"Is America Ready to Quit Coal?"
So asks a must-read story by Melanie Warner in the Sunday New York Times.
And so, slowly, fitfully, that possibility—the possibility not just of cleaning up coal or using less coal but eliminating coal—creeps its way into the American public consciousness.
The headline isn’t the only thing worth celebrating. I would quibble with some details, but overall this piece comes closer than anything I’ve ever seen in the national media to getting the big story right.
It starts off by describing what too few people understand: coal is in a perilous position. Already building new coal plants is extremely expensive; any new regulations—on CO2, MTR mining, coal ash, you name it—could put new plants permanently off the table.
But the more interesting parts, to me, are those that describe the barriers in the way of quitting coal. Here are the big three, in order of importance:
The fear that that there’s no alternative.
"[W]hether renewables can keep the lights on and our iPods charged remains an open question."
Loss aversion is, in your author’s humble opinion, at the core of the coal fight. If the American people can be convinced an alternative is possible, they will not accept dirty, unhealthy energy, any more than they accept tainted water or cars without seat belts. But the fear of letting go of the devil they know, the fear of jumping into the unknown, is incredibly potent.
"Charging iPods" trivializes it; electricity provides basic sustenance, shelter, and comfort for families. For children. This is primal lizard-brain stuff. You do not mess with it lightly. Those looking to dethrone coal in the public imagination would do well to focus most of their firepower not on coal itself but on establishing the credibility and reliability of the renewables/efficiency alternative. It can’t be cutting edge and whizbang forever. It’s got to be safe for soccer moms in suburban Atlanta.
The fear of rising prices.
“The costs for those customers in the heartland who get more of their electricity from coal, not only residential but commercial customers, could be significantly higher, at a time when we can least afford it,” says Jim Owen, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents electric utilities. “So we want to make sure that a climate change program is properly designed.”
That last sentence should make you shudder. "Properly designed" in this context means weak, with real cuts delayed for years and utilities the recipients of massive profit windfalls. There’s got to be pushback on this point, and not just rhetorical—there’s got to be a credible policy response. There’s got to be a way to either keep electrical bills down through efficiency or compensate people for the increase in bills without delaying or weakening carbon cuts. Democrats absolutely cannot wander into this battle without a serious response to this objection, which will be front and center in the national policy debate.
Utility inertia
Even if they want to, it’s going to be hard for utilities to wean themselves off huge coal plants, which are much simpler to plan and build than a collage of smaller alternative energy projects that cannot be counted on for continuous power.
“Utilities like to plan their world around big traditional power plants,” said Mr. Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “Only when they are forced are they willing to rethink that business model.”
That’s putting it mildly. It’s hard to overstate how sclerotic the electricity utility business has become over the last five or six decades. They would desperately love to simply slip “clean coal” plants in where dirty coal plants used to go and call it good. That’s what they know. To really get them to abandon the huge-central-power-plant model and start thinking about hundreds of small-scale power generators, power storage mechanisms, and efficiency programs—enough to fill the hole big coal plants leave behind—is going to take some browbeating, some regulatory reforms, some legal challenges, and the occasional boot on the ass.
The shift away from coal is only partly about technical feasibility; it’s also about deeply ingrained economic and cultural habits and ways of thinking. In many ways that stuff is harder to change than technology.
Comments
View as Flat
Pangolin Posted 7:17 pm
14 Feb 2009
On the other hand, solar panels on your very own roof give the homeowner life-long control over his power pricing and will produce some power on even the gloomiest days. Some power always beats no power all to heck. A ground-loop heat pump requires a much smaller generator to operate than an air source unit with resistance heaters. Double or triple pane windows knock back the heating and cooling needs of the house for a lifetime.
As retirement investments fixed power costs and warmth in the winter beat GM stock all to heck. Changing the tax laws to give energy conservation and solar/wind power installations a deduction from earned income would do wonders to encourage conversion to solar and wind power from coal. The increased labor costs as a percentage of peoples power dollar would put people to work and the eventual savings in fuel costs would feed cash back into the economy.
Right now people are paying the coal company to buy electricity so they can heat their houses with natural gas from Canada and Mexico using electric blowers. Converting to domestic energy sources gives individual Americans and the US as a whole greater control over our futures. Buying coal means you pay what they charge you and if they raise the rate; tough cookies.
Be your own power company.
Put the Carbon Back
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Russ Posted 7:41 pm
14 Feb 2009
Also in today's NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/washington/15scotus.htm ...
A discussion of the case of West Virginia judicial corruption, Massey and Blankenship, now before the Supreme court.
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Billhook Posted 12:55 am
15 Feb 2009
Which means that its provision would be the sharpest of blades at the throat of the coal industry.
Thus the funding of additional non-fossil energy sources' RD&D seems a paramount priority, but I've heard nothing of it in the Stimulus Bill.
Can anyone say if it's there, and, if so, how much ?
Options such as Geothermal, Coppice Biomass and Offshore Wave, with full or near 24/7 availability, seem to be neatly overshadowed by the options favoured by corporations, such as the notably intermittent Solar PV & Onshore Wind.
Do people really expect the selection of alternative energy options for development NOT to be bent in favour of the fossil fuelled status quo ?
Given that most of society's choices are bent that way, it would seem a rather naive expectation.
So will US environmentalists now press for more energy options, or will they just carry on pushing for the corporations' choices "because they're biggest" ?
Regards,
Billhook
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Pompey Road Posted 1:09 am
15 Feb 2009
I liken it more to the argument over Darwinism and Intelligent Design. George Bush and his support of coal and other anti environmental positions blows the intelligent design theory all to hell. On the evolutionary road toward sustainable energy that is not destroying the planet I feel we are somewhere between the Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens still climbing the ladder toward modern man.
As I studied the evolution from wood to coal I noticed the Forest of Europe did not survive the transition. As I noticed the transition from Whale oil to Earth oil I noticed the whale was hunted almost to extinction and almost did not survive the transition. Now as I watch the transition from oil and coal to sustainable renewable energy that does not destroy the planet I wonder if we can change the corporate attitude and model and if we will survive the transition.
Believe me changing public attitude and behavior will require but little effort. Changing the Multi-National Corporate attitude at this point in their evolutionary development will be a Herculean task. The vast resources they command and their influence with governments is almost insurmountable. The influence of the corporate lobby will have to be nullified before any serious progress can be made toward a speedy transition to renewable, sustainable energy sources.
It will take no less than an evolutionary change in government to the extent corporations do not dominate the conversation and deny access to the people that are trying to forward the renewable, sustainable energy transition. Lobby reform now is the evolutionary progression required for a government that is still a work in progress and has not yet fully evolved. The establishment of the corporate person was not meant to be for the domination or even extra access in the representative style of government. This is an interesting anomaly or a mutation to observe in the evolutionary progression of government however the requirement to transition to an energy that is more life sustaining may require that we attempt to interfere in this process and manipulate this representative style government experiment to see if we can effect a more desirable outcome.
Obama has just made the mistake of not pursuing lobby reform first. You can see the results of it in his first piece of legislation "The Economic Recovery Plan". Really you can trace the economic collapse back to the need for lobby reform and going forward the next piece of legislation necessary to stabilize the Markets will be a corporate lobby feeding fest.
In a perfect world environmentalist could interject some checks and balance into government first in order to level the playing field with the energy corporations and let society choose their energy source. Virtual Natural Selection, no pun intended. Nature hardly ever seems perfect viewed in the short term and I do not know if we will have time for a long term observation in order to see how it all turns out.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Wolverine Posted 2:36 am
15 Feb 2009
And Pompey Road recognizes that homo sapien "evolution" is destroying the planet, though it's really de-evolution into a race of robots as the band Devo pointed out. Real evolution of homo sapiens would be mental and spiritual, not technological.
But rich humans like Americans use far too much electricity for trivial things. Unless a great need is shown such as providing food, people should be limited to the amount of power they're allowed to consume. And that gets back to Dave's point about changing consciousness, though it's a fundamentally different change than Dave advocates. We need to rid ourselves of the selfish suburban soccer mom mentality, not be beholden to it. If humans insist on continuing to be the lemmings that Pompey so accurately describes, there is no hope for averting destruction of the natural world to the point where it will not even support human life, as artificial and removed from the natural world as it's become.
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GRLCowan Posted 3:08 am
15 Feb 2009
(How fire can be domesticated)
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Billhook Posted 3:21 am
15 Feb 2009
Being ruled by an astute oligarch/dictator, who knew full well that social tranquility is pre-requisite for a prosperous society, a pricing structure for electricity was set up to ensure that even the poorest had an affordable basic tranche of power supply each month, after which a second, limited and more expensive tranche was available, after which a small high priced tranche was available as a luxury.
This precludes the illusion that unlimited power is available, and rapidly encourages frugal power usage.
And Singapore is very far from being a socialist state - like the eradication of contagious disease, this was just good business.
It us a pricing structure that the US, EU & other states would do well to emulate as a fairer alternative to the callousness of the default option of "rationing by price".
Regards,
Billhook
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amazingdrx Posted 3:23 am
15 Feb 2009
As usual the main talking point against renewables, reliability, is identified early on. This article mentions Xcel and the reporter talked to Xcel's boss, but not about their Colorado smart grid project, the first city-wide effort of its kind in the US. That is truly shocking, a typical times habit though.
How to explain the popular talking point on reliabilty? Just picture a world where the sun shines 24/7 with no clouds. In that world solar PV at the point of use would provide all energy.
With a low loss grid that connected across the night cloaked zone as it circled the globe, solar would provide always on power, on our planet with the day/night cycle. People have suggested solar satlelites that beam power down to the surface on microwave laser beams too.
Global grids and/or space based power maybe built in some future time, but not unless we can save the human friendly climate now with more affordable, safe, and practical solutions.
Another way to power all night long and through cloudy spells with solar is CSP with thermal storage, or batteries, or maybe sometime soon mass produced superconducting electromagnetic storage.
A loop of superconducting material, cooled by liquid nitrogen, acts as a sort of flywheel, where only electrons spin around the loop to store energy, the mass of the material remains stationary. Supeconduction allows the electric flow to go on indefinetly with very little loss.
Another way to look at storage of energy is to look at the point of use and the needs that energy satisfies. For instance, food needs to be kept cold, buildings need heating/cooling, appliances like water heaters, washing machines, and dish washers need a lot of energy.
All these needs can be fulfilled when the sun shines or the wind blows or waves roll. Then the heat/cold can be stored for a whole cycle of night/day.
So what needs are left that take power? They are mainly things that can be done with low levels of power, communications and low power lighting, a quarter or less of the average power load in a home could do it. 20 hours of battery storage in a home storing a few kwhs, about 3 or 4 of the newer more reliable lead/acid graphite batteries would be enough storage.
That level of backup power would only be needed ocasionally, the rest of the time your home battery storage could be used to buffer the smart grid at large. A few batteries in say half the buildings would make for a very stable smart grid.
And it would provide cost savings for those who had the battery systems. It allows you to go on a price timing plan to get your electricity at half price. The payback for this kind of storage would be a couple of years. After that all the savings would act like income in the family, farm, or small business economy.
Farm, garbage, waste biomass, and sewage plant biogas operations could provide enough emergency backup power even without battery storage.
Mix all these various sources and storage methods together with smart grid technology and real reliability could be attained, not the faux reliability of the easily storm devestated present grid system. HVDC transmission as a national super grid backbone would eventually be incorporated as more and more momentum built behind a new energy economy.
50% of us or more would like to buy into this new energy model to supply our homes, farms, and businesses. That's more than enough to buffer the grid and provide 100% renewable energy that is more reliable than the current storm ravaged centralized coal and nuclear powered grid.
So what if we have to sacrifice and use some backup emergency battery power ocasionally? It's well worth it to over half of us. The other half could be supplied just as they are now, with the cash they contribute by paying the going rate for centralized grid power going to support our investments in renewables.
Smart grid storage and demand timing is being built out and tested right now, the reporter for the times that wrote this excellent article should be focusing on actual smart grid projects like those in Boulder and Austin, a lot of us who used to have our browser open on the times front page might return to that if Melanie's work in these areas was featured more often.
Spend some cash and send her to check out the smart grid oh mighty editors in charge. Make up for your many misconceptual, mass delusional reports on energy and climate and economy. That's the way to survive in a very tough atmosphere for newspapers.
It is obvious from this article that you have at least one writer that can do the important job of informing all about smart grid technology, renewable energy, and the new energy economy, so let them do it.
How about doing an interview with Lovins about smart grid progress, especially in boulder? That would be a great followup to this excellent piece.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 3:46 am
15 Feb 2009
To government you are either seen as a tax payer or unfunded liablity.
To the multinational corporate you are only seen as a consumer or a labor source, preferably a low cost one. If you fall outside either of the two you are not relevant to corporations. I will agree with everything you say but the corporations as a provider of energy don't really want you as a consumer to use less of it. That is not conducive to their maintaining an optimum margin of profit. The corporate mind set and their influence on the government they control by proxy will even effect the obvious need to conserve instead of build more coal or nuclear power plants. Their vast resources and contol of Madison Avenue and the corporate media will still be something you always have to be cognizant of.
It is good to see the clean coal ads being ripped apart by the ads showing there is no clean coal. Environmental groups challenging corporations in an arena they have dominated for too long. Taking the fight to them on one important front in this battle. Your thoughts on saving energy should be in infomercial form and run for the lemmings also. Incridable amounts of saving here.
The other front is in the administrative, judicial and legislative body's of our government and you know they still have an advantage over us there.
Lobby reform for a two front war, we can't even mount a respectable defence there yet. Overwhelming odds drowning out our voices and corporate money closing ears and doors to us.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:59 am
15 Feb 2009
Everything he has obtained related to this ongoing crminal enterprise should be siezed under civil forfieture. The "someone might get shot" line should seal the fate of his property at least. In fact he might be liable under anti-terrorist laws for that line.
This is a threat issued to society at large, similar to what Pablo Escobar did in Columbia. This situation has gone beyond simple crime to a threat to the juducial branch, a constitutional crisis on a similar level to the habeus corpus violations of the bush administration.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:45 am
15 Feb 2009
-David Ahlport
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Pompey Road Posted 4:49 am
15 Feb 2009
I use the word renewable loosely at time never thinking it could or would be construed as natural gas with Natural Gas being a finite resource. I know that man made gas may be seen as renewable but if you are making it of coal and not a bio product it also be seen as a finite source.
Having said that Nuclear for me is not an option. It does not bother me as far as the gross expenditures required for new Nuclear Power Plant production. Renewable, sustainable and "sustainable should be the operative word here" energy needs to be able to compete economically. The high cost of Nuclear Power construction would actually let the renewable sources have a chance to get established and compete. The other nasty thing about Nuclear for me is the byproduct. In the dangerous world we live in proliferation of the materials necessary for weapons of mass destruction is reason enough in itself not to build anymore Nuke powered plants. No way of disposing nuclear waste kinda seals that one for me.
I don't have any Natural Gas income but being practical I won't cry if they used Natural Gas as a bridge fuel for Power Generation. It is more expensive than coal and if we went 100 per cent Natural Gas for Power Generation it would be even more expensive. The expense factor is as with Nuclear may provide the RENEWABLE, sustainable alternative energy source to take hold and overtake natural gas as the main fuel source for Power Generation.
Natural Gas is so much cleaner that coal and an immediate cleaner fuel source is required now. It will take years for renewable sustainable alternative fuels to come on line. You are talking about replacing a fuel "coal" that provides over 50% of our power production. I could hold my nose and let them use Natural Gas in the short term for power generation.
I don't think Natural Gas is sustainable enough long term for the massive amounts needed for power generation. It is already expensive and will double in price the first year of use as a fuel for Power Plants.
Like it or not it has far less particulate matter, almost no heavy metals and you still get substantial co2 reduction if you burn it in a plant designed specifically for natural gas.
My only fear is it may lead to further efforts to gasify coal and the money and research needed for the other alternative energies will be directed toward coal gasification. Gasification from other bio materials or animal waste is also problematic.
If we could switched to NatGas for a short term bridge I guess I will have to give up my Sierra Club membership and quit faking environmental concerns. Practical and pragmatic sometimes wins out over wishful thinking. I would love to go strait to sustainable renewable energy sources, solar, wind, geothermal and in some cases hydro . I feel because of the massive infrastructure that surrounds coal we may have to phase the alternative fuels in over time. Even though I hope it would be a short time because NatGas is so expensive.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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hapa Posted 5:12 am
15 Feb 2009
to a prince, and peer, this would be practical advice; but for a person to warn a planet of the political challenges involved in shifting paradigms is to be an ant instructing elephants how to use blades of grass, or to divide a starving stomach into pro- and anti-grumbling factions.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:18 am
15 Feb 2009
Entrenched Powers, Interia, Uncertainty of Alternatives.
Meanwhile not much more than a "aspirational goal" from the American people to get off the stuff.
It's most certainly an uphill battle.
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 6:31 am
15 Feb 2009
Turn this around, let people experience it, through youtube and the like, and through actual contact with neighbors who have green energy systems and cars, and then change would be possible.
Over half of us constitute a receptive audience. It's reason to be hopeful.
But seeing is not always believing, a lot of trickery can happen. Simple methods of verifying performance of green energy devices should be possible using the internet. Verifiable experiments that are repeatable able to prove the daily power production of a solar panel or the performance of a plugin hybrid, for instance.
Some sort of timecode verification and web video along with temp and electric flow would help on the belief and experience end.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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hapa Posted 8:52 am
15 Feb 2009
knowing what we know today
what would he have told pompeii or
black death europe or banda aceh.
a lot of the people who appear loss averse have good reason. the elite of the country have screwed them and taxed them flat. repeatedly. and now, from the frying pan into depression. very very easy for the lawyers and flacks and radio attackers to dress transition up like "nafta, the sombrero'd hoot owl." but i think if you listen the fear isn't about whether the new equipment program would work, it's about another round of carpetbaggers. it's about people and trust.
as for the anti-science washington politicos, they're lying. their loss aversion has to do with their desire to command. i'm down with the nixonland argument: anti-hippie autopilot. nothing to do with real concerns. it's divide and conquer.
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Pompey Road Posted 11:17 am
15 Feb 2009
We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times and Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended out meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of the intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to national auto determination practiced in past centuries". David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral commission, in an address to the Trilateral Commission, in June 1991.
"In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states, will recognize a single global authority. National Sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all". Strobe Talbot, President Clinton's , Deputy Secretary of State. As quoted in Time, July 20th 1992.
"The depression was the calculated shearing of the public by the world money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market...the one World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. by via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank". Curtis Dull FDR's Son in Law as quoted in his book, My Exploited Father in Law.
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." as written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st 1933.
"The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes." Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter 1952.
"The case for government by the elites is irrefutable." Senator William Fulbright, former chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated at a 1963 symposium : Entitled, The Elite and the Electorate - Is Government by the People Possible?
"The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interest by seizing control of the political government of the United States. The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power, political, monetary, intellectual and ecclesiastical. What the Trilateral Commission intends is to create a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nationstates involved. As creators and managers of the system, they will control the future." U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater in his 1964 book: With No Apologies
"The powers of financial capitalism has another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland a private bank owned by the worlds central banks which were by themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury to all other economic groups. "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the world of our Time.( MacMillan Company,1966 ) Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University, highly esteemed by his former student, William Jefferson Clinton
Hundreds more, conservative, liberal and nonpolitical pointing to the shadow government I keep ranting about...just another conspiracy nut theory...check lobby control even if you think so. Something else seems to be controlling our representative style of government other than our elected representatives, judges and Administrative people.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Pangolin Posted 12:42 pm
15 Feb 2009
I know of a local, conservative-christian, engineer who has a windmill and a geothermal heat pump system installed in his new house. They are there because that is the best way for him to guarantee that his family stays comfortable for the best price.
Other people are producing bicycles that can carry groceries easily and electric motor kits that expand the range and utility of those bikes. Still others are planting gardens or sneaking fruit trees onto public rights of way. The paths to freedom from the energy-finance infrastructure are many and never 100-percent but the point is still there.
We can achieve degrees of freedom from wage-slave consumerism and environmental destruction. We don't have to take all of their B.S. In little ways you can break free and help others break free also.
The most important step is to let others know what works for you. If that's your great cargo bike, home-made storm windows or making your own jam brag on it. Haul protesting neighbors into your garden, show them the reduction funny light bulbs made on your bill. Get it out there.
Conservation works better than waste but people have to see it work before they try it out. Be the critical mass needed to push the solutions.
Put the Carbon Back
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amazingdrx Posted 1:47 pm
15 Feb 2009
I just watched "Sicko", this really does make sense in Moore's context. He simply shows how insane our system is compared to other civilized nations.
People actually seeing others benefitting from a better way are easily convinced. Maybe Moore will do a smart grid movie?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 10:53 pm
15 Feb 2009
I see an example of your concept on a micro scale in free to air TV. There has been a steady growth industry in free to air receivers and equipment. I think in Canada and other countries the laws are different governing what is free to air. Some countries deregulated to the extent if a signal comes in from space your are free to use it. Legal or no I am amazed to what extent previously non technical people will go to steal HBO. Direct TV has an encryption program that has not to date been hacked while Dish is still pretty much open to the people who buy the free to air equipment and are constantly downloading the keys or code to keep it open.
True free to air channels don't offer as much as they used to so people do what people do. They get off the grid if you will. There must be something about seeing your neighbor getting premium channels for free. I am amazed at how many people invest in this equipment and go on line and every two or three weeks to download new keys. Or run around with a jump drive in their pockets with the latest code to help their friends or neighbors descramble.
If you had a few people off the grid by installing their own power generating source at an affordable price and getting their electricity or home heating for free it would generate some interest. Most people paying an ever increasing price for on grid utilities will be checking into a new off grid source if they see their neighbor using it. I am amazed at how far people will go to snag free pay for view and premium movie channels. If somebody comes up with something affordable to get me off grid I am going to give it a shot especially if the government puts some tax incentive on it.
By the way I am not promoting the above it is illegal in this country and I can't see the constant upkeep just to watch a movie while you are looking over your shoulder for the Satellite police. I have noticed so many around I checked into it but it would be for unscrupulous people with low morals. I feel the satellite TV corporations showed be compensated for their programming as they have to pay for the content.
This puts the legal offline power or smart grid that you can sell your excess power back to in a different market plus the market that is always out there for the unscrupulous bargain hunters. If you build it they will come.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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hapa Posted 6:07 am
16 Feb 2009
as for the anti-science washington politicos, they're lying. their loss aversion has to do with their desire to command. i'm down with the nixonland argument: anti-hippie autopilot. nothing to do with real concerns. it's divide and conquer.
i'm going to repurpose from this for pretendy nuance.
* Some [anti-science politicos] agree that [ecological stewardship] is a good idea but are scared of primary challenges from the right if they vote for it.
Some [anti-science politicos] agree that [stewardship] is a good idea but remember that solid opposition to Clinton no matter what the issue was the path to electoral victory in 1994, and hope to repeat that.
Some [anti-science politicos] think that [stewardship] is a bad idea -- largely because they haven't figured out which of their experts are trying to teach them how the world works and which are trying to provide them with ideological air cover for positions taken for other reasons.
third one works better in the original "what-in-world possessed the republicans to block a stimulus package for three months and counting" but it has an interesting flavor, doesn't it, better than "i represent a coal state." it gives the congresscritters more agency, making bad economic choices an outcome of political necessity, not the other way around (how the media usually presents "conservative" arguments).
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jeffgreen11 Posted 10:29 am
16 Feb 2009
Building enough renewable energy production to cover most of the town's energy live. Excess energy production can be stored in the compressed air energy storage.
Below is the Grand Solar Plan from scientific american that they can power the whole country. Believability is needed and lets provide it.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
The goal would be 80% or better renewable energy feed in with natural gas turbine backup.
Next would be then replace a whole coal plant and get smarter and more cost effective at it for every one we do.
Coal can be replaced and should be.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:23 pm
16 Feb 2009
It's a big project though, maybe a smaller one would be better to demonstrate, it would get done quicker.
Waste stream biomass, manure, sewage, crop and wood waste, weed and algae overgrowth used to make biogas that is used in distributed fuel cell cogeneration can operate at 70%+ efficiency and it runs on natural gas too. It's a good option that actually offsets a huge quantity of GHG and produces organic fertilizer that eliminates more GHG from chemical fertilizer.
Storage in the form of heat/cold in building mass and appliances like freezers and water heaters coupled with ground source heating/cooling takes care of a lot of the highest load applications of electric power.
In Boulder they are also integrating storage in plugin car batteries.
Compressed air storage has one big energy wasting flaw, as air is compressed it gives off heat, that heat is normally wasted. Store the heat and apply it back to the compressed air when it's converted back to mechanical and then electrical energy and that could really improve the efficiency.
I like battety storage in each building myself, it provides backup in case of grid outage. And it can pay for itself quickly by allowing customers to use cheap off peak power and a smart grid would let it servve as distributed smart grid storage.
A demonstration project or 2 or 3 or 100 would be very good! All documented on Youtube in the building and operation. Seeing would then be believing. There are enough of us who would be willing to sacrifice our reliance on central grid power to get this going.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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frflyer Posted 4:20 pm
16 Feb 2009
"Thus the funding of additional non-fossil energy sources' RD&D seems a paramount priority"
"Options such as Geothermal, Coppice Biomass and Offshore Wave, with full or near 24/7 availability, seem to be neatly overshadowed by the options favoured by corporations, such as the notably intermittent Solar PV & Onshore Wind."
I think we have proven solutions for the near term that can contribute on a large scale, starting now. Much more Wind and Solar Thermal as well as Solar PV. The first two are more cost effective at this point. Solar thermal with heat storage can be what replaces the coal plants.
Nothing wrong with what you're suggesting, I just think we should make these two proven power sources ( CSP and Wind ) priorities for commercialization now.
Both can be built quickly, creating lots of jobs.
And in ten years coal won't be able to compete with either one of them in price. Not coal with CCS at least.
Yes, R&D funding, but the public needs to realize that we have current technology that can do a lot of the heavy lifting. The best way is to show them. It will drain a lot of power out of the delayer argument that renewables can't do the job. The public tends to think we are helpless until some new technology is invented. Energy storage for cars and the grid is a week link right now, and is one area that does need some breakthrough. But CSP with heat storage doesn't have that problem. And it's very cheap energy storage.
Wind energy's growth last year was the equivalent of building about 3 - 1 GW nuclear plants, or 4.8 - 600 MW coal plants .
Actually a little more because I didn't figure in capacity factors for coal and nuclear, but did for wind.
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frflyer Posted 4:38 pm
16 Feb 2009
Here an archive of the articles
http://seekingalpha.com/author/john-petersen/articles
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amazingdrx Posted 7:20 pm
16 Feb 2009
Like the Oasis battery.
In the advanced battery architectures that Firefly has perfected, the MicrocellTM composite foam "grids" are impregnated with a slurry of lead oxides which are then formed up to the sponge lead and lead dioxide in the normal fashion. Because of the foam structure, the resultant negative and positive plates have enormous surface-area advantages over conventional lead acid grid structures. This results in much-improved active material utilization levels (i.e. from the historical 20-50% up into the range of 70-90%) as well as enhanced fast-recharge capability and greater high-rate / low-temperature discharge times.
I found an Iranian research project on nano tech application to lead acid battery design.
An electro-deposition method was used for the preparation of nano-structured lead dioxide. The lead dioxide films prepared were used as positive electrodes of lead acid batteries. Different parameters such as pulse time (ton), pulse height, and relaxation time (toff) were optimized to obtain higher capacity
The Firefly information claims the theoretical limit of their technology is 4 times their present energy density. Nano tech might get there and even surpass that density with lead acid.
At 1000+ charge cycle durability and 1.2 kwh per 70 pound battery, these already make a 40 mile range carbon fiber plugin hybrid battery pack practicle from a weight and cost perspective.
Nano tech lead acid could be the near future of plugin vehicles and emergency smart grid storage in every building.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Billhook Posted 7:21 pm
16 Feb 2009
I guess I should have written more clearly with regard to the leading options for remewable power -
Solar PV & Onshore Wind have been pushed as being that, but for all their rates of deployment are ahead of other options their intermittency remains a drawback,
as they require either spinning reserve (usually fossil fuelled) or other similarly costly backup-storage before they can contribute to a power-on-demand supply.
Largely for this reason, Wind has, as you mention, only got as far as about 1% of national power capacity installed last year. We need a rate of replacement ten times that, both in the US and in countries poorer by an order of magnitude.
Thus while I share your interest in CSP, and of course look for such extant intermittent renewables' US deployment as can be funded in a depression,
I remain convinced that there are far better sustainable energy options than have yet been commercialized,
and that it is only by their development that we'll see the global energy-industry reform at the rate required.
Funding for the R,D&D of full or near Power-on-Demand options is thus the priority in my view.
Regards,
Billhook
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BruceMcF Posted 12:14 am
17 Feb 2009
But that is playing into the Coal frame.
The fact is that for any given renewable energy resource, the supply over a wide area is more stable than the supply in a smaller area. A single wind turbine is extremely volatile, a wind farm less volatile, several wind farms in the same wind resource less volatile, and several wind resource regions spread across a thousand miles less volatile.
And the greater the diversity of volatile renewable energy sources, the less volatile ... wind plus solar is less volatile than wind alone, wind plus solar plus wave less volatile than wind alone, wind plus solar plus run-of-river hydro plus wavepower less volatile than wind plus solar alone, and so on.
Which means that solving the problem for a small town is overkill ... its easier to solve the problem for the country than to solve the problem for a state, and easier to solve the problem for a state than for a small town, because the greater the diversity of the power sources, the less problem there is to solve.
And, indeed, coal may be part of the answer -- not mineral coal, of course, but biocoal. Direct conversion of biomass into charcoal under pressure in sealed containers is far more thermodynamically efficient than any other means of producing a biofuel, especially since power can be co-generated from the exhaust, where liquid biofuel production processes are power consumers rather than power generators.
Given a national inter-grid network of HVDC transmission, the existing hydropower capacity as readily dispatchable energy, supply-following power demands, and some supplementary dispatchable renewable power source such as biocoal, and of course substantial mining of current gross power waste, the "problem" of reliability is revealed for what it is ... a rhetorical strategy to portray a collection of solvable technical problems as some kind of massive hurdle to be cleared.
It is a rhetorical strategy founded on people's difficulty to think in terms of system capabilities and system solutions, and not a serious critique.
Virtually Yours, BruceMcF
Energize America 2020
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amazingdrx Posted 1:27 am
17 Feb 2009
Prove that it can reliably power a home, then a neighborhood, then a whole region. Drop the fiction that we the public demand always on 100% maximum possible load electric power.
It's just not necessary. The centralized grid fails its own test everytime a severe heat wave or storm crashes the system. Or "free" market manipulation, as with the Enron debacle purposely crashes the grid to maximize thievery.
We want the applications that electricity provides for, heating/cooling, food preservation and cooking, information and communication services. These don't need always 100% possible load central power. Add renewable electric transportation to the mix, it stores its own power with onboard batteries.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Ted Clayton Posted 3:40 am
17 Feb 2009
Pompey Road,
I think you bracket the situation (and the outcome), right there.
It's not a conspiracy (imo), but rather just ... a secret. It's stuff that falls under national secrets law. We have policies that guide the country on a consistent course across Administrations & decades, and no, you may not see them.
In fact, like all other official secrecy-designations, it is illegal not only to reveal the secret, but to reveal that it exists (just as it would be illegal for you to reveal that you had, e.g., a standard "Top Secret" security-clearance, if you did).
Energy-policy, and the web of other policy-concerns that tie into it, is certainly high on the list of kept-from-the-public game-rules.
We could have avoided/escaped dependency on the Middle East, 3-4 decades ago. Instead, we carefully locked in on them, and simultaneously suppressed our primary means of independence - nuclear power.
It certainly looks to me like skillfully executed policy.
So who is it that's controlling us? The 'paper tiger'. Libraries of documents & assessments - made & tended by the CIA, NSA, Pentagon, assorted 'thing tanks', lobbyists, Diplomats, the Military-Industrial Complex ... and no minor role by our international allies and adversaries.
The policies that drive events now will continue as they go, until 'the collective' decides to change them ... and when that decision is taken, it will not be vetted with any of us. Things will just start to happen differently.
But it's not a conspiracy because, among other factors, it's all totally legal & Constitutional.
... So the answer to the post-question, "Is American Ready to Quit Coal?" is, there isn't the slightest sign of it. When we are ready, a perceptive, attentive person will then be able to see that we indeed have a workable alternative at hand. We don't, now.
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GRLCowan Posted 4:15 am
17 Feb 2009
The other nasty thing about Nuclear for me is the byproduct. In the dangerous world we live in proliferation of the materials necessary for weapons of mass destruction is reason enough in itself not to build anymore Nuke powered plants.
Weapons of mass destruction can be as simple as flying kerosene tanks, or rolling LPG ones. If you drive, they've passed you on the highway. I guess you mean proliferation of materials necessary for nuclear weapons.
If that's correct, then you may be reassured by the thought that ...
nuclear weapons are to nuclear power systems as are ...
projectile-in-cylinder weapons to piston-in-cylinder engines.
More shortly: nuclear weapons are to nuclear power as guns are to cars.
No amount of effort in restricting the spread of cars has ever in the least impeded, or ever will in the least impede, the spread of guns. Never has, and never will, any amount of nuclear-power-suppressing effort in the least impede the spread of nuclear weapons.
Your "reason ... not to build anymore Nuke powered plants" is a rationalization for blocking a long way around. It is no help at all in blocking the short ways that are the only nuclear-related ways any WMD-acquirer has ever taken.
(How fire will be domesticated)
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J4zonian Posted 3:33 am
18 Feb 2009
Certain parts, processes, training, money and mindsets are shared by nuclear power and weapons, and getting rid of one will make the other more expensive, less attractive, and less available. Plus...
EITHER nuclear power will continue to rely on existing fuels, which will run out soon, even with the small amount of energy that nukes provide now (and obviously, the more reactors we build the faster it will run out)
OR it will come to rely on breeder reactors, and absolutely will become a factor in the proliferation of weapons. (All the while causing cancer, destroying economic democracy, and sucking up capital that could be far better used for true alternatives).
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amazingdrx Posted 4:11 am
18 Feb 2009
Subject to soaring price as shortages of cheap fuel, rising demand, and 'free' market insider trading manipulation make it untenable as a stable energy source on which to base our economy.
Could fast neutron waste neutralizing modular reactors that can be moved right into current reactor sites feed on the existing waste at obsolescent, deadly dangerous nuclear power plants?
It would be a good idea to fund research in this area with a few R&D projects in return for a moratorium on new nuclear power plants, the halting of nuclear industry subsidies, and the clean up of waste. R&D and waste clean up would keep nuclear industry jobs going as it is eventually cleaned up and phased itself out.
We might as well use up the energy remaining in the waste and go for a relatively safe economical clean up, transporting the waste is not going to be possible. Take the treatment to the waste. That's the best plan. Don't want any portable involuntary x-ray machine, "Glow Trains" coming through our town, neither does nuclear booster McCain. Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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GRLCowan Posted 7:27 am
18 Feb 2009
Certain parts, processes, training, money, and mindsets are shared by gun-makers and piston engine makers ...
and getting rid of one will make the other more expensive, less attractive, and less available.
That clearly doesn't follow in the nuclear case. Several countries, including mine, are substantially nuclear-powered -- exclusive of its American component, the world nuclear power industry produces about as much power as Saudi Arabia -- but probably lack vital weapon-related knowledge, and definitely lack the interest.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
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J4zonian Posted 3:25 pm
18 Feb 2009
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amazingdrx Posted 4:35 pm
18 Feb 2009
That should satisfy the nuclear power industry, they have a whole lot of this mess to clean up all over the planet now. Profits for decades.
Something has to be done with the waste and the old style leaky melt down prone terror and earthquake vulnerable reactors. Let them do it honestly and safely with full regulation and make a fair profit doing it by generating power.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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J4zonian Posted 2:46 am
19 Feb 2009
but it won't. orthodox economics doesn't recognize it as a disease when it says economic desires are endless (they know how to cure that now--the Buddhists and the Reichian psychologists do) but at least it describes the symptoms accurately. It's not about rationality; wanting to take over everything and leave it covered with our metaphorical bowel movements is also a symptom.
What world do you think we're living in, where industry does unprofitable things and doesn't try to get away with everything they can? where they do things honestly and safely? They are full of rage and don't want to do things safely; I don't see how we need any more evidence than what they've been doing for 50 years to recognize that. And conservatives' (and our inner conservatives') answer to everything is to punish; that results not in stopping bad behavior but in making it sneaky and resentful.
Nukes are not the answer. Coal and oil are not the answer. Wind, solar and conservation are.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:25 am
19 Feb 2009
Become the change we want to see in the policy sphere.
This is the way to proceed: from rational plan, to rational strategy to implement it, and finally to rational government policy.
That's the way to beat irrational propaganda from status quo corporatist bidness as usual lobbyist driven media and governance.
Yeah many pro-nuclear advocates are angry and irrational, that only helps our reasonable side. A lot of younger nuclear engineers and managers might be willing to go with the R&D and clean up plan in order to save their industry.
Here's an analogy from the auto industry, old farts like Lutz are retiring, will GM see the light now? It will be more likely.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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