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Post by TDR on Mar 4, 2009 16:35:00 GMT -5
Omaha:
If we waited for everyone else to do it first it will never happen. That's leadership. You get out front and show the way. As Reagan said, if not us, who? If not now, when?
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Post by TDR on Mar 4, 2009 16:39:04 GMT -5
But now, particularly with Obama's administration in charge, they are literally running the show. What scares me the most is that I now work for them. I'm trying to get how these folks looking to regulate emissions are Luddites. Isn't a Luddite someone who for religious reasons or out of stubborn resistance, refuses to accept a new technology? We aren't talking about resisting new tech here. We're talking about making new technology that is cleaner and more efficient. Aqua, can you say in what way you are working for the new admin? |
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Post by omaha on Mar 4, 2009 16:41:17 GMT -5
I'm not sure how a cap and trade system is seen as a preferable course over a carbon tax. Exactly right. A simple carbon tax would accomplish all the (theoretical) good of cap and trade with none of the downside. But I think there are two problems. First, politicians can pass "cap and trade" and hide the fact that they actually passed a new tax. Second, under cap and trade, you get way more new bureaucratic positions to fill than under a carbon tax. |
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Post by John B on Mar 4, 2009 16:41:44 GMT -5
I toured a geothermal power plant in Northern California - an extraordinary clean method of generating power (although very geographically limited). They actually run their steam through twice - once straight out of the ground, then again to get the residual heat out of the steam. The resulting water goes through cooling towers and can be pumped back underground. I wonder if there is a way to use the heat in the post-cooling water.
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Post by billhammond on Mar 4, 2009 16:44:49 GMT -5
Most buildings in Iceland are heated by geothermal.
Combined with weather systems that move in and out at about 50 miles per hour, the air up there is incredibly clear.
We could look from Keflavik over to Reykjavik over the water, and it looked 10 miles away. It was more like 20.
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Post by TDR on Mar 4, 2009 16:47:23 GMT -5
But I think there are two problems. First, politicians can pass "cap and trade" and hide the fact that they actually passed a new tax. Second, under cap and trade, you get way more new bureaucratic positions to fill than under a carbon tax. Yeah but, that's the snarky answer. What's the real answer? |
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Post by omaha on Mar 4, 2009 16:53:19 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. |
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Post by omaha on Mar 4, 2009 16:54:15 GMT -5
But I think there are two problems. First, politicians can pass "cap and trade" and hide the fact that they actually passed a new tax. Second, under cap and trade, you get way more new bureaucratic positions to fill than under a carbon tax. Yeah but, that's the snarky answer. What's the real answer? I'll give you that the second half is snarky, but the first half? Not at all. I think that's 90% of the explanation right there. |
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Post by patrick on Mar 4, 2009 17:22:12 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. But more to the point, if investors are willing to put their money at risk, what difference does it make to you and I? Utilities are all about aggregating capital. But that's exactly my point, investors aren't willing to make that investment over that period of time. There are approved plants on hold for lack of funding. And the industry is pushing for government guarantees of it's financing because private capital doesn't want the risk. If building nuclear plants is waiting on capitalists to line up to invest, then everyone should go start buying solar panels for their houses. Ten years from now, it will be ten years from now, whether we start building nuclear plants today or not. And a 10 year old bad decision will still be a bad decision. That's only partially true. Its true that nuclear doesn't cycle well (in utility parlance, its not what we would call "peaking" generation), but your premise (that the nation is not in need of baseline generation) is false. I've made no such premise. We do need baseline power, but the assumption that we can just get all our power from nuclear or some other such large centralized source is equally false. |
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Post by Supertramp78 on Mar 4, 2009 17:46:57 GMT -5
We get all of our power from centralized sources now. Pretty much always have. France has LOTS of nuclear plants and seems to manage just fine.
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Post by omaha on Mar 4, 2009 17:51:17 GMT -5
This is one of those rare and magical areas where Tramp and I seem to agree completely.
He's right: You can throw practical objections at nuclear power all day long, but in the end, the one-word, irrefutable rebuttal is "France". If they can do it, we can to. The only difference is having the political will.
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Post by millring on Mar 4, 2009 18:02:20 GMT -5
The regulations are complex and cumbersome because a nuclear plant is extremely complex. I too was going to mention France but 'tramp beat me to it. One has to wonder how one could even call it "regulation" when other countries (with less geographical area for buffer zone) can do it but we cannot. That doesn't sound like "regulation". That sounds like "restriction". |
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Post by Supertramp78 on Mar 4, 2009 18:04:28 GMT -5
I hear two things about nukes that confuse me a bit.
1. They take a long time to build. So? Start now.
2. they cost a lot. So? Build a lot, the cost goes down.
Coal costs about $1,300 per megawatt hour. That's about a third of nuclear. Commanche Peak Nuclear down south of me has almost five times the power generating capacity as a coal plant (2,300 megawatts vs 500) so if you factor having to builf basically FIVE coal plants for every nuclear plant, you still save money (the cost comes out to about a third even if the cost for nuclear doesn't go down (which it will) and the cost for coal doesn't go up (which it will) but the coal plant is going to product a chit load more pollution than the nuke. So nukes win and right now, we really only have those options.
You can't build hydroelectric just anywhere, same for geothermal. Windmills aren't constant and no, you can't store the stuff. You flip a switch (or turn on the heart lung machine) the power has to be there right then. Solar? See storage. In fact if the means of production requires storage of electricity at all you might as well smoke dope because it isn't there yet. You want power today in any significant constant quantity you got two options. Coal and Nuclear. There are over 600 coal plants in the US. We have 65 nuclear plants putting out about 16% of the nation's requirements. What makes more sense? A few hundred nuclear plants or a few thousand coal plants?
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Post by John B on Mar 4, 2009 18:06:34 GMT -5
Maybe if we called them Freedom Plants, they'd get built.
By the way, the same client had a number of peaker plants, going full bore before Enron, that lay idle for quite a long time.
Another question for you, Jeff, how do independent power producers figure into the mix? No FERC to deal with. Something along the lines of the builder gets a committment from another party to buy about 50% of the power, and uses that agreement to secure funding for the plant. The IPP then sells the other 50% in the open market.
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Post by John B on Mar 4, 2009 18:09:15 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.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Mar 4, 2009 18:28:00 GMT -5
yeah, good point. Around here they have found gas all over the place. Fort Worth is turning into Gas central. There are gas wells being drilled on DFW Airport property and as soon as they are done, they plan on building a power plant there to help power the airport. Natural gas is cool if you don't mind building lots and lots and lots of them since their output is typically less than coal. Also the price of natural gas is kind of volatile these days. Ask Millring.
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Post by omaha on Mar 4, 2009 18:29:47 GMT -5
I've gotta head out, John, so just a quick note: My info on that is pretty obsolete. I'd want to check with some people before I answer.
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Post by John B on Mar 4, 2009 18:38:15 GMT -5
Thanks - I look forward to what you dig up. I know there aren't a whole ton of them. Before Mid-America Energy (? The utility out of Des Moines) merged with Cal Energy, Cal Energy was an IPP. Originally out of California, of course. I don't think they operated many plants in the Midwest. There are a few plants in OK, MO, and IL; I think MN as well.
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Post by TDR on Mar 4, 2009 18:44:01 GMT -5
You can throw practical objections at nuclear power all day long, but in the end, the one-word, irrefutable rebuttal is "France". If they can do it, we can to. The only difference is having the political will. As I recall, France has fifty some nuke plants and the US has over a hundred, and they use a design derived from an American Westinghouse model. So why are we looking to France to show us the way? What they do different is reprocess waste. The US quit doing that over twenty years ago for good reason, mainly involving safety and non proliferation agreements, I believe. France also uses massive government subsidies to float their nuke industry. As we did for the first thirty years, and still do to some extent. That's a big hidden cost masking the real per KWH rate of nuclear. The US gumment has spent billions on waste repository research and the facility at Yucca Mountain. That facility may never open for business, and we still don't have a place to put the waste. Did we mention that waste stays highly toxic for thousands of human generations? Talk about asking your kids to pay for your jollies. Other objections to nuclear power, besides cost and safety, are the supply of uranium is likey more limited than the supply of oil. That, and the industry is unable to get insurance against a catastrophic Chernobyl type failure and has asked the gumment for an exemption of liability in such a case, which makes them difficult to site. Seems everybody wants them someplace else. When the WPPS plants were aborted here in the 80s, it emerged that when they went to the ratepayers for funding, they neglected to tell us we would also have to pay for the cost of decomissioning. Turns out it costs as much to decomission one of those things as it does to build it. More hidden cost. Its not lack of political will that has kept us from building nukes. If they penciled out, we'd have built dozens of them. Obviously. The problems are a lot more difficult than some imagined 'over regulation' bottleneck. |
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Post by jdd on Mar 4, 2009 18:47:04 GMT -5
... In an earlier thread, someone mentioned that, in Japan, where most energy is from nuclear, everyone has a storage system in their house that is essentially a pile of bricks with a heating element that is heated at night when rates are low and used during the day. That's a simple storage system right there. Yes, extremely cheap power from 11pm to 7am, cheapish power from 7pm to 11pm, and normal rates during the day. Heating and/or hot water. Also, not sure of the percent, but as in France, nukes are common (but in France they don't build them on major fault lines), and following France, they're now adding pluthermal/MOX and are trying to get breeder plants to work. |
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