Obama’s acceptance speech

Tallen supports McCain. Obama MUST know nothing!

Edit: Tallen '12?

Hate to say it, tallen, but you are pretty wrong on most of this...

tallen702 wrote: Bruce Banner wrote: 1.  Wind turbine manufacturing.  Yet the viability of wind-power as more than just a minor contribution to our electric grid is next to nil. There are very few places in the US where they are viable to place and then you get into the fact that many of those places are wildlife and nature preserves.

Not true at all.

The main current growth in US wind is in the farm-belt.  Wind turbines work very, very well with farms.  Siting is relatively easy, few environmental constraints, and certainly no nature preserves.  The main current problem is transmission, and that is one of the things that would have to get addressed to boost wind generation, but wind could easily account for 20% of total generation within a decade or two.

And that's just on-shore.  Offshore wind has just the same potential.  Here there are significant permitting hurdles, but that is exactly where government comes in.  With the right leadership in state and local leadership, there could be major development on both coasts and the Great Lakes.  And again, the factories will be built near the demand.

The industry certainly thinks so - this is why GE has made investments in wind, and most of the major foreign manufacturers now have facilities in the US, and more are being built.  This is is not pie in the sky future - this is NOW.  It's just a matter of whether we make the decisions to foster continued demand.  We have just scraped the surface of potential for wind energy in this country.

Solar is far more practical, especially when used in conjunction with a hydrogen-separation battery for night-time.

I am a big fan of solar, and storage is an important issue.  But storage is actually more of a concern for wind than solar, since wind tends to be counter-peak.  And hydrogen batteries are not here yet.  Soon, maybe, but not yet.

Oh, and you mean to tell me that it's cheaper to build turbine blades, nacelles and tower segments here than to build them in say, Vietnam and ship them over? If that's the case, then our Ford and GM workers won't need new jobs because it'll be cheaper to build automobiles here than to build them in china and ship them right?

Absolutely, and without a doubt.  Your car analogy fails.  Some things are easier to ship than others.  Wind turbine components do not transport cheaply.  Transportation cost can make up as much as 30-50% of total project cost for a wind project, depending on specifics.  The main reason that the foreign manufacturers are building US facilities is that GE bought Enron Wind and beefed it up.  Because of local manufacturing, GE was able to significantly undercut the foreigners, and in just a year or two GE became the market leader in the US.

And the major manufacturers DO have facilities in China.  That's where they build the turbines that they install - in China.  They certainly don't ship them here.

I can promise you this for a fact.  The wind turbine factories get built near demand.  That is true for blades and nacelles both.  Towers are built in regular steel foundries, so no special factory needed, but they are also bought from local sources.

tallen wrote: bb wrote: 2.  Photovoltaic solar R&D.  This is work that theoretically could be done anywhere, but as a practical matter is done where there is the biggest concentration of eggheads.  Yes, R&D will always stay where the intelligent folk live and work. However, development is such a small fraction of an entire industry that the pittance of jobs the R&D sector creates is just a drop in the bucket.

Not true.  All of those places I just mentioned built their economies around eggheads and R&D.  And it is those exact same guys that are now doing solar PV.  Vinod Khosla, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, for instance, just started Ausra, a new PV R&D/investment company.  Again, this is not pie in the sky - this is NOW.  SunEdison, MMA Renewable Ventures, Ausra, SPP, SunPower - the list goes on.  American companies using American eggheads to develop and build projects and equipment here in the US.

Later it will be outsourced - sure.  But only when the work has become a commodity and we don't want it anyway.  The way to fight outsourcing is to do work on the cutting edge, and THIS is the cutting edge.

Organic PV research - being done in New Jersey.  Solar thermal research - done in SoCal.  Capacitor storage research - Bay Area and Boston.

Manufacture of photovoltaic equipment is already on the rise in China and will move to Vietnam before the decade is out.

MANUFACTURE - yes.  Manufacture of PV cells is basically a commodity and not work we want.  Kyocera is the world-wide leader, and most of the other electronics companies make them as well.  Those are not the jobs we want.

tallen wrote: BB wrote: 3.  Photovoltaic rooftop installation.  This is by definition local.  Millions of hours of work for certified electricians and roofers. Yeah, because those same roofers aren't short on jobs right now... especially when Juan from El Salvador will do the installation for half the price. Again, as the technology progresses with photovoltaic systems, they'll essentially become "plug-and-play" to the point where you'll only need the electrician to set up the collection and grid systems for the house and our boy Juan will be more than happy to just plug the panels right in for way less than Joe American will be willing to work for.

I shold have focused on the electricians rather than the roofers - these systems are almost plug and play now, but you still need a certified electrician - required by law/quasi-law in every state to qualify for state rebates or net metering.  And there aren't enough solar-qualified electricians around.

One of the things that is happening in the industry is that forward-looking investors are snapping up solar installation companies.  There has been a surge in small-medium acquisitions of this kind in the strong solar markets.  Contractors are scrambling to get their electricians trained in solar installation.

Jobs are being created for solar installation electricians RIGHT NOW.  Not pie in the sky.  And these jobs aren't going anywhere either, and they are good jobs that require skill, training, and certification.

tallen wrote: bb wrote: 4.  Solar thermal manufacturing.  It is also one of the least efficient "green" energy production methods out there. The energy output of even the latest solar-thermal plants pale to that of turbine farms, and turbines aren't even as good as photovoltaic or fuel cell, and none of them are as efficient as nuclear. I seriously doubt you'll see much solar-thermal outside of Austrailia and the Mid-East.

This makes no sense, and is also wrong.

The cents-per-kWh price for solar thermal is less than half that of solar PV.  That may change, but that is where it is now.  And all of the SouthWest utilities have issued RFPs over the last 2 years for additional solar thermal plants to be built.  Within five years you will see additional solar thermal in California, New Mexico, Nevada, and probably Arizona.  There are also plants under development in Spain and other parts of Europe right now, as well as Mexico.

I view solar thermal as a patch until PV becomes more price competitive, but today it is the most viable solar technology available.

tallen wrote: bb wrote: 5.  Geothermal construction.  With the right policies, more geothermal facilities would get built.  By definition, these construction jobs are local. The question is, will Geothermal get the nod? I'm thinking no due to the inefficiency of heat-transfer engines that rely on geothermal power. The 15 separate geo-plants that are located in California near the Salton Sea combined only produce 570MW.

There is no "if".  There are more than a dozen new geothermal facilities in development near the Salton Sea, and several are already in construction.  Wells have been drilled.  It is for real, and it is NOW.

tallen wrote: In comparison, one BR-600 Breeder Reactor (which uses almost 100% of it's nuclear fuel, all but eliminating waste) puts out MORE power with less cost and far less land consumption.

Breeder reactors, on the other hand, are not now, although other nuclear technologies are perfectly fine and current.  I do support lots of more nuclear as well simply due to size, but thermodynamic efficiency is not the right question to ask.  And it is not one or the other.  Just because nuclear is "better" doesn't mean that we shouldn't use other energy sources.

Also, there are specific environmental concerns when using geothermal power, especially when condensed steam is injected back into the ground to allow the cycle to continue.

That may be true for hot rock and other experimental technologies, but most current facilities are dual-loop, and the heat source is subsurface brine.  Nothing external is pumped down.  And even then this concern is vastly exaggerated.

Geothermal liquids are also extremely corrosive which mean higher upkeep costs than other alternatives.

Yes, there are maintenance costs.  TANSTAAFL.  But that is just part of the equation.  Geothermal is less capital-intensive than, say, nuclear.  You look at the total result, you don't focus on one line item on the budget.

Not to mention the fact that spots where geothermal plants can be built eventually cool off. Several plants in Iceland have seen dramatic reductions is their output over the past decade due to shifts in the earth's mantle. Again, green, but not yet viable on the scale which you would need to make those jobs permanent.

This is such a overblown quasi-myth.  Nothing is "permanent."  Geothermal facilities have been in continuous operation for decades.  How permanent do you want them? Yes, seismic shifts could change the output.  We'll plan for it.  And one way to plan for it is to have MORE of them, so that our geothermal portfolio is geographically diversified.

Geothermal is also NOW, and is creating jobs right NOW, and will continue to do so for years with the right policies.[/quote]

You of all people should see that these jobs aren't really the "infrastructure" that you say they are.

I of all people know very well the job creation potential of renewable energy.