2250-MW Navajo coal-fired plant shut down, under demolition

[tortuga]

I had a coal / wood combo stove in a old cabin I rented in my 20's, man it was the best heat.
Nowadays coal power reminds me of the debate around people smoking in the house in the 70's & '80's.
Just like there is no minimum daily allowance of second hand smoke to stay healthy,
There is no minimum amount of CO2 we need to burn to keep the planet breathable, so better not to do it.
As you all know coal plants are steam based so they should be able to be converted to gas or another fuel.
Soon something like a Wendelstein 7-X or a HL-2M Tokamak will be a drop in replacement for any old coal plant, presuming is worth upgrading.

Cutting-Edge W7-X Nuclear Fusion Device Overcomes Obstacles

A key hurdle facing fusion devices called stellarators — twisty facilities that seek to harness on Earth the fusion reactions that power the sun and stars — has been their limited ability to maintain the heat and performance of the plasma that fuels those reactions. Now collaborative research by sci

scitechdaily.com

Other factors contribute to plant closures, the age of the equipment, real estate prices in the area (urban expansion etc).

 

[drcampbell]

I remember doing a paper in college on the Sternglass report, alleging an increase in leukemia in children in NYS as a result of above ground tests. I reviewed a copy of his paper, and noted in my report that Sternglass had ignored a significant bump in the numbers around 1936 or so. Not a shining moment for the good professor.

Did you ever learn what happened in 1936?

Overlooking an event doesn't mean that radiation doesn't cause illnesses. Nor does it mean that those illnesses can't also be caused by something else, but exhibit the same symptomology. Or be caused by a combination of radiation and something else.

There are a lot of confounding variables to filter out ...

I worked with Ernie Sternglass and Don Sashin. Colorful characters.

 

[drcampbell]

... coal plants are steam based so they should be able to be converted to gas or another fuel.
Soon something like a Wendelstein 7-X or a HL-2M Tokamak will be a drop in replacement for any old coal plant ...

That's exactly what happened at the Zimmer nuclear powerplant near Cincinnati -- they substituted alternative steam generators to convert the plant to a different fuel.

 

[jaggedben]

From what I've seen, the annual ppmv increase represents about 50% of the anthropogenic emissions, with the other 50% getting sequestered. This is on a mass basis.

Absorbed by the oceans isn't what I'd call 'sequestered'.

Ocean acidification - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jaggedben]

So, getting back to our temperature vs CO2 curve, it certainly seems that the temperature curve is a lot noisier than the CO2 curve. Wouldn't that suggest that natural influences are much stronger? Otherwise, wouldn't we see comparable levels of noise?

Wayne's response is adequate from a mathematical logical point of view. For just a bit of insight into what causes temperature noise you might want to study:

El Niño–Southern Oscillation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Pacific decadal oscillation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Atlantic multidecadal oscillation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not to mention volcanic erruptions...

 

[jaggedben]

OK, the sins of the IPCC are many and repetitive. They claim they only look at scientific literature, yet about 1/3 of their citations are from non-governmental agencies, like the World Wildlife Federation, or the Sierra Club. But, this isn't the forum to continue discussions of the IPCC, so we're going to have to disagree on this one. Folks like Professor Richard Lindzen, Dr. Judith Curry, and Dr. Roy Spence, to mention a few, are among those who don't get excited over the IPCC pronouncements. We could also start a discussion of the CMIP 5 and CMIP 6 results compared to actual temperature records, but that would take us further afield than anyone else would want to go. More than I would want to go, at this site anyway.

Funny you didn't mention Richard Muller.

 

[Besoeker3]

Because coal is the dirtiest and now likely most expensive way to make electricity?

Cheers, Wayne

I had some dealings with Drax Power station here in the UK. It is the newest and largest coal fired commissioned in 1986 and was 3.6 GW. It was the cleanest. I also think it was the cheapest. Life moves on.........

 

[paulengr]

Unlike many of you I have coal, gas, nuclear, wood, oil, landfill gas, and (can’t make this up) turkey excrement power plant customers.

All of these produce a pretty steady source of power. Natural gas plants have the advantage in that they can very quickly start up and shut down. It takes minutes to get online. With MOST coal plants and especially nuclear, it’s a much more drawn out process. That’s why they are strictly base load plants where gas is peaking. But accelerating 1 MW of copper and steel to speed with a turbine wrapped around on end is not going to happen in seconds or minutes, even if you just open the valve and light it, never mind the temperature gradients.

So a solar farm on the other hand powers up and down in seconds when a rain cloud passes over it. The effect on the local grid is dramatic. Same with wind farms. So when this happens a gas plant cannot possibly spin up/down fast enough.

As to load management, don’t make me laugh. Every one of these systems takes a minimum of 20-30 minutes to react. Load shedding in a local large industrial plant can happen in 1-2 seconds but think of the issue here. Voltages may suddenly drop 5-10%. Not enough to panic anyone but enough the utility must make adjustments. AVRs react typically in about a minute. And making local decisions by everyone’s HVAC would just worsen the problem as sudden surges jump voltage up and down. Stability would be impossible. That’s why load shed systems are done on a wide scale on a command (system strategy) basis essentially like starting/stopping a peaking (gas) generator except in this case it’s removing load instead of adding supply.

 

[gadfly56]

Did you ever learn what happened in 1936?

Overlooking an event doesn't mean that radiation doesn't cause illnesses. Nor does it mean that those illnesses can't also be caused by something else, but exhibit the same symptomology. Or be caused by a combination of radiation and something else.


I worked with Ernie Sternglass and Don Sashin. Colorful characters.

OK, I'll bite. Where was the above ground nuclear test conducted in 1936?

 

[gadfly56]

Wayne's response is adequate from a mathematical logical point of view. For just a bit of insight into what causes temperature noise you might want to study:

El Niño–Southern Oscillation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Pacific decadal oscillation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Atlantic multidecadal oscillation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not to mention volcanic erruptions...

I am familiar with every one of those processes. Familiar as in "I've read the available layman explanations from the experts" not as in "I'm an expert on this topic". But bringing them up really only serves to strengthen my point, which is that natural processes are far more important than CO2. Just because we might be able to reduce the amount of plant food in the atmosphere doesn't mean we should, or that it will make a difference.

 

[gadfly56]

I had some dealings with Drax Power station here in the UK. It is the newest and largest coal fired commissioned in 1986 and was 3.6 GW. It was the cleanest. I also think it was the cheapest. Life moves on.........

And then they converted 4 of the boilers to burn American forests, closing in on 6.

 

[gadfly56]

Funny you didn't mention Richard Muller.

Well, he's not in the skeptic camp. He says he was, but nothing he ever wrote that I've seen supports that claim. He was also the guiding light for the BEST temperature reconstruction, which is still about.

 

[Besoeker3]

And then they converted 4 of the boilers to burn American forests, closing in on 6.

US, Canada, Europe and Brazil

 

[hillbilly1]

Hydro is the cleanest and most efficient, but limited to certain areas, but is shunned by the environmentalist because it might kill an endangered species, as though many species haven’t went extinct naturally.

 

[Besoeker3]

Hydro is the cleanest and most efficient, but limited to certain areas, but is shunned by the environmentalist because it might kill an endangered species, as though many species haven’t went extinct naturally.

Yes, Norway has 98% of its Hydro power.

 

[wwhitney]

which is that natural processes are far more important than CO2.

See earlier discussion about noise. In this case the "noise" is a cyclic process overlaid on the temperature data (I assume, I didn't look at the examples). In the short run that may swamp the signal from rising CO2. But in the long run the cyclic process adds up to zero, while the CO2 forcing does not.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[jaggedben]

I am familiar with every one of those processes. Familiar as in "I've read the available layman explanations from the experts" not as in "I'm an expert on this topic". But bringing them up really only serves to strengthen my point, which is that natural processes are far more important than CO2. Just because we might be able to reduce the amount of plant food in the atmosphere doesn't mean we should, or that it will make a difference.

I'd say in this instance I'd say you've not given enough context for your statement "natural processes are far more important than CO2" to have any substantive meaning. What is 'important' here? From the larger conversation I take what is 'important' to be factor(s) that have the most influence on the the relatively long term (multi-decadal) trend. And in that case, short term variation (year-to-year, intradecade) illuminates nothing about what is 'important' (as Wayne has pointed out multiple times). It's existence doesn't strengthen your point whatsoever.

 

[jaggedben]

Well, he's not in the skeptic camp. He says he was, but nothing he ever wrote that I've seen supports that claim. He was also the guiding light for the BEST temperature reconstruction, which is still about.

I think it's fair to question whether you would have included Muller a few years ago, before he demonstrated his integrity by announcing results independently of what his various funders may have wanted. It's notable that nobody of Muller's stature has gone the 'other direction'. And I think it's fair to say that the names you did mention are people who are trading in on the notariety they receive for being nearly the only specialists in the field who take the positions they take. At this point their stature has nothing to do with their scientific work. There are of course those who are similarly trading in on taking very opposite positions. But the point is that judging the existence of human-induced CO2-caused climate change by what a few celebrity scientists say for public effect is not a valid epistemological approach. Might as well drop Kim Kardashian's name, too.

 

[winnie]

The other important part of this discussion is essentially political, and I don't want to go there in this forum. Rather I'd like to bring up the topic as a suggestion to ponder:

The scientific facts of global warming (which as all science are subject to uncertainty and revision as new data is discovered) are separate from the policy changes implemented with reference to those facts.

Developing the data and facts and extrapolations is the job of the scientists. Deciding what to do with that information is a leadership and political role.

Jon

 

[jaggedben]

...

So a solar farm on the other hand powers up and down in seconds when a rain cloud passes over it. The effect on the local grid is dramatic. Same with wind farms. So when this happens a gas plant cannot possibly spin up/down fast enough.

...

Batteries can. Just sayin'.