I don’t usually go for political articles, but this one deserves mention for the wholesale idiocy about energy on display.
Don Monfort writes: Submitted on 2011/10/01 at 10:24 am
Sorry to stray off topic, but I was flabbergasted by something I just read:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html
The most flabbergasting part; our energy policy is based on fantasy:
When it was Mr. Hamm’s turn to talk briefly with President Obama, “I told him of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC. I wanted to make sure he knew about this.”
The president’s reaction? “He turned to me and said, ‘Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to green and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.’” Mr. Hamm holds his head in his hands and says, “Even if you believed that, why would you want to stop oil and gas development? It was pretty disappointing.”
America is still going to use oil in 5 years, but I’d rather it be domestic than foreign, wouldn’t you? Alternate technology takes time to develop and there’s zero chance we’ll all be driving electric vehicles in 5 years.
Obama said this when he was running for office:
Obama pledges to end oil dependency
Friday, August 29, 2008 (KGO ABC7 Television)
“I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years we will finally end our dependence on oil in the Middle East,” said Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.
…
“If he means what it sounds like it means, it’s impossible,” said Stanford University Professor James Sweeney.
I guess we know what he meant by that now.
When the presidential limo becomes an electric vehicle, I’ll take his pledge seriously.
The vehicle fuel consumption is about 8 miles per gallon which on metric system corresponds to around 30 litres/100 km – source specs
reply to: Roger Sowell says: October 2, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Roger, I haven’t swallowed any pro or anti line – nor do you have any basis to make such a claim. Apparently you just don’t like the idea that anyone with serious knowledge of the issue could believe other than you do, so you try to denigrate them as naive. From what you note here, however, both my education and experience with the industry far outstrips yours. Attempts at arguments from authority such as that don’t pull much weight, particularly when it turns out your authority is less than the person’s you’re using the ploy on. Nor do your $$ numbers wrt nuclear costs seem to add up.
The facts simply aren’t with you on this one, which is why numerous countries are building or planning to build more nuclear power plants. Obviously any estimate of cost per unit energy will vary depending on exactly what is or isn’t incuded and with various base assumptions (particularly with regards to fuel costs for coal and gas), yet study after study, including from different countries, finds the price per kWh of nuclear power to be far lower than you’ve quoted, and anywhere from actually lower than fossil fuels to a bit above coal and gas but still far below wind and solar – and that’s including construction, eventual decommissioning, and waste storage charges, fuel, O&M, etc., but without any CO2 cost. Obviously if you factor in any cost per ton CO2, nuclear looks even better. Several of those studies are noted in this article: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html
Also, of course, with the recent developments in frakking, I would think that gas (and hopefully before too long oil) costs will come down even more, which shifts the equation further in their direction. That very issue, however, is also a downside to fossil fuel power plants – the cost per kWh is far more dependent on fuel costs than with nuclear, where even a large increase in the price of uranium would have little effect.
As to safety – you seem to have fallen into the trap of not considering nuclear’s safety record in perspective with the options, and their far worse safety records. Far more people are injured and killed during the fossil fuel life cycle, and that’s a simple fact. With regard to operational waste and pollution – at least with nuclear it’s small volume, under control, and easy to handle. In other words, it’s not a scientific or technological problem – just a huge disgusting political football.
kwik
“Leave it to Free Enterprice” (sic)
Yes we can AND environmental regulations are a major barrier.
The US EPA has been the primary barrier to commercial after market conversions to bi-fuel or flex-fuel vehicles. The EPA’s regulations can cost up to $200,000 per engine family.
On March 21, 2011, the EPA issued slightly less onerous requirements for vehicles over two years old. See: EPA Announces Final Rulemaking for Clean Alternative Fuel Vehicle and Engine Conversions
The EPA’s bureaucracy still remains a major constraint on rapid conversion to bi/flex fuel vehicles.
“U.S. oil production in areas including West Texas’ Permian Basin, South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale, and North Dakota’s Bakken shale will record a rise…”
Recently, by viewing oil & gas E & P companies conference presentations, I learned that there are a number of overlaying formations in N.D. (“stack of pancakes” in a previous comment).
Not only are there 2 Bakken oil-shale formations (Upper & Lower), but under (or between?) those is the Three Forks Formation. Under 3 Forks there are at least 4 other named shale formations. There is a crap-load of oil in N.D and recovery technology (by experimentation) is rapidly changing. Zipper Fracks is one of the newest.
Another example, Brigham Exploration (BEXP) is now drilling 4 wells from 1 pad, 2 to one Bakken layer and 2 to Three Forks. I can see that expanding in the near future.
BEXP has hit oil in 88 consecutive horizontal wells, increasing the number of fracks and decreasing frack spacing, while the boe/d increased. They have the top producing wells in the Bakken, using cutting edge techniques (some borrowed from others).
All the explorers now use 3-D seismic, pioneered by BEXP.
Technology will beat Peak Oil.
I’m very long BEXP, as well as Abraxas (AXAS) and Kodiak (KOG).
All are in the Bakken / 3 Forks / etc.formations of the Willison (sp?) Basin.
And with the price of oil dropping like a rock, I’m getting a haircut.
I suspect it’s temporary – 13 months?
Rational Debate, you can believe anything you wish. I’ve been there. Done the numbers for very, very large projects for a number of years. I’m a recent attorney, was and still am a chemical engineer. Your cost of construction loan shows naivete. As Severance noted, and I’ve since verified to my satisfaction, a utility issues bonds for raising capital, as well as equity. The equity typically is in the form of preferred stock, paying on the order of 10 percent annually. The cost of the bonds is also rather greater than the 3 percent you tossed out, typically much higher and especially so for a nuclear construction project.
And as to costs, the South Texas Nuclear Project expansion cost was published as $18 billion, but that was before any ground is broken. Of course the cost will be much, much higher than $18 billion, as I wrote above, more likely $22 to $25 billion. These are facts, not my simple misunderstanding as you implied. The attorneys and anti-nuclear groups in this country have waited a long, long time for a new nuclear plant to be built. There are far more sophisticated attorneys and their clients now compared to 30 years ago. No nuclear plant will be built on schedule and on-budget in this country.
You can disagree, but let’s just sit and watch and see who turns out to be right.
@roger Sowell – the two blog articles of yours that I’ve read, “Reconsider Nuclear Power – Is It Ever Safe? ” and the island one are both unfortunately filled with twisted logic and FUD. Not to mention a lot of ad hominems towards anyone who might possibly disagree with your point of view. You are doing nothing but spreading misinformation, false logic, and unsupportable fear mongering.
Just a couple of examples, paraphrasing here of course and adding in a few facts you conveniently left out. Spent fuel has been stored safely, for 50 decades now, at more than 100 sites around the nation, transferred at times to different storage methods such as from spent fuel pools to dry cask, some of it reprocessed, a few power plants decommissioned, and all without a single injury or illness from the associated radiation, but golly gee, one of these days we might shift that spent fuel around again, and other plants will be decommissioned, and then I promise you there’ll be mass illness and deaths from all that horrible radiation! Obviously it’s inevitable!
Or islands – golly gee, clearly islands that pay high electricity rates would put nuclear in if it were lower cost. Let’s just limit that, however, to only islands with PEAK loads that match a typical SINGLE nuclear power plant. Clearly you know that nuclear power plants are best suited to meeting base load, yet you try to pawn off this travesty of supposed ‘logic?’ Yes, and hammers are worthless and too expensive because they can’t set a screw, and screwdrivers likewise are worthless and too expensive because they can’t also drive a nail efficiently. Plus, of course, every nuclear plant has to periodically shut down to refuel. In the USA, that’s typically once every 18 months, for about 30-40 days. So to make any real world sense, you’d have to select islands with sufficient population to have a base load large enough to use nuclear in the grid and be able to cover outages. You’d also obviously have to have a population with enough resources to have the construction materials (or factor in the cost of importing appropriate materials), and a workforce with sufficient technological training and ability to actually run the plants. In other words, there is obviously a lot more involved than just what the peak load of the island happens to be, yet you try to pretend that there isn’t, and pretend that peak load is somehow a reasonable measure to use. None of it is real world reasoning – but it certainly is reasoning aimed to come to the foregone conclusion you prefer. WUWT??
For delivered costs of new nuclear power in the US, data from California Energy Commission, levelized costs, Table 5 line 8, from
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF
Nuclear Westinghouse AP1000 (2018)……..960 MW….34.24 ¢/kWh
I don’t make this stuff up, as some here on WUWT seem to believe.
Nuclear power is just about the most expensive power on the planet. Not to mention dangerous, toxic, creates bomb-making material, and a very long-lasting toxic legacy for which future generations will not be thanking us. They will be cursing us, and with good reasons.
reply to: Roger Sowell says: October 2, 2011 at 8:40 pm
You are mixing me up with someone else’s comments.
So, Rational Debate, let’s just be clear: you would rather poison the planet with radioactive spent fuel rods, room for which is growing ever-more scarce, leave the clean-up and decommissioning to future generations (thanks a lot, they say), AND bring the current generations some of the most expensive power that can possibly be produced?
Do you not have a care for the elderly, the poor, and those on incomes that allow them to just barely scrape by from week to week? So, you would like to increase the USA’s nuclear generation to 80 percent of all power, just to be like France? Have you any concept of how expensive the average electric bill would be in that case? What are those vulnerable groups supposed to do, sit in the dark and freeze to death because they choose to buy food and pay the rent but cannot afford electricity?
No, the facts are on my side in every instance on this one. Nuclear proponents try and try to get around the basic facts, but facts are stubborn things. No amount of twisting or arguing will change a fact. Nuclear power plants use fission. Fission produces plutonium and other deadly, toxic materials that endure for many, many centuries. Nuclear power plants are unsafe due to seismically poor designs, proximity to tsunamis and inadequate seawalls, plus many are very close to large population centers. The fuel rod storage areas are also very vulnerable to terrorist attacks. All it takes is to rupture the wall that contains the cooling water, and the fuel rods will do a Fukushima.
If I sound less than accommodating to your ideas, it is because I grow very frustrated with the inability of nuclear advocates to see the facts. Not all nuclear power plants are run efficiently, safely, and orderly. There are near-misses all the time. Even the Japanese power plants were poorly designed and run. The grim lesson from Fukushima is that even the Japanese, with their superior technology and superbly trained engineers, failed miserably when it really counted. What country in the world could, or would, do better than the Japanese did? Whose engineers are better than the Japanese? Heck, if they couldn’t handle it, what possible chance does the rest of the world have when it’s their turn in the international spotlight of yet another nuclear disaster?
Another negative point regarding new nuclear power plants, again referring to the California Energy Commission’s report (same link as above).
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF
From Table 14, which gives a bar chart of fixed costs vs variable costs for several technology types, it is very obvious that the vast majority of a nuclear plant’s total cost is fixed costs. That means that, no matter what happens, the plant must maintain a very high price for its power sales.
In contrast, the natural gas-fired power plants have the potential for lower total costs, as the price of natural gas continues to fall with supplies increasing world-wide. Nuclear plants have zero chance of their power prices decreasing.
Note also that, from Figure 18 in the reference document, nuclear power costs have a high-end range of 93 cents per kWh. The 34.2 cents is for an average set of assumptions on interest rates, financing costs, etc. Only three technologies are more expensive than nuclear, and those are all based on simple-cycle natural gas turbines, used only for emergency peaking power production when the grid is in danger of failure due to high temporary loads. Nuclear power plants are not affordable. Even the state of California has published this in their documents.
When I worked for an oil company in Abu Dhabi in the early 1970’s, I understood the Zakum field to have 6 separate reservoirs – ie. oil at 6 different depths – and that one of those reservoirs contained more oil than the whole of Texas’ known reserves.
I also understood that all production came from other reservoirs in Zakum, because the big one was more difficult.
Now we’re 40 years on, and I thought it might be interesting in light of the Peak Oil debate here, to see what happened to Zakum.
Well, it seems the big reservoir is now called ‘Upper Zakum’ (though from memory it wasn’t the top reservoir), and it contains 50bn bbls http://www.emirates247.com/business/energy/uae-has-world-s-4th-largest-oilfield-2010-11-08-1.314757. I think the US has reserves of about 20bn bbls, with Texas having about 25% of that, so Zakum certainly has more than Texas. (Correct me if I’m wrong).
There is a major effort underway right now to increase Zakum production by around 250,000 bpd, at a cost of $US13bn. http://www.gulfoilandgas.com/webpro1/MAIN/Mainnews.asp?id=9514
That’s $US52,000 per bpd. I don’t know how that compares with other places in the world, but this 2000 document http://www.responsiblenergy.org/booksummary/colorofoil.asp cites costs of $3,500, $7,500 and $15,000 per bpd, and an implied $1,000 per bpd in the US’s Gulf of Mexico. So, as expected, the Zakum costs are high – otherwise they would have developed it earlier. [I really don’t know, but I suspect that the report might have slipped a decimal place, in which case the figure is $5,200 per bpd. Still much higher than the Gulf of Mexico figure.]
And I think this is an example of how easily one can be misled by big numbers. At 50bn bbls, it’s a huge oilfield. When you see a number like that, you think that it’s going to produce oil at a phenomenal rate – after all, the US produces 9m bpd from a 20bn bbl reserve. http://exclusiveeconomy.com/2011/03/top-15-world-oil-reserves/
Yet Zakum is such a difficult field that its target production rate is just 750,000 bpd.
A barrel here is not the same as a barrel there. Zakum illustrates how it can be getting increasingly difficult and expensive for the world to keep increasing production.
[Note: I tried to check that all the figures I quoted were from reasonably recent years, but I haven’t tried to update/convert bbls, $s, etc to a consistent base.]
Roger Sowell – It appears there may be a problem with the model energy costs cited in the document you referred to http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF
On page H-13 it can be seen that the cost of nuclear doubled between their 2007 and 2009 reports, because they switched from a generic nuclear reactor to a specific model that they thought might be “most likely to be implemented within” California. I see no reason for this decision, and presumably the cost of nuclear can be halved for other places.
Certainly the model figures in the document are out of kilter with some other studies, eg. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html – “A detailed study of energy economics in Finland published in mid 2000 was important in making the strong case for additional nuclear construction there, showing that nuclear energy would be the least-cost option for new generating capacity. The study compared nuclear, coal, gas turbine combined cycle and peat. Nuclear has very much higher capital costs than the others –EUR 1749/kW including initial fuel load, which is about three times the cost of the gas plant. But its fuel costs are much lower, and so at capacity factors above 64% it is the cheapest option.
August 2003 figures put nuclear costs at EUR 2.37 c/kWh, coal 2.81 c/kWh and natural gas at 3.23 c/kWh (on the basis of 91% capacity factor, 5% interest rate, 40 year plant life)”
A further advantage of nuclear in an inflationary world is that the electricity price is less sensitive to fuel cost than gas or coal.
Smokey says:
October 2, 2011 at 3:48 pm
*****
Yet again, you’ve ignored the parts of my response that’s difficult for you to respond to.
Firstly, it’s been shown countless times that CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere, and suggesting that CO2 has no harmful effects is ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as claiming that there’s no science to back it up. See http://paleolands.com/pdf/cenozoicCO2.pdf for example, where they find that “early Cenozoic pCO2 levels were often several times modern values, and that a strong greenhouse effect probably contributed to global warmth at that time.” Actually, the whole concluding paragraph of that article is pretty straightforward. I realize that CO2’s contribution to radiative forcing is thousands of times less than some other pollutants, but it’s also one of the most (maybe the most?) highly concentrated GHGs in our atmosphere. Also, I never went about “demonizing” carbon, which is apparent since I also included sulfates and methane in the list. They were conveniently ignored, though. I guess none of your “scientists” want celebrity status bad enough to contradict all the research that says they’re detrimental to the planet, as is CO2. With luck, Michele Bachmann and her ilk will start screaming for more methane emissions. “Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart…”
Finally, your links (“proof”, I presume, for your argument?) do nothing to contradict what I said. Sure, increased CO2 emissions are better for plants. I’m sure everyone on this forum is aware that CO2 is necessary for plants to grow. But is that a good trade-off? Decreased human welfare so that plants can grow a little bigger? I’m sure they’d appreciate a warmer atmosphere, too. Guess they’ve come to the right place, eh?
savethesharks says: October 2, 2011 at 7:58 am
No need at all to apologise, but appreciate the post.
Heck, I used to curse you sharks when you chomped through my hard wrangled trevally caught when trolling off the NT coast.
Glad the hormones are still hot Smokey. But then Dusty is (was) some girl.
We Aussie gals give lip and swat to our men.
It’s our larrikin heritage! 😉
(apparently) http://www.convictcreations.com/culture/comedy.htm
Ferd Berple – Love your logic. Got any more of those observations.
.
Mathew at 1am. When you start quoting the Cenoizic period, you are showing how you manipulate data to suit your argument. CO2 makes up only 4% of GHS, (Less than 1% human enhanced) yes with cloud cover it does help to trap warmth coming from the land, trap, not cause, get my gist. That’s why frost doesn’t form when there is cloud cover in winter. Gosh mate during the Cenoizic period, the continents hadn’t separated. Of course the atmosphere was heavier and more humid. Big continents the further from the sea they are into their interior the lessening of rain fall. CO2 component in pollution is very low, it is sulphur dioxide, nitreos oxide
carbon monoxide that cause problems and also heavy particles that do the damage, (ash and dust from volcanoes) straight CO2 does no harm on its own and is a natural gas we need for our bodies as well as all other carbon based organic beings to function. Next you will be saying the herbivores/ruminants/humans cause pollution from methane emissions, think yourself lucky we weren’t around with the dinosaurs.
reply to: Roger Sowell says: October 2, 2011 at 9:03 pm
However, from your blog:
You provide zero justification for that price leap. Sure sounds like making it up. So you found one source that is apparently flawed as a previous poster has noted – I’ve yet to dig thru it and doubt I’ll waste the time – we’ve all seen some of the horribly incorrect estimates and projections that come out of the California government (at least one has been the issue of a post here at WUWT). We pointed you to multiple studies, by different independent organizations and governments, which found estimated costs to be far lower. You’ve failed to address those what-so-ever. Meanwhile, currently operating nuclear power plants already have containment structures that would withstand the impact of a commercial jet, at least in the USA: http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/aircraftcrashbreach. That’s been well known for several decades.
reply to: Roger Sowell says: October 2, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Feel better now that you’ve had your little fantasy rant that’s utterly unrelated to anything I actually said in my post? I have to say the bit about running out of room for spent fuel rods is particularly ironic, since we could easily fit all of the existing spent fuel rods, not only from our nuclear power plants but also military applications, and all the rest of our existing high level waste, safely encased in dry casks, stored for future use if desired or retrieval for whatever reason, underground almost 1000 ft, and more than 1200 ft. above the water table, all on a tiny fraction of the edge of the Nevada Test Site (where much of our atomic testing was conducted, both above and below ground) effectively out in the middle nowhere in a massive desert. Pleanty of other locations could be suitable also, but that’s one we already know and have spent quite a bit of effort studying and developing.
So what would I ‘rather?’ Well, I prefer considering lifecycle cost/benefit and impact issues – ALL of the major issues, such as deaths involved in coal mining, atmospheric pollution and fly ash issues, drilling issues, people displaced and environment destroyed to make hydro reservoirs, deaths from dam bursts, and so on – and then going with the best option possible. As far as I’m concerned, CO2 shouldn’t be a factor included in the calculations, because at least so far it’s not been shown to be a real issue or problem with any solid scientific (not model ‘projections’) data. Now if you want to throw in CO2, that of course makes nuclear look all the better.
In other words, I prefer to have cheap, safe, abundant energy for everyone from technologies that we currently have (not pie in the sky ‘only with a bit more R&D we could…’ types) – and that means different types and mixtures of power plants according to the location, resources, technical abilities, and so on, that exist at each region. They all have advantages and disadvantages that have to be rationally, not emotionally, considered (which pretty much knocks out solar and wind for the vast majority of large scale power generation locations/needs). Nuclear is a good fit in some places, competitive in others, and over priced compared to other options in some cases. There’s no question that in 50+ years of use for commercial power, it has caused far less death and injury than the other alternatives. Pointing out flaws in your claims and logic regarding nuclear power doesn’t mean anything else, let alone the disingenuous hyperbole you launched into.
reply to: Matthew says: October 3, 2011 at 1:00 am
First, water vapor is a greenhouse gas – present in massive amounts compared to the trace gas CO2 and swamping any postulated GHG effect of CO2. Simple fact. Second, something you breath out in every breath, and plants survive on and use to create the very oxygen we survive on, isn’t a pollutant. Catagorizing it as such is just grossly dumbing down or Owellianizing the language (to make up a word of my own, but the meaning ought to be crystal clear to pretty much anyone).
ferd berple says: October 2, 2011 at 10:58 am
Nope, the great centre and north of Australia, where the once fine but now extinct pioneers of olde will forever be watching over these new merchants, these new merchants will be exchanging the new blow in the wind crwedits of carbon. Or is that carbon dioxide? That exchange in the form of; replanting as credit for the real work of productive mining and industry, $ for education and training the state was meant to deliver to improve human capital is now debt on the cash register of guilt… kerching goes the cash register keys. And the debt of [ill]health, mostly what was, as education was meant to be, the responsibility of the parent(s) to pursue has become the new credit to be exchanged. And so Australians have to pay for this grand experiment in lost development, gross human waste and death.
Some day Aussies will wake up and really feel, I mean really feel the deceit, the 40 years, that is 40 years of kids who died the most atrocious deaths imaginable. Kids who lived shocking lives of deprivation and loneliness for the benefit of southerners want for art and culture, for schemers and their grand plans of communal lands: that they were pieces of child and teen flesh, sold off, by means foul and never fair, as sacrifice for this great venture. Tax premised on air and a history which calculated bargaining of human child horror is never easy for some in our nation.
ferd berple says: October 2, 2011 at 10:49 am
Matthew says:October 2, 2011 at 10:09 am
Visit a slum in Delhi and see if you’re still willing to stand by that…
________________
Slums existed long before industrialization. Centuries before. To date two solutions have been found to get rid of slums:
1. The Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot/ solution – get rid of the people
2. Industrialization.and mass production using low cost energy.
Matthew…….you lived in a slum and DIDN’T MENTION THE caste system? What type of anthropologist are you?
“The demand for sons among wealthy parents is being satisfied by the medical community through the provision of illegal services of fetal sex-determination and sex-selective abortions,” SV Subramanian from the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in an accompanying commentary.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/millions-of-indian-baby-girls-aborted/story-e6frg6so-1226062269164
“The financial incentive for physicians to undertake this illegal activity seems to be far greater than the penalties associated with breaking the law,” S.V. Subramanian of the Harvard School of Public Health said in a commentary, also in The Lancet.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/millions-of-girls-aborted-in-india-study/story-fn3dxity-1226062115737
Tea Party (actually TEA Party), Taxed Enough Already, are all about fiscal responsibility, limited government and Constitutionalism. We definitely contain lots of conservative folks, and many republicans, democrats, libertarians and indies too. The first words out of your mouth betray your utter lack of comprehension of this loosley-knit, decentralized broad-based return to Constitutionality. Matthew, freedom and the Constitution is your enemy, you simply lack the courage to state this outright, so I said it for you.
Although you are a lost cause, I will state this for the record anyway. Legislating light bulbs is about the most insane and harmful idea to scientific advancement imaginable. All it would result in is thwarting further evolution and refinement of light sources, freezing the technology into the current, very young state of LED development. The best thing that could happen to LED (and CFL) development, and for lighting and heating sources as a whole, is for there to be lots of competition. Your boneheaded idea of picking one now is the worst possible outcome, it gives a monopoly to immature technologies and opens the door to yet another wave of crony favoritism to the manufacturers positioned to replace that ‘horrific’ Edison bulb.
The much-derided ‘wasted’ heat thrown off by incandescent lights is often NOT wasted at all! There are many situations when the efficiency of an incandescent bulb approaches 100%, for example in lights that are at lower height levels like lamps where the heat warms the air and rises. This efficiency is obviously less for lights up in the ceiling, and all the heat is wasted when the lights are outdoors (although small animals and insects may debate this). It is in this situation the incandescent bulb actually exceeds the efficiency of an LED because *all* of the light and *all* of the heat is put to use, 100% of the cost is well spent. The LED is less useful because it’s wasted heat is sinked away (as it always is because it is necessary by design) and never gets used to heat the room space.
So, replace the Edisons with LEDs and guess what, you run to crank up the thermostat to nudge the perceived room temperature up, causing a cascade of inefficiency because the oil or electric heat will not only warm that specific space, but most of the entire house! Incandescents are great space heaters because we place them where we actually are. Placing incandescents where the people live and where heat is useful is the logical idea, and this cannot be legislated. People can choose of their own volition to use LED in summer and incandescents in winter for efficiency, or not. Yeah Matthew, those TEA partiers are just horrible blocking the totalitarianism that fools like you would invite in the door.
Moreover, the quest for 100% efficiency is where your problem lies. Were this actually important to you leftists, all optional recreational lighting and heating would be banned long before we encroach on the private property of the citizenry by allowing government into their bedrooms to select their light bulbs. For example, NYC and Las Vegas and Los Angeles are covered in outdoor decorative lights, not one of which is ‘necessary’. Everywhere there is electricity and human beings will contain huge amounts of optional, decorative, inefficient and unnecessary waste of light and heat. Why would you start in our homes? We know where you’re coming from though, get this stupid draconian law in place and then with the precedent they can go after Christmas lights and many other inefficient scapegoats.
You know Matthew, there is nothing stopping you from going Amish, or joining a commune. So why are you still here? And why are you wasting energy right now using a non-essential recreational device, the computer and internet? Have you no shame?
Clearly you were assimilated. Resistance was futile.
All modern Presidents end up living in a bubble controlled by those who surround them.
The most consequential thing any President does at the beginning of his term is to pick his advisers.
This President has selected a group of advisers who have no experience in actually running anything larger than a lab or bank branch.
Most of them have been either political activists working academia or political activists working as ‘community organizers’.
Or else they have simply been political animals completely.
When the advice is bad enough, a President can be in effect living in a fantasy world not connected to reality.
When it comes to environmental energy and climate issues, this President is far removed from reality.
He is carefully surrounded by people who have no actual understanding of how energy is produced or its impacts on the environment or climate.
The conversation this thread is based on demonstrates this really well.
Roger Sowell
Building Nuclear power where there is a very high risk of earthquakes would a priori make the costs of nuclear power in California much higher than anywhere else. Using air cooled towers in Nevada and transmission lines would probably be less expensive – Oh I forget – “green” Californians do not want to spoil the view even for “green” power – – GREEN californians would rather pay two to three times as much for power. C’est la vie!
Now in the rational world, nuclear was premised on being able to reprocess the “spent” fuel as in France, or at least bury it as in Yucca mountain. Even better is to further react the residual uranium to more power. See TerraPower
Instead, alas and alack, we have the “green” movement with their ever friendly NIMBY lawyers preventing both. Consequently utilities are forced to keep the “spent” rods in glorified swimming pools near populations. Consequently a major portion of the Japan nuclear problem was from cracks in the cooling pools from the earthquake, and loosing cooling water.
However, our major challenge is NOT electricity but growing shortages of fuel. So lets focus back on how to deal with this looming fuel shortage. Even if we don’t use the term “P . . . O . . .” to save your children from nightmares, adults still need to address this very serious impending and strongly increasing issue. See summary references: Oil Supply Crunch: 2011-2015
Lloyds of London is warning of global shortages in the 2012 to 2015 time frame. See: Lloyd’s and Chatham House report “Sustainable energy security: strategic risks and opportunities for business”.
So despite the wailings of the faint at heart, when Lloyd’s issues such a serious warning of major business risks ahead, conservative business leaders should take notice.
Everyone here who is ridiculing the idea of “equivalent to 130 MPG,” and those fewer who are approving it, seems to be missing the clear, likely possibility that Chu was using the EPA definition of MPG equivalence, which ignores “upstream” costs, such as the energy used to generate the electricity that charges the battery. EPA “MPG equivalence” is basically a measure of miles driven per unit of energy.
It’s a good question whether Obama knew that’s what Chu was using. If he did, his remark to Hamm was the next best thing to a non sequitur. And it’s a good question why physics Nobelist Chu would be using the EPA definition. 🙂
But I say that WUWT-ers ought to do less assuming, and more homework. Why not first assume that Obama was talking about something that might be true?
[snip. Enough with the political rants. They are becoming too frequent in your posts. And don’t bother arguing, your rant is gone. ~dbs, mod.]
Rational Debate says:
October 3, 2011 at 3:41 am
*****
This barely merits a response, but here goes:
By that logic, everything’s that produced naturally is alright, i.e. not a pollutant. Fecal matter is natural, but it’s a pollutant when it’s in your drinking water. SO2 is emitted naturally by volcanoes, but it makes acid rain the same way as SO2 emitted from coal-fired energy plants, ergo, POLLUTION. Cows give off a lot of methane, which has one of the highest radiative forcing rates. Again, pollution. The earth can handle a certain amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and obviously it’s necessary to sustain life on Earth, but we’re exceeding the natural capacity that can be absorbed by various natural processes, and to argue differently is to ignore some pretty clear science.