then they would not have put this proposition on the ballot. People complain about Big Coal and Big Nuclear being "evil" in their grabbing for profits. Well, here's an example of Big Wind and Big Solar putting a proposition on the ballot that would guarantee themselves a profit for decades.
People are getting all excited to vote in favor of government guaranteed profits for big corporations, with the common middle class wage earner carrying the bulk of this load. The rich don't care, they will move, prop up some solar panels on the roof (and probably get paid for it), or just suck it up and pay the higher rates. The poor probably don't care either, there's lots of government programs to pay the electric bills for them.
Proposition 127 is just the rich getting richer and the middle class being driven to poverty. You disagree? Fine, vote "yes" and see what happens. I'll watch from a safe distance.
So again, show me a reactor that's cheaper to run safely. Oh, and one that's either in active use or can be built. Nothing experimental or "just a few years away". Something that can be built today. Until then the extra cost for solar is worth it.
There's something like 450+ nuclear power plants operating on the planet today, with probably another 50+ under construction. You want an example? Pick one. Chances are with those kinds of odds that if you pick any currently operating power plant you will find one that is exceedingly safe, currently making a profit, and doing so with technology that's been proven itself with decades of quietly keeping the lights on for the world.
I've never heard of a solar power plant turning a city into a dead zone.
Yet. Anytime there's people playing with megawatts of power there's ample opportunity for death and destruction. We just started with solar power, we still don't know where all the gremlins are.
Also, we don't need a city turned into a dead zone for the bodies to pile up. Nuclear power is already safer than solar power. http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
If you cut corners then it costs a bit more in maintenance. Do the same on a nuke plant and you've got a meltdown + dead zone.
Here's an idea, don't let drunken Soviets design, build, and run your nuclear power plant. That should solve all the problems of a meltdown and dead zone.
It turns out that in the USA there's a shortage of drunken Soviets. I think we'll do just fine on that.
Oh, because I'm expecting someone to prop up another straw man from another nuclear accident, Arizona seems to have a shortage of tsunamis. I'm thinking Arizona is a very good place for some nuclear power, as is much of the USA.
It doesn't have to take 10+ years to build a nuclear power plant, the ones near me were built in less than 5 years. That was 40+ years ago, and our ability to build things since then has improved. There's nothing keeping nuclear power plants getting from breaking ground to producing power in 5 years if we set our minds to it, and chased off the Greenpeace assholes when they show up. We've seen nuclear power plants get built in 3 years before, and I'm guessing that once we got some experience that we'd be able to do that in less than 2 years.
Even if it did take 10+ years to complete a nuclear power plant that still doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. We know we will need the electricity, and large civil projects routinely run longer than that. All that long building time means is that we should stop talking about it and get started building them. I remember having a discussion with a co-worker about drilling for oil in ANWR, it came up because oil prices crept up a bit. He told me that drilling there for oil now because oil prices went up a bit is a stupid idea, it would take 5 years to get any oil from it. Every well takes 5 years to get oil from it, if we made that argument for every well then we'd never have drilled before. Then 5 years after that conversation oil prices hit record highs. I don't know if drilling for oil in ANWR would have done anything meaningful to lower prices but it would not have hurt. Just in general we have large projects planned out years in advance. Given that a nuclear power plant, once online and built to modern specification, is expected to last for 80 years this is just a good idea for the future. Construction on Hoover Dam was started in 1931 but the last generator wasn't installed and running until 1961. That's 30 years. It's been there for a very long time, managing the water flow and generating power. It's expected to continue doing so for a long time yet.
Telling me it takes a long time to build a nuclear power plant is not an argument to not build them, it merely means we need to account for that in the planning. We can build some solar at the same time as the nuclear power plants, perhaps even on the same sites so they can back each other up and share in resources, human resources and power lines.
Since when has ANY government shown the ability to EFFICIENTLY run ANYTHING?
I'd say the military is quite efficient at their job. But then their job is to kill people and break things.
The military gets real "inefficient" when they aren't doing their job or training for their job, because at those times they are just busy existing for the next time we need people dead and things broken. Those soldiers and sailors eat a lot of food and burn a lot of fuel when in peace time but when you want something blown up, well, that happens with great speed, accuracy, and just general efficiency.
Just thinking about that efficiency makes me happy.
It is apparent that you didn't read the article. I'll give you a selected portion to demonstrate this.
Within days, the "irrespective of cost" language was front and center in Arizonans for Affordable Energy's television advertisements, which emphasized that any increase would be based on an initiative championed by a billionaire from California with larger political ambitions.
If solar power is the cheapest energy source on earth then there would be no need for this "irrespective of cost" provision. They admitted that solar power is expensive RIGHT ON THE BALLOT for the voters to see.
Also, if solar power is so cheap then Germany would be enjoying the lowest electricity costs in the whole of Europe. Germany would also not have similar laws forcing the use of solar power.
One last thing, calling people retarded is not a convincing means to make an argument. It might help if you provided some sources for your information instead. You want me to believe that solar is the cheapest energy source on the planet? Then show me a study on energy prices. I see that solar power is not the cheapest from the article given that launched this discussion. Another selected portion for you.
"They are fighting this so hard because they know they will make more money off of natural gas than they will off of renewables," Mayes said. "That's my viewpoint as a former regulator."
Nuclear power is not renewable, and has its own pretty serious drawbacks.
Global warming has serious drawbacks too. As does solar power, windmills, geothermal, hydro, everything has problems and nothing is perfect.
If nuclear power concerns you more than global warming then just how much of a threat does global warming pose?
I don't care if nuclear power is not "renewable", in the end nothing really is. Nuclear power, even with the worst outlook on known reserves, will still last decades. That's a lot of coal that we wouldn't have to burn. More optimistic estimates on nuclear power, with the use of thorium and breeder reactors, the supply would last centuries, if not longer than the sun will burn.
Again, if nuclear power "drawbacks" concern you more than global warming then I wonder just how bad global warming could be. Global warming has been made out to be real bad. It's hard to conceive that nuclear power could possibly be worse.
Yo ass-hole - solutions a plenty but you are not interested in pursuing them.
I'm interested in pursuing solutions that will actually solve the problem. I've seen the math and wind, water, and sun is insufficient to solve the problem. We need all the above, and "all the above" includes nuclear power.
I think what you are after is the silver bullet, easy button where *YOU* don't have to do anything. Sorry but time to sack up and do some heavy lifting.
What do you expect me, a disabled veteran and code monkey, to "heavy lift"? I'm not going to be climbing up on rooftops to install solar panels. I do what I can. I had an energy assessment done on my house, and the guy was nice enough to "give" me some LED lights (which I'm sure I paid for through my utility bill and/or taxes). I got a "new to me" truck to drive, which is more reliable and fuel efficient than my old vehicle. (Don't tell me I don't need a truck, or a vehicle at all, because you don't know where I drive or what I carry.) I'm getting insulation and windows for my house (which are energy improvements as well as just maintenance). When the furnace died years ago I got a heat pump to replace it (but there's a natural gas backup because it gets too cold for a heat pump here).
What do you expect me to do? What I'm doing now is getting the word out on Slashdot on what I learned, we cannot solve our energy problems without nuclear power. CANNOT!! The math simply does not work. All the idiots here try to tell people otherwise but not only is that not "heavy lifting" it's also just wishful thinking. Putting solar panels on your roof is a waste of time and money if there isn't a reliable, safe, and environmentally friendly, energy source for when the sun doesn't shine. That's going to include nuclear power or the lights go out.
Lots of evidence that it is actually altruism that has enabled humanity to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Tribes that support each other is the reason that people are successful.
There's no altruism in laws mandating the use of solar power.
If these people wanting solar power were altruistic then they'd be funding these solar power projects themselves, not forcing others to pay for it. As it seems to me the problem isn't that solar power won't make money, it's that it doesn't make as much money as natural gas. Okay, then start a business that's profitable selling solar power. The altruism in this is taking a pay cut for the benefit others. In the end altruism won't pay the bills, so people still need to see a profit.
My original claim still stands with a population that's altruistic or greedy, we will need to see solar power truly less expensive than natural gas for it to thrive. There's an argument for not wasting money on expensive solar power if there is cheaper natural gas available. That money could be used for investments in research on solar power, reducing energy usage (buying insulation or a new car), or just other improvements to life like allowing people to buy the food, medicine, clothing, and such they need to live happy and healthy lives.
Natural gas isn't all that bad of an energy source anyway, it's far better than coal in both CO2 and air pollution emitted. Let's use more natural gas.
Slashdot Mirror
Give someone some LSD tonight and then change the clocks.
I do that every weekend, what makes this weekend any different?
Apples watch whose sole purpose is telling time managed to brick for 24-hours recently when Australia changed time.
If someone is buying an Apple Watch only to tell time then they are doing it wrong.
So what you're saying is that we need to make the solar to fuel conversion more efficient?
Sure, let's go with that. How long will it take to make that technology work as compared to, and I'm just giving this as an example, building some nuclear power plants to replace some natural gas power plants. We'd be burning less natural gas, and the gas we save would not have to be synthesized by some not yet proven viable technology. We'd still be burning some natural gas, but then we'd also be burning natural gas while waiting for this solar to fuel conversion technology to develop.
I keep hearing that nuclear power is worthless because it would take 10 years to complete a nuclear power plant if we started today. That's bullshit but I will concede that point for this discussion. I'll ask again, how long will it take for this solar to fuel technology to come? How long until we will see the energy storage systems of any type to get deployed and allow us to use wind and solar to replace coal? I keep hearing that it could take 10 to 20 years.
So, we can wait for wind and solar but not wait for nuclear? What a pile of bullshit. What happens if this technology doesn't come? Where is the plan B in this? Do we then allow nuclear power plants to get built? Or, can we wait another 10 to 20 years while we keep burning coal and natural gas?
We will need fuel synthesis infrastructure whether we deploy more nuclear or not. The difference is we can pray at the altars of wind and solar in the hope they will save us, or we can include nuclear power in on the deal just in case the gods don't smile upon us.
The Democrats are not supporting nuclear in Iran, they are supporting supervision so they don't make bombs.
What are they supervising? That's right, a civilian nuclear power program. So, you admit that the Democrats will allow Iran to have a nuclear power program. What does the Democratic Party say on nuclear power in the USA? Oddly nothing. I checked:
https://democrats.org/wp-conte...
Trump wants to kill the supervision so he can claim they have the bomb and start a war.
That's irrelevant to the discussion. Iran has been quite successful in killing the supervision on their own, if they won't play by the rules then they need to be punished for it.
Trump wants to see nuclear power grow in the USA. I saw that in the Republican platform document.
https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s...
Iran has been violating every rule on the supervision of their nuclear power program. The Democrats aren't stopping Iran from building nuclear power but they are stopping nuclear power from being developed in the USA. So, which is it? Does the Democrat Party support nuclear power or not? It's quite obvious that they don't otherwise they would not have held up the construction of radioactive material disposal sites, and of nuclear power reactors, for the last 40 years.
The Democrats seem to think nuclear power is fine in Iran, so why not here? If they believe nuclear power is too much of a safety risk here then they are evil bastards for setting Iran up for their own nuclear accident.
As much as they claim this as a solution to global warming it should be obvious it is not. First of all they admit that this is limited to very short flights, the kind of travel better suited to rail. Second, they have to know this will not make it to market any time soon. Even if they had flying prototypes today no passenger service would be allowed by any regulatory agency in the world without considerable testing. Then, even if they are approved to fly, there is the problem of infrastructure. They plan to swap out the batteries on the ground to avoid having to keep the airplane on the ground for a recharge. That will limit the places it can fly.
Here's a better idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
At best we can get these electric planes flying in 30 years. We can get carbon neutral synthesized jet fuel far sooner, all we need is a government willing to make it happen.
I'm seeing the Democrats in America giving Iran support for their civil nuclear power program. They aren't working on fusion, they want fission, and the Democrats want them to have it.
Why would a nation so rich in energy need nuclear fission? They have lots of sun, and wind, and hydro. Why support a nuclear power program in Iran? If Iran can have nuclear power then why not Americans? If the American Democrats were consistent then they'd be supporting nuclear power everywhere, not just in Iran. And everywhere would include the USA.
When Iran does get this nuclear power then what will they do with the waste? We have our own waste problems here but the Democrats are opposing the construction of facilities to process and contain the waste. I assume Iran will need such facilities as well. Can't all nations have facilities to dispose of radioactive waste?
Fusion is a nice idea, and I'm not going to tell private individuals how to spend their money. It sure would be nice if the government spent some of the money I send them to solve this nuclear waste problem. There's only two ways to dispose of the waste, bury it or consume it in neutron bombardment. Both solutions require facilities to process the waste. Democrats won't fund it here but they will in Iran.
This makes me wonder what the Democrats plan to do with all this plutonium we are supposed to dispose of by treaty? Do they plan to sell it to Iran? That seems to be the plan if Iran can have these facilities but we can't.
Fission does not involve a lot of carbon. It produces less carbon than wind and solar.
Citation:
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
Fission works, fusion doesn't. Whatever you have to say against fission it sounds better than global warming. If global warming is a threat then we need fission power. If you fear fission power than global warming then I say you have some messed up priorities. We can wait for fusion to become energy positive, we can wait for battery storage to make wind and solar viable, we can wait for global warming, or we can start fixing the problem now with nuclear fission.
These billionaires are investing in energy storage systems. They are looking on ways to efficiently release and collect the energy stored in the matter in the universe.
Fuel is storage.
Anything that uses fuel for energy is inherently an energy storage system. We store energy in the fuel, and we release it when we choose. Natural gas is an energy storage system. Coal is an energy storage system. Same goes for petroleum, nuclear fission, and hydroelectric dams. (Although water stored at a height isn't "fuel" but hydro is an energy storage system by it's very nature.)
If wind and solar power cannot be stored efficiently then maybe we need to reconsider their value as a viable energy solution for the future. There's a time limit on when this technology must arrive as dictated on the effects burning carbon based fuels have on the environment. We know that wind and solar power cannot replace coal and natural gas without storage. We know that, while pumped hydro storage is an excellent means to store energy, there are not enough rivers to dam up for pumped hydro storage to meet all our energy needs.
Where's our plan B?
We will need fuel based energy if we can't figure out how to store the energy from wind and sun in a means that is inexpensive and plentiful before time runs out. So, what's the plan B? I know what plan B should include. If nobody can admit that the future of energy storage isn't looking so bright then we have a serious problem. Or, rather, the wind and solar people have a problem because those that won't worship at the twin altars of wind and sun will just move on without them.
Maybe the problem isn't energy storage, but rather focusing on wind, solar, and storage when they might not be the solution.
Less and less science too. Funny, that.
I agree, only I'm not laughing. (Not that you are. "Curious" would, IMHO, be a better choice than "funny".)
If adopting English as the official language in the USA would not change anything then why do so many people oppose adopting English as the official language?
I have my own theories. The problems of French and English use in Canada is an example of what could happen in the USA if a single official language is not adopted. Those opposing a single official language are looking to produce in the USA that same kind of division of the public seen in Canada.
Who's going to pay for the nuclear power plants?
Who's going to pay for all this wind, solar, and storage? I've seen the math on this and one source is this:
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...
They computed, using the numbers from the wind, water, and sun advocates, that it would cost THIRTY TRILLION DOLLARS to complete.
How much would it cost for a 100% nuclear solution? $3 Trillion â" $6.7 Trillion
The "Roadmap to Nowhere" paper is not advocating for a 100% nuclear solution to our energy problems, that is not only impractical but far from ideal. They use the 100% nuclear solution as a thought experiment to show just how impractical the 100% wind, water, and sun solution would be. You think these people didn't see their own numbers and not realize it would not work? I believe they do know it would not work. They tried to hide the inevitable in the numbers and hoped people would not look close enough to see the failure it will inevitably become.
So, to answer your question, who's going to pay for the nuclear power plants? Ultimately you, myself, and everyone that uses electricity in the world. This will happen through paying the market rates to utilities, and they use that money to buy electricity from the people that invested in nuclear power in the hope to make a profit. If we don't deploy nuclear power, again using the numbers from the wind, water, and sun advocates, we can expect our electricity rates to be double, triple, or as high as ten times what we pay now.
The Obama administration was openly hostile to nuclear power, going back to when Obama was a state senator. The Democrat party is still openly hostile to nuclear power. They allowed these nuclear power projects to proceed in Republican dominated states to buy votes, because shutting them down would have put a lot of people out of work when things were not going well for them. I have to wonder if they didn't sabotage the projects after they lost in the elections in an effort to pin this on the Trump Administration.
I'm listening to talk radio right now and I hear the Democrats fighting hard for a nuclear deal with Iran. Why would they do this? Why does Iran want this technology? The stated purpose is to build a civil nuclear power program, but everyone knows that's only cover for a weapons program. Let's assume everything is on the level and Iran is honestly trying to build a civil nuclear power program. Why is it that Iran can have nuclear power but the USA cannot? If nuclear power is good for the Iranian goose then it should be good for the American Michigander. There isn't a lot of sun in Midwest winters, and there's not a lot of hydro around here either. We have wind but without hydro, nuclear, and/or natural gas to back that up it's worthless.
It's nuclear power or the lights go out. You can cherrypick a handful of troubled nuclear power projects but there's hundreds of successful projects that show nuclear power does work.
4. No, I didn't read the proposition, because, I could care less what it says. It's irrelevant. What matters is moving the ball forward with respect to all clean energy sources.
Ah, I see. You not only admit ignorance you admit willful ignorance. In the fine article was this:
Perhaps the loudest argument against Proposition 127 is that it would force the Palo Verde nuclear plant, the largest in the country, to shut down.
You were jumping up and down screaming, "Make THIS happen!" in a discussion about Arizona Proposition 127 and you expect people to extract from this that you support nuclear power? You emphasized "THIS" should happen, in a discussion on Arizona Proposition 127. A proposition that, as stated in the fine article, would force the largest nuclear power plant in the USA to close.
If you don't want to be accused of hating on nuclear power in the future then perhaps you should choose your words more carefully. Or, at least choose where you post your words more carefully, such as not in a discussion thread that is on killing the nuclear power industry in the USA.
Largely because it takes time to ramp up production of those things. The current power grid wasn't built in a day either.
Wind and solar power predate nuclear power. By several thousand years.
Solar thermal systems have been experimented on for a very long time and even photoelectric systems have been experimented with for nearly 200 years. Wind power has been used to drive machines and propel ships since before written history, and used to drive electric generation since there were electric generators. The promise of "free" energy from wind and sun has caused people to invest plenty of time and resources all through this time, so development never stopped. Ever since the energy shortages of the 1970s the US federal government has been dumping piles of money on people looking to bring this promise of energy from wind and sun to replace the energy we've been importing to power our economy.
Don't tell me that wind and solar power hasn't had enough time to replace nuclear power. Wind and solar power had thousands of years of development. Ever since we've developed nuclear power any technological advance in computing power, and development in infrastructure, benefited wind and solar power development as much as nuclear power.
If wind and solar will save us from global warming then how much longer must we wait? What happens if the promise of cheap and plentiful energy from wind and solar does not come? What criteria do we use to declare wind and solar insufficient to solve our energy problem? We can't wait forever because while we wait for wind and solar power to displace coal and oil we will continue to burn this stuff and release CO2 into the air.
This is looking like a religion, a worship of the wind and sun, more than any kind of scientific endeavor. We can continue to develop wind and solar power but in the mean time we need to make progress on reducing our CO2. That means nuclear power. We can build a nuclear power plant in less than 5 years, despite the claims otherwise. Let's let them get built. If wind and solar power gets to a point it can replace nuclear power then the people that made a bet on nuclear power lost. If wind and solar power don't advance as quickly as we had hoped then we are now 5 years ahead on replacing coal.
We've seen the federal government kick nuclear power to the floor while giving wind and solar power every possible advantage, yet nuclear power still dominates. This is religious fanaticism, not science. We need to let nuclear power develop because we can't wait for wind and solar to save us any more.
That phrase was added by AZ Attorney General Mark Brnovich at the request of energy company Arizona Public Service. Quid pro quo.
I noticed something in the opinion articles you linked to, they didn't claim the language change was a lie. That's because they couldn't. The phrase is an accurate description of what would it would do because there is no requirement in the proposition for costs of the energy to be considered when buying this wind and solar power.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The wind and solar lobby tried to get this by without informing the voters on what might happen, knowing full well that raising of the rates will be inevitable. They might claim the raising of rates would be temporary, or small, or to the benefit of the voters (from cleaner air and such) but the truth is that there is no "out" on this if electricity rates get out of hand. I read the proposition and there is no exit strategy that I could find, costs imposed or otherwise.
This proposition benefits nobody but those providing power from wind, water, and sun, they get a blank check from the pockets of the ratepayers.
What's the problem they are pointing out? That humans are changing the planet too much? I've seen what happens when humans change the planet, they turn deserts to fruitful soil. I don't see that as a bad thing.
This is just a bunch of hatred on humanity. If the impact of humans on the planet bother you so much then don't breed. I'd suggest going further but I wouldn't wish death on anyone, even self hating idiots that would like to impose misery on their fellow humans to save the wilderness.
You know who does the best on saving the wildlife? Hunters. Licensed hunting has done more to save the wildlife than these self hating fools. You know who has done the most in turning sand to soil? Farmers. You know who has done the most to keep trees growing? Loggers. Who has done the most to maintain the fish populations? Fishermen. People in business collecting the world's resources will fight for making sure that there are resources to collect. Setting them off limits makes them worthless and therefore no one has any interest to preserve it.
Making the wilderness off limits to law abiding humans only opens it up poaching, littering, and all kinds of criminal behavior by the not so law abiding humans. We've seen this happen, don't make history repeat because of your ignorance of it.
Was it raining? Lime can real hot when wet, hot enough to start a fire.
Although quicklime is not considered a fire hazard, its reaction with water can release enough heat to ignite combustible materials.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
He speaks for those that want a habitable planet.
Then the proposition would not have excluded nuclear power, the safest and lowest CO2 energy source we have today.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
He speaks for the wind and solar lobby. If the people behind wind and solar power truly believed that they could compete with coal, natural gas, or even nuclear, then they would not have bothered with this proposition. In one way I hope this proposition passes. It will prove beyond a doubt on if wind and solar can compete. If this drives up the cost of electricity even a penny then it's a failure. If it doubles the price of electricity, which the data shows is certainly possible, then people will be BEGGING for something else.
Go ahead Arizona, vote how you like, people get the government they deserve. Choose wisely.
Fortunately electricity is very fungible
Yes, that is true. Proposition 127 would destroy that fungibility.
People generally don't much care where their electricity comes from so long as when they flip a switch a light comes on. What we see people in Arizona doing is make electricity not fungible, making a distinction between different energy sources "irrespective of cost" based on an arbitrary distinction. This will inherently drive up costs, because there is no fungibility in the electricity any more as different kinds of watt-hours are treated differently. The utilities can't ship in electricity from where they choose, or ship it out as they wish. They are bound by the law to have at least 50% of their electricity from what the law defines as renewable.
The only way for Proposition 127 to not drive up energy costs is if the market prices for wind and solar power naturally become lower than competing sources by 2030. That's not going to happen. If the people writing this proposition had any faith that it would happen naturally then they would not have put this proposition on the ballot. People complain about Big Coal and Big Nuclear being "evil" in their grabbing for profits. Well, here's an example of Big Wind and Big Solar putting a proposition on the ballot that would guarantee themselves a profit for decades.
People are getting all excited to vote in favor of government guaranteed profits for big corporations, with the common middle class wage earner carrying the bulk of this load. The rich don't care, they will move, prop up some solar panels on the roof (and probably get paid for it), or just suck it up and pay the higher rates. The poor probably don't care either, there's lots of government programs to pay the electric bills for them.
Proposition 127 is just the rich getting richer and the middle class being driven to poverty. You disagree? Fine, vote "yes" and see what happens. I'll watch from a safe distance.
So again, show me a reactor that's cheaper to run safely. Oh, and one that's either in active use or can be built. Nothing experimental or "just a few years away". Something that can be built today. Until then the extra cost for solar is worth it.
There's something like 450+ nuclear power plants operating on the planet today, with probably another 50+ under construction. You want an example? Pick one. Chances are with those kinds of odds that if you pick any currently operating power plant you will find one that is exceedingly safe, currently making a profit, and doing so with technology that's been proven itself with decades of quietly keeping the lights on for the world.
I've never heard of a solar power plant turning a city into a dead zone.
Yet. Anytime there's people playing with megawatts of power there's ample opportunity for death and destruction. We just started with solar power, we still don't know where all the gremlins are.
Also, we don't need a city turned into a dead zone for the bodies to pile up. Nuclear power is already safer than solar power.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
If you cut corners then it costs a bit more in maintenance. Do the same on a nuke plant and you've got a meltdown + dead zone.
Here's an idea, don't let drunken Soviets design, build, and run your nuclear power plant. That should solve all the problems of a meltdown and dead zone.
It turns out that in the USA there's a shortage of drunken Soviets. I think we'll do just fine on that.
Oh, because I'm expecting someone to prop up another straw man from another nuclear accident, Arizona seems to have a shortage of tsunamis. I'm thinking Arizona is a very good place for some nuclear power, as is much of the USA.
It doesn't have to take 10+ years to build a nuclear power plant, the ones near me were built in less than 5 years. That was 40+ years ago, and our ability to build things since then has improved. There's nothing keeping nuclear power plants getting from breaking ground to producing power in 5 years if we set our minds to it, and chased off the Greenpeace assholes when they show up. We've seen nuclear power plants get built in 3 years before, and I'm guessing that once we got some experience that we'd be able to do that in less than 2 years.
Even if it did take 10+ years to complete a nuclear power plant that still doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. We know we will need the electricity, and large civil projects routinely run longer than that. All that long building time means is that we should stop talking about it and get started building them. I remember having a discussion with a co-worker about drilling for oil in ANWR, it came up because oil prices crept up a bit. He told me that drilling there for oil now because oil prices went up a bit is a stupid idea, it would take 5 years to get any oil from it. Every well takes 5 years to get oil from it, if we made that argument for every well then we'd never have drilled before. Then 5 years after that conversation oil prices hit record highs. I don't know if drilling for oil in ANWR would have done anything meaningful to lower prices but it would not have hurt. Just in general we have large projects planned out years in advance. Given that a nuclear power plant, once online and built to modern specification, is expected to last for 80 years this is just a good idea for the future. Construction on Hoover Dam was started in 1931 but the last generator wasn't installed and running until 1961. That's 30 years. It's been there for a very long time, managing the water flow and generating power. It's expected to continue doing so for a long time yet.
Telling me it takes a long time to build a nuclear power plant is not an argument to not build them, it merely means we need to account for that in the planning. We can build some solar at the same time as the nuclear power plants, perhaps even on the same sites so they can back each other up and share in resources, human resources and power lines.
Since when has ANY government shown the ability to EFFICIENTLY run ANYTHING?
I'd say the military is quite efficient at their job. But then their job is to kill people and break things.
The military gets real "inefficient" when they aren't doing their job or training for their job, because at those times they are just busy existing for the next time we need people dead and things broken. Those soldiers and sailors eat a lot of food and burn a lot of fuel when in peace time but when you want something blown up, well, that happens with great speed, accuracy, and just general efficiency.
Just thinking about that efficiency makes me happy.
It is apparent that you didn't read the article. I'll give you a selected portion to demonstrate this.
Within days, the "irrespective of cost" language was front and center in Arizonans for Affordable Energy's television advertisements, which emphasized that any increase would be based on an initiative championed by a billionaire from California with larger political ambitions.
If solar power is the cheapest energy source on earth then there would be no need for this "irrespective of cost" provision. They admitted that solar power is expensive RIGHT ON THE BALLOT for the voters to see.
Also, if solar power is so cheap then Germany would be enjoying the lowest electricity costs in the whole of Europe. Germany would also not have similar laws forcing the use of solar power.
One last thing, calling people retarded is not a convincing means to make an argument. It might help if you provided some sources for your information instead. You want me to believe that solar is the cheapest energy source on the planet? Then show me a study on energy prices. I see that solar power is not the cheapest from the article given that launched this discussion. Another selected portion for you.
"They are fighting this so hard because they know they will make more money off of natural gas than they will off of renewables," Mayes said. "That's my viewpoint as a former regulator."
Nuclear power is not renewable, and has its own pretty serious drawbacks.
Global warming has serious drawbacks too. As does solar power, windmills, geothermal, hydro, everything has problems and nothing is perfect.
If nuclear power concerns you more than global warming then just how much of a threat does global warming pose?
I don't care if nuclear power is not "renewable", in the end nothing really is. Nuclear power, even with the worst outlook on known reserves, will still last decades. That's a lot of coal that we wouldn't have to burn. More optimistic estimates on nuclear power, with the use of thorium and breeder reactors, the supply would last centuries, if not longer than the sun will burn.
Again, if nuclear power "drawbacks" concern you more than global warming then I wonder just how bad global warming could be. Global warming has been made out to be real bad. It's hard to conceive that nuclear power could possibly be worse.
Yo ass-hole - solutions a plenty but you are not interested in pursuing them.
I'm interested in pursuing solutions that will actually solve the problem. I've seen the math and wind, water, and sun is insufficient to solve the problem. We need all the above, and "all the above" includes nuclear power.
I think what you are after is the silver bullet, easy button where *YOU* don't have to do anything. Sorry but time to sack up and do some heavy lifting.
What do you expect me, a disabled veteran and code monkey, to "heavy lift"? I'm not going to be climbing up on rooftops to install solar panels. I do what I can. I had an energy assessment done on my house, and the guy was nice enough to "give" me some LED lights (which I'm sure I paid for through my utility bill and/or taxes). I got a "new to me" truck to drive, which is more reliable and fuel efficient than my old vehicle. (Don't tell me I don't need a truck, or a vehicle at all, because you don't know where I drive or what I carry.) I'm getting insulation and windows for my house (which are energy improvements as well as just maintenance). When the furnace died years ago I got a heat pump to replace it (but there's a natural gas backup because it gets too cold for a heat pump here).
What do you expect me to do? What I'm doing now is getting the word out on Slashdot on what I learned, we cannot solve our energy problems without nuclear power. CANNOT!! The math simply does not work. All the idiots here try to tell people otherwise but not only is that not "heavy lifting" it's also just wishful thinking. Putting solar panels on your roof is a waste of time and money if there isn't a reliable, safe, and environmentally friendly, energy source for when the sun doesn't shine. That's going to include nuclear power or the lights go out.
Lots of evidence that it is actually altruism that has enabled humanity to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Tribes that support each other is the reason that people are successful.
There's no altruism in laws mandating the use of solar power.
If these people wanting solar power were altruistic then they'd be funding these solar power projects themselves, not forcing others to pay for it. As it seems to me the problem isn't that solar power won't make money, it's that it doesn't make as much money as natural gas. Okay, then start a business that's profitable selling solar power. The altruism in this is taking a pay cut for the benefit others. In the end altruism won't pay the bills, so people still need to see a profit.
My original claim still stands with a population that's altruistic or greedy, we will need to see solar power truly less expensive than natural gas for it to thrive. There's an argument for not wasting money on expensive solar power if there is cheaper natural gas available. That money could be used for investments in research on solar power, reducing energy usage (buying insulation or a new car), or just other improvements to life like allowing people to buy the food, medicine, clothing, and such they need to live happy and healthy lives.
Natural gas isn't all that bad of an energy source anyway, it's far better than coal in both CO2 and air pollution emitted. Let's use more natural gas.