The EPA Carbon Plan: Coal Loses, But Who Wins? 268
Lasrick writes: Mark Cooper with one of the best explanations of some of the most pressing details on the new EPA rule change: 'The claims and counterclaims about EPA's proposed carbon pollution standards have filled the air: It will boost nuclear. It will expand renewables. It promotes energy efficiency. It will kill coal. It changes everything. It accomplishes almost nothing.' Cooper notes that although it's clear that coal is the big loser in the rule change, the rule itself doesn't really pick winners in terms of offering sweet deals for any particular technology; however, it seems that nuclear is also a loser in this formulation, because 'Assuming that states generally adhere to the prime directive of public utility resource acquisition—choosing the lowest-cost approach—the proposed rule will not alter the dismal prospects of nuclear power...' Nuclear power does seem to be struggling with economic burdens and a reluctance from taxpayers to pay continuing subsides in areas such as storage and cleanup. It seems that nuclear is another loser in the new EPA rule change.
No winners economically (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you can be sure no matter how this plays out, power is going to be more expensive. In addition, if the coal-fired plants are removed from the equation before replacement sources of power are in place, there will be power shortages.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you ignore external costs, yes.
If electricity will be priced below market equilibrium, yes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ignore external costs, yes.
Those "external costs" are unproven and in fact highly questionable. You don't get to just assume they are there, any more than others may assume they're not. Prove the case if you want us to take you seriously.
Many economists have said that even if those external costs are all true, that's still not the real question here. The real question is: how much will mitigation cost in proportion to how much good it does, and versus how much harm it causes. Because make no mistake: there will be harm.
If electricity will be priced below market equilibrium, yes.
"Market"???
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Your source for an economic study is CSU Fullerton? You do understand that each state has a governmental electricity commission that authorizes prices. Call it what you want but it's already government Fiat and with half the country forced to shutdown their primary source of electricity you can imagine how this will punish everyone, especially the poor, as I've mentored previously.
Re:No winners economically (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Who is facing extinction?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno, I was thinking the Hamptons. After all lots of rich environmentalists buying in there.
Re:No winners economically (Score:5, Interesting)
I was under the impression that public health was a principal concern, not determining which industry gets to make windfall profits for the luck few that manage to hold stock.
What I think needs to happen is for power-generating companies to not also own the power grid. That's one of the problems right now with trying to get residential solar adoption going- the power companies want to throw up roadblocks to anyone else putting solar on and tying to to the grid. The "buy" excess power at the lowest possible price (ie, about what someone would pay for power if they have a time-of-use plan, if they were using their power in the middle of the night when demand is bottomed out) and they want to charge solar-producing customers extra fees to even be connected to the grid.
Power companies at least need their power generation units and power distribution units to be separate items on the customer's bill. That should hold true for all customers, even those that don't produce power themselves. Everyone should be charged the same grid connection price (relative to the kind of connection they have, a residential or light commercial 240V single phase center-tap-neutral should cost less than a 460V three phase industrial or commercial connection) and then their power's metered cost should be line-itemized separately. If a customer produces more power than they use, that should reduce the price they pay for their grid connection, and if they produce above and beyond that then they should receive payment, instead of a bill.
I am fairly heavily convinced that regulation like this would do wonders for residential solar adoption, which then do wonders for reducing fossil-fuel generation, at least in Southern states where peak demand is during daylight hours.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Note that because storage isn't really practical yet, any time there is a change in electricity demand, the generating station needs to follow the load by increasing/decreasing the fuel that is consumed and reducing the generator load.
Not necessarily. An alternative is to keep the power constant, but change the spot price. If the price spikes, marginal users (aluminum smelters, bitcoin miners, electric car chargers, etc.) would temporarily drop off, freeing up power for others.
Re: (Score:3)
Aluminum smelters can't afford to have the power cut off for any length of time. Once the aluminum hardens in the furnaces it's a long costly process to clean them out so they can be used again.
As far as load following, all of the natural gas turbine generators that have been built lately can be spun up in a matter of minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'd have to say the best way for solar (and other renewables) to be adopted more readily is to make *batteries* cheaper. The panels will already often pay for themselves in a few years, but they can't handle the ever-changing power loads without batteries - and the batteries for an off-grid house can easily match or surpass the cost of panels. The system will still pay for itself, but it takes a lot longer.
Which raises a point - there are definite advantages to grid-scale battery banks over having all
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps it would be worth it to make the distribution grid a public utility - as you say it's already paid off, often with the aid of large government subsidies. If the power companies wont play fair with independent power generation and storage entrepreneurs then perhaps it's time to cut them out of the equation. Inform them the cables have been claimed via eminent domain and will be paid for at an amount of (materials - subsidies) amortized over the next N years. They still control the bulk of power generation, at least at first, and get paid the same rates as everyone else. It would probably raise energy prices at first, but I don't see any way to get off fossils that doesn't, and it would facilitate a much faster and market-driven adaptation period.
You're forgetting the huge legacy maintenance costs. PG&E is scared shitless because the price they've been charging customers has been below the cost necessary to maintain leaky natural gas pipes. PG&E had to raise rates and is now undertaking a massive generational renovation process. The grid takes a constant life cycle maintenance plan. The fixed cost of installation is minuscule and already the risk had been borne by the installer. That's like the government saying "this Gmail experiment
Re:No winners economically (Score:4)
Why is the government supposed to pick winners?
The government is damned if it does pick winners (Solindra), and damned if they don't. These new rules target emissions without prescribing the solution, It has "free market" solution written all over it.
My own government (Australia) is disappointingly doing everything they can to avoid even talking about climate change, however they are taking a proposal to the G20 to eliminate the $500M or so of FF subsidies the G20 nations are currently providing to the industry. They are doing so on economic grounds since Australian coal would be more competitive against other nations without the subsidies. They are however ideologically opposed to mitigating climate change. For example, they are currently battling the senate to dismantle the clean energy fund. The fund doesn't provide grants, it provides loans to commercial clean energy projects at reserve bank interest rates and makes a modest profit for the taxpayer. There's no economically rational reason to dismantle a profitable scheme that performs a social good other than to protect their coal mining mates.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have some reason to believe that anything happening in Australia could possibly have any affect on global anything?
Yes. The countries that actually matter (China and India) use the inaction of rich countries as an excuse for their own inaction. So Australia needs to set an example, along with the rest of the rich world. Also, solutions developed by scientists in rich countries can be applied in poor countries too. Nothing has done more to reduce CO2 emissions than the American development of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, which is now being applied around the world to replace coal with gas.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The countries that actually matter (China and India) use the inaction of rich countries as an excuse for their own inaction.
Unless, of course, they'll use the "action" of rich countries to take advantage of and ruthlessly surpass them. I think "setting an example" here is economic suicide for whoever does it. Anthropogenic global warming simply has not been shown to be urgent or dire enough to where this sort of demonstration is necessary.
And in the absence of that urgency, China and India have no reason to go along with the game aside from getting economic opponents to commit to crippling positions.
Re:No winners economically (Score:4, Interesting)
China is investing far more in renewable and clean energy than most western countries. Only Germany can really hold a candle to them. They have vast amounts of wind, solar PV, solar heating and, if you count it as clean, nuclear already in place or being built.
China has a long way to go, sure, but they are doing it. Part of the reason is to shake off their bad image, part of it is to look after the people (despite the propaganda they do try to make things better for citizens) and part of it is because the EU demands they clean up if they want to sell us stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Every little increment no matter where it comes from makes a difference and a ShanghaiBill points out leading by example takes the moral pressure off you and puts it on others.
Re: (Score:3)
Peak? (Score:4, Interesting)
Peak demand isn't as close to daylight as you might expect in the South. In fact, many systems are winter peaking (central Florida and Appalachia come to mind). Those systems peak winter 7-10am. Sure, the sun is just starting to come up, but PV isn't going to have a significant impact on that peak. Similarly, peak is 3-6pm. PV produces it's best power at high noon. As more PV comes on the system, the "net"-peak will push to 4-7pm, then 5-8pm. Again, solar contributes to meeting some of that peak, but depending on geography it isn't always going to align as well as you might think, including in the south.
As soon as you add in industry (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because banks and private enterprise don't care enough to put up their own money.
Re: (Score:3)
some hours of some days (Score:3, Interesting)
> in Southern states where peak demand is during daylight hours.
Specifically, 11AM-2PM. Human eyes see brightness log(n), so we don't realize that the sunshine is a hundred times brighter at some times than at others. It would suck if noon appeared to be a hundred times as bright as morning, so our eyes compress the difference. Solar panels DO notice that, and don't produce much at all during what we call daylight 7AM-10AM and 3PM-8PM. Same with cloudy days. What looks to be a little bit less bright i
Re: (Score:3)
Because we're talking about vital infrastructure. It needs to be planned based on what maximizes benefits for the society, not someone's bonuses.
Play monopoly with organic snake oil sales or something, not the electric grid.
For fuck's sake, how does this get a 5, Insightful (Score:3, Informative)
> I think you can be sure no matter how this plays out, power is going to be more expensive.
No, you can't be sure of that. Wind power in the central portion of the country is cheaper than coal now. PV is cheaper than market power in the Southwest and the Northeast now. Many coal plants in tUSA are 50+ years old -- they're going to retire soon one way or another. And, not for nothing, wholesale electric power is cheaper now than it was five years ago due to cheap natural gas (and, by the way, switching fr
Re:For fuck's sake, how does this get a 5, Insight (Score:5, Informative)
The coal plants can still be "plugged in" and operated during times of peak load (weekday summer afternoons and winter mornings); what they can't do is operate much the rest of the time.
The problem with this is that coal plants can't operate this way. A typical coal plant takes 4-8 hours to reach full power from a warm start and can take 24 hours to cold start. This is why we currently use them for baseload power and use other sources (mostly natural gas and hydro) for load following.
Re: (Score:2)
That's extremely short-sighted. Eventually the economy wins because we have less of the pollution and other environmental damage from coal.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
wrong, you are the one short sighted. the truth is use of fossil fuel has increased human lifespan, health, and driven civilization forward, far outweighing the downsides. Now we have alternatives but they are not yet developed enough to be viable replacement globally
Re: (Score:2)
Now we have alternatives but they are not yet developed enough to be viable replacement globally
[citation needed]
Re: (Score:2)
any history book covering dawn of industrial age to present, coupled with life expectancy tables will do. wikipedia has some nice ones
Re: (Score:2)
The burden of proof falls on those proposing sweeping changes.
Deal with it.
Re:No winners economically (Score:4, Insightful)
the truth is use of fossil fuel has increased human lifespan, health, and driven civilization forward, far outweighing the downsides.
False dichotomy. Had we fully understood the consequences of so much fossil fuel use from the start we could have developed cleaner alternatives early on, and still had all of the benefits.
Re:No winners economically (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition, if the coal-fired plants are removed from the equation before replacement sources of power are in place, there will be power shortages.
When the Clean Air Act was amended in the 70s, coal plant emissions were grandfathered in.
The assumption was that, over time, the plants would either be retired or brought into compliance as major upgrades were made.
Except there was a loophole of sorts... plants did not have to comply with the new emissions rules if their upgrades were less than XY% of the plant's value. The result was that plant operators never ever made any major upgrades. Instead, they used incremental upgrades in order to stay under the legal requirements for coming into compliance.
The end result is that most coal plants in America date back to the 1970s, specifically because of this regulatory loophole.
I have little sympathy for an industry that could have spent the last 40 years reducing their emissions.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Winner..... China
The actions of the EPA are unilateral and do not address the
global issue set. Worse they make it harder for US companies to
react even at the glacial slow rated that global climate change
implies. Because they are regulatory and not legislative the entire
foundation of the EPA must be demolished, both good and bad, to
address problems. The EPA has no constituency to be accountable
to. The EPA could well be infiltrated by foreign agents.... we
are learning abut the subtle NSA plans that
What kind of burdens? (Score:2)
Nuclear power does seem to be struggling with economic burdens and a reluctance from taxpayers to pay continuing subsides in areas such as storage and cleanup. It seems that nuclear is another loser in the new EPA rule change.
Make those Regulatory burdens.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you suggesting we should deregulate nuclear power and just trust the industry to do the right thing? I think not, especially as long as US taxpayers are on the hook for any major failure of a nuclear power plant via the Price-Anderson Act.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
For instance, how would a stock market operate without property law? This is not to say that all regulation are good or even necessary but if your are going to bitch about them you need to be specific, precisely which regulations/policies do you see holding back the uptake of safe and clean nuclear reactors? - The one that says they are responsible for cleaning up their own mess and cannot rely on the taxpayer to do so in 40yrs time
Re: (Score:2)
There aren't supposed to be corporate winners (Score:3)
The idea is that we reduce carbon emissions to slow the rate of the effects on climate. They're not trying to pick winners and losers; why would you try and make winners and losers out of this?
All of the non-coal fuels each have their own challenges, and this rule doesn't alter that. It's like free market, but with the addition that the cost of altering the climate is factored into regulation because a commodity-priced market is unable to react to a result with a 100 year return period.
You still can't find anybody willing and able to properly store spent nuclear fuel, nor someone looking to invest billions of dollars and a decade of zero income in an industry which has a low-growth potential.
Missed one (Score:5, Funny)
We freeze in the dark.
Re: (Score:3)
Quit being an alarmist.
Re: (Score:2)
Despite John Ringo's alarmist fantasies, no.
Oy You! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear reactors stand and fall mostly on their own, what the government does is determine if you can open one. Because of our dear presidents own stance, we will not be opening new nuclear plants until he's gone. Nuclear is the cheapest per megawatt power source we currently have. Renewable are nice, but they cannot provide base load, they take a far longer payback time period than nuclear, they continue to advance(meaning the new stuff will be out dated before it pays for itself), they are only usable in
Re:Oy You! (Score:5, Informative)
Because of our dear President's own stance, we will not be opening new nuclear plants until he's gone.
Perhaps you can explain why the two new units at the Vogtle Plant in Georgia [wikipedia.org] were allowed to go through then and even offered federal loan guarantees.
(From the article): On February 16, 2010, President Obama announced $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees toward the construction cost,
Would Obama have done that if he was against nuclear power like you believe?
Nuclear is the cheapest per megawatt power source we currently have.
What have you been smoking? The main reason so few nuclear plants have been built in the US since the 1970's was that it was far more expensive than building a coal plant. Now planned coal plants have been cancelled because they weren't expected to be able to compete with solar when they were finished.
I agree with you that we should reprocess the spent fuel rods.
Re: (Score:3)
Renewable are nice, but they cannot provide base load
I have nothing against nukes and you raise some good points. However the "base load" thing is absolute bullshit, a modern city does not have a flat demand curve, so why would you want a flat supply curve? Coal and Nuclear cannot work by providing a flat supply they must have supplemental technology to meet fluctuating demand. They must store energy (say in a hydro dam) when it's output is running above demand and it must have a bunch of gas powered generators to prevent brown-outs during the daily peaks. I
Last time I voted... (Score:3)
EPA wasn't on the ballot.
If they were though, I might not have voted for them, because they are such hypocrites. Get caught by them with so much as a dirty old eagle feather found in a ditch, and see what happens to you. Yet windmills in CA are up to 3000 Golden Eagles killed, and like 1 point something million birds total. Free pass. Doesn't matter if I love windmills or not; the birds are worth protecting with felonies and giant fines for regular citizens, or they are not. I'm a big fan of equality under the law.
My power bill is high as fuck now. So are other peoples'. I can't think of a reason why the EPA would care about that though.
Where is my Congress?
Re: (Score:3)
The EPA isnt responsible for the windmills.
They also arent the ones to blame for your eagles, niether the enforcement of having a feather, nor for the ones hit by the windmills.
You didnt vote for the military either. But you enjoy the benefit of their presence.
You didnt vote for the IRS either. But you enjoy the benefit of their presence (like it not, someone has to collect the revenues).
You didnt vote for the Dept of Treasury. But you enjoy the benefit of their presence.
You didnt vote for the FBI. But you
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize Richard Nixon was the one who signed an executive order to create the EPA, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Got any references for those "bird kill" numbers?
Early wind turbines, built in response to the 1970s oil crisis, were indeed a hazard to birds. However new wind turbines are bigger and spin at lower RPM, so they are easier for birds to see and avoid.
I don't know about the USA, but most countries also require and environmental impact statement before building wind turbines. These days, if they are proposed right in the middle of an area with high golden eagle populations, they don't get off the drawing board
Re: (Score:2)
Across North America, the estimated number of migrating birds killed annually in collisions with buildings ranges from 100 million to 1 billion birds. - http://www.flap.org/faqs.php [flap.org]
Somewhere between 0.1 and 0.3 million birds die each year from collisions with wind turbines - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/... [smithsonianmag.com]
But the real killer ... CATS! Cats may kill up to 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 billion mammals in the United States alone each year, a new study has found. - http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol... [www.cbc.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
Some people aren't intelligent enough to understand that things are complicated and there are no simple answers, no one thing to blame for our problems. Those people tend to be teabaggers.
Water Reactors are Teh Suck (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't have to be that way! The most recent design for a fast reactor seems to be the most legitimate and feasible new design to date. It's called the dual fluid reactor. http://dual-fluid-reactor.org/ [dual-fluid-reactor.org]
It separates the fuel loop from the coolant loop. This has numerous advantages. You can alter the rate of either independently to best suit the current need. The coolant used isn't liquid sodium. Which, aside from not playing nice with air and water has a low boiling point and high neutron cross section. This reactor uses liquid lead as its coolant. Its so stable and resistant to radiation that the coolant loop can be piped into the non-containment area for power generation. In the papers I've read they mention coupling it to an MHR generator then a super-critical water loop en route to turbines.
It is engineered to run at 1000C, which at that temperature, makes it possible to do pyro-chemistry with electrodes to filter out the daught products in line with the fuel loop. The separated daughter products are then sent to a passive cooling chamber (the super short lived ones are hooked up to the coolant loop where it contributes to energy production) where they remain hella hot for a few hundred years. Then they become inert. There are supposedly lots of valuble metals after about 90 years that make the waste itself a hot commodity.
The reactor is designed to be a 2 meter cube, for simple production there are no bowed parts, only 90 angles with straight pipes. A reactor this size can put out 1500MW thermal.
Couple this with the recent advancement of laser-based particle accelerators and you wouldn't even have to start with enriched fuel! The power required to drive the laser would be
As Elon Musk would say (probably): Seriously guys, it's the 21st century, act like it!
Re: (Score:2)
" All the reactors we have now were designed in the '50s. "
And why's that? Because the ecology-fanatics brought a complete halt to civil nuclear development.
And who is telling us we need to get rid of coal now?
Re: (Score:2)
" All the reactors we have now were designed in the '50s. "
And why's that? Because the ecology-fanatics brought a complete halt to civil nuclear development.
Those eco-fanatics" actually haven't: http://www.world-nuclear.org/i... [world-nuclear.org]
...but i really wanted to answer the last question you asked:
The real answer: Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
And who is telling us we need to get rid of coal now?
That one is incredibly easy: the people that want to save this species form fucking over the environment so much that everyone dies, although why they'd want to save your stupid fucking ass is beyond me.
Re: (Score:2)
They use water as a moderator (ie thermal neutrons) and coolant
Surely a design like that would (or could, anyway) handle a loss of coolant fine, as without the moderator the reaction would slow down.
Re: (Score:2)
Big Oil wins (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If your bills are going up 50%, its because your electric company is spending lots of money on existing coal plants so they emit less SO2, NOx, PM, and Hg. Of course, they'll emit about the same amount of CO2. Utilities that haven't insisted on coal coal coal haven't seen substantial increases in rates.
This is a generality -- individual utilities may have rate increases for other reasons, but very, very few utilities have had rates go up by 50% within the past 3 years. In fact, many utilities have had rate
And monopolies suck money out of people (Score:2)
There's more. The current trick in some parts of the world is spend a lot of money on "poles and wires" (they used this dumbed down term for infrastructure in general even when major parts of the cost are substations) with no oversight whether it is needed or not and charge that on to the consumer. For example in Australia there has been a lot built rapidly despite declining consumption which has led to a major gap between
Re: (Score:2)
And then our new prime minister can point to the high electricity bills and say "See? It's the result of carbon pricing! Let's dismantle carbon pricing! Let's allow the energy monopoly to do whatever they want!"
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear power loses? (Score:2, Insightful)
The rule change doesn't help (or hurt) nuclear power and so therefore nuclear power loses? That's an interesting line of reasoning. I suppose FIFA, dirigibles, and panda bears are also losers in this rule change too, then.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Existing nuclear wins because the metric EPA is using for compliance includes a portion of MWh generated by existing nuclear in the denominator (something like 5%). Therefore, keeping existing nuclear online will help states comply with 111(d). Existing nuclear is a winner under 111(d) -- including the nuclear units under construction in GA, SC, and TN.
New nuclear? New nuclear will never win. It's simply can't hold a candle to PV and wind in an unsubsidized market. New wind is cheap enough now, and
Who wins? (Score:2)
Rich campaign donors who bought this. Is that even a serious question?
This looks a lot like the early ACA positioning. (Score:2)
When Obama first proposed Obamacare, he didn't jump in with specifics; he just laid out some high level guidelines and let the Democratically controlled Congress hash out the details. This was politically costly, because in the absence of specifics all kinds of claims were made about what was allegedly in the program, like "death panels". The house ended up passing something that looked like the plan Heritage Foundation put together for Bob Dole in the 90s. This was essentially the least they could do tha
fracking wins, right? (Score:3)
Isn't it obvious that in the near-term, fracking wins?
Let us hope that the methane it leaks doesn't do more damage than the carbon emissions it saves.
Re:only winners are (Score:5, Informative)
Solyndra was just a talking point for the Republicans to pound the President on. The program that the Solyndra loan was a part of was budgeted for a 10 or 11% loss rate and even with Solyndra it still had less than 5% losses. Solyndra lost out because of the unexpected drop in prices of solar modules from China that it couldn't compete with. It's unreasonable to expect that everything that gets tried like this will work out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:only winners are (Score:5, Informative)
The government has been running different programs like that for a long time (more than 50 years) to help encourage new technologies to get off the ground. They always write in a 10 or 15% loss rate into them and the programs seldom reach that rate. In fact the boost to the economy for the ones that do succeed probably far outweigh any losses in the programs.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact the boost to the economy for the ones that do succeed probably far outweigh any losses in the programs.
What boost? Perhaps we could discuss some of these examples and see if they really live up to your claims.
Re: (Score:2)
Rich crony capitalists earned vast amounts of money, a little part of which they donated to certain political interests. How can you not have noticed the boost in that?
People like Nancy Pelosi don't get rich on their own, ya know.
Re: (Score:2)
The government didnt plan to lose money.
In fact, the government didlost lose money at all.
The energy program that the Solyndra loans were a part of has not only NOT lost money, it's turned a profit with the overwhelming majority of participating companies repaying their loans in full. Tesla is merely the most famous example.
So once again, you prove yourself an ignorant dingbat.
Re: (Score:3)
Source:
http://www.energyfactcheck.org... [energyfactcheck.org]
-----
(copypasta)
The DOE loan guarantee program is an overwhelmingly successful program that played a critical role in the development of new renewable energy technologies by offering long-term capital when private financing was not available.
The Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program has an approximately 97% success rate. As of late July, 2012, Solyndra, Abound Solar and the handful of other DOE-backed renewable energy companies that
Re: (Score:2)
And they're comparing this to a "successful VC strategy"? VC don't guarantee a half billion in loans to businesses that will clearly go bankrupt. They start small.
Nor do VC guarantee loans for crap, over-priced projects. For example, several of these projects are run by career public works businesses like Abengoa SA. They specialize in turning publ
Re: (Score:3)
You really dont understand plain English do you.
Private sector: 70% failure is acceptable and usually still yields a profit.
DOE: 11% is the goal. They achieved only 3%.
Again: Solyndra and the couple of others that failed represent only 3% of all funds the DOE loaned out.
Minor footnote? This is one of the most successful loan programs the government has ever run.
The few that failed did so because of the Chinese flooding the market with cheap panels they couldn't compete with.
Meanwhile they've had more than 1
Re: (Score:2)
DOE: 11% is the goal. They achieved only 3%.
Please be an idiot somewhere else. It doesn't even remotely make sense to compare private sector failure rates for attempts to create profitable businesses from scratch to loan defaults on government loan guarantees.
For example, the US government could have indefinitely extended loan guarantees to Solyndra which would have kept the business from defaulting ever, but only by creating a perpetual money sink. The failure rate on that scheme would by your reckoning be 0% (making it an "unequivocal success" t
Re: (Score:2)
Minimal? They set a goal of no more than 10/11% failure. That's already higher than private sector by 3:1.
First, failure means merely that the business didn't go bankrupt and default on the loan. It doesn't even mean that the business ever does anything productive with debt that's being backed. Meanwhile, a VC's failure is a business that fails to generate a sustainable profit. Do you really think that not defaulting on a loan is the same as successfully taking a business from nothing to long term profitable?
It's ridiculous to compare these loan guarantees to business creation. The expectations are vastly l
Re: (Score:3)
Let's take the example of Tesla Motors, mentioned above. The received $465 million in government guaranteed loans which they've since paid off. In January of 2014 they employed about 6,000 people (up from nearly 3,000 in December 2012), most of them well paid. They're also have supply chains for the parts they don't make in-house. They had over $2 billion in revenue in 2013. That's a nice chunk of economic activity they're driving. I'd say that's a pretty good return on investment.
They are deliberately hiding the other sorts of failures, such as building something that has negative ROI.
Perhaps you could pr
Re: (Score:2)
I forgot to add: in light of all these actual facts...would you care to retract your ignorant bullshit statement sir?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You could argue that. You could also argue global warming is a conspiracy. You could argue Obama was abducted in 2010 and the person we think is obama is actually an alien. You could even find people who would believe you too. But you would be wrong.
US solar is about to its peak economically because costs are different in China. The quality is different and the availability of resources are different. It really is that simple.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Stupidity is keeping nuclear back (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Because STORAGE was the problem at Fukushima.
Sorry son. Shitty MANAGEMENT and lazy engineering practice, plus a metric fuckton of "Mother Nature Always Wins"
The plant actually SURVIVED a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
The reason it finally overheated was because the asshats at TEPCO ignored the calls of real engineers for a MUCH higher sea wall. So the tsunami set off by the TÅhoku quake may as well have had valet parking at the reactor when it hit land.
Right now we have the ability to build reactors that are PASSIVELY safe. It means you don't have to worry about failures in ACTIVE, mechanical cooling systems. When such a reactor is shut down, it dumps its fuel into a dump tank and the entire reactor simply cools off. No need to worry if the generators will kick in. No need to worry if the facility loses power. Natural, powered by a little thing we call GRAVITY. It's about as idiot proof as you're going to get until we figure out how to spot-reverse gravity.
And yes, there's always going to be SOME waste.
The stuff that they're pulling out of reactors today? Mildly radioactive. And will be for hundreds or thousands of years.
The stuff you would pull out of a liquid fuel reactor?
1: Medically useful.
2: Shitty bomb-making material.
3: Scientifically useful (and an element we actually can't get any more of).
4: HIGHLY radioactive. But INCREDIBLY short-lived. Some of it is gone within hours of extraction. The longest lived stuff will be a few years cooking off. As opposed to MILLENNIA with current solid-fuel reactors.
Ideal application for reactors such as these is to take them and bury them in concrete. Let them run their usable lifetime and then decommission them. Once it hits EOL, you drain the device and cap it. Then give it a decade or two to cool off (radiologically speaking).
Maybe we CANNOT guarantee that we can build a facility that'll last thousands of years, through god-knows-what. But storage bunkers intended for product with a 10-50 year shelf-life? Pfft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
Half a century (plus) and counting.
And remember, these things can be fairly compact and relatively light (they were initially designed as a power system for a plane). These things could replace diesel generators and even small hydro installations. WORLDWIDE.
Yes. Dropping one into the San Andreas Fault, or Yellowstone National Park, or the New Madrid Fault would probably be a FUCKING DUMB IDEA.
So here's a smarter one. We don't DO that. We drop them in more geologically stable areas instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
The plant actually SURVIVED a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
No, it was damaged by the earthquake and that damage was a major contributory factor to the subsequent meltdowns. Here are two NHK documentaries about what happened. They are 45 minutes each but well worth watching if you want to know what the current understanding of the disaster is:
http://youtu.be/vpA0TOgB9-o [youtu.be]
http://youtu.be/ayW4mC1o8CQ [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
One mistake! ONE MISTAKE! AUUUGH! ONE MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!11111ELEVENTY!!!
So you're OKAY with coal plants just chucking tons of radioactive crap into the air ON A DAILY BASIS. Stuff that's going to KEEP on being radioactive in the environment for thousands of years.
But because there's some infinitesimally off chance that in a planet-shattering catastrophe, a little bit of material that'll decay in a few years gets into the environment that we just SHOULD NEVER?
So, you live in a cave right? These hu
Re: (Score:2)
How much nuclear waste from coal is acceptable?
How much environmental damage from Wind, natural gas, oil and Hydro is acceptable?
Hmm?
The problem all the anti-nukers have is they keep looking at nuclear power in a vacuum.
There is NO SUCH THING as 100% safe. Not with ANY power source. And continuing to insist that one of these conform to zero tolerance and not the rest? Well, it carries the distinct effervescent scent of bovine feces.
Re: (Score:2)
In short, you engineer it to be as safe as possible.
And, with LFTR, that's pretty damn safe, since you don't normally have to worry about gravity reversing itself or a supercooled plug NOT eventually melting once the cooling on it shuts down.
Also, with LFTR, you're working with NO WATER and no high pressure gasses in the containment vessel. So blowing it apart pretty much JUST CANNOT HAPPEN.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay I missed this bit of "Did Not Read The Fine Manual" on the first pass.
The fact that every design which produces any substantive amount of power will always require active cooling.
Sorry, but you're pretty much WRONG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
Look at the entry "Fail Safe Core".
The only part that needs to be "actively cooled" is the plug to the dump tank. Usually by a small fan.
And even if that pipe to the dump tank somehow breaks, the fuel and coolant (which are in solution together), simply spills into the bottom of the reactor vessel, which has a drain that dumps into the dump tank.
Re: (Score:2)
Guess what? A lot of that stuff CAN be used as seed fuel for next-gen reactors. So drop it in, cook it down, and let's get rid of it!
We wouldn't have this problem had the US government NOT played favorites and handed virtual monopolies to companies in the solid nuclear fuel arena.
This is also why we have regulations against doing something INTELLIGENT with spent fuel (like reprocessing). Well, it's not that you CAN'T. But the regulations penalize you so badly that the cost of doing so isn't worth the re
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure they're quite aware of that fact, and probably rather annoyed that they had so much nuclear waste stored near the reactors instead of recycling the stuff.
Re: (Score:3)
The earth atmosphere has not warmed for 12-17 years depending on which temperature series you look at.
That only works if you ignore the oceans where over 90% of the heat goes.
Re: (Score:3)
What magically caused the oceans to all the sudden be so important other than excusing a gap in warming?
I mean why were they ignored previosly and cannot be ignored now? Its a bit like comparing apples to cars when the goal posts are changed to keep this warming notion alive.
Re: (Score:2)
They weren't ignored previously. I've known the oceans were important for over 20 years. I can't imagine that climate scientists weren't aware of it since at least the 1950's. Since they started deploying the Argo floats in the early 2000's the amount of data we have on the oceans has gone up by orders of magnitude. They show that the ocean continues to warm. The emphasis started out on surface temperatures because that's where we live and so it's important to us. But anyone who studied weather or cli
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The next challenge will be natural gas - it's a decent improvement over coal on paper, but only if leakage is kept to a minimum, and the evidence right now is that NG leakage is high enough that it's forcing global warming faster than te extra CO2 from coal would be doing. But at least the environmental damage is hidden deep underground in contaminated water supplies.