If you haven't been keeping pace with the news. The obama administration is once again at war with the coal industry.
He is also once again trying to bypass congress to force lower emission rates from coal plants.
this is going to do several things one of which is drive coal plants out of business and drive electricity prices up.
So far ~200 coal plants have been shut down due to regulations of the obama administration. Not to mention the impact on mining jobs in coal providing states.
Given that tesla and other such companies are trying to get people to buy into the electric market it is going to make it a more difficult climb to do so.
the fact is that coal generates 44% of our electricity. With almost no new nuclear plants being built and the myth that renewable energy is going to be able to solve the power issue this is a disaster.
we are going to be facing an energy crunch (no new drilling except on private lands) and the fact that the keystone pipeline will not be approved by this administration.
geothermal only works if you live near a geo-active area.
wind energy is causing it's own enviromental issues as they are now finding out.
solar is only good in area's that get regular sun light.
once again nuclear is the next generation of power unless someone can get the new plasma energy source i have been reading about going.
1. What are these environmental issues with windpower that are worse than coal/oil?
2. The article you linked on plasma did not detail how this would generate energy. Plasma itself is not a source of energy. In fact, given nothing else, the plasma ring you mentioned would consume energy since you would have to heat something up to become plasma first.
3. The jobs issue is refuted or, at the very least, challenged, by research:
I think you're going to have to learn to accept this. The plants that are being shut down are simply dirtier than any of the alternatives. We are shifting to natural gas for our own energy needs and that is going to be a reasonable first step toward the total elimination of fossil fuels.
In my opinion our baseline power generation is going to eventually be from fusion, river hydro and potentially ocean hydro as well. Solar will also figure prominently but we will need to come up with good plans for distribution and energy storage.
Coal mining jobs aren't in jeopardy at any rate due to rapidly increasing demand in asia. Even when demand for coal does cease it will be a cause for celebration.
As for my credentials - i worked at three mile island for a few months and prior to that i spent 6 years in the navy during which time i was a fully qualified reactor operator and electrical operator. I am now an electrician and i am more concerned about my allergy problems than about whatever imagined ill effects might come from the decline of the us coal industry. I look forward to a future in which fossil fuels are no longer used at all.
and still under investigation they are causing health problems in people.
The article you linked on plasma did not detail how this would generate energy. Plasma itself is not a source of energy. In fact, given nothing else, the plasma ring you mentioned would consume energy since you would have to heat something up to become plasma first.
umm it is another fusion process along side the new fusion reactor they are trying to build.
Yes it consumes energy just like all forms of electric consume energy in one form or another. it is the ability to harness that energy and making it effiecient.
The thing is that they are able to allow the reactor to develop it's own magnetic field therefore it doesn't disappate in air like it normally would.
which means i could be self sustaining once it gets going on. again it is just in testing phase but a new fusion model that is out there.
combine that with the high voltage capaciters that they are creating and they could store good sums of energy.
The jobs issue is refuted or, at the very least, challenged, by research:
challenged by who?
all three sources you posted are heavily biased. plants have been closed people have lost their jobs.
more plants will be closed as the cost to meet these regulations are way more expensive than what the companies wish to put out.
Not to mention the ones that they do upgrade the billions of dollars are going to be passed onto the consumer.
We are shifting to natural gas for our own energy needs and that is going to be a reasonable first step toward the total elimination of fossil fuels.
In my opinion our baseline power generation is going to eventually be from fusion, river hydro and potentially ocean hydro as well. Solar will also figure prominently but we will need to come up with good plans for distribution and energy storage.
i agree the thing is that these are not in place yet and we are still working on them while this administration is taking down the current system without a backup in place.
all because a few enviromental wacko's.
I look forward to a future in which fossil fuels are no longer used at all.
Tesla solved the energy issue 80 some years ago. The problem with his thinking is it is unmeterable so its not profitable to the big energy companies. There are always growing pains when a big changes comes a long. It may be time for those pains.
bocephus: You're talking about his experiment in upstate NY?
I didn't think that ever officially had absolute results, just theoretical and some promising tests.
I believe he built a full working version out west. He powered a small town for a few months with it. The upstate New York was the first try at a major city and too many balked at the idea before he completed it.
Hey mystery45, can you clarify what you mean by "all because a few enviromental wacko's."?
Anyone who believes in human caused climate change.
The big problem I see with this is that he's got a war going on both coal and oil at the same time.
If you shut coal plants in places that don't have nat gas hookups they are going to burn oil.
Not to mention there is absolutely zero effort to get new Nuke plants up and running despite HUGE advances in the science and safety.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
They are disrupting bird migration. They are also killing off birds and bats.
I know about that. I'm asking for stuff that is worse than what coal and oil do.
and still under investigation they are causing health problems in people.
Well I will be quite surprised when health concerns over wind turbines are greater than the health problems fossil fuel can induce.
umm it is another fusion process along side the new fusion reactor they are trying to build.
Yes it consumes energy just like all forms of electric consume energy in one form or another. it is the ability to harness that energy and making it effiecient.
Well the article was not very good at detailing that but it will be good to see fusion reactors become a reality in the near future.
challenged by who?
all three sources you posted are heavily biased. plants have been closed people have lost their jobs.
Okay so do you have a better source on this than the NRDC? Yes, people will lose their jobs. But it is foolish to think that nobody will get any jobs from wind farms.
The department of energy appears to strongly support wind power as well.
more plants will be closed as the cost to meet these regulations are way more expensive than what the companies wish to put out.
Not to mention the ones that they do upgrade the billions of dollars are going to be passed onto the consumer.
Yes and if wind farms create more jobs than fossil fuels do as the above sources claimed then we will have a net gain in jobs and a cleaner energy source providing it.
Well I will be quite surprised when health concerns over wind turbines are greater than the health problems fossil fuel can induce.
This tells me you didn't read the article i posted about the symptoms that they are seeing in people.
Okay so do you have a better source on this than the NRDC?
Natural Resource Defense council The earths best defense. yes that is a biased organization of renewable energy.
Huffington post is about as bad as daily kos in it's bias.
those are not objective sources to be looking at.
But it is foolish to think that nobody will get any jobs from wind farms.
where did i say this? wind farms will not employ more people than the mining industry does. why? you don't need that many people to work on a wind farm.
The department of energy appears to strongly support wind power as well.
yea and the energy board has been filled with eco hacks by obama.
so again you have to consider the source.
heck they tried to even put a wind farm in MA off the coast and everybody in that area shot it down. including senator kennedy at the time.
Yes and if wind farms create more jobs than fossil fuels do as the above sources claimed then we will have a net gain in jobs and a cleaner energy source providing it.Yes and if wind farms create more jobs than fossil fuels do as the above sources claimed then we will have a net gain in jobs and a cleaner energy source providing it. Today 08:50 PM
there is no evidence of this. also please tell me where in appalacha you are going to put a wind farm? where are you going to put a solar plant?
where in NY are you going to put these things? there isn't enough wind and during the winter time not enough sun to keep them going.
re-usable energy is a nice idea, but it is a micro solution to a macro problem.
When i go to build my next home i will install a full solar system on it. Why? i will either be living in FL or TX and it is more benefit to do so.
While i could at some time end up in RI installing a solar panel system would not benefit me.
Renewable energy is well a good idea based on location. it is not an overall energy solution.
Anyone who believes in human caused climate change.
hehe not really some of those people are rational human beings that you can have a discussion with. I am talking more along the lines of
some of the enviro nut groups like earth first etc ...
exactly card they will use whatever resource they can to supply power if not coal then NG or oil in which oil is even worse.
again i agree on the nuke front as well. at least until we can get a working fusion reactor going but that is still 50+ years off.
they have moved into construction phase but it is still going to take forever to come online. nuke plants can be built now and are quite
safe and the fuel can be recycled and used again with the new reactors.
Well I will be quite surprised when health concerns over wind turbines are greater than the health problems fossil fuel can induce.
This tells me you didn't read the article i posted about the symptoms that they are seeing in people.
I clicked on the link because I was actually curious to see if there was any solid evidence. Turns out its rather...mushy at best
These symptoms have been observed and documented by a limited number of scientists studying small groups of people, and the scientific community hasn't concluded whether wind-turbine syndrome exists. There are also mixed opinions on whether wind turbines emit infrasound and if the amount is any more than that emitted by diesel engines or waves crashing on the beach [source: CleanTechnica, ABC Science]. But we do know that at high speeds, wind turbines can produce an audible hum and vibration that can be carried through the air.
First page alone has several claims that this is something that still needs testing (and probably in a more controlled setting) instead of conclusive findings of harmful effects to the human body. They also offered a really simple explanation without having to resort to wind turbine syndrome as the answer
mystery: The mining industry doesn't employ that many people, and the coal plants require less than wind farms do. People that actually know the data look at the jobs as pretty much a wash.
However states like West Virginia that are almost completely based upon coal would be hit hard if coal became completely obsolesced. But overall for the nation as a whole people that are experts in the field look at the numbers as pretty much even on jobs because of the amount of maintenance and checks that the 200+ foot tall fans would require to make sure they don't fail. (Since catastrophic failures like throwing a blade would be really, really bad for whatever it hits)
I'd rather see modernized nuclear and molten salt (real thing, and it actually uses SPENT nuclear fuel as it's source and it's waste has something like a 3 year halflife - June 2013 Popular Science had an article on it) reactors myself however.
The battle between energy sources is a joke. Energy isn't about oil, or coal, or wood, or anything, it is about BTU's, and how many BTU's we can get out of whatever it is we are "burning".
Thought experiment:
65 million cars. (low estimate)
Each uses approx. 10 gallons of fuel oil a week. (650million gallons per week)
Each gallon produces 138,000+/- BTU's.
650millionx138k = 89,700,000,000,000 BTU's per week
Solar converts to electricity. Wind converts to electricity. Coal converts to electricity. Nuclear converts to electricty. Hydro converts to electricity.
BTU's per kWh (electricity) = 3,400.
89.7 trillion / 3,400 = 26,382,352,941+ kWh of electricity !per week! needed to match our oil consumption with cars alone.
There is no free lunch. There is no perpetual motion. No matter what source you use, there is unusable waste which is lost in production.
Now, just think, we've only been at it for about 130 years. (Petrol and usueful Electrical production started between 1860-1890)
(It is estimated the world uses 90 million barrels of oil a day. A US barrel is 42 gallons - 90mx42= 3,780,000,000 gallons)
mystery: The mining industry doesn't employ that many people, and the coal plants require less than wind farms do. People that actually know the data look at the jobs as pretty much a wash.
going to get this out of the way now. not every state is MD. how MD functions is not indicitive to other states. /sarcasim
parts of PA, WV, VA, KY, TN, OH and i am sure i left out a few are all very heavy coal producers. They provide thousands of jobs and bring in millions of dollars to the state economy.
They are a vital part these states economies and the life blood for thousands of people. You can't build wind farms in these places.
so while they may not employ that many people in MD they do in other states.
I'd rather see modernized nuclear and molten salt (real thing, and it actually uses SPENT nuclear fuel as it's source and it's waste has something like a 3 year halflife - June 2013 Popular Science had an article on it) reactors myself however.
again i agree but we are not developing this. we are hoarding money into the myth of renewable energy.
the problem is this is not the time to be in a war on energy or energy development.
he wants people to do electric cars which have their own issues.
tesla is the only viable source right now but they are expensive. their have delayed their X model into next year and they lost 200m last quarter.
they have said they will release a lower cost model for 30-35k which is getting better but it still needs to be in the 20-25 range.
plus they are still building their recharging network for people on the go.
the issue comes in now they are going to face an uphill battle with higher electric costs and with fuel prices rising at the same time
you create a perfect storm that can technically lead to economic disaster.
all while trying to push a technology that will not meet the need for US power consumption.
I found a book a while back ago about how much US land it would take to supply the current needs with wind and solar to meet current usage.
i can't remember but it was like a state and a half. or something again this was a few years ago.
I wasn't talking about MD, I was talking about the USA as a whole - yes it would absolutely be horrendous for WV. (Coal production in the other states you listed is in the 5-10% range for their state's production from what I'm seeing [Not shocking with PA being big in steelworks for example], WV is literally 60% of it's production - wasn't stating it as the only, just the hugest example)
But saying "jobs will be lost" isn't completely accurate, they'd be moved around - we'd see a ton of jobs being created in the midwest (and other open areas) while in the Coal states would be losing tons - but overall jobs would stay pretty level from projections on a NATIONAL level.
Of course coal industry would be hurt because it would devastate coal MINING (Ie part of the production process). And you're saying wind FARMS don't require that many jobs. Anyone else see a massive disconnect here?
Jobs would increase in manufacturing and steel production (which requires coal, mind you) for wind turbines. You're comparing the maintenance jobs of wind farms with the production jobs of coal mining. They're absolutely incompatible. If you want to compare wind farm jobs you'd have to do so with coal PLANT jobs. Which are substantially fewer in number.
Not to mention that the US exports the majority of its coal production anyways...
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
There are a lot of scientists that have fantastic ideas that if they aren't to combat global warming or renewable eco-friendly energy that can't get grants because of the stranglehold on the energy fields of science by eco-terrorist groups... all over a .8K change in global temperature over 150 years?!
We need to find something to replace our dependence on fossil fuels, I get that. I would love to see more Nuclear projects up in the works, but many are vetoed and axed before they can get off the ground because of the media's presentation of a few mishaps and mistakes that have happened over the years, usually because of incredible circumstances (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima).
Solar power is fine is a few places. I think many people are starting to slowly be against wind power because of the large swaths of land that are deemed unusable for many forms of animal life. One of the big knocks on the Keystone Pipeline is that it will disrupt many animal groups in the area, but we are okay with co-opting huge grants of land for wind farms that actively kill aerial animals while still disrupting animal groups in the area?
Lastly, I think Tesla was the true genius of his time, not Einstein. I would love to try pretty much anything he thought up, at least once. If Einstein had spent less time on his crusade against Quantum Mechanics and more time QUESTIONING and LEARNING about it, I would say I would remember him more fondly.
There are quite a few false assumptions and outright falsehoods circulating. I'd like the opportunity to clear a few things up.
Your electrical plants are split into two types to describe how often they operate. Baseline plants operate all the time (aside from breakdowns or maintenance shutdowns) and peaking plants only turn on when demand is expected to exceed the capacity of the baseline plants.
The cost of generating electricity is dependent on lots of things but the cost of the fossil fuel does play a big role. 10 years ago coal was very cheap. Natural Gas was pretty expensive. The nuclear plant's cost structure is pretty different in that it costs more to build and train and maintain the plant but the end result is that nuclear is slightly cheaper than the others.
So on any given day you'd probably have coal plants, nuclear plants and hydro plants supplying your baseline electricity. There are also planners whose job is to estimate how much power the region will need each day and figure out if he needs to order a peaking plant turned on. The peaking plants were often natural gas plants and if I remember correctly it was because natural gas plants were simpler to start up quickly and were therefore more suitable to that role. Couple that with relatively low supplies and higher prices and you can see why natural gas played the role that it did.
Then oil companies started to perform hydraulic fracturing a.k.a. fracking which allowed them to get natural gas from shale deposits that weren't accessible before. The marcellus shale formation extends from new york state through the western half of pennsylvania and west virginia plus a few other states. In the last few years in Pennsylvania the natural gas fracking operations have resulted in many new jobs and a lot of economic development in the northern and western parts of the state. The price of natural gas has also gone way down.
Natural gas plants are now much cheaper to operate. When a baseline coal plant is closed it is probably being replaced with a gas plant that used to be a peaking plant. The gas plant is now competitive on cost and it emits half the amount of carbon that is emitted by a coal plant.
Coal plants are closing but that is a good thing. Jobs aren't being lost. You still need to generate electricity. You're just generating it at natural gas plants instead of coal plants. The coal that's being mined is being shipped overseas. The peaking plants already existed so if it seems like we're not replacing enough of them it's because the replacements were in some cases already there. We all still have electricity and carbon emissions are down.
If there's anything that's not good - it's the possibility that fracking is polluting the ground water. That's the only thing I worry about. Coal sucks. There's no reason to keep using coal.
How many troops did Obama send on this war? Which PMCs did the coal industries hire to protect themselves? Is Obama willing to use nuclear weapons in this war?
Can we please stop referring to everything we don't like as a "war on X"?
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
I wasn't talking about MD, I was talking about the USA as a whole - yes it would absolutely be horrendous for WV. (Coal production in the other states you listed is in the 5-10% range for their state's production from what I'm seeing [Not shocking with PA being big in steelworks for example], WV is literally 60% of it's production - wasn't stating it as the only, just the hugest example)
But saying "jobs will be lost" isn't completely accurate, they'd be moved around - we'd see a ton of jobs being created in the midwest (and other open areas) while in the Coal states would be losing tons - but overall jobs would stay pretty level from projections on a NATIONAL level.
Actually it is accurate those people will lose there job with no replacment. So please tell me where they are to go and provide for their families.
You were trying to down play the severity of the situation. I listed at least 5states that this would have an impact on. I have also shown that wind and solar farms do not work in those areas. So please tell me how the people that live there are suppose survive with no work?
This is the wrong time to be waging a war more when you have no replacements
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On the convex how are the engineers and other people dying for work in the Midwest and other "solar/wind friendly" areas going to provide for their families if the jobs that they were planning on never show?
The same goes on either side of the coin - at the end of the day it's job quantity total that's important. When you micromanage to the level of "what about Jim and his job personally" it's impossible to literally do anything - you make a Federal mandate that toilet paper must be supplied and that can easily for some large operations be enough for a single salary over the year, "OMG! Providing toilet paper kills jobs!"
Net is the most important thing - and an additional bonus of course is when comparing two jobs is how much the replacement job is paying - Wind/Solar jobs are expected to pay TWICE what the average coal miner earns. So even assuming they were 1:1 (and it's looking more like 2:1 in favor of Solar/Wind) we'd be adding twice as much to the economy with the replacement, and a healthier economy is better for EVERYONE.
Sure, it sucks when someone loses their job - but it happens. Additionally note what Illnest who's apparently more well versed than you or I said about how these are actually working out to be in reality.
It's a transition from mining coal to frakking natural gas which have many shared skills meaning a coal miner would have an easy in. And the coal plants are being replaced by natural gas ones that are more efficient (read cheaper for the consumer) and generate far less pollution. All while providing basically the same jobs if not a few more.
I just wanted to give my perspective here. You all know I'm far more of a pragmatist than anything else, so I wanted to talk about some of the concerns here.
The biggest emerging field in Emergency Management is planning for the long-term consequences of climate change (which is definitely real, for anyone who is paying attention). We're now living in a world where both the cost and impact of natural disasters is steadily increasing - take a look at any graph on the frequency of natural disasters and the rising temperatures over the last 100 years and you'll see the correlation.
This is simply something we can't afford to ignore, because regions that never had to plan for anything greater than light flooding from Hurricanes before are starting to get destroyed by super storms.
Residents in cities are in more and more danger from extreme heat as urban sprawl increases. The heat island effect means that as we build more and more concrete buildings and tar roads, we're essentially building ourselves into a giant oven in the cities, and the high temperature of cities can be up to 10 degrees higher than the surrounding land. With rising high temperatures to begin with, we're going to start seeing a lot more incidents like the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave.
If you honestly think Power Companies are burdened significantly by these regulations, you're suffering under some major misperceptions. Without going into significant detail, I can tell you they spend huge sums of money every year trying to convince you and state legislatures that they have no money to spend on upgrading infrastructure (this does not just mean their coal plants, but simple things like maintaining their above ground lines). While it might be true that local companies aren't rich, they're almost always owned by much larger corporate conglomerates with deep pockets (frequently foreign), who try and turn the local companies into as much cash as possible before selling them to the next conglomerate. They'll invest millions of dollars in new high tech ways to charge you money, but they won't invest much beyond the maintenance costs in replacing or upgrading their aging tech. You also have to remember that the majority of power infrastructure built in the United States was build 30-60 years ago - it's all old, from the Nuclear plants to the coal plants, and the investment to build new infrastructure is prohibitive, especially in the current model where the things I described above are happening.
Aging infrastucture is a major problem in the United States, and nowhere is it more clear than the power industry.
Nuclear power isn't perfect, either. Nuclear Plants are HUGE investments who's infrastructure quickly goes from high-tech to obsolete. And while the tech itself may be safer, the public is less knowledgeable than ever on how to respond to such an event.
You were trying to down play the severity of the situation. I listed at least 5states that this would have an impact on. I have also shown that wind and solar farms do not work in those areas.
There is plenty of work in WV. Chemicals and Biotech especially have a high presence, and other industries could pretty easily absorb chunks of the coal workforce. This regulation wouldn't kill all coal plants (it would actually kill only a few), so the industry wouldn't die off, and there are other fields desperate for workers. Mainly, it will force the aforementioned power companies to invest in new infrastructure rather than milk all they can out of the old until it fails. Besides, newer coal burning technology allows a single plant to get much more power out of its resources than it used to, so while we may be losing plants, the cost to our power supply isn't as dramatic as you may think (although long-term, we do need more options as power consumption is consistently on the rise).
So please tell me how the people that live there are suppose survive with no work?
When did you become a liberal?
More seriously though, as I stated, the coal industry will never completely disappear (at least during our lifetimes), and WV has been in transition for a long time away from the coal mining industry.
I wasn't talking about MD, I was talking about the USA as a whole - yes it would absolutely be horrendous for WV. (Coal production in the other states you listed is in the 5-10% range for their state's production from what I'm seeing [Not shocking with PA being big in steelworks for example], WV is literally 60% of it's production - wasn't stating it as the only, just the hugest example)
But saying "jobs will be lost" isn't completely accurate, they'd be moved around - we'd see a ton of jobs being created in the midwest (and other open areas) while in the Coal states would be losing tons - but overall jobs would stay pretty level from projections on a NATIONAL level.
Actually it is accurate those people will lose there job with no replacment. So please tell me where they are to go and provide for their families.
You were trying to down play the severity of the situation. I listed at least 5states that this would have an impact on. I have also shown that wind and solar farms do not work in those areas. So please tell me how the people that live there are suppose survive with no work?
This is the wrong time to be waging a war more when you have no replacements
I already posted a direct response to this. I'd enjoy if you could actually engage it instead of hand-wave and repeat the same talking points.
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He is also once again trying to bypass congress to force lower emission rates from coal plants.
this is going to do several things one of which is drive coal plants out of business and drive electricity prices up.
So far ~200 coal plants have been shut down due to regulations of the obama administration. Not to mention the impact on mining jobs in coal providing states.
Given that tesla and other such companies are trying to get people to buy into the electric market it is going to make it a more difficult climb to do so.
http://center.sustainability.duke.edu/resources/green-facts-consumers/what-largest-fuel-source-electricity-united-states
the fact is that coal generates 44% of our electricity. With almost no new nuclear plants being built and the myth that renewable energy is going to be able to solve the power issue this is a disaster.
we are going to be facing an energy crunch (no new drilling except on private lands) and the fact that the keystone pipeline will not be approved by this administration.
geothermal only works if you live near a geo-active area.
wind energy is causing it's own enviromental issues as they are now finding out.
solar is only good in area's that get regular sun light.
once again nuclear is the next generation of power unless someone can get the new plasma energy source i have been reading about going.
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=24887
The US simply cannot abandon it's current energy sources without making sure we are replacing them with something better.
so far that is not the deal.
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1. What are these environmental issues with windpower that are worse than coal/oil?
2. The article you linked on plasma did not detail how this would generate energy. Plasma itself is not a source of energy. In fact, given nothing else, the plasma ring you mentioned would consume energy since you would have to heat something up to become plasma first.
3. The jobs issue is refuted or, at the very least, challenged, by research:
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/renewables/wind.asp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/29/wind-now-employs-more-peo_n_162277.html
http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2009/09/14/clean-energy-will-create-more-jobs-than-coal/
In my opinion our baseline power generation is going to eventually be from fusion, river hydro and potentially ocean hydro as well. Solar will also figure prominently but we will need to come up with good plans for distribution and energy storage.
Coal mining jobs aren't in jeopardy at any rate due to rapidly increasing demand in asia. Even when demand for coal does cease it will be a cause for celebration.
As for my credentials - i worked at three mile island for a few months and prior to that i spent 6 years in the navy during which time i was a fully qualified reactor operator and electrical operator. I am now an electrician and i am more concerned about my allergy problems than about whatever imagined ill effects might come from the decline of the us coal industry. I look forward to a future in which fossil fuels are no longer used at all.
They are disrupting bird migration. They are also killing off birds and bats.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-turbines-health1.htm
and still under investigation they are causing health problems in people.
umm it is another fusion process along side the new fusion reactor they are trying to build.
Yes it consumes energy just like all forms of electric consume energy in one form or another. it is the ability to harness that energy and making it effiecient.
The thing is that they are able to allow the reactor to develop it's own magnetic field therefore it doesn't disappate in air like it normally would.
which means i could be self sustaining once it gets going on. again it is just in testing phase but a new fusion model that is out there.
combine that with the high voltage capaciters that they are creating and they could store good sums of energy.
challenged by who?
all three sources you posted are heavily biased. plants have been closed people have lost their jobs.
more plants will be closed as the cost to meet these regulations are way more expensive than what the companies wish to put out.
Not to mention the ones that they do upgrade the billions of dollars are going to be passed onto the consumer.
i agree the thing is that these are not in place yet and we are still working on them while this administration is taking down the current system without a backup in place.
all because a few enviromental wacko's.
i am sure we will but it won't be in my lifetime.
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I didn't think that ever officially had absolute results, just theoretical and some promising tests.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I believe he built a full working version out west. He powered a small town for a few months with it. The upstate New York was the first try at a major city and too many balked at the idea before he completed it.
Art is life itself.
Anyone who believes in human caused climate change.
The big problem I see with this is that he's got a war going on both coal and oil at the same time.
If you shut coal plants in places that don't have nat gas hookups they are going to burn oil.
Not to mention there is absolutely zero effort to get new Nuke plants up and running despite HUGE advances in the science and safety.
I know about that. I'm asking for stuff that is worse than what coal and oil do.
Well I will be quite surprised when health concerns over wind turbines are greater than the health problems fossil fuel can induce.
Well the article was not very good at detailing that but it will be good to see fusion reactors become a reality in the near future.
Okay so do you have a better source on this than the NRDC? Yes, people will lose their jobs. But it is foolish to think that nobody will get any jobs from wind farms.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wind/resources.html
The department of energy appears to strongly support wind power as well.
Yes and if wind farms create more jobs than fossil fuels do as the above sources claimed then we will have a net gain in jobs and a cleaner energy source providing it.
This tells me you didn't read the article i posted about the symptoms that they are seeing in people.
Natural Resource Defense council The earths best defense. yes that is a biased organization of renewable energy.
Huffington post is about as bad as daily kos in it's bias.
those are not objective sources to be looking at.
where did i say this? wind farms will not employ more people than the mining industry does. why? you don't need that many people to work on a wind farm.
yea and the energy board has been filled with eco hacks by obama.
so again you have to consider the source.
heck they tried to even put a wind farm in MA off the coast and everybody in that area shot it down. including senator kennedy at the time.
there is no evidence of this. also please tell me where in appalacha you are going to put a wind farm? where are you going to put a solar plant?
where in NY are you going to put these things? there isn't enough wind and during the winter time not enough sun to keep them going.
re-usable energy is a nice idea, but it is a micro solution to a macro problem.
When i go to build my next home i will install a full solar system on it. Why? i will either be living in FL or TX and it is more benefit to do so.
While i could at some time end up in RI installing a solar panel system would not benefit me.
Renewable energy is well a good idea based on location. it is not an overall energy solution.
hehe not really some of those people are rational human beings that you can have a discussion with. I am talking more along the lines of
some of the enviro nut groups like earth first etc ...
exactly card they will use whatever resource they can to supply power if not coal then NG or oil in which oil is even worse.
again i agree on the nuke front as well. at least until we can get a working fusion reactor going but that is still 50+ years off.
they have moved into construction phase but it is still going to take forever to come online. nuke plants can be built now and are quite
safe and the fuel can be recycled and used again with the new reactors.
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I clicked on the link because I was actually curious to see if there was any solid evidence. Turns out its rather...mushy at best
First page alone has several claims that this is something that still needs testing (and probably in a more controlled setting) instead of conclusive findings of harmful effects to the human body. They also offered a really simple explanation without having to resort to wind turbine syndrome as the answer
However states like West Virginia that are almost completely based upon coal would be hit hard if coal became completely obsolesced. But overall for the nation as a whole people that are experts in the field look at the numbers as pretty much even on jobs because of the amount of maintenance and checks that the 200+ foot tall fans would require to make sure they don't fail. (Since catastrophic failures like throwing a blade would be really, really bad for whatever it hits)
I'd rather see modernized nuclear and molten salt (real thing, and it actually uses SPENT nuclear fuel as it's source and it's waste has something like a 3 year halflife - June 2013 Popular Science had an article on it) reactors myself however.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
Thought experiment:
65 million cars. (low estimate)
Each uses approx. 10 gallons of fuel oil a week. (650million gallons per week)
Each gallon produces 138,000+/- BTU's.
650millionx138k = 89,700,000,000,000 BTU's per week
Solar converts to electricity. Wind converts to electricity. Coal converts to electricity. Nuclear converts to electricty. Hydro converts to electricity.
BTU's per kWh (electricity) = 3,400.
89.7 trillion / 3,400 = 26,382,352,941+ kWh of electricity !per week! needed to match our oil consumption with cars alone.
http://www.alternateheatingsystems.com/CompareFuels.aspx
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf
http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Calculators/Fuels/FuelCompare.htm
There is no free lunch. There is no perpetual motion. No matter what source you use, there is unusable waste which is lost in production.
Now, just think, we've only been at it for about 130 years. (Petrol and usueful Electrical production started between 1860-1890)
(It is estimated the world uses 90 million barrels of oil a day. A US barrel is 42 gallons - 90mx42= 3,780,000,000 gallons)
Good (but still insufficient) ideas:
http://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/project_detail.cfm/projectID=20
http://www.pelamiswave.com/
This isn't an energy war - it's just the poeple who own the supply lines fighting each other over price fixing.
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“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
going to get this out of the way now. not every state is MD. how MD functions is not indicitive to other states. /sarcasim
parts of PA, WV, VA, KY, TN, OH and i am sure i left out a few are all very heavy coal producers. They provide thousands of jobs and bring in millions of dollars to the state economy.
They are a vital part these states economies and the life blood for thousands of people. You can't build wind farms in these places.
so while they may not employ that many people in MD they do in other states.
again i agree but we are not developing this. we are hoarding money into the myth of renewable energy.
the problem is this is not the time to be in a war on energy or energy development.
he wants people to do electric cars which have their own issues.
tesla is the only viable source right now but they are expensive. their have delayed their X model into next year and they lost 200m last quarter.
they have said they will release a lower cost model for 30-35k which is getting better but it still needs to be in the 20-25 range.
plus they are still building their recharging network for people on the go.
the issue comes in now they are going to face an uphill battle with higher electric costs and with fuel prices rising at the same time
you create a perfect storm that can technically lead to economic disaster.
all while trying to push a technology that will not meet the need for US power consumption.
I found a book a while back ago about how much US land it would take to supply the current needs with wind and solar to meet current usage.
i can't remember but it was like a state and a half. or something again this was a few years ago.
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But saying "jobs will be lost" isn't completely accurate, they'd be moved around - we'd see a ton of jobs being created in the midwest (and other open areas) while in the Coal states would be losing tons - but overall jobs would stay pretty level from projections on a NATIONAL level.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
Jobs would increase in manufacturing and steel production (which requires coal, mind you) for wind turbines. You're comparing the maintenance jobs of wind farms with the production jobs of coal mining. They're absolutely incompatible. If you want to compare wind farm jobs you'd have to do so with coal PLANT jobs. Which are substantially fewer in number.
Not to mention that the US exports the majority of its coal production anyways...
We need to find something to replace our dependence on fossil fuels, I get that. I would love to see more Nuclear projects up in the works, but many are vetoed and axed before they can get off the ground because of the media's presentation of a few mishaps and mistakes that have happened over the years, usually because of incredible circumstances (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima).
Solar power is fine is a few places. I think many people are starting to slowly be against wind power because of the large swaths of land that are deemed unusable for many forms of animal life. One of the big knocks on the Keystone Pipeline is that it will disrupt many animal groups in the area, but we are okay with co-opting huge grants of land for wind farms that actively kill aerial animals while still disrupting animal groups in the area?
Lastly, I think Tesla was the true genius of his time, not Einstein. I would love to try pretty much anything he thought up, at least once. If Einstein had spent less time on his crusade against Quantum Mechanics and more time QUESTIONING and LEARNING about it, I would say I would remember him more fondly.
Your electrical plants are split into two types to describe how often they operate. Baseline plants operate all the time (aside from breakdowns or maintenance shutdowns) and peaking plants only turn on when demand is expected to exceed the capacity of the baseline plants.
The cost of generating electricity is dependent on lots of things but the cost of the fossil fuel does play a big role. 10 years ago coal was very cheap. Natural Gas was pretty expensive. The nuclear plant's cost structure is pretty different in that it costs more to build and train and maintain the plant but the end result is that nuclear is slightly cheaper than the others.
So on any given day you'd probably have coal plants, nuclear plants and hydro plants supplying your baseline electricity. There are also planners whose job is to estimate how much power the region will need each day and figure out if he needs to order a peaking plant turned on. The peaking plants were often natural gas plants and if I remember correctly it was because natural gas plants were simpler to start up quickly and were therefore more suitable to that role. Couple that with relatively low supplies and higher prices and you can see why natural gas played the role that it did.
Then oil companies started to perform hydraulic fracturing a.k.a. fracking which allowed them to get natural gas from shale deposits that weren't accessible before. The marcellus shale formation extends from new york state through the western half of pennsylvania and west virginia plus a few other states. In the last few years in Pennsylvania the natural gas fracking operations have resulted in many new jobs and a lot of economic development in the northern and western parts of the state. The price of natural gas has also gone way down.
Natural gas plants are now much cheaper to operate. When a baseline coal plant is closed it is probably being replaced with a gas plant that used to be a peaking plant. The gas plant is now competitive on cost and it emits half the amount of carbon that is emitted by a coal plant.
Coal plants are closing but that is a good thing. Jobs aren't being lost. You still need to generate electricity. You're just generating it at natural gas plants instead of coal plants. The coal that's being mined is being shipped overseas. The peaking plants already existed so if it seems like we're not replacing enough of them it's because the replacements were in some cases already there. We all still have electricity and carbon emissions are down.
If there's anything that's not good - it's the possibility that fracking is polluting the ground water. That's the only thing I worry about. Coal sucks. There's no reason to keep using coal.
Can we please stop referring to everything we don't like as a "war on X"?
Actually it is accurate those people will lose there job with no replacment. So please tell me where they are to go and provide for their families.
You were trying to down play the severity of the situation. I listed at least 5states that this would have an impact on. I have also shown that wind and solar farms do not work in those areas. So please tell me how the people that live there are suppose survive with no work?
This is the wrong time to be waging a war more when you have no replacements
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The same goes on either side of the coin - at the end of the day it's job quantity total that's important. When you micromanage to the level of "what about Jim and his job personally" it's impossible to literally do anything - you make a Federal mandate that toilet paper must be supplied and that can easily for some large operations be enough for a single salary over the year, "OMG! Providing toilet paper kills jobs!"
Net is the most important thing - and an additional bonus of course is when comparing two jobs is how much the replacement job is paying - Wind/Solar jobs are expected to pay TWICE what the average coal miner earns. So even assuming they were 1:1 (and it's looking more like 2:1 in favor of Solar/Wind) we'd be adding twice as much to the economy with the replacement, and a healthier economy is better for EVERYONE.
Sure, it sucks when someone loses their job - but it happens. Additionally note what Illnest who's apparently more well versed than you or I said about how these are actually working out to be in reality.
It's a transition from mining coal to frakking natural gas which have many shared skills meaning a coal miner would have an easy in. And the coal plants are being replaced by natural gas ones that are more efficient (read cheaper for the consumer) and generate far less pollution. All while providing basically the same jobs if not a few more.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
The biggest emerging field in Emergency Management is planning for the long-term consequences of climate change (which is definitely real, for anyone who is paying attention). We're now living in a world where both the cost and impact of natural disasters is steadily increasing - take a look at any graph on the frequency of natural disasters and the rising temperatures over the last 100 years and you'll see the correlation.
This is simply something we can't afford to ignore, because regions that never had to plan for anything greater than light flooding from Hurricanes before are starting to get destroyed by super storms.
Residents in cities are in more and more danger from extreme heat as urban sprawl increases. The heat island effect means that as we build more and more concrete buildings and tar roads, we're essentially building ourselves into a giant oven in the cities, and the high temperature of cities can be up to 10 degrees higher than the surrounding land. With rising high temperatures to begin with, we're going to start seeing a lot more incidents like the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave.
If you honestly think Power Companies are burdened significantly by these regulations, you're suffering under some major misperceptions. Without going into significant detail, I can tell you they spend huge sums of money every year trying to convince you and state legislatures that they have no money to spend on upgrading infrastructure (this does not just mean their coal plants, but simple things like maintaining their above ground lines). While it might be true that local companies aren't rich, they're almost always owned by much larger corporate conglomerates with deep pockets (frequently foreign), who try and turn the local companies into as much cash as possible before selling them to the next conglomerate. They'll invest millions of dollars in new high tech ways to charge you money, but they won't invest much beyond the maintenance costs in replacing or upgrading their aging tech. You also have to remember that the majority of power infrastructure built in the United States was build 30-60 years ago - it's all old, from the Nuclear plants to the coal plants, and the investment to build new infrastructure is prohibitive, especially in the current model where the things I described above are happening.
Aging infrastucture is a major problem in the United States, and nowhere is it more clear than the power industry.
Nuclear power isn't perfect, either. Nuclear Plants are HUGE investments who's infrastructure quickly goes from high-tech to obsolete. And while the tech itself may be safer, the public is less knowledgeable than ever on how to respond to such an event.
There is plenty of work in WV. Chemicals and Biotech especially have a high presence, and other industries could pretty easily absorb chunks of the coal workforce. This regulation wouldn't kill all coal plants (it would actually kill only a few), so the industry wouldn't die off, and there are other fields desperate for workers. Mainly, it will force the aforementioned power companies to invest in new infrastructure rather than milk all they can out of the old until it fails. Besides, newer coal burning technology allows a single plant to get much more power out of its resources than it used to, so while we may be losing plants, the cost to our power supply isn't as dramatic as you may think (although long-term, we do need more options as power consumption is consistently on the rise).
When did you become a liberal?
More seriously though, as I stated, the coal industry will never completely disappear (at least during our lifetimes), and WV has been in transition for a long time away from the coal mining industry.
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I already posted a direct response to this. I'd enjoy if you could actually engage it instead of hand-wave and repeat the same talking points.