tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post1406795022393688707..comments2024-03-07T02:00:01.582-05:00Comments on NEI Nuclear Notes: Greenpeace and The World As It IsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-620486059171748552010-04-11T00:36:57.860-04:002010-04-11T00:36:57.860-04:00digitial snafu aside, dkantz = the previous anonym...digitial snafu aside, dkantz = the previous anonymousdkantznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-76160696989160904622010-04-10T23:18:25.557-04:002010-04-10T23:18:25.557-04:00What if the yardsticks measuring the condition of ...<i>What if the yardsticks measuring the condition of the global economy move away from Gross Domestic Product and toward Gross Happiness Index or Genuine Progress Indicator or the like – wouldn’t there likely be funding freed up from lobbying, income disparities on the order of 350:1, reduced costs of purchasing energy, etc.? So Finrod predicts political disaster for any entities trying to nurture this future. Well, yeah, if citizens do not demand responsible, sustainable, just leadership, gridlock will remain our status quo. Are you predicting that a ruling majority of citizens will remain that ignorant? How long?</i><br /><br />I said what I said in relation to dkantz' flowery espousal of randomised power rationing.<br /><br /><i>Choose your favorite 8 out of these 15 (that’s more than half of these options):</i><br /><br />I don't want to chose eight options. I don't think you have eight options worth chosing there. You have one that is, though:<br /><br /><i>Add twice today’s current global nuclear capacity to replace coal-based electricity.</i><br /><br />I propose we do this one eight times. That should provide enough power for electricity, synthetic fuel, fertilizer, process heat, desalination and whatnot for everyone in the world... and if it doesn't, we'll do it enough extra times untill it does.Finrodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02447747229391757964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-785082008371804322010-04-10T19:12:11.554-04:002010-04-10T19:12:11.554-04:00"...we spent all our discretionary income for..."...we spent all our discretionary income for the next 3 or 4 generations" – are you suggesting we wait 3 or 4 generations for someone else to design a better system then? Warning: that thinking makes it unlikely there'll be a 3rd or 4th generation from now.<br /><br />So, Sterling Archer asks: “What’s the plan. How do we pay for it?” OK. Let’s adopt T. Friedman’s approach (Hot, Flat, and Crowded) and avoid the doubling of atmospheric CO2 by mid-century. That means (globally) we need to avoid the emission of 200 billion tons of carbon as we grow between now and then. Choose your favorite 8 out of these 15 (that’s more than half of these options):<br />• Double fuel efficiency of 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 MPG<br />• Drive 2 billion cars only 5,000 miles/year rather than 10,000 @ 30 MPG<br />• Raise efficiency at 1,600 large coal-fired plants from 40 to 60%<br />• Replace 1,400 large coal-fired plants with natural-gas powered facilities<br />• Install carbon capture and sequestration capacity at 800 large coal-fired plants, so CO2 can be stored underground.<br />• Install carbon capture and sequestration at new coal plants that would produce hydrogen for 1.5 billion hydrogen-powered vehicles.<br />• Install carbon capture and sequestration at 180 coal gasification plants.<br />• Add twice today’s current global nuclear capacity to replace coal-based electricity.<br />• Increase wind power 40 fold to displace all coal-fired power.<br />• Increase solar power 700 fold to displace all coal-fired power.<br />• Increase wind power 80 fold to make hydrogen for clean cars.<br />• Drive 2 billion cars on ethanol using 1/6th of the world’s cropland to grow the needed corn.<br />• Halt all cutting and burning of forests.<br />• Adopt conservation tillage, which emits much less CO2 from the land, in all agricultural soils worldwide.<br />• Cut electricity use in homes, offices and stores by 25%.<br /><br />How do we pay for such changes? What if the yardsticks measuring the condition of the global economy move away from Gross Domestic Product and toward Gross Happiness Index or Genuine Progress Indicator or the like – wouldn’t there likely be funding freed up from lobbying, income disparities on the order of 350:1, reduced costs of purchasing energy, etc.? So Finrod predicts political disaster for any entities trying to nurture this future. Well, yeah, if citizens do not demand responsible, sustainable, just leadership, gridlock will remain our status quo. Are you predicting that a ruling majority of citizens will remain that ignorant? How long?<br /><br />Time-of-use is a ready to be incorporated into the architecture of the national electric grid. Refrigerators, washing machines, coffee pots, etc. do NOT operate 24/7. Can a market be designed and put into place that encourages us to tailor our cooking (or whatever) schedules according to economic incentives? Of course! The US electricity market is operating according to a design that’s over a hundred years old. Redesign is long overdue.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-83603857669754101662010-04-06T14:26:43.934-04:002010-04-06T14:26:43.934-04:00Finrod: I LOLed.
People need to cook in electric...Finrod: I LOLed.<br /><br />People need to cook in electric stoves when they want to eat. They need refrigerators to work 24/7 or their food will spoil. People want heat in their dwellings when it is dark and still and cold in the winter.<br /><br />What kind of <i>"time-of-use generating capacity"</i> will accommodate these things?Bikermannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-85709683302469785732010-04-05T19:04:56.991-04:002010-04-05T19:04:56.991-04:00The consumers' question needs to move FROM &qu...<i>The consumers' question needs to move FROM "what's the lowest-rate-per-kW-we-can-get-any-time-we-want-it" TO "how can we tailor time-of-use so that generating capacity of utilities is freed from being driven by peak loads."</i><br /><br />I predict sweeping electroral victory for any political party which promises to reverse such a policy if any incumbent government in the industrialised world is deluded enough to implement it in the first place.Finrodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02447747229391757964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-20626123138944486172010-04-05T14:44:01.146-04:002010-04-05T14:44:01.146-04:00An excellent idea, dkantz! But we just spent all ...An excellent idea, dkantz! But we just spent all of our discretionary income for the next three or four generations on health care reform (so-called). America just proved our priorities have <b>nothing</b> to do with sustainability or ecology.<br /><br />So, what's your alternate plan? That doesn't cost any of that money we don't have?Sterling Archernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-23486136912201273002010-04-05T13:06:23.760-04:002010-04-05T13:06:23.760-04:00As T.Friedman details in Hot, Flat and Crowded, th...As T.Friedman details in Hot, Flat and Crowded, the public (through regulators) has, so far, only asked electric utilities for cheap, all-you-can-use electrons with mitigation of Hg, NOs & SOs.<br /><br /> We are now starting to ask for electricity free of CO2 emissions. Greenpeace's "David vs. Goliath," or maybe even "terrorist vs. robber baron" personna is well understood, and they are to be applauded for using their clout to help the public focus on this critically necessary change of mindset and market reality. And, as are mentioned in this article, so are the appropriate efforts of specific "Goliaths" and "robber barons."<br /><br /> Greenpeace exists within a market and social reality overloaded with inequalities and inequities. Singling out Greenpeace as "reprehensible," "dreadful," condescending," etc. without similarly pointing verbal fingers at their antagonists (but probably amplified) is to indulge in selective vision.<br /><br /> One more thing. The consumers' question needs to move FROM "what's the lowest-rate-per-kW-we-can-get-any-time-we-want-it" TO "how can we tailor time-of-use so that generating capacity of utilities is freed from being driven by peak loads."<br /><br /> Yes, that's asking more of the utilities -- and of ourselves. But electric utilities have been operating according to a business plan crafted and sold by Samuel Insull, the commercial protege of Thomas Edison over 100 years ago. Growing demand for ever scarcer natural resources, transfer of wealth to oil-rich petrodictatorships, disruptive climate change, energy poverty, and biodiversity loss are the realities informing us that We, the People, should have insisted on updating our energy policies to include "Electric Grid 2.0" at least a generation ago.dkantznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-76812140669452217012010-04-02T12:14:31.485-04:002010-04-02T12:14:31.485-04:00"dreadful – resource-hungry, condescending an...<i>"dreadful – resource-hungry, condescending and gaudy"</i><br /><br />That pretty well describes Greenpeace.Brian Mayshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13962229896535398120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10911751.post-38715482294914164132010-04-02T10:42:15.639-04:002010-04-02T10:42:15.639-04:00I guess I don't get your point here. Are you ...I guess I don't get your point here. Are you faulting Greenpeace for advocating clean energy generation? And this so-called 'purity test' - it seems to me that as long as the electric customers and society ask the utility company one question ('what's the lowest rate per kw-hr I can get') then the utility will continue to generate those kw-hr at the lowest cost, without consideration to anything else. So, if the customers ask more of the generators ('and make it clean') then maybe we can make some progress. Sounds reasonable. <br /><br />There's plenty left to bash Greenpeace about. Personally, I think that organization is reprehensible. Opportunistic scam artists, bilking the well meaning but ignorant and naive into contributing, they encourage criminal acts which are tolerated only because they play off the 'underdog fighting the good fight' against the system, or against the greedy pigs who make a living by desecrating mother earth.<br /><br />But that doesn't mean that we (all of us) don't need to start thinking about where the kw-hrs are coming from. Ignorance is no excuse for business-as-usual.gmax137noreply@blogger.com