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Renewables Now Surpass Nuclear Power in the US
This is a good way to get 2012 rolling: A recent report reveals that for the first time renewable sources have outdone nuclear power in the United States.
“Renewable energy sources—wind, water, solar and others—passed nuclear generation as a share of U.S. power in September, according to the Energy Information Administration,” reports the San Francisco Business Times. “The EIA report showed 6.944 quadrillion Btus, or ‘quads,’ of energy generated from renewable sources in the first nine months of 2011, compared with 6.173 quads from nuclear power.”
Now, the “renewable” category here is a bit of a catch-all, since it includes sources that are somewhat dubious from a clean energy standpoint, such as biofuels. But, still, the fact that nuclear power is now contributing a smaller amount to the national grid than renewables is of major significance. We are on our way to a green energy future faster than many of us had imagined.
(Photo: Janie.Hernandez55)
Many environmentalists, such as veteran anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, have been urging this course for a long time.
“When the No Nukes movement first started, it was hoped by many that solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, biomass, increased efficiency, and other renewable technologies would ‘someday’ be cheaper than nuclear power and fossil fuels,” Wasserman wrote last May for The Progressive" in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. “By all accounts, that day has come.”
The new numbers also lend credence to a report issued last year by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stating that energy from clean sources could account for four-fifths of the global supply within a few decades—if governments show the necessary will.
"The report shows that it is not the availability of [renewable] resources but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades,” said Ramon Pichs, co-chair of one of the working groups of the organization.
The interesting thing is that the Obama Administration has had a mixed record here, voicing support for renewables but at the same time refusing to give up its infatuation with nuclear power. Nuclear energy has been bested despite the White House’s ambivalence.
The United States needs to take its lead from a number of other Western countries that have ended their romance with nuclear power in the aftermath of Fukushima. Germany is shutting down all its nuclear reactors within ten years (with one-third of its power to come from renewables by then). The Italian people, by a margin of 9-1, last year rejected then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s attempts to reintroduce nuclear power in the country. And the Swiss government in May pledged to close all reactors by 2034. (Japan itself has promised to get off of nuclear energy, albeit on an ill-defined timeline.)
America’s lukewarm attitude toward renewables has cost it in the recent past.
“There are reasons to be concerned about America’s competitive position in the clean energy marketplace,” says a Pew 2010 report. “In all, ten G-20 members devoted a greater percentage of gross domestic product to clean energy than the United States in 2009.”
If renewables can perform so well in spite of such half-heartedness on the part of Washington, imagine what could happen it they were backed to the hilt.
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46 Comments so far
Show AllThis happened with virtually no government support except for fits and starts every now and again. And it happened with NO emphasis on the single most important "energy" issue of our time -- insulation. People will spend weeks researching a car before they buy one, but then will buy a house for hundreds of thousands of dollars with R6 insulation in the walls.
Most of the CD readers (or any other Americans for that matter) won't know what R6 or any other R value means (ratio of temperature differences across an insulator and heat transfer). But in practical terms it means this -- a well insulated and built house needs no furnace or air conditioner, even in the coldest or hottest climates. You can build a house in Vermont and heat it with an extra hot water heater for pennies each winter, if you build right.
And we ignore another huge issue also -- solar orientation. Just like humans, houses can have more than one orientation, but unlike human beings, one orientation has definite value over others. But drive by most new houses and you can see that most gave no thoughts to the sun, the source of all heat and life. Houses don't need expensive solar panels to derive great benefits from the sun.
"most gave no thoughts to the sun"
Yep, that's why the long axis of my house runs east to west.
Tom,
The federal, and sometimes, state tax breaks or guaranteed tariffs on wind and solar energy, and formerly, small hydro, are very substantial, and it is unlikely we would see much wind and solar development in most areas without them.
Are you opposed to government incentives? I think they are a very good thing myself.
I think you notion of heating a house in Vermont on pennies a month sounds rather dubious myself. Even if you could just head with an added hot water heater, it would cost more than that.
If you google "earthship," and click around through enough pictures, you can see pictures of bananas growing inside of ice-covered windows in unheated buildings at thirty-two below - all built in the last few decades, built at more or less the price of "regular' houses.
There's no "hot water heater" about it: this is pure, passive solar all the way.
The New Mexican high desert where Mike Reynolds primarily works gets thirty-two below, and he has to exercise some care to be certain that the houses do not overheat in winter, as well as underheat.
It is not only possible to have passive solar heating in Vermont, it is possible further north as well. It is already done, and done for about the up-front cost of more typical construction.
It is way, way easier than building a power plant, way less expensive, and way faster.
Beyond that, the federal subsidies for nuclear plants always have been and remain way, way higher than for any kind of green technology. Just to imagine, for openers, what taking on the expense of storage of radwaste for thousands and thousands of years will ultimately cost, or what the insurance on a nuclear plant would cost were the owners to be liable
http://earthship.com/
This article will probably offend the nuclear industry's boiler room bloggers. Meh.
Renewable energy's Energy Return On Investment (EROI) is very low. Mega high powered urban areas can't afford it. When a complex society crumbles many windmills will stand as broken monuments to futility. If you can afford all the batteries, small-scale solar efforts are viable for the medium term. Gas and plant matter for the long term. Long range projections include human bonfires.
This is a ridiculous canard- no nuclear power plant has ever returned the energy input to build, operate, and decommission. This comparison would be a wonderful one if you would apply the same metric to Nukes and Combustion generation, but you do not. If you can afford the batteries, just take the money and enroll in a critical thinking calss with an emphasis on ethics- I suspect you would ignite faster than your scare tactic analogies have caught on here.
I don't think anyone's advocating nuclear. And sadly, the poster is right, the current economic structure, of which "mega high power urban areas" are indeed a large part, cannot be served mostly by renewables. A lot of consumption has to be cut first, population structure has to be less concentrated etc. This doesn't mean imo advocating nuclear, it's just how things are right now. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that we can simply replace the current energy infrastructure with "renewables" with everything else being the same. This is imo exactly why biofuels are officially considered renewables and are the preferred form of renewable energy - they are by far the easiest to integrate into the current energy regime.
I think the MER referred to in this article pretty much demonstrates this (the article itself is a piece of unresearched shit). Wind is minimal, solar is even more ridiculous, hydro (which is not exactly environmentally friendly, but imo still marginally better than biomass...not that that counts for much, and I may easily be wrong :-/) is actually very significantly down compared to the mid 90's. The growth in wind and solar is completely meaningless, because the way we use energy now puts a very low cap on their total maximum possible share in energy used. Unless we change that, in the global view, all they will do is provide *additional* energy to waste, they will not *replace* dirty sources.
Nuclear energy, on the other hand, is worse than worthless. At the very best, we'd get a hundred years or two of a pretty dangerous energy source, in exchange for *tens of thousands* of years of very dangrous pollution. That is just bullshit. No human civilisation can stand for tens of thousands of years, let alone technology. Even the idea is ridiculous, except from the "apres moi, le deluge" point of view :-/
California is virtually giving away free Insulation to homeowners, see:
https://energyupgradeca.org/overview
Writing as the first homeowner to have solar panels on my block (as well as energy conserving double paned windows), I am quite glad to do my very tiny bit to help in the effort of turning away from the incredibly dangerous (the half-life of nuclear waste is equivalent to four stages of human evolution) and extremely cost inefficient boondoggle that is nukes. I would not be surprised to see some nuke industry shill pop up and poo poo the detailing of my efforts on this board for the pittance they undoubtedly draw. Such shills should know this, the standard response from most everyone I tell about this is 'Good for you' & 'How can I do this?'
Where do you live? I didn't know you could get anything but double-paned windows anymore.
Another wonderful example of "the things kids say"- but you are a civil engineer right, so nuclear is safe, there are no more single pane windows being manufactured, and solar doesn't work. Where do you live? I mean: what planet?
excellent! let us all get second electronic devices for our other hands...
perhaps an electronic assistant to comb our hair, and wipe our (gl)asses...
electricity is great, though...
when one is dying, one can shock one's heart, and it may start again...
after all, got a few more texts to send, and shows to watch about saving Eaarth...
can I have another plate of wire-ghetti and oil?
I think this is what they're talking about: http://205.254.135.7/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/mer.pdf
Renewables my ass. Half of this is biomass ffs. Two thirds of the rest is hydro. Biomass is made up of biofuel (around half), wood (about the same), and about 10% waste. Basically, you're burning forests and corn (eroi on corn is at best 50%, if you're generous, which means that at least two thirds of this energy is already consumed as inputs - but accounted for separately, probably under oil and gas). (Although maybe you also import sugarcane based ethanol, which actually has an acceptable eroi but it's imported exactly because the US climate does not make its cultivation possible afaik).
What exactly is renewable in these things that rely on limited forest and agricultural land - in addition to hydroelectric which has basically not changed in decades? This kind of "progress" is completely worthless and meaningless. I guess it makes liberals reading the Progressive feel good though. Nothing in the actual numbers is in fact encouraging. Liberal bullshit, all of this. How the hell can people who call themselves progressives use these kinds of shallow distortions? Aren't we supposed to hate propaganda and lies? Why no tables and numbers?
Couldn't agree more, just more smoke and mirrors. The fact is renewables that we want to grow (solar, wind, geothermal etc) contribute just a tiny, teeny portion of what we will need in the coming decades. The bulk of it goes for the production of electricity.
I knew right away that hydroelectricity was included and so I was somewhat put off by the incomplete disclaimer:
>>"Now, the “renewable” category here is a bit of a catch-all, since it includes sources that are somewhat dubious from a clean energy standpoint, such as biofuels."<<
Anyway, thank you for the reality check, Atomsk. Not sure if anyone is going to call you a shill for nuclear energy for pointing this out.
As for me, I have always insisted that massive demand reduction by cutting out the non-essential uses of energy should top the agenda IF taking action on global warming is REALLY a priority.
"Supply side" solutions such as building renewable energy infrastructure can proceed, but first cut demand, and big time! Cutting demand, big time, will allow the shutting down of coal power plants without waiting for a matching capacity in renewables, considering that coal-based power generation capacity makes up about 45% of the total electricity capacity in the US.
What makes the average American or the average Canadian (or anyone from the richer countries) that much MORE deserving to consume so much energy and emit so much greenhouse gases per capita?
Only calling for massive building of renewable energy capacity without calling for massive demand reduction is like driving a hybrid Hummer! And some people did that too!
And I have another question:
with "all this" renewable energy capacity, exactly how many coal power plants have been shut down? What's the guarantee that these will be shut down with the building of more renewable capacity, UNLESS demand itself is reduced drastically first?
Bio-fuels & hydro-electric power sound good in THEORY- But thus far have been dubious if not out right Disastrous in practice! Bio-fuel production that encourages mono-cultivating food crops to fuel cars instead of feeding hungry people [while driving-up food prices], &/or using fertile lands or cutting down forest to that end- IS NOT a Good Thing. And destroying large swaths of rich land & eco-systems & fouling water-supplies for massive hydro-electric projects [which often don't benefit the masses of people while driving farmers off their land] AIN'T Good either! IMO it may be possible to actually make them more eco-friendly [for real not just as a slogan], but NOT using the current popular models.
The one so-called 'Bio-Fuel' I do recommend from personal experience is Bio-gas Digesters- which takes organic waste & produces quite clean burning methane & organic fertilizer. Plus they're quite scalable from the residential & community, to the farm, to the Urban &/or Industrial levels.
Yes Nixakliel, good points about poorly implemented policies on biofuels and hydroelectric power. The EU "mandate" on biofuels, for example, is about the most idiotic idea to come from most likely some clueless bureaucrats, causing deforestation elsewhere in the world!
But the MAIN reason for all these is the enormous demand for energy. This is also the reason that there are **still** some proposals to build major dams in Canada, even in the face of opposition from local farmers and First Nations people!
It is high time to start looking at how much of this energy consumption is really essential. Because, resources are finite, and they need to be used judiciously, considering the great inequalities and the extreme climate crisis.
Biogas digesters are a good thing, because otherwise the decomposition of the organic matter will take place without recovering usable energy out of it, and when this decomposition takes place in partially anaerobic conditions, also adds methane to the atmosphere.
The main thing to keep in mind here is that this is only a stage in the recovery of usable energy from organic matter **after their main use**, and as such, they cannot, and should not, be counted as primary energy sources, but as supplementary sources. Otherwise they will take on a life of their own and finding organic feedstock will become a priority, instead of making use of organic matter that would go to waste, or that would be composted without recovering the energy contained in it.
In other words energy efficiency & conservation and cutting down & eliminating waste [IE: recycling].
And I know you agree [I'm 'Preaching to the Choir' Now] but most people [even many supposedly 'Green' folk] fail to make the connection of the meat centered SAD diet, fueling a wasteful use of resources [including fuel resources] & also environmental degradation. Thus trying to hook all 7-Billion people on the meat-centered SAD Diet would be an ecological catastrophe!
I don't get why anyone would call me a nuclear shill for pointing out distortions in the article. Both nuclear and biofuels are actually really bad.
"As for me, I have always insisted that massive demand reduction by cutting out the non-essential uses of energy should top the agenda IF taking action on global warming is REALLY a priority."
Yep. Yep yep. And imo this can only happen with very a deep reorganisation of social production. I don't really think we can do it, but if we're to survive, it certainly needs to happen. As we humans take over the entire Earth, we should at the very least create systems that are entirely self-contained, with only solar energy as an input (since solar *is* basically the only actual input into the Earth's energy system in reality (well there's geothermal too)). Reuse everything and only use as much energy as we get. I think it's impossible to do this in the technological way on this scale, so a large part of this should be left to nature, which means that we should simply withdraw from exploitation of a lot of areas. This is "politically unrealistic" of course, so I think technology will in fact keep expanding and controlling and exploiting more and more of the biosphere, and the "best" we can hope for, the way things are going now, is some totalitarian form of technocracy - with probably much, much fewer people and living things in general than what would be possible in a more "organic" world. Let's not even talk about the form of society this will probably result in :-/
According to the EPA, "Buildings accounted for 38.9 percent of total U.S. energy consumption in 2005. Residential buildings accounted for 53.7 percent of that total, while commercial buildings accounted for the other 46.3 percent." http://www.epa.gov/greenbuilding/pubs/gbstats.pdf
Also according to the EPA, we have about 225,000 business buildings and about 130,000 residential homes in the US.
About 99.9% of these buildings are environmental disasters, energy vampires that suck up energy because of incredibly poor design and construction.
Ask yourselves what percentage of the cost of everything you buy goes to heating these monstrosities. How much does it cost to heat the two zillion Walmarts in the USA?
Instead of subsidies for oil companies, how about laws requiring minimum insulation standards such as R20 or more for walls and R30 or more for roofs. This would do more to save energy in the long run than any other single act.
A conservative emailed me that windmills are dangerous because a loose blade can take your head off. Big Nuke must be sucking air.
So-called "conservatives" (who don't want to conserve anything except their own power, money, and status) will believe anything no matter how crackpotty it is if it helps people justify their right-wing idiocy. This will probably become a meme within the right's brain bubble.
You can't argue with them. Facts and logic can't reach them because they only want to believe things that helps them think their side is right about everything. They get mad and will cling all the more ferociously to fake factoids that are totally and utterly ridiculous.
It may not have happened yet, but someday in the far future a blade is going to come off and (lucky shot) hit a cow. Then the rancher will cart that cow off to a local butcher.
These wind turbines aren't generally in heavily populated areas.
I have three in view of my house. Town of seventy-thousand plus. Quarter-acre lots, side by side. I'd call it suburban.
Someday there might be an accident, yup.
"A recent report reveals that for the first time renewable sources have outdone nuclear power in the United States."
Maybe it's the first time for that recent report but Tim Glidden said this had already occurred over 30 years ago.
Here's an excerpt from Wasserman's Killing Our Own : The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation,
"By the summer of 1980 stories about Dr. Weber, Jane Lee, Charles Conley, and other area farmers had begun to seep into the media.14 It was precisely the kind of publicity the industry could least stand. The reactors were operating at roughly 65 percent of full capacity; originally the industry had promised 80 percent. And with just seventy plants on line, atomic power was producing a net of just 9 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and less than 2 percent of all U.S. energy. After thirty-five years of research and development, $40 billion in taxpayer subsidies, and more than $100 billion in utility investments, commercial reactors were providing American consumers with less usable energy than firewood.15"
"15. For information on rising capital costs of atomic reactors versus coal-fired plants, see Komonoff, Power Plant Cost Escalation. For a table of falling reactor
orders, see the Atomic Industrial Forum, The Nuclear Industry in 1980: A Rocky Road to Recovery (Washington, D.C.: Atomic Industrial Forum), January
19, 1981. The release, full of optimism for "some good years," was characterized as "whistling past the graveyard" by Anthony Parisi, in "Hard Times for Nuclear Power," New York Times Magazine, April 12, 1981. According to the AIF, in 1980 there were sixteen reactors canceled in the U.S. against no new orders. There were sixty-nine postponements.
The comparison of nuclear energy output to firewood comes from Tim Glidden, project manager of the Resource Policy Center, Dartmouth College. In a
June 1981 interview Glidden said he calculated the 1980 usable energy output of U.S. nuclear power plants at 0.868 quads; that of wood was 1.351 quads.
The nuclear figure did not account for energy consumed in the enrichment of uranium for reactor use, which could lower it by 25 percent, or for energy used
in attempting to deal with nuclear waste."
The for-profit nuclear industry has proven over and over again, that they are incompetent custodians of public safety. Here, supervisors try to get a safety inspector to falsify testimony about the dire state of massive Plutonium waste improperly stored on the Columbia River. Note: Remove the first "X" and the carriage returns for the link to work properly:
Xhttp://enenews.com/coverup-safety-manager-at-washington-nuclear-site-
criticality-could-be-probable-also-worried-about-hydrogen-explosion-up-to-
13-times-more-plutonium-than-thought-comparable-to-20-nagasaki-bom
But this isn't some isolated case. It seems to be the norm in the industry, the more you dig. I am aware of dozens of accidents in the past that the young general public is never told about. And these kinds of shockers are just the ones we know about. The history of coverups and unreported FUBARs since the 40's is so long, that when I post it, pro-nuke trolls get my posts deleted because they exceed the 1000 world limit when I "daisychain" the posts together.
Nuclear power is untrustworthy and the industry is absolutely Dr. StrangeLove insane.
That's what I think.
TJ
Mr Pal talks a lot about renewables replacing nuclear power, which he would like to ban, but while renewable are replacing shut-down nuclear plants, they WON'T be replacing the far more polluting and climate changing coal power plants.
And while Germany is shutting down their nuclear plants, they also won't be shutting down any coal plants.
Come to thing of it, the author never mentioned coal once.
Actually this report is a bit of dis-information, as ~Alycon~ and others here noted... We need a hell of a lot more done to replace the coal fired and nuclear power plants and what needs to be done and very soon,,, could be done within the next three to four years.
Replacing nuclear with fossil fuel plants is falling off the same cliff,,, as PJD stated,,, it's non productive... Nuclear accidents ("could") end up killing most everyone on Earth someday and steralizing most of the planet, or worse,,, but if we don't stop burning coal, that word ("could") will be (will).... Continuing and accelerating global warming due to burning coal primarily, is going to kill us all for sure,, and perhaps kill the planet after we humans are all history.
This overly optomistic paragraph from the article gripes my butt,,, > (" Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stating that energy from clean sources could account for four-fifths of the global supply within a few decades—if governments show the necessary will.").
"Within a few decades"? ... Within a few decades myass, if we don't replace all of the coal fired power plants very, very soon, (everybody) will have already been terminated in two or three decades from now,,, and I mean everybody.
Nuclear energy is absolute insanity as ~TJ~ so often very well explains,,, so is burning coal insanity... Due to the current status of global warming, coal is the worst of the two.... But both must be replaced with clean energy,, and done very soon.
We actually do not need large solar power plants or wind farms... Geothermal is full time 24/7,,, 365 days a year,, 366 this year. and if one blows up it won't kill a few million people... There is enough (readily available) geothermal in the US to provide ALL of our energy need for the next 50,000 years.
The cost of building a geothermal power plant is far less than a nuker, far, far less and it costs less than 2 cents a KwH to produce the electricity... And no, I don't have any problem with solar power plants... I don't favor wind power for several reasons and flying blades is not one of the reasons... For one thing the manner in which wind power is used is ancient technology, there are far better, far more cost effective methods.
We either cease burning coal world wide (for starters), or the human race will soon be as extinct as the Dodo Bird.
When global warming causes the Arctic's sub-sea permafrost to melt to the point where a billion or more tons of methane gas annually escapes into the atmosphere, the party will be over... That is very, very serious ... That disaster could easily occur within the next five to ten years,, maybe less than five... Think about that, it's not a myth.
So we do not have much time left to try to prevent that disaster... That's how it is... There is nothing to argue about... And yes,,, by all means,, stop eating meat also, if you are so inclined,,, but animal husbandry is nott near as serious an issue as burning coal is.
>>WayneWR wrote: "We actually do not need large solar power plants or wind farms... Geothermal is full time ... "<<
WayneWR, when talking about renewable "energy", I think it's important to distinguish between heat and electricity. Humans have always needed heat to stay warm, to wash and bathe and to cook. And before electricity, something had to be burnt even for lighting.
It is very, very important to distinguish between heat and electricity if we are to move towards sustainability. The reason is that it is much easier and cheaper to supply heat from solar thermal and geothermal systems, and from passive solar architecture. Compared to solar PV, much less toxicity involved in the manufacturing, too. And compared to wind electric or fuel cell systems, no exotic materials needed.
And when solar and geothermal are not adequate or not practical for some reason, it is not a bad idea to consider biomass for heating and cooking - especially in the form of biogas, or digester gas, where available and possible, as long as there is no net CO2 emissions.
Using electricity for heating, especially if the electricity is from a renewable source should be kept to a minimum unless it is in surplus and the costs are very low.
Having budgeted for heating and having incorporated solar thermal, geothermal and passive architecture as much as possible for heating, it would be easier to look at the electricity requirement. It may be possible to make do with a whole lot less electricity than the world uses today if EACH application that requires electricity is evaluated stringently on how essential it is to live a healthy, decent life.
Talking about renewable energy without breaking it down into heat and electricity requirements would only benefit the big corporations. Either no action will be taken to close down coal power plants because of the huge numbers involved, or people will be dependent on the same big corporations once again even after a switch to renewables, and possibly paying more for less, at least for a while.
It is extremely important to get a handle on the demand side of it all: what exactly do we need the renewable energy for, and in what form: heat or electricity? Supplying heat should be cheaper in most places from solar thermal and geothermal.
There would still be a great demand for electricity for all kinds of things, especially when transportation also switches from using fossil fuels to electricity. So it will be all the more important to see where demand can be cut.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, I tried to do a search for the carbon footprint of the Super Bowl. But guess what? The internet is littered with stories of how the Super Bowl is going green and all that. Here's an old estimate from 2010, but it contains some silly errors in the units for electricity: the page uses the absurd, but commonly misused, unit of "Kilowatt/hours" instead of "kilowatt-hours":
www.treehugger.com/culture/by-the-numbers-super-bowl-facts-and-figures.html
The greenest Super Bowl, IMO, would be to NOT have the damn thing in the first place, at least until the Arctic methane threat passes!
www.treehugger.com/culture/by-the-numbers-super-bowl-facts-and-figures.html
1 billion chicken wings, wtf. 500'000'000 dead chicken, nice.
"The greenest Super Bowl, IMO, would be to NOT have the damn thing in the first place, at least until the Arctic methane threat passes!"
This is imperial circus, nothing more, nothing less. It is fucked up in every respect imaginable, a great reflection of the overall degeneration of a society, like all big money competitive sports and other similar events, like the Oscars etc, although the sports based stuff is the worst.
Speaking of the "imperial circus," I consider ice rinks as giant freezers - only left open! And when it's hot outside, all this energy used, and for what? While the ice surface needs to be kept frozen, the arena itself needs to be maintained at "optimum" conditions, including humidity control, with all the spectators breathing.
There are far too many of these extravagant indulgences that are not being questioned at all. What makes the people of the rich countries that much more deserving to pollute? Mind you, we are not exactly talking of the 1%-ers here!
Well ~Alycon~, our house and guest house are both all electric and we don't pay anything for our electricity.
With total geothermal electrical production in the United States, which would be possible, there would be far enough electricity to have every building in the United States all electric, heat, cooling, cooking, refrigeration, TVs, computers, sterios, lights and hot water, etc,,, and geothermal on average sells for about two to three cents a KwH.
Now we both know that isn't ever going to happen and neither is everyone in the US or on the planet ever going to go vegetarian as you often have proposed... What IS going to happen in the near future, is a billion or more tons of methane gas is going to release annually from the thawing Arctic's permafrost and when that happens we won't worry about electricity or going veggie.
Alcyon - your points on distinguishing between renewable energy sources for heating- from that for producing electricity- IS Key. WE should be thinking more in terms of direct Solar heating of homes & bldgs, water, & even cooking -&= also for lighting- but most don't have this type of out-of-the-box [IE: off-of-the-grid-&-meter] thinking. That's why so many keep saying that solar, wind, biogas, etc ain't enough for the current life-style & infrastructure [IE: locked into an on-the-grid-&-meter mentality]- when greater efficiency & conservation plus more independence from the grid & meter could potentially go a LONG Way toward where we need to go!
NOTE: There is a form of hydro-electric that's clean, likely far less damaging to the environment than massive dams & doesn't require displacing large numbers of people & flooding large tracts of land- yet is not often talked about. Plus its continuous & energy dense- IE: Tidal Power conversion from mechanical to electrical energy [Have you heard of Salter's Duck Technology? - Which potentially can convert 90% of tidal energy to mechanical energy & then 90% of that to electric power?].
Nixakliel, I haven't heard of the "Salter's Duck Technology". Will look it up.
>>"...greater efficiency & conservation plus more independence from the grid & meter could potentially go a LONG Way toward where we need to go!"<<
There's one more thing: plus a bit of innovation, on an ongoing basis, but with the clearly stated goal of the least impact on the environment.
I think it is a sign of a lack of intelligence and a total disconnect from nature to be burning a fuel for hot water or to heat a building, or even for lighting, when the sun is shining away brightly outside. And to be using up so much energy for freezers and refrigerators when it's below freezing outside!
And inside a supermarket, they all take place simultaneously: overly bright lighting, open freezers (for the "convenience" of the shoppers, because a glass door may fog up (!) momentarily after opening and closing, blocking visibility) and heating of the building itself in winter, with the heating and cooling systems working against each other!
The world of the invisible: Radioisotopes can shorten you life considerably. A new video by Nuclear expert Arnold Gundersen at Fairewinds associates has new evidence from the National Academy of Sciences that shows that continuous low-level radiation is actually more dangerous than high radiation from a nuke bomb. Apparently bomb survivors don't kick off like nuke power plant workers do.
This is a long scientific video that you need some popcorn and a cool drink ready (recommend a strong one), and sit down for an hour and watch it twice for the message to sink in: There is no safe amount of ionizing radiation that your body can tolerate. The risk of cancer and many other diseases and mutations of your cells goes up with even a small dosage. Apparently Wayne was right and the pro-nuke trolls were wrong. Each atom of radioisotope points a gun at your body. Will it hit your DNA? No one can say. But the risk is linear, meaning the one extra atom above normal background radiation can do you in. It doesn't matter that it's a lower Seivert or REM count than background radiation because the events are not separate as the trolls want you to believe: you have to ADD it to the radiation your body already is dealing with.
http://fairewinds.com/
It's the video at the top of the site. Enjoy.
TJ
Indeed ~TJ~,,, we must shut down all nucler power plants, world wide, starting with the very oldest and the 20% which are located near earthquake fault lines.
The suggested plan I have posted previously here three times at CD, would replace all coal fired plants in the United States within two years and then start on the nuclear plants with cold shutsowns and have them all shut down within another two years.
Btw, ~Alycon~ has posted many comments about how serious animal husbandry is for emitting greenhouse gases... It is not anywhere near as serious an issue as Alycon states and is far, far less serious than burning fossil fuels... There is no comparrison.
According to a new Common Dreams article, titled,, > ("Burn It If You Got It: A Spectacularly Bad Idea.")... An article about ~Bill Mckibben~ blasting the head of the US Chamber of Commerse and it gives the following data about AGW.
AGW causes of greenhouse gases: >>> Burning fossil fuels 57%,,,, deforestration 17%,,,, methane, CH4, from rice cultivation,, human waste treatment facilities,, coal mining AND (animal husbandry) __combined__, is 14%,,,, N2O from farming, 8%,,,, and all others, 4%... So we must (start) with replacing coal fired plants and stop mining coal to have any effective impact on reducing Co2 and CH4, methane gas.
Deforestation comes in second place and farming and rice cultivation is far worse for the vegetarians than is "animal husbandry"... Of course lots of farming is for animal feed too,,,, nevertheless, there is no comparrison to burning fossil fuels.
In addition; my suggestion is to also plant several billion trees over a four year time frame and do a lot to repair the deforestation problem.
I also strongly advocate raisng hemp to make plastic instead of using oil,, as it's far better plastic, non toxic and is 100% biodegradeable, requires no toxic fertalizers or irrigation... And hemp has over 5,000 commercial uses, all biodegradable, paper, cloth animal feed, cooking oil, diesel fuel, etc.
Excellent post Kem,
Agree completely. Some things just don't go together and can't be fixed: Like being drunk as a skunk with loaded firearms. It doesn't matter how careful one is, the hazard is built-in just like when greedy human managers in a for-profit nuke industry rationalize shortcuts and waste dumping. It doesn't matter that the nuke industry says they have new small safer convective plants they're bribing Obamanation to build with a blank taxpayer check. The result will be the same: Unintended accidents, because we are accidently pointing loaded guns at the public every time we fire one of these things up for profit.
Everyone, let's make an effort to de-rail Wall Street since it won't quit playing Russian Roulette with our health". OWS this Spring!
TJ
(troll tide is out, huh?)
Yeah sure. America's going all renewable, NOT. Look, I would like to see all that but the US using renewables over coal or nuclear in the US is a pipe dream. Check please !
Unfortunantly you are probably 100% correct about that Maxpayne.
Most of the comments posted here by the readers about issues and things that should or must be done are "pipe dreams"... We sit and type our opinions and hope to learn something of value from others.... Sometimes we offer opinions, suggestions and ideas and occassionally make a new friend.
One thing is absolutely for certain ~max~ and you can tell your family, if you have one, that it is as true as bears do shit in the woods... That absolute thing is,,,, if we don't stop burning coal world wide, and stop very, very soon, we humans are ALL going to be dead within the next 30 to 40 years,, maybe less than 30.... ALL included you and I and our families.
So would you prefer to discuss who's playng in the Super Bowl, or was Obama really born in Hawaii? ___ Something else?
The comments are usually good and for this article, the comments trump the article. My objection is on the article pretending that renewables are being used more than nuclear or coal. And that's another thing, no mention of coal in this article. I would prefer to share ideas on reducing our dependence on coal such as powering a labtop with a solar backpack for recharging. No, I'm not interested in Super Bowl or Obama's personal life either.
By the way, thanks for mentioning hemp and its uses. A few people attacked us in the past for bringing it up. I can't say that hemp's an absolute cure but it's hard to dispute the fact that using that for manufacturing and fuel would spare us our continued fossil fuel addiction. Pretty sad that a gift from Mother Nature would be outlawed while sucking natural resources is allowed.
Well good ~max~ let us discuss not burning coal, because that is what I was talking about, in fact it is primarily what I always talk about, becauese if we don't stop burning coal realllll soon, we are doomed.
If ten people were in agreement with what I have suggested here several times and those ten convinced ten others and those 100 convinced ten others and that continued, in six days 100 million people would believe my suggestion was credible and with 100 million demanding it be done,,, it might be done.
Buttt, that is not happening... So it too is a pipe dream,, but I keep trying,, just as your suggestion is a pipe dream,,, and besides doing solar powerd back packs for our laptops would not stop runaway, (*irreversible*) global wamring from occurring in the next five to ten years or less...We must stop burning coal.
And when runaway global warming begins, it won't stop and it will very rapidly accellerate, the Arctic's methane will release by billions of tons and the party is then over... In addition; I wrote this article is not really very credible.
.And I don't care who is playingin the Super Bowl either,.. LOL. . But that's why 100 or a 100 mllion won't listen, the Super Bowl is more important,, a lot of funny ads wiil be TV'd and no one want's to believe we will have runaway, irreversible global waamrng either,,, ,,but we will...... ~Kem~. .
Castor and algal oil can also go a long ways towards reducing people's dependence on coal. About getting people to listen, it's all about the addiction and in this case, the only cure that works is replacing the source of addiction with something(s) nearly as good but not harmful. By the way, I think I remember you but haven't been here much in a while.
I know many here do not like nuclear power plants but really, just shutting them down with no thought on how to replace the lost electricity generation is the answer? That is just crazy. For example, how can France ensure their supply of electricity without nuclear power? Nuclear power supplies about 80% of their electricity.
It is one thing to seek the demise of nuclear, coal and fossil fuel derived energy products but to do so without proposing viable alternatives to replace the electricity lost isn't helpful.
For the poster who mentioned hemp above, I couldn't agree more. The treatment of hemp by the government (on behalf of greedy business people and other assorted lunatics) over the last 8 decades or so, except for a brief interlude during WW II, when this versatile plant and the products derived from it were deemed oh so necessary, has to be considered a travesty.
Hi RMG~..... You wrote,,, > ("I know many here do not like nuclear power plants but really, just shutting them down with no thought on how to replace the lost electricity generation is the answer? That is just crazy. For example, how can France ensure their supply of electricity without nuclear power? Nuclear power supplies about 80% of their electricity.")
I would never suggest we just shut donw any power plants without first having built a geothrmal power plant to replace them. . With a massive World War or WPA type of a program we could replace all of the fossil fuel and nuclear power plants within four years, from start to finish and plant billions of trees,,, while putting millions of the unemployed back to work.
Then have the workers repair and or rebuild our falling apart infasstructures and clean up enviromental disaster messes we have created.
Nuclear supplies less than 30% of our electricity btw... I'll check that, I believe it's about 14%, not 80%.
I mentioned France, which does generate some 76% of their electricity by nuclear power. Hydro power takes France to over 90% of their electricity generation from low carbon footprint sources. Their electricity is plentiful and inexpensive.
In the US approximately 19% of electricity is produced by nuclear power.