A dismantling of one of the last bastions of climate-change deniers

[K1052]

No doubt the EPA plan will hurt people who live in states that the majority of their power is being produced by coal fired plants. Shifting to natural gas fired combined cycle generation plants will be costly, specially if natural gas pipelines need to be built to support the plants. The cost to shift over will be passed on to the end user, many of which will not be able to afford the increased costs.

The coal powered utilities incur hundreds of billions worth of externalized environmental and health costs every year. That "cheap" energy isn't so.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

One word...nuclear.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

I never said coal power was cheap, the costs to shift over to natural gas and/or combined cycle power plants will drive up electrical bills for all in the affected areas.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

One word...nuclear.

Never happen, it will take an eternity to get approval to build the nuclear power plants required to replace the coal fired plants.

 

[K1052]

I never said coal power was cheap, the costs to shift over to natural gas and/or combined cycle power plants will drive up electrical bills for all in the affected areas.

And I submit that the end user is actually already paying that cost in a non upfront way.

 

[K1052]

One word...nuclear.

Absent a large government program that provides loan guarantees for new reactor fleet in addition to much expedited NRC licencing I don't see this as realistic.

 

[Paratus]

This was my point - that we know the sun's output was lower because our models show it. Our models require it. There are no true proxies for solar output because we haven't been around for any appreciable fraction of its existence. So we construct proxies. If they give us results consistent with our models, then they are good proxies. If they do not, then they are bad proxies. This doesn't necessarily make the models wrong, but we do need to understand that we are proving the models with data which are themselves proven by the models. It's turtles all the way down.

Everything in science and engineering is a model. The only question is are the models useful.

Apples don't fall because they follow Newtons Laws of motion. Newtons Laws of motion adequately predicts the behavior of a falling Apple.

Linear circuits don't operate because they follow Kirschoffs Law. Kirschoffs Law adequately predicts the the behavior of the circuit so we can design it.

Stars don't fuse hydrogen to helium in a predictable manner because they follow fusion theory and the main sequence. The main sequence and fusion theory adequately predict how stars behave over time.

All of these make predictions that are useful and verifiable. They all have margins of error in their predictions. Engineers work around this by uncertainty by adding a factor of safety or extra margin. Scientists add error bars to their models.

Why you insist on drawing a distinction between certain types of models I don't understand.

..

Thank you Overvolt for so eloquently backing up my response. :thumbsup:

 

[Paratus]

One word...nuclear.

And I submit that the end user is actually already paying that cost in a non upfront way.

Absent a large government program that provides loan guarantees for new reactor fleet in addition to much expedited NRC licencing I don't see this as realistic.

Ironically some of the extra cost of nuclear is because they have to make waste costs upfront. Taxpayers or customers have to pay to store or mitigate waste instead of letting whoever is unlucky enough to suffer medical problems and other randomn costs from coal.

 

[werepossum]

Everything in science and engineering is a model. The only question is are the models useful.

Apples don't fall because they follow Newtons Laws of motion. Newtons Laws of motion adequately predicts the behavior of a falling Apple.

Linear circuits don't operate because they follow Kirschoffs Law. Kirschoffs Law adequately predicts the the behavior of the circuit so we can design it.

Stars don't fuse hydrogen to helium in a predictable manner because they follow fusion theory and the main sequence. The main sequence and fusion theory adequately predict how stars behave over time.

All of these make predictions that are useful and verifiable. They all have margins of error in their predictions. Engineers work around this by uncertainty by adding a factor of safety or extra margin. Scientists add error bars to their models.

Why you insist on drawing a distinction between certain types of models I don't understand.



Thank you Overvolt for so eloquently backing up my response. :thumbsup:

How about because some models are verifiable and some are not?

 

[OverVolt]

Thank you Overvolt for so eloquently backing up my response. :thumbsup:

It was meant to be funny but it was not.

 

[K1052]

Ironically some of the extra cost of nuclear is because they have to make waste costs upfront. Taxpayers or customers have to pay to store or mitigate waste instead of letting whoever is unlucky enough to suffer medical problems and other randomn costs from coal.

Yep. Also not having built any in decades drives the price up even more.

There is little appetite amongst the utilities to outlay billions on a single plant with a 10-15 year lead time when they can just build gas fueled combined cycle or wind projects incrementally.

 

[Moonbeam]

I bet this study commissioned by electric companies that concluded we shouldn't regulate electric companies is SUPER CREDIBLE. Sources, sources, sources.

Oh and when should we expect the 'detonation' of the US economy?

At 451 F?

 

[Moonbeam]

Never happen, it will take an eternity to get approval to build the nuclear power plants required to replace the coal fired plants.

Nobody will finance them or allow them to be built next door nor will there ever be proper storage of waste. Nuclear is a crime against the future.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Nobody will finance them or allow them to be built next door nor will there ever be proper storage of waste. Nuclear is a crime against the future.

We should be able to safely store waste until we develop the ability to send it to the Sun. We've come a long way in 100 years from the horse and carriage era and it's quite likely that technology in another 100 years will make this problem moot. If the planet is truly in imminent peril from ever increasing carbon dioxide levels, nuclear is the only pragmatic solution imo.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Absent a large government program that provides loan guarantees for new reactor fleet in addition to much expedited NRC licencing I don't see this as realistic.

Agree...especially since liberals would fight it tooth and nail. They seem to believe that pixie dust and a little wishful thinking will solve the AGW problem instead. Good luck with that.

 

[K1052]

Agree...especially since liberals would fight it tooth and nail. They seem to believe that pixie dust and a little wishful thinking will solve the AGW problem instead. Good luck with that.

The opposition is mostly just the numbers today. Gas is cheap and renewables are getting cheaper all the time. There are actually several plants under construction from the Bush II era loan program but they're all over budget and later coming online than envisioned. This set of circumstances is not favorable to most utilities. Fukushima also wasn't real helpful from a PR perspective even if what it really did in my opinion is illustrate the need to replace old reactors with newer, safer ones.

 

[werepossum]

We should be able to safely store waste until we develop the ability to send it to the Sun. We've come a long way in 100 years from the horse and carriage era and it's quite likely that technology in another 100 years will make this problem moot. If the planet is truly in imminent peril from ever increasing carbon dioxide levels, nuclear is the only pragmatic solution imo.

My chemistry professor made the point that we could easily get rid of nuclear waste by putting it into concrete with small holes and sinking it into the oceans in various scattered spots to dissipate back into the environment, since we don't create radioactivity, we just concentrate it to a useful (and therefore dangerous) point. He also made the point that this would be stupid since spent nuclear fuel still contains a lot of energy which in the future we will want to recover. Thirty-odd years later, reprocessing is done commercially in Europe and Russia. Bush set up a plan, but Obama nuked it. Reprocessing spent fuel reduces storage requirements and assuming one has a breeder reactor, pretty much negates it.

One big problem with current nuclear technology is waste heat. Pouring that much heat into local environments means greatly altering them, which isn't going to change unless and until we can usefully capture and use waste heat at that scale. Another problem is that no matter what we ultimately do with spent fuel, it will need secure storage at least short term, during which time it presents a threat. And a third problem is that fissionable material in commercially usable quantities requires widespread mining, which in any form is environmentally damaging. For these reasons I prefer distributed solar and storage, at least for the short term.

 

[werepossum]

The opposition is mostly just the numbers today. Gas is cheap and renewables are getting cheaper all the time. There are actually several plants under construction from the Bush II era loan program but they're all over budget and later coming online than envisioned. This set of circumstances is not favorable to most utilities. Fukushima also wasn't real helpful from a PR perspective even if what it really did in my opinion is illustrate the need to replace old reactors with newer, safer ones.

I very much agree with that, especially given that local environments are already adapted to this heat generation to the extent possible. I'm just not looking forward to scads of new heat bombs blossoming across the land.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Last updated 7/28/15. I'm actually quite surprised by the number of plants being considered.

 

[werepossum]

I wonder how many are like Bellefonte. TVA has been dicking around with those for decades and personally I doubt there is any nuclear power generated at Bellefonte until after we've all died of old age.

 

[Paratus]

Nobody will finance them or allow them to be built next door nor will there ever be proper storage of waste. Nuclear is a crime against the future.

We should be able to safely store waste until we develop the ability to send it to the Sun. We've come a long way in 100 years from the horse and carriage era and it's quite likely that technology in another 100 years will make this problem moot. If the planet is truly in imminent peril from ever increasing carbon dioxide levels, nuclear is the only pragmatic solution imo.

There are 60 reactors under construction worldwide currently.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Plans-For-New-Reactors-Worldwide/

Moonbeam, I wonder if you would be supportive of reducing yearly uranium mining by 80% and burning off our currently stored waste?

However if you do want to launch nuclear material into the sun I'm sure NASA could do it. Although we might take the long route.....:sneaky:

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

I wonder how many are like Bellefonte. TVA has been dicking around with those for decades and personally I doubt there is any nuclear power generated at Bellefonte until after we've all died of old age.

Low natural gas prices and flat electricity demand pretty much killed this one. I imagine that demand will pick up when more coal plants close.

 

[K1052]

I wonder how many are like Bellefonte. TVA has been dicking around with those for decades and personally I doubt there is any nuclear power generated at Bellefonte until after we've all died of old age.

On the plus side Watts Bar unit 2 is coming online this year, though it was already 3/4s done when construction was stopped in the late 80s.

 

[werepossum]

Low natural gas prices and flat electricity demand pretty much killed this one. I imagine that demand will pick up when more coal plants close.

That and TVA's structure as a GSE. They were all fired up when electricity was being deregulated. Then they found out that they could not compete with privately owned utilities and suddenly weren't nearly as keen on restarting all those old projects. Personally I'm not really happy with the idea of finishing nuclear plants designed nearly half a century ago with the understanding that today's safety requirements will be tacked on.

On the plus side Watts Bar unit 2 is coming online this year, though it was already 3/4s done when construction was stopped in the late 80s.

Funny story about that one. The NRC failed its welds - too porous. TVA then hired some mathematicians, engineers and/or physicists to calculate the amount of radiation leakage and prove it was within legal limits. They then presented that to the NRC. The response was "You people don't listen. We didn't ask you if the amount of radiation leakage was within legal limits, we told you to cut out your welds and redo them." TVA then cut out the welds and redid them.

Sometimes when a big fish visits the big pond, it forgets that there it is no longer considered a big fish. Until it is reminded by an actual big fish.

 

[bshole]

I bet this study commissioned by electric companies that concluded we shouldn't regulate electric companies is SUPER CREDIBLE. Sources, sources, sources.

Oh and when should we expect the 'detonation' of the US economy?

Gee, the EPA puts in new regulations that will increase the cost of energy for Wisconsin manufacturer by more than 15%. Do warmists think manufacturing companies are run by complete idiots? Why in the fuck should these companies stay here when they are being actively attacked by a bunch of nutbars? More importantly, if you really really give a FUCK about global warming and the environment, why don't you tax the shit out of all the fuel the massive ships are using to transport goods from China to the USA? Why is that sacrosanct? Don't bother, we all know that the monied interests would never abide such legislation. It is all about destroying the last vestiges of American manufacturing, propping up the Chinese economy and enriching a few elite motherfuckers who have "alternative" energy solutions.