What about a Green Thread

[drbond24]

Nuclear is the best way using current technology to cover our energy needs in the foreseeable future. Its clean compared to everything else except hydro. Its impact on the surrounding area is smaller than any other power generation we have today.

I am very upset about this huge push for PV solar. So Cal Edision is spending millions putting panels on roofs, and LADWP wants to do the same thing. The produce a tiny amount of electricity, they take a tremendous amount of energy and natural resources to make, and they cost so much that it takes their entire lifespan to recoup the investment.

This whole 'green movement' we are seeing right now is 95% a bunch of BS.
Example: a 100MM/ per year company is extensivly touting how green they are. Want to know what they are doing? Recycled paper for their printed matter (maybe 20,000 postcard sized flyers a month, and laser paper for their offices) and telling employees to turn the lights off. I suggested waterless urinals for their 75 or so toilets and the 15,000 people a week that use them and occupancy sensors for the lights in their offices, and the response was 'we're not making an investment like that in something we dont need'

Bottom line is most of these green people are full of crap.

These wind farms are ridiculous as well. Entire mountains and vallyes scarred forever with these eyesores, to make what - a few MW of power?

Want to save enough electricity to be able to turn off a bunch of our oldest and dirtiest coal plants? Shut down google and myspace. Do these environmental freaks have any idea how much electricity just these two companies use?

This whole CO2 thing is a bunch of crap too. A couple volcanic eruptions emit more CO2 than how many years of power generation and industry? How many tons of CO2 is this lake spewing out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos

All this recent green BS is helping ruin our country. Look at how much time, money, resources, and energy is being expelled to propegate this green movement that does exactly nothing. These efforts need to be put into something productive.

i could go on for another 20 pages, so thats it for now

/rant

You said most of everything I wanted to say but held back because I didn't want to rant. Thank you.

Here's another fact-of-the-day since I've been sticking them into this thread right and left:

According to http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wtrb/size.htm, a big wind turbine produces 2.5 MW. The plant I work at produces 2900 MW. You do the math. It takes 1160 big wind turbines spinning constantly to replace just this plant. Once you take into account that they don't spin constantly and even when they do spin they don't always give maximum output, you'd have to cover the whole state of Texas with wind turbines just to replace a single power plant (that was a bit of an exaggeration, just in case you didn't catch it, but you get my point. )

 

[LarryFine]

. . . I say go for the only long lasting, clean, green big bright spot in the sky, the Sun. How ?? . . .

Why, a Dyson Sphere, of course!

 

[wbalsam1]

Well nice thought but not even remotely possible because here in the USA all the hydroelectric power has already been tapped and built out. There are no more rivers or land left to damn up to generate power..

How about more than 1 hydro-dam on a single river...? There's more than 1 wind tower in a wind farm. :-?:smile: Probably never pass muster with the public, though.

 

[Besoeker]

Well nice thought but not even remotely possible because here in the USA all the hydroelectric power has already been tapped and built out. There are no more rivers or land left to damn up to generate power.
Nuclear, NG, and coal are the only viable options we have for the next 50 years.

I don't disagree with that.
I've discussed the future of electricity generation with others IRL and on another forum - it's a pro "save the planet" type of forum. Most are of in favour of renewable energy. Unfortunately, many get it completely out of context and view the growth in renewables through rose-tinted glasses.
I order to put this into perspective, I collected available data and produced the following chart:

What it shows is that conventional thermal generation over the past 25 years has grown and continues to grow (2005 was the most recent data I could find) at least an order of magnitude faster than ALL renewables (except hydro), "The rest", combined.
The gap is increasing.
That's not to say that it always will, but based on current trends, it doesn't look like changing any time soon.

This not to say that I am against renewable energy sources. We have designed and installed a few systems and I did the original electrical feasibility study on the Islay Wave Power Project. So some of the technologies are of commercial interest to me.
But I'm a pragmatic old guy. I realise that, at best, we are tinkering around at the margins with most renewable sources.
Hydro alone makes a significant contribution that swamps all other renewables - and quite a lot of land.
The huge Itaipu Dam provides over 70% of Paraguay's electrical power it but, in terms of scale, The Three Gorges is set to eclipse it.
But, perhaps most impressive is Norway, being almost exclusively hydro and a net exporter of electricity, oil, and gas.
And possibly the nation with the highest GDP per capita in the world.

 

[dereckbc]

Interesting. I think I know but can you define THE REST?

Your chart also reflects my statement Hydro has already been built and tapped out as the flat line indicates. Most of the Hydro was built in the depression under WPA and TVA. There is a little left that can be done, but nothing significant IMO, and is reflected in several trade type publications.

 

[mikeames]

Security is a big issue with hydro as well. Blow up a dam under water and we don't have power... The be all end all is FUSION.

Now if we could only figure out how to sustain it.


1. Clean
2. safe
3. Secure.
4. Endless

 

[Besoeker]

Interesting. I think I know but can you define THE REST?

All renewables except hydro.

 

[djohns6]

The company I work for is working on the licensing for two new reactors .
They are making a ton of money with nuclear .

 

[wallyworld]

In Maine in order for companies to maintain there present hydro licenses the "save the Salmon " folks are forcing them to give up dams. Right now another 2 or 3 are getting ready to be taken out so the river becomes free running again. Good luck trying to get more hydro

 

[brantmacga]

Electricity exports: 19.8 billion kWh
Electricity imports: 44.53 billion kWh

I agree with you on nuclear. At current growth rates, it will be a long time before rewables become a viable alternative to current the bulk sources.

the difference between imports and exports is less than 1% of our annual consumption.

2008 KWH usuage: 3,816,000,000,000

export/import differential = 24,730,000,000

percentage is roughly 0.6481% of our total usage; just above half a percent.


my numbers a couple of years old, but figure a growth rate of about 2% and the numbers aren't going to change much. we're about as far from dependent as you can be; i think maybe we're just doing canada and mexico a favor by purchasing some of their excess.

 

[peter d]

Anyone who thinks that "green" sources are the solution to our energy supply issues is living in la-la land. The simple fact, as so eloquently stated already in this thread, is that green sources cannot even come close to matching the energy densities of fossil fuels and nuclear.


So we either massively reduce demand, or massively increase supply of the green sources, or both.

 

[rexowner]

(2005 was the most recent data I could find)

EIA.gov has the 2006 data posted:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/electricitygeneration.html

As a %, renewables are growing faster (>10% 06/05)
than the total (<5% 06/05), but the numbers are from
such a tiny base, your point is well taken and it is hard to
see how renewables could make any significant difference
anytime in the forseeable future.

 

[rexowner]

Security is a big issue with hydro as well. Blow up a dam under water and we don't have power... The be all end all is FUSION.

Now if we could only figure out how to sustain it.


1. Clean
2. safe
3. Secure.
4. Endless

And just like for the last 50 years, 50 years in the future.
(I like it too.)

 

[Besoeker]

EIA.gov has the 2006 data posted:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/electricitygeneration.html

As a %, renewables are growing faster (>10% 06/05)
than the total (<5% 06/05), but the numbers are from
such a tiny base, your point is well taken and it is hard to
see how renewables could make any significant difference
anytime in the forseeable future.

Rexowner, thank you for the more recent data.
I agree that, as a percentage, they are growing faster as have generally done so over the 25 years.
Just in passing interest, I extended renewables and thermal 20 years using a best fit curve based on existing data.

Power generation isn't my particular field but it's of interest and a matter of concern for me, particularly here in UK. We did get around 20% of our electrical energy from Nuclear but aging Nuclear Power stations are being decomissioned and not one new station has got off the starting blocks.
To quote the WNA "The UK has 19 reactors generating one fifth of its electricity and all but one of these will be retired by 2023."
The one remaining, Sizewell B, has a generating capacity of about 2% of UK electricity.
It will lead to what has been dubbed "The Power Crunch".
This parlous situation has arisen because successive governments have prevaricated over giving the green light for new nuclear.
Ironically, we import about 5% of our needs via the Cross-Channel HVDC link from France. France is 80% Nuclear.

 

[ronaldrc]

Here is a workable for exspensive solution.

Ronald

 

[Mike01]

My 2 cents

My 2 cents

When you talk about alternate sources of power what is your end goal? Is to be a greener (LEED) environment? It that is the case it?s not as easy as to say solar power or nuclear power because you have to look at you ?carbon footprint?.
A carbon footprint is defined as ?A measure of the impact our activities have on the environment? and is measured on tones (or Kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent. Your carbon footprint is made up of two main parts:
1. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane).
2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown.

Item two is the big one we have to understand to go completely to a ?green? source or cleaner source for example photovoltaic or solar the carbon footprint to create and purchase the current technology of solar panels (the amout and type of manufacturing required) would increase our carbon footprint as an individual more than the current method of fossil fuels. Also when you talk about batteries the carbon footprint of a battery plat? And when discussing nuclear what are the current methods for dispensing spent fuel rods and what effects if could have. For me personally as technology changes there will be ways to deal with this and the tree huggers sorry I mean environmentalist out there, my favorites are like everyone else nuclear and if you live near a significant body of water or the ocean tidal (?There are basically two methodologies for creating tidal power, the use of tidal dams or ocean currents. Dams are based on using a barrage at a bay or estuary with a large tidal range. Power is generated primarily at ebb tides as the barrage creates a significant head of water, much like a hydroelectric dam. This technology is very well established at La Rance, France where a 240MW plant has operated since 1966. A 20MW facility has also been present in Annapolis, Nova Scotia since 1984.?) power, maybe even tidal power ?farms? so to speak then transmitting the power via HVDC or thru transmission lines that use nitrogen cooling to achieve maximum capacity further inland to take full advantage. I guess no matter what technology is widely adopted in the future there will always be someone trying to shoot it down weather environmentalist or other groups however as the technology advances so will everything else. Just mu 2 cents.

 

[dereckbc]

for example photovoltaic or solar the carbon footprint to create and purchase the current technology of solar panels (the amout and type of manufacturing required) would increase our carbon footprint as an individual more than the current method of fossil fuels.

This is not an entirely accurate statement today. The older monolithic crystalline panels do take more energy than they are ever likely to generate, but the newer designs like multicrystalline and soon available thin-film technology; the energy payback is around 4 years depending on location they are used in. However the ROI is still beyond reasonable times for most with a few exceptions like CA and AZ where the solar insolation and public finance offset initial cost.

 

[dereckbc]

Here is a workable for exspensive solution.

Ron no disrespect intended but this is nothing new and already in operation,just not using windmills. They are called Pump Back Lakes. They share the same problem any hydo application has today. No more land and waterways left to add any significant generating capacity. It has already been built out.

 

[ronaldrc]

None taken

You noticed I did mention TVAs' Raccoon Mountain.

You know theres room this has not been built out.

 

[steelersman]

Ronald,

Hydroelectric is a great way to produce electricity, the big problem being that the glaciers

that feed the waterways are going to vanish in the near future. Until the next generation

technoligy shows up, I say go for the only long lasting, clean, green big bright spot in the

sky, the Sun. How ?? I have no idea, but we better get going or we are going to get in a

world that aint gonna be fun.

I saw a method on a show for hydroelectric that was just an idea, not an actual installation, but it was pretty cool sounding. Here it is: they were talking about putting these underwater turbines down deep near the ocean floor off the coast of Florida where the Gulf Stream Current (I think that's the one) will always be turning the turbines.