Nuclear and Coal: The Energy 'Dream Team' for Years to Come 47 comments
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By Don Miller
President-elect Barack Obama has made no bones about wanting to jump-start the renewable energy markets – pledging $150 billion for the development of biofuels, solar and wind power, and other alternative energy sources during his first term.
But what might the new administration mean for more traditional – and more reliable – energy sources?
Oil is always the first energy source to spring to mind. But it’s hardly a solo act – coal and nuclear make up the other two-thirds of the top fuel trio. Coal delivers 50% of U.S. electricity needs, and nuclear power brings another 20% to the table.
The cold truth is that demand for energy of all types – and especially electricity – is going to keep advancing, domestically and worldwide. And developing alternatives to coal and nuclear will take time. For instance, tying wind and solar into the existing power grid will be enormously expensive and is likely to pose massive technical and engineering problems.
In fact, according to the International Energy Agency, renewable energy isn’t likely to make a meaningful dent in meeting the world’s energy needs before 2030, if then.
And regardless where the power comes from, our appetite for electricity will continue to skyrocket. Across the planet, overall electricity consumption is expected to double by 2030, increasing by 17 trillion kilowatt hours. While electricity demand will “only” increase by 50% in the U.S. market by 2030, demand will increase 400% in China and six-fold in India.
Our research indicates that President Obama will have very little flexibility in solving our short-term energy problems once he’s sworn into office next month. While he may prefer the environmentally friendly alternatives, most of those replacements are far from fully developed.
The bottom line: Obama’s apparent preference for renewable energy aside, coal and nuclear power are fully deployed, and in widespread use, meaning they’ll remain the backbone of our energy sector in the New Year – and for years to come.
Even so, it’s well worth factoring in all the possible players as we examine the energy-sector outlook – and the accompanying potential profit plays – for the next 12 months.
King Coal Reigns Supreme
When it comes to future energy profits for investors, coal and nuclear will continue to be the “dream team” for years to come. Coal will provide the answer to our short-term and intermediate energy needs. It’s plentiful, it’s cheaper than other available alternatives, and a big percentage of the world’s power plants burn it.
Nuclear power offers a long-term solution to energy shortages and a clean solution to global warming, as well. Uranium-fueled nuclear plants are cheap to operate, can run for long periods without refueling, and cause little pollution.
While there is widespread distaste for coal-fired power plants that spew billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air, there’s no doubt coal will continue to be the dominant player in the electricity game for some time to come.
A full 50% of the electricity U.S. consumers use is generated by coal, and coal is king in the rest of the world, as well. According to the IEA, coal accounted for 42% of all worldwide electricity consumption in 2005. But get this – the agency predicts coal use will explode by 73% over the next 20 years. That’s the largest projected percentage increase of all energy sources.
As you might suspect, China and India use 45% of world’s coal and will be responsible for 80% of that increase. China alone uses more coal than the United States, Japan and Europe combined. China is utterly dependent on coal to run its factories and assembly plants, with coal supplying 80% of its electricity. The Red Dragon is also the world’s top producer of steel, whose manufacture entails a process that’s also a big burner of coal.
But while China is coal’s largest consumer and producer, the United States controls 27% of the world’s proven reserves, the biggest-single percentage on the planet. That puts this country front and center on the worldwide coal stage, and President-elect Obama’s energy policy in the spotlight.
The president plays a pivotal role in shaping the nation’s energy policy, naming top officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Obama has proposed an economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. His system – which would set an overall emissions limit, then require polluters to buy allowances at public auction – would increase electricity rates and discourage coal consumption in the U.S. market. President-elect Obama even has stated that any utilities building coal-fired plants could go bankrupt buying pollution allowances.
And on Capitol Hill, newly emboldened Democrats recently tackled global warming and other environmental problems by choosing Sen. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to head the House of Representative’s Energy and Commerce panel. Waxman has already signed onto legislation that would ban any new coal-fired power plants that aren’t built using new technologies that capture carbon dioxide and store it underground, a key part of the Obama energy plan.
Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, said he believes Obama will be pragmatic about the need to keep coal in the nation’s energy mix. "He presumably would be sensitive to the impacts of energy policies given the perilous state of the economy," Popovich said.
But while U.S. utilities may eventually be forced to tighten emissions rules and increase rates, Obama’s renewable energy plans will have very little impact on U.S. coal producers in the near future. The world needs coal. We have it. And we’re going to sell it.
In the first half of 2008, U.S. coal exports increased by 13 million short tons, or 50%, over first-half 2007 shipments, according to the IEA. Strong global demand for coal, combined with supply disruptions in several key coal exporting countries (Australia, South Africa and China), were the primary factors behind the increase.
But lately, coal prices, along with the prices of other fossil fuels, have suffered from the global economic crisis, and from a resurgent U.S. dollar. An 80% decline in global shipping rates has also fostered competition from other exporters, like Australia, who can now ship farther and compete with U.S. exporters.
As a result, the price of Appalachian Coal on the New York Mercantile Exchange (CME) has fallen to less than $80 a ton from $143 in July.
This will have a negative impact on coal producers until the world economy is able to gather itself back up and build up a new head of steam.
But don’t expect the slump to last long. China’s economy is getting a shot in the arm from a gigantic $586 billion stimulus package, cementing growth expectations for 2009. Expect U.S.exports to accelerate when that kicks in, probably in the second half of 2009.
Since the stock market usually leads economic indicators by six-to-nine months, right now is a good time to be looking at candidates for your investing dollar. But you should be cautious about pulling the trigger. Watch construction activity in China – especially steel demand in the late spring – for the first signs of a rebound in coal prices.
When you think things are ready to take off, Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) and Arch Coal Inc. (ACI) – the largest U.S. producers – are worth a look. For those who like to play a basket of shares, the Market Vectors Coal exchange traded fund (KOL) provides the desired diversification. All three securities are trading at discounts of at least 80% from their July highs, and currently trade at bargain basement multiples.
If you want a coal play that bets directly on China, Money Morning Investment Director Keith Fitz-Gerald likes Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. Ltd. (YZC), one of China’s biggest coal suppliers. It produces lots of high-grade, low-sulfur coal, which burns cleaner and therefore fetches a premium price. The company boasts profit margins of 22%, when the industry averages half that. The company profits are up a blistering 364% in the year’s first three quarters, compared with a year ago. The stock trades at only three times earnings and has a dividend yield of 4.3%.
Nuclear Power: It Struggles in the U.S. but Thrives Abroad
Nuclear power is attractive to the energy industry because it produces electricity on a predictable, 24-hour basis – earning it the industry sobriquet of “base load” power. Coal and hydroelectric plants are the only other power sources that also rate that label. Such alternatives as wind, solar or biofuels do not.
During its term, the Bush administration tried to spark a “renaissance” in the construction of nuclear power plants. And during his presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain stood firmly behind the industry’s hopes of building 45 new reactors by 2030.
Interest in new types of reactors seemed to hint at least at the beginnings of a new start. But President-elect Obama has been lukewarm on nuclear. He acknowledges that nuclear is one of several viable components of the nation’s energy portfolio – the current 104-plant fleet provides 20% of America’s electricity – but has questioned its safety while emphasizing a need to diversify the nation’s energy mix with more wind, solar and other renewable sources.
"That’s sort of like my wife saying she’d support divorce under certain situations," says William Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president of environment, technology, and public affairs.
In fact, the Barack Obama/Joe Biden New Energy for America Plan, while recognizing that nukes provide 70% of our non-carbon-generated electricity, says that “before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage and proliferation.” It goes on to say that the team of President-elect Obama and incoming Vice President Joe Biden “do not believe that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site as a long-term repository for spent nuclear" designed for long-term storage. In any case, the earliest the storage site could open would be 2017, and that was before Republicans lost control of the Senate.
With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., firmly opposed to nuclear waste storage in his home state – and with the Obama administration ready to hold the industry’s feet to the regulatory fire – any plans to expand the nuclear industry in the United States now face a high hurdle.
But nuclear proponents are hardly impotent. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s most powerful lobbying group, helped craft the Energy Policy Act of 2005 with more than $12 billion in subsidies for nukes.
Maintaining nuclear energy’s current 20% share of generation would require building three reactors every two years starting in 2016, based on U.S. Department of Energy forecasts. Right now, some 17 companies and consortia are pursuing licenses for more than 30 nuclear power plants with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But the last operating license for a nuclear plant in the United States was issued in 1978, and the approval process takes a minimum of 24 months after site approval, which can take years. Expect lots of public comment and infighting in Washington, as applications wind their way through the approval process at the NRC.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is racing ahead with plans to up the ante in the nuclear power game. There are currently 440 nuclear reactors in 31 countries that generate about 16% of the world’s electricity.
Uranium-fueled nuclear energy is rapidly gaining global acceptance as a clean, reliable alternative to such dirty-burning fossil fuels as coal and oil. In a twin bid to combat global warming and keep up with soaring demand for electricity, countries are rushing to build nuclear power plants. Under current projections, 630 reactors will be operating in 55 countries by 2030.
It’s the new technologies those reactors are designed around that are aimed at allaying the public’s perception about the safety of nuclear power. Toshiba Plant & System Services, which has built 112 plants in the past 12 years (more than any other company), is working on a “mininuke,” according to Forbes magazine. Called the “4S” (short for Super-Safe, Small and Simple), it uses a bath of molten sodium to produce steam twice as hot as steam from water-cooled reactors. The 4S can crank out as much as 50 megawatts of power, easily enough to fire up a small factory, or to service an entire town that’s located off the main power grid.
On top of that, the mininuke can go 30 years without refueling, as opposed to typical reactors, which must be fed every 18 months. And the 4S will be safer, because the reactor core is deep underground, well protected against a terrorist attack or earthquakes.
China and South Africa are working on so-called “pebble-bed reactors,” one version of which is filled with 100,000 billiard-ball-sized spheres of coated uranium that are cooled by helium. That eliminates the need for enormous pressurized water-cooling systems and million-dollar containment domes, making them virtually meltdown-proof.
U.S. firms are also on the trail of smaller and safer designs. A Santa Fe, NM company called Hyperion Power Generation Inc., is working on a hot-tub sized design, which eliminates the need for the notoriously unstable uranium control rods. U.S. giant General Electric Co. (GE) is working on new, more efficient designs, as well.
No matter how you slice it, the fuel for the reactors in those plants all depends on a scarce commodity – uranium. Flat out, there’s just not enough “yellow cake” to go around. It takes seven to 10 years to transform a uranium discovery into a fully operational mine. With that kind of lag time, it’s clearly almost impossible for supply to keep up with demand.
Until recently, the market reflected the scarcity, rising as high as $137 a pound in 2007. But lately, despite the global shortages, uranium prices – in sympathy with other commodity prices – have nosedived.
Prices have fallen 40% this year, leading to a sharp decline in the share prices of mining companies, and eviscerating the financing for extraction projects. In the last month alone, six uranium mines in western Colorado and Utah were either put on hold or closed.
Some experts lay the blame for this current credit squeeze squarely at the feet of hedge funds – whom they blame for buying up uranium – and banks no longer willing to lend money.
“Hedge funds were selling off their uranium to raise cash, and the prices just plunged,” said George E.L. Glasier, chief executive officer of Energy Fuels Inc., a Canadian junior miner that recently put a Colorado mine project on hold as part of a “capital preservation” strategy brought on by the credit crunch.
Uranium prices fell to $75 early this year, and fell as low as $44 this fall. The spot price now is $55.
With the worldwide growth in the industry – and a classic supply/demand imbalance in the making – someone is eventually going to have to pay the price. History shows when uranium prices move higher, uranium stocks almost always hitch a ride North. So when uranium prices advance – most likely to new highs – expect mining stocks to rise in virtual lock step.
But notwithstanding global growth – for now, at least – Obama’s energy plan and the mothballing of mines makes any uranium play a long-term proposition.
Besides Toshiba (TOSBF.PK), the stocks to consider include Cameco Corp. (CCJ), the largest U.S. producer; and General Electric, which has a presence in the commercial nuclear power market here and overseas. Also, take a look at Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), huge international mining firms with large uranium deposits. Each of these firms would stand to reap substantial profits from a resurgent price in yellow cake.
Outlook 2009 – and Beyond
However, regardless of what uranium does, coal is still the 800-pound gorilla in the energy world. In the United States, no matter how lofty our environmental intentions may be, it’s unlikely coal will be regulated out of existence anytime soon. That’s especially true overseas, where coal is playing a crucial role, fueling the transformation of such countries as China and India from “emerging markets” into first-order powerhouse economies. Given that, the world market simply can’t replace coal anytime soon, either.
As for nuclear power, safety improvements and other technological solutions make nuclear energy a viable energy source for the long term, eventually grabbing a bigger piece of the energy pie – especially overseas.
The bottom line: The economic outlook for both coal and nuclear power is upbeat. Investors might look at both energy plays when considering how to allocate their portfolio – for the New Year and beyond.
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This article has 47 comments:
announcements from Babcock Energy (private) and
ThermoEnergy Corp. (tmen.ob).
Once their deal is finalized look for fast track deployment of what will
likely be the model and standard for carbon based power generation
world wide.
TIPS features an almost ZERO air emissions,99% co2 capture with a design capability to utilize all grades of coal, nat-gas and biomass from a design that is smaller,cheaper and can be used to retrofit many existing plants .
Coal and nuclear take time too according to PNM, FOIL 10.
Coal, 7 years.
Nuclear, 11 years.
Both have the BTUs IN available to generate practical electricity.
Alternative electric energy sources may not have the BTUs IN required to generate practical electricity.
1 Kilowatt hour = 3412.14163 BTU.
home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...
Nonetheless, lots of money can be made selling alternative electric energy sources to those who do not understand the laws of thermodynamics.
We may be facing electric shortages in the US within the next several years, however: FOIL 9.
i have been trying to narrow down where to invest on the pebble reactor. any ideas on those. hyperion doesn't sell stock. i guess china? is the best place to look on this one.
there is also a large project on liquid coal in china but i am having a hard time figuring out where to invest on this too.
already a long term holder of bhp. have you ever looked at silex and their new enrichment process. i believe ge, ccj, and maybe a japanese power company are nearing completion on a facility for enrichment using the silex process here in the u.s.. seems like silex should do very well as their superior tech comes to fruition. any thoughts? on silex?
pardon my ignorance. is tmen on an american exchange? just wondering what the ob stands for. thanx.
On Dec 14 10:18 AM fireball wrote:
> varmit
> pardon my ignorance. is tmen on an american exchange? just wondering
> what the ob stands for. thanx.
First, the fact that the Pentagon sees fossil fuels and nuclear power as national security problems. They do not want to go to war for oil or open any additional avenues for proliferation or traffic in materials. Logistically, they also hate having to carry oil around in order to operate. Hence, they are in the forefront of alternative energy research.
Second, calling in the China is building coal plants argument. the Chinese are well aware of the fact that more coal plants will mean more pollution, more environmental damage and eventually social unrest. They are aware that coal is a dead end and have been spending a fortune to wean themselves from dependence on it. The alternative energy industry will be manufactured in Chinese factories. One need only look at the number of plants that have sprung up there over the past 5 years. They are spending a fortune on technology as well.
I don't see why you would publish an analysis like this that doesn't do very much more than skim over a lot of well worn and discredited arguments for coal and Nuclear, without even trying to go any deeper or provide any up to date analysis on China, the Alternative Energy Industry, Recent breakthroughs in technology, which are myriad or, for that matter, anything that is relevant to the viability of coal or nuclear as a power source in the future.
You have to be able to do better than this.
The Dems energy policy will result in $5 gasoline, skyrocketing electric rates, and with the realization that Man-Made Global Warming is a scam will turn the voters away from Dems.
Similarly, the USA is the global technology leader in safe nuclear energy production, and, again, the USA could emerge as the nuclear energy equivalent of the Middle East. Obama policies will prevent this from happening.
Peak Oil means that the USA could become the global leader in the only two remaining non-oil energy resources with proven technologies: nuclear and coal. The Obama position is to bicker over nuclear fuel disposal safety, which nobody else in the world cares about, just as nobody else in the world cares about the safety of coal utility emissions.
While Obama bickers and dithers about coal energy and nuclear energy in the USA, the rest of the world stampedes into the American market and buys up stock shares and stockholder voting power in the coal sector and nuclear sector.
Since Obama is a globalist, and cares more about diluting the influence and power of the United States than about bolstering it, which satisfies his Clintonesque globalist ambitions, the net effect of Obama energy policies will be to sell American coal energy and nuclear energy resources to Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern investors, thus relegating the USA to a permanent back seat in global energy economics.
We already see this happening this month, in the wake of Obama's election day announcement that he will bankrupt American coal producers and American coal utility companies.
Already, an energy minister from India is roaming around America, buying up shares of American coal companies in an attempt to beat the Chinese to these valuable resources that everybody in the world values except Obama and his "green religionist" followers (a bunch of pitiful, deluded sheep, led by limosine liberals like Shumer and Pelosi, with the support of self-righteous but ignorant enertainment personalities like Al Franken).
On the philosophical front, transportation fuel needs high energy density, liquid carbon based fuel is best, and once the remaining oil becomes too expensive to recover (low energy recovery), coal is the highest carbon concentration available to be made into transportation fuel. Nuclear is the only long term choice for stationary energy, though. Burning coal for stationary energy is a waste of our future transportation fuels.
Man-made alternative energy sources such as PV and wind generators cannot make enough energy in their equipment lifetimes to equal the energy value required to build them.
www.babcockpower.com/
On Dec 14 10:18 AM fireball wrote:
> varmit
> pardon my ignorance. is tmen on an american exchange? just wondering
> what the ob stands for. thanx.
please disclose the two items which will remove carbon from discussion.
this seems to be a realistic outlook on what is real in the near term, including those views on China.. if you have facts, enumerate please. your commentary is hollow/worthless.
On Dec 14 10:51 AM TOC wrote:
> It is stunning to see an analysis like this, aside from the fact
> that it makes no economic sense on its face (does not take in environmental
> impact costs, strong public distance for carbon-based feul, cheaper
> than coal initiatives, General Electric's position on Nuclear vs.
> Alternative Sources, etc.), it does not mention what will be the
> two most important things that will end the age of carbon.
>
> First, the fact that the Pentagon sees fossil fuels and nuclear power
> as national security problems. They do not want to go to war for
> oil or open any additional avenues for proliferation or traffic in
> materials. Logistically, they also hate having to carry oil around
> in order to operate. Hence, they are in the forefront of alternative
> energy research.
>
> Second, calling in the China is building coal plants argument. the
> Chinese are well aware of the fact that more coal plants will mean
> more pollution, more environmental damage and eventually social unrest.
> They are aware that coal is a dead end and have been spending a fortune
> to wean themselves from dependence on it. The alternative energy
> industry will be manufactured in Chinese factories. One need only
> look at the number of plants that have sprung up there over the past
> 5 years. They are spending a fortune on technology as well.
>
> I don't see why you would publish an analysis like this that doesn't
> do very much more than skim over a lot of well worn and discredited
> arguments for coal and Nuclear, without even trying to go any deeper
> or provide any up to date analysis on China, the Alternative Energy
> Industry, Recent breakthroughs in technology, which are myriad or,
> for that matter, anything that is relevant to the viability of coal
> or nuclear as a power source in the future.
>
> You have to be able to do better than this.
>
Popular solar and wind energy are useful for small-quantity power generation in select locations. In future energy mixes they may contribute as much as 15% of all electricity generation. But at terawatt levels, immense areas of land or sea would be needed, requiring enormous maintenance operations, spoiling scenic land- or sea-scapes, and destroying local ecosystems - an absolute nightmare for naturalists. As scientifically documented in "The Nuclear Imperative - A Critical Look at the Approaching Energy Crisis" (ISBN 1-4020-4930-7), by the year 2050 when petroleum fuels are basically exhausted, only uranium and thorium can affordably sustain global energy needs for some 3000 years, using proven fuel reprocessing and advanced fast reactor technology. A serious in-depth analysis of our future energy shortage by accredited professional engineers (not by anti-nuclear self-inflated philosophers) reveals that nuclear power will be essential to rescue our children from a future economic catastrophe. For the USA, 500 additional nuclear reactors are required, built on 9000 acres (@ $1.5 trillion), compared to 1,500,000 windmills with storage batteries on 6,000,000 windy acres (@ $4.5 trillion). Ten times these numbers are needed for the entire world. (Costs are in 2005 dollars; for later years, all costs must be multiplied by the dollar inflation factor).
Because it takes a decade to design, license, and build a reactor, action must be taken immediately to prevent a worldwide depression by 2030 when oil begins to run out. Contrary to false propaganda by anti-nuclear groups, the cost of electricity at terawatt levels is three times less expensive with nuclear than for wind or solar. Solar and wind power generation requires expensive energy storage systems (batteries, etc) when there is no sunshine or wind. Also many miles of access roads for maintenance and repair are needed to keep blades or solar panels clean from bird droppings, dead birds, sand erosion, and storm damage, and to periodically replace electrodes on storage batteries. Aficionados of renewables usually quote peak windmill or solar station capacities, neglecting to multiply their numbers by a factor of four to account for a year-averaged availability of only 25% of peak wind or sunshine. Reactors run continuously all year at 90% capacity. Should a country limit itself to solar and wind energy, it is guaranteed to become impoverished and dependent on portable synfuels imported from other countries (future OPECs ->OSECs), who expanded their nuclear power generation before oil fields were depleted.
Energy consumption for transportation is between 35% and 40% of all energy usage in the world. On the assumption we stop drilling when it costs a gallon of oil to retrieve a gallon, one finds we will run out by 2040/2050, even with exploitation of all the tar-sand fields in the world. There is only so much volume in the 10 km deep surface shell that circumscribes our earth where decayed plants and animals (mixed with lots of sand and river run-off mud) were compressed into oil over a period of 300 million years. We are burning all that up in two centuries. With an increasing world population and with Asia and Africa wanting more of the oil, optimistic estimates show it will all be gone by 2050. While in the next fifteen years, oil and gas may remain major sources of portable chemical energy for aircraft and transport vehicles, beyond 2030 the world can only survive if synthetic fuels are produced on an enormous scale.
Of course nuclear energy extracted from uranium or thorium can not be used directly as a portable fuel to move long-haul transport vehicles (airplanes, trucks, etc). But its heat or turbine-generated electricity can be converted into portable bio-fuels and other synfuels (synthetic fuels) with reasonable efficiency. In bio-fuel production, nuclear electricity can empower farms and the extraction/distillatio... operations to obtain alcohols or bio-diesels from vegetation. Without input of (nuclear) electricity, bio-fuel farming would be unsustainable since energy needed for cultivation, harvesting, and extraction exceeds the energy stored in combustible plant chemicals. Nuclear-assisted farmed bio-fuels have other limitations however. They can at most replace about 20% of today's petroleum fuels because biofuel farming is limited by available arable land; man also needs to grow food to survive. The other 80% of oil-replacement must come from hydrogen and ammonia synfuels which can empower combustion engines as well as (future) fuel-cells. Hydrogen can be affordably produced by electrolysis (or chemical dissociation) of water into hydrogen and oxygen. But hydrogen has the fundamental problem of being very difficult to compact into a reasonably-sized fuel tank. So ammonia (called "second" hydrogen by some) is now favored, because it can be stored at very moderate pressure in normal-size fuel tanks used today for a comparable driving range. Ammonia is produced by compression of hydrogen with nitrogen (from the air) via the well-developed Haber-Bosch process. This is a less expensive way of storing hydrogen than liquifying it. Ammonia can fuel combustion engines (already commercially available) and solid-oxide fuel-cells (future), and is less dangerous than gasoline in vehicle collisions. Its exhaust is water vapor and nitrogen (air) again from which it was synthesized with nuclear "mother" energy.
Modern nuclear power plants are absolutely safe. Because of the negative "coefficient of reactivity", reactor fuel elements only melt (an explosion is not possible) during a maximum credible accident in which the emergency core cooling system totally fails. This was "experimentally" proven in the Three-Mile-Island (TMI) accident. A negative coefficient of reactivity means that neutron multiplication is automatically stopped when the temperature in the reactor gets too high. The Russian Chernobyl reactor, which took the lives of 57 people, had a positive coefficient of reactivity because it used graphite as moderator. Such a design for nuclear power plants is now prohibited in all countries. Furthermore the Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel, as is the law in all Western countries and now worldwide. The assertion that perhaps thousands of people could still die from radioactive fallout around Chernobyl is nonsense. Of the 60,000 inhabitants of Pripyat who had been exposed to fallout, about 9,000 will die at an advanced age of cancer because worldwide 15% of all people ultimately die from cancer. To ascribe those 9,000 deaths to Chernobyl's fallout is equally ridiculous as claiming that such a death toll is due to drinking coffee because 15% of all people drink coffee. Security precautions and containment measures for today's nuclear power plants do reckon with the possibility that terrorists might crash a large airplane or bomb on a reactor. Even if aerial obstructions (e.g. balloons) or underground construction can not prevent penetration of the large dome-shaped containment vessel, the reactor core vessel is designed to remain mostly intact. It can further be inundated with neutron-poisoning borated water which suppresses all further uranium fission in case of an accident.
A stale anti-nuclear cry is "what do we do with all the long-lived radioactive nuclear waste". The volume of waste amounts to one aspirin tablet per year per person using nuclear electricity, compared to tons of air pollutants and globe-warming gaseous CO2 emitted by coal or fossil-fuel combustion. Nuclear waste can be easily stored and safely transported, as the US nuclear navy has done for half a century. Contrary to allegations that uranium and plutonium in spent fuel elements pose a problem because of million-year half-lives, they are separated from fission products by reprocessing and burnt as fuel in future fast-breeder reactors. They will not be dumped. This reduces 50 tons of spent fuel per reactor per year to 0.5 tons of fission products (with shorter decay lives), taking centuries instead of decades to fill the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. The notion that long radioactive lifetimes are undesirable is also erroneous. The longer the decay lifetime, the less the radiation emitted per gram of radio-isotope. Most elements that make up our bodies (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc) have infinitely long decay lifetimes. All humans are "hot" because everyone has radioactive potassium-40 (K-40; 0.012% abundance) in his body, which continuously emits beta particles with a half-life of one billion years! Man successfully evolved in this environment, and there are even indications that low levels of radiation benefit health (called hormesis). The hue and cry about possible terrorism and "dirty bombs" is also highly exaggerated. By the reasoning of anti-nuclear activists, we should stop flying 707 jets because they can be used as weapons to kill thousands of people.
Energy is man's third most important need after water and food. Those who hinder expansion of nuclear power will be viewed as irresponsible neo-luddites by future generations and must be held accountable. Any further delay of a committed worldwide nuclear energy program will cause certain impoverishment and deaths of many people by 2050. Without large-scale synfuel production by greatly expanded nuclear power, desert cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix will become ghost-towns. Originally the US had planned to have 200 to 300 reactors (@ 1 GWe each) by the year 2000, but instead there are only 104 today. After the Three-Mile-Island (TMI) reactor meltdown in 1979 in the US (with 0 casualties) and Russia's Chernobyl accident in 1986 (with 57 fatalities), public hysteria fanned by fear-mongering antinuclear activists caused cancellations and moratoria on construction of new nuclear plants. While the USA was once the leader, most US businesses with reactor manufacturing know-how closed. Instead France, Russia, Japan, South-Korea, India, and China are now in charge. Zealous anti-nuclear lobbyists and a mal-informed government have created the pending energy crisis. We are entering a war-like energy-deprivation period as serious as WW-II or Al-Qaida. Strong Manhattan-project-like leadership is now needed to reverse the short-sightedness and follies of prior administrations.
Jeff W. Eerkens, PhD
Adjunct Research Professor,
Nuclear Science and Engineering Institute
University of Missouri, Columbia
Their fascinating website explains the physics but it is beyond my capacity:
www.blacklightpower.co.../
On Dec 14 11:21 AM ElGordo wrote:
> It seems that data are accumulating that Man-Made Global Warming
> is a sraud. If so, the scientific opposition to CO2 must crumble.
> That means fossil fuel will be primary in our future.
>
> The Dems energy policy will result in $5 gasoline, skyrocketing electric
> rates, and with the realization that Man-Made Global Warming is a
> scam will turn the voters away from Dems.
I came to this article, read it, and proceeded to read the comments so I could add my own endorsement of nuclear power. I see you have already done so and covered it! Had we pursued energy independence after the 70's oil embargo we would not have servicemen and women dying in a foreign land today. Instead we listened to the anti-nukes and the no-growthers. You are correct, sir, that we are in an energy war, and it will only intensify. Other nations have wisely and successfully pursued their own reactor power programs.
- B.S.N.E., Penn State, 1983.
P.S. My God, CLH and I agree on something.
Why hasn't natural gas been part of this debate?
regards,
brad
I have a cousin who is against any type of energy development, but he actually worships the idea of all electric cars. When I asked him where we would get the electricity to power them, he said, "Why, we'll just plug them in. DUH!." And, we alow his vote to count.
We need it all, but to exclude Nat Gas seems crazy.
Yes! The amount of ignorance is staggering. That ignorance has been well funded however, so it's not surprise.
This is the most misleading article I've seen in a long time.
It's just more of the same disinformation that dominates the debate.
To start with, the science of global warming is getting stronger, not weaker. The number of skeptic scientists is tiny, and getting smaller. Those are the facts. Period
Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. Just go to the websites of actual climate scientists. If you want the truth, you won't get it from from right wing propaganda mills..
www.logicalscience.com.../
None of the lists of supposed skeptical scientists you have heard of are real. They have all been debunked as padded with everything but actual climate scientists.
Only in America are people this misinformed. And oil companies have spent a lot of money to fool you.
"But few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change. Few have been so coldly calculating and few have been so well documented. For example, Ross Gelbspan, in his books, The Heat is On and Boiling Point sets out the whole case, pointing fingers and naming names. PR Watch founder John Stauber has done similarly exemplary work, tracking the bogus campaigns and linking various pseudo scientists to their energy industry funders.
This is a triumph of disinformation. It is a living proof of the success of one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history, primarily financed by the energy industry and executed by some of the best PR talent in the world."
www.desmogblog.com/sla...
Nuclear power is not sustainable. Peak uranium will be about 10 years after peak oil. Even with reprossessing and breeder reactors.
www.theleaneconomyconn...
climateprogress.org/20.../
www.americanprogressac...
Don't accept these pronouncements about nuclear being the energy of the future until you have read these. At best nuclear can contribute 10% as a climate solution.
Clean coal is at least a decade away. And that is only removing the CO2 - not the mercury which is poisoning our fish food stocks nor the other pollutants that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. Nor the radionuclides or other pollutants that effect the environment. And then there is the havoc from the mining of coal.
It pollutes the water, air and land. Bush just ok's throwing more in the rivers.
Clean coal will be much more expensive than solar or wind.
16Cents/kWh at least for clean coal.
Solar thermal can match or beat that right now and will be below 10cents/kWh in five years and will fall to 5-8 cents when further economy of scale is reached. Solar thermal power with heat storage is not an intermittent source of energy. It can produce power 24/7 and it can replace coal plants as base load power.
It's even better than base load because it revs up during the day to perfectly match the energy demand cycle and continues to produce power at night.
Wind power is even cheaper.
Both solar and wind are quicker to build than coal or nuclear.
Wind cost $1400/kw to build. Florida Power and Light estimates new plants will be $5500 to $8100/kw to build.
Power from new nuclear plants will cost 12-17cents/kWh
and it will get more expensive as the low hanging fruit of rich uranium ore is depleted.
Look at the concern over Iran's nuclear program. If nuclear power proliferates all over the world, fissionable material will be everywhere. How many times will the Iran scenario be repeated, and how many dirty bombs will be made for nuclear waste?
The DOE says we could have 20% wind power by 2030
Concentrating solar with heat storage, or solar thermal, should be even bigger. Using less land than we now use for coal plants and coal mining, solar thermal would power the whole country.
I'll repeat that.
Using less land than we now use for coal plants and coal mining, solar thermal will power the whole country.
No fuel ever/
No fuel ever to prospect for, to mine, to refine, to store, to transport, to burn or react, to clean up the mess from, to fight wars over. No fuel price fluctuations. No one controlling the fuel source.
If Americans aren't misinformed, then why is it that probably 95% haven't even heard of the type of solar with the most promise for out future energy needs. That's a good indication of how powerful the lobby for fossil fuel and nuclear is at shaping the public debate about energy policy. The technology is so simple we could have done it 100 years ago.
Solar thermal info here.
www.salon.com/news/fea...
climateprogress.org/20.../
We need energy solutions now. Solar and wind are ready.
They are clean, cheap and need no fuel.
Clean coal is not.
Nuclear is not.
"While he may prefer the environmentally friendly alternatives, most of those replacements are far from fully developed."
Not true. Solar and wind can be deployed right now. Nuclear and clean coal cannot.
Clean coal? Read these.
climateprogress.org/20.../
www.thisisreality.org/...
www.greenpeace.org/sea...
We could easily build 50 gigawatts of solar before a single nuke goes online with it's 1 or 2 gigawatts.
Here's more reasons to not choose nuclear.
One of nuclear's biggest problems is water. It takes billions of gallons to cool a single reactor. How reliable will the sources of cooling water be in a changing climate, and in a world with serioius water contraints?
Every nuclear power plant will require about $500 million to dismantle it, when it has outlived it's useful life. This adds to the nuclear waste disposal problem. The actual cost will probably be higher, and this adds to the waste problem.
Nuclear power doesn't give us energy independence. We import 65% of our oil and 90% of our uranium. And now Russia is being lined up as a future source of 20% of our uranium.
"The United States and Russia signed a deal that will boost Russian uranium imports to supply the U.S. nuclear industry, the Commerce Department said Friday…."
"The new agreement permits Russia to supply 20 percent of US reactor fuel until 2020 and to supply the fuel for new reactors quota-free."
"So if, under a President McCain, we build a bunch of new nuclear reactors -- they could be fueled 100 percent by Russia."
"I can almost hear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin saying, "Excellent."
gristmill.grist.org/st...
Nuclear power is not safe. According to Argonne National Laboratory, an airliner crashing into a nuclear power plant could cause a complete meltdown, even if the containment building isn't compromised. Think the twin towers disaster was bad?
There is no accountability with nuclear power. The Price-Anderson Act places most of the liability for nuclear accidents on the backs of taxpayers, not the nuclear power industry
Nuclear power is heavily subsidized. According to Earthtrack, Federal subsidies to new nuclear power plants are likely between 4 and 8 cents per kWh (levelized).
www.eoearth.org/articl...
The transportation of radioactive waste from all over the country to Yucca Mt. is potentially dangerous, as well as expensive.
"In the United States, current surcharges on nuclear power are too low to cover expected disposal costs. In addition, the US government foolishly absorbed all risk for an on-time opening of a repository for commercial nuclear waste -- despite longstanding technical and political challenges associated with making this happen." from eoearth.org
www.cleanwisconsin.org...
Large solar and wind farms can produce electricity long before they are complete, because they are modular. An 800 megawatt solar thermal plant can typically start producing electricity when 25 megawatt modules are completed.
Yes the grid will have to have new technologies for energy storage and modulation and we need HVDC transmission lines to beef up the grid and distribute this new power from solar and wind.
But this is not a big factor yet. And solar thermal has it's own storage built in. And it is far cheaper, like 20-100 times cheaper than storing electricity. There is absolutely nothing stopping us from developing this marvelous source of power right now.
The only thing stopping us is the disinformation campaign and the lack of political will that results from it.
Global warming skeptics? This is who they are.
Maybe you heard about the Oregon petition supposedly signed by 19,000 skeptical scientists.
It was a hoax perpetrated by a kook. Go to the link and read the whole story.
"This group OISM is run off of a farm in Oregon and contains no climate scientists at all. ...The petition is from the 90s and was passed around with a fake article that fooled some scientists into thinking it was from the National Academy of Science."
"Arthur Robinson's paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing
As a result, Robinson concluded, industrial activities can be counted on to encourage greater species biodiversity and a greener planet:"
and here's a quote from Robinson's paper.
"As coal, oil, and natural gas are used to feed and lift from poverty vast numbers of people across the globe, more CO2 will be released into the atmosphere. This will help to maintain and improve the health, longevity, prosperity, and productivity of all people.
Human activities are believed to be responsible for the rise in CO2 level of the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere and surface, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the CO2 increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life as [sic] that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution."
If you believe this claptrap you are not smarter than a fifth grader.
This is the same thousands of skeptical scientists that the VP of GM keeps talking about.
I think this illustrates the point.
Todd Woody at Green Wombat comments on Abu Dhabi solar project and Torresol ambitions in U.S. southwest.
"Abu Dhabi is not content to just sell you the oil that fuels your SUV; now its going to sell you sunshine to keep your lights on and power your electric car when the internal combustion engine goes the way of the buggy whip. Masdar, the oil-rich emirate’s $15 billion renewable energy venture, and Spanish technology company Sener on Wednesday announced a joint venture called Torresol Energy to build large-scale solar power plants in Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States."
(They are targeting the same American southwest, where the authors of the Solar Grand Plan proposal published in Scientific American are encouraging America to invest.)
"The irony is too rich to leave unsaid: A leading oil producer invests billions in carbon-free energy while a leading consumer of fossil fuels - the United States - continues to subsidize Big Oil, while offering only tepid support for green technology."
"It is inevitable that climate change will foster the rise of renewable energy - the only question is which countries and companies will profit from the new energy economics. It is entirely possible that the U.S. will trade energy dependence of one kind - on Middle East oil - for another - on Middle East and European solar technology - in the era of global warming. It’s no coincidence that most of the solar energy companies with contracts to build utility-scale power plants in California and the Southwest have overseas roots - Ausra hails from Australia, BrightSource was founded by American-Israeli pioneer Arnold Goldman, Solel is based in Israel and Abengoa is headquartered in Spain."
A Dept of Energy study found that for less than 2 cents/day per household, we could have 300 gigawatts of wind power by 2030. That would be 20% of electric power in the U.S. see:
www.salon.com/news/fea...
and
www1.eere.energy.gov/w...
Photovoltaics will be cheaper than fossil fuels in just a few years, and that isn't even counting the hidden costs of fossil fuels form pollution etc.
"Nanosolar’s founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal.With a $1-per-watt panel,” he said, “it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions."
www.grinzo.com/energy/...
The proposal at Scientific American mentioned above estimates that we could have a 69% solar powered grid by 2050.
They would use subsidies of $400 billion over about 40 years.
We now give oil companies that much every 10 years in subsidies
and tax credits. and that is a conservative estimate of giveaways to oil and gas. Another at SetAmericaFree.org estimates more like $80 billion annully. And the hidden costs of oil and gas are in the hundreds of billions annually.
Coal gets another $3 billion annually
So when you hear someone say that solar and wind can't compete without subsidies, you'll know it's a crock of sh....
According to a study- Koplow's 2007 report to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development:
"Estimating U.S. oil and gas subsidies is very challenging. Subsidies rarely involve cash payments. Instead scores of U.S. government agencies and departments create hundreds of programmes to support the U.S. energy sector. And there is no requirement for the federal government to keep track of all this."
"Energy subsidies are often simply hidden from public scrutiny. It's only recently been revealed that 40 companies granted leases between 1996 and 2000 for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico do not have to pay royalties for the publicly-owned resource. This is worth nearly a billion dollars a year in lost revenue to the federal government, according to a 2008 study by Friends of the Earth (FOE), a U.S. environmental NGO, and may ultimately total 50 billion dollars."
"Subsidy programms from 1918 are still in place. "I'm not aware of any oil and gas subsidy that has ever been phased out," said Koplow, the leading expert on U.S. energy subsidies"
"In a time of skyrocketing oil prices and profits, why did the George W. Bush administration in 2005 authorise an additional 32.9 billion dollars in new subsidies over a five-year period?"
(McCain wanted to give them $4 billion more.)
"This massive government intervention distorts energy markets, making it very difficult for alternative energy sources to compete without similarly massive subsidies. "And it promotes America's addiction to oil," Larsen added."
www.heatisonline.org/c...
"If anyone actually thinks that the Bush Administration is totally at fault for our current economy"
No it's not all Bush's fault.
Rather it's a complete failure of Republican economic policies that started with Reagan.
Reaganomics has had over 25 years to prove itself and for 80% of Americans it's a total failure. And don't forget that we still had Reaganomics under Clinton, so the 25 years is accurate.
Here are the numbers from a study by the Pew Foundation
Between 1983 and 2004
The top 1% in income got 33% of the growth in wealth.
The next 4% in income got over 25% of the growth in wealth.
The bottom 80% got 11% of the growth in wealth.
"The increases in income and wealth are all taking place at the very top. In fact in 2005 the richest one percent increased their income by far more than the TOTAL income of the bottom 20 percent."
www.pbs.org/moyers/jou...
Bill Moyers interview with author David Cay Johnson.
"In California, the poorest 20 percent of families saw their incomes rise 1.4 percent in the 2004-06 period compared with 1998-2000, after adjusting for inflation,
By contrast, the top 20 percent gained 13 percent after inflation, while the income of the top 5 percent jumped 20.8 percent."
"Across the country, average incomes fell 2.5 percent from 1998-2000 with 2004-06 for the bottom fifth of families, while edging up 1.3 percent for those in the middle. The top fifth registered a 9.1 percent gain."
From the late 1990s to the mid 2000s, income gains for the wealthiest Californians significantly outpaced those for families in the middle and bottom of the income scale. These are the changes in income from 1998-2000 to 2004-06:
Bottom 20% 1.4%
Middle 20% 3.8%
Top 20% 13%
Top 5% 20.8%
www.cbpp.org/
Associated Press story
In 1978 the average corporate CEO made 35 times the average worker's pay.
In 2005 the average corporate CEO made 262 times the average worker's pay.
"A generation ago, American men in their 30s had median annual incomes of about $40,000 compared with men of the same age who now make about $35,000 adjusted for inflation."
"That is a 12.5% drop between 1974 and 2004"
"The Pew report also found that many countries-including Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany and France have more economic mobility than the United States does."
www.faculty.fairfield....
"These data suggest that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small number of families. The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%."
"The distribution of wealth is much more unequal than the distribution of income, especially when focussing on the bottom 60% of all households. The bottom 60% of households possess only 4% of the nation's wealth while it earns 26.8% of all income."
Department of Economics, New York University
June 2007
"Real wages rose very slowly from 2001 to 2004, with the BLS real mean hourly earnings
up by only 1.6 percent and median family income dropped in real terms by 2.1 percent. On the
other hand, housing prices rose steeply. The median sales price of existing one-family homes
rose by 17.9 percent in real terms nationwide."
The top 20% had 84.7% of net worth
Same 20% owned 92.5% of non-home wealth
The top 1% had 34.8% of net worth and owned 42.2% of non-home wealth
In contrast, the bottom 40% had 0.2% of net worth and owned a minus 1.1% of non-home weatlth, meaning their debt exceeded their wealth."
absolute changes in wealth and income between 1983 and 2004.
In 2004, the top 1% owned 44.8% of stocks and mutual funds, the top 10% owned 85.4% of stocks and funds.
www.tamethebeast.info/...
"This bar chart shows the share of America's Wealth owned by each Income Group. It also shows the average Wealth of each Income Group. The sad fact is that the average household in the bottom 20 % is in debt $9,000. The second 20 % has only $11,000 in wealth, and the middle 20 % has $61,000. Even the fourth 20 %, at $161,000 wealth, has problems providing for housing, education and retirement."
"While the vast majority of Americans struggle, the SuperRich in the Top 1% have almost twice the wealth as the bottom 80% combined."
"Owership of common stocks (owned directly, in mutual funds or retirement plans) is particularly concentrated. The chart below shows who 'owns' the corporations and gets profits through dividends and capital gains. The bottom 80 % own only 4%!"
estate tax
"The truth is that only the wealthiest 2 % of estates pay the tax, while 98% of Americans pay nothing. The benefits of repealing this tax accrue solely to the rich."
"As you can see, the SuperRich have quietly taken control of so much wealth and power in America that the distribution resembles that of a third world country or a feudal state. Bush's tax and benefit program policies clearly take good care of the SuperRich and let other Americans fight over the 'crumbs'. Can this be considered "prosperity"? Our trust has been betrayed."
"The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options;. It was at 411:1 in 2005. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe."
from an artice by G wiliam Domhoff
"It's even more revealing to compare the actual rates of increase of the salaries of CEOs and ordinary workers; from 1990 to 2005, CEOs' pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation), while production workers gained a scant 4.3%. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage actually declined by 9.3%, when inflation is taken into account."
United States has the most highly concentrated wealth distribution of any Western democracy except Switzerland.
" Table 6 shows, it is not as concentrated as the wealth distribution, but the top 1% of income earners did receive 20% of all income in the year 2000. That's up from 12.8% for the top 1% in 1982, which is quite a jump, and it parallels what is happening with the wealth distribution. This is further support for the inference that the power of the corporate community and the upper class have been increasing in recent decades."
www.tomdispatch.com/?p....
We should be able to have prosperity that works for all of us.
Also, I wouldn't even credit Reaganomics with any increase in wealth. What created wealth was the revolution in technology, internet, computers, biotech, tellecommunications etc.
Actually renewables at this point will not ever be able to provide the required power we need immediate. Nuclear is the answer, at this point we do get greater than 10% of our power from nuclear which is sad, if we were not such dinaosaurs here in America, we may be providing up to 60 - 70% of our clean power by Nuclear. As far as uranium, we have the mines here in America as well as the desire to process weapons grade sources for power plants. Renewables at this point in development would not even put a small dent in our present to 10 year forecasted needs. Renewables at this point are not even close to being to be as dependable and sufficient as nuclear.
Over the past 2.5-3 million years, the Pleistocene epoch, there has been a series of deep ice ages and interglacial periods. Ice ages are of course precipitated by global coolings, and ice ages are ended by global warmings. The last ice age ended about 12000 years ago and the present interglacial period is called the Holocene epoch.
You want us to believe that we are in an era of long term global warming and that human release of CO2 is causing it. So I ask you, what caused all those other global warmings over the past 3 million years that ended all those ice ages?
If you can't answer that then you don't know what causes global warming. If you can give a naturalist explanation (i.e. one that doesn't blame monkeys or cavemen) for previous global warmings, then explain why this one is different.
Actually we are not in a period of long term global warming so the cause of this non-event is a moot point.
For about 30 years between the 1940s and 1970s global temperature measurements showed cooling. I remember the ICE AGE! alarm that was sounded about 1977.
For about 20 years during the 1980s and 1990s temperature measurements showed warming, and we are all familiar with the MELTDOWN! alarm that sounded beginning with Rio in 1992.
Since 2000 NASA satellite measurements show no warming. In fact the globe has cooled a bit in the past couple of years.
Today climatologists are looking at the relationship between variations in solar output (sunspot cycles) and Earth temperatures, trying to understand what causes our climate to change so dramatically. In the recent geological record, going back as far as we have records of sunspots (about 1600 AD) there is a virtually exact correlation between changes in sunspot activity and Earth temperature changes.
Ice core data for the past 200,000 years, on the other hand, show increases in atmospheric CO2 occur about 800 years AFTER periods of global warming. The "evidence" shows no relation between increased CO2 and contemporaneous temperature increases. There is no evidence that CO2 functions as a greenhouse gas AT ALL.
From about 800 AD to 1200 AD is called "The Medieval Warm Period", which was followed by "The Little Ice Age" which lasted until about 1850. Recent elevations in atmospheric CO2 may reflect the global warming that ended about 800 years ago when the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age.
Significant global warmings and global coolings happen all the time throughout the geological record, and they are not caused by human activity. Croesus could not stop the tides, and we cannot change global temperature trends.
The coldest period of the Little Ice Age coincides with the Maunder Minimum of sunspot activity, about 1645-1715. The evidence seems very clearly to be showing that variations in output of the Earth's furnace--the Sun--are the cause of Earth temperature changes.
The greenhouse gas theory is just that, a theory. The evidence, which includes the geological record and contemporary temperature measurements, does not support that theory. When the evidence fails to support a theory people who want to understand what is going on usually begin by looking for a better theory. But as with many other political issues or religious beliefs, "belief" in global warming does not permit evidence to stand in the way of a favorite theory.
The sad thing about human behavior is that we respond only to shocks it seems. Unfortunately it will take catastrophe in order to change the minds of the pundits
The more PV panels, or solar thermal plants or wind turbines built, the more natural gas turbines are needed for when the renewable source is down.
Not even considering transmission problems - the best wind sites are in the center of the country, but that power can't get very far (no more transmission capacity)
Low capacity factor is not an issue with nuclear (or coal)
Solar and wind will remain a very low percentage of the generation mix here in the U.S.
In response to the questions about using natural gas for electrical production:
Natural gas is very suitable as an alternative fuel for vehicles, because it has high energy density, and can be liquified with relative ease. Storing your fuel in a tank is far less wasteful than storing it in a battery. Energy is wasted with each conversion. The waste involved in converting electrical energy into chemical energy, then back again to power a vehicle can amount to 70%, depending how fast you charge and discharge the battery, and how much the battery cools during storage.
Lead-acid batteries can lose half their energy, during real cold weather. the alternatives (ni-cad & lithium) are worse, from what I've read.
The quick and cheap to build natural gas power plants are the "simple cycle" type, as opposed to "combined cycle". simple cycle spins a generator, using the expansion of burning fuel to power a turbine. combined cycle uses the waste heat of the exhaust to produce steam, adding thrust to the turbine. simple cycle generators are not much more efficient than just burning the nat. gas in an auto engine ~35%. Backup generators for wind power will usually be simple cycle, because they can start quickly. combined cycle wouldn't boost efficiency as much, because it takes time to heat water to steam,and the wind may well pick up by then.
The cost of converting a car to use natural gas is less than the batteries to power an electric one. The fuel averages about half that of gasoline. Batteries need to be replaced every few years. (or after one good freeze, if they're low on charge).
Hydrogen vehicle fuel fuel? hydrogen is produced from nat. gas - the carbon is removed by a "reformer", and converted into CO2, without getting any use out of the energy. It could be electrolyzed out of water, but :; electrolyzed means " to put wires at each end of a tank of water, and plug them in".
burning nat. gas for stationary electric generation is not the best use of nat gas.
I don't agree with the ethics of burning up all the "clean" fuels, and leaving future generations to burn the dirty fuels, and convert coal into synfuel for their vehicle fuels (it works, but energy is wasted with each conversion). I also don't think we should squander resources on high cost, low output alternative energy sources, - we'll be leaving them the bill, and costly energy too.
I think we are being marketeted some very wasteful ideas, and told "it's for the environment". Each type of fuel should be used in it's appropriate place, to minimize wasteful conversions. If we had cheap coal and nuclear electricity, that'd save nat. gas too, as more people would use electric heat.
It is only the citizenship itself through vast pain that will wake up and elect responsible leadership. And that waking up process is first to determine what is a good leader and what is an obvious bad one. Then it comes down to who is who in my own backyard. So I say that we probably won't have a decent energy policy in the next four years. I will give Obama credit for conducting some research from the American public, but he needs to reach outside the beltway on cabinet and economic positions, or should I say, HE SHOULD have looked outside the beltway. Now, he is owned lock, stock and barrel and any good intentions he may have had will be muted into nothingness.
On Dec 14 05:11 PM Right in San Francisco wrote:
> Lots of religion on the part of the opponents of nuclear. And they
> claim that Bush's policies are anti-science.
and then a more specific post on coal: www.marketfolly.com/20...
I am sorry, but you are the ignorant one. Global warming is overhyped and has been disproven by the real temperature trends which are NOT as drastic as the fearmongers are making it out to be. Look at Roy Spencer, PhDs "Cimate Confusion" for a better understanding of why the science on global warming is not in agreement with the fearmongering.
www.faqs.org/patents/a... And check it out for yourself! jon00052@hotmail.com
On Dec 14 10:57 PM The Proclaimer wrote:
> TOC: The only end to the Carbon Age is the End of Carbon / Carbon
> dioxide being dumped to the Enviroment. Want to see a copy of what
> I base my opinion on? jon00052@hotmail.com. The Carbon Revolution
> is here!
On Dec 14 10:57 PM The Proclaimer wrote:
> TOC: The only end to the Carbon Age is the End of Carbon / Carbon
> dioxide being dumped to the Enviroment. Want to see a copy of what
> I base my opinion on? jon00052@hotmail.com. The Carbon Revolution
> is here!
The market forces have decimated the coal stocks, most especially the supreme King of Coal-- BTU.
"08 was an incredibly horrendous year for investors. '09 looks just as bad.
Don't even hear the word "capitulation" anymore...People are fed up with the market and the thieves that control it. All the interesting reading in the world won't restore the trillions of dollars lost and stolen in '08 .
No reason whatsoever to waste a single dollar gambling in the market.
What's the point of anyone posting articles ? Whatever stocks one chooses to buy, it's money down the toilet.
It can only be in the states that someone will recieve +1 and -4 rating for that article.
To all other ignorants. You have raided your own oil reserves, then you raid the rest, and when you cant think of anything else than to bomb someone, you just start raiding your coal reserves like some stupid monkey, and then you like to tell the rest of the world how to deal with finance.
My personal advice: stopping acting in your typical John Wayne manner and look how you have screwed up many of your industries, just because of your ignorance. Its time to move on.