Guest post by Ric Werme
One minor sign of fall where I live is the arrival of a letter from the gas utility announcing the “Fixed Price Option (FPO) lock-in price” for the winter season. FPO offers a price which people can accept and can plan on heating expenses for the winter. I haven’t taken advantage of it, I think only once in the last decade it would have saved money. However, it does make a decent estimate of the winter natural gas price.
For some reason or other, I’ve been tracking this along with monthly natural gas and electricity billing. At the very least, it gives me some sense of what’s happening in the industry without paying much attention.
Over the last six years, the FPO prices in US dollars per therm(*) were:
Year "FPO" price 2007 $0.8925 2008 $1.2043 2009 $1.2835 2010 $0.8420 2011 $0.8126 2012 $0.6919
This is stunning – in three years the price of natural gas has fallen 46% – nearly half. This isn’t the whole cost to me. Bills include delivery charges which include a fixed rate per day, different tiers for the first several therms, and a lower rate for the rest, and some “Distribution Adjustment” that is per therm and could be folded into the other rates.
National prices from the U.S. Energy Information Administration:
(*): A therm is a silly unit – 100,000 BTU. A BTU, you may recall, is the heat needed to raise one pound of water 1°F. A gallon of heating oil is 1.39 therms. A therm is about 100 cubic feet of gas, so dividing the EIA prices by 10 will be close to the per therm price.
All in all, it looks like I’ll be paying the equivalent of less that $1.50 per gallon of home heating oil, and that is currently selling for $3.60 per gallon. I can afford a cold winter if that’s what we get.
But wait, there’s more! This letter proved to be a springboard that sent me off to bigger things.
Cheap energy powers economies. Natural gas is more than just energy, it’s also a feedstock to all sorts of important chemical production, from nitrogen fertilizer to plastics. Pierre Gosselin has a couple relevant posts at his No Tricks Zone. 500,000 New US Jobs By 2025 Thanks To Affordable Shale Gas – US Gas 75% Cheaper Than In Europe notes some of the industries moving back to the US or starting from scratch thanks to cheap natural gas. It’s quite a counterpoint to his lament about companies leaving Germany and that Chemicals Industry Bosses And Labor Union Send Angela Merkel Warning Letter Over Skyrocketing Energy Prices.
Good manufacturing jobs naturally based in America. Maybe there’s hope for the middle class after all.
But wait, there’s more….
While it’s nice to be getting a good energy break, I’m amazed that there’s talk about hybrid cars, cars running on waste fry oil, all-electric cars, but there’s only one car available in the US market that runs on natural gas. Someone has to be looking for a way to get rid of all this excess gas (at a profit) and someone has to be looking for cheap energy.
People are looking, of course. I’ve heard a couple notes about exporting liquified natural gas (LNG). Five years years ago you would have been laughed off the web for suggesting such a thing, but people who can make it happen are talking this year and Asian countries, currently paying wholesale prices 4-5X US wholesale prices, are interested.
Cheniere’s Chance To Profit From Cheap Natural Gas says in part:
Many state lawmakers are pressing the Obama administration to allow more natural gas to be liquified and shipped overseas. According to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the administration is hesitant to allow more natural gas to be exported to foreign countries, like China, because they do not want to be responsible for higher prices at home. I’m sure that they are far more concerned about the Romney campaign distorting a decision to export more fossil fuels as an act of treason. I’m sure that soon after elections, exports of natural gas will be allowed to rise.
A LNG facility in Louisana has been approved, and there’s even a specific plan for a site in Oregon:
Developers Seek Liquid Natural Gas Exportation Through Oregon says in part:
Veresen Inc., a Canadian-based utility and natural gas, is currently proposing the construction of a liquid natural gas (LNG) export plant on Oregon’s West Coast. The project would include an updated LNG pipeline system, which would pipe gas into the plant for exportation to Asian markets.
The project is currently in the proposal phase. Veresen Inc.’s $5.4 billion project includes a facility near Coos Bay, Ore., that would liquefy domestic natural gas from a planed pipeline to be shipped via transport vessels overseas to China and India. The facility would be the West Coast’s first LNG export plant and would process about 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
Commodities exportation through the Pacific Northwest is nothing new. Coal exportation has been a consistent economic trend since foreign demand greatly increased over the last decade.
LGN [sic] developers as well as their partners and shareholders hope that exporting natural gas overseas will be just as profitable. Currently, Asian markets are demanding natural gas at four times the cost compared to its domestic price tag.
But wait, there’s more….
Another market for LNG is domestic trucking!
Less costly over long haul discusses CNG (compressed natural gas) fueling stations then looks at the nascent LNG infrastructure and trucks:
Clean Energy is spending $225 million to complete 70 stations by the end of this year and another 80 next year, all of them spaced along long-haul truck routes to create a truly viable natural gas support network, Clean Energy’s Feighner said.
Its “America’s Natural Gas Highway” plan to develop the stations came about as Clean Energy executives realized there was serious appetite among the country’s biggest fuel users for natural gas and the savings it could provide them, he said.
But the real game-changer for natural gas trucking has come in Clean Energy’s approach to delivering the gas in a specific form: As liquefied natural gas, or LNG, as opposed to compressed natural gas, or CNG, Feigner said.
LNG trucks are about the same weight as diesel trucks, while CNG tanks can be much heavier and take up more space to offer the same travel range, cutting into the space on the truck for paying freight.
LNG pumps can fill tanks about as fast as diesel pumps can, whereas CNG, which is used in cars and regional fleets, take much longer.
And LNG truck fueling stations cost less than half as much as CNG stations, according to Clean Energy. A four-pump LNG station costs $2 million, whereas a CNG station of the same size would cost $5 million.
The Clean Energy and Shell truck stations will offer LNG pumps. Shell plans to open its first LNG fuel lanes next year.
But wait, there’s more….
The horizontal drilling and fracking that has made this possible is being applied to new and old oil fields. This is opening up places like the Bakken deposit in the Dakotas, but infrastructure for refining and transporting is holding that back at present. Other fields will be coming into play, for example the Eagle Ford Shale in the Western Texas Basin which is close to existing infrastructure.
A “discussion paper” (they want the full cite: Maugeri, Leonardo. Oil: The Next Revolution Discussion Paper 2012-10, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, June 2012) reports in a fragment of its 86 pages:
The Eagle Ford Shale in the Western Texas Basin, another tight oil play that stretches more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from the Mexico border south of San Antonio to northeast of Austin. The first horizontal drilling on Eagle Ford shale was done in 2007, but commercial evidence came out only in October 2008, when Petrohawk, an American exploration and production company, was drilling in the midst of the global financial crisis and falling oil prices. Consequently, there was little action until 2010, when new discoveries and unexpected recovery rates similar to those in the Bakken finally attracted an eager crowd of oil and gas independent companies. Activity in the field has even surpassed Bakken;
The low cost and short time for transportation to the Gulf Coast refining complex will likely make Eagle Ford’s shale oil the most competitive American shale oil. What’s more, Eagle Ford tight oil production results to be cheaper than Bakken’s, being profitable at oil prices ranging between $50 and $65 per barrel.
The paper notes that current oil prices are much higher today in part because people aren’t seeing what’s just over the horizon. As infrastructure and production ramps up prices will come down and and I think ultimately stabilize.
And that’s all I have. If you have time, read that discussion paper. There are a number of things that seem to be a bit of a reach, but there’s also a lot of good information collected in one place.
Nigel Harris
Yes, my mistake, it was LPG, not methane. I wasn’t paying attention. Embarrassing for a chemist.
mikerossander says:
October 3, 2012 at 1:25 pm
================
I understand the accounting of it but from the article, it sounds like they have the physical gas.
Even if it is an acounting move, is it good busines to have an asset on the books like that for 60 years that won’t apreciate??
And there’s more…..
Rather than convert millions of engines to run on LNG/CNG/LPG/etc, it may be better to come at the issue from the other direction.
Natural gas can be converted into Diesel and Kerosene fuels by well-known and proven processes. Shell built a colossal plant in Quatar – the “Pearl project” – which has been a huge commercial success. Here in the UK the fuel it produces is sold as “V-Max” diesel.
I believe another similar project is being planned for the US.
Ric Werme, thoroughly enjoyed that article. Thanks to you and Pierre Gosselin for your efforts.
Amazingly I looked at this exact same thing today. I work in the flat glass industry and our furnaces use natural gas. A WHOLE LOT of natural gas, so we are very conscious of the price of natural gas. 2008, we had to shut one of our furnaces off. The price of gas was an all-time high, and that cost just made our product too expensive. Now, gas is back down, WAY down, and our cost to produce is much lower. We can be more competetive with exports again. And we are restarting that furnace we shut down in 2008….
My question is probably one more for the lawyers, but why on earth has the president been given the power to decide how much natural gas can be liquified?
Aside from the billions, probably hundreds of billions, of dollars of benefit to NG consumers from the dramatic decline in nat gas prices ( the price has rebounded recently, but is still at a fraction of what it was less than a decade ago and the bounce may be somewhat of a good thing because prices had declined enough to make new drilling uneconomical) there has also been another, perhaps even more significant, benefit from the innovations in the oil and gas business.
http://tinyurl.com/8jtnyto
America’s booming energy industry has emerged as the no. 1 job-creating sector of the U.S. economy
Mark J. Perry | October 1, 2012, 5:00 pm
“Overall job growth in the U.S. has been stubbornly sluggish over the last few years, and total payroll employment in August of this year was still almost five million jobs, and 3.4%, below the peak level of payroll jobs at the beginning of 2008 (see chart above). Meanwhile, there’s one sector of the economy that is booming like never before, and creating jobs at a record pace – America’s thriving energy industry, especially the recently emerging shale oil and gas business. Just the direct jobs for oil and gas drilling activities have increased by more than 27% since early 2008 to a level in August of this year that was the highest monthly total since late 1987, almost 25 years ago (see chart above).”
Aside from the direct jobs in the industry there are numerous examples like the following
http://tinyurl.com/d4x3s6f
Sand mining frenzy and controversy hits small Minnesota town where farmers can become ‘sand millionaires’
Mark J. Perry | September 30, 2012, 10:52 am
Last July, I wrote about how a new sand boom in Wisconsin and Minnesota (America’s “sandbox”) is creating prosperity, shovel-ready jobs, and “sand millionaires,” but is also generating lots of controversy and community resistance to “frac sand.”
The sand boom and controversy is now moving to the small town of Saint Charles in southeastern Minnesota, where according to today’s StarTribune “Local investors have floated a $55 million to $70 million proposal — as large as any in the country — to build an industrial processing plant and rail depot that would convert St. Charles into a regional hub for the nation’s burgeoning frac sand industry and open southeastern Minnesota to what could be a sand mining frenzy.”
Here’s an excerpt from the article “Small town ponders future as sand mining takes off“:
Wisconsin and Minnesota contain vast holdings of the world’s most sought-after frac sand — the spherical, high-strength Northern White Sand that oil and gas drilling companies use in the process known as hydro-fracking.
Both states have so-called “legacy” producers who have supplied the ancient quartz to energy companies for generations. The industry was bumping along quietly until just a few years ago, when hydraulic drilling activity exploded in a rush to extract domestic oil and natural gas from vast underground shale deposits in Pennsylvania, Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere.
Those operations have driven global demand for sand and other “proppants” from 6.5 million tons in 2009 to roughly 30 million tons this year. In that time, Wisconsin counties approved more than 75 new mines and related facilities, while the number in Minnesota remains at less fewer than 10, including a mine in Woodbury.
Some crude economics help explain the industry’s force.
For the average farmer in either state who happens to sit on high-grade sand close to a processing plant, payments of $1 to $3 per ton for excavated material can reasonably add up to $200,000 to $800,000 per year in extra income.”
I can attest to this one as it is occurring all around the town where I have spent almost all of my life. The president likes to brag about the millions of private sector jobs that have been created during his reign, which are still significantly below what is needed just to keep up with population growth in the US job market, but the biggest producer of those new private sector jobs has accomplished the task despite being fought tooth and nail at every step by the Bamster and his minions. As has been pointed out above, production from federal lease properties is at a multi-decade low. If the President and the Dems had had their way, none of this, or at least much less of it, would ever have occurred
Henry@ferdinand meeus Engelbeen
If I were you and living below sea level, as many people in Holland do, I would be severely worried about flooding. Going by my graph I predict that a similar situation that occurred in 1953 is most likely to happen again around 2040. OTOH you also sit with the rivers flooding there, which could happen anytime in spring/summer. Remember I predict the bulk of the cooling to be happening in the following 4 or 5 years. That means lots of ice and snow on the Alps…that melt in summer…..
I would not feel save living there near Borsselen. But I am glad you will fix the problem of that plant and make it flood proof for a “little” bit of money.
We never even discussed the problem of the waste which is an entire different story altogether -the nuclear waste will be a curse for generations to come.
Coal also has its problems, so let us stay and stick with the gas, shall we?
I am glad we are all agreed on that.
Fracking for gas is great and creates lots of jobs.
Boy, when operators begin poking holes in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin’s two powerhouses, the Base Fish Scales and Second White Specks shales, look out for the fuel glut.
Henry P says:
“I was only talking about 300 KeithAb says 31 RHS says 4000 shall we say it was just 1 and that was 1 too many because that person could have been you? no more nuclear energy please…”
I was going to let this remark pass, but then decided I’m tired (very tired) of these emotion-based pleas influencing far too important decisions for humanity. If one human death from a nuclear incident is too many for someone, then they had better be (at the very least) an equally vocal advocate for banning motorized vehicle from public roads. Why? They are known killing machines. In the US alone, more than 32,800 people (far more than the bemoaned one you lament) were killed in accidents involving vehicles on a public roads in 2010 (the last year compiled data can be queried) – http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx .
Compare these 2010 traffic fatalities with a rate of 1.11 deaths per million miles travels to the 2011 nuclear fatalities with a rate of 0.04 deaths per Terra Watt hour (TWh) – a terrawatt is 1,000 billion, and it’s a wonder ANYONE gets in their car to drive in America – http://tinyurl.com/6aqyuhz (link to IBM Research data set on deaths per TWh by energy source). But, I suspect those denouncing nuclear power generation willingly either drive or are a passenger in a car or bus many times throughout a given year.
Clearly, there is a logical disconnect here.
My only question to these people then is, “Why travel in a car, given the apparent risk of injury or death?” The likelihood of death by motorized vehicle is far greater than the likelihood of death by nuclear accident (+2,775% greater). And yet some of these people parrot Greenpeace with the cliché “No Nukes”.
While I’ll forever be curious as to their response to the question, I suspect their reasoning lies in humanity’s monkey brain. We are an emotional species first and rational second; yet, it’s the rational that has permitted us to progress (incredibly so) to our current technological level – and advance before all other known species. The fear-laden messaging associated with a nuclear incident, which has been one of Greenpeace’s money making products over the past several decades, registers with the limbic system before (i.e., subconsciously) the cerebral cortex can process and resolve the emotion. Once it’s processed consciously, though, and the risk is realized not to be all that great – especially compared to other risks, cognitive dissonance manifests – the feeling of discomfort that results from having two conflicting beliefs at the same time. I am fearful of a nuclear incident (which means I should run), but the likelihood of being injured or killed by a nuclear incident is infinitesimally small (which means I can stay).
What does the brain do to resolve the discomfort – subconsciously at first? It rationalizes why you should follow the emotion of the monkey brain (our brains evolved and are prioritized from the bottom up – lizard, monkey, executive and not top down), “I have to get around as I go about my business; so, I need a car or bus for travel. But I don’t need electricity from nuclear power because there are other fuel sources for power generation.” Discomfort resolved – and with rational thought, too. Yay, me! As an added bonus, your brain rewards this rationalization by giving itself a shot of dopamine, “Right on. No nukes is the way to go. Life is good. I am so smart.”
The troubling concern here, is that the person fails to control the monkey brain through use of the rational executive function. Had they taken the time to fully and consciously process the emotion, they would have realized that humanity vis-à-vis the utilities needs multiple fuel forms to ensure a reliable power capacity (unless they’re okay with rolling brown outs and outright black outs like those in many developing countries). A determining rational here is that the death rate from a nuclear incident is the smallest of all fuel types. So… D’oh, yes nukes!
But this isn’t the conclusion for those that permit their rationalized emotions to trump reasoned thought. This is similar to the climate scientists and other experts that firmly believe AGW is not only harmful for the planet but downright catastrophic – even though no empirical data support that fear (although they twist the data to verify their fear because their brains mandate they must). These professionals use a more sophisticated rationalization to validate their emotion (via their education, credentials, and publications), but once the discomfort is resolved, their brain does what it has evolved to do – rewards itself with a shot of dopamine that permits them to think, “I am saving the planet AND I am so smart. Yay, me.” Thus, a Michael E. Mann is born…
Henry@Tom
You are right that the chance of being in an accident in your car is bigger.
However, summarized, the whole problem is exactly as what it is now in Fukushima. Thousands of people are claiming money from the utility to pay for the loss of their homes and income (no agriculture anymore possible in that area). The claims are so big that they cannot pay for it. Ukraine cannot pay for re-encapsulation of Chernobyl. They have asked the AEC for help.
It (nuclear energy) becomes a financial risk that just gets too big. Note also my previous comment about there not being a proper resolve about the waste.
When God (from a distance) plays around with nuclear explosions (cataclysmic evolution) we get a whole new brand of species. When man drops a few atomic bombs on Japan we have generations of misformed babies….
….no more nuclear energy please…
Matthew W asks “…is it good busines to have an asset on the books like that for 60 years that won’t appreciate?”
Well, it depends on what business decisions you are trying to make using that information. If you want to use you inventory valuation as a proxy for how much insurance you need on the assets, then no, LIFO is the wrong calculation to use. Recalculating inventory to market price is the theoretical ideal for lots of business decisions but when you’re talking about industrial goods, who gets to decide what market price to use? There’s too much potential for gamesmanship. And since that gamesmanship can affect taxation, local regulators tend to take a dim view of recalculating to market (which is what your appreciation comment implies). Actual price paid whether FIFO or LIFO has its failings but the source of the number is undeniable and easy to audit. Just look at the old invoice from your supplier.
Revaluing to market also adds a lot of administrative costs to your accounting process – and accounting is all overhead so you shouldn’t increase those costs unless you have a good reason.
Yes, having inventory valuations on the books from 60 years ago introduces distortion into some business decisions and is less than ideal. But so are all the alternatives. Whether you choose FIFO, LIFO or some other accounting algorithm, it’s an accounting compromise. (As a side note, 60 years is not at all unusual. I work for a company that has some inventory valuations still on the books dating back to the 1850s.)
Just saw a new (to me anyway) report-
“Brattle Report Projects Doubled Coal Retirement Estimates Ascribed to Low Gas Prices”
http://www.powermag.com/POWERnews/5036.html?hq_e=el&hq_m=2535577&hq_l=4&hq_v=bb09315ba5
“An update to a 2010 analysis on the market and regulatory outlook facing coal-fired power plants in the U.S. from economists at The Brattle Group forsees that 59 GW to 77 GW of coal plant capacity are likely to retire over the next five years—about 25 GW more than previously estimated—due primarily to lower expected natural gas prices.
The report titled “Potential Coal Plant Retirements: 2012 Update” notes that as of July 2012, about 30 GW (or 10% of total coal capacity) had already announced plans to retire by 2016. The report’s new estimates take into account how the decrease in spot and forward gas prices, combined with low demand for power, have reduced projected energy margins and costs of replacement power.”………
Henry P says:
“Thousands of people are claiming money from the utility to pay for the loss of their homes and income (no agriculture anymore possible in that area)… Ukraine cannot pay for re-encapsulation of Chernobyl.”
Once again, this is the monkey brain ruling the executive function. So, the fear isn’t from death but rather the financial ruin of private utilities and/or associated government due to a nuclear incident…? The financial issues are entirely manmade and will be addressed in one form or another with a manmade solution – history bears witness to that. And even WITH the cost of such nuclear incidents AND the waste concerns, the price for nuclear power generation is STILL the second cheapest (behind hydro) of all power generation sources at $0.02398/KWh (2010 pricing data)- http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/table8.2.cfm .
With respect to Chernobyl, a consortium funded by 21 nations was established in the late 1990s to ensure the successful closure and containment of Chernobyl. This project employed the use of EKOR foam to seal the radiation within the old sarcophagus composed of steel and concrete – http://www.power-technology.com/projects/chernobyl/ . Work commenced earlier this year on the new, steel sarcophagus, with the Ukraine contributed the largest amount to the decommissioning fund – http://pik.tv/en/news/story/35743-ukraine-begins-building-new-chernobyl-sarcophagus . As stated previously, fear of financial ruin of the private utilities (or even the Ukrainian government) is a rationalized emotion that is not supported by empirical evidence.
“It (nuclear energy) becomes a financial risk that just gets too big.”
The historical financial data on nuclear power generation does not support your assertion of “too big” a financial risk – period – http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html . Since 2009, American taxpayers have paid $1,432 Billion for the bankruptcies of a number of green-related projects (FactCheck.org is way off on their limited number of failed projects) – http://tinyurl.com/8tmh889 (link to Townhall Finance article from September 2012). Now, this is a REALIZED financial risk that is far more tangible than a possible financial risk. And anything over a billion dollars (even in today’s trillion dollar deficits) is ridiculously big.
“When man drops a few atomic bombs on Japan we have generations of misformed babies….”
Once again, the monkey brain and its desire to embrace the fear win with a statement such as this one – so much for letting the executive function control the more base emotions. Please note that (1) they were a couple (i.e., two) bombs dropped on Japan and not a few (i.e., at least three) and (2) no evidence (through December 2010) exists to support even one (let alone generations) “misformed” was born to survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki aftermaths. In the words of the researchers of a study which began in 1947, “So far, no evidence of inherited genetic effects has been found,” – http://insightsdels.nas.edu/?p=13 .
It truly is amazing how much the monkey brain will try to overwhelm the executive function in an effort to retain control of our decision-making process. With this, Henry P, I think we’re done in that you will assert once again the no nuke pledge because you must due to the executive function of your brain ceding control to the emotional – so be it for you.
Henry@Tom
your table only goes to 2010.
Since then gas has become cheaper : this is what this post is all about. That trend will continue as more sources for gas are opened up.
With the new safety regulations in force, the price of new nuclear plants will sky rocket.
That means that a new gas turbine plant will be only a fraction of what it will cost to build a nuclear plant that is flood proof and that can take earth quakes..
That will bring everything down to the simple arithmetic that will eventually show that nuclear is not the way to go, whether you like it or not.
I addition the burning of gas puts some carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is good for the biosphere. It stimulates more growth, like trees and crops and more such things that we desperately need on earth.
.like….near to the one nuclear plant we have here on the coast in South Africa all the marine life is gone…..disappeared….I wonder why?
So, let us rather not go nuclear and stick with the gas, shall we?
HenryP says:
October 4, 2012 at 10:50 pm
I’m getting tired of the claim you post without backing it up with credible references. Post one. One that explains why all the life is gone.
Two notes:
1) You’re trying to imply that nuclear energy have killed the wildlife. If there’s an impact, I suspect it would be from the plant’s cooling system. Natural gas plants have the same cooling needs. (Perhaps a bit less, as they may run hotter and hence have a higher thermodynamic efficinecy.) So, replace that one nuclear plant with a similar capacity gas plant and ocean life should still be “gone…..disappeared….”
2) In Florida, environmentalists get all bent out of shape when nuclear and other power plants are shutdown in the winter because the heat outflow is sometime very important to keeping manatees healthy. They’re very cold sensitive and have had some large die-offs in cold winters.
http://current.com/community/91886882_manatees-huddle-near-power-plant-during-fla-chill.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35079807/ns/us_news-environment/t/cold-kills-dozens-fla-manatees/
And, while I’m at it, I’ll do a little work for you – here’s what you could have posted about wildlife post-Chernobyl:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120411084107.htm
Or, more likely (note the expected 4,000 premature human death prospective estimate) you would have posted
[Oops – I accidentally duplicated the previous URL. I meant to refer to http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/04/pictures/110426-chernobyl-25th-anniversary-wildlife/ . – Ric]
Henry@Ric
I’m not sure where you are headed with this, but if you are pro-nuclear energy you should have posted something different.
I am sure that it is the cooling that caused the problem with the marine life, but should they not have taken this into consideration when they did their assessment studies? (as to what it would do to nature?)
They now want to repeat the same error here at other other side of South Africa where they want to put a 2nd nuclear plant near to the Indian ocean.
Are you beginning to get the picture now as to why I am anti-nuclear?
It has nothing to do with being a monkey, or having the mind of a monkey, that is for sure.
As to your trumped up “research” that nuclear accidents are “good” for life
I am sure I can find an equal amount of studies that prove the opposite:
http://eve.enviroweb.org/perspectives/issues/nuclear.html
HenryP says:
October 5, 2012 at 8:13 am (Edit)
Henry@Ric
> I’m not sure where you are headed with this, but if you are pro-nuclear energy you should have posted something different.
I posted exactly what I wanted.
Not at all. You seem to be saying it’s perfectly okay to “boil” marine life cooling gas or coal fired power plants, but it’s not okay to boil the same life cooling a nuclear plant. Your hatred of nuclear energy is blinding you from seeing that some other power sources have similar problems. Any large scale power source has major tradeoffs to consider.
You missed that point too. Given your assertion that all marine life near that nuclear plant has disappeared, and that you explicitly pointed out it was a nuclear plant, you implied that something about the nuclear energy was the cause. I tried to point out that even something as horrendous as the Chernobyl disaster hasn’t killed or chased away all the life around that plant, I hoped you would realize that perhaps it isn’t nuclear energy that’s responsible for the void you claim exists off South Africa.
The radioactive contamination around Chernobyl is not what’s good for wildlife. I thought it was obvious that the lack of humans there is beneficial.
This post and others have made the point that cheap energy correlates with a higher standard of living. Clearly there’s a responsibility to implement that with a low environmental impact and perhaps the designer of the nuclear plant could have placed the outfall further away from shore or whatever would work better.
What would you rather have there than the nuclear plant and the one to be built? Gas fired plants? Solar? Lower population? Subsistance farming? Self-sustaining communes? So far all you’ve done is criticize, do you have anything to promote?
Dear Ric
I made it clear that it is indeed the cooling that seemed to have caused the problem, which, in the case of nuclear reactions, might more easily go out of control (meaning much more cooling required)
as you, yourself, seem to admit;
basically you have not got a clue as to the problems of Chernobyl
where the government is ASKING FOR MILLIONS to re-encapsulate
\but nobody is reacting…
it is another disaster that is waiting to happen,
because you all seem to think it is not (so) serious…
as I said before…
get out of here….
[Sorry, this is my post, not yours. Go be rude on some other blog. Your welcome on this thread is over. -Ric]
We discuss Israel bombing Iran “civil” nuclear plants as we suspect WDM – again. However we are not talking about Iranian revenge – eg a possible tit for tat attack on Israeli nuclear sites like Dimona which unlike Iranian facilities is not underground and in zone full of jihadists willing to die for the cause unlike Iran.
The problem with nuclear is it comes with baggage; spooks, verification, spy satellites, anti-air missiles, and the occasional air raid. Gas does not.
For WDM read Weapon of Mass Destruction. The letters are round the other way in French.
mikerossander @ur momisugly October 3, 2012 at 1:25 pm
You are correct that the gas in a natural gas storage field becomes co-mingled over time. However, the key issue here is the nature of natural gas storage operations. When a storage field is commissioned, a volume of natural gas is added to the field to increase its minimum working pressure. This volume of gas is referred to as “cushion gas”; and, that volume of gas is not removed from the storage field as long as the field remains in service. Additional gas, referred to as “working gas”, is then stored in the field during periods of low demand, for delivery from the field during periods of peak demand. Therefore, in the case of working natural gas storage fields, the volume of gas which is “first in” is “never out”, even though the molecules co-mingle over time.
One story that is getting a fair amount of attention and misleading spin is about heating costs going up this winter by 10% (gas) and 15% (oil), e.g. http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/10/10/winter-heating-bills-higher-this-year/9uvzmsao2xoso81A7iDuHP/story.html and http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/1010/Staying-warm-could-be-a-bit-pricey-this-winter.-Is-anyone-to-blame
The radio stories I heard start out implying fuel costs are going up, but then note that last winter was warm and that’s the main effect, at least for gas users.
Gee, I had been hoping CSM would be a good replacement for most of the MSM. I’m not so sure now….
Ric,
The religions, no strangers to moral unicorns, belatedly recognized a new ride in CAGW.