As natural gas prices are falling over time, and regulations on coal fired power generation tighten, most of the energy industry and coal-producing states are projecting a wave of power plant closures in the in the next two years as Environmental Protection Agency regulations take hold.
The goal of the agency's campaign is to cut down on carbon pollution. However, EPA’s demands are simply too difficult to meet in many current generation plants, and will lead to powering down many of these older and less efficient facilities.
“It’s a game we can’t win,” said Alan Minier, chairman of the Wyoming Public Service Commission.
.
The number of projected closures, according to the Institute for Energy Research (PDF) will cover facilities 37 states and nearly 170 plants that have closed, or will need to be closed. This amounts to about 1/5th of U.S. Coal fired generation facilities.
The Institute for Energy Research, in its latest report, predicts more than 72 gigawatts of "electrical generating capacity" are going offline. “To put 72 GW in perspective, that is enough electrical generation capacity to reliably power 44.7 million homes – or every home in every state west of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas,” IER report says.
Note: US total Electrical generation capacity from all sources in 2012 was 1,104 gigawatts, so the above mentioned 72 gigawatts represents about 6.5%, about the same amount as all hydro power capacity, and slightly exceeds all current solar and wind capacity in the US.
The EPA's plan is to cut carbon emissions to 30% of the levels allowed in 2005 by the year 2030. The new regulations still allow Coal generation, but impose efficiency and emissions improvements which older plants can't meet.
This essentially means that ALL of the wind and solar generation build-out in the US over the past decade is finally sufficient to take the worst polluters off line, probably for good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:21AM
Deceitful manipulators always win!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:30AM
NUCK FOYSENT LEWS
(Score: 1, Insightful) by FlatPepsi on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:43AM
When our president said he would tax coal out of existence, some folks didn't believe him.
Welp, here we are.
Get ready for higher energy prices, across the board. We use coal because it's low cost. Once that's gone, only higher prices alternatives remain.
And those of you that think wind & solar are free, you clearly haven't priced out buying one. Green power is the most expensive power we have today.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Sunday December 07 2014, @03:26AM
And those of you that think wind & solar are free, you clearly haven't priced out buying one. Green power is the most expensive power we have today.
it's called an investment in the future. you know, that far off place greedy people refuse to look or give a damn about.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Sunday December 07 2014, @06:12AM
And all you are doing is the equivalent of sweeping in under the rug because China don't give a fuck about your little carbon games and will be more than happy to buy all the cheap energy they can while they build their nuke plants which will of course give 'em plenty of plutonium for their bombs as a side benefit.
If you wanna see the future its China and India, the USA will become the UK, just another "once was" police state leaning former superpower running on fumes because they have been buried under so damned many self interests and lobbyists NIMBY becomes BANANA and nothing gets done. Think that capacity will be replaced by...well anything? Nope because no matter if its nuclear or wind or solar it'll will end up BANANA because every place has NIMBYs with law firms, shit will stagnate and start falling apart just like our roads and shitty Internet.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday December 07 2014, @06:18PM
And all you are doing is the equivalent of sweeping in under the rug because China don't give a fuck about your little carbon games and will be more than happy to buy all the cheap energy they can while they build their nuke plants which will of course give 'em plenty of plutonium for their bombs as a side benefit.
what you fail to realize is that our nations are economically intertwined. China and India need the USA as much as we need them. Also, they aren't stupid, they know there is a problem and are just as reluctant as the USA is to budge carbon emissions but it's happening ever so slowly.
If you wanna see the future its China and India, the USA will become the UK, just another "once was" police state leaning former superpower running on fumes because they have been buried under so damned many self interests and lobbyists NIMBY becomes BANANA and nothing gets done. Think that capacity will be replaced by...well anything? Nope because no matter if its nuclear or wind or solar it'll will end up BANANA because every place has NIMBYs with law firms, shit will stagnate and start falling apart just like our roads and shitty Internet.
history has proven that men and nations do the right thing when they have exhausted all other options and we are running out of options. rooftop solar + battery provides enough power for someone to disconnect from the grid permanently.
you need to learn to see the global picture of both present and past if you want to see the future.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 07 2014, @10:14PM
what you fail to realize is that our nations are economically intertwined. China and India need the USA as much as we need them. Also, they aren't stupid, they know there is a problem and are just as reluctant as the USA is to budge carbon emissions but it's happening ever so slowly.
What does that have to do with the original poster's claim? First, there's the observation that China's and India's decisions don't depend that strongly on the US's economic status. Labor is a significant factor in an economy's size, both directly from its value added to the economy and from the secondary driving up of real estate and demand for relevant services. China and India both have labor markets larger than the US and the EU combined. So it's reasonable to expect, due to the continued stagnation of the developed world economies (in large part due to climate change theatrics), that these two economies will become larger. At which point, why should we expect the little tail of the current developed world to wag these beasts? Second, "economically intwined" is not that significant. The mugger and scam artist are both economically entwined with their victims, but that doesn't prevent them from benefiting handsomely from their destructive actions. Even if carbon emissions are as harmful as you think they are, it remains that carbon emission reductions are substantially harmful economically, particularly to the poor, and as a result there's still huge incentives for China and India to stay out of this global suicide pact. In particular, if China plays its cards right and maintains reasonably competent leadership, they're on track to become the superpower for the second half of the 21st Century.
you need to learn to see the global picture of both present and past if you want to see the future.
And two aspects of that "global picture" is that things don't remain the same nor does everyone have the same interests.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Monday December 08 2014, @02:39AM
First, there's the observation that China's and India's decisions don't depend that strongly on the US's economic status.
i dont know where you get your information because that is exactly wrong.
Labor is a significant factor in an economy's size
this was true for a very long time but now factories are becoming highly automated. IIRC the Tesla Gigafactory is going to be run by a scant 400 people. see also lights out manufacturing. [wikipedia.org]
considering that's just the first line of your response, i'm going to forgo responding to the rest because your view of the world is not based in fact.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 08 2014, @12:38PM
i dont know where you get your information because that is exactly wrong.
Then you'll be able to come up with evidence to support your position. Given that India and China have vast economies which are expected to grow much larger, then where's the need for the US economy, especially a US economy that isn't keeping up with these two?
this was true for a very long time but now factories are becoming highly automated. IIRC the Tesla Gigafactory is going to be run by a scant 400 people. see also lights out manufacturing.
That "but" comes with the note that the US is strongly discouraging its businesses from employing workers. China and India don't have similar disincentives.
considering that's just the first line of your response, i'm going to forgo responding to the rest because your view of the world is not based in fact.
Then by all means find evidence to support your claims and show me that I'm wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 08 2014, @01:27AM
You are too optimistic. The US is not England of old - it is highly optimized. For example, it takes 10-20 times more energy here to produce food than in Russia before perestroika. Hence when the US will go down it will fall hard, much harder then Russia just did. What do I mean hard? 25-50% of population dead of famine within first 6 month, assuming no hot war with anybody external. In case of a war, all bets are off.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 08 2014, @01:30PM
And this, in a nutshell, is why nothing will actually get done about climate change until it's too late. If both China and the US think they're playing a zero-sum game for who can pollute more, regardless of who wins everybody loses. The whole situation reminds me of the end of Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century [vimeo.com], where in the course of fighting over a planet, Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian manage to blow it to smithereens and nobody gets the benefits of having it in the first place.
From the point of view of economists who've looked at this stuff, switching to renewables isn't all that expensive for the economy as a whole, something like 0.01% of our economic growth while we did it. The main reason we aren't doing that is because coal is still king in a lot of places in the country. Some other steps we could take, like improving home insulation, would have long term benefits because your house would be just as comfortable as it is now while your heating / cooling bills dropped.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday December 08 2014, @01:50PM
China has agreed to start reducing emissions, now that the US is doing it too. They are further back along the bell curve than the US, but have at least agreed to follow the same trajectory.
The UK's energy prices are ridiculous because we sold off our public energy infrastructure to private companies who turned it into a virtual monopoly. There are six big suppliers who own both the generation and delivery infrastructure, and they fleece everyone as much as they can. We could have been like Germany, paying similar prices to what we pay now but actually getting some quality renewable infrastructure and a future for our economy out of it, but instead we just keep funding shareholder profits and management bonuses. It's so bad we have to guarantee to pay double the going rate for electricity just to get new nuclear plants built, on top of all the usual subsidies and free unlimited value insurance.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 08 2014, @03:04PM
Your Tea Party talking point per word ratio was impressive. Well done.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:47AM
I'm a far left leaning damned near communist, but way to just throw names instead of actually debating dumbass, you really added a lot to the conversation!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:10AM
Taxing the fossil fuels into oblivion would be a good thing, but don't pretend that they are cheap for no reason. The fastest way to level the playing field would be to cut the $550 billion in subsidies [bloomberg.com] that they are getting. Though they are getting fairly affordable already, if the renewables were getting anything near that level, they would be much more affordable. If they were funded properly we'd also have far greater advancement. Fusion, for example, has been actively neglected for decades now and would be in a very different state with funding.
Also because oil is one large market, for every dollar that goes into oil, some of it goes to the daesh. Think about that next time you see someone filling a big suburban utility vehicle or vanity truck that never sees any other task than a commute.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:37AM
That's a strange article, It show pictures pf coal, but all the facts they tout are for oil and gas, and they are world wide figures, not US figures
Also when you trace it back it appears to come from here [oecd.org] which is a world wide organization, and again
that report addresses oil and gas more so than coal.
When they get around to talking about the US
And in the United States, where support for energy producers was about USD 5 billion in 2009, the 2012 federal budget proposes eliminating a broad group of subsidies – thereby increasing government revenues by more than USD 3.6 billion.
Also from here: [sourcewatch.org]
In a July 2011 EIA report on federal fossil fuel subsidies, coal was estimated to have tax expenditures (provisions in the federal tax code that reduce the tax liability of firms) with an estimated value of $561 million in FY 2010, down from $3.3 billion in FY 2007.
So the US is less BAD than much of the world, especially with regard to the treatment of coal.
Don't get me wrong, I think the 5 billion should be going to electrical storage development, or, better yet, small nuke plants [nationalgeographic.com].
Because as Google's research shows [www.cbc.ca], there is no way renewable is ever going to be able to carry the load.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RedBear on Sunday December 07 2014, @05:09AM
Actually, wind power is already cheaper than coal. It's basically an open secret at this point. Home solar keeps getting less expensive, and centralized utility solar is cost-competitive with coal in many markets. That's even without subsidies. And I'm talking about the US, not Germany or any of the other countries where they're taking climate change seriously.
Also, recent studies indicate that the mining and use of coal for energy actually costs our economy more than it's worth, once you do a big-picture analysis and include things like increased road maintenance and healthcare costs resulting from coal pollution.
I'm sorry, but even if you continue to completely ignore the problems of increasing CO2 and particulate/mercury pollution caused by burning coal, which also have real-world economic costs, it is no longer logically defensible today to keep insisting that the most affluent nation on Earth can NEVER, EVER, EVER afford to get off of coal and move to renewable energy. The assertion that renewables are "the most expensive" energy source today is just... a total crock. And renewables are just going to keep getting cheaper. It's coal that is now too expensive, in every way. It's time to start getting over it.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday December 08 2014, @02:05AM
In costs are you counting storage for when the wind isn't blowing?
If you are, then bravo! Glad to hear it. Otherwise it's a false argument, because you NEED to have that storage.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday December 08 2014, @05:37PM
I must politely disagree once again. This is a typical sadly misinformed idea about the overall viability of wind power. I used to believe the same sort of thing. Meanwhile, back in the real world, things do not always turn out as expected. In studies wind power has been shown to be remarkably resistant to this issue of wind variability. It needs to be managed, certainly, but it's far from an insurmountable problem. There is also the separate knock-on effect of wind power being most effective at night while solar of course works during the day. In the real world both wind and solar are working better than even the staunchest green power advocates expected them to, and the grid will not suddenly collapse if we move beyond a certain percentage of wind powering the overall system. As the wind turbine networks become ever more widespread the effects of local or transient wind variability will diminish even further.
No, I'm sorry, but wind power and solar are very much viable technologies, and are becoming very affordable. It's long past time to stop rejecting them outright based on falsely negative assumptions about how they will perfom. Other nations are adapting quite nicely to the very minor issues renewables present, and it's becoming embarrassing how far the most "exceptional" nation on the planet is lagging behind.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 08 2014, @06:08PM
It's true that wide-spread adoption of wind-power attached to the grid mitigates much of the argument that storage will be needed, but only mitigates it, and widespread means spread over several hundred miles in most terrains.
As for the grid, the current implementation of the grid is reported to have problems with bi-directional power transmission. I'm not an expert, but I trust those who are over "comments on the web". I do agree that this is a problem with the design of the grid, and that it needs to be corrected anyway, but until it has been, I believe that the problem persists. Solar combined with wind-power is much stabler, but still doesn't remove the need for storage, only mitigates it. I, personally, have lived through more than one week where it was overcast, calm, and cold all at once.
OTOH, I wouldn't expect this to be a problem in Michigan. But if it occurred, it would be considerably worse to lose power there than where I was living (we didn't depend on wind/solar power, and this was decades ago). The more serious the potential problem, the more carefully you need to avoid it.
That said, as you indicated the grid can solve this problem, but you need to factor in that cost. The more you rely on the grid solving the problem, the more cost you need to assign to grid/remote generation maintenance.
I'll admit that I haven't gone looking for the information, but whenever I've encountered the assertion that wind power was cheaper than coal, and I've bothered to trace it down, they haven't included this cost in their estimate. Perhaps it would have been cheaper anyway, but I don't know. (I've only followed through a couple of times, and that was a while ago. So things may have changed.)
That said, there are other reasons to prefer wind/solar over coal. But if you're going to claim it's cheaper you should properly count the costs.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @06:30AM
Coal is a dense store of energy, that can be used on short notice, by moderately priced, moderate weight machinery. Coal can be used off the grid. There is a finite amount of coal.
If I had my way, fossil fuels would be taxed, and there would be no base load, grid connected fossil fuel plants. Large ships and isolated communities would be coal powered. Small nuclear power plants are overhyped, and too expensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 08 2014, @05:26AM
Wow, propaganda much?
What President Obama said was "do everything." Who said tax it out of existence, Kucinich? He didn't get elected.
I mean, you're so freakin' far off about what Obama said, you obviously never listened to two words he said. And yet, you ran out and formed an opinion that exactly matches a right wing talking point. Did it ever cross your mind that right wing "news media" entertainers might not be an authentic source of information about what a Democrat said? Turn in your nerd card, that is just too stupid for words.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 08 2014, @03:26PM
Hell, I would be happy if they just stopped freaking subsidizing it.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:54PM
Electricity is cheap as hell though. I switched to one of those renewable suppliers (I live in an apartment, so I can't really install my own.) It's still cheap as hell. Cheapest bill I have. A month's electricity is cheaper than a week of gas in my car, cheaper than my phone or internet, cheaper than food...I literally spend more money each month on *tea* than on electricity. And that's *after* that stupid voluntary renewable surcharge*.
I mean OK, some people can't afford the phone or the internet and not even the electricity...but shit, add 10% to my bill to cover them, I can pay that with the spare change under the couch cushions. And I don't even own a couch. 'Cause *couches* are freakin' expensive.
Granted, nuclear would be far better, "green" sources aren't our best option. But they're a hell of a lot better than fossil fuels, and the switch isn't going to bankrupt the country.
[*] I've got mixed feelings on the renewable generation plan, because it feels like it's basically a scam...I pay them extra to pay someone else so they then make some vague promise to purchase a certain supply mix etc etc...but again, it's cheap enough that I don't particularly care.
(Score: 1, Troll) by FlatPepsi on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:50AM
There's a million news articles on the topic in Michigan. A U.P. power plant can't meet the new regulations without incredibly expensive upgrades. Shutting it down will cause power shortages. Rates are going to go up a LOT - once the court battles end.
This is what happens when when tree huggers get to start making real laws in the real world.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/in-michigans-upper-peninsula-customers-to-pay-more-for-power-plant-b99396961z1-284272041.html [jsonline.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by buswolley on Sunday December 07 2014, @03:06AM
Meh. Worth it even if true.
subicular junctures
(Score: 1) by FlatPepsi on Sunday December 07 2014, @03:23AM
You have just forfeit the right to complain about energy prices for at least next several years.
Oh, and we've just made China that much more competitive & profitable compared to us, so you can't complain about wages or unemployment either.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:27AM
"You have just forfeit the right to complain"
Sorry, but that's a serious misread of human nature. He still will, and will probably blame it on the coal companies.
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Sunday December 07 2014, @06:17PM
The uncounted costs of coal to the economy make coal the least competitive. Health damages alone from coal likely far outweigh the supposed cheapness of coal power.
subicular junctures
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Sunday December 07 2014, @03:18AM
A U.P. power plant can't meet the new regulations without incredibly expensive upgrades. Shutting it down will cause power shortages.
This is what happens when when tree huggers get to start making real laws in the real world.
GOOD! this is exactly what should happen. there is real incentive to get solar panels now.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:21AM
Yeah, since Gravis doesn't live there, it's not important.
(Score: 0) by t-3 on Sunday December 07 2014, @05:33AM
A solar panel in the U.P. would be useless 3/4's of the year round. Sorry, that's not gonna work.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Sunday December 07 2014, @07:49AM
You do know that Houghton is at about the same latitude as Salzburg, putting all of Germany farther North?
Go tell all the Germans that their solar panels don't work.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 08 2014, @02:09AM
The weather patterns may still be quite different. Michigan is on the Great Lakes, and that leads to some relatively foul weather. I might wonder whether wind power would work, also, as may turbines tend to shut down when the wind is too strong.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by t-3 on Monday December 08 2014, @04:10AM
I live in Michigan, and have tons of family in the U.P., Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The weather is nothing like Germany's.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 08 2014, @06:57PM
Agreed. the UP's solar intake is better than Germany's, according to pretty [solargis.info] much [gridovate.com] every [exceedconstruction.net] map [ecogreenglobe.com] available [wordpress.com].
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday December 08 2014, @11:47PM
I would guess so. I have lived in Germany and it rains ALL the fricking time. I think Seattle has more sun...
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by sjames on Sunday December 07 2014, @05:46AM
You should re-read that article you linked VERY carefully. Of the half dozen or so factors involved in the situation up there, upgrades for EPA compliance are nowhere to be seen.
In fact, it appears that the whole debacle started when Michigan passed a law allowing choice of power provider and a major mining operation switched due to We Energy hiking rates several times in the past 5 years.
So blame mis-management, de-regulation, or bad luck if you like, but environmental regulations are not in evidence.
(Score: 3, Funny) by kaszz on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:55AM
Well less CO2 in USA and a ten time increase in China..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:16AM
This combination of expensive regulation and competition from a cheaper non-renewable fuel (gas) means that everyone who said wind and solar were inherently economical was right.
Got it. I'll have to use that form of reasoning for my next argument.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:31AM
If you like coal power because it's cheap today, take a serious look at the history of London.
London has survived all kinds of population density growth problems across centuries, and the periods before changes (like sewers, electrification, etc.) were pretty horrific. Sure, cholera was bad, but to people at the time, it's just how things were - who could possibly imagine putting in sanitary sewerage for the entire bloody city, it seemed impossibly expensive.
Coal has never been a great power source, and at current population levels, it's getting to be a planet-wide problem... if you can't pay your new electric bill, think about discontinuing your premium cable TV, eating out one less time a week, or giving up the god damned Starbucks habit if you've got one.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @05:36AM
`Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.
`Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
`And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. `Are they still in operation?'
`They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, `I wish I could say they were not.'
`The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge.
`Both very busy, sir.'
`Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. `I'm very glad to hear it.'
`Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, `a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink. and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?'
`Nothing!' Scrooge replied.
`You wish to be anonymous?'
`I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. `Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.'
`Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'
`If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, `they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.'
`But you might know it,' observed the gentleman.
`It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. `It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!'
Why do I quote Dickens for you? Because you off handily say 'just use less'. There are many who can not use less for there is no extra. If you are thinking it will be 3-5 bucks more a week you are off a bit. Add in some sort of shortage or rolling blackout al-la enron scandal in socal and you can be talking 2-3x more. 1%rs must love you... As that is who that extra money will go to and flow to DC. Because the more scarce you make a resource the more they can charge for it. You dont think you are part of the 10%? HA I say, the average daily income for the world is 2.50. We are wildly rich by their accounts. Yet you decide they get less because you can afford to.
I predicted this earlier this year when pretty much the entire presidents cabinet shifted its position from neutral to an anti coal position. At this point renewables are not cost effective vs coal/oil/gas. They probably will not be there for at least 15-20 years. However, there is something that is, nuclear. Look to the finances of the cabinet. They all dumped coal stocks and bought heavy into nuke. Then shortly after came out with their anti coal stance. I put my money into GE and have been rewarded handsomely for it (nearly 30% since they pulled this off). They have picked the winners and losers not based on if it is good for us. But if it is good for their already 1% lifestyle. Look to the nuke projects that went from stalled out for 20 years to cement flowing again. Look to who owns that land.
Your stance is pretty much the broken window fallacy.
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/contents.html [steshaw.org]
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/chap05p1.html [steshaw.org]
The PROPER way to do this is to doubly invest into renewables. Not to tax the others out of existence. If you make other energy sources cheaper than coal. Coal will be wiped out in under a couple of years. NG has already put a decent dent in it. Not thru much taxation. But thru simple economics and supply/demand despite the government interventions in the industry. The way being followed will divert money from people who actually build more efficient energy generation schemes into the coffers of the gov. To then be dispensed at the whim of professional liars. The gov is a horrible waste of money machine that picks winners and losers not based on science or market forces but on who can lobby the loudest (with either words or money).
The guys generating coal could figure out a cheaper way would be all over it (and they are, its called natural gas today). They see a way to generate energy for free and they will do it (for example the major energy producers are investing in renewables within reason). But they have not moved on it because its not quite there. It is viable in a few places but not across the board.
This power play is nothing more than getting in front of free energy for everyone and making sure we pay for it forever. Mark my words. You will have a full solar system that is capable of net metering at 0 and you will still pay monthly for it. There are already rumblings of it in Hawaii and Arizona, bastions of solar power. The power companies can no longer subsidize it (and they are at 10-15% usage rates). They will want 25-40 bucks a month from you even though you are creating energy from them and are at an energy positive for them. They will also put into place 'gaming laws' so you cant 'cheat' them out of the extra and for example give the extra to your neighbor.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday December 07 2014, @04:08PM
"In Europe, after World War II, they joyously counted the houses, the whole cities that had been leveled to the ground and that “had to be replaced.”"
I grew up, and now live in towns that were bombed quite heavily, and can assure you there was no joy at all in the rebuilding, quite the opposite.
And on your "The PROPER way to do this is to doubly invest into renewables. ", I'd like to know where the money for that investment came from? You appear to have just magicked money out of thin air. It's very easy to solve economic problems that way, but generally considered cheating. It's no better than the broken window fallacy (which magics away a loss).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Interesting) by linuxrocks123 on Monday December 08 2014, @04:10AM
To anyone interested in economics, regarding the link provided in the parent post:
I read a few pages of it, and, though it does educate in basic economic concepts, it does so with an extreme slant. The author appears to be a member of the Austrian school, or, at the very least, is stridently anti-Keynesian. For instance, mainstream economists believe that increasing government spending does stimulate the economy and promote economic growth in certain (common) circumstances. This is portrayed as the broken window fallacy in the link, but it is not: if an economy is not operating at full capacity (such as, for instance, during a recession), government spending creates demand where none would otherwise exist, and otherwise idle resources will be put to use in order to meet the demand. Understanding exactly why this works requires a little more than a soundbite post; a good mainstream macroeconomics textbook would be a good start.
I took three college-level economics classes, which is why I can see what he's doing. My claim is not necessarily that he's wrong, but that he's making a case for a position that is not accepted by most economists, and he's not presenting the mainstream view for comparison. Suffice it to say that the link above is very biased, and in a very insidious way. It's using sound economic observations to make a case for a very non-mainstream macroeconomics viewpoint and, unless you already have a very good understanding of macroeconomics, there's a good chance you won't see through that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:42AM
I'm all for nuclear, particularly new nuclear, good luck getting that through today's political process.
The cost of coal is in air pollution, CO2 emission, ash disposal, and a few other nasty side effects that are "free" to the producers and consumers, until they suffer the consequences of those "free" effects, then the costs are quite high compared to nuclear, solar, wind etc.
What's the value of all developed real-estate at 2m above sea-level and lower? I'll tell you right now, 90+% of it is cheaper to abandon and rebuild on higher ground than to take the Dutch approach and engineer a New Orleans style dike system.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Sunday December 07 2014, @09:42AM
Did london ever put in sanitary sewerage for the entire city? I seem to remember reading about certain rivers that the sewage was dumped in and later they built over the rivers until they were entirely undergound, basically "natural" sewer pipes.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MrNemesis on Sunday December 07 2014, @03:16PM
Pretty much, yes - it was a system of open sewers, mostly based on the aforementioned rivers, until the stench got so unbearable in the mid-19th (a period they actually called "the great stink") that they commissioned a colossal public works project headed by Joseph Bazalgette to completely redo the London sewer system with a parliamentary act that amounted to "write your own cheque" to cover the ludicrous expense. Since that basically involved digging up the entire city anyway, he took all the requirements and doubled them, with the result that London still uses much of the system today.
If you're ever offered or ever get the chance to check out any of the sewers, I can recommend it if your stomach is strong enough - the brickwork inside is utterly stunning and the pumping stations are built like cathedrals to some sort of plumbing god. To quote the endlessly quotable Mr. Croup; "It is saddening to reflect that there are folk walking the streets above who will never know the beauty of these sewers, Mister Vandemar".
Quite a few "urban explorers" have gone in to take pics:
http://www.thebeardedotter.com/4.0/?p=3747#more-3747 [thebeardedotter.com]
Fun little factoid: Bazalgette became very rich and famous as a result and one of his descendants launched a TV production company, now absorbed by Endemol, who brought the reality show Big Brother to the fore. So the saying goes that Bazalgette got rich by pumping shit out of Londoners homes and Endemol got richer still by pumping it back in.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 1) by Webweasel on Sunday December 07 2014, @07:05PM
Nice neverwhere reference.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:07PM
Reading that link it sounds like some of those sewers really still are the old natural rivers albeit all bricked up and covered over so that now they would only be recognizable as sewer tunels rather than rivers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:53PM
if you can't pay your new electric bill, think about discontinuing your premium cable TV, eating out one less time a week, or giving up the god damned Starbucks habit if you've got one.
I know it's hard to believe, but not everybody here is in a socioeconomic class that would let them have those things. My household certainly can't -- we haven't had any form of TV in about 6 years, and haven't gotten Starbucks or eaten out (even at McDonald's) in 3-4 years.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 08 2014, @02:19AM
More to the point, many of the people affected would not be able to. Soylent News participants don't count, because very few of them live there.
A better way would be to put an automatically increasing tax on using coal. Unfortunately, that creates a perverse incentive for the government to facilitate the continued use of it. So *IS* there a better way than prohibiting pollution? Perhaps this law is coming on too fast, but it's hard to tell because the proponents of using coal would complain the same way in any case, and it's not as if they hadn't been warned for years that there was a rising opposition to pollution.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:50AM
No matter what is proposed to rise in cost, there will be those "on the edge" who cannot afford it.
As a country (or, better still, as a planet), we will be reaping rewards higher than the increased cost, and if you can stand the socialist aspect of this: if the increase in cost is too much of a burden for you, there should be price tiering and/or assistance programs that make sure you get enough electricity to enable you to live a healthy and productive life.
Poor people (the bottom 25% of the income scale) do not pay for even 1% of the electrical power generated in the USA, keeping it cheap for their sake is missing several bigger pictures.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday December 07 2014, @07:57AM
I wish green energy well, but don't believe it, at least not yet. We'll only find out what's really viable when the government ends all subsidies, something that green energy players fight at every step (free money is soooo sweet).
But that's not the point of this comment. I want to pick a nit: why do articles always turn power into "households"? I understand that they want to make the number approachable by non-technical people, but every article chooses a different conversion factor - I've seen figures all over the place, depending on which way they wanted to bias their presentation.
Worse are the articles that only talk about numbers of households, leaving you with no idea of how much power is actually being discussed.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday December 07 2014, @02:42PM
Because both "Olympic pools" and "Libraries of Congress" are inappropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday December 07 2014, @07:35PM
I'm a technophile and a powerholic. Let's enable a move away from coal. But, wait, what's this... we can't move into research and production on the most promising candidate for a zero-emission energy source that has the potential to help us also clean up a lot of already-existing bulky nuclear waste products?
Five minute youtube summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY [youtube.com]
Full-length head of the trail of crumbs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4 [youtube.com]
This is about more than just power. A unit of power is behind every unit of production in the US economy. Then consider that, before the power from these coal plants goes away, the US is already suffering levels of unemployment not seen since the Great Depression (once you take into account that people who have falled off the unemployment rolls without obtaining employment are considered to have "given up" and are no longer counted as being part of the labor force).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @09:28PM
1) Thorium is unproven technology.
No real-world plant of that type exists.
2) It takes a decade to build a nuke plant.
2a) It's possible to solarize a neighborhood in a week.
The future of energy is distributed and renewable.
.
people who have [fallen] off the unemployment rolls[...]are no longer counted
Don't forget the 2.4 million in prison (many for simple drug possession) who also are not counted.
...and after getting out (aka "serving their time"), they won't be hired because of that stigmata.
People in the military aren't doing anything productive for the economy but are counted as being employed.
The gov't unemployment numbers are a sad joke.
The real number is almost 24 percent.
That's a 1929-level figure.
We aren't in a recession; this is a DEPRESSION.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday December 07 2014, @11:46PM
A thorium-powered Molten Salt Reactor has been built and has been run safely within the United States, at the Oak Ridge National Labs. [wikipedia.org] The most promising types of thorium reactors, such as the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, are indeed unproven, merely because they are new refinements of working 1960s-era technology. Both China and India are working towards LFTRs today. The timeline is irrelevant, because even ten years will be equivalent to forever if we don't start solving the energy problem now
I'm all for use of renewables, but completely against government subsidies for ANY power technology. The only technolgies that will work long-term are the ones that are economically feasible on their own. Solar, as an example, doesn't scale in the way you suggest. Absent turning huge swaths of land into massive solar power plants, solar power cannot replace fossil-fueled base-load power. There just aren't enough rare earth metals to build all the needed panels to use solar for base power at the neighborhood scale, nor enough power storage mechanisms to handle night-time demands at anywhere near current usage levels.
Renewables can be fantastic for someone who chooses to live life within its limitations, but renewables simply cannot (physically, economically) scale to meet modern power demands. Even the article summary overlooks this:
Assume the worst polluters are producing 10% of the US' power demands. The summary is therefore calling for a 10% reduction across the board in US power production, because a decade's worth of solar and wind power rollout is not suddenly going to double its output capacity to make up for the loss of that 10% dirty power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 08 2014, @03:17AM
renewables simply cannot (physically, economically) scale to meet modern power demands
It doesn't take all that much commitment.
All you have to do is hire competent contractors.
The World's Greenest Building Is In The Least-Sunny City In The USA [google.com]
That was from over 2 years ago.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Monday December 08 2014, @05:40AM
Regarding the Bullitt Center [seattletimes.com]:
The Bullitt Center seems to have a mechanism to provide hard numbers on what those limits are, but their dashboard [dreamhosters.com] is down at the moment.
That still does seem to support what I said at first: "Renewables can be fantastic for someone who chooses to live life within its limitations, but renewables simply cannot (physically, economically) scale to meet modern power demands." I don't expect any manufacturing businesses will be occupying Bullitt Center offices... nor data hosting providers... telecommunications companies... and so on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 08 2014, @08:33PM
I don't expect any manufacturing businesses will be occupying Bullitt Center offices
Manufacturing tends to not be located in vertical buildings, so that's no huge surprise.
Folks building stuff tend to use horizontal structures (with lots of roof area that's good for solar collectors).
It will be interesting to see what technologies are used in Elon Musk's battery gigafactory in the Reno area.
nor data hosting providers
The cutting edge for servers seems to be a distributed meme with the "waste" heat being put to good use as I recently mentioned. [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:08AM
It doesn't take a decade to build a nuke plant, it takes a decade to build a nuke plant under current regulations.
If you extend current regulations to include the current political climate, then it actually takes 30+ years to build a nuke plant in the US, because it's been more than 30 years since the last one went online.
If we can get politically happy with a new, safer design, write appropriate regulations to ensure its proper construction, operation, and for God's sake: decommissioning, then new nuke plants can start cropping up like summer corn.
The existing nuke generation facilities have been extended past their original design lifetimes, making older designs even more dangerous than they were when they were conceived - they're still safer than the safest coal plants, especially when you count health effects from coal pollution emissions - but, from a technical perspective, we've got additional decades of experience, both directly with nuke technology, and with human factors like quality, safety, and reliability process control - oh, and these fancy new computers that can do things like simulation and modelling... what kind of finite element analysis was done on TMI before it was built?
Thorium might take a while to develop the whole ore extraction and refinement processes to industrial scale, but if an "Apollo" style Thorium energy generation program were started today, the first plant could be online and generating power in less than 10 years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:37AM
Nuclear is run by sociopaths.
Under current regulations we got Fukushima.
Under current regulations we got San Onofre. [soylentnews.org]
Trust the nuclear industry again? No. Absolutely not.
Putting the profit motive into anything nuclear queers the process.
...and making things -easier- for these mentally defective criminals is NOT the proper approach.
From the beginning, any license to build a nuke plant should have included the condition that every member of the board of directors must live within 1 mile of the reactor vessel.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday December 08 2014, @04:03PM
YouTube? Do you have any less illiterate links? Because the written word is far more informative than the spoken word. A talking head is no substitute for text unless you have a reading disability.
YouTube is for videos, animations, short movies. It's not a venue to present math.
Oh, and both your links lead to the same lame video.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Monday December 08 2014, @08:10PM
The most indepth written resource I have read on the matter of thorium power and its relation to all other known power generation methods is THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal [amazon.com] , by Robert Hargraves. A less detailed resource, but one that ties broader points together as to power generation and related economic consequences is Leverage [amazon.com] , by Karl Denninger.
I know there are other written resources, free and online, but I can't personally vouch for them. One that should nonetheless be a good source is the ORNL documentation repository [energyfromthorium.com] hosted at energyfromthorium.com.
The two youtube links I provided are sourced from the same material, but the first is to an ultra-condensed five-minute clip on thorium-fueled LFTR technology, whereas the second is to the full two hour presentation that talks about a wide range of related topics, including renewable energy, history, physics, and (IIRC) economics.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07 2014, @08:43PM
i think the way to fusion of light elements will come not from insights gleaned from nuke power plants
rather it will come from improving energy extraction from coal.
of course i will be expensive at first (what isn't?) but it has been tried and it's called MHD.
instead of burning/oxidizing carbon/coal to make hot water and steam to "blow" on a
"windmill" (steamturbine) they tried to extract electricity/currents directly from the hot plasma
coal-dust "flame" ... i think wikipedia will confirm a 20 MW MHD powerplant in moscow ...
(Score: 1) by lizardloop on Monday December 08 2014, @09:17AM
I've noticed that whenever energy generation is discussed people seem to inevitably end up discussing climate change and various conspiracies for why we don't already have "fusion/thorium/some other limitless clean energy". After that things generally devolve very quickly in to "you're killing my grandkids" and "you're bankrupting me". It was nice to see that kept to a relative minimum in this discussion. Here's hoping we can have more discussions about issues such as that without everyone having to take a political viewpoint as well as a technical viewpoint.