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Post by billhammond on Mar 4, 2009 18:57:27 GMT -5
How about this approach, boys?
By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune
Green energy has become one of the hottest buzzwords of 2009, but Xcel Energy is investing in brown energy on the high plains of Colorado.
Brown, as in cow manure.
The Minneapolis-based utility announced this week that it.has reached an agreement with a developer of renewable energy projects to buy natural gas from a plant northeast of Denver that will be used to power Xcel's Fort St. Vrain natural gas-fired electrical generating plant.
The gas, the companies announced, will be produced from manure from a local dairy operation.
The technical explanation, according to Xcel: "An anaerobic digestion process [will] break down animal waste from a local dairy farm and other organic waste products, such as food processing residuals, from along the Front Range of Colorado. The waste stream will be converted to methane gas using the anaerobic digesters."
Construction of the new plant is scheduled to begin next year. Once online, it will produce enough gas to generate 125,000 megawatt-hours of energy a year, enough to power about 17,000 homes.
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Post by Doug on Mar 4, 2009 19:01:10 GMT -5
And when they get finished producing methane they can be burned as cow chips.
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Post by TDR on Mar 4, 2009 19:39:59 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Mar 4, 2009 22:08:14 GMT -5
Lots of that could be eliminated just by rationalizing the regulation. We are looking back on 30 years of "prohibition by regulation" for nuclear...regulation designed explicitly to prevent plants from being built. Um, that's simply not true. I realize that it's convenient to believe every regulation originates from some nefarious purpose, but it's nonsense. In fact, there has been criticism that the NRC is too far into the pocket of the nuclear power industry. The regulations are complex and cumbersome because a nuclear plant is extremely complex. Both Minnesota and Wisconsin have firm and unequivocal laws stating that no nuclear plants can be built until there is a centralized Federal facility for storing the radioactive waste (like that will ever happen). There is a doomed movement going on right now in the Minnesota legislature to permit new construction of nuclear plants, allowing for on-site storage of the spent fuel. The two (three) nuclear plants in Minnesota have been storing the spent fuel on site for forty years. The plant managers say that continuing on-site storage for a hundred years would present no challenge other than legal. And storing the spent fuel on-site for two hundred years would only require adding an acre or two to the grounds the facilities are located on. Any research, which I won't bother with because no one cares, would reveal most states have similar "no nuke" laws in place. They might not say "no nuke" but they will have strictures and requirements that effectively ban any new construction. And there are plant designs that don't require excessive water for cooling. The water used can be a closed system with no net loss of water. France, and soon Germany, put the lie to the anti-nuke arguments concerning cost, efficiency, and safety. They can be built safely, quickly, and they can generate electricity for cheaply and efficiently with less environmentally impact than any other method. (outside of Iceland). France's nuclear power is a matter of public record, and they have the cheapest and cleanest current on the continent. But, it is academic. No new nuclear plants here. We will be putting up windmills and cutting open beer cans to nail on south-facing walls to fuel our economy in the 21st century. There is nothing we need to do other than dig through old copies of the Mother Earth News. They saw all we need to see, and they saw it all forty years ago. |
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Post by epaul on Mar 4, 2009 22:16:04 GMT -5
TDR, the site you linked to is bullshit put together by anti-nuke something or others. Why not link to Rush Limbaugh for an explanation of Obama's stimulus plan. I'm sure there is one. Or ten.
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Post by epaul on Mar 4, 2009 22:25:12 GMT -5
By any measure of health that can be measured, France is healthier place to live than the United States, England, and Germany (longevity, cancer rates, birth mortality). And France has sixty or so nuclear plants stuffed in area about the size of Colorado and Wyoming. Or check out Japan and the health and longevity of their nuclear-surrounded citizens. The French are currently putting up some new plants utilizing a super-safe design our own Union of Concerned Scientists recommends the United States adopt, it's called the European Pressurized Reactor (or the Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor). The design is safe, clean, efficient, water-friendly, and just plain smart. Not just the French, Germany is building some. And Italy is building four of them (that will supply 25% of their anticipated power needs. It was either the four nuke plants or 642,012 windmills covering up the southern third of the country). Belgium, Brazil, China, Korea, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland are also building new nuke plants that utilize this third generation design. And there are other great designs. There are generation IV designs that don't require any water for cooling. Some designs use inert gasses, like helium, for cooling. Other designs are for small plants, about the size of the reactors we use on our subs, that are so contained and safe they could be built out of plywood and not catch fire or leak. Maybe all the BS we are seeing now on the energy front is just stalling until frustration and the development of new generation IV designs coalesce into a sensible and productive clean energy action. (the plywood part could be a slight exaggeration, borne out of a frustration over how far up its collective ass this country has shoved its head when it comes to nuclear power) www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/3760347.html?page=3 |
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Post by TDR on Mar 5, 2009 3:16:59 GMT -5
By any measure of health that can be measured, France is healthier place to live than the United States, England, and Germany (longevity, cancer rates, birth mortality). And France has sixty or so nuclear plants stuffed in area about the size of Colorado and Wyoming. Or check out Japan and the health and longevity of their nuclear-surrounded citizens. The French are currently putting up some new plants utilizing a super-safe design our own Union of Concerned Scientists recommends the United States adopt, it's called the European Pressurized Reactor (or the Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor). The design is safe, clean, efficient, water-friendly, and just plain smart. Not just the French, Germany is building some. And Italy is building four of them (that will supply 25% of their anticipated power needs. It was either the four nuke plants or 642,012 windmills covering up the southern third of the country). Belgium, Brazil, China, Korea, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland are also building new nuke plants that utilize this third generation design. And there are other great designs. There are generation IV designs that don't require any water for cooling. Some designs use inert gasses, like helium, for cooling. Other designs are for small plants, about the size of the reactors we use on our subs, that are so contained and safe they could be built out of plywood and not catch fire or leak. Maybe all the BS we are seeing now on the energy front is just stalling until frustration and the development of new generation IV designs coalesce into a sensible and productive clean energy action. (the plywood part could be a slight exaggeration, borne out of a frustration over how far up its collective ass this country has shoved its head when it comes to nuclear power) www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/3760347.html?page=3Geez Paul. Looks like you're a born again nukular evangelist. You're free to badmouth that site I linked to your heart's desire. But which part of what was said in that video do you disagree with? Seems to me its all known facts, or do you have actual evidence to the contrary? Interesting stuff in Popular Mechanics about the gen IV technology. Seems its all experimental at this point yet, and some of the more optimistic claims remain to be proven. And even if those designs live up to the claims, there remain the problems of waste management and fuel supply, as well as plant security. The EPR reactors, which are closer to actually coming online, have had some setbacks. Far as I know there are only two, still under construction and both suffering schedule setbacks and cost over runs due to quality control problems and the complexity of their design. The Finnish one is two years behind and three billion dollars over. The French one is having problems meeting specs. Source. Are we sure this is the model we want to emulate? The fact Belgium, Brazil, China, Korea, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland are also going nuclear doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. It just means uranium gets that much more costly and the world has bigger radioactive pollution and proliferation problems. And the notion we can go on filling up open ponds with waste and ignore the accumulating menace is preposterous and irresponsible as hell. They're generating tons of the stuff, all the while releasing it into the atmosphere, while it lasts for thousands of years and a speck of it is lethal. Friggin unconscionable. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 7:48:45 GMT -5
Somebody explain how the notion that CO2 isn't a pollutant pertains. For one thing, burning fossil fuel invariably pollutes with other toxic gasses and particulates, doesn't it? For another, unless all the science on greenhouse gas is bogus, it is a major factor in global warming. You can argue its not toxic because breathing it won't kill you. But if it is gonna kill us by frying the planet, then mass release is not harmless, is it? Simple chemistry really. Perfect combustion releases perfectly harmless CO2 and water. That's the goal. All the rest of the outputs are undesireable and should be limited to the extent practicable. The only way to not get CO2 and water emissions is to not burn anything, just like the easiest way to not pollute is to die. The problem is to find the happy middle between the polemics and outright bullshit about "science". What if they're wrong? A carbon tax makes the compromises involved clear and open. And a tax will raise costs which will have other economic impacts which can be debated, but it won't force anyone to close up shop like a hard cap does. Cap and trade buries the outcomes and potential impacts inside an inscrutibly complex (and completely untested and proven) regulatory black box, which makes it easier to pass politically. That's really my point. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 7:57:22 GMT -5
Aqua: This sounds more than anything like a game called musical chairs. If you are a polluting business, say a smaller airline, and every year you have to buy 12 months of pollution allowance, eventually the year will arrive where you can't afford it. Are you then suddenly out of the game? If so, I'm not sure how that best accomplishes the intent of the cap and trade system. Unless as a by product some other airline is prospering using next gen more efficient planes or some other better transport. As I've said before, that is- by definition- a cap and trade program. The "cap" part means that there are only so many allowances allowed, period. If you need X amount of allowances to run your business and there's X-Y allowances available, you don't run no matter how much money you've got. Your analogy of musical chairs is exactly correct, only I think that while the music is playing, all of the chairs are gradually being removed. Then the music stops when there aren't any chairs left. at all |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:03:40 GMT -5
What scares me the most is that I now work for them. We aren't talking about resisting new tech here. We're talking about making new technology that is cleaner and more efficient. No. Most people are talking about trying to force others into creating new technologies that don't exist yet, a notoriously ridiculous proposal. I work for Europeans. They tend to buy anything California proposes. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:07:13 GMT -5
ST, don't forget natural gas plants. There are lots of them, and they're much cleaner than coal. Also, they don't need to be huge - for example, there's one at JFK airport, at least a couple right up close to Highway 101 in Northern CA. Small, clean energy. Decentralized power. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that needs to be combusted. From a CO2 perspective, they aren't significantly cleaner than coal. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:11:11 GMT -5
I wonder if there is a way to use the heat in the post-cooling water. If there is, you can pretty much be assured they are. Engineering is all about saving money. That's the whole name of the game. You can count on the fact that they wring the last bit of useful energy out of every bit of steam they generate...either through multi-stage turbines (like you saw), or sending it to buildings for heating, or even heating greenhouses and stuff like that. The whole culture of engineering, particularly utility engineering, is filled with guys who pride themselves on being cheap bastards. The thought of sending usable entropy into the cooling tower would be totally abhorrent to them. Amen. Signed, Proud to be a socially inept, fatally politically incorrect, cheap bastard. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:14:28 GMT -5
How about this approach, boys? By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune Green energy has become one of the hottest buzzwords of 2009, but Xcel Energy is investing in brown energy on the high plains of Colorado. Brown, as in cow manure. The Minneapolis-based utility announced this week that it.has reached an agreement with a developer of renewable energy projects to buy natural gas from a plant northeast of Denver that will be used to power Xcel's Fort St. Vrain natural gas-fired electrical generating plant. The gas, the companies announced, will be produced from manure from a local dairy operation. The technical explanation, according to Xcel: "An anaerobic digestion process [will] break down animal waste from a local dairy farm and other organic waste products, such as food processing residuals, from along the Front Range of Colorado. The waste stream will be converted to methane gas using the anaerobic digesters." Construction of the new plant is scheduled to begin next year. Once online, it will produce enough gas to generate 125,000 megawatt-hours of energy a year, enough to power about 17,000 homes. Even shit (or methane from shit) needs to be burned to get the energy out. Methane is the primary component of natural gas, which from a CO2 perspective, is no cleaner than coal. |
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Post by omaha on Mar 5, 2009 8:20:18 GMT -5
In numeric terms, coal production comes out to about 2 lbs of C02 per kWh produced. Natural Gas is about 1.3 lbs per kWh. So NG is somewhat cleaner, but from the perspective of the CO2 abatement crowd, its not the answer.
Of course, nuclear is zero.
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Post by omaha on Mar 5, 2009 8:23:41 GMT -5
No. Most people are talking about trying to force others into creating new technologies that don't exist yet, a notoriously ridiculous proposal. Once you understand that the state is all powerful, it all makes sense. If we want a new technology, we just use the authority of the state to create it. Put another way, the only reason the technology (that will take us to nirvana) doesn't yet exist is that the state has not yet compelled its creation. Its not just about technology either. Once "everthing [is] inside the state, nothing [is] outside the state" then reality itself becomes a matter of politics. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:25:57 GMT -5
In numeric terms, coal production comes out to about 2 lbs of C02 per kWh produced. Natural Gas is about 1.3 lbs per kWh. So NG is somewhat cleaner, but from the perspective of the CO2 abatement crowd, its not the answer. Of course, nuclear is zero. True dat. But the difference becomes next to meaningless in a transportation application. T. Boone Pickens seems to neglect that. Of course when life cycle CO2 general fiction factors are noted, all meaningful comparison evaporates entirely I think. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:28:29 GMT -5
No. Most people are talking about trying to force others into creating new technologies that don't exist yet, a notoriously ridiculous proposal. Once you understand that the state is all powerful, it all makes sense. If we want a new technology, we just use the authority of the state to create it. Put another way, the only reason the technology (that will take us to nirvana) doesn't yet exist is that the state has not yet compelled its creation. Its not just about technology either. Once "everthing [is] inside the state, nothing [is] outside the state" then reality itself becomes a matter of politics. Must... resist... tangential.... rant..... Got.... work ...to...do. Sorry, just don't have the time right now. Damn. |
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 8:30:58 GMT -5
I've got to run to an EPA California waiver hearing for most of the day.
I just wanted to truly thank all who participated here so graciously. It's given me substantial food for thought.
I really appreciate it.
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 9:13:10 GMT -5
Quick interesting side note. EPA put out a draft of a report summarizing greenhouse gas emissions estimates for the U.S. up through 2007. According to them, we put out 7,125 terragrams of CO2 equivalents in 2007.
The final cap values in last year's Lieberman Warner cap and trade bill offered credits to cover 5,775 of those in 2012 and ratcheting down each year after that.
That's only about 80% of what the country nominally uses currently (although, clearly 2008 and 2009 will be lower than 2007 although we really won't know that until 2011).
Frightening stuff.
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Post by knobtwister on Mar 5, 2009 11:30:53 GMT -5
Not SC. We have about 5 in the works.
Don
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