How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
The proper use of coal should be to transfer us into a nuclear/alternative energy system. Hopefully this is how it will be applied and not as some last ditch resort to preserve the status quo.
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 8:07 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
orz wrote:
The proper use of coal should be to transfer us into a nuclear/alternative energy system. Hopefully this is how it will be applied and not as some last ditch resort to preserve the status quo.
You didn't read Dr. Bartlett did you?
Besides, in a world that needs to reduce C02 gases 60 to 70%, what business have we of using coal for anything? It's use should be reduced, not increased.
We need to powerdown and build no more energy facilities whatsoever, unless they are renewable and we take fossil fuel and nuclear capacity off-line as renewables come on-line. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3334 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 8:45 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
MonteQuest wrote:
orz wrote:
The proper use of coal should be to transfer us into a nuclear/alternative energy system. Hopefully this is how it will be applied and not as some last ditch resort to preserve the status quo.
You didn't read Dr. Bartlett did you?
Besides, in a world that needs to reduce C02 gases 60 to 70%, what business have we of using coal for anything? It's use should be reduced, not increased.
We need to powerdown and build no more energy facilities whatsoever, unless they are renewable and we take fossil fuel and nuclear capacity off-line as renewables come on-line.
Hey Monte, I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of details, but why would you even consider scrapping Fission plants that work just fine and do not produce greenhouse gasses? You know as well as anyone here that biomass can not replace petro-carbon sources in terms of energy output, you seem to be opposed to hydro power from the tone I have gotten from some of your posts, and now you are dissing fission too. Switching to fission for baseload power and a combination of solar/biomas/wind/hydro for peaking will allow us to muddle on through, scrapping fission AND coal will lead us to a rapidly darkening world of have's and have nots. I and most people who are now in the have's catagory will not go willingly forward to a condition of being have-not's, and that is the only war short of nuclear warfare that you could get the population to give up technology except that supported by bio-mass. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Tanada wrote:
Hey Monte, I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of details, but why would you even consider scrapping Fission plants that work just fine and do not produce greenhouse gasses?
I was a leader in the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970's. There are far too many environmental issues that are unresolved, especially waste disposal. If we commit to thousands more of these plants worldwide to meet our energy needs, Murphy's Law will get it's chance to rear it's ugly head that much sooner.
We cannot afford to be wrong even once. The risks far out-weigh the rewards, IMHO.
We should not even try to muddle through with a system born and nutured on a false premise. To succeed would be to seal our fate and make the cliff even steeper. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:47 pm; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:31 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Dezakin wrote:
Probably because the subtext of montes arguments are allways laden with a desire for genocide.
No, my arguments are laden with a desire to strive to live within the limits of our environmental sinks and the received solar flux and recognizing we have not. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. There will be a correction, either by choice or default.
Since we have eliminated our predators, we must mimic them.
Genocide is the systematic killing of a targeted ethinic group of people. I have not suggested targeting or killing anyone.
What I have said is that we are going to be faced with hard choices; choices about whether we try to reduce our population numbers voluntarily, or let nature take it's course.
Nature will be far more cruel, trust me.
I say make hard choices; others say go down with the ship.
I don't think they understand what they are saying.
Remember, we are just animals fighting over food. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:42 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Tanada wrote:
You know as well as anyone here that biomass can not replace petro-carbon sources in terms of energy output, you seem to be opposed to hydro power from the tone I have gotten from some of your posts, and now you are dissing fission too.
Hydropower is not renewable and sustainable. The dams silt up, cause major environmental damage, and the water won't be there to power them in the future. As a former NPS ranger from Lake Mead and Lake Powell, I can attest to that. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 11:44 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Tanada wrote:
Switching to fission for baseload power and a combination of solar/biomas/wind/hydro for peaking will allow us to muddle on through, scrapping fission AND coal will lead us to a rapidly darkening world of have's and have nots. I and most people who are now in the have's catagory will not go willingly forward to a condition of being have-not's, and that is the only war short of nuclear warfare that you could get the population to give up technology except that supported by bio-mass.
That's because you are thinking short-term. I am not.
Not scraping coal will exacerbate global warming and your "have" desire will be moot.
We need to powerdown and prepare for third-world conditions by choice, not by default.
We won't though, so we will have resource wars. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1647 Location: Davis, California
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 2:19 am Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Coal liquefaction is a moot point.
All supply right now is being used, and all additional supply is already planned for.
The fact is that most people right now don't think we need a significant supply side overhaul. Companies and governments are content in letting supply grow gradually. Outside of a couple pilot plants for CTL, there isn't a whole lot going on in the United States and for the most part, elsewhere. Only South Africa has a real CTL industry.
You can pontificate on what we should be doing or what we could do, but the simple fact of the matter is that we are doing none of those things and won't do a single thing mentioned here or in any other thread until long after we've hit the peak. _________________ Joseph Stalin "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. "
Joined: Nov 01, 2005 Posts: 794 Location: Euro high horse bastard on the run
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 6:41 am Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
There was a coal plant algae trapping demo system shown in the Alan Alda's Scientific American Frontiers (PBS documentary series). We can pretty much use more coal and put that algae with trapped gas into some underground depositories. However, as mentioned before if you scale up production the depletion rate is accelerated. So we can perhaps buy some extra time with manageble pollution levels but nothing more..
You have to dig it out..it was either in that hydrogen or global warming episode (and you can sniff out the video file url and play it as whole movie not only a short segment)
http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm
I've seen in the papers a future energy plan in my location and they basically said that coal production is going down in Europe also thanks to depletion rates (thank you for the novelty). They offered to burn more gas instead. Poor journalists they didn't hear about the US/CAN and UK natural gas implosion probably..
The ever repeating signs of human mentality "ok, lets burn something else" is just mindblowing..
Btw. I've heard that some crazy Fark are even starting to burn unrecycled trash with all that plastic inside for home heating.. look ma, cool chemicals in the evening breeze, wow! So, the methods of 3rd world are finally comming home to us stupid 1st worlders. Sometimes I wish to have the button to kill that buggy application called human race.. _________________ DOOMerotron: at all-time high [8.1] out of 10..
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3334 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:44 am Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
MonteQuest wrote:
Tanada wrote:
Hey Monte, I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of details, but why would you even consider scrapping Fission plants that work just fine and do not produce greenhouse gasses?
I was a leader in the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970's. There are far too many environmental issues that are unresolved, especially waste disposal. If we commit to thousands more of these plants worldwide to meet our energy needs, Murphy's Law will get it's chance to rear it's ugly head that much sooner.
We cannot afford to be wrong even once. The risks far out-weigh the rewards, IMHO.
We should not even try to muddle through with a system born and nutured on a false premise. To succeed would be to seal our fate and make the cliff even steeper.
That explains a lot, you bought the 'waste disposal problem' hook line and sinker and don't want to re-evaluate from a basis of experience.
Waste disposal from nuclear power is miniscule compared to every other power supply mankind has ever experimented with. Fission waste at its worst takes 100 years to decay to safe handling levels, and with reprocessing the volume of waste with that reactivity level is very small in volume, much small than the ore mass extracted from the ground when it was mined.
The Russians were as wrong as you could get at Chernobyl, it serves as an excellent example of how badly things can go wrong with bad training, bad managment and poor safety systems in the design. And despite it being a worst case scenario wildlife is thriving throughout the area right up to the accident site and now 19 years later background radiation is well withing lifetime dose toleration limits. Oncological studies of the area have shown just what the real health physicists and nuclear medical specialists predicted, the fire and cleanup crew's are following established norms based on there dosage received and are suffering about a 10% increase in cancer rate, the poor kids whose parents were not warned took a heavy hit from radio-iodine in their milk supply in the first 6 weeks but are showing no other problems. The mythological birth defects never occured at a rate over average for the region and population.
Chernobyl was the last gasp of the anti-nuclear movement, it forced even the USSR to decide to stop using plants which did not have built in safety measure's like containment structures. If Chernobyl had had a proper western style containment building it would have killed about 20 people and cost a lot of money. Without containment it killed about 60, crippled about 600 kids, cost a lot of money, and caused a lot of panic and temporary dislocations. People are moving back into the chernobyl exclusion zone in droves because they do not feel any ill effects from the elevated radiation levels and statistically they will suffer for it, with about 1 excess cancer per MILLION people.
We only have to muddle through until the population peak in 2050, after that things will keep getting easier because there will be no extra mouths to feed every year. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3334 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:59 am Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
MonteQuest wrote:
Tanada wrote:
You know as well as anyone here that biomass can not replace petro-carbon sources in terms of energy output, you seem to be opposed to hydro power from the tone I have gotten from some of your posts, and now you are dissing fission too.
Hydropower is not renewable and sustainable. The dams silt up, cause major environmental damage, and the water won't be there to power them in the future. As a former NPS ranger from Lake Mead and Lake Powell, I can attest to that.
Bull crap, dams only silt up if you have mental defectives managing the dams. You can unsilt the dam either the easy way, by opening the flood gates periodically, or the hard way, by dredging and pumping the silt. Neither is particularly high technology and if you must you can put an electric powered scoop on the dam and use it to shift silt over the top.
As for 'environmental damage' why is a beaver dam which changes the riverine ecology into a pond/lake beuatiful but a human dam ugly? Thats a pile of horse pucky, a dam is a dam and a changed ecosystem is a changed ecosystem, not a damaged one. Lake powell as an eco-zone supports as much or more organic life as did the dessert canyon it filled up.
As for the lack of water causing the dam to be non functional, simply point out to me anywhere on earth where this has happenned. People have been building dams for a few thousand years, surely you can find an example or two to back up your viewpoint compared to the thousands of working dams now in existence?
You should be well aware of the fact that they now do periodic flooding from Lake's Meade and Powell to allow silt to spread downstream as it did before construction, this not only keeps the dam's from silting up it restores the nutrient base to the riverine ecosystem.
Monte I enjoy debating you, but I expect more fact and less rhetoric in my debate partners... Just take a deep breath, relax, and think how you can back up your statements before you throw them out in the open air. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3334 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 8:29 am Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
MonteQuest wrote:
Tanada wrote:
Switching to fission for baseload power and a combination of solar/biomas/wind/hydro for peaking will allow us to muddle on through, scrapping fission AND coal will lead us to a rapidly darkening world of have's and have nots. I and most people who are now in the have's catagory will not go willingly forward to a condition of being have-not's, and that is the only war short of nuclear warfare that you could get the population to give up technology except that supported by bio-mass.
That's because you are thinking short-term. I am not.
Not scraping coal will exacerbate global warming and your "have" desire will be moot.
We need to powerdown and prepare for third-world conditions by choice, not by default.
We won't though, so we will have resource wars.
The hell I am thinking short term! I see the possibilltiy of humanity as a whole living at a minimum of a 1950 USA level, you see us as living in wood burning, forest destroying disease filled squaler. That is what living in third world conditions means you know, people packed together like sardines, every inch of arable land covered with some crop or another and one bad year means famine and disease run rampant.
No thank you! I see humanity muddling on through until 2050, then the spread of technolgy and the effects of the population pyramid result in a slowly declining to steady state world population. Western countries will have eliminated wasteful consumerism by force as vital goods and services will continue at higher energy costs but cheap jusk for every household will not. I was talking to my wife about this last night, we have a bread maker that we use about once a month, a blender, food processor, and popcorn popper we use about once a week. If we lost all four appliances we would barely notice the change. On the other hand we have radio-tv-internet-fridge-stove-toaster-microwave-hot water heater-HVAC that we use every day and washer/dryer that we use a couple times per week. If any of those break we notice right away, and some of them we rush right out to replace if they need it.
In the coming few years will the luxory consumer goods like popcorn poppers and bread makers keep being built? Probably, but not nearly in the numbers they are now because they really are luxory consumer goods. Most people would give up a lot to keep the TV and Radio, personally they would go before the other daily use items for me. My minimum for comfort is fridge-stove-Heating system-Hot Water-Washer/dryer-internet. If I can't afford one of those the Internet goes. If I con't afford next the Dryer goes. If I have too I can give up hot water on demand and only turn it on when I am washing clothes or personal hygene. Washing clothes by hand is a chore, but if need be I could do it, and I could do without the fridge and eat only canned or dried foods. Loosing the stove means gathering scrap wood and cooking on the grill if need be. That leaves me with running water, electricity and heating as my true bare minimums, without those this house quickly becomes unlivable, especially winter heating.
My point is, we can scrap coal and all petro-carbon if we have too and still have adequite electric power, provided we build the power stations. If it takes Fission power, how long do you thing the anti-nukes will be heard when people are told to give up TV? If they give up TV or some other item how far down my list will they go before they revolt and demand Fission power be brought online ASAP?
Given what I know about history and my neighbors they won't even want to give up that bread maker they use once a month, let alone anything they use on a daily basis. The reallity is, they will demand Fission power or Coal power be supplied, it is time for the anti-nuke environmentalists to wake up and make their choice. I chose Fission 25 years ago and everything I see today tells me that the population is steaming towards the cliff where they will be forced to choose. I hope they choose Fission because Coal is a dead end, in every sense of the word.
If you use round the clock work you can build a safe, secure, efficient Fission power plant in 18 months, it is no more complex than an Essex class carrier and the USA turned those out in 12 months at the height of WW II. And that isn't one plant in one spot, that is 10-20 plants in widely seperated spots. Repeat that cycle for a decade and you replace all the current plants, replace the oldest coal plants and start making inroads on the gas fired plants.
Alternativly you can do the same thing with Coal, but you have to open a lot more mines and build a lot more railroad trackage to haul it, and you grossly pollute the air, water and landscape.
Time to make your choice, because we are almost at the cliff and America is going to fall one of those two ways. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:48 am Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Tanada wrote:
That explains a lot, you bought the 'waste disposal problem' hook line and sinker and don't want to re-evaluate from a basis of experience.
Waste disposal from nuclear power is miniscule compared to every other power supply mankind has ever experimented with. Fission waste at its worst takes 100 years to decay to safe handling levels, and with reprocessing the volume of waste with that reactivity level is very small in volume, much small than the ore mass extracted from the ground when it was mined.
Safe handling levels, yes? But not safe disposal. Low level waste which is comparatively easy to dispose of. The "high level" radioactive waste from the core of the nuclear reactor emit large amounts of radiation and have extremely long half-lives (some longer than 100,000 years) creating long time periods before the waste will settle to "safe" levels of radioactivity.
This waste has to be transported creating nightmare scenarios of truck/rail accidents. And will still don't know for sure where we are going to put it.
But this thread is about coal, so lets' debate that elsewhere. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:31 pm Post subject: Re: Coal - What are the ramifications?
Tanada wrote:
Bull crap, dams only silt up if you have mental defectives managing the dams. You can unsilt the dam either the easy way, by opening the flood gates periodically, or the hard way, by dredging and pumping the silt. Neither is particularly high technology and if you must you can put an electric powered scoop on the dam and use it to shift silt over the top.
You could, be we don't and not because of poor management, but due to cost and required water releases. To ask how long it will take the reservoir to silt in is an exercise in futility. The 700-year figure, quoted frequently by the Bureau of Reclamation, comes from a study backed by the National Science Foundation that measured actual siltation during the first decades of the reservoir during a relatively dry cycle. Other studies conducted by the government estimate the dam’s life span as 250 or 300 years. In any case, the river is unpredictable and a single 500-year flood could change all estimates.
Quote:
As for 'environmental damage' why is a beaver dam which changes the riverine ecology into a pond/lake beuatiful but a human dam ugly? Thats a pile of horse pucky, a dam is a dam and a changed ecosystem is a changed ecosystem, not a damaged one. Lake powell as an eco-zone supports as much or more organic life as did the dessert canyon it filled up.
If you ask such a question, then your understanding of wetlands and riparian ecology needs bolstered.
Quote:
As for the lack of water causing the dam to be non functional, simply point out to me anywhere on earth where this has happenned. People have been building dams for a few thousand years, surely you can find an example or two to back up your viewpoint compared to the thousands of working dams now in existence?
Lake Powell is approaching that concern due to low water levels from the current drought which affect the head pressure on the turbines. More significant to note is that the upper 100 feet of the reservoir holds 48% of its capacity. As the dam is 560 feet high, silt could fill the reservoir to the 460 foot level much sooner than the Bureau is willing to admit. Enough sediment flows into the reservoir, under current hydrologic conditions, to fill the reservoir to the generator intake level within 105 years. The power station penstocks and the river outlet work "safety valves," all lie below this level. Think of it: when silt reaches the river outlet work valves that allow the reservoir to be drawn down, for safety or other reasons, the dam will become unsafe. In less than 105 years, the dam could be rendered useless for power generation or flood control.
Quote:
You should be well aware of the fact that they now do periodic flooding from Lake's Meade and Powell to allow silt to spread downstream as it did before construction, this not only keeps the dam's from silting up it restores the nutrient base to the riverine ecosystem.
No, it slows the rate of siltation but doesn't prevent it. In the spring of 1996, an attempt was made to mitigate damage to the Grand Canyon by releasing an artificial flood from the dam, to mimic the high flows of former spring runoffs. This experimental "flood flow" represented only half the pre-dam spring peak, and introduced no new sediment into the system. This flow rejuvenated beaches and backwater habitats, and improved habitat for endangered fish. Less than a year later, the new habitat was gone, eaten away by clear water hungry for sediment. The flood was a short term success, but fell short of a long term solution.
The maximum power generation of the Glen Canyon Dam is 1300 megawatts with full reservoir conditions. However, after being built for this capacity it was discovered that operating at full capacity seriously damages the downstream riparian environment. Because of this, the Bureau of Reclamation restricts the water flow so that the total generation of electricity is between 500 and 800 megawatts.
Those facts back up my position.
Let's try to steer back onto the topic of coal. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Sun Nov 20, 2005 12:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Just take a deep breath, relax, and think how you can back up your statements before you throw them out in the open air.