Now what will T. Boone Pickens do?

Just pust some high frequency noise generating thing-a-ma-bob on the wind generator that drives the bats away.

Just pust some high frequency noise generating thing-a-ma-bob on the wind generator that drives the bats away.

Like wind chimes?

From the article: “But ultimately it might not matter so much how [the bats] die but what is attracting them to the turbines in the first place.”
Observation from when I was a kid: In the twilight of the day when the bats were coming out for dinner, we’d throw rocks into the air and the bats would follow them down. The best we could tell, the bat’s radar system thought the rock was food.
Could it be that bats think the moving turbine blades are swarms of insects?

Like wind chimes?
——-
More like those sirens that are supposed to keep deer from crashing into your car.

There’s speculation in these parts that Picken’s real motivation isn’t wind, but water. He’s been wanting to pump the Ogallala for years, and sell it to DFW. He recently got the Tx utilities board to grant him the electricity users of Tx paying the multibillion $ of transmission lines, and oh, by the way, he’s going to put the water line on that ROW as well. In the coming years, as the DFW population continues to expand, that water is going to be worth a lot more than the little bit of electricity he can generate. Oh, and also, he created a local water district that consists of a board controlled by the eight people that live in the area he will be pumping from: family members, and employees of his. Just coincidence, of course.

bikermailman (16:21:38) wrote: “There’s speculation in these parts that Picken’s real motivation isn’t wind, but water.”
This is fascinating! Is there any information out there to support this?
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com

This ought to be driving Mr. Pickens batty !!
Not only are the windmills killing birds, they’re also killing bats. Break out the Environmental Impact studies. Let’s tax people more so that greater subsidies can be given to wind farm operators so they can enclose their wind farms in screening to protect birds and bats. What other loony ideas can environmentalists come up with?
Just look at the site JB (15:00:02) cited above:
http://www.seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_070504_1.html
I don’t know about you, but that sort of vision of living (and dying) in harmony with nature’s not for me.
And for anyone wondering about the roots of AGW, check out this piece from the Fall 2007 issue of 21st Century Science and Technology. Quit blaming Maggie Thatcher; it was another Maggie that got the ball rolling on this scam:
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/images/PDF_2.gif
That’s enough depressing reading for one evening. But first, here’s another depressing thought to dampen your Monday evening — if any of your friends or neighbors have solar panels or wind mills, those are there thanks to your tax dollars being put to work with half the cost of those individual projects being paid for with subsidies from the state. The question I’ve never seen answered is, will those structures still be working in the 30 years it takes for them to begin paying off the the initial cost of the project? Never see that little detail mentioned in the MSM’s little puff pieces on how to be environmentally responsible. But that, after all, is a question only a real journalist would raise.

They’ve taken our dams.
They’ve taken our nuclear plants.
They’ve taken our coal plants.
Now they’re going to take our windmills.
They will not be happy until we’re riding horses and living in caves again…

I love to be nit picky but this one is too easy.
What the bats apparently suffer is ‘pneumothorax’ caused by a sudden reduction of pressure allowing pressure in the lung to over inflate and rupture tissue. Similar to SCUBA divers breathing compressed air and ascending without exhaling.
Bends on the other hand is gases, namely nitrogen, entrained in the blood under pressure and expanding into bubbles causing random damage to muscle and nerve tissue. This could happen to bats if they went to more than eighty thousand feet for an extended period of time but would not be expressed in the lungs.

“They will not be happy until we’re riding horses and living in caves again…”
Did serfs ride horses?

He is describing a pulmonary embolism, not so much the “bends”…
It would be more analogous with a diver holding their breath whilst ascending rapidly…… The gas expands in their lungs as the outside pressure drops, thus rupturing the lungs and capillaries …. The same seems to be happening to the bats as per the description.
While the “bends”, is the formation of bubbles in the bloodstream as excess dissolved nitrogen disassociates out of solution, due to a rapid decompression. It is not always the case, in this instance that a pulmonary embolism occurs… The bubbles can accumulate in many areas.
…. and after all this….. Windpower is a waste of time. Whether it kills bats or not.

Wind Turbines should be a huge problem for conservationists and environmentalists, but T. Boone is neither which is why he is trying to build a pipeline to drain the Ogallala to water lawns in Dallas.
T. Boone is old, very old and very rich so its not like he needs the money. From what I understand he intends to ive his money away after he dies rather than leave it to his kids who are kinda screwed up as I understand it. So, how is anyone supposed to guess old T. Boone’s angle on this deal?
Forgetting about the wind farm part of T. Boone’s plan, the idea of turning natural gas into transport fuel is solid. What I cannot figure is how he thinks that building windfarms is going to do anything to reduce our need for natural gas since wind farms cannot replace natural gas generators which work instantaneously on demand. Even if Wind Farms can offset a small amount of instantaneous demand, is it really worth the cost? Considering that we could be using LNG in our cars right now without the wind farms?
Try as I have, I just don’t get the environmentalists fascination with electricity, when it’s gasoline and diesel that are of the most immediate concerns. We are 100% domestic on our electricity production, but the oil we have to import. Forget about electricity! We can always build a nuke plant or even your goofy Solar and Wind projects if you insist, but neither solar, wind or nuke plants are ever going to put fuel in our tanks, power our jets or 18-wheelers.
Seems to me, that if the greens, politicians or uber-rich, were really serious about cutting “greenhouse” gases, or achieving energy independence, these guys might be pushing policies that would end our dependence on cars and jets, just to start. Whether Global Warming is real or a hoax, something like a high speed rail would be sweet for short hauls under 400 miles. I would much rather jump on a fast train and enjoy cold beer, rather than drive myself or deal with Southwest Airlines (or any other for that matter). I’m not sure, but I think that would do more for CO2 than any wind farm would.

McGrats, Steve Miloy has done some research on T. Boone and his intended Boone-Doggle and lays it out in three articles in JunkScience: The Wind Cries “Bailout!,” 10 July 2008; Is T. Boone Pickens “Swiftboating” America?, 24 July 2008; and Pickens Gives New Meaning To “Self-Government,” 31 July 2008.
The Eminent Domain decision by the SCOTUS plays large in the T. Boone scheme.
T. Boone wins on water, turbines and methane powered vehicles – pure altruism and/or philanthropy.

BusinessWeek magazine also had an article about Pickens water project.

Thanks to all who have given my further leads into additional Pickens and Water stories.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com

There is a wind farm on the north shore of Oahu, just up from Turtle Bay, which has been there since before about 1993, when I first took note of it. Local inquiries indicated the several turbines have never been reliable or regularly fed into the grid, nor economically productive. This is an interesting situation for a location where the wind (almost) always blows, and there is no indigenous source of fossil power. Anyone have further details?

I think it is hilarious! Maybe the enviro-wacko’s will allow the wind turbines to be run only from dawn until right before dusk..then shut them off as to not disturb the bats!
Talk about giving me a headache!…then, instead of giving us enough electricity to use my doorbell, they can give us just enough electricity to flick on one of those nutty lightbulbs that are dim……
I’m sure enjoying this website!! 🙂
Sincerely,
Michael
http://www.cookevilleweatherguy.com

Wind power is great for connecting to a gear box which turns a big stone wheel and grind grains into flour. For a grind stone precision does not matter, neither does time. Same thing with a water pump filling a stock tank or watering a field. The wind could blow in the middle of the night and the grain would still get ground into flour, and water would still be pumped. In the modern world, electricity has set demand which modulates regularly thoroughout the day. Certainly, you would not want to wake up in the middle of the night to play on the computer or watch television anymore than you would want to go into work in the middle of the night because that is when there is the best wind.
Darn thing is, the best wind usually occurs during the middle of the night when demand for regulation is the lowest. It’s this regulation power that T. Boone intends to replace with wind energy, which simply will not work, because regulation electricity has to operate precisely and on demand to balance the load on the electric grid. Wind can never, and regardless of technological advances, will never be able to operate precisely or on demand because, it’s wind and blows when it wants to, not when we want it to.
Wind compliments hydro-power very well, because hydro power can be turned on and off very effectively. All you have to do with hydro is open a flood gate and a turbine starts spinning, and joila you have electricity. To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a hydro-plant in the State of Texas. I am a Texan, and a Pahandler, and can state as a matter of fact that we have no hydro-plants in the area where T. Boone is planning on building his giant wind farm. Our local power plant is coal fired, and down State, there are a few nuke plants, but mostly coal fired power stations. Coal and Nuke plants both work on thermal energy in the form of stream (currently in the State of Texasm since we do not have any gas turbine reactors, yet).
Thermal Stations are very different than a hydro station. You cannot simply turn a knob or flip a switch and turn on a thermal power plant, you have to either stoke a fire, or start a fission reaction to heat water to a critical mass until is has enough energy to turn a turbine. This takes several hours to be able to do, so when you have large quantities of wind power on the grid, what power companies are forced to do, since they have to buy all wind energy produced, is keep their thermal plants burning on a sort of stand-by mode, where if the wind cuts out, they will be able to ramp up base load power to prevent a black out. Consider a power plant’s expenses, they have to pay for a crew at their plants, they have to buy fuel, and pay interest on their loans for property, plant and equipment, plus taxes. If they have to sit there and run a spinning reserve, its still costing them money, but they are not allowed to sell their product. Of course, this added expense get’s passed down to the rate payer, while in the mean time very little if any carbon is being “offset”.
In addition to fluctuating on a daily basis, wind also fluctuates on a very short term basis, as its power varies by the hour. This requires your local power company to buy more regulation power than it would if it had a steady base load, because varying voltage changes the frequency of the current coming into your home. In America, our electronics require that our electricity is 60 hertz, and to insure this frequency regulators purchase electricity from private generators to increase the power to match the load. This power is generated from diesel and natural gas, this same stuff that T. Boone is claiming to be saving for transport fuel, while in reality, wind power increases the need for regulation, thus increasing the demand for diesel and natural gas, not the other way around.
The long and short of it is, Wind Power makes no sense, unless you have access to a large hydro plant, and even then you are not off setting any CO2 or preventing nuclear waste. All you are doing is preventing your reservoir from becoming depleted as quickly, which might not even be an issue.
In Texas, where the base load providers are 100% thermal power plants running off either coal or nuclear, wind really does not make sense, even though we are the “Saudi Arabia of Wind”. The wind blows like hell out here on the High Plains, but the more wind power that we add to the system, the worse the problem with wind power becomes. What T-Boone is proposing would amount to a nuclear plant, which turns on and off entirely at random, regardless of demand, but normally operating at around 20% of its capacity, but sometimes at 100% and sometimes at 0%, not only does this require more expensive regulation electricity, but it also requires powerlines to be built from Amarillo to Dallas which have been designed to carry 5 times the average load, which is going to increase the expense of the line. (Which Texas Taxpayers are paying for, thanks Rick Perry!)
Don’t feel too bad for us Texans though, because we are only getting part of the hosing. This scam is global in nature and they want to fleece a little off of everyone. The US government, guarntees wind power providers a market through PURPA laws, and they guarantee them about a 10% return on their investment. So you non-Texans are paying for this junk too! Not an American? Maybe a European? Guess how your countries are meeting Kyoto? Many of the wind companies in Texas are European oil companies who must meet their carbon targets, when a european company is falling behind on their carbon goals, they by carbon offsets from a Texas Wind Power Company, which increases you prices so you guys are getting fleeced too.
There are powerful reasons why Wind Power was not chosen in a free market. Back in the early days (1920-1960) before power lines ran out to farms and ranches, many farmers and ranchers had invested in windpower for their homes (on the range). As soon as they were about to get juice from a power company, they all scrapped their wind power rigs even though they were bought and paid for. Why? After all the wind is free, right?

Almost all high mileage vehicles (taxis, buses, etc) and many private vehicles here in Perth Western Australia run on LPG (liquid natural gas), for the simple reason it is a third the price of petrol or diesel.
Every service station sells it, right next to the petrol and diesel. You fill your own tank and I have never heard of an LPG accident at a petrol station. LPG is no more of a problem than petrol in an accident, and probably less as it doesn’t pool on the ground waiting for a spark to ignite it. Fires involving LPG vehicles are rare and those that do occur, generally seem to involve botched do it yourself LPG conversions.

To Ed Scott,
That’s a very wild idea – rotational velocity, etc – what you don’t know is that the amount of wind has been steadily decreasing worldwide since the beginning of the industrial revolution. My data suggests that a point of “total stillness” will arrive on January 1st 2100. At this time, all migratory birds will fly sideways and the Dutch windmill tourism industry will become bankrupt. So I seriously disagree with your contention that shorter days are upon us.

what’s going to happen to flying insect populations if bat numbers drop?

statePoet1775 (16:24:53) :
LOL. One of funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
During the height of the bird flu scare, I wrote a letter to the Rocky Mountain News with the humble suggestion of building a line of wind turbines enclosing the state of Colorado. While generating much needed electricity, it would also prevent the entry of bird flu vectors by chopping them up.
Killing two birds with one turbine, in a manner of speaking.
For some reason, the editor declined to publish my letter.
By the way, did anyone else notice the lack of any references to Chinese bird flu outbreaks during the Olympics? Has the problem been resolved or just not reported?
You have to love T. Boone’s hubris and chutzpa. I love Texas con men. They work on a breathtaking scale others can only dream of.
He is wrong about drilling our way out of the problem.
We now know the Shell in situ process for extracting oil from the oil shale of the Green River basin has a yield of 72% of the hydrocarbons in the ground. This process avoids all the drawbacks (economic and environmental) of mining and cooking the shale.
See http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/30/magazines/fortune/Oil_from_stone.fortune/index.htm
Now let’s see…
800 billion barrels of oil available. US consumes about 20 million barrels per day. Dividing the former by the latter, I get a reserve number of about 40000 days of supply or 100 years.
It’s just waiting to be drilled.
It only requires 3 barrels of water for each barrel of oil versus 100 barrels of water for 1 barrel of ethanol.
It won’t require any troops in foreign climes.
No spilling of oil on the high seas.
The heat for the heaters and coolers in derived from the natural gas as a by product of the oil shale recovery process.
No money going overseas.
Tax revenue for local, state, and federal govt.
No subsidies required.
And finally, and most importantly, bats are spared.

By the way, wind turbines are not a new thing. Most of Wallowa County is still peppered with them. Some work, some don’t. Wind has been harnessed for centuries. Why all of a sudden is it some whacked out idea?
If you look around, you’ll notice that wind power was summarily DROPPED as soon as something better came along. At one point in the Northwest windpower was pretty common. There were even some old systems around the midwest with the old glass cased lead acid batteries to give you a little storage. Guess what, as soon as reliable mains power came along those systems were summarily abandoned. Wind power is not a step forward.

“Artificial intelligence is living and amongst us; but we want the ultimate AI… whatever that may be.” Roger Carr
I was thinking of “consciousness”. Something we would have to give civil rights to. Roger Penrose wrote a book about this called “The Emperor’s New Mind” where he makes the case that the current laws of physics do not explain “consciousness”.

Bats are for more negatively impacted from long, cold winters, then turbines.
That may be true Pamela, at least now. But, since we’re cooling now, and that will very likely continue, wouldn’t bat mortality due to turbines, which will only be increasing be even more of an issue? It certainly seems a legitimate concern.
Wind power is not a rational way of increasing our power supply. It is costly and unreliable, requiring standby power regardless of whether it is being used or not, which is wasteful.
Pickens is simply out to further line his pockets at the expense of Texans, and of taxpayers. Who knows why, and frankly I don’t care why.

Johnnyb (22:33:06) : To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a hydro-plant in the State of Texas.
There are several dams in the highland lakes (Colorado River) that have hydroelectric capabilities: for example, the Mansfield dam below Lake Travis and the Tom Miller dam below Lake Austin, but we rarely have enough rain to turn them on.

To Graeme Rodaughan,
you are correct I was not aware that the world-wide wind is steadily decreasing. If this is truly the case, I postulate that this is due to the global warmists “blowing in the wind” from east to west counter-acting the natural west to east air flow. I fear it will take some time to correct my computer model to account for the erratic behavior of Nature, due to anthropogenic influences.
While on the subject of my errors, I would like to correct the information in an earlier comment. Of the 15,000 wind turbines in California, 5,000 are located at Tehachapi, 7,000 are located at Altamont (not Altoona) and 3,000 are located at San Gorgonio. These turbines produced: In the year 2004, wind energy in California produced 4,258 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, about 1.5 percent of the state’s total electricity. In 1995, these areas produced 30 percent of the entire world’s wind-generated electricity.
I am not an environmentalist, but, having grown up in a farming community, I have respect for the environment and Nature. I strongly oppose knee-jerk solutions to “problems” which ultimately result in a problem, or problems, greater than the original “problem.” I also strongly oppose solutions for non-existent “problems,” such as anthropogenic global warming/climate change.

Can’t methane be easily converted to gasoline (given the right miracle catalyst)? There is plenty of methyl hydrate in the Gulf.

JP said:

Let’s face it, the Enviormental Left does not want any new souces of energy, period. They see energy as the life blood of a decadent bourgeosie life style. In the meantime, the US and Canada sit atop of 1 trillion barrels in untapped shale, not to mention some of the largest coal reserves in the world. AGW or Climate Change is just a front for a group of aging activists.

Absolutely. And if anyone needs proof of this just look for the quotes of Maurice Strong, one of the higher ups in the IPCC, and quotes from founders of the Club of Rome, current Greenpeace leaders, WWF, etc. They want the world, not just the west, de-industrialized. Which means, as I’ve pointed out, the deaths of billions as we return to subsistence farming and hunter/gatherer lifestyles. A return to a time when life was brutal and short, instead of moving forward and eventually moving away from fossil fuels (when it makes sense to do so, and not being forced to for totally invalid reasons) to a point where life is easier for all humans, because all societies will eventually be affluent enough to afford clean technology.

Nuclear is good but it can be made much much better in the future.
Thorium nuclear is the “green” nuclear.
For those of you concerned about nuclear safety and waste products there is a much better alternative. Thorium based (rather than uranium based) nuclear power. This technology was demonstrate in the 50’s and 60’s but was abandoned because it was much harder to produce weapons grade material (compared to uranium). The military considerations favored the uranium fuel cycle.
More specifically LFTR (liquid fluoride thorium reactors) compared to uranium reactors burn fuel 100x more efficiently without reprocessing, result in ~100x less waste and are inherently safer and should cost less to build.
In addition, since LFTR is a high temp low pressure process it can use water or air cooling. Thus Ut/Nv etc, where water is scarce, could replace it’s coal fired plants with low cost, clean thorium power plants. Much more cost effective and reliable than the wind and solar plants that California is building. (fyi, California’s electricity currently costs 2x Utah’s and they are on a path to keep it that way.)
Uranium LWR : Thorium LFTR
Fuel Reserves (relative) __________________ 1 : 100 (1000s yrs)
Fuel Mining Waste Volume (relative) ____ 1000 : 1
Fuel Burning Efficiency _______________ ~1% : >95%
Radioactive Waste Volume (relative) ______ 40 : 1
Radioactive Waste Isolation Period __10000yrs : 80% 10yrs, 20% 300yrs
Plant Cost (relative) _____________________ 1 : <1
Plant Thermal Efficiency _____________ ~33% : ~50%
Cooling Requirements _______________ Water : Water or Air
Plant Safety _______________________ Good : Very Good
Weapons Grade Material Production ____ Yes : No(very hard)
Desalination with Waste Heat____________No : Yes
Burn Existing Nuclear Waste ___________ No : Yes
Development Status _______ Commercial Now : Demonstrated
for more info see
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ppt/thoriumVsUranium.ppt
charlesH (BS Physics)
Orem, Utah

TBP plan is self and undoable. Don’t worry about its chances for implementation.
Firstly, T Boone owns the water rights below the ground he hope to construct windmills on. His investment in water was first and he wants to run a pipeline down from west Tx to DFW. With it he now hopes to run the transmission from his turbines.
He’s come up with a plan to get his gas fields in high demand then use the void in those reservoirs as carbon storage sites.
The problem is, his wind power will only generate 33% of the nameplate capacity on those turbines and during period of time which demand is not the greatest. Gas generation is then required to make that 33%, 100% reliable. W/o his intermittent resource being reliably backed up, his power contract will not only fetch less money, it will more short-term, to factors which impede the market penetration of exactly what his plan intends to accomplish.
Renewables are good w/o question, but they are going to cost a bundle. Not only does one have new capital costs in land and equipment, the cost for new transmission, plus the cost for the condemnation and purchase of new right-of-ways, has to be considered, plus the arrangement of existing or new backup generation, typically gas but could be older coal.
T Boone is just trying to shed light on his end goal, new utility right-of-way, the single greatest hurdle utilities face today. With his ad campaign he is trying to get Americans and Texans alike, to grow in the understanding of the transmission requirement necessary to get the energy sector more green.
Taken as a whole, his plan just like Al Gore’s 100% clean energy by 2018, is simply undoable.

Bats will evolve to survive new hazards in their environment.

johnnyb: The point is that wind turbines are an absolutely worthless “technology”, and the key stone of the global warming scammers.
I beg to differ. But it comes with qualifications. The fact is, based upon what I’ve read, much of what you say about wind is accurate — but only IF wind power is not coupled with a widely distributed transmission grid. Absent that, you’re largely right — wind is just a toy. But including that, it isn’t. For example, there’s this. Note that this DoE analysis is very dependent upon the assumption that widely distributed wind farms are interconnected. If that happens, much of the variability associated with individual farms disappears. Europe is thinking along the same lines.
The fact is, if you’re excited about the potential of any sort of renewable energy you have to think in terms of a regional or national overhaul of the transmission network. Is that a problem? Personally, I don’t think so. The existing system is so rickety and so “leaky” that unless you’re contemplating highly localized sources something has to be done regardless of what sources you prefer, be they some combination of wind, solar, nuclear, or whatever.
The existing network is very close to being overtaxed. It will not sustain the projected 30% increase in power requirements in the next couple of decades. It’s not like doing nothing is a viable option. Considering that, and assuming you’re amenable to replacing the existing scotch tape and baling wire grid with a national, “everything in” national power superhighway, consider this. Obviously this is just one estimate. But as far as I know, it is the first comprehensive estimate performed so far. The price tag: $60 billion.
That sounds like a lot, and perhaps it is. But what are the alternatives? I mean really — what are the alternatives?? Currently different regions have to rely on themselves to come up with a plan. johnnyb mentioned Texas, but only the Amarillo-to-Dallas corridor. My understanding is Texas is planning to wire the whole state, not just Amarillo-to-Dallas. Likewise, the northeast (New England and New York) is working on the same sort of idea. Western Europe as well.
This is not a scam. It does, however, require a different way of thinking. And finding a way to address NIMBY concerns will be a significant and difficult part of that. Then again, if you want to populate the country with nuclear plants instead of (or in addition to) wind and solar utilities — or just about anything else, for that matter, the same issues apply.

JackSimmons: We now know the Shell in situ process for extracting oil from the oil shale of the Green River basin has a yield of 72% of the hydrocarbons in the ground. This process avoids all the drawbacks (economic and environmental) of mining and cooking the shale.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The article you linked to estimated the EROI (energy return on energy investment) as somewhere between 3:1 and 7:1, quoting industry (and specifically Shell) employee estimates. That’s not so great, but okay in the current oil price environment (and assuming you don’t much care how much GHGs are spewed into the atmosphere, which I assume is a gimme on this site). However, this article, which reports on a more recent and peer-reviewed analysis, pegs the EROI at between 1.2:1 and 1.6:1. That’s a big difference. And if their numbers are accurate, Shell is going to have significant problems making oil shale profitable, even independent of the GHG issue. Also, FWIW, CO Sen. Ken Salazar (D) recently ran a cautionary op-ed on the subject. Salazar is generally considered to be well-informed on such matters.

I’m stuck deciding between the Pickens plan and the Paris plan.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d.
T Bone is cute, but once Peta gets wind of the bat genocide, then the Paris
plan will probably prevail.
REPLY: Or they’ll join forces and we’ll have the Peta-Paris-Pickens Plan – Anthony

Ricorun (12:36:12) :
Do the lower EROI estimates include sequestration of the carbon?
Not clear from the article you cited.
You are correct about the GHG assumptions for CO2.
I do not believe CO2 has more than a very small impact on our climate.

Do the lower EROI estimates include sequestration of the carbon?
No. That would be a little hard to do, considering there are yet no viable CCS technologies available. At least not for use in that context.

OK. So windpower is 3 times as expensive and 1/3 as reliable as nuclear power. If TBP (and strange bed-fellow Speaker NP) want to free up natural gas as a motor fuel, put in a bunch of new nuclear stations. That way you also won’t need to keep 2/3 of the gas freed up as stand-by for when there is no wind (plus keep all those gas-fired plants in stand-by operation, which also costs money).
But maybe both TBP and NP are betting on making a buck or two from the wind farm proposal.
On the other hand, the “bat” problem really leaves me cold. To keep a curious 2-year old from sticking his fingers into a home fan, the designers simply put a shield around it. If we can send a man to the moon, we can surely figure out how to put a shield around the wind fans, as well.
But this doesn’t change the fact that wind farms are a batty idea.
Max

Bats in a blender
Slim Pickens for dough
Sierra clubbed mytosis
Doth windmills seem to sow

“FWIW, I happen to think that wind farms are beautiful (as the extensive one around Sweetwater, TX).” Julie
Maybe when we have enough nukes, we can run them backwards as fans.
Ray Reynolds: Beautiful.

julie,
I second jeez’s opinion of your post. Your are sweet. Forgive my joke at your expense. OK?

“But goodness, if someone were interested in mining luddite this thread would be a good place to start.”
That’s NUCLEAR luddite.

Sigh… My Pickens joke flopped

Here is the link the the WSJ about this.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121901822110148233.html

Ricorun,
Perhaps you are right, and we will need some big huge transmission grid, but I really do not think that is the most efficient use of energy. I have been following the development of General Atomic’s High Temperature Gas Turbine reactor with considerable interest. It seems to me that perhaps small scale nuclear reactors could be coupled into a cogen system, where excess heat could be used to heat and cool homes and businesses. This would result in a real cost savings making us common folk more wealthy by saving us money, rather than making the uber-wealthy even richer by government fiat and hoax carbon trading bourses. This would address the problems of energy efficiency from a supply side perspective by increasing the energy output as well as making the most efficient use of the waste heat which is simply not possible if the power plant is located too far away from population centers.
Would what I am talking about here mean placing nuclear reactors inside cities and suburbs? Yes it would, but considering the that the US navy has been placing sailors with in 1 football field of nuclear reactors for half a century on board moving vessels as well as tightly enclosed submarines, I fail to see the problem and believe that nuclear power has proven itself to be extremely safe.
The Russians have developed nuclear barges, were they are able to supply both fresh water and electricity to some of their most remote villages on the arctic ocean. Given that the United States has the finest nuclear ship yards in the world, aka Newport News. Perhaps, we are missing a really big financial opportunity by building similar barges and shipping them to coastal communities around the world. Providing everyone with fresh water and electricity, while making a tidy profit for ourselves and bringing more money into our country, which will increase demand for the dollar, the fall of which has certainly contributed to higher fuel prices.
Nuclear barges would also make great sense for California which always seems to be in need of water and power. Would eco-conscious California go for having nuclear reactors floating in the waters off shore? I do not see why not, given that a Google Earth shot of the San Deigo Naval Base reveals not less than half a dozen nuclear powered ships and subs, many of which carry multiple nuclear reactors, not to mention nuclear bombs. All of this has not hurt the market for San Diego real estate one bit, and it remains one of the most desirable places to live in North America.

Ice on the windmill blades,
on the solar cells, thick snow.
Inside, safe and warmed
by a nuclear glow.

johnnyb, did you ever wonder why the Russian nuclear barges only service remote villages on the arctic ocean? My guess is… it’s pretty freakin’ expensive. Actually, that’s not just a guess. There’s a difference between technical feasibility and economic feasibility. In fact, in most cases, that’s the essential question. At least it should be a primary one.
Similarly, you say you’ve “been following the development of General Atomic’s High Temperature Gas Turbine reactor with considerable interest. ” Then perhaps you could share with us some cost estimates per MW nameplate, along with estimates about when they are likely to be certified. If you can do that I won’t question you on the materials, workforce, and supply chain issues.
But I don’t think you can. Because I’ve been following GA too — along with pebble bed reactors, liquid flourothorine reactors, and fast breeder reactors. And as far as I can tell, they’re (a) very expensive and/or (b) fall into that nebulous category of “3-5 years away”. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard the latter. That’s bad enough. But there is another difference: in the case of the nuclear options, only a small handful of groups are working on them (all of which are publicly funded, at least significantly). In the case of renewables there are hundreds (most of which are privately funded). On that basis alone, which one would you pick? And I”m afraid you do have to pick to one extent or another. Picking “none of the above” only means you pick the existing status quo. And that leaves you that much more susceptible to supply shocks of the sort that we recently experienced. And those, I’m afraid, are only going to get worse (according to most experts). So again, “doing nothing” isn’t a viable option.

Anybody know what renewables they use and how they manage to keep from destabilizing their grid with variable sources?
My guess is hydroelectric.

To Ricorun,
Luddite: One who is especially opposed to technological change.
Sorry if I gored your bull.
Where in my posting did you find the ‘smoking gun” that I am opposed to technological change?
Coal fired power plants provide electrical as long as the coal miners “strip-mine” the coal and it is transported to the power plants. Solar panels provide power only when the sun shines, which is essentially half the day in good weather.
If you have a “beef” about the tar sands mines in Alberta, take that up with Canada.
The clip on the project to build the world’s largest solar “farm,” which you term to be nonsense, came from http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/07/09/cleantech-to-build-worlds-largest-solar-power-plant-in-california/. I suggest that you take up their “nonsense” with them.
I’m not sure what you mean about “keeping up.” In spite of your “luddite” reference, I have not seen anyone posting on this website who is opposed to technological change.
I said in an earlier post that, I am opposed to solutions to non-existent problems. The only problems that seem to come under this heading are that we need to be energy independent of foreign sources, anthropogenic CO2 is harming the planet and, according to T. Boone, we are transferring 700 billion dollars of our wealth to the oil producers, which I consider to be an exchange of value. As far as energy independence, the current Congress has stressed using alternate fuels, instead of developing the resources that the Nation has in abundance. I have yet to locate an alternate fuel station. I suspect that the political elite are sequestering the alternate fuel for their exclusive use.
Boeing has recently sold 70 billion dollars worth of their aircraft and are in the late stages of the development of the 787. I presume they hope to make a profit on their effort before Jet-A becomes unavailable.
Michael Crichton had it right in his book “State of Fear.” The state of fear as applied by Al Gore, Maurice Strong and the UN is an effective method for controlling populations with their consensus science of anthropogenic global disaster and at great expense to the population for a solution to a non-problem..
Pardon my plagiarizing, but I have rearranged the text of your next to last paragraph: Can I ask you what you light your house with? It wouldn’t by any chance be whale oil, would it? That’s just nonsense.
I have SCUBA’d off the coast of California, in Cozumel, in Hawaii and in Fiji and never been attacked by a shark, although they were plentiful in Fiji.
I make a posting on this website and get a “snark” attack. You never know.

“Moving to renewables” sounds “in” and “sexy”. It’s also very expensive and unreliable, if we’re talking about solar or wind power.
There have been two recent proposals made in the USA that involve a major switch to “renewables”:
· TBP proposal to free up natural gas for motor fuel by replacing gas-fired power generation with large wind farms (in order to reduce oil import costs)
· Al Gore proposal to shut down all fossil fuel-fired power plants within 10 years, making “maximum use” of “renewables”, bio-fuels, etc. (in order to “save the planet”)
Let’s forget the “bio-fuels”, “hydrogen cars”, etc. for now and just look at electrical power generation based on current uses. Here are some rough numbers based on published data.
Installed power generation capacity in the USA was 1,100,000 MW end 2007.
Total installed wind power generation was 17,000 MW
Fossil fuel fired power plants generated 3,000 billion KWH over the year 2007, out of a total of 4,100 billion KWH total.
Nuclear power plants generated around 800 billion KWH.
So let’s assume that 50% of all US households install solar panels.
Assume that new wind power installed in USA is 10 times the currently installed capacity.
All the rest will be covered by new nuclear power generation.
Overall power requirement will grow at 1995-2005 compounded annual growth rate of 3.2% (ignore the growth rate and just calculate the cost of the Gore proposal at current power consumption rate).
Let’s assume that 50% of all US households install solar panels. These are very expensive today and only make sense if they are being subsidized by someone (i.e. the taxpayer). If 50% of US households get subsidized solar panels, that means the other 50% of the households are paying this subsidy. This is obviously not a viable long-term plan, so solar panels should compete on their own merits without the “subsidy”.
The average household consumes: 1.3 KWH/hour.
The average installed solar capacity per household would be around: 5 KW.
The average “on-line factor” is: 26%
Total number of US households is: 115 million
So number of US households converted is: 57.5 million
Installation cost per household at today’s cost: $35,000
Future installation cost per household: $17,500 (assume costs come down by 50%)
Total investment = $1,006 billion
Total installed power (nameplate) = 287,500 MW
Total power generated (26% on line) = 74,750 MW
Investment cost per MW generated = $13.5 million
Wind
New wind capacity installed: 170,000 MW (=10x current capacity)
The average “on-line factor” is: 40% (a high estimate, even for windy West Texas)
Total power generated = 68,000 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW (projected) = $2,500
Total investment = $425 billion
Investment cost per MW generated = $6.25 million
Balance – Nuclear
Total fossil fuel generation shut down = 825,000 MW
Household solar added = 86,250 MW
Wind added = 68,000 MW
Balance replaced by nuclear = 825,000 – 86,250 – 68,000 = 670,750 MW
Total nameplate capacity (90% on line) = 745,278 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW = $3,000
Total investment = $ 2,236 billion
Investment cost per MW generated = $3.3 million
Total installation cost of Gore proposal = $3.7 trillion
TBP proposal
Shut down gas-fired stations to free up natural gas for motor fuel
Percentage of power generated by natural gas = 22%
Total to be replaced = 242,000 MW
Alternate 1
Replace gas-fired stations with wind (TBP proposal)
New wind power to replace natural gas = 242,000 MW
Total nameplate capacity (40% on line) = 605,000 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW (projected) = $2,500
Total investment = $1.5 trillion
Alternate 2
Replace gas-fired stations with nuclear
New nuclear power to replace natural gas = 242,000 MW
Total nameplate capacity (90% on line) = 268,889 MW
Installation cost per nameplate KW (projected) = $3,000
Total investment = $0.8 trillion
So the Gore plan costs $3.7 trillion, the TBP plan (all wind) costs $1.5 trillion and the TBP plan (nuclear) costs $0.8 trillion.
But how about large-scale solar costs?
A large scale solar plant is being built in “sunny” Spain (subsidized by EU)
http://petrochemical.ihs.com/news-07Q2/eu-en-solar-plant-spain-4-07.jsp
It has a nameplate capacity of 11 MW
And will generate: 23,000 MWH/year
On-line factor = 23.9%
Installation cost is 35 million Euro or around $52 million
There will always be a limited niche for solar/wind, but they will not provide a large percentage of the world’s electrical power because of high cost and low reliability, as long as cheap nuclear fission is available.
The argument has been made that switching to nuclear is limited by uranium reserves, while there is “an unlimited amount of wind and sun”.
Uranium reserves are usually quoted as “X-million tons available at a price of Y”. If “Y” is increased, “X” goes up exponentially. And uranium is a small part of the cost of electrical power from nuclear generation, so its cost is not that important.
The picture shows that we are only scratching the surface on uranium reserves.
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/NuclearSlides/Uranium01.htm
Nuclear fission can draw upon a small percentage of the 40 trillion tons of uranium in the earth’s crust until it extracts a total of half a trillion tons, three centuries from now, when civilization will be using energy at 8,000 times the rate that it is today. That would be without breeder-reactors or any kind of fuel-reprocessing.
Adding breeder-reactors at that point, and a small percentage of the 160 trillion tons of thorium in the crust, would allow us to last until five centuries from now, when civilization will be using energy at 3.2 million times the rate that it is today.
So there is no practical limit.
Looks to me like that’s the way to go for growth and maybe to free up some natural gas for US motor fuel, if this can be economically justified (but not “to save the planet”, as Al Gore would have us do).
Just my thoughts on this. (And I’m not getting paid by the “nuclear lobby”.)
Max

to mike mcmillan
earth revolution
there is a nice site in europe which carefully measures the rotation of the earth. it has been changing lately.
maybe you are right

New Zealand only has a population of 4.1 million. A few decent dams and a few geothermal plants is all they really need.

And is a very small geographical area. The problems of supplying power over vast areas doesn’t exist down there.

manacker, I don’t know where you’re getting your numbers for your analysis or how old they are, but Here’s a nice summary of the current costs of various options provided by the National Energy Regulatory Commission.

Hi Smokey,
Thanks for link to power generation costs in US cents per KWH.
What I was quoting were the capital investment costs for building new plants rather than the operating cost (fuel, retirement of capital, etc.) after they have been built.
That’s another can of worms (especially when you read the footnote, “after government subsidies”).
Your numbers show that coal is still the most economical alternate.
But I was trying to come up with a “price tag” for Al Gore’s plan to shut down all USA fossil fuel power plants in ten years. At $3.7 trillion (without any net increase in power generated) it seems a bit steep. Of course, if we “save the planet” by doing it…
But wait! To “save the planet” we not only have to shut down all US fossil fuel fired plants, but those of the whole world.
The USA represents around 24% of the world’s fossil fuel fired power generation, so the “price tag” for Gore’s proposal to “save the planet” is really $15 trillion.
OUCH!
Regards,
Max

Ricorun (12:36:12) :
There is only one way to determine what the behavior of Shell’s in situ processing of oil shale truly is: let them build a full scale operation. Perhaps a single lease to be monitored by all parties concerned.
That way we will know what the true costs and benefits will be.
All the rest is talk until we give it a real trial.
Nice part about it, it will all be on Shell’s nickel. In fact all of this has been on Shell’s nickel. No subsidies required.
So when will they get permission to find out the true parameters of oil shale processing?

“I might throw in the ‘old man’ on the stream act as well, pretending to know where the best fishing is and suggesting he take that portion of the stream as my guest.”
Charming, I’m sure.
[go ahead and snip this]

Jack Simmons: There is only one way to determine what the behavior of Shell’s in situ processing of oil shale truly is: let them build a full scale operation.
My understanding is that Shell doesn’t think they’re ready to do that. And as that GreenCarCongress article I cited earlier pointed out, “In 2007, Shell withdrew the application for a mining permit on one of its three oil-shale research and demonstration leases for economic reasons: costs for building the underground freeze wall of frozen water to contain melted shale had ‘significantly escalated.’” That doesn’t bode well.

O.K.
I read the Forbes article on efficiency. High energy costs will do what he is proposing, probably already are. That’s the nature of free markets.

Almost all high mileage vehicles (taxis, buses, etc) and many private vehicles here in Perth Western Australia run on LPG (liquid natural gas), for the simple reason it is a third the price of petrol or diesel.

LPG is a propane/butane mix, not natural gas (methane).

LPG is a propane/butane mix, not natural gas (methane).

Prolly meant LNG.

Prolly meant LNG.

No, LPG is a very common fuel for high mileage vehicles in Australia – particularly in Victoria. It’s considerably better as a vehicle fuel than natural gas, for a number of reasons. First, higher energy density. Second, it’s a liquid at room temperature and only fairly low pressure – meaning you can carry more fuel at the same pressure, which is much safer. In fact, it’s not uncommon to find see an LPG equipped vehicle that has caught fire and the LPG tank is intact and still containing fuel – it was the petrol (gasoline) that caused the fire! And third, because it requires very little engine modification to run a petrol (gasoline) engine on LPG (propane), it’s possible to run on both fuels, switching between them as required/desired.
It’s a very common and popular fuel, and is a favourite of high mileage drivers because, even though you consume about 10% more to cover the same distance compared to petrol, it’s only about about 50% the price per litre of petrol, making it extremely cost effective. It would be even more so, considering we (Australia) export it in bulk for less than 10c/L, yet retail pricing at the bowser is around 70c/L!
Further, because it’s delivered to the engine as a gas, and because of it’s lower carbon content, it’s a very low emissions fuel on *all* fronts – HC, NOx, CO and CO2. So low, in fact, that vehicles using purely LPG as fuel are not as severely tested for emissions, and one can register such a vehicle in NSW (strictest state for registration requirements) with only a basic CO check. So “green”, in fact, that there is a Govt. subsidy of $2000 to convert a vehicle to this fuel. You can even buy vehicles brand new with factory fitted LPG only engines.
Because it’s a mix of propane and butane, it also allows the refineries to get rid of significant amounts of butane that they would otherwise flare off as waste product.

manacker: Yes, the gas-fired plant would need natural gas while the solar plant could use “free” solar energy, but the difference in investment cost and on-line availability still makes solar power a “long shot”, which still has a long way to go to be truly competitive on a cost basis.
It might be worth mentioning that that’s pretty much what they said about nuclear back in the 80s, too. It wasn’t as much “greenies” that killed nuclear power (not to mention wind, solar thermal, and solar PV) as it was economics. The cost of fossil fuels tanked, and every indication at the time was that they would stay tanked. And they did — until fairly recently. And no one gave it much of a thought — until very recently. At least in the US. Other places (Iceland, France, Brazil, Denmark, etc.) weren’t so easily suckered. They got into various technologies while the getting was good. Who woulda thought back in 2003 that anything French woulda smelled sweet? Lol!
Be that as it may, since costs today are primarily driven by demand, not artificial supply manipulation, prices aren’t likely to tank again. It’s more likely that costs of fossil fuels will continue to rise. Likewise, it’s also likely that costs of wind, solar thermal and (especially) solar PV will continue to fall (relatively speaking) — but only if one of two things happen: (a) they are assisted (while fossil fuel prices remain relatively low) until they sufficiently penetrate the market, or; (b) we can wait until fossil fuel prices go through the roof and we start scrambling around. Hmmm… which to choose.
Going back to Forbes again, this article mentions that “Over the last two decades, the cost of manufacturing and installing a photovoltaic solar-power system has decreased by about 20% with every doubling of installed capacity.” … and… “As a result, solar power has been creeping toward cost-competitiveness in some areas. California, for example, combines abundant sunshine with retail electricity prices that, partly as a result of the state’s policies, are among the highest in the country–up to 36 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential users. Unsubsidized solar power also costs 36 cents per kilowatt-hour, but support from the California Solar Initiative cuts the price customers pay to 27 cents.”
In terms of solar thermal, in the southwestern United States, the cost of electricity from CSP plants (including the federal ITC) is roughly 13-17cents per kilowatt-hour, meaning that CSP with thermal storage is competitive today with simple-cycle natural gas-fired power plants. The U.S. Department of Energy aims to reduce CSP costs to 7-10 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2015 and to 5-7 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020, making CSP competitive with fossil-fuel-based power sources.
But of course, none of that would happen if current costs were allowed to be the only thing driving the market. And I suppose you could say therein lies the dilemma. Pure free market types insist that there be no drivers except unfettered supply and demand, and any attempt to manipulate either is a big no-no. On the other hand, there are others who recognize that that whole notion is a fantasy unto itself for any industry with significant impacts beyond (i.e., external to) the transaction itself. And perhaps with the exception of national defense, in no industry are those externalities more obvious than in the energy sector. Under those circumstances,
if the free market is left alone it often leads to entrenchment of vested interests, not innovation. Manipulation is often necessary to change the nature of the equation and drive innovation. If you think about it seriously, if it weren’t for government investment in the biomedical industry, pharmaceuticals, transportation… heck, just about any major industry you can think of — even oil and gas (and nuclear, of course), the world would be a very different place. And the US (along with Europe, Asia, and any other advanced country) would not be technology leaders. Governments that don’t invest in RD&D (research, development and deployment) aren’t technology leaders for long.
Getting back to your original point… yes, the cost of utility scale solar PV is high. But five years ago, anyone even contemplating a utility scale solar PV plant would have been considered nuts. I suspect that five years from now it will look like a wise investment. As the costs of these technologies approach grid parity all kinds of good things happen — patents obtained along the way become more valuable, jobs are created, manufacturing opportunities open up, energy prices become essentially locked in, exports increase, imports decrease, energy security improves. And eventually we can tell the Saudis, and others of their ilk, to go pound sand. Wouldn’t that be nice?
One more sort of nitpicky thing… you suggested that a combined cycle gas/steam turbine plant has an on-line factor of 92% while also being flexible enough to provide “peak power”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the on-line capacity factor represents the percentage of the nameplate capacity that the facility could produce if it runs at maximum production all the time. In which case it wouldn’t be very flexible, correct?

Hi Ricorun,
Sorry, the numbers still show that wind farms, and to a much greater extent, solar energy, still have a very long way to go to become truly competitive with nuclear, natural gas or coal. These are the facts of life today, despite rosy articles about these renewables becoming “almost competitive”.
I am not arguing that they might not some day do so.
They just have not yet done so. By a long shot.
So let’s let companies try to develop these new fields, maybe even with some taxpayer R+D support, at the same time let the utility companies construct new plants based on proven nuclear technology and coal-fired plus gas-fired plants.
And (for motor fuels) let’s explore all avenues that make sense to break away from reliance on oil imports. More US offshore drilling, development of the vast oil shale reserves, syn-fuels from coal, bio-fuels, etc. No taxpayer money required here. Just let the energy companies do their thing without strangling them with bueaucratic federal regulations.
Regards,
Max
That’s what makes sense.
Regards,
Max

Here is a really promising solar energy company, discussed earlier on this site.
http://www.nanosolar.com/
If they can get installation costs down to $1 per watt, I’ll take a serious look at installing it on my house.
Will still need something for the night.

Hi Jack Simmons,
The Nanosolar thin film solar panel concept for building medium-size power units (2-10MW) sounds good. Thanks for link.
They mention getting costs for the panels themselves down to $1,000 per nameplate KW.
A 11MW solar plant being built in Seville, Spain is scheduled to cost $53 million or $4,800 per nameplate KW, almost 5 times the Nanosolar figure.
The much smaller domestic solar panels of 5KW cost around $35,000 today (installed) or $7,000 per nameplate KW. This should come down as more are produced.
So if the $1,000 per nameplate KW is really a correct figure for the entire installation (not just the delivered panels), this is a major improvement.
At 25% on-line factor it still leaves solar much less economical than gas-fired stations, at $770 per nameplate KW with a 92% on-line factor, but it brings it closer, particularly for smaller scale plants.
But if you can get a 5KW home system installed for $5,000, this would be a fantastic deal. Depending on where you live, you might even get the government to pick up a big piece of the tab.
Regards,
Max

You’ve got a point there, Smokey.
Let’s hope the US congress can get out of the way and not block Shell (and others) from developing the oil shale deposits (plus lift off-shore drilling ban).
Oil shale is projected to be very profitable at $60/barrel, so gasoline prices could come down.
Combine this with developing more fuel-efficient automobiles and this would give the USA a secure supply source of oil for the next 100+years, without the need for major imports.
Long before this starts to run out there will be new developments that will enable the long-term shift away from oil. These innovations will be driven by industry (oil companies plus others) and will not require massive government intervention.
Regards,
Max