nakedjaybird

The Truth About Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy (Part II)

Joe et.al: normally, one thinks and writes according to his worldview.

So, instead of arguing and debating the use of fossil fuels any longer, be they nat gas, coal, oil, shale, sands, etc., let's just explore, dig, process and burn all of them until they no longer exist - then we don't have to discuss them any longer - and tell China and India and the rest of the world the same thing.

Problem solved!!!

The 'Green' Side of Natural Gas

JERRYDD - YOU'VE GOT TO USE THE SOLAR POWER THAT GET'S RID OF THE STEAM CYCLE AND ALL THE MOVING PARTS = THAT'S WHY PV WINS OUT - NO MAINTENACE OF THE MOVING PARTS AND NOT CAPEX FOR THE ALL SPINNERS, HX, ETC.

jUST plain ole silent running and no dockside time for refueling, motor/pump maint or tube plugging (something any submariner understands!). Worst enviornmental hazard is cooling the desert (or rooftops) and rattlesnake bites (assuming the Obama environmentalists protect the rattlers from roughback spitting snuce chewers).

The 'Green' Side of Natural Gas

Come on guys. The base-load coal plants are operational, paid for, profitable, connected to mines in many cases, and will be used until not permitted to, or they wear out; an asset to use (milk, til it's a dead dog).

NG is the favored alternative for the new peaking generating capacity.

Solar and wind should be the preferred alternative for new peaking capacity instead of NG, and when it's done that is should be used to replace base-load coal ASAP. NG should not be promoted over solar and wind for right thinking folks (so happens, a lot of greedy folks own the gas and want to use it now, instead of maybe never; IT'S EVENTUALLY GOING TO GONE, PERIOD. IT'S FOSSIL (GET IT??).

Hydro and nuc will continue. Pumped hydro will come to be, in many dry canyons in the SW and NW. And some compressed gas storage (along with some giant capacitors etc., for regulation purposes).

The 'Green' Side of Natural Gas

And throw natural gas exploration, drilling, transportation, etc.,etc, in with the rest of the fossils ...........


nakedjaybird: Comments (579) Follow

Yes; go Wal-Mart. As big boxers put their roofs to work they will show the power generation world what alternative power can do.

As soon as the power generators no longer "worry" about sunk costs and idled capacity in all their fossil plants, they too will gladly go for the
- no moving parts,
- corrosion-free
- low to non-existant maintenace,
- nearly regulatory- free,
- basically no-personnel risk (coal mining to nuclear waste if we were to include nuc)
- and finally, basically, enviornmentally clean, throughout (sans some sand and Si processing).

Theirs not a power generator around that would not give up mining, processing, regs, water-wall repairs, bag houses, slag, generating system maintenance (and radiation workers, regs, NRC, etc., etc.,) FOR SOME SILENT, CLEAN, SIMPLE, UNCOMPLICATED POWER GENERATION.

The US Mission should be to teach the rest of the world all this instead of trying to sell them the stuff we already make to then have them go down the same yellow brick road we have, AND THEN UNDO IT!!!!

I'm all for solar on huts in hinderland - (and Wal-Mart rooftops!)..

Making Natural Gas Transportation a Reality

Sorry Fitz - I'd still rather have Steven Chu leading the way than you and your NG mantra for transportation.

All we need for an effective short term and long term reduction of 5-7 million barrels/day in oil consumption is to permanently implement the equibalent responses to the 1973 Oil Embargo:

1) for people (and some goods) movement: car-pooling, van-pooling, busses and transit systems for the folks within beltways; teleconferening, elimination of marketing jaunts; minimizing use of private planes and maximize full commerical flights; High speed trains; more rails (100% electric); install electrified ferries within interstate right of ways (local intra and express interstate).

2) for cargo and goods movement: put it on the steel wheeled rails and barges and get it off the rubber tired interstates.

3) electrify every end use.

4) install AMAP solar and wind.

So come on, next embargo; teach the folks a second time. Only keep the fixes in place and/or improve on them for permancey.

Book Review: Robert Hefner's 'The Grand Energy Transition'

Hey Fitz - great that Hef know the differences. Now to get the simplistic more accurate. As for it being over my head, I'd like to think that I'd recognize it first, and also admit it, second.

Book Review: Robert Hefner's 'The Grand Energy Transition'

Fitz - goodness gracious. By the time Hefner writes his second book, God forbid, he may put natural gas into the fossil fuel category along with coal gas. Of course that will have to be after he realizes the sun is FUSION at it's best, not a ball of burning hydrogen.....duh? Careful who you read and what they are pumping....!

Natural Gas & Wind Power - The Pickens Plan

Fitzman - Boones Poliicy may be all that's necessary - simple, clean, effective and not encubered with all the garbage DC puts on their action plans to tickle everyones ear.

Wind's Our Future, but Natural Gas Is Now

And DougM, if you're satisfied with solar/NG, you ought to really be satisfied with solar/biofuel AND BE ALL HOMEGROWN, AND of course, leave the hydrocarbons stored in the ground (all the hydrocarbons: coal, ng, oil, tar sands, oil shale - who, in their right mind would want to dig any of these AND FURTHER PROCESS THEM, to JUST BURN THEM??? DUH!!

Wind's Our Future, but Natural Gas Is Now

DougM - come on, Fusion exists right now. Look at the sun. We can use as much of it right now with every solar PV unit we install. And it doesn't pollute our air, nor use our hydrocarbons. And it's free. Not always available, but we can work on that. Oh, yes it might cool the earth a little.

Wind's Our Future, but Natural Gas Is Now

marc - why would you want to burn NG and throw away 70% of it's energy vis-a-vis generate and use as much free and available wind and solar energy and throw nothing away??? PURE GAIN!

And why wouldn't you want to employ this logic ASAP/AMAP/IEWP???

Boone's got it half right: replace NG power generation with wind (and solar).

What's wrong is then burning NG in vehicles and throwing away 70% of that energy as waste heat. Now if he could recover that waste heat and make it useful electricy for a hybrid, great.

At that point I'd suggest burning biofuels and still leave all the NG in the ground - as stored-already.

So it goes.........

Will Automakers Switch to Natural Gas?

Hey farmboy - how often did you change oil on your battery powered fork trucks???

Will Automakers Switch to Natural Gas?

farmboy - pumped hydro is a good one. May not work along the mississippi, but it works where rivers are at the bottom of major canyons with lots of steep/deep feeder ravines. That's all available technology and would be a no-brainer first choice, I guess. Then, we can pump stuff underground and recover it, etc......

By then, ..... remember we only need 5 Quads of electric for ALL TRANSPORTATION; as you should know, we already generate and distribute 12 Quads of electric annually, NOW. So we need to beef up the grid 50% for handling transportation. And, by the time that moves off the highways onto rails, etc., the todays requirement is actually reduced.

Bottom line, required storage of electrical power from sophisticated complex means may be small; assuming nuc, wind, solar, hydro, etc., continue.

Especially when we've really harnessed the waste heat recovery via solid state devices fed by biofuels................. free. Got all the standby, peaking, if not some baseload necessary, without burning any natural hydrocarbons.

Will Automakers Switch to Natural Gas?

farmboy - I'm all for cogeneration at 60% (the number I loosely use like 30%); they work well for industy; few used in utility service best I know - maybe you know better today - my data point is a decade old.

Europe used the concept in district heating for a century(?).

But, I'm still against BURNING our natural resources (except for nuc [uranium, etc.] of course - but it's not a hydrocarbon - AND I DON'T FEAR THE REPROCESSSING OF NUC AND WASTE HANDLING - WE'VE BEEN DOING IT FOR YEARS, IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK (AND I DON'T MEAN HANFORD WHICH WAS HANDLED MISERABLY - EVEN THO THEY HAD A MISSION, WITH UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES (DEPENDENT VARIABLES, AGAIN).

Again, I'm not a greenie (their focus was air, water, etc.). My focus is energy source and energy misuse. The greenies focus was on the dependent variable, not the independent variable. Plus, re. nuc. they, the greenies, caused a lot of damage thru emphasis of the 1,2 std deviations to impact the 'stupid' which bot the tails for the whole curve.

Will Automakers Switch to Natural Gas?

ps: and the hybrid I mentioned does not need a battery or a storage device other that it's tank of biofuel.