Yup, Obama is going to get rid of that dirty coal...

Too bad a huge portion of our energy comes from coal currently. Take that away, and you have much higher energy costs.

Time to be "patriotic". Who needs West Virginia anyway?...

http://www.wvrecord.com/news/215679-coal-official-calls-obama-comments-unbelievable - http://www.wvrecord.com/news/215679-coal-official-calls-obam a-comments-unbelievable

quoted from article.

""I think this clearly shows the attitude the Obama-Biden ticket has toward coal," Ben Beakes said Sunday. "Rhetoric is cheap, but behind closed doors what they tell their supporters - that's what we have to take as gospel.

"They're definitely not friends of coal."

Beakes noted other examples of Obama and Biden making seemingly anti-coal statements, such as in February when Obama said he'd like to tax "dirty energy" such as coal and natural gas.

"And their cohorts in Congress make similar statements," Beakes said. "(Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said this summer that 'coal makes us sick.'

"This is an attitude and view that, to me, shows their hatred of coal. And therefore, their view would cost West Virginians thousands upon thousands of jobs.""

Do you even read the links you post?  Or bother to learn anything about the issues?  Or check the links in my sig?

BOTH candidates for presidents plan on a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.  BOTH.  Their approaches to this issue are very similar.

Which, of course, is good, because we do need to stop using coal, but that is perhaps a different issue.

Eville wrote: glad to see tallen hasnt lost hi recipe for pwn soup.

yeah, dude... Tallon is so msart.

Much smarter tahn teh presideenet of the Ohio coal association... He's for coal, must be dumbb. .

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081103.CLM078&show_article=1 - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081103.CLM078 &show_article=1

"Senator Obama has revealed himself to be nothing more than a short- sighted, inexperienced politician willing to say anything to get a vote. But today, the nation's coal industry and those who support it have a better understanding of his true mission, to 'bankrupt' our industry, put tens of thousands out of work and cause unprecedented increases in electricity prices.

Monk wrote: Its doubtful any president will get anything done about energy in the next 3 elections atleast. So unless Obama has the super majority and his party agrees with everything he says, then I wouldn't count on stopping coal.

It all depends on what you mean by "getting anything done" about energy.

Energy is actually one of the areas that gets consistent congressional and regulatory attention.  Small and big changes are happening on a regular basis.

And some of the changes proposed are not so complicated.  Building more nukes, for instance, is mostly a matter of telling the NRC to start approving applications.

As for renewable energy, the wall street bailout bill included some vital tax credits for renewable energy - although the wind folks will seek another extension this spring.  So that is already done.

The two main things that would majorly change our energy policy, however, would be more complicated and will take time.  First, a national renewable portfolio standard.  Second, a carbon cap and trade system.  Both are generally popular, but both are very complex and will take time to get done.  Shouldn't be a matter of policy so much as a matter of just doing the prep work.

Other policy changes, like a feed-in tariff would be easier from a process standpoint but perhaps more controversial as well.  Yet others, like changing net metering rules, should be almost a no-brainer.

Anyway - there are easy things and hard things.  It wouldn't be difficult to find some very popular easy things to do, if they try and have the right people whispering in their ear.

FreeEnterprise wrote: yeah, dude... Tallon is so msart. Much smarter tahn teh presideenet of the Ohio coal association... He's for coal, must be dumbb. . http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081103.CLM078&show_article=1 - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081103.CLM078 &show_article=1

Once again, your links bear no relationship to your posts.  Do you just hit the link-randomizer when you post?

Bruce Banner wrote: FreeEnterprise wrote: yeah, dude... Tallon is so msart. Much smarter tahn teh presideenet of the Ohio coal association... He's for coal, must be dumbb. . http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081103.CLM078&show_article=1 - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20081103.CLM078 &show_article=1 Once again, your links bear no relationship to your posts.  Do you just hit the link-randomizer when you post?

Yeah, an article TITLED

Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Remarks Make It Clear: Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal

That doesn't relate to tallens comments about coal in wva...

If 50% of Ohio's energy comes from coal. And coal is going to be taxed out of business by Obama. Then energy costs will skyrocket. And coal miners, and all the businesses that support that industry will suffer and possibly go out of business as well.

Thousands of people in Ohio, Penn, WVA, IN, and other states will be affected.

And all our energy costs will increase.

It totally relates. Go back to calling names. Trying to refute my posts makes you look bad.

FreeEnterprise wrote: Yeah, an article TITLED Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Remarks Make It Clear: Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal That doesn't relate to tallens comments about coal in wva...

And where did Tallen say that Obama supported coal?

FreeEnterprise wrote: If 50% of Ohio's energy comes from coal. And coal is going to be taxed out of business by Obama. Then energy costs will skyrocket. And coal miners, and all the businesses that support that industry will suffer and possibly go out of business as well.

So what would you have them do? Rely on their limeted resources until things get really bad and prices go higher than if the government only provided an incentive to switch to alternative sources of energy?

It seems like you are only taking a side on this based on Obama's stance. Getting off of coal as soon as possible can only benefit us, even if there are growing pains. I would go so far as to say you are being too short-sighted on this.

FreeEnterprise wrote: If 50% of Ohio's energy comes from coal. And coal is going to be taxed out of business by Obama. Then energy costs will skyrocket. And coal miners, and all the businesses that support that industry will suffer and possibly go out of business as well. Thousands of people in Ohio, Penn, WVA, IN, and other states will be affected. And all our energy costs will increase.

50% of the nation's electricity comes from coal - I would suspect that it is more in Ohio.

And yes, a carbon tax will drive up the cost of coal energy.

Will our energy prices "skyrocket"?  Matter of definition, perhaps, but I would think not.

If anything, we will gain greater stability, which benefits everybody.  Prices will certainly go up in the short term, but not as much as you think.

The cost of coal energy is primarily dependent on the cost of coal.  Coal fluctuates, and has actually gone up drastically in the last year.  Same for natural gas (although it just came down a bit, along with oil).

Electricity from nuclear, wind, hydro, and solar, on the other hand, comes at a fixed price that does not vary with fuel prices (nuclear prices get reset occasionally, but for long periods of time).

The price of coal-generated electricity also varies tremendously with the location of the coal plant, since transportation is also costly.

Current wholesale prices for coal energy varies from, say, 2.5 cents to 5.5 cents per kwh, depending on location and coal price.

Wind energy is generally 5 cents or less, depending on location (wind strength), but completely predictable.  Wind is of course intermittent and will not be able to displace all coal plants, but can drastically reduce their usage.  And at little if any increase in cost.

Nuclear is baseload technology, and also fits in that same price range.

Geothermal is also baseload, but perhaps a little more expensive - say 6 cents.

And those are today's prices - coal is getting more expensive, and everything else is getting less expensive.

The most expensive energy on the market today is PV solar, which can come in at 30 cents or more (but also sometimes less).  But PV solar competes with retail rates, not wholesale rates, and retail rates are in excess of 10 cents in many parts of the country.

And, of course, the coal prices I discussed were current "dirty" coal plants (as if there is any other kind).  Once we switch to "clean" coal with sequestration technology, that will become quite a bit more expensive - some estimates suggest 9+ cents.

Renewable energy is not the end of the world.  There will be a small uptick in cost initially, but then we will be free of the violent price fluctuations for the foreseeable future.

TheDude wrote: I feel sorry for conservatives sometimes...they're represented by that 5% who are just blathering idiots, so some people see republicans  as dumb as a box of rocks.

Seriously.  Who put the nutballs in charge of the GOP?  I mean, the Democrats at least have the sense to chain their nutballs to a tree or something.

Most Democrats that get out are fairly smart, but the Republicans keep insisting on putting mikes in the hands of fools.

CarbineKid wrote: I'm just curious, how is rising energy bills good for anyone?

It isn't.

But it is a necessary price to pay to reduce pollution and other environmental harm, which is/will be far more expensive and harmful than temporarily higher energy prices.

Although - I frankly think that the cost of energy that we pay today is undercalculated, as it does not take into consideration a bunch of indirect subsidies and lost opportunities.  But that is a different story.

EDIT:

CarbineKid wrote: I have seen my bills double in the last few years, I sure as hell don't want to pay anymore(nor can I afford too)

Then you should support rapid transition to non-fuel energy sources, which basically do not get more expensive - ever.  The reason your energy bill has gone up is because coal and natural gas has gotten drastically more expensive during the past year.  That will not happen with wind/solar/hydro/geothermal/nuclear/tidal/whatever.

Fixed energy prices (or at least with a set escalator).  Yum.

tallen702 wrote: Bruce Banner wrote: Who put the nutballs in charge of the GOP?  I mean, the Democrats at least have the sense to chain their nutballs to a tree or something. And you explain Pelosi how?

Yeah, I'm no fan of Pelosi.  But I guess I still consider her a lot less nutty than the Santorums of the world.

Monk wrote: As far as nuke goes. The problem comes in part due to Jimmy Carter killing many plans for nuclear expansion in the 70's. Not a single plant has been built since then. It takes a long time for that to be rectified. We can also blame him for a lack of oil refineries, but thats another story. I believe that there is currently 10 approved plants, the funding is the problem however. Another major problem for the industry as a whole, is staffing. Most of the current nuclear power engineers are planning to retire in the near future with noone to fill their place. Unfortunatly with renuable energies there are needs for large "farms" to capture the energy. Tidal generators and oceanic wind farms are poopooed by the whale huggers, windfarms (mostly next to the coast) are poopooed by the people that believe it will ruin their view along with the bird huggers not wanting their flocks killed by the turbines. Solar farms will need to be placed in a desert to be anywhere near effective, given that we have the man power to keep them operating. Its a game of give and take, and everyone is taking.

If the NRC started issuing nuke licenses today, it would take about a decade before they started coming online.  For the amount of energy they provide, that actually isn't bad.  I am not aware of any new plants with approved permits at this time, though - I could be wrong.

Financing big plants is always exciting, but frankly I don't think it would be that difficult to find money for a couple of nukes (once we get out of the current credit slump).  Now, 45 nukes - that's another matter.  At a billion or three a pop, that adds up in a hurry, and there are only so many banks with that kind of money.

The good news, of course, is that because it will take a while, there will be plenty of time to find money, and also to ramp up personnel training.  And in the meantime, there is a whole world full of people with plenty of experience running nukes.  I don't think finding people will be a problem.

And I don't know where you heard that current nukes are running out of people - that is not the case.  Nuclear power plants are perpetually training more people.  The redundancies built into these plants are ridiculous.

As to other energy sources:

1.  Tidal power et al is currently experimental.  Won't be a factor for another 20 years at least.  Nothing to worry about now.

2.  Wind is currently being mostly built in the midwest, where it blends seemlessly with farmland.  Farmers farm around them, cows graze under them.  The net footprint is very, very small.  Yes, there are lots of turbines spread over large areas, but they are not excluding other uses.  Sure, there are the occasional protesters, but the bird protests and whatnot are mostly a thing of the past.  Farm-based windfarms mostly are very popular with everybody involved.  We are adding several gigawatts of wind energy every year in this country alone, and there is plenty of room for more.

The hurdle for development here is transmission.  Because we are building on farms, far from people, we are straining our ancient transmission system, which needs to be updated and expanded.

Offshore wind is also great stuff, but is faced with a serious NIMBY problem.  This will get sorted out, as it always is, and eventually they will get built here in the US too, as they have been elsewhere.

The real problem with wind is not space or NIMBYs, but countercyclical intermittancy.  Generally speaking, the wind blows strongest at night and during the winter, while our peak load is during the day and during the summer.  As a result, we still need lots of other energy generation during peak periods.

3.  As for solar - solar does not need to be placed in the desert.  Not at all.  For solar thermal facilities there is some benefit to a warm and precipitation-free climate, but there is no "desert-only" requirement.  Yes, solar thermal does require a lot of space, but one of the reasons why these plants are mostly in the desert is because nobody is using that space for anything else.

And if you are not talking solar thermal but solar PV, one of the great strengths of the technology is specifically that it can be placed anywhere - most notably, on rooftops.  Thus the actual space usage can be virtually zero for this type of facility.

And manpower?  Solar thermal is reasonably man-power intensive, but no more than traditional facilities, and it's not like there is a shortage of people to run these things.  And Solar PV has basically no operational requirements at all.  They just sit there and collect energy.

Yes, TANSTAAFL applies full force for energy.  Absolutely.  But the hurdles to drastically ramping up our capabilities in nuclear, wind, solar, and geothermal (and biomass, to a lesser extent) are fairly well known.  Mostly it comes down to mandates and/or incentives, because most of these technologies do come with a price premium at the moment.

The hurdles are motivational, not physical.

FE...we get it, you support McCain

now will you please shut up

Monk wrote: I hate to argue the point of nuclear power but given that my father has been in the nuclear industry the past 20 odd years, and myself the past 3. The highly important supervisory jobs are soon to be missing some baby boomers.

That's funny.  Small world - I grew up with nuke O&M manuals as bedtime reading.

In any event, it sounds like you are closer to the current operation of the plants than I am, so I will take your word on the management crunch.  Nevertheless, I point to international sources of labor.  Other countries have been building and operating plants for years.  Our nuclear Navy has also been a consistent source of experienced nuclear operators for a long time.

But more importantly, there has been significant consolidation in the industry over the past 20 years.  FPL, Entergy, Exelon, Dominion, and Duke now own a large chunk of the active nukes, and this has allowed for major "synergies," particularly at the plant management level.  Technological advances have also streamlined operations.  Far fewer managers are required than before.

Frankly, in my time with the nuclear industry I have never heard "OMG we won't have people" when considering purchasing an operating nuke.  These acquisitions are researched all to heck, and every possible risk identified, but this risk is not of any particular concern to the powers involved, and is never one of the risks described anywhere in the documentation.

Personally I feel that nuke power is the most clean (or green) technology we have that is extremely viable given the recent developments in pebble bed reactors that are impossible to meltdown.

I am certainly a fan of nukes, and many greenies are finally coming around.

As to pebble bed technology - well, this has been "five years out" for at least twenty years, so I am not holding my breath.  But it would be nice.

Private backers are hard to find due to the fact that it does take time to build a plant which deters many backers and the ones that are left are put off by the fear of government price caps on power cost.

Depends on what you mean by "private backers".  Each of the five companies I mentioned above have already spent billions buying up existing nukes, and they have billions more to spend.  They are all lobbying Congress aggressively to approve new plants, and have made their intent clear to build them.  As I said above, finding the money to build more plants will not be the problem, although building 45 at the same time could be an issue.

That said, I am still not aware of any new plant licenses issued by the NRC.  Plant extensions have been issued, and various storage site permits, but I am not aware of any new plant permits.  This is the type of thing I would (and should) normally know about, so if I am wrong I would very much like to know.  If you can confirm, please do so.

It is nice to be able to discuss this with another person who doesnt instantly go OMG RADIATION GONNA KILL US AUL!!! I honestly thank you for that.

Heh.  I was scheduled to give a "nuclear energy is good" presentation in early May, 1986.  April 26 was Chernobyl.  I gave the presentation anyway, and won a whole bunch of converts.  Nuclear power is one of the most misunderstood (or not understood) technologies out there.

mbro wrote: TANSTAAFL??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL - TANSTAAFL

tallen702 wrote: The issue with most alternative energy sources is the need for vast tracts of land to build "farms" on. With solar, there are alternatives (such as solar shingles for homes), but it still requires a lot of surface area to produce the power needed to keep our homes and offices working. Furthermore, the issue of solar and wind in "down times" (night/calm periods) isn't so much that they can't produce power at those times as much as it is an issue of finding and producing high capacity and efficient storage methods from which we can draw our energy in those down times.

As I mentioned above, the space issue isn't nearly as big as people make it out to be.  Wind farms are mostly being put in agricultural areas, so each turbine only needs 50x50 feet for the foundation.  Solar can be put on groundmounts, and that does take a good amount of space, but we use space that has no other use.  Moreover, of course, the true potential of solar energy is the ability to use almost any existing surface to generate electricity.  If even a small but significant fraction of homes in this country had solar panels on their roofs, the total generation would be astounding.  And, unlike wind, solar generation is almost completely peak energy.

Storage is a central issue, of course, but hardly the huge roadblock it is made out to be.  We HAVE storage.  We don't have good large-scale grid-connected storage, but we have plenty of technology for distributed storage - it's just a matter of getting it built.  Most residential solar systems come with batteries, for instance.  Electric cars and plug-in hybrids can be used as grid batteries.  Home fuel cells can do the same thing.

The technology is here right now.  The real problem is related hurdles:  cost and supply volume.  While wind energy is basically cost-competitive already, this is not true of solar.  With no state or federal subsidies, solar energy might cost 50 cents per kwh or more.  This is a big improvement from the past, but there is a ways to go yet.  Then there is supply.  Wind turbine factories are cranking at full capacity, and there is still an 18-month waitlist.  Similar for many solar components. 

tallen702 wrote: Bruce, why do you hate Salmon and want them to http://www.katu.com/news/33967994.html - die ? Did a salmon bite you as a child?

Wow - that's a new one to me.  I am a bit surprised that they used the dams for runoff, though.  Typically gas plants are used for load-following.  But I guess in that part of the country they are overloaded on hydro.

Goes to show we need to build out our transmission system.

Global warming is so fake.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623 - http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623

"People such as former American Vice-President Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming – which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you’ve got no proof.

And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The ­science has, quite simply, gone awry. In fact, it’s not even science any more, it’s anti-science.

There’s no proof, it’s just projections and if you look at the models people such as Gore use, you can see they cherry pick the ones that support their beliefs."

FreeEnterprise wrote: Global warming is so fake.

So...  Climatology was part of your TV & film curriculum?