frflyer

The Obama Effect: Is Clean Energy Outperforming the Market?

Ferdinand

Nuclear power has a limited role to play in our energy future. It is expensive and slow to build, leads to nuclear weapons, has serious waste issues, requires enormous amounts of water, has no accountability, uses a finite resource that will run out just like oil, doesn't give us energy independence since we import 90% of uranium, and will produce electricity at high prices that won't be able to match those from solar and wind in ten years when we might see the first new reactors completed. It also faces shortages of key components to build reactors.

web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
MIT study The Future of Nuclear Energy

climateprogress.org/20.../

I'm not saying we won't or shouldn't build any new nuclear but it isn't the panacea that is claimed. We don't have 10 years to wait for new reactors to begin helping with CO2 emissions, nor for carbon capture for coal. With the right political will, we can have 40% wind and solar power by 2030 and at least a few hundred gigawatts by 2020. By 2020 all solar and wind power will be priced in the low to mid single digit cents/kWh, while new nuclear and CCS coal will be in the mid teens cents/kWh.

The potential just for solar thermal. in just California's deserts, is the equivalent of hundreds of nuclear reactors, and over ten times as much energy as now generated in California. And that's the low estimate. If built with heat storage, it's dispatchable power will be more valuable than base load power, because it facilitates balancing the grid better. There's a good argument that a grid with more dispatchable power and less base load will be a better grid.

www.altenergystocks.co...

Wind energy is growing at a rate that will yield 100 GW by 2020, and that rate should increase over the coming years. Electric prices from wind are already in the mid single digit cents/kWh. PV solar will be there before the end of this decade.

Any plan that isn't sustainable will not give us much of a future. We are operating beyond the carrying capacity of the earth, and not just in energy.

Three Solar and Wind Companies That Still Look Good

fireball

Wind energy is at about 7-8 cents/kWh, making it competitive now.

PV solar is much more expensive now, but prices are falling rapidly, as they have been over the past 20 years. PV should be at grid parity with fossil fuels nationwide in 10 years.
In five years it should be at grid parity in about 40% of the country. It is already competitive for peak energy in some more expensive energy markets like California.
First Solar is close to or at grid parity. Nanosolar says they can build solar systems cheaper than coal plants. And they don't have the costs of coal or cleaning up pollutants and CO2.

By comparison, prices for energy from new nuclear plants will be at least 12-17 cents/kWh
and similar prices for new coal with carbon capture.

Solar thermal is about 12-14 cents/kWh now. That is expected to fall below 10 cents/kWh in five years or less and to 5-8 cents/kWh when industry is up to scale in 10 years or less.

Overall, solar and wind should be cheaper than new coal or nuclear in a relatively short time, and competitive with traditional fossil fuel plants.

Oil only produces about 1.6% of U.S. electric energy.

Having said all that, you also have to consider the hidden or externalized costs of fossil fuels. Health, environment, damage to infrastructure like buildings from acid rain, military protection of oil, etc. These costs are huge and can no longer be ignored.

Half our coal plants are nearing the end of their lifespan, and are too old to qualify for carbon capture and sequestration, so should be phased out.

Another big advantage of solar and wind is the speed that they can be built, much faster than nuclear and "clean coal". Solar and wind are also more proven and ready to deploy than new nuclear technology or carbon capture.
Solar thermal pilot plants have been running in the Mojave Desert since the late 80s for example.
Besides that, they are very low tech compared with most other sources of energy.
And solar thermal or concentrating solar (CSP)
can store heat energy and run day and night.
Unfortunately there are no solar thermal stocks yet in the U.S.

There is also concentrating PV solar (CPV), which could prove to be cost effective since the efficiency of the cells is greatly increased and sunlight is amplified by 1000 fold. Emcore makes triple junction cells for CPV.

Solar thermal needs to be in areas of intense sunlight, such as the American southwest, and is much more cost effective in large installations of hundreds of MW. CPV can be effective over a wider area and is more applicable for small utility scale systems close to the end user.

An Israeli company, Zenith Solar has a new twist on CPV. They capture the heat from cooling water used to keep the cells efficient. Thus their systems provide electricity and hot water. They claim to be getting overall efficiency of 75% as a result.

Turtleread

You say wind is unreliable. Actually, wind has a higher capacity factor than solar PV. Wind is 35%, PV is 25%
I don't know what CPV would have for a capacity factor, but concentrating solar thermal(CSP) with heat storage should be able to approach that of coal and nuclear.
CSP plants are being built now with 6-8 hours of molten salt heat storage for nighttime generation. 12-14 hours of heat storage is feasable.

In the U.S., wind energy grew by 50% or 8.3 GW last year. Given the 35% capacity factor, that's the equivalent of building 3 nuclear power plants of 1 GW each, in one year. It would take at least ten years to build three nukes.
It's also the equivalent of 5-6 coal plants of 600 MW each.
Wind is the greenest of all and has the lowest land impact of all. It only uses about 2 1/2% of the land where it's sited, because turbines have to be spread out to not interfere with each other's wind. That means it can co-exist with agriculture and conceivably could share land with solar farms.

The reason you can't find alternative energy stocks that hold up is the economy and market in general. Lack of credit mainly.
We have to think long term.
It looks to me like you've made some good stock picks.
I'm looking to pick up something in wind, probably APWR and Vesta. My approach to solar is having a small basket of them. CSIQ EMKR ESLR TSL STP LDK YGE

I would also pay attention to some of the companies that are still private, like NanoSolar, Heliovolt and the solar thermal companies. One way to play solar thermal now is through FPL, though it's not a pure play.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

yes the Ozone hole did close up
and move
and it has opened up again but not like it was before.

If you hear someone argue against global warming theory and they mention the name Al Gore, you can be sure they are not basing their ideas on science, but using Gore as a scapegoat because they don't have anything else to back up their talk. And you can be sure their opinions are almost entirely based on politics, not science.

Yes, I do understand how greenhouse gases operate.

As far as the burning of ethanol, if true, it doesn't surprise me since this is the worst of alternative energies, unless we can develop algae or cellulose based methods that are better environmentally and economically.

But guess what the Bush administration put the most money into.
Why?- because big industries wanted it. Big Agriculture, auto makers, etc.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

paulaut

I admit I'm not a climate scientist, I'm a layman, one with about 1500 hours of research behind what I say. The links are mostly to science websites, not political sites. The fact that I'm a layman is why I point people to the actual science, rather than a bunch of politically motivated opinions.
Most skeptics read other skeptic opinions and don't even bother to see what the actual science says. They gobble up the pseudo science that most of the deniers cling to, out of pure political belief,


The fact remains that the scientific evidence is getting stronger everyday and is overwhelming. The consensus is also overwhelming. It is supported by just about every major scientific organization in the world, including the academy of science of every country that has one, and the earth sceince faculty of every major university in the world.

Believe what you want. Opinions are not worth much. The science is. Do you read what the scientists I reference have to say? I bet not. It might undermine the urban legends about climate change that are the talking points of most skeptics.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

fireofenergy
I apologise in advance if I misunderstand you. Everything sounded good till the last paragraph.

"Enviro's need to care more about all the damage POST OIL CRISES will do than worry about pretty lands and their backyard."

That is not the case. It's not about pretty lands. It's about the suvival of ecosystems that are critical to all species, including ours.
They are not separate things or separate interests.
Man's welfare IS the envirnonment's welfare and vise a versa.
We can't survive in a bubble, separate from the rest of the species on earth. We are part of those ecosystems, interdependent parts of the web of life. This isn't some hippie enviro delusion. It's scientific fact.
And it's the fundamental concept that anti environmentalists don't get. If half the species on earth go extinct in the next century or two from global warming, how would man be a special case? Do they think nature will give us some special dispensation because we are human? Yes it is that serious.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

mr. burns

Water vapor is indeed a greenhouse gas, but it acts as an amplifying feedback mechanism that accelerates warming, not as a cause of warming itself. The science is very clear on this.

No, volcanos produce about 1/100 as much CO2 as man, and they also produce sulfer oxides and such that have a cooling effect. Volcanos are not a big mystery to climate scientists. They had an excellent chance to study them when the big volcano erupted in the Phillipines in the 90s.
Again, the science is very clear on this also.

No, the earth is not cooling. That is more misinformation. That conclusion is only reached by cherry picking the data and manipulating the charts. It is false 100% false.
Just because someone makes these claims doesn't make them true, they are contrary to the science.

Excellent spoof/demonstration of how deniers cook up their phony claims, like that the earth is cooling now.
greenfyre.wordpress.co.../


Since this is such a popular skeptic argument presently, here are more links on supposed cooling of late.

scienceblogs.com/delto...

www.realclimate.org/in...

climateprogress.org/20.../

climateprogress.org/20.../

Like I said before you won't get real information from the sources you are getting these lies from. Go to the science websites I list in the previous post.

Every argument you have raised has been completely and absolutely debunked by science.

It is not a natural cycle.
It is not cooling.

It is the rapid rate of change that is so dangerous, not just what temperature it is.
Neither man or other species can adapt fast enough.

Global average has risen 1.4 F in 100 years. In the Arctic temp has risen 3 C or 5.4 F
The small change so far is enough to melt the polar ice caps, change timing of seasons, screw up the migration/feeding/bree... patterns of many species, acidify the ocean and much more.

You have been listening to a bunch of nonsense so far. Don't be so gullible.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

wind4me

I think you misunderstood me. I said wind energy had expanded by 8.3 GW capacity. Wind has a capacity factor of about 35% because of it's intermittency. So the 8.3 GW can't be compared directly with 8.3 GW from coal or nuclear, which have capacity factors of about 90%.( they need some downtime for maintainence etc., but otherwise run 24/7)

So the 8.3 GW of wind capacity can generate about as much in kilowatt hours as 3 nuclear plants of 1 GW capacity each.

This is correct, or close at least. The average nuke in the U.S. is 1 GW capacity. The average coal plant in the U.S. is about 600 MW capacity.

Capacity is how much a power source can produce at peak power.
What we need to know is how many kilowatt hours it will produce, or Gigawatt hours if you like. That's what the capacity factor is used to figure out. Solar PV is about 25%. Wind 35-40%
Solar thermal with heat storage could approach the capacity factor of nuclear and coal, if enough heat storage is built in to run all night.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

The ozone hole closed up after we banned CFCs. A Nobel prize was awarded to the three scientists who dug up the evidence. The ozone hole hasn't closed entirely, but CFCs haven't been entirely stopped, regardless of the Montreal Protocol that banned them.
And there are other gases that contribute to the problem. Nitrous oxide from vehicle exhaust is one if I'm not mistaken.

And the same right wing "think tanks" that fought against the science on tobacco smoke, and the science of CFCs and the ozone layer, are now fighting the science of global warming.
And they often use the same fossil fuel funded scientists, to state their case, like Fred Singer who has taken money for all three of these unworthy causes.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

raising4daughters

"I'm not smart enough to argue with you on this topic, but I continue to suspect that the global warming crisis is overstated like all other political-economic crises in order to get attention and money."

You're not smart enough to argue, but like 79% of Republicans, you think you are smarter than the 97% of active climate scientists who agree on global warming?

That is the best example of the dumbing down of America that I have ever heard of.

The scientists are not alarmists. That is just not true. They have been overly conservative if anything. That is the truth. It's the nature of science to be conservative, plodding and skeptical. That's how the scientific process works.
But that is not the skepticism of the denier crowd. Not even close. They continue to repeat arguments that were decent arguments ten or twenty years ago, but that the science has left far behind. That is not scientific skepticism. It is deceit, plain and simple. And it is all those with certain political ideology need to hear, as they are gullible enough to believe anything that fits their political bias.

The idea that scientists are in it for the money is so ludicrous it defies common sense. The idea that the science is wrong because it is government funded is equally absurd. Who do you think does most basic research? Academic labs and government funded research, in every branch of science do the yeomans work of basic research. Scientists are really motivated by science, not money. Any respectable scientist will tell you that.

Have you seen the latest on climate change? It is more proof that the scientists have been overly conservative, not alarmist. You are just repeating an accusation which you have no clue is true. The fact that you use the term alarmist when by your own admission you don't understand the science, should tell you something is amiss. On what do you base this assumption of alarmism? According to who?

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20...
Global warming seen worse than predicted

You are being fooled by one of the largest and best funded propaganda campaigns in history. And what is really sad, is that it is working.

It's about a heck of a lot more than the plight of the polar bears. How about a drought that effects one third of the planet for 1000 years, with no surviving agriculture in California, because there won't be any irrigation water. That's just one small outcome of what will happen if we do nothing.

We are in danger of exceeding tipping points, like the melting of the tundra, that can accelerate global warming beyond our ability to mitigate it. These aren't alarmist delusions, they are real dangers.

Did you read what I said about the carbon cycle? That's not science fiction. It's fact.
There is no way you can release 60 million years of carbon accumulation from the carbon cycle, in what is the equivalent to a nanosecond in geological time, and expect a good outcome.
Common sense would tell you that. You don't need to fully understand the science to get that.
It does help if you know what the carbon cycle entails. Very few understand this.
Read the book. It's a fascinating look at the making of a planet, the development of an atmosphere and life, and of how life and the atmosphere are one system that revolves around the amazing unique properties of carbon.

CO2 from man's activities is acidifying they ocean, at a rate unprecedented perhaps in the history of the planet. Armored plankton, called coccolithophores that make their shells from calcium carbonate can't survive in an acidic ocean, and they are critical to life as we know it on this planet. They are the bottom of the food chain, and they balance the CO2 in the atmosphere by taking excess carbon out of the cycle. They are maybe the largest carbon sink on earth and we are threatening their very existance with the CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere. Did your skeptic information sources tell you about this?

If you got your information from actual scientific sources instead of political blogs with an axe to grind you would be much closer to the truth. The next time you read something by a supposed "expert", check them out at Desmogblog or Sourcewatch. If you want to know what real climate scientists think, go to
Realclimate.org
Newscientist
Logical science
Skeptical science
Open Mind
Deltoid
Rabbet run
Desmogblog
Greenfyre

It's time to wake up.

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

know nothing

If you want to live up to your name, keep watching Fox news.
The most unfair and unbalanced "news" network in history.

There you'll learn enlightening facts like the OMB report that Sean Hannity keeps talking about. This report supposedly forcast dire consequences of Obama's stimulus package.
The only problem is that THERE WAS NO SUCH REPORT.
But Hannity kept harping on it a full week after other networks let the public know that the report doesn't exist.

you rely on these clowns for information?

The Differences Between Chinese and U.S. Economic Recoveries

Ferdinand

"I didn't hear the kind of nonsense about renewables that I hear in Europe. Maybe it's because the Chinese government has too much respect for its citizens."

I would think the opposite is true. One difference, and probably a major one, is that the Chinese are free to make decisions based on good sense(not that I would choose their non democratic system). We on the other hand, have a system that placates the fossil fuel industry, which pays for that favor, and allows them to fool the public about climate change and energy solutions. And for the last eight years they may as well have been the government. It amounts to the same thing.

The Bush administration had a lot of respect for our citizens. That's why it censored and squelched any scientific evidence of global warming, while doing the bidding of the oil and coal companies. They even stifled research by cutting funding to NASA etc, and never launching a completed satellite, meant to study climate change, while burying reports on climate change. They spent many billions of taxpayer money on the climate study that they then censored.

That's because the science is getting stronger all the time, despite the lies you believe, and because the evidence is overwhelming and has overwhelming consensus among climate scientists, despite the lies Sen. Inh0fe etc. want you to believe. They didn't want the citizens to know, nor did they want any more evidence.


Ferdinand, the world really isn't flat.

You probably believe some nonsense about the warming being a natural cycle.

The coal in the earth took 60 million years to accumulate, through the natural carbon cycle. We are now releasing that 60 million years worth of accumulated carbon into the atmosphere in the blink of an eye of 150 -200 years. Explain how that is a natural cycle, like anything the earth has ever been through before, that didn't kill off 90% of life on the planet. Read the new book, "The Carbon Age".
Education does wonders.


"The target audience of denialism is the lay audience, not scientists. It’s made up to look like science, but it’s PR."
David Archer

That's what organizations like the Heartland Intitute are for.

"It's no coincidence that the Heartland Institute has also received funding over the years from companies that stand to benefit from delaying government regulation in the areas of tobacco and greenhouse gas emissions."

"No group typifies this more than the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based 'think' tank that simultaneously operates the 'smoker's lounge' and 'global warming facts" sections on their website. The former arguing for 'smoker's rights' and railing on about the need for 'sound science' on tobacco issues and the latter arguing that global warming is not a crisis."

www.desmogblog.com/cli...


Wind energy grew by 8.3 gigawatts last year in the U.S. That's the equivalent of 3 nuclear reactors, or 4.5 coal plants, taking the capacity factor of wind into consideration, and comparing with the average 1 GW nuclear plant
and 650 MW coal plant. And wind energy jobs grew by 70% to 85,000.

That's a near term solution. Nuclear or "clean coal" will take a decade at least to produce any new power. Those are maybe mid term solutions. And they both will be expensive ones. And they will still be among the dirtiest of solutions.

Wind and solar will create 4-5 times as many jobs as the equivalent in coal or nuclear.
And they will provide cheaper power than either coal or nuclear.

"The time to plan and construct a coal-fired power plant without CCS equipment is generally 5–8 yr. CCS technology would be added during this period. The development time is another 1–3 yr. Thus, the total planning-to-operation time for a standard coal plant with CCS is estimated to be 6–11 yr. If the coal-CCS plant is an IGCC plant, the time may be longer since none has been built to date."

"..... based on the most optimistic future projections of nuclear power construction times of 4–5 yrs. and those times based on historic data, we assume future construction times due to nuclear power plants as 4–9 yr. Thus, the overall time between planning and operation of a nuclear power plant ranges from 10–19 yr."

"The median construction time for reactors in the US built since 1970 is 9 yr."

"For CSP(solar thermal), the construction time is similar to that of a wind farm. For example, Nevada Solar One required about 1.5 yr for construction. Similarly, an ethanol refinery requires about 1.5 yr to construct. We assume a range in both cases of 1–2 yr. We also assume the development time is the same as that for a wind farm, 1–3 yr. Thus, the overall planning-to-operation time for a CSP plant or ethanol refinery is 2–5 yr."

www.rsc.org/delivery/_...

"Wind power's ecological footprint is so small — a million times smaller than ethanol's — that if all the cars driven in the United States were battery-electric, they could be fueled by wind turbines whose total land footprint, not counting spacing in between, takes up less than 1.2 square miles, Stanford University environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson found."

Wind farms only use about 2 1/2% of the land they are sited on, coexisting with agriculture, and conceivably with solar power.

solveclimate.com/blog/....

If you go to the first link, you will learn that nuclar and coal with CCS come in dead last in life cycle carbon footprint, compared with other
alternative energy sources. Coal with CCS is still off the charts in this regard.

Cramer's Lightning Round - Don't Give ADM (2/9/09)

So Cramer thinks being windmill related is a negative?

Wind power in the U.S. grew 50% year over year, adding 8.3 GW, with 4 GW going online in just the last 3 months of 2008.
Wind is now over 25 GW in U.S.

Wind jobs grew 70% to 85,000 -and now exceed coal mining employment.

China is growing wind power at a nice clip too.
Just the beginning of a long period of growth.

Three Things Obama Will Do to Advance Alternative Energy

Point taken
You are right, my rant was out of line and a turn off. My apologies. My passion overpowers my good sense sometimes.

I get kind of worked up when I see people buying into anti environmental anti science propaganda campaign that has been so successful at confusing the American public.
It's intentional and calculated and unfortunately has been working.
The science of climate change gets stronger everyday and so does this massive propaganda campaign deliberately seeking to distort the truth and paint what amounts to practically the entire world scientific community as engaged in some dark conspiracy. The whole idea is absurd. With so much at stake, it seems criminal. It's akin to the debate about cigarette smoke a few decades ago. In fact the fossil fuel industry uses some of the same scientists, who testified for the tobacco industry back then, to further their agenda of deceit now.
If you are going to be a skeptic, be skeptical of the skeptics too.

Shotei
You may be right on those numbers, I admit I was repeating something I read, that may not be accurate. I don't believe it makes the rest of what I said crap though.

Nakedjaybird
There are several reasons why Soc. Security is a mess. One is that the funds have always been mixed with the general funds and weren't left to grow like they should have.
The govt kept dipping into the principal to pay for other programs.
Another issue is that people get social security who don't need it.
Sure they paid in, but it seems like it should be more like an insurance program, if you don't need it, don't take it.

"I agree that all the "greenie/pollluti... stuff" preceding "

If you are talking about my use of terms like "ignorance"
I have apologized. If you expect me to apologize for thinking green, that's another issue. The continued painting of environmentalism as somehow extreme doesn't hold water.
Man is endangering practically every ecosystem on earth, even without global warming. The earth simply cannot support us doing the same things we have been doing. We don't live in a bubble. We are an interdependent part of an interconnected web of life. We can't destroy that web of life and expect our species to survive.

As for extremism, look at this example:
If you have a group of environmentalists trying to save the 1% of old growth redwoods that are left on the one hand, and on the other hand you have a billionaire corporate raider like Hurwitz who took over Pacific Lumber in California, so he could get richer, and then proceeds to double the rate of logging of the old growth redwoods, to pay offf the junk bonds he used to buy up the lumber company, who is the extremist here?

How about the oceans? 75% of fish stocks are gone, 90% of many species. The coral reefs are dying off at an alarming rate.
25% of all sea life depends on coral reefs.
There are vast dead zones from polution. There is a sea of plastic in the Pacific ocean the size of the lower 48 states, where near the surface, plastic outweighs zooplankton by 6-1. The tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain are inadvertently injesting these tiny bits of plastic which poisons like DDT and PCBs stick to.
Excess CO2 is dissolving in the ocean and turning into carbonic acid, which is acidifying the ocean. Shellfish and coral can't form their exoskeletons in such acidic water. Fish are also sensitive to the ph levels in sea water. Ask anyone who has an aquarium how important ph is. Pacific coast silver and king salmon are almost extinct. In the case of salmon, habitat destruction in rivers and streams is as much if not more to blame as overfishing. And the fish are full of mercury to the point where it is dangerous to eat too much fish.
The story is similar no matter where you look.
Read about what's happening to the Boreal Forest of Canada, so we can have toilet paper, paper towels, catalogues, pampers etc. This forest is one of the biggest carbon sinks on earth. It's either home or breeding or feeding grounds to over half the bird species in North America. And it's watershed is important to much of North America. National Geographic had an issue devoted to this.
We could alleviate this by simply making paper from hemp which is much more sustainable than using wood.

Do you think it's extreme to be concerned about all this? What could possibly be more important?

Wizard
If the public was all on the same page in regard to climate change, we would have the political will to achieve these goals.
The nation pulled together for WW2, even sacrificing for the greater good. We transformed our entire manufacturing sector to wartime mode while simultaneously completing the Manhattan Project, and fought a major war, all in less than ten years. Try to do that now and you get accused of collectivism. Assuming the scientists are right, we face an even bigger challenge now.

By the way a new study estimates the price of new nuclear power at 22-30 cents/kWh - or threee times the national average.
Climate Progress has the story.

Three Things Obama Will Do to Advance Alternative Energy

The degree to which Americans are misinformed and disinformed and uninformed about alternative energy and it's potential is staggering.
Just read the posts here. Most of the comments are by people who's information source is sound bites and simplistic claims that are simply not true.

Coal is killing our ocean, and killing 24,000 Americans every year, more than homicides and AIDS combined. The CO2 is acidifying the ocean which is destroying coral reefs and shellfish. We have lost 19% of coral reefs in 20 years, largely from this effect.
The mercury has made our fish stocks practically inedible.
Coal plants also spew out radionuclides, and heavy metals as well as NO2 and other toxins. It has destroyed 450 mountain tops just in one state. 100,000 miners have died in the last 100 years mining coal. The pollution causes all kinds of respiratory diseases and acid rain. And coal is the biggest manmade cause of global warming. Coal gets $3 billion a year in subsidies. Clean coal is a myth. Perfecting (CCS)carbon capture and sequestration will take 10-20 years, if it is even feasable. To do it on a global scale would entail pumping CO2 into the earth on a scale like we now pump oil out of the earth. If we do manage this, coal will be much more expensive than solar and wind. Some estimates are that it would add 16 cents to a kWh price. That would make it about the most expensive energy of all. And that only takes care of the CO2, not the other pollutants.
Over half of our coal plants were built before 1973. Older plants cannot be converted to CCS. Coal uses 24% of our rail freight cars and 44% of rail freight tonnage. Phasing out coal would free up freight capacity for other freight, which can be shipped long distance by rail much more fuel efficiently than by truck.

Using less land than now used for coal plants and coal mining, solar thermal plants with heat storage would power the entire U.S.
Read that again to make sure you get it.

Electric prices from solar thermal will be below 10cents/kWh within 5 years, maybe less. With increased economy of scale the price will drop to 5-8cents/kWh.

Compare that with prices from new nuclear plants which are projected to be 12-17cents/kWh with prices increasing as the low hanging fruit of rich uranium ore is depleted. We will have peak uranium about 10 years after peak oil.
Wind farms can be built for $1400/kWt
New nuclear plants will cost $5500 to $8000/kWt to build according to Florida Power and Light. That's why FPL is now in the solar thermal power plant business.
So much for "electricity too cheap to meter" as the nuclear industry promised decades ago.

Wind power is now about 4-5cents/kWh.

Wind and solar are both quicker to build than either coal or nuclear.

Solar thermal plants with heat storage are even better than coal for providing base load power. They rev up and peak in perfect sinc with the energy demand during the day. They then continue to put out steady non intermittent energy into the night. They can be designed to provide power all night. The cost of storing heat is about 1/20 or less of the cost of storing electricity.

They can be built in 2-3 years.

A report for the Western Governors Alliance said we could build 300 gigawatts of solar thermal near existing transmission lines.
Total coal generating capacity is 313 gWt.
Total U.S. generating capacity is 1,075 gWt

One report from NREL said we could build 660 gigawatts of wind power by 2030. The Google plan calls for building 380 gWt.
It calls for 250 gWt of solar including PV and CSP. this could be much higher. We could have that much CSP alone by then.

The reason the depression didn't end until WW2 is because of how deep it was, not because Roosevelt's programs didn't work.
These programs are the reason we even have a middle class.
Programs like the CCC and WPA gave people self respect and a sense of dignity; and fed, clothed and housed them. They also vastly improved our infrastructure.

"Second, wind and solar energy were fine in the 1500s but are of no use now"

How do you answer such an ignorant statement? Here's what use they are now. They will never ever need any fuel to mine, to transport, to refine, to prospect for, to burn, to clean up the pollution from, to fight wars over, to cause wild price fluctuations, for someone to control, to add to our trade imbalance.

"I'd put my money on the sun & solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison, 1931

Nuclear doesn't give us energy independence. We import 90% of our uranium and just signed a deal to import 20% of it from Russia.

Photovotaics will be at grid parity in most of the country in 5 years or so and in 10 years everywhere in the country. And grid parity doesn't take into account the massive hidden costs of fossil fuels., which are in the hundreds of billions every year.
The tax break package for renewable energy that passed with the bailout bill will provide $17 billiion/year.
That's for all the renewable combined, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, cogeneration, efficient cars, wave tide, etc.
By comparison, oil company's get at least $39 billion every year. One estimate for oil and gas is $84 billion a year.
Not one subsidy for oil since 1918 has ever been phased out.

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."

"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 another $4 billion)

"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...

There is nothing whatsoever that is Pie in the Sky about any of this.
That is just tired old rhetoric that is not based in fact.

We don't have to invent new technology to make a major head start at building a clean grid and energy system. Current technology will take us through the next 20 years. New developments will be deployed when they are ready.
Solar and wind are ready now. There are many ways to balance out the intermittent nature of PV and wind. Yes, we need better energy storage to help with this, but we have a ways to go before we have enough wind and solar for that to be a problem.

There will be a net economic benefit from all this.
OK, One study projected a tiny net loss in GDP. The difference would be that the GDP would reach $23 trillion in April of some year in the 2020s, instead of in January of that year. Big deal.
The other benefits would far outweigh this. Energy independence, health, environment, etc.

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 generating capacity in the U.S. The Google energy plan looks to have 380 gWt by 2030.
From the Google energy plan summary:
"An earlier study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory explored more rapid scale-ups of wind capacity, and found that up to about 600 GW by 2030 was feasible. Our target, 380 GW in 2030, is therefore not at all unrealistic."

Three Things Obama Will Do to Advance Alternative Energy

Fred Banks

Where do you get your pearls of wisdom? Wind power is cheap, quick to build and green. What's wrong with that.

The dept of energy says we could have 20% wind power by 2030.
Solar could be a bigger percentage by then.

"I'd put my money on the sun & solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."
Thomas Edison, 1931
Now there's a wise man.

genea

The President can't dictate what companies benefit from an alternative energy revolution. What he can do is provide the right incentives so Americans can develop new companies and compete.
Lack of govt support for alternative energy has put us in a catch up mode vis a vis the rest of the world. We had 50% of the wind power market until Republicans pulled the govt funding in the 80s. It's no accident that the largest PV makers are all overseas.
What people don't understand is that it's the massive subsidies for oil, coal, gas and nuclear that make it so hard for alternatives to compete.

thmime
We can't drill our way to energy independence. Impossible! If we pumped every barrel of oil reserves off the California coast it would give us enough oil for 16 months at U.S. consumption rates.


What will give us energy independence is energy that needs no fuel ever. No fuel ever to mine, prospect for, refine, transport, store, burn, clean up the pollution from, or fight wars over.
The hidden costs of oil and gas and coal are in the hundreds of billions every year.
They cost plenty over and above the energy prices you pay. Solar and wind will be as cheap before long, even without considering those hidden costs of fossil fuels. At which point they will actually be far cheaper in the big picture.

Shotei
I believe you are wrong. Obama will make energy a priority because it will solve 4 issues at once, economy, energy, environment, and national security.
No more wars over oil.
Are you talking about the war that Bush and co planned before 911? The war that they lied about to fool us into supporting. The one where they cherry picked intelligence that supported their agenda? The war that has nearly bankrupted our country? The one where we invaded a sovereign country that hadn't attacked us? The one where we invaded the one and only Muslim country that didn't have Al Queda operating?
Oh, that war.

This won't be like the Bush administration that did everything in it's power to block environmental progress. We won't have science being censored and hushed up to fit an agenda. We won't have an administratioin that works hand in hand with big oil to confuse the public debate about climate change and energy solutions.
Read the books "The Heat is On"
and "Censoring Science" What they did is criminal. The Bush administration even asked a conservative think tank to sue the administration, in order to prevent scientific facts from being brought up in a senate debate, so they would appear to not have a hand in this particular instance of censoring science. A memo was discovered later that proved this.