Comments dwalters has made

  • Great stuff

    Climate change activists and environmentalists need to see that Hansen's method also includes ditching previous opposition to nuclear energy. We can all learn a lesson from the good Dr. on this.

    David Walters On An open letter to the president and first lady from the nation's top climate scientist posted 11 months ago 48 Responses

  • Lastly...

    Jim Hansen and others are increasingly showing that nuclear power is going to be part of the answer. I think the climate change community is going to have to embrace this.

    The two plants going up by FPL in Florida will directly contribute shutting down two coal plants. Think about it.

    DavidOn Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant posted 11 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

  • On differences in particulate

    It's all how the coal is burned. There are different technologies and the older the technology the more particulate. About 30,000 people die a year from this stuff and it's nasty, no matter where it comes from.

    Fluidized bed coal plants which break up the coal into a micron sized particle...i think it's about 50 microns in size...essentially turns the coal into a liquid so it's 'sprayed' into the furnace. This is the latest technology and is used wildly as it burns more of the coal, and consequently less ash (see the accident in Tennessee) but doesn't really do anything for the particulate. Heavier particulate generally has only two advantages: they fall out of the sky faster (bad if you live near the plant) and the larger particulate generally can cause less respiratory problems (computer models only) because the 10 - 30 micron size can't get into the lungs alveli quite so easy as 2.5 and 5PM.

    It's all nasty and should be phased out.

    DavidOn Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant posted 11 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

  • A friend of mine works there.

    But the coal particulate is a regulated amount based on air quality board filings so i don't dispute it should be closed down or put on natural gas 100% of the time.

    I'm all for closing coal burning plants. And even though I note that it could go on to gas...probably producing about 100 tons of PM 5 and 10 per year, gas is not an answer either.

    DavidOn Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant posted 11 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

  • Hopefully now

    TVA will invest in more nuclear and shutdown coal plants..exactly as FPL in Florida intents to do. That's right, build a nuke, shut down a coal plant. Build a wind farm, keep the coal plants steaming for back up (and a majority of the wind plant's name-plate capacity for that matter).

    Charles is correct: if TVA had build nuclear plants instead of coal plants the thousands of coal attributed deaths a year, and maybe this disaster, would of been averted.

    Yes, coal ash is not dangerously radioactive, because low doses of radioactivity are basically irrelevant to human development. What IS dangerous is uranium and thorium as a heavy metal where heavy metal toxicity is a real and present danger. Coal produces the majority of the worlds mercury releases today. Nasty.

    If you oppose nuclear, and no it's NOT FUNNY, nor meant to be, then you are objectively supporting the continued use of coal plants and its effects. YOU are responsible for not taking a stand against coal because you have NO plan to substitute out the coal plants with reliable non-intermittent electrical generation. This is what convinced me, in part, to support building new nuclear plants around the world. And the world is building new nuclear plants. Each plant representing at least one coal plant NOT being build.

    David WaltersOn TVA coal disaster is toxic wake-up call posted 11 months, 1 week ago 10 Responses

  • Subsidies

    First the majority of nuclear subsidies were given before 1976. Secondly, currently operating plants don't really get any 'subsidies'...unlike every wind turbine and solar plant which will get the Production Tax Credit (which actually pays out based on 'name plate capacity' without having to produce a single MWhr.) Only the first 8 GWs of power from nuclear will get the SAME PTC.

    The fact that there is private financing for wind and solar is based NOT on some sort of 'market capable' pentration but is based, 100% of the PTC. Without the PTC, ever wind farm (all built and run by the same big utilities that are building nuclear, BTW) the entire wind industry would DIE.

    I'm not against the PTC. We have to put things on an equal level...clean energy (not the fake label of 'renewables') and they can compete together on the MW hour basis. But they don't compete as the numbers in the other posts reveal: there is FAR more nuclear, and totally unsubsidized, to 'compete' against because there  are so many more nuclear MW hours than there are the so called renewable MW hours.

    I'm not against the PTC. Again. The idea of 'market competitiveness' is just a cave-in too the Reaganesque 'free Market religion'. This has to end. Nothing in terms of grand planned public works: canals, hydro power, power grids, scientific advances, etc were ever developed with an eye on the 'Market'. It's a-historical and reactionary. If you are for wind, then lobby the gov't to pay for it (which is what has happened with every wind farm in the world, bar none). If you support nuclear, then the same applies, after all, this is exactly how they build nuclear in every country in the world.

    The biggest fallacy in this blog is the 'good new' aspect. What is "good" about building natural gas fired plants? This is why those of us who are pro-nuclear often seen the anti-nuclear side as shilling for fossil fuel interests. Natural gas is getting greenwashed, perhaps inadvertently by the blogger(s) but it is. T. Boone Pickens is doing it ("mining subsidies" as his investors know it and are open about it).

    Natural Gas is really the ONLY growth industry in the last 10 years in the US. This is why nuclear's share has been slipping as an overall % of the whole: the massive building of natural gas fired combustion gas turbines. And they are extremely expensive to run, with rates passed on to the consumer. Congrats on that.

    DavidOn End of year musings on coal and its competitors posted 11 months, 1 week ago 33 Responses

  • coal?

    You know that the plant is dual fuel now, burns natural gas most of the time, right?

    David WaltersOn Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant posted 11 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

  • Hmmm....

    I suspect that at least in the US, most men are taught to be less afraid of technology. Thus, if you look at the professions men and women work at, things like auto mechanics, engineering, etc are still overwhelmingly male. This is a reflection of the fact that we still live under a ridiculously partarchic society. We need a renewed and reinvigorated women's movement to change this.

    Having said, that, I'm part of that 70+% male majority that supports nuclear energy. Of course more and more people are switching over to pro-nuclear positions all the time, even in my state of California.

    DavidOn Why do more men than women support nuclear power? posted 1 year, 3 months ago 31 Responses