Windmills and energy input

Yes, you got it. Distribution has a lot of waste and a lot of the wind potential is not where the loads are. At least wind farms are not a total waste of time and money.

Here is a picture of the grid:

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There isn't much capacity where the wind is currently if you look at the above and then the you provided earlier.
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TMI and that damn movie did a huge amount of damage. Chernobyl, a reactor that would never be built in the US or any western country did a fine job of shoving the corpse back into the coffin when some of the hysteria wore off.

I believe in nuclear generation, we have learned so much now that current technology so much safer than what was at TMI. I've said before and I'll say it again, give me decent rates and you can put it next door.

You can put a nuclear plant near where the loads are. Likely easier than moving loads to where the wind is.

Wes

Reply to
Wes
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Okay. You got me. I could try to quibble with this though ;)

# Obsolete The frontier or border of a country.

Reply to
Wes

"The Energy Kid's Page"?? That's where you get your engineering and economics data? Hoho...No wonder the country is in trouble.

If you like that page, John, you'll love this one:

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Tell us, please, what data you extracted from "The Energy Kid's Page" that leads you to believe that wind power is a boondoggle? Specific references, please.

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Uh, John, you've got generating capacity rates and Watt-hours a bit mixed up. The PPL Susquehanna nuke plant is a 2.4 MW facility. The installed wind power capacity in the US is 22.0 MW -- almost ten times as much as PPL's nuke. PPL produces 19.0 terawatt-hours of energy per year from that plant. Wind energy produced in the US is 48 TWh per year -- 2-1/2 times as much as PPL's nuke, and roughly 2,000 times as much as you state above.

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If you don't like Wikipedia references, you'll see that those numbers are linked extensively to original sources.

That's not to say that wind power is going to replace nukes -- we need a lot more nukes, IMO -- but, even now, with wind power still in its infancy, it replaces 2-1/2 decent-sized nukes in the US. That's not a bad thing.

I don't think we get any power from PPL. We do, however, have our own nuke at Oyster Creek, which, my utility tells me, supplies 28% of my power.

The thing I like about it is that you can catch fluke (summer flounder) in their cooling stream until the end of October. And the crabs they grow there...well...let's just say you wouldn't want to meet one in a dark alley. d8-)

The proposed offshore wind farm in NJ is getting $19 million of state money, which is a drop in the bucket. It's just over $2 per person in the state. Its capacity will be 346 MW, which is more than 50% the size of our Oyster Creek nuke. Not bad for a start.

Well, if there's a market for certified welders, we'll always have them. Meantime, let me make clear that I'm all in favor of building a lot more nukes. In most of the country, they're likely the best bet for handling base load capacity. But the economics of wind are looking pretty good from what I've seen. The limitations are significant, but they look like they pay off, where they can be well-sited, as long as you don't try to use them for too much of your base capacity.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:16:40 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

TMI was the next to last nail. Chernobyl was the last.

Of the 4,000 children who developed thyroid cancer in the USSR after Chernobyl, only 10 died, and they died only because Russian medical people weren't prepared for it. Adding the soldiers and firefighters who went into the known extremely radioactive areas to put out fires, the total number of dead is still benign compared to the global reaction to the accident: generational paranoia. But both of these proved that the China Syndrome could never happen. The meltdowns were self-limiting.

-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Yeah, but note that the article is 18 years old. A few things have happened since. The French apparently are using a breeder technology now that produces a non-weaponable reprocessed product, rather than plutonium. And my very limited understanding is that the action now is in designing a universal, modular power plant. It will be much easier to control, build, train for, etc. And the red-tape approval stage should be slashed to a fraction of its present, miserable state.

All in all, it sounds to me like we're ready for it. What we need is a whole new national attitude.

I hope so, and I hope it doesn't require a depression or political coercion from some tin-pot dictatorship to accomplish it.

Well, have a drink for me if you make it and I don't. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Here is the problem with solar cells (PV cells). They convert only a single wavelength of light. Someof that light slips through the cell. When a reflector is placed behind the cell,it is able to convert almost all of the energy of that particular wavelength of light to electrical energy Some of the more efficient PV units are mixtures of material that are able to convert two different wavelengths to electrical energy. As designed, the PV cells are almost 100% efficient.

However, the amount of energy from the sun at any specific wavelength is not very much energy. This is the problem that must be overcome for PV to be viable.

Paul

Reply to
co_farmer

It looks like the patient is suffering from a degenerative circulatory disease.

Yes, but there's another side to the story. A nuclear expert says the movie may have contributed to making nuclear power safer. Unless I'm mistaken, Larry currently is reading a book written by this guy:

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Yup. I see no way around a vast increase in our use of nuclear power, at least within 30 years or so.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Well, there are several arguments implicit in that paragraph, and they aren't necessarily compatible.

They boil down to this: You know as well as anyone that there are bad ways to die, and there are scary ways to die. Dying because you hit a garbage truck in your car is a bad way to die. Dying because of something you can't see, that you know is penetrating your body and that you can't escape it, that you don't know IF or WHEN it's penetrating your body, and whether it's triggering a cancer or just passing through on its way to the center of the Earth, is a scary way to die. Rather, I should say it's a scary way to

*think* about dying.

It's something like the gun-control argument. You aren't going to settle that argument by means of rational statistics. You're dealing with a scary, mysterious and evil thing that comes right out of a horror movie -- while you're celebrating Christmas dinner with your family.

I don't know what it will take to change attitudes. Dismissive arguments, though, aren't it.

-- Ed Huntress

"We should have a recession. People who spend their lives pounding nails in Nevada need something else to do." John Cochrane, Univ. of Chicago professor of economics, Nov. 2008

Reply to
Ed Huntress

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Ugh. I hate this giga, mega, tera business. Anyway. all of those

*relationships* are accurate as I stated them, but the second and third sentences should read: " The PPL Susquehanna nuke plant is a 2.4 GW facility. The installed wind power capacity in the US is 22.0 GW -- almost ten times as much as PPL's nuke."

There. The rest of the numbers should be right.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:39:24 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

Like that cosmic radiation which only gets flight attendants?

Oh, I'm sure that nobody -downwind- in the Ukraine was happy for years afterwards, even if they weren't evacuated. That's a bad way to live, whether you die or not. _But_, the -very- vast majority didn't even get sick, let alone die.

But you're right. There are some folks over here who retain their aluminum or tinfoil beanies, just in case. Some folks just gotta worry or they aren't "complete." That's _their_ problem, right?

Right. Why spoil a good argument by injecting facts into it? Then again, some folks still aren't worried about their homes:

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Who's trying to change attitudes? I was having a happy rant. ;)

-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

Reply to
Larry Jaques

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:23:30 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

Heh heh heh. Say, look at the South. Isn't there some way we could design an energy source which utilizes stiflingly hot, muggy weather to produce electricity, for use down there?

Verily.

Yes, and the book they mention is the one I'm reading. It'll be a good reference book and I'm sure I'll reread it many times in order to suck all the marrow out.

Wes, I just read the chapter on wind and it doesn't look good. Grid operators HATE wind power because it's not a source of steady power. In Denmark, the world leader in windmill usage, one fifth of the annual power is developed by windmills, but power usage is only 4%. They have to export the rest to other countries. Wind is more steady at night and the need is low. Other operators have found that they have to limit the mix of windpower to 20% or they can't balance the grid.

Right now, gov't tax breaks are making the use of wind power sweet so people like Boone Pickins can offer his investors a 25% return on their investments, straight out of the federal tax credits. Also from Tucker's book:

"A study of a wind farm proposed for Blairsburg, Iowa by Warren Buffet's MidAmerican Energy found that, with all the federal and state subsidkes, the $323 million project could breakeven after only six years without even producing a kilowatt of electricity."

Tucker sees wind as a backup power source which needs a backup itself, since wind isn't steady. I wouldn't go investing money in wind technology.

Nor do I, and that's good. I just hope the greenies jump ship far enough to embrace it and phase out that nastyass coal stuff. Talk about a lose/lose relationship...

Speaking of coal, did anyone else know that over 60% of coal burning facilities are still not using sulfur scrubbers due to grandfathering clauses in the 1970 Clean Air Act? And those which do are putting out vast amounts of coal sludge, tarry calcium goo. I didn't read about this spill in my paper. Did any of you?

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is called coal sludge but all I see is ash, which is bad enough. The sludge is a form of gypsum which can't be used in construction.

Check out this leading sentence on their "learn about nuclear plants" page (boo!) but then look at the next to last paragraph, where the NRC says that 34 new nuke plants will have apps in by 2010! That's good news. (Caution: this is a heavily biased, alarmist site)

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-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I was lazy and only cited the first relevant article I came across. I've read several articles in recent years on newer reactor designs. TMI was just a glorified and scaled up version of the first reactor. In typical human fashion, since the concept worked, nobody invested a whole lot of time and money trying to come up with something better.

When electricity bills start climbing like gas did (and will again), maybe some lights will come on.

I surely will! But I hope you make it.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Anderson

Wouldn't the alley no longer be dark if one of those crabs was in the alley? ERS

Reply to
etpm

============= Unfortunately, as long as we have the mindset where the cheapest bidder gets the contracts and the lowest cost operator runs the reactors we will have problems.

An analog is airline safety. An airline can be safe or they can be cheap but not both.

Because of the cheap-cheap-cheap mindset, practices such as rotating and 12 hour shifts are common that guarantee operator sleep deprivation, fatigue and inattention. FWIW -- this also statistically reduces the operators lifespan by several years [c.

5-20%], even if no radiation is involved.
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

It's their problem until they vote. Then it's our problem. And that's the big problem.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Pipe it up here. We could use some of it just as it is.

Yeah, 20% seems to be the target number. However, a long-distance distribution network helps by distributing the source geographically. It's difficult to predict how such a network would behave.

Yes. They're still getting acid rain in the Adirondacks -- and I still haven't gone back there to fish, as a consequence.

Heck, yes. It was all over the front pages here. And it was on TV -- which is why you missed it. d8-)

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Reply to
Ed Huntress

The Salem Nuke is one of the best run plants in the country. Several other companies have tried to take it over but so far PPL has held on.

As far as getting rid of nuclear waste, France has come to terms with it. In the US they worry too much about what will happen in the far future and don't address the present problem of not enough reliable and inexpensive energy under domestic control, not relying on foreign oil.

Since there is no more gold in FT Knox put all the waste there. :)

John

Reply to
john

On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:09:33 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

Hopefully, most of the beanie wearers don't vote. I mean, they'd have to go out into the unprotected bombardment zone to do so. But, yeah, that could be a problem.

-- Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys. -- Gail Pool

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Maybe. We're not allowed to catch them at night. It's too easy. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

They have not announced what they propose to replace coal & nuclear energy, so how can they be credible ?. Maybe if all the nuts do not use any electricity or coal/oil derived products, then they could be believed as being sincere. Even then, they still have not announced any practical power replacement method.

We also have the idiots here in Oz, nuclear power is outlawed by the Federal Govt. and all the nuts are whinging about pollution from coal fired power plants and they also have no practical solution to the problem.

Oz is the driest continent, yet millions of cubic metres of water are going to waste in the north but a pipeline has been rejected and a desalination plant built, using heaps of coal & gas fired energy to produce water, with a second plant proposed. Western Oz is so flat that a pipeline from the Ord river or similar would be downhill just about all the way to Perth.

Alan

Reply to
alan200

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