Fristlosi!!

If you put GWB in a room with the truth, you would have a matter/antimatter type reaction that would release enough energy to power the Rio Grande Valley for the rest of the millenium.

All the more coal for China. :-(

...see what kind of plans TXU proposes to make up for those eight aborted coal plants

TXU = murderers of innocent coal plants !

quick, grab a stick and some poster board, let's picket!

Every time the US government talks about oil energy independence, coal is the savior.

The replacement for those 8 plants will probably be what they tend to be in "green" states like California: buy your power from less fussy states.

Pelosi told 'em in no uncertain terms to forget getting this stuff grandfathered in under air quality/GHG legislation - not gonna happen - obviously their reasoning behind the unseemly rush to get these things built before Bush&Co leave office.

That took the bloom right off that rose.

The TXU announcement on this is here. Note some of the personnel involved.

Mr. Drum: There is only one viable green alternative. I hope that's what you are hoping for -- can you be explicit on this point?

This is very bad news.

If we have nuclear war with Iran, we will need the CO2 from those coal plants to offset the effects of nuclear winter.

Didn't you liberals think of that?

Unfortunately there is no real alternative to coal. Water, wind and solar power are OK but they can produce only a small percentage of America's power usage. Nuclear power plants produce significant amounts of power and could produce substantially more, but legal and public relations obstacles make new nuclear plants impractical.

Al, do trot along now and go fuck yourself, won't you?

sammler wrote: "There is only one viable green alternative. "

And the page that sammler lines to says: "If we wish to decrease use of fossil fuels, nuclear power is the only tried option; the only economically viable option; and the only technologically feasible option."

That is 100 percent pure bought-and-paid-for nuclear industry propaganda, and 100 percent pure bullshit.

Conservation/efficiency, wind power & photovoltaics are all tried and proven technologies.

Conservation/efficiency, wind power and photovoltaics are economically viable. Conservation and efficiency improvements are by far the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to reduce GHG emissions from all sectors, not only electrical generation. Wind and PV are growing at double-digit rates worldwide, virtually all of which is the result of private investment. In contrast, nuclear power is barely growing at all, and as always, it is entirely dependent on massive government subsidies because in market terms it is a complete economic failure.

And nuclear power is not really "technologically feasible". No technology exists for safely sequestering high-level nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years. And if nuclear power were scaled up to replace coal -- i.e. thousands of new nuclear power plants around the world -- then supplies of uranium would be depleted before long.

The "nuclear is the only answer to GHG emissions" is a crock.

They will probably be replaced with Nuclear. One of the (few good things imho) that came out of the Bush Energy plan was to clear the way to make building new nuclear plants easier and less risky.

These plants will not only produce electricity but will be the backbone for the hydrogen fuel we keep hearing so much about.

With improved safety designs, the next generation of nuclear power could be very safe and very very green. (replacing coal for electricity and gasoline for car power via hydrogen)

SecularAnimist:

Sit down sometime and do the numbers. Start with replacing a 1000 MW nuclear plant with solar panels. Then do windmills.

Nuclear plants, right now, supply 20 percent of the U.S. power needs. Some more numbers you might work out: How much CO2 would be generated by the alternative fossil fuel plants, or how many acres of solar panels or windmills--which only work part of the time--would be required to replace that amount.

Enlightened France, constantly used as an example of how to run a country, gets almost 80 percent of its power from nuclear. There's a reason they can yawn when a crisis comes up in the Middle East.

ex-lib: Unfortunately there is no real alternative to coal. Water, wind and solar power are OK but they can produce only a small percentage of America's power usage. Nuclear power plants produce significant amounts of power and could produce substantially more, but legal and public relations obstacles make new nuclear plants impractical.

there's that good old can-do spirit that made america great

I am always skeptical of these types of transactions. A publicly traded company going private means the future profitablity of the company is being seized from individual investors by the largest investors. Even though it may appear the individual stockholders are being paid a premium, they have no real say in the matter because of the way majority stockholders dominate the other stockholders of these types of corporations. The small, individual investors really do not even have the ability to negotiate a better deal. Even if a stockholder did not want to sell his shares, he has no choice. The motivation of the investors taking the business private must be a belief in future higher returns and the dominate, large investors want to monopolize them instead of sharing them with smaller investors.

I think the laws governing the taking of companies public ought to be changed so that the individual investors can be protected by the original owners, who often become the largest, dominating stockhoders. One way to do this is to prevent majority votes based on shares to take companies private. If a company wants to go private, perhaps the 'buyer' should have to actually purchase shares in the market place until it has a super majority of 75% - 85%, instead of just a simple one, before it can use those shares to vote for taking the company private and giving a non-negotiable price for shares.

Taking a business private also reduces financial oversight. I suspect the 'deal' to not build dirty coal power plants is just a ploy and that this new privatized company will still build them after the transaction is completed, but do so with financial backing that cannot be easily brought to the public's attention.

Note that advocating nuclear power does not mean dismissing alternative energy solutions. Every kilowatt that comes from a solar panel, hydro dam, or windmill is a kilowatt that doesn't have to come from a big power plant of any kind.

It's just that these alteratives are not going to replace fossil fuel plants by themselves any time soon, and nuclear is out there and working right now.

I am amused that after years of fun, there are still regulars here who are incapable of realizing that Al is an intentional comic.

(hint: a real conservative would have been aware of the recent Science study which conclusively determined that a "nuclear winter" couldn't happen.)

I thought some interesting, if unintentional, insight was shed on our energy policy debate in the US when the news came out last week that Australia was going to phase-out all their incandescent light bulbs over the next few years. Was there even one news article/broadcast that asked "Gee, what would happen if WE tried that?"

If there was, I didn't see it and it's sad because it's a perfect example of something simple we could do right now that would eliminate the need for lots of new power plants of any sort, but nobody really gives a damn.

TXU was only building so many in order to get it done before feared legislation preventing it- the plants themselves were not yet really needed.

The real test will come when Texas' electricity usage reaches the limit of the present generation capacity. This may not happen for a number of years, but will happen eventually. I would guess some of the cancelled coal plants will be built eventually, or Texas will import electricity from areas still in surplus.

I wonder if any know how many coal fired plants China opened last year?

I live in a city near the largest nuclear power plant in the USA. Last week it was put under the severest regulation possible for continued safety violations. I do not think the largest shareholders of the parent public company want to take it private at this time. They want to share the liability. Share the libiability but monopolize profits is the mantra of the finance capitalists.

Much is written about terrorists targeting such facilities, but there is no reason for them to do so. The owners will wreck them and create the environmental disasters on their own.

There's no doubt that the result of secret negotiations between the Buy-Out group and two Washington DC-based traditional environmental groups produced a potential reality here in Texas better than the one we had last week.

But there are some questions about how this all went down that need to be answered.

Were the citizens'groups fighting the Twin Oaks and Alcoa lignite plants, that are allowed to continue to be built under this agreement, informed about these negotations before they read about them online this weekend? Did they sign off on this agreement?

Of the total 17, these were the only new lignite plants being proposed. Like burning dirt. They make the the 8 others TXU gave up look like state-of-the-art facilities. They emit twice as much of everything.

Will ED and NRDC help pay for these citizens groups to continue to fight these plants?Are did they just walk away from these fights and leave the citizens hanging?

Was any other group or city who is a member of the very large anti-coal plant coalition in Texas allowed to participate? Dallas? Houston? Local groups living next to the plant sites?

Why did ED and NRDC feel they could do this without some sort of more public discussion in Texas about the pros and cons of the deal - including sanctioning taking such a huge utility completely private and then probably flipping it.

If you know anything about the history of ED or NRDC, you know they have a reputation for sometimes taking issues away from grassroots groups and striking deals with the offending polluter that are then trimuphed as historic compromises. I don't know if this is one of those or not, but people should be asking the right questions to determine how involved Texans were in this decision that greatly affects Texas.

a real conservative would have been aware of the recent Science study...

I thought real conservatives don't "do" Science? It gets in the way of big business don't cha know?

I wonder if any know how many coal fired plants China opened last year?

Do we have to keep up with China on polluting our rivers too?

I thought some interesting, if unintentional, insight was shed on our energy policy debate in the US when the news came out last week that Australia was going to phase-out all their incandescent light bulbs over the next few years. Was there even one news article/broadcast that asked "Gee, what would happen if WE tried that?"

Quite a bit of attention in the US (and international, too) media coverage of the Australian action was focussed on the fact that California (and, though it seems to have gotten less attention, New Jersey) are considering similar legislation.

The real test will come when Texas' electricity usage reaches the limit of the present generation capacity. This may not happen for a number of years, but will happen eventually.

Yes, it will probably eventually happen, as demand for new uses will probably continue to outstrip advances in efficiency. But by the time it does, there may be better alternatives for large-scale generation than there are now.

This is part of a larger fight against coal that's going on all over the country. You'll be seeing a lot more stories like this.

For those who say that we need nuclear power to replace coal, see here:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/16/104655/313

Efficiency coupled with renewables like wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass can easily meet U.S. energy needs, even taking into account robust economic growth. The "nuclear is necessary" talking point has long outlived its shelf life.

I sure am glad that Texas is on its own power interchange grid, because it looks like the buyers are going to make money by risking brownouts in summers.

Texans don't need air conditioning, do they?

"This is very bad news.

"If we have nuclear war with Iran, we will need the CO2 from those coal plants to offset the effects of nuclear winter.

"Didn't you liberals think of that?"

One of the better parodies. Nice one.

David Roberts,

You know, I wish what you believed were true, I really do, but it isn't. People who believe we can do away with fossil fuels without resort to nuclear fission are living in fantasy land. You and Secular Animist remind me of the creationists who are impervious to reality.

All the more coal for China. :-(
Posted by: Gore/Edwards 08 on February 26, 2007 at 12:14 PM

It could be that TXU has simply ditched the idea of building any more "conventional" coal-burning plants. It would be in their interest to use higher efficiency technologies to get more electricity output with coal and reduce GNG emissions as well:

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html

"...Future concepts that incorporate a fuel cell or a fuel cell-gas turbine hybrid could achieve efficiencies nearly twice today's typical coal combustion plants. If any of the remaining waste heat can be channeled into process steam or heat, perhaps for nearby factories or district heating plants, the overall fuel use efficiency of future gasification plants could reach 70 to 80 percent.

Higher efficiencies translate into more economical electric power and potential savings for ratepayers. A more efficient plant also uses less fuel to generate power, meaning that less carbon dioxide is produced. In fact, coal gasification power processes under development by the Energy Department could cut the formation of carbon dioxide by 40 percent or more, per unit of output, compared to today's conventional coal-burning plant..."

ckelly,

I wasn't advocating that we keep up with the Chinese. I was trying to put the TXU decision into some perspective. China is opening a new coal-fired plant about every week, and is scheduled to continue to do so for the next several years, and this is on top of the world's most ambitious nuclear power plant building schedule.

The end of coal? Not by a longshot, even in the US.

And then there's those 650 coal-powered electric plants currently being built in China and India...

Yancey, you're going to have to do more than assert. Several comprehensive reports have laid out exactly how we get from here to there. If you want to dispute those reports, you can't simply stamp your feet and insist they aren't true.

Also, everyone should note that "clean coal" -- i.e., coal gasification in IGCC plants -- does nothing in and of itself about global warming. The decline in CO2 emissions is negligible. IGCC makes it easier to sequester the carbon, but once you add sequestration projects, the whole enterprise becomes enormously expensive. You're better off going with wind and solar (coupled, as I keep saying, with strong efficiency measures).

Yancey,

Uggh. China is already facing massive pollution problems. There is a big question about whether they can pull off the 2008 Olympics in Beijing without having shutdowns due to pollution. Even China will have to address pollution at some point.

Coal is either dirty or expensive. Nuke has it's own problems. Lack of fuel, or, if we take the fusion route like you suggest, the proliferation of bomb-grade materials. What a choice to make.

Is it any wonder we are choosing wind and solar whenever we can? Yes, they both have problems, too, mostly the problem of storing their energy for when it is needed.

Tripp,

The Chinese will eventually invest in cleaner technologies. The problem is that poverty often has more pressing issues than pollution. A critical level of development seems to be required before a society decides that pollution reduction is a worthwhile goal. Or maybe it is just the case that the pollution itself has to reach a point where the society is affected enough that the marginal cost of doing something about it is less the marginal cost of doing nothing.

The path they are on suggests it will get quite a bit worse before getting better.

Yancey,

In a way the Chinese serve as a useful example of where bad choices can lead. The US has come a long way in cleaning up its own pollution and it is now easy to forget why the measures were necessary. Being able to point to an example can be very useful.

Yancey Ward: "People who believe we can do away with fossil fuels without resort to nuclear fission are living in fantasy land. You and Secular Animist remind me of the creationists who are impervious to reality."

You are trying to lob an insult but you succeed only in making the sort of ignorant, dogmatic proclamation that is all too typical of nuclear True Believers.

The fact is, you are wrong. And you have nothing to offer in support of your wrong claim except more sweeping, dogmatic pronouncements.

In January, the American Solar Energy Society issued a report entitled "Tackling Climate Change in the US: Potential U.S. Carbon Emissions Reductions from Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency by 2030" which found that the full application of existing energy efficiency and clean renewable energy technologies (wind, solar, biofuels, biomass and geothermal) can reduce total US carbon emissions -- not only from electricity generation but from all sectors -- by 60 to 80 percent by 2030, which is in line with what most climate scientists believe is needed to prevent raising atmospheric GHG concentrations to levels that will cause the worst climate change outcomes.

That's without any expansion of nuclear power.

Your claim that we cannot "do away with fossil fuels" without resorting to a nuclear power buildup is simply false.

On the contrary, nuclear power is the most expensive, most dangerous and least effective way to replace only the portion of fossil fuels that are used for electricity generation, and that can be done much faster, much less expensively, and much more safely by maximizing efficiency and accelerating the deployment of wind farms and distributed rooftop photovoltaics.

The fact is, nuclear power has little to offer the effort to reduce carbon emissions. What nuclear power does have to offer is a bunch of religious fundamentalist true believers -- and the insatiable appetite for hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up and subsidize a technology that has proven beyond any question that it is a total economic failure.

David Roberts

It's not at all clear carbon sequestration is so expensive, particularly if you have disused oil and gas reservoirs at your doorstep, as you do in Texas. We already move CO2 hundreds of miles by pipeline, and extracting CO2 from exhaust streams is a well understood technology in the chemical industry.

IGCC gains you about 10% in thermal efficiency, so no mean saving on total CO2 emissions.

The overall cost is likely to be around 2 cents/kwhr, or put it another way, about $100/tonne of carbon avoided. Which makes coal fired power with sequestration comparable in cost to new nuclear, or to wind.

http://arch.rivm.nl/env/int/ipcc/pages_media/SRCCS-final/SRCCS_SummaryforPolicymakers.pdf

from the IPCC itself.

Generally, wind, nuclear and coal with carbon capture all come in at the 6-8 cents/kwhr cost for power, depending upon assumptions.

The questions are then technical and political:

- wind is intermittent, has aesthetic issues
- nuclear power has political, terrorism, waste and proliferation issues
- the political appetite for large underground CO2 reservoirs has not been tested

http://www.colloqueco2.com/IFP/en/CO2site/presentations/ColloqueCO2_Session1_02_Socolow_PrincetonUniversity.pdf

is a good summary of CCS.

People who say we can do away with cheap beer without resorting to crack cocaine are also living in a fantasy land.

Just sayin'.

A critical level of development seems to be required before a society decides that pollution reduction is a worthwhile goal. Or maybe it is just the case that the pollution itself has to reach a point where the society is affected enough that the marginal cost of doing something about it is less the marginal cost of doing nothing.

"Society decides"? Are you, perhaps, confusing China with a liberal democratic society?

collectively, solar, wind, and biomass can, over a span of about 25 years, assume the burden of providing almost all of America's energy needs. The transition probably can't be made more quickly, because the infrastructure can't be built more quickly without a drastic increase in fossil fuel consumption. There are already so many orders for wind generators that there is a 5 year backlog on orders (the only factor right now restricting the rate of construction of windfarms in Texas and other places in the US and Europe). Similarly, manufactuing of solar PV cells is increasing at a rate of 30% per year over several years, but the base is small: even when they achieve the magical break-even point of $1 per watt of generating capacity, it will take years to build the factories to churn out significant numbers of 2000 watt systems for homes, offices, office parks, condos, etc. There are also technical problems that need better technical solutions than what we have now (i.e. better technology for cellulosic ethanol, better batteries and other devices for storing wind and solar generated electricity, and others that get discussed.)

The important questions are what to do next. Use coal for synfuels and to replace gas- and petroleum-fueled power plants while maintaining our standard of living? Build new nuclear plants knowing that 40 years hence they probably (probably!) won't be needed?

Another note about solar: at present, PV cells generate 0.12 hexajoules of energy, in a world economy of about 80 hexajoules. If manufacturing continues to increase at the recent 30% rate, solar alone will be producing about 85 hexajoules of electricity in 25 years. There is no really good reason to think that the 30% per year growth can or can not be maintained. It is a "known unknown". Analogous computations can be done with biofuels and windfarms. Continuous development, in line with developments of the last decades, show tremendous potential for solar, wind, and biofuels to be producing most of our energy in 25 years. The key is to maintain continuous research and development over the whole time span. This includes continuous R&D in basic processes and continuous R&D in manufacturing processes.

With that as prologue, the announced deal with TXU is for sure a step in the right direction. A small step, but in the right direction. What's needed are many more small steps.

My environmental contributions at work!

Valuethinker on February 26, 2007 at 4:37 PM |

That, too.

SecularAnimist on February 26, 2007 at 4:35 PM

That, too.

We can not actually tell right now exactly how much can be accomplished in the next 25 years, but all the scientific evidence supports the idea that we can accomplish a great deal toward the twin goals of reduced CO2 and increased energy independence. We can do it with or without coal and nuclear. Society will repeatedly making decisions about costs and benefits and rates of change over all of the many short time spans. Given our federal system, the states will make different decisions.

But they may also have raised new questions about how they will meet the energy needs that TXU intended to address by building all 11 plants; the company is said to be examining ways to expand in cleaner forms of energy.

Build three now, lobby for the next eight. Aim for permission to build a coal-fired plant and inject CO2 into the ground. Then another, and another. Sequestering CO2 is not prohibitively expensive, just inconvenient right now.

Speaking of "inconvenient", congratulations to Al Gore for the Oscar award for best documentary. The movie has scientific flaws, but it got people's attention, and will surely have a good effect in the long run.

spider wrote: Speaking of "inconvenient", congratulations to Al Gore for the Oscar award for best documentary. The movie has scientific flaws, but it got people's attention ...

What specific "scientific flaws" do you think An Inconvenient Truth has? It was reviewed by the climate scientists who run the RealClimate.org site, and they unanimously expressed the opinion that it conveyed the scientific facts of climate change accurately and effectively.

Spider,

I guess we will just have to agree to revisit the issue in 25 years. My standing prediciton is that fossil fuel use will have increased by 50%.

Here is a relink to the best overall discussion of rewables and their pros and cons that I have ever found. The discussion also includes an analysis of continuing the present trends of our affluent societies. I agree with the authors that fossil fuels will eventually reach a physical limit of energy production, but I expect that nuclear power will then become ascendent.

cmdicely,

Whatever its structure, Chinese society makes decisions, just by different methods and on different timescales from societies like ours.

It also makes different decisions.

Yancey Ward wrote: "Here is a relink to the best overall discussion of rewables and their pros and cons that I have ever found."

Have you read the report from the American Solar Energy Society, which I have referred you to in the past and linked to on this thread in a previous post -- the report which found that a combination of efficiency and clean renewables (not including nuclear, which is of course neither clean nor renewable) could reduce US carbon emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2030?

Have you read it yet? If not, why not?

Whatever its structure, Chinese society makes decisions, just by different methods and on different timescales from societies like ours.

No, it doesn't. No society literally makes decisions: there is no collective consciousness acting. Only individuals actually make decisions. Any claim that a society makes decisions is true, at best, metaphorically, and the degree to which such a metaphorical description is useful and meaningful is not, contrary your suggestion, independent of the structure of the society in question.

Yancey Ward: Whatever its structure, Chinese society makes decisions, just by different methods

Their method is to have the Chinese Communist Party make the decisions, subject only to their fears of revolt.

poverty often has more pressing issues than pollution

China's current path has more to do with mercantilism than alleviating poverty (although that has been a side effect for a small percentage of the population).

Right now China has more savings than it knows what to do with, which is one of the reasons they buy so many Treasury securities from countries that don't save enough, like us.

Not to ignore our very important (potential) contribution, but in order to address this global financial imbalance, China has to increase its domestic consumption, or risk severe recession (in the event we ever do anything about it).

Investing in cleaner energy technology would be an ideal way for China to increase its domestic consumption.

A critical level of development seems to be required before a society decides that pollution reduction is a worthwhile goal.

Does it? Technologically primitive societies understand the principal of "don't shit where you eat", and often have strong sanctions to prevent it. For example, aborigines in forested/mountainous areas of (New Guinea?) traditionally prohibited people from cutting down trees next to the mountain tributaries that fed the streams where they got their drinking water and fish.

Or maybe it is just the case that the pollution itself has to reach a point where the society is affected enough that the marginal cost of doing something about it is less the marginal cost of doing nothing.

Unfortunately GHGs are anything but a purely national problem. If necessary, other countries will have to apply financial pressure the ensure "that the marginal cost of doing something about it is less the marginal cost of doing nothing". Of course, the US could make a much more convincing case if we did something about GHGs ourselves, and didn't rely as China as our bank.

ah-the smokescreen has struck again ! what is really happening is the employees of TXU voted to go union in the past month, and it stopped the plans for them to farm out the work load to contractors. TXU employees were supposed to train Mexican nationals how to do line work, and there was mutiny on the bounty. There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye, some blogger needs to have a look see into what is really going on....

Yancey Ward cites this: Can Renewable Energy Sources Sustain Affluent Society?
%%%%
F. E. Trainer*
%%%%
University of New South Wales
1995

That is way out of date. Read something like issues of Science, American Scientist, Scientific American, or Popular Science or Popular Mechanics of the last couple years. Or the technical reports of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the other national labs. I do support the construction of nuclear power plants of all kinds, but I think that renewables are likely to be generating more power 25 years from now than nuclear power plants. The most important job for nuclear power plants is to provide the power to sustain the manufacture of large numbers of wind generators and PV cells.

The beginning of the end of coal?

More like the "end of the beginning". The beginning of coal was the era of CO2 pollution. The future of coal will be the future of CO2 sequestration.

Secular Animist, I apologize. I meant to emphasize that Al Gore's movie is good and deserving of the Oscar for best documentary. The things that I have read or heard in criticism are almost all of minor flaws. The only important flaw is the tendency to diminish the evidence of uncertainty, and I think that's a small flaw, all things considered.

Or maybe it is just the case that the pollution itself has to reach a point where the society is affected enough that the marginal cost of doing something about it is less the marginal cost of doing nothing.

Rhetoric evincing an affinity for logical syllogisms and a concommitent aversion to the difficult to measure external world.

They said they are going to take a bunch (1600 MW worth) of inefficient gas plants (ironic, no?) off the block and put them back into commission.

KKR gets to avoid major capital expenditures while getting green accolades. They will probably spin off the regulated arms and keep the commodity and merchant businesses

Somebody preserve this post about wonderful this development is in a year or two when Texas ratepayers are getting crushed

Mark. At last a fellow cynic! My take is that the "private equity group" will promise to take proposed (ie imaginary) plants off the table for sweetheart Fed deals to build nucular plant at cut rate prices, then when the coal is much more valuable, bring those online also. The idea that politicians will to leave that coal in the ground for more than a few years is laughable!

SecularAnimist wrote:

"[T]he full application of existing energy efficiency and clean renewable energy technologies (wind, solar, biofuels, biomass and geothermal) can reduce total US carbon emissions -- not only from electricity generation but from all sectors -- by 60 to 80 percent by 2030, which is in line with what most climate scientists believe is needed to prevent raising atmospheric GHG concentrations to levels that will cause the worst climate change outcomes.

That's without any expansion of nuclear power.
_________________________

The key words being "full implementation." Nothing ever gets implemented fully, or even close to it.

Why do I get the impression that we'll keep arguing these points long past the point where we begin to freeze in the dark? Or the oil runs out. In my opinion, in a perfect world, no electricity would be generated using fossil fuels. Trouble is, it's far from a perfect world.

Energy sources are going to be developed as they become money-making concerns, because the government is not going to have the money to do it and certainly no environmental organization is going to get the capital to build and operate large-scale power generation plants. Besides, few such groups have the inclination to actually run the national power grid. Nor are they likely to accept responsibility if their plans fail to produce what they've promised. Their answer is always going to be, "Sorry you're cold, but just think how much less CO2 we produced."

Read the report that SA cites and you'll find no clear statement of how much land it will take to power a large city by solar power or other non-traditional methods. One will also note the lack of any chart comparing efficiencies of various types of energy. But it doesn't matter, I suppose. As I said, if it'll make money, someone will do it. In the end, the supply and demand charts are the ones that will count.

But, odds are great the solution won't be coming from groups like the American Solar Energy Society, though they're probably quite willing to study the hell of the problem for as long as the grant money and contributions last.

Nuclear power will be our last choice, since it has so many opponents who are willing to go to court to block it, adding greatly to its cost. That's too bad, since it has the potentional of being the cleanest, least intrusive source of energy that we could have. It should have some place in the mix, so long as the promises of alternative sources remains merely promises.

I suppose it's too much to ask that the question be left up to the Sons of Martha. You know, the folks who actually make things run.

spider wrote:

"With that as prologue, the announced deal with TXU is for sure a step in the right direction. A small step, but in the right direction. What's needed are many more small steps."
__________________

Yep, perhaps, though it glosses over the part where nobody knows how they'll provide the energy the plants were going to produce in the short term. Maybe that's the plan, get enough rolling blackouts going and the people will buy any idea that comes down the pike.

I have but one question for the experts here who say that wind generators have limited potential. WHY?? The Netherlands already generates about 20 percent of its electrical with wind power. There are plenty of areas in the U S where winds suitable for generation are almost constant--the plains states for example. Also west Texas. What's missing is a national electrical grid to transport wind generated power. The nice thing about electricity is that it moves from point of generation to point of use with lightning speed. We actually have the wind potential to generate all the electricity this country needs. We simply lack the will to invest in the infrastructure to make it happen. Unfortunately, fully utilizing the potential power of wind generation would be very bad news for the coal companies, the oil companies, the nuclear power advocates and all of our friends in the middle east.

The most important job for nuclear power plants is to provide the power to sustain the manufacture of large numbers of wind generators and PV cells.

Agreed.

Secular Animist,

Care to respond to the points made by Patrick Moore, in this article? Please note, I'm not asking you to accept (or deny) the points the author makes given his role in the creation of Greenpeace. I'm specifically asking for your rebuttal of the points he makes in the article. Thanks in advance.

Ah, Kevin.

You want to be taken seriously on this global warming lunacy? Put your money where your mouth is.

Stop using all electical lighting and read by candlelight. Ride a bike -- EVERYWHERE. Eat only a few calories a day. Ooops, there goes the computer and your little blog.

Go live in a cave somewhere, cause that's about what your asking the rest of us to do. You know, so we can save a few polar bears.

I have but one question for the experts here who say that wind generators have limited potential. WHY?? The Netherlands already generates about 20 percent of its electrical with wind power. There are plenty of areas in the U S where winds suitable for generation are almost constant--the plains states for example. Also west Texas. What's missing is a national electrical grid to transport wind generated power. The nice thing about electricity is that it moves from point of generation to point of use with lightning speed. We actually have the wind potential to generate all the electricity this country needs. We simply lack the will to invest in the infrastructure to make it happen. Unfortunately, fully utilizing the potential power of wind generation would be very bad news for the coal companies, the oil companies, the nuclear power advocates and all of our friends in the middle east.

Sorry about the redundant post. Went to get a beer and the message was still on screen when I got back so I hit send...again.

People die from electricity: electrocutions, fires, accidents with power tools, wrecks of electric trains and cars. If you look at a nuclear powered generator, you may be confident that lots more people have died from the electricity than have died (or will die) from the nuclear fuel itself. It's very unlikely that there will ever be as many people killed by nuclear fuel as are killed by wine. Except in Ukraine, we have to say "vodka" instead of "wine". It's very unlikely that there will ever be as many people killed by nuclear fuel as are killed by automobiles.

trashhauler: you'll find no clear statement of how much land it will take to power a large city by solar power or other non-traditional methods.

Start with the rooftops of the 1 and 2 story buildings: homes, condos, strip malls, etc. That is a huge useful area for a huge demand. And if you are thinking about Chicago, think also about downstate Illinois.

Yep, perhaps, though it glosses over the part where nobody knows how they'll provide the energy the plants were going to produce in the short term.

My guess: coal-fired plants with sequestered CO2, once rates increase due to shortages. Also, new plants in New Mexico and Arizona.

But, odds are great the solution won't be coming from groups like the American Solar Energy Society, though they're probably quite willing to study the hell of the problem for as long as the grant money and contributions last.

Look to Siemens, GE, Toshiba, Konarka, i.e., the actual manufacturers, to the National laboratories, and to the University-based researchers. Solar electricity generating capacity is increasing at the rate of 30% per year, sustainable so far and for at least a few years (10 years from now, harder to know), and the costs of manufacturing 2kw of electrical generating capacity are declining about 10% per year.

Maybe that's the plan, get enough rolling blackouts going and the people will buy any idea that comes down the pike.

If Texas responds by raising rates, as California did, then people will reduce usage and end the rolling blackouts. Or, they might do as you say.

One way or another, people have to acknowledge that now electricity demand is growing faster than electricity supply, though both go in spurts.

This is good news. Still, I'm going to wait a bit and see what kind of plans TXU proposes to make up for those eight aborted coal plants. Let's hope the alternatives are as green as we'd like them to be.

What?

Seriously Kevin, do you really think KKR, Goldman, and TPC really care about the enviroment?

Like their whole intent isn't to "streamline" TXU (sell vital assets and fire people), then flip the utility back to the free market or another energy company for a quick 10 billion (which would be a nice return, given that the buyout relies on massive amounts of leverage) and to do it ASAP?

Think of it like house-flipping, on a much, much larger scale!

The private equity consortium buying TXU will do and say anything at this point to placate potential critics of the deal. And by the looks of it, it's working.

Cha-ching.

Let's hope the alternatives are as green as we'd like them to be.

Keep up the vigilance, and they will be.

egbert, I know you are striving for attention, but try to make a point tht is atleast remotely intelligent.

The whole idea is to make a transition to a sustainable way of life instead of continuously damaging our own planet to the point that we threaten our own existence.

I'm not really sure why we need nuclear. Whether deliberately or not, I note that Patrick Moore understates considerably those who have died and been damaged by the Chernobyl accident by quoting those who died "directly" related to the accident; and also understates the cost of producing nuclear electricity as the pricing he uses does not include the very expensive decommissioning costs of the plants; and it's all well and good to talk about containment buildings but we've got all sorts of fuel rods lying around in open water tanks; I'd like to know where he gets this idea that the radioactivity of removed fuel drops to a thousandth in 40 years. This would give the fuel a half-life measured in months, weeks and days and make it useless as a source of enriched fuel.

So it seems like he was talkikng out of his other orifice. That said the US nuclear industry has had a fair if not completely unblemished safety record and, if we sorted out what we are going to do with spent fuel, then it might be OK to have a few new stations.

But why if we don't need to? Just because it's there? The sun's energy arrives every day and the moon brings tides. We have winds, also from the sun's energy, and geothermal. All those are as carbon neutral as you can get beyond building the plant needed.

As to Kohlberg Kravis, Texas Pacific and Goldman Sachs, they are all in it to make money, green or any other color. In the meantime they have a cash cow, will not be laying out billions for new plant, have a product that has ever rising and inelastic demand which will become relatively rarer unless they or someone else fills the gap with alternate supply.

These are smart people who have done their sums and I have no doubt will not be hurting when the dust settles.

notthere: The whole idea is to make a transition to a sustainable way of life instead of continuously damaging our own planet to the point that we threaten our own existence.

More on the topic of getting there from here. I read somewhere that the battery pack of a Toyota Prius requires the energy equivalent of 1,300 gallons of gasoline in its manufacture. Laying aside the question of whether that is the exact figure, it is the case that manufacturing the battery pack does consume and will continue to consume a lot of energy. Thus, if we rapidly switch over to hybrids, and plug-in hybrids, then we rapidly increase our fuel consumption; that means a rapid increse in our rate of CO2 emissions because we can only switch over to the hybrids with the technology that we have now to make them.

Similarly for solar PV cells and windfarms. The energy to make them has to come from somewhere, and a rapid conversion to PV and wind generation will cause an increase in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions -- again because we have to use the technology that we have now.

Eventually the energy for PV cells will come from PV cells, and the energy for wind turbines will come from wind turbines. In the meantime, we can reduce CO2 emissions during the transition by building some combination of coal-fired plants with CO2 sequestration, new coal-fired plants without sequestration replacing old coal-fired plants, and nuclear-fueled plants.

In consideration of the number of people who die in coal mining, the number of people affected by CO2 and other pollutants from coal burning, the number of people who die directly from electricity and other dangers like cars and alcohol, I do not see any reason why nuclear power plants should be prohibited during the transition.

But it is necessary to think about the process of the transition. We are not now or soon building the final solution. We are now building the transition.

small detail: the radioactivity of removed fuel drops to a thousandth in 40 years

2 to the tenth is 1024. That gives the radioactivity a half-life of about 4 years. But there is a mixture of elements, some with shorter half-lives (hence more dangerous now), some with longer half-lives (hence safe if glassified and encased in concrete or something).

spider --

Yes, I should have figured the half-life before writing as it only took a mo, but even so he can't be right. If you haven't seen this site you might get a kick out of it, and it has been 20 years:

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html

Otherwise I mostly agree. It would be nice if we could talk in full-cycle costs, $$ and pollution, from building the needed plant and infrastructure, maintenance and operating costs, dismantling/recycling. Then we could have an apples to apples comparison and make informed decisions.

So far it seems that the pollution costs of production are being ignored, especially for energy expensive items like batteries, etc., and then people say "look how clean I am". They have no idea.

did you ever think coal was the answer, it is not that we don't have enough gas it is that we have too much greed .prices climb on fears not on shortages,you hide and watch,coal will start to be short not that is ,it is all big money that drives these shortages, yes green is where it is at, invest in green

spider wrote:

"(Quoting me) trashhauler: 'you'll find no clear statement of how much land it will take to power a large city by solar power or other non-traditional methods.'

Start with the rooftops of the 1 and 2 story buildings: homes, condos, strip malls, etc. That is a huge useful area for a huge demand. And if you are thinking about Chicago, think also about downstate Illinois."
_______________________

Lots of room, true enough, spider, though perhaps not enough. And anyway, spreading all those panels out on different buildings is going to mean greater transmission loss, all around. Still, it would be a good start. Now all we gotta figure out is how to convince all those folks it's a good idea for somebody to stick all that stuff on their roofs. Or is it going to be government fiat again, like every other favorite environmental plan? As for Chicago and Southern Illinois, it might take some doing to convince all those normally ignored folks downstate to let somebody use their land for reasons other than farming. For Chicago. Lots of coal mines down this way.

By the way, what will a solar-powered Chicago (or Cleveland or Detroit) do after a week or so of snow and clouds? Do those panels still work with four inches of snow on 'em? Who gets up on all those roofs with a shovel?

"They said they are going to take a bunch (1600 MW worth) of inefficient gas plants (ironic, no?) off the block and put them back into commission.

KKR gets to avoid major capital expenditures while getting green accolades. They will probably spin off the regulated arms and keep the commodity and merchant businesses

Somebody preserve this post about wonderful this development is in a year or two when Texas ratepayers are getting crushed."
Posted by: mark on February 26, 2007 at 6:39 PM

I would be concerned that utilities might become excessively risk-averse to investing in new technology and to using nuclear and coal (even efficiently) and simply use as much natural gas as possible. It has the lowest carbon content of any fossil fuel. The downside is this would divert domestic natural gas production to electricity and will increase the price of gas substantially for home heating and commercial industrial users. Remember the California energy "crisis" a few years ago? These utility people could use their new "green sensibility" to squeeze supply and rake in windfall profits. We need a federal energy policy that can regulate and oversee all of this. Just say NO to BIG private unfettered and unregulated utilities that are only after maximizing profits through squeezing supplies.

cmdicely

'Society decides' is in fact a correct description of what goes on, re pollutants.

In the 1960s and 70s, places as diverse as California and Japan decided their air was too polluted-- LA had over 100 smog alert days a year.

We now live in a world where automotive pollutants are 1/10th per car what they were then. LA and Tokyo's air is incomparably cleaner than it was in the early 70s (Tokyo policemen used to have little oxygen bottles they kept in police traffic kiosks, to help them through the day).

This was as a result of democratic action, feeding up to legislators and legislation.

A village of Japanese are horribly killed by mercury pollution, and Japanese industry drops its mercury emissions by 90%.

An even better example. In the winter of 1952 London had one of its 'Great Smokes'. These were essentially the clouds of sulphur dioxide and particulate caused by coal burning. Sobering to know the fog of Sherlock Holmes stories was actually man made-- London hardly has fog now.

5,000 people died that winter of respiratory ailments. You couldn't see in front of your face, there were speed restrictions on roads and buses because of the danger and limited visibility.

The public decided this would not happen again. The politicians were concerned about a shortage of alternative fuels, about the lack of affordable alternatives (we have the declassified Cabinet Minutes to tell us this). But the public had decided, in this most hierarchical and top down of Western societies.

And lo, it was done. The Smokeless Fuels Orders were passed by Parliament. Coal heating was phased out.

London hardly has fog now. We have automotive pollution issues, but the problem of the London smoke is gone.

The public reaches a tipping point, and things which were, only months or years before, 'impossible' become politically essential and are done.

This is why democracy is the most powerful of systems, and the one capable of saving itself, and the planet.

>>Internationally, locally, in cyberspace and on land and sea, the question of how to calculate the appropriate economic value of preserving such things as the environment and the public domain (not to mention human rights or living standards) is a problem that unregulated markets do not solve very well. Societies need to make those decisions -- but as Boyle notes, with governments increasingly controlled by "stakeholders" with vested interests that do not necessarily coincide with the general public's, society's ability to choose wisely is in great doubt.

- -- Andrew Leonard - http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2006/02/28/boyle/print.html

trashhauler: By the way, what will a solar-powered Chicago (or Cleveland or Detroit) do after a week or so of snow and clouds? Do those panels still work with four inches of snow on 'em? Who gets up on all those roofs with a shovel?

I expect that the first commercial uses of PV cells will be air conditioning. Government intervention won't be necessary once the costs are low enough.

PV cells transmit about 90% of sunlight. Once the downstaters get in the habit of growing fuel along with food, it will occur to them to install PV cell platforms, and grow the fuel under them. They'll have to experiment to find the best mix, taking into account fertilizer, water use, winter sunlight and summer drought, and so on.

I meant really large-scale unsubsidized use in the US. They are available now for patio lighting, camping gear, emergency call-boxes, and lots of other widespread but fairly small-scale uses.