Incorruptible
Lifer
- Apr 27, 2012
- 10,086
- 58
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See this is where the government does have the right as it's their main job to protect the safety and welfare of it's citizens.Government has no right to do this.
I think I know the answer, but are they really planning to do this without Gen IV nuclear?
The irrational hysteria regarding nuclear power, or something else? I presume the proposed alternative is to deploy millions of tons worth of batteries to take the place of base load generation, though I have to wonder if anyone has determined the environmental cost of mining and refining all that raw material versus alternatives.Not necessarily, the last 40% is technology agnostic as long as it's carbon neutral/free. Given what's been going on with commercial nuclear power though it's hard to imagine much utility interest right now.
The irrational hysteria regarding nuclear power, or something else? I presume the proposed alternative is to deploy millions of tons worth of batteries to take the place of base load generation, though I have to wonder if anyone has determined the environmental cost of mining and refining all that raw material versus alternatives.
Essentially the law is prognosticating that the requisite technological advances will occur in time to fulfill the mandate, which can seem silly in a certain light, though such legislation has been a successful driver of progress in the past, notably with vehicle emission and mileage standards. I don't know if this automatically means such laws will work similarly in the energy sector, though. I'm a fan of renewables, but not a wild-eyed one; without a robust backbone of massive storage infrastructure, very little of which exists now, more renewable generation capacity will go to waste each year.
News is scarce on this subject, but coal usage is not quite as gone from the Golden State as some might think, though it's not being burned in any Californian's back yard:I think it's doable. CA electricity portfolio is wind: 6.2%, solar: 11.8% Geo: 5.7% Biomass: 2.8% Hydro: 21% Coal:0.2% Nuclear: 8.7%, NG: 43.4%. With WSG + Hydro we're already at almost 47% renewables, which are growing at lightning speed here, especially solar. Coal is already gone. We really just have to replace the 43.7 NG with renewables. Sounds more than feasible in 27 years.
Vs the external costs that go unpaid through the continued use of dirty fuels. Investment is required, we pay now or we pay later. And it’s much, much easier to pay now.
There are some options already.
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News is scarce on this subject, but coal usage is not quite as gone from the Golden State as some might think, though it's not being burned in any Californian's back yard:
http://www.latimes.com/socal/burbank-leader/news/tn-blr-me-ipp-filing-20180815-story.html#
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Power_Plant
Just wanted to strive for accuracy and to be informative; I am willing to bet only a small minority of Californians know that megatons of coal have been burned on their behalf while they suffered little to no consequence from the pollution generated hundreds of miles downwind.Even counting imports coal was 4% of CA's electricity for 2017. Will be 0% pretty soon.
Oh, name calling and strawman building. Care to actually contribute? There are many reasons why nuclear needs to be included as a stopgap, but it seems that you, like most of the public, have a very poor understanding of the issue, fixating only on the bogeyman of radioactivity. Coal burning emits more radioactivity than nuclear by far, for instance. The average person's exposure to ionizing radiation is 50 times greater from radon seeping out of Gaia than from the sum total of man's contribution of radioactive material to the environment. Etc., etc.The only people who will push for nuclear are emotionally underdeveloped men, your typical pin head engineer, somewhere on the Asperger spectrum typically, the kind of folk who I still vividly remembering making a case not to abandon research in nuclear weapons because of the risk to the economy due to job losses. I apologize if the screaming in my head hasn't so so many years later died down.
The solar batteries in cars can charge in the day and supplement the grid at night. There will soon be many more solar powered cars.It's a nice looking graph, for sure. As science minister, I would expect that if you wanted to, you could easily get a grasp on the magnitude of the storage problem and its cost to implement. We've already heard of the prohibitive cost of nuclear (I don't believe it need be so, but that's another discussion), but the requisite storage will be astoundingly expensive, 550M to 1B per GW, and then you aren't really gaining energy output, just smoothing it out so it can be utilized.
Just wanted to strive for accuracy and to be informative; I am willing to bet only a small minority of Californians know that megatons of coal have been burned on their behalf while they suffered little to no consequence from the pollution generated hundreds of miles downwind.
Unlike some conservatives, I am very happy coal is going away for a multitude of reasons. But so far, renewable deployments have mostly gotten a free ride on the backs of base load generation, this has to stop. Adequate storage must be included with new (intermittent) renewable projects, and must be included in the cost per KW/h, and in the environmental impact studies. I don't believe that is uniformly the case now.
No argument at all, though I'd like to reiterate that new installations should have mandated adequate storage and not some promise of future deployment, storage should also be included in all cost calculations and not be essentially hidden like it is now.Coal's total share, including imports, was 16% about a decade ago so a fairly remarkable and continuing improvement. The last of the imports will be pushed out as contracts expire or facilities that utilities have financial interest in are shuttered.
California already has a storage mandate, 2GW by 2020 IIRC, and they're looking at doubling that in the near future. Since proposals for new gas facilities are getting cold welcomes (especially after Aliso Canyon) the utilities are going to be buying batteries anyway. Also vehicle to grid has some good potential to utilize the growing fleet of EVs as grid storage since they spent much of their lives sitting plugged in already.
That will be a wise use of resources, though there are many technical details to work out in the deployment. I am guessing people will opt-out if they find that their vehicle is not charged enough to make it to work the next morning, and also batteries have a limited number of discharge cycles, for coming up with a fair compensation will be necessary. The big question is capacity, the storage requirement to go to intermittent renewables is very large.The solar batteries in cars can charge in the day and supplement the grid at night. There will soon be many more solar powered cars.
I, too, am outraged that we no longer burn wood as our primary energy source. Just think of how much wealthier and more prosperous we would be if we still did!Government has no right to do this.
Please, I have argued this issue a million times in the past on this forum. Let me just say that you are logically correct in all that you say and yet you are blind to the fact that nobody gives a shit about how right you are. It is simply ineluctably inevitable that no sane and moral person will create toxins that will remain deadly to people for thousands of years. You don't get it and you probably never will. For example, a great deal of trust could be generated in the nuclear industry if it simply cleaned up all nuclear waste that is lying about in temporary storage or has leaked into the environment say at Hanford, but that will never happen because it costs money that nobody will spend, just promise they will one day, and nobody will allow it to be stored in their back yard. Nuclear is built on the premise that humans who will produce poison that lasts for thousands of years are not actually anything but selfish pigs who want to earn an income today at the expense of their children. So my argument these days is fuck you and your imbecilic logic. Nuclear is toast. Get used to it. And it's a good thing too. And, of course I would contribute, but you have no idea what that would look like.Oh, name calling and strawman building. Care to actually contribute? There are many reasons why nuclear needs to be included as a stopgap, but it seems that you, like most of the public, have a very poor understanding of the issue, fixating only on the bogeyman of radioactivity. Coal burning emits more radioactivity than nuclear by far, for instance. The average person's exposure to ionizing radiation is 50 times greater from radon seeping out of Gaia than from the sum total of man's contribution of radioactive material to the environment. Etc., etc.
I'm glad you took the time to express your opinion in more depth, thank you.Please, I have argued this issue a million times in the past on this forum. Let me just say that you are logically correct in all that you say and yet you are blind to the fact that nobody gives a shit about how right you are. It is simply ineluctably inevitable that no sane and moral person will create toxins that will remain deadly to people for thousands of years. You don't get it and you probably never will. For example, a great deal of trust could be generated in the nuclear industry if it simply cleaned up all nuclear waste that is lying about in temporary storage or has leaked into the environment say at Hanford, but that will never happen because it costs money that nobody will spend, just promise they will one day, and nobody will allow it to be stored in their back yard. Nuclear is built on the premise that humans who will produce poison that lasts for thousands of years are not actually anything but selfish pigs who want to earn an income today at the expense of their children. So my argument these days is fuck you and your imbecilic logic. Nuclear is toast. Get used to it. And it's a good thing too. And, of course I would contribute, but you have no idea what that would look like.
