Is hurricane sandy a bellwether?

[mks]

Al,
Here are the STEENKING NUMBERS for greenhouse gas emissions per unit energy produced over the life of the plant (grams of CO2/kWh):

Wind 9-10
Solar thermal 13
Solar PV 32
Nuclear 66
Oil 778
Coal 960-1050

Here's the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparisons_of_life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions

About 50% of US energy is used in thermal form, much of it for heating and cooling of buildings. It makes no thermodynamic sense to use electricity for this application, yet that is what is often done. Solar isn't bad for producing electricity, and can be made more efficient, but it is well suited to producing thermal energy.

Keith

 

[Wilbur]

Everything (energysourcewise) is a trade off, damned if you do - and if you don't. Our lifestyle is the problem. We live in excess almost to a person. I say "almost" as a hedge against being grossly wrong.

Not sayin' that's a bad thing but I am sayin' that's the problem. Convenience and the technology to support convenience don't come cheap - or is it cheaply. Trying not to write in hillbilly and losing...too old to quit talking like one. Hey wait a minute...I am one.


BTW, are any of ya'll falling for those expensive "organic" vegetables? Don't answer that...it's rhetorical....

 

[alinwa]

Love you Wilbur

Really, I hope we one day get to face-to-face...


BTW, I got a sister down the road just a piece who's still milking her own goat. And both her and the other sister over the ridge are overrun with green stuff which they try to sell for a few weeks and then drive around handing it off as "gifts" to whoever will take the stuff. They've also tried to sell the aigs but bedammed if'n I'll pay MORE than storebought for bloody aigs.... The other sister actually OWNS an organic store!

http://www.yelp.com/biz/eggplant-urban-farm-supply-st-paul

http://eggplantsupply.com/

yeahh, agree/disagree I did come by my opinions the old fashioned way my frien' they ain't from a book.

al

 

[alinwa]

Al,
Here are the STEENKING NUMBERS for greenhouse gas emissions per unit energy produced over the life of the plant (grams of CO2/kWh):

Wind 9-10
Solar thermal 13
Solar PV 32
Nuclear 66
Oil 778
Coal 960-1050

Here's the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparisons_of_life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions

About 50% of US energy is used in thermal form, much of it for heating and cooling of buildings. It makes no thermodynamic sense to use electricity for this application, yet that is what is often done. Solar isn't bad for producing electricity, and can be made more efficient, but it is well suited to producing thermal energy.

Keith

A'gain, just wow..... I simply can't find any relevancy in these "numbers," they're less than useless, they're misleading. They're not even misleading, they're simply not real-world applicable to anything, planetwise. Let's just start with wind. Those numbers are for how much the windmill "emits" while it's "operating." They figured in the lubricants, the upkeep and to look really special even came up with a factor for the emissions of the vehicle the maintenance worker's vehicle, but NOTHING for production. They use the same math to "prove" that incandescent lights are "inefficient" and should be BANNED, replaced by "lower carbon footprint" lights like LED and flourescent units. That's just stupid.... It doesn't account for the pollution incurred in producing the actual mill and I'm not involved enough to argue with you but I will offer an illustration. I know a guy who inherited a farm worth 1.6 million dollars.

He just changed the names on the paperwork and kep' on farming like he always had. His nice auntie from the big city came over and showed him where to sign.......

He brought her into town and bought her a big ol' steak dinner for all her help. Least he could do.

From HIS perspective, and these are his own words, "it ain't hard to make a living farming."


(I'm sure that all the posters who can't figure out why I'm rambling on about toilet paper and whores will find this analogy equally useless!)

BTW in my world dollar=time=thermal energy=erg=watt=in the case of this guy about 120yrs of blood sweat and tears.... energy is energy is energy is energy whether it comes from the ground or the sky and one must understand that there will some hysteresis loss in any conversion from one form to another. I'm right now heating my house with incandescent lights. Heat hasn't been turning on more than once every two-three days and THAT because I like my creature comforts so I keep the house within a 4-6 degree window. I DO use flourescents in the summer when it's hot...... because the gub'mint subsidized us such that my taxpayer friends bought me a bunch of cheap "CFL's". I'm not averse to riding the gub'mint horse when they penalize me for NOT hopping aboard, but I certainly won't endure them through the winter when I need bought heat!

 

[alinwa]

for mks.... since you're bent on "illustrating" your points with innernet cites let's look at the greenest-of-the-green like "who could argue with this???" subject of those ridiculous "CFL's" I closed my post with...

http://www.ehow.com/about_5044780_dangers-fluorescent-bulbs.html

and there are hundreds more. but for me these type "articles" written by neophytes and reporters are simply validation for things that are obvious to me from the outset.

THERE IS NO MAGIC TECH!!!

We'll NEVER be driving electric cars! We'll NEVER fly to work in our private craft. We'll NEVER "refine" wind/solar/tidal/hydrogen sources to make them beneficial in the big picture...... reDEFINE yes, the algores do this daily, but not refine.

 

[Charles E]

To translate hillbilly into MoTown, R-E-S-P-E-C-T is want you want when you ain't got much C-O-N-T-R-O-L.

 

[Joe Salt]

Would you all answer me this! What did the Dinosaur's do [fart] and cause there demise. Everything goes in cycles, we are going in one big circle. When the earth gets back to one of those point mother nature will say goodbye and start all over again.
Its all about how much money can be made off the people that believe this crap! When someone calls me and asks for donations, I say donate to me I'm on a fixed income. I need bullets!


Joe Salt

 

[mks]

Those numbers are for how much the windmill "emits" while it's "operating."

The numbers include not just operation, but also "all conceivable emissions associated with the manufacturing, construction, installation and decommissioning" of the plants.

 

[mks]

fission is economically viable AND clean even in it's presently inefficient

Even if support for more nukes could be found after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, uranium is a limited resource. We have about 200 years worth of uranium at current consumption rates (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last). But currently nukes supply less than 10% of our energy (http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/major_energy_sources_and_users.cfm). If we tried to produce all our energy from nukes, we would be out of uranium in 20 years.

 

[mks]

We'll NEVER be driving electric cars!

I am not sure whether batteries will ever have enough capacity at a low enough cost. I'm guessing 50/50 chance that electric cars are the next thing. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells, maybe.

We'll NEVER fly to work in our private craft.

Way too energy intensive, I agree.

We'll NEVER "refine" wind/solar/tidal/hydrogen sources to make them beneficial in the big picture.

Even though solar could produce all the energy we will ever need, other more limited renewable resources will likely be in the mix. Hydro can be increased some without building new dams, which would be unpopular. Wind is already happening. Tidal, maybe in a few locations. Hydrogen is not an energy source, but an energy carrier - it has to be produced by, say, solar. Lots of research in this area. We have to refine solar, it's the only choice (except for fusion).

 

[Boyd Allen]

There are some things that we can do now, that make economic sense, unless you live in a location that makes them impractical.

For instance, because I am lucky enough to have friends in the solar business, I was able to get a very good deal on a solar electric setup for our house.

Last year, I made a few more KWH than we used, and this in a climate that requires a good bit of AC to be comfortable. I cannot claim to be independent to the extent that the grid is my battery, and we still burn natural gas for heat, but I do believe that the reduction in fossil fuel use and the resultant emissions are significant.

For those that might think that this is a looney approach, let me assure that it pencils out as an investment, and that having no house payment or electric bill are comforts in my old age. As it stands, solar is a high mark up field, but for the technical among you, a do it yourself approach should provide a huge savings over the current typical retail price.

I do not claim to have the answer on the climate change thing, but I am sure that I have reduced our monthly overhead, with the bonus of cleaning up our emissions profile. Now if someone would only make an efficient car that is comfortable for a person of my bulk, perhaps the monthly gas transportation expense might be shaved down as well. As it stands, keeping the old wrecks in good operating condition is the better option.

The down side to this solar is that I could have bought both a lathe and a mill (used) and some tooling for what it cost, and had some left over.

This has been an interesting thread to read, and the more that I read, the more convinced I am that I don't know if something is happening that would not be if the world was not populated by humans, but I will continue to listen. Thanks to those who continue my education.

 

[vicvanb]

yeahh, agree/disagree I did come by my opinions the old fashioned way my frien' they ain't from a book.
al

Therein lies the problem. When we can't agree on the facts (because one side or the other distorts them), the debate is meaningless.

 

[alinwa]

Therein lies the problem. When we can't agree on the facts (because one side or the other distorts them), the debate is meaningless.

This I agree with in total vic..... (we CAN agree ) In fact, if you can show me to be wrong I'll climb right onto your bandwagon and sing with you.

So let's stick with wind for a while if we can. I DO NOT BELIEVE wind power to be viable. I believe that the true cost of wind power is in the neighborhood of $.14/kwh for the industrial grids and .40/kwh for smaller private installations and yes I'm involved with people in both industries and I know people personally with $20,000.00 to $50,000.00 home generator units. "Small potato's" to be sure but in real life spending 20-50 grand of your own money in an effort to help the planet is admirable in my view.... I've an acquaintance just down the road, a home-builder who's dumped over $250,000.00 into his own home's alternative energy. He has access to a good aquifer so he's generating from three 100GPM wells, storing in a 200,000 gallon holding tank and has a large mechanical building which handles power from a number of other sources. Another friend, a retired contractor has spent over $100,000.00 dollars on his home in his quest for independence from the grid. He lives in alternative energy mecca, the Tri-Cities area of WA where wind and sun are found in abundance. I've an uncle in AZ, also a retired contractor who actually lives entirely off the grid..... again, a guy with enough disposable income to actually give it the true Dutch Effort.... and retired, willing to bend his life entirely to suit his environment.

My brother-in-law has a $25,000.00 lawn ornament and lives on a ridge where the wind blows....and the harder he studies his meter, the more furiously he crunches those numbers, the further disillusioned he gets.

These are real-world people with real-world dollars invested in their hobbies. And yes, they'll all tell you that in the end they're HOBBIES, just like pocket-farming your homesite is a hobby. They've learned that you CANNOT live in self-sufficient comfort in the northern tier. If you want to live cheap you WILL be cold and stinky and miserable. In the REAL WORLD of feeding and powering a nation they've learned that even with their resources they could not, CANNOT achieve independence via alternative power.


Ohhh, and BTW the guy who lives entirely off the grid? The guy willing to shower every-other and he and the wife swap mornings and evenings, he ain't saving the planet either. Right now he's burning a ton of diesel because his battery bank is down to 20% capacity. Well before it's proposed "lifetime" is up. Bummer eh, how the real world intrudes on one's dreams....

On a side note; We pay the price out here in WA. Our electrical costs have tripled in this era of alternative energy WE are now paying YOUR power bill thanks to our elected officials. We actually do have access to cheaper power since our forebears bore the brunt of paying for hydro (generally speaking, hydro power is a side-benefit of damming a river. Go take the tour next time you're in Vegas..... ask the tour guide if Lake Meade pays for itself or if it's there to save the valley from flooding...) and we get to realize the benefits. Well, we useta' got to..... not any more.

If all the research you're willing to do is on the innernet, read some of the stuff available. It's hard to find factual stuff, ain't no Wilbur's out there in the alternative universe of off-grid and non-fossil power, but try.

Here are some linkies to get you started...please respond with rebuttal linkies if you so desire.

http://www.mnforsustain.org/windpower_schleede_costs_of_electricity.htm

http://benfrommo.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/wind-power-figuring-out-the-actual-cost/

http://www.energytribune.com/1140/overblown-the-real-cost-of-wind-power#sthash.RwNcrUMF.dpbs

http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Ene...tudy-Reveals-the-Real-Cost-of-Wind-Power.html


This one's a real beaut, a site dedicated to helping you the consumer price out your own system. "Calc your own system" ... enjoy this trip http://www.windustry.org/resources/wind-project-calculator

follow the trail of "green power" to gain a real-world appreciation for the term "obfuscation."

Real answers are hard...... just ask a shooter with a couple bux in his pocket. There's only a couple places on the net where you can get good information.

THANK YOU WILBUR!!!




al

 

[Boyd Allen]

Just as a reference point, when we looked at our cost of electricity for the year prior to installing solar, it averaged $0.17 per KWH. I expect that average to go up over time, increasing the yield of our investment. There has been a lot of talk about what can't be done. This can be. At the end of our first year with solar, PG&E credited the following month's account for a little less than $20, which was the total value of the electricity that we produced in excess of what we had used for the year. Of course it doesn't pay to overproduce since they only gave us credit for $0.04 per KWH. I did not do this to save the planet, or as my contribution to a effort to reduce the greenhouse effect. It was simply an investment. Of course if the cost of crude oil were to drop way down, and the cost of electricity followed, then I will have made a big mistake. There are always risks any time that one makes an investment.

 

[alinwa]

I forgot to thank you Boyd for your prior post and your input from personal experience. I read and hear what you've said and get an entirely different picture than vic will get! But thanks for the real numbers.

al

 

[JD Mock]

I am still waiting! When I was in the 5th grade (1954), there were some engineers from General Motors who made a presentation at our school. They had a small car (about 2 feet long) with a solar cell on top. When they shined a light on the cell the car accelerated slowly across the stage. Then we were told that this is the energy that we would use by the time we were old enough to drive. I am still waiting! James

 

[alinwa]

Hey James..... 60 yrs ago when that was being developed it actually was fairly new tech!!! Unfortunately, today, while we've managed to "bring the efficiency up" just a little, it's NOT.

LOL

I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the hippies who spent 3-4yrs on the MiraMar project spending Howard Hughes' money exploring 'solar.' Back then he was a dreamy eyed college grad full of hope and living on change out in "the real world," pleased and proud to be shaping the future... well, that and all those college chicks who'd come out into the desert to help put out like rabbits... but anyway he whiled away a decent chunk of his time there.

Now he installs heatpumps.

And I shook his hand because when I asked him if my heatpump "saved energy" he said "no." Try getting that answer ANYWHERE within the building trades!! I've even heard them referred to as "109% efficient."

al

 

[Boyd Allen]

Al,
Having spent some time in the HVAC field, let me offer the explanation that I am familiar with. Heat pumps can be more than 100% efficient within a certain range of ambient temperatures, when compared to electrical resistance heat. As the temperature approaches the lower end of this range, this advantage decreases, and when the usual strip heaters kick in, all bets are off (although this can be mitigated if natural gas is available and the unit is a dual fuel heat pump). Any advantage that a heat pump might have would depend on the climate, and the cost of alternate sources of heat. There is also the consideration that your compressor is being used for more hours in a given year, and the resultant potential for increased maintenance and decreased service life. One way that the ambient temperature can be taken out of the equation is by using the earth instead of outdoor air to condense or evaporate refrigerant. Of course the additional cost of such an installation would have to be figured in when considering such an installation, as well as soil type and moisture content. Recently when I was doing some research to try to determine what the smart move will be when it comes time to replace the dual pack on my roof, I came across a company that makes heat pumps that work at what seem to me to be astoundingly low temperatures, well below where I would expect to see axillary heating being used. With our mild winters, (Citrus is grown in this area.) I will probably opt to stick with gas heat, given what I have been reading about supplies, and their probable effect on cost.
Boyd

Added later: http://www.midstateelectric.coop/product-and-services/residential/conservation-rebates/heat-pumps/

 

[JerrySharrett]

I am still waiting! When I was in the 5th grade (1954), there were some engineers from General Motors who made a presentation at our school. They had a small car (about 2 feet long) with a solar cell on top. When they shined a light on the cell the car accelerated slowly across the stage. Then we were told that this is the energy that we would use by the time we were old enough to drive. I am still waiting! James

But, James, just listen. We all have a magic wall, full of electricity. Just plug into it and go. We will even have magic walls at the workplace and the shopping centers. Just plug in and go. Never mind the tangled extension cords. Never mind what it takes to refill that magic wall. See, the wall plug isn't even dirty!!

Ozone, never heard of it till chemistry class. We were told it was O-three, oxygen with a +3 valiance. Now we were told it is "up there", somewhere, and we burned a hole in it!! Never mind these magic cars will generate billions of tons of it.

BTW, speaking of GM and 5th grade. When I was in 5th grade I was designing cars for the Fisher Body Craftsmans Guild. Oh, I guess I forgot to put an extension cord on them before I sent the designs to Detroit.

 

[JerrySharrett]

I am still waiting! When I was in the 5th grade (1954), ...... James

Fifth grade in 1954??? I didn't even know they had 5th grade way back then??? I heard school only went to 3rd grade. I guess that is what made the squirrel go berserk in that First Self-Righteous Church in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD85MynoE64&feature=related

And James will love thissin'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6TcpfBHlbs&feature=fvwrel

And thessiens'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJ4ySMuizU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUEqh07E4dY