tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post952704262641837793..comments2023-12-05T07:50:19.855-05:00Comments on No Oil for Pacifists: Why T. Boone Is Mostly Hot Air@nooil4pacifistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-36132657157861449782008-08-14T01:00:00.000-04:002008-08-14T01:00:00.000-04:00andylora:As for fretting that the "increased loadi...andylora:<BR/><BR/>As for <A HREF="http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-t-boone-is-mostly-hot-air.html#5792067351907790219" REL="nofollow">fretting that the</A> "increased loading of carbon into the atmosphere is not tenable," see <A HREF="http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2008/08/heritic.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-84333658083063139782008-08-13T22:24:00.000-04:002008-08-13T22:24:00.000-04:00As the National Review article stated, wind power ...As the <I>National Review</I> article stated, wind power could supply as much as 1/5 of electric generation between Pittsburgh and Denver--including Texas. It's less efficient in costal regions, but still can be part of the solution in places like Rhode Island. But it is unlikely to ever supply more than 20 percent of any grid--as Denmark, which recently froze windmill subsidies, has learned.@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-19456207386857272752008-08-10T20:05:00.000-04:002008-08-10T20:05:00.000-04:00OBH: You do realize you're quoting a press releas...OBH: <I> You do realize you're quoting a press release from a PR organization, there? Not saying I wouldn't believe a word that they say, but I'd damned sure want a second source. </I><BR/><BR/>I assume you noticed that the cost data for the second AWEA link came from Puget Sound Electric ( page 2). While I have not yet found the precise doc on their website that AWEA said they were quoting from, here are two docs that give results congruent with what AWEA quoted.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.pse.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/mediaKit/008_Columbia.pdf" REL="nofollow">Puget Sound Electric Hopkins Ridge in 2005:</A> <BR/><BR/><I> "The cost of all forms of energy, including wind power, is rising. But wind power remains very competitive, cost-wise, with other new electricity resources available today. In fact, when PSE built Hopkins Ridge in 2005, wind power was the least-cost source of all new energy supply available." </I><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.pse.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/2007IRP/Appendices/G-WindIntegration.pdf" REL="nofollow">Puget Sound Electric Wind Integration.</A> <BR/><BR/>I read the German report months ago.In fact, I printed it out. Perhaps I blew it off to a certain degree because Sellout Schroeder and Harridan Herta and subsequent events have given me a certain amount of skepticism towards that country. Your suggested Google Tx brownout search has not yet yielded results.<BR/><BR/>I might repeat that I am also in favor of increasing nuclear energy. We will also use more coal- combination of electricity and liquefied coal.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-2199109733903793562008-08-09T08:29:00.000-04:002008-08-09T08:29:00.000-04:00> Document please. I have never noticed any lac...> Document please. I have never noticed any lack of electricity in my TX house in the last 4 years I have been purchasing wind energy. TX wind energy has quadrupled since 2001. Bunch of pie in the sky tree-hugging Sierra Club liberals here in Texas. <BR/><BR/>1) Do a search on "Texas Wind Farm Failure Brownout Cold Winter" and play, if necessary, with those and similar words. It occurred near the very end of February 2008. I doubt if you'll have much of a problem finding multiple refs for it, to either blogs with clearly legit links (i.e., to newspaper articles on it) or to actual legit articles themselves. Simply put: On one of the coldest days of last (07-08) winter, the wind at a huge Texas windfarm just died, almost completely, for a long time, which very much highlighted its unreliability as a source of energy, and left the power companies scrambling to find another source so that people would not experience a serious <I>extended</I> brownout at a particularly vulnerable time. <BR/>--- Those eeeevil utilties corporation bastards did their jobs, of course, and you apparently didn't even notice how well they did it.<BR/><A>Here</A> (but you'll probably still want to research it yourself).<BR/><BR/>2) The <I>absolute max percentage</I> of the electricity source mix which is believed theoretically possible is around 20%. And that is exceedingly optimistic, ignores the fact that wind electricity, unsubsidized, is ca. 6x to 10x more expensive than comparable coal or nuke power, requires that most of it still must be retained as EXTRA CAPACITY be available at all times to supplemeent an unexpected lowering of wind availability for an extended period.<BR/>--Power companies have a hard time dealing with variable demand. It adds up to a fair increase in your bills to maintain at all times the excess "fast up" capacity to prevent brownouts... and now some sub-geniuses want to add <I>variable inputs</I> to this very, very complex bit of magic? Great idea.<BR/>--Wind power is like solar -- it's fine for stuff that doesn't really, really have to be done at any specific time, but it would be nice if it were done within a moderate range -- like pumping well water into a reservoir tank, or heating water for use at a convenient time. For these things, the variability is mostly irrelevant. As a source of power-on-demand it's a loser of an idea.<BR/>3) <A HREF="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121797838304214973.html" REL="nofollow">From the WSJ</A> (<B>emphasis</B> mine): <I>The Energy Department optimistically calculates that ramping up merely to 20% by 2030 would require more than <B>$2 trillion</B> and turbines across the Midwest "wind corridor," plus multiple offshore installations.</I> Like most politicians trying to sell an idea, Gore claims (i.e., <B>lies</B>) and says it will cost "only 150 billion", which fraction of the actual cost is still more than the <I>entire US federal budget</I> was until 1967... and that <B>DoE estimate is more than the entire US budget was until 2002</B>. (stats <A HREF="http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/hist.pdf" REL="nofollow">here</A>). Yes, it gets "amortized" across two decades, but that right there tells you it's damned sure not a trivial amount. Giving out that kind of money -- <I>1/20th of the entire federal budget for one basic activity</I> -- is a sure source of power, cronyism, and corruption.<BR/><BR/><BR/>I recommend <A HREF="http://antigreen.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Greenie Watch</A> as a good source of a reliable alternative view on things ecological. Don't trust them, by any means -- but when they say one thing and the media says another, I'll tell you that I'd bet my own money that their commentary is closer to The Truth than that of most of the media harpies.<BR/><BR/>> I have never noticed any lack of electricity in my TX house in the last 4 years I have been purchasing wind energy.<BR/><BR/>And you figure it's the sole source of energy you have when you flip the light switch? Or is it far more likely that you buy electricity off the grid, which may or may not include a percentage of power generated by wind at any given time?<BR/><BR/>Self-contained interchangeable nukes is the way to go, really (doesn't directly solve the oil-gasoline issue, but it does damned sure cover the bases on both pollution* and global warming (though I do not believe for one moment that there is one whit of truth to the GW conjecture).<BR/><BR/>===<BR/>* pollution from nukes is far more manageable than for any other source, and most of the likely self-contained designs don't even use weaponable material.<BR/><BR/><BR/>====<BR/><BR/>re: Current cost of wind.<BR/><BR/>You do realize you're quoting a press release from a PR organization, there? Not saying I wouldn't believe a word that they say, but I'd damned sure want a second source.<BR/><BR/>I'd also read <A HREF="http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/009171.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>, with a link to a report on wind power realities from the largest German Power Utility, which has a long history of attempting to use wind power.OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-14472772307747394312008-08-08T22:30:00.000-04:002008-08-08T22:30:00.000-04:00obloodyhell : Wind is crap, as the wind farm in Te...obloodyhell :<BR/><I> Wind is crap, as the wind farm in Texas showed this last winter, and numerous analyses have shown. </I><BR/><BR/>Document please. I have never noticed any lack of electricity in my TX house in the last 4 years I have been purchasing wind energy. TX wind energy has quadrupled since 2001. Bunch of pie in the sky tree-hugging Sierra Club liberals here in Texas. The legislation that pushed wind energy in TX was signed by beholden-to-the-oil-interests Governor Dubya.<BR/><BR/>One point about the wide geographical spread of wind turbines is that this will tend to mitigate the variability of wind at any one location, as there will be less overall wind variability overall when the wind energy comes from hundreds or thousands of square miles. <BR/>There is also a question at what % of electrical energy in a system coming from wind will the variability become an issue: the 20% by 2030 took that into consideration to keep the goal down to 20%. The point here is that the 20% goal takes the variability of wind into consideration; it is factored in: thus they did not say 60% by 2030.Thus far in TX it has not been an issue, but it will as % of energy coming from keeps increasing. Definitely needs more study, but at this stage, with the low % of wind energy, it is not reason to stop putting in wind turbines. <BR/> <BR/>Energy storage needs further work, no doubt about it.<BR/><BR/>The point about needing transmission lines is a good one, as the Great Plains wind tunnel isn't where the customers are in Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, and Chicago. While Texas has approved improved transmission lines, states with more onerous regulations and more Limousine Liberals may have more trouble getting them approved. Cape Wind, anyone?<BR/><BR/>Our solutions will not come from any one source. Coal, yes. Nuclear, yes. Wind, yes.<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.awea.org/utility/040602_DeMeo_Why_Utils_Should_Invest.ppt" REL="nofollow"> Cost of wind energy is down from 40 cents/KWH in 1979</A><BR/><A HREF="http://www.awea.org/pubs/documents/Outlook_2007.pdf" REL="nofollow"> Current cost of wind.</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-74024882709563778562008-08-06T14:36:00.000-04:002008-08-06T14:36:00.000-04:00Burnside: Great article. The kind of article Wired...Burnside: Great article. The kind of article Wired used to produce before Time, Inc., bought them out.<BR/><BR/>Along the same lines of that, I strongly recommend a Brit TV series from the 70s called <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Connections-1-James-Burke/dp/B000NJVY3U/ref=pd_sim_v_1_img" REL="nofollow">Connections</A>. Excellent series about the history and development of technology (At the time, it seemed very fast-paced, but to the modern MTV-trained eye, it's average). <BR/><BR/>The concept, of linking a range of ideas and inventions and showing how they all interacted to produce the modern world is still a fascinating one. <BR/><BR/>Burke's goal was to destroy the then-popular ideas of "Golden Ages" and "Solitary Inventors", and show how, often, things were invented and sat around for 50 years until someone noticed or applied it differently -- or how one invention was actually a chain of precursor inventions leading to that final, notable one. <BR/><BR/>Speaking of that sort of thing, <A HREF="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush" REL="nofollow">This man</A>, not Al Gore, is the true father of the internet. Read the article (long, mind you), and tell me that's <I>not</I> the internet he's describing.OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-33628842181127703392008-08-06T14:03:00.000-04:002008-08-06T14:03:00.000-04:00> The bottom line: the increased loading of ca...> The bottom line: the increased loading of carbon into the atmosphere is not tenable. <BR/><BR/>A statement loaded with bias but utterly without justification. And irrelevant. The article can argue just as much for nuclear, which can substantially reduce carbon output, since one nuke plant is usually 2 to 4 times the capacity of the typical coal-fired system.<BR/><BR/>> And the general "can't do" stance of the article; every energy source has its downside; engineering the balance of strategies is the challenge that must be met.<BR/><BR/>It's also the matter of choosing which strategies are complete losers, like most so-called "alternative energy" sources. <BR/><BR/>The development of these have been subsidized for the last 30 years, and they <I>still</I> suck. **All** of them.<BR/><BR/>Wind is crap, as the wind farm in Texas showed this last winter, and numerous analyses have shown. <BR/><BR/>The only earth based solar power system (as opposed to SPS) which has any hope of viability is Ocean Thermal, and THAT is the one getting utterly ignored by the eco-twits: use the vast surface of the ocean as a solar collector. Might or might not work, it definitely requires work on low-pressure power extraction, but it doesn't require mining lots of materials, creating vast amounts of toxic waste (You think the manufacture of solar cells is "clean"? HAH. Fool!), and then finding not only the places to situate them but also the huge mass of low-skilled manual labor to regularly clean them, which can reduce their already abysmal efficiency by as much as 50%... then there is the little matter of accidental falls, which is the leading cause of accidental death in the USA behind auto accidents. Solar cells don't usually lie on the ground, you know, but on rooftops, ergo, massively increased death by falling. But that doesn't count since it's "off the radar", innit?<BR/><BR/><B>Hint:</B><BR/>When you consider the value of an "enhancement", you need to consider ALL the results, not just the ones you want to pay attention to. <BR/><BR/><B> <I>Always</I> remember the paving material on the proverbial Road to Hell.</B><BR/><BR/>==============================<BR/><BR/><B>Burnside: </B><BR/>The common technique for a link is to use the "a" html tag, in the form:<BR/>< a href="http://thisplace.com"> Link Text Here < /a><BR/><BR/>(remove the single space following each of the "<" -- think of the brokets "<>" as parenthesis)<BR/><BR/>The result will look like this if you place it in your text:<BR/><A HREF="http://thisplace.com" REL="nofollow">Link Text Here</A><BR/>(note: that link doesn't actually go anywhere)<BR/><BR/>Hopefully, that will make your life simpler. Many blog comment engines support the usage of the a, <B>b</B> (bold), and <I>i</I> (italic) tags, even if they don't mention it. If there is a preview feature, test it and see before using it heavily on an unknown blog engine... but many do accept them.OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-89882884941957191992008-08-06T11:15:00.000-04:002008-08-06T11:15:00.000-04:00Burnside: Excellent, fun article (corrected link h...Burnside: <BR/><BR/>Excellent, fun article (corrected link <A HREF="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true" REL="nofollow">here </A>) about simultaneous inventions. The nuclear section is but a few paragraphs--read the whole thing.@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-82064654391581649782008-08-06T11:09:00.000-04:002008-08-06T11:09:00.000-04:00Oh, that turned out well. Link truncated all to he...Oh, that turned out well. Link truncated all to hell. Makes for a nice maiden post.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-21416067559533888552008-08-06T11:04:00.000-04:002008-08-06T11:04:00.000-04:00Carl, interesting post.On the matter of nuclear po...Carl, interesting post.<BR/><BR/>On the matter of nuclear power, the May 12 issue of <I>New Yorker</I> brings up thorium reactors in a Malcolm Gladwell article "In the Air", which I suspect you may find interesting.<BR/><BR/>Evidently Myhrvold is providing VC for a commercially scaled, sealed-unit thorium power plant: <BR/><BR/>"Teller had this idea way beck when that you could make a very safe, passive nuclear reactor . . . no moving parts. Proliferation-resistant. Dead simple. Every serious nuclear accident involves operator error, so you want to eliminate the operator altogether. Lowell and Rod and others wrote a paper on it once. So we did several sessions on it.<BR/><BR/>"The plant, as they conceived it, would produce something like one to three gigawatts of power, which is enough to serve a medium-sized city . . ."<BR/><BR/>http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=3Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-90942405442719784972008-08-05T20:11:00.000-04:002008-08-05T20:11:00.000-04:00andylora - "the bottom line: the increased loading...andylora - "the bottom line: the increased loading of carbon into the atmosphere is not tenable." Here's a tip - energy is complicated. Bypass professional journalists entirely when getting your science information. While there are a few (John Tierney, for example) who have general reasoning abilities, most do not. They pick up what is the socially acceptable science. As the Japanese say, they "read the air."<BR/><BR/>You will not get anything like unanimity from scientists who do this for a living. Those livings are dependent on foundation grants, academic grants, industry grants, government grants - everyone has a slant. But you will at least stop making blanket statements based on the consensus of those who are currently the social stars.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-30755715592040814322008-08-05T14:06:00.000-04:002008-08-05T14:06:00.000-04:00andylora:The density point serves to highlight how...andylora:<BR/><BR/>The density point serves to highlight how much land area must be devoted to obtaining equivalent BTUs (or relevant metric cognate). The article goes on to talk about nuclear power:<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Is there a way out of this conundrum? There certainly is. The greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century was the vast store of energy concentrated in the nucleus of the atom. The energy released from splitting a uranium atom is 2 million times greater than the energy released by breaking a carbon-hydrogen bond in coal. <BR/><BR/>The tremendous energy density in uranium produces an extraordinarily smaller environmental footprint. It explains why uranium can be mined at a few isolated sites, while coal must be extracted by digging whole cities underground or ripping the tops off mountains, as is being done in West Virginia. It explains why a 1,000 MW coal plant must be fed by a 110-car coal train arriving every day, while a nuclear reactor is refueled by a single tractor-trailer delivering a batch of new fuel rods once every 18 months. It explains why France can take all the waste from 25 years of producing 75 percent of its electricity with nuclear reactors and store it beneath the floor of one room at La Hague. The incredible energy density in the nucleus of the atom is the greatest environmental benefaction ever bestowed upon humanity."<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2005/06/cooling-off-period.html" REL="nofollow">I</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/10/stories/2008071055521000.htm" REL="nofollow">many others</A>, dispute any causal link between carbon emissions and, well, anything. But even were such relationship proven, nuclear plants are nearly zero emitting--without eating up land.@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-57920673519077902192008-08-05T12:40:00.000-04:002008-08-05T12:40:00.000-04:00This misuse of the term "density" constitutes a re...This misuse of the term "density" constitutes a real category mistake, so the whole argument is misleading. Wind generators scattered over the landscape are in no way similar to a lump of coal. The bottom line: the increased loading of carbon into the atmosphere is not tenable. And the general "can't do" stance of the article; every energy source has its downside; engineering the balance of strategies is the challenge that must be met. The article has a nice passive-aggressive flavor though.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04741496140895442034noreply@blogger.com