Good news for the environment

[billvon 2,417]

>how about just being happy that another technology field is emerging for the market
>to choose from

Technology alone doesn't make me happy. A really cool new kind of nerve gas wouldn't do much to brighten my day. I do like new technologies that result in a cleaner environment overall, though - because preservation of the environment for the next generation is important to me.

[rehmwa 2]

that's swell

Edit: I'd think a new, cool, type of nerve gas that stops the enemy for enough time to stop a battle yet doesn't cause permanent damage or wounds, that let's them lie down in a dignified and politically correct way without soiling themselves whilst dreaming about unicorn farts would be something to get excited about. but, hey, that's just me.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[oldwomanc6 38]

billvon

>They are people who are coming up on the losing end and are losing plenty.

Agreed. This is true whenever technology or society changes. A lot of horse buggy manufacturers were pretty bitter about the idea of cars. Piano players rued the advent of "talking pictures" and weapons manufacturers are pretty upset by the threat of peace.

(Of course that alone is not an argument to ban cars, or ban sound tracks in movies, or to maintain a continual state of war.)

Sound tracks in movies.


Thank you, Bill for letting me get a chuckle in before bed.
Sweet dreams, all!

lisa
WSCR 594
FB 1023
CBDB 9

[billvon 2,417]

>Or they ould take some of this money and put it into crqcking He3 fusion.

In many ways the He3-He3 fusion reaction is the ideal reaction if generating electrical power is your goal. You don't even need a Carnot cycle plant, just a magnetic field.

However given that we can't even get D-T fusion working yet that's probably a ways off.

[billvon 2,417]

>1) Overpopulation

The good news here is that the second derivative of population is now negative. That means that our rate of increase is going down, and that the population will eventually stabilize at around 9 billion in 2050, with a decline after that. (Assuming the current trend holds, which it has since the 1980's.) Note that lower birthrates are associated with improving quality of life and health standards, so as standards of life go up worldwide, we can expect this to continue.

>2) Lack of Fresh Water: By the year 2020, simply obtaining fresh water will be the
>most pressing daily problem for at least half of the world's population.

This is true, although in general this refers to fresh water used for things like fracking, washing clothes, irrigation etc. Thus people will not be dying of thirst - they will be starving because there is not enough water to grow crops.

Fortunately there are a lot of things we can do to reduce water waste. It's currently the most wasted commodity we have. Here in the US we use gallons of water every day to do nothing more important than help carry our urine somewhere else. Improvements in fracking, irrigation, sanitation etc will help here.

>3) Global Warming: Although it probably won't wipe us out as a species, it will cause
>famine, mass migrations, and the ultimate wars that will spring from those migrations.
>Superstorm Sandy will become the norm, not a special event. Katrina was the first
>warning.

Agreed that it will cause a lot of displacement, although I don't think the weather issues are significant. Some storms will be strengthened, some storms will be weakened. It's the overall change in weather patterns (less rain in the west for example) rather than the change in individual storms that will be the biggest problem IMO.

>4) Crude Oil: Nine out of ten of the ten largest oilfields on Earth reached peak oil
>(50% or more of the available oil pumped out) decades ago. We will either find
>solutions, or fight over the remains.

I am less worried about this overall since we have alternatives, and oil supply has proven to be more elastic than we expected, primarily due to tight oil. Thus while we will certainly run out of cheap oil we will never run out of oil. There will always be another million barrels to get somewhere - if we're willing to pay ever increasing prices for it.

>6) Robots Take Over The World

Not farfetched - but if it happens, it will happen because we want it to happen, not because there's an uprising or anything. In other words, the robot that will really, really piss you off will not be a Terminator bent on exterminating you, but your neighbor's robot who keeps banging into the fence as it's mowing the lawn.

>7) Worldwide Pandemic

This is a pretty likely threat. We tell ourselves that our medical systems are adequate to handle any threat, but we just can't turn vaccines that fast - and as the earth gets smaller due to air travel, a virulent infection could be all over the world in a matter of hours.

[kallend 1,635]

Iago

***>Or they ould take some of this money and put it into crqcking He3 fusion.

In many ways the He3-He3 fusion reaction is the ideal reaction if generating electrical power is your goal. You don't even need a Carnot cycle plant, just a magnetic field.

However given that we can't even get D-T fusion working yet that's probably a ways off.

You're right it probably is a long ways off. But they said the same thing about fission, atomic bombs and civilian nuke power. Once the best and brightest got together and the roadblocks were removed it was accomplished relatively quickly.

.

From discovery of nuclear fission to working bomb - 6 years.

From 1st reactor to first commercial power reactor 13 years.

From discovery of fusion to working fusion reactor - well over 60 years and still counting.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billeisele 122]

Clean energy least costly to power America’s electricity needs
Wed, 09/18/2013 - 7:59am Springer

Findings show carbon pollution from power plants can be cut cost-effectively by using wind, solar and natural gas

It’s less costly to get electricity from wind turbines and solar panels than coal-fired power plants when climate change costs and other health impacts are factored in, according to a new study published in Springer’s Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

In fact—using the official U.S. government estimates of health and environmental costs from burning fossil fuels—the study shows it’s cheaper to replace a typical existing coal-fired power plant with a wind turbine than to keep the old plant running. And new electricity generation from wind could be more economically efficient than natural gas.

The findings show the nation can cut carbon pollution from power plants in a cost-effective way, by replacing coal-fired generation with cleaner options like wind, solar, and natural gas.

“Burning coal is a very costly way to make electricity. There are more efficient and sustainable ways to get power,” said Dr. Laurie Johnson, chief economist in the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We can reduce health and climate change costs while reducing the dangerous carbon pollution driving global warming.”

. . .

Carbon pollution imposes economic costs by damaging public health and driving destructive climate change. Working together, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Treasury Department, the Department of Energy and eight other federal agencies put a dollar value on those damages, in an official figure called the “social cost of carbon” (SCC).

The SCC is used to calculate the benefits (i.e., avoided climate damages) of carbon pollution reduction. The administration puts the best estimate at $33 per ton of carbon pollution emitted in 2010.

The study also included government damage estimates from sulfur dioxide, a pollutant released simultaneously with carbon. Every year, sulfur dioxide causes thousands of premature deaths, respiratory ailments, heart disease and a host of ecosystem damages.
===========================

I just love these articles that MUST BE TRUE because someone wrote the darn thing

OK fine assume it's correct, what is being proposed is that something other than coal is cheaper and that somehow the customers can actually afford to pay for it, well that's BS, what the article is saying is that if you ID and capitalize the "unseen negative" costs of "bad" generation sources then that justifies the alternative source

so they're saying to scrap the coal plant and install a wind spinner or panel, in my area the wind spinner is about 2.5X the cost of coal (and the fact that it works <12% of the time isn't an insignificant issue)

BUT let's assume that the spinner actually spins when the customer needs power, so coal is 11 cents a kWh, wind would be 27.5 cents, and that somehow this increase in cost will be more than offset by a decrease in other costs

OK fine, let's hope the wind blows, and that the turbine doesn't burn like they do sometimes, that the hurricanes go somewhere else and that the enviros forget about the bird kills (the term "bird strikes" is so inaccurate, let's use the correct term)

admittedly wind and solar actually work in some areas, but let's be truthful and admit that they're not the magic pill, there is still a need for conventional generation and the self generators need to pay their fair share for the system that they so much want to avoid using but use all the time

Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

[billeisele 122]

for those that are interested in the subject, this guy is an interesting read

http://www.energybiz.com/article/13/09/moving-renewables-will-have-cost&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=EB_DAILY2&utm_term=Original-Magazine

be sure to read his Sustainable Energy Manifesto

Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

[billvon 2,417]

>OK fine assume it's correct, what is being proposed is that something other than coal is cheaper

Cheaper in the long run, yes.

>that somehow the customers can actually afford to pay for it

They ARE paying for it. About 15 million US homes now have a solar installation on them. That's not even paying a utility for green power - that's doing it themselves, which s more costly.

>so they're saying to scrap the coal plant and install a wind spinner or panel, in my
>area the wind spinner is about 2.5X the cost of coal (and the fact that it works <12%
>of the time isn't an insignificant issue)

No, they're saying stick with both the alternative power source and a baseline power source. That baseline power source used to be coal, but in the future will be more natural gas, hydro and nuclear.

(and BTW unless you are in an unusual area you probably do not want a 'wind spinner.')

>but let's be truthful and admit that they're not the magic pill, there is still a need for
>conventional generation and the self generators need to pay their fair share for the
>system that they so much want to avoid using but use all the time

They're not a magic pill, just a source of power. You need a whole infrastructure to support them (transmission lines, load control, baseline power etc) just as you need a whole infrastructure (mountaintop removal operations, railroads, slurry ponds, ash disposal etc) to support coal. We're slowly starting to realize how much that coal infrastructure costs us.

[billeisele 122]

billvon

>OK fine assume it's correct, what is being proposed is that something other than coal is cheaper

Cheaper in the long run, yes.

* that is yet to be seen, get 50 years of experience and we'll know the real numbers, one hurricane, hail storm or pine tree limb falling and the economics for solar aren't so good, in the SE roofs have shingles and we have trees and shade, roofers charge upwards of $1000 / panel to reroof the house and replace the panels, our actual experience is that solar availability is <15% on a roof with no shade

>that somehow the customers can actually afford to pay for it

They ARE paying for it.

I was talking about the customer paying the all in cost of utility grade solar with back up systems. Customers aren't even close to paying for that.

>so they're saying to scrap the coal plant and install a wind spinner or panel, in my area the wind spinner is about 2.5X the cost of coal (and the fact that it works <12% of the time isn't an insignificant issue)

No, they're saying stick with both the alternative power source and a baseline power source. That baseline power source used to be coal, but in the future will be more natural gas, hydro and nuclear.

(and BTW unless you are in an unusual area you probably do not want a 'wind spinner.')

Yes, no spinners here. NGas won't be economical with the new EPA rules. If fracking stops there won't be enough gas. And at $2-$10 million a mile for new pipe, gas has a huge problem. New hydro - not much potential. Nuclear YES. This is what we're doing: build nuclear, scrap coal plants but no renewables - too expensive.

>but let's be truthful and admit that they're not the magic pill, there is still a need for conventional generation and the self generators need to pay their fair share for the system that they so much want to avoid using but use all the time

They're not a magic pill, just a source of power. You need a whole infrastructure to support them (transmission lines, load control, baseline power etc) just as you need a whole infrastructure (mountaintop removal operations, railroads, slurry ponds, ash disposal etc) to support coal. We're slowly starting to realize how much that coal infrastructure costs us.

*100% of the coal production, shipping costs are immediate waste handling costs are in the cost of electricity. Agree that some of the "after" affects of coal are not in the electricity price.

Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

[billvon 2,417]

>that is yet to be seen, get 50 years of experience and we'll know the real numbers,
>one hurricane, hail storm or pine tree limb falling and the economics for solar aren't so
>good

Well, one bad heat exchanger (or one good tidal wave) and the economics for nuclear aren't great either. But on average it can still make economic sense.

>roofers charge upwards of $1000 / panel to reroof the house

Someone is laughing all the way to the bank if they're charging you $1000 a panel. Local companies will do a remove/reinstall (panels only) for $1000 - total.

>NGas won't be economical with the new EPA rules. If fracking stops there won't be
>enough gas.

Fracking won't stop. They'll figure out the problems with it and improve injection and extraction methods.

>And at $2-$10 million a mile for new pipe, gas has a huge problem.

Oil has the same problems (more so actually) but we seem to be OK with paying that price for oil pipelines.

>This is what we're doing: build nuclear, scrap coal plants but no renewables - too expensive.

The original referenced article disagrees. Here's another, talking about the costs of increased cycling:

========================================
Science News

Emissions and Costs of Power Plant Cycling Necessary for Increased Wind and Solar Calculated

Sep. 24, 2013 — New research from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) quantifies the potential impacts of increasing wind and solar power generation on the operators of fossil-fueled power plants in the West. To accommodate higher amounts of wind and solar power on the electric grid, utilities must ramp down and ramp up or stop and start conventional generators more frequently to provide reliable power for their customers -- a practice called cycling.
Share This:

The study finds that the carbon emissions induced by more frequent cycling are negligible (<0.2%) compared with the carbon reductions achieved through the wind and solar power generation evaluated in the study. Sulfur dioxide emissions reductions from wind and solar are 5% less than expected because of cycling of fossil-fueled generators. Emissions of nitrogen oxides are reduced 2% more than expected. The study also finds that high levels of wind and solar power would reduce fossil fuel costs by approximately $7 billion per year across the West, while incurring cycling costs of $35 million to $157 million per year. For the average fossil-fueled plant, this results in an increase in operations and maintenance costs of $0.47 to $1.28 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of generation.

"Grid operators have always cycled power plants to accommodate fluctuations in electricity demand as well as abrupt outages at conventional power plants, and grid operators use the same tool to accommodate high levels of wind and solar generation," said Debra Lew, NREL project manager for the study. "Increased cycling to accommodate high levels of wind and solar generation increases operating costs by 2% to 5% for the average fossil-fueled plant. However, our simulations show that from a system perspective, avoided fuel costs are far greater than the increased cycling costs for fossil-fueled plants."
======================================

>100% of the coal production, shipping costs are immediate waste handling costs are
>in the cost of electricity.

Nonsense. How much does the coal industry pay the families of everyone killed by lung disease made worse by coal emissions? How much do they pay to restore buildings eroded by acid rain? How much do they pay the people who lose their water supply to mountaintop removal? For the most part they just assume someone else will pay for it.

Yet oddly, when other people pay for solar and wind via subsidies, those same industries become irate and think it's unfair.

[RMURRAY 1]

In Ontario Canada, from what I read here the first (grid connected) solar installation goes on line in 2014 and coal will be eliminated - finally!

http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/media/md_supply.asp

[rushmc 18]

Iago

Solar will never be more than a small percentage of what we use, but it can be a really great percentage. It puts out peak power during the high points of the day which is when we have peak demand. You won't run the whole house, but you'd probably get enough to cover your fridge and some lights. If every house in Atlanta had a 1KW array that might be enough to stop brownouts and institutional load shedding during the day. If more people are willing to put those 'smart switches' on their HVAC so the power company can shut it down during peak demand (you're not home anyway) that's even better.

I've been involved in 3rd world solar projects before and it works great in the right situation. Here in the states I like the Solar City model. They own the panels, they maintain the panels, all you do is pay for the power you use from the panels (at a reduced rate to the grid). If you don't use it they sell it to the grid.

I really don't see a downside to the homeowner.

In Iowa private wind and solar users can not sell back to the grid. The best they can do is net zero their bill for the year

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Iago

******Solar will never be more than a small percentage of what we use, but it can be a really great percentage. It puts out peak power during the high points of the day which is when we have peak demand. You won't run the whole house, but you'd probably get enough to cover your fridge and some lights. If every house in Atlanta had a 1KW array that might be enough to stop brownouts and institutional load shedding during the day. If more people are willing to put those 'smart switches' on their HVAC so the power company can shut it down during peak demand (you're not home anyway) that's even better.

I've been involved in 3rd world solar projects before and it works great in the right situation. Here in the states I like the Solar City model. They own the panels, they maintain the panels, all you do is pay for the power you use from the panels (at a reduced rate to the grid). If you don't use it they sell it to the grid.

I really don't see a downside to the homeowner.

In Iowa private wind and solar users can not sell back to the grid. The best they can do is net zero their bill for the year

Well, that needs to be changed. A joule is a joule regardless of who pumps it out. I imagine they'll make up for it during the winter months but there is no reason to not allow a credit carry over from month to month.

Only if these providers pay for the infrastructure they would use to provide power
Otherwise, local power companies are subsidising them

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billeisele 122]

In Iowa private wind and solar users can not sell back to the grid. The best they can do is net zero their bill for the year

interesting, wonder how they get away with that

Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

[rushmc 18]

billeisele

In Iowa private wind and solar users can not sell back to the grid. The best they can do is net zero their bill for the year

interesting, wonder how they get away with that

State law
Years ago they got to sell back to the grid at the retail price they were paying. This was very expensive to the companies because they had to buy electricity at a price much higher than they could produce it, or buy it off the market for.

So the law got changed
Why should they be able to make money and not pay for the poles and lines that the electric companies have to pay for and maintain?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,417]

>I imagine they'll make up for it during the winter months but there is no reason to not
>allow a credit carry over from month to month.

Every net metering arrangement I have seen averages power over the course of a year, thus effectively rolling over from month to month.

[billvon 2,417]

>Solar will never be more than a small percentage of what we use, but it can be a really great percentage.

Agreed. Nationwide you might average 10% solar energy generation, rising locally to 80% in places like Phoenix and dropping to almost zero in Alaska. There are places it works and places it doesn't.

Wind, same thing. There are a lot of great sites for wind, but with existing networks they will only be effective in specific areas.

Both these problems could be solved with a good country-wide transmission network to move power around, but that's a long ways off.

[lawrocket 3]

Flying out of Vegas on Sunday afternoon, I happened to notice some pretty bright lights to the south. Two of the Ivanpah towers were operating. Even from at least 60-100 miles away, it was a damned impressive glow.

There's a part of me that sees something like that and is impressed by something that just looks fucking awesome. And it does. There's a visceral sense of there's nothing half-assed about it. Just seeing it builds confidence that it'll work.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Boomerdog 0]

Solar energy is a great idea. And yet I find desert solar sites like the Ivanpah Towers both counterproductive as well as hyprocitical. So, instead of providing the incentives for people to put solar batteries on the roofs of houses, the desert and other available land is impacted to build these solar farms. I thought the environmentalists might have an uproar over this?

I would prefer (and I think many wold also prefer) to pay for their own solar batteries on my own home and reduce the amount of money I'd have to pay a utility.

[rehmwa 2]

Boomerdog

Solar energy is a great idea. And yet I find desert solar sites like the Ivanpah Towers both counterproductive as well as hyprocitical. So, instead of providing the incentives for people to put solar batteries on the roofs of houses, the desert and other available land is impacted to build these solar farms. I thought the environmentalists might have an uproar over this?

I would prefer (and I think many wold also prefer) to pay for their own solar batteries on my own home and reduce the amount of money I'd have to pay a utility.

seriously? that's crazy talk about free markets and all that. what utter nonsense.

why.....if the government was completely out of it by now we might actually be in some CRAZY scenario where home panels are currently much more affordable and most people just have them because it makes sense financially (no "save the planet" hysteria required, no false economics blackmail needed).

that would just suck

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[billvon 2,417]

>And yet I find desert solar sites like the Ivanpah Towers both counterproductive as
>well as hyprocitical.

Why? Solar thermal sites provide a lot of central power rather than less distributed power. Not everyone has a roof to put panels on - and such facilities allow solar power to be generated and transmitted to places where solar is impractical.

Also, solar thermal has the one big advantage that you can store the heat generated and use it to generate power at night, something distributed generation cannot easily do.

[rehmwa 2]

billvon

Not everyone has a roof to put panels on

they should be required to have roofs

I propose the Affordable Roof Installation Act be approved and funded. Everyone should have a roof.

you have 6 months to comply

(we used experts to draft this legislation - 9 out of 10 roofing companies agree)

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[lawrocket 3]

[Reply]I thought the environmentalists might have an uproar over this?

[Boomerdog 0]

OK...why pay a utility comapny for something that could easily be incentivized and the resource be obtained for the front end cost of buying the material? Wind is the same way. Through creative architectural design it is possible to build a house that could utilize both solar and wind and reduce a homeowner's utility costs. By how much? Perhaps 50 - 80 percent and with enough imagination get off the grid for good. How can the argument be made to invade and impact open space with solar and wind farms but NOT oil wells? The open spaces that environmentlst so zealously wish to preserve is impacted with human technology is it not? This is one point on which I agree with the environmentalist. It is possible to put solar batteries on houses for the majority of the US population do you not agree? Even at a cost and energy savings of 10% for each house with solar batteries, there would be a drastic reduction for demand of centralized energy i.e, utiliity companies. Hey save the $$$ on the utility bill and go buy a new rig or more jumps. Why the requirement to be so dependent on centralized energy through a utiliity company?