Los Angeles is Finally Ditching Coal -- and Replacing It With Another Polluting Fuel (latimes.com) 355
An anonymous reader shares a report: The smokestack at Intermountain Power Plant looms mightily over rural Utah, belching steam and pollution across a landscape of alfalfa fields and desert shrub near the banks of the Sevier River. Five hundred miles away, Los Angeles is trying to lead the world in fighting climate change. But when Angelenos flip a light switch or charge an electric vehicle, some of the energy may come from Intermountain, where coal is burned in a raging furnace at the foot of the 710-foot smokestack. The coal plant has been L.A.'s single-largest power source for three decades, supplying between one-fifth and one-third of the city's electricity in recent years. It's scheduled to shut down in 2025, ending California's reliance on the dirtiest fossil fuel.
But Los Angeles is preparing to build a natural gas-fired power plant at the Intermountain site, even as it works to shut down three gas plants in its own backyard. Although gas burns more cleanly than coal, it still traps heat in the atmosphere. It also leaks from pipelines as methane, a planet-warming pollutant more powerful than carbon dioxide. Critics say Los Angeles and other Southern California cities have no business making an $865-million investment in gas, especially when the state has committed to getting 100% of its electricity from climate-friendly sources such as solar and wind. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti has touted his decision to close the three local gas plants as part of his own "Green New Deal" to fight climate change.
But Los Angeles is preparing to build a natural gas-fired power plant at the Intermountain site, even as it works to shut down three gas plants in its own backyard. Although gas burns more cleanly than coal, it still traps heat in the atmosphere. It also leaks from pipelines as methane, a planet-warming pollutant more powerful than carbon dioxide. Critics say Los Angeles and other Southern California cities have no business making an $865-million investment in gas, especially when the state has committed to getting 100% of its electricity from climate-friendly sources such as solar and wind. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti has touted his decision to close the three local gas plants as part of his own "Green New Deal" to fight climate change.
500 miles of loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they could build the thing a little closer; transmission isn't free in several ways.
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I usually support nuclear, I don't know if placing nuclear plants in earthquake-prone zones is really a good idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Good point, I forgot about the fault line there.
Re: (Score:2)
Then build it in Utah. I hear that there's already a power line running there.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They can be made earthquake-proof at a manageable price. The Fukushima reactors all successfully scrammed after the earthquake.
You just need to make sure the cooling system generators are also safe from the earthquake and its consequences.
Re: (Score:3)
You bring up another problem with nuclear in California: water.
However, I agree with the poster above who mentioned that building a nuclear plant in Utah would work fine since that's where their plants are already.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
MIT has designed a floating Nuclear reactor that is not vulnerable to earthquakes by virtue of being suspended in deep water. The ocean water serves as a fail-safe coolant. The pacific coast is not susceptible to hurricanes. It's a pretty cool idea. The whole thing can be built and disassembled in existing shipyards.
My main concern with nuclear is the damage that could be caused by malicious actors. It's all too easy to hack utilities and the US has admitted responsibility for doing so in the past. Ru
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Wasn't part of the Fukushima problem the storage of spent fuel rods on site? No reason for them to be there...
(Serious question for those who remember physics: how terrible an idea would it be to drop the rods into a volcano... would it just fuse and disperse into the other molten rock or detonate somehow into a mushroom cloud?).
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:4, Interesting)
Weather could be an issue too. France has to shut nuclear plants when it gets too hot because the water they use for cooling is too warm.
Re: (Score:3)
So I've learned a new piece of history. Meanwhile in California, as I stated in the above post, our nuclear power plants are on the coast with access to very cool water that is very quickly diluted in the giant ocean that is the Pacific.
Basically, your new bit of information does not apply to California or to anyone who chooses sensible locations for a nuclear power plant. I mean really, why on earth would anyone build a nuclear power plant on a lake when they have a huge coast line to build on where the te
Re: (Score:2)
There is nowhere in the country that cannot have a big quake. There's only places where they're more common, so people commonly design for them.
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:4, Insightful)
The Molten Salt Reactor [wikipedia.org] design would be much better suited for areas like California.
The biggest problem with the current Light Water Reactor [wikipedia.org] design in an Earthquake zone is the risk of a cracked cooling pipe and resulting loss of pressure or losing power to the cooling pumps.
MSR's don't have those issue, the coolant is under much lower pressure, the molten salts themselves would plug any leaks and the core design would allow for a passive shut down system in the result of power to the cooling systems.
I personally would have no issues with a MSR being built in my City, though I would strongly advocate that it use a Thorium fuel cycle over a Uranium based one.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh, SoCal has a bad habit of shaking apart every now and then. I think this is one of the examples where nuclear is not a good fit. I hate the smug aholes as much as next guy but even I wouldn't wish a containment failure on them. Besides, if that did happen is means the survivors are going to relocate elsewhere and then we have to deal with them. I like to keep my hippies at arms length.
Re: (Score:2)
What about using something along the lines of what powers U.S. aircraft carriers? They are designed for such environments, plus if needed, several could be used.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There has been a nuclear power plant in Southern California since the 1960's, at San Onofre, which is about halfway between LA and San Diego. It was shut down a few years ago due to its advanced age, but there had never been any problems with earthquake damage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The deaths per terawatt that nuclear has
Lets have some figures please. And cited sources.
Re: (Score:2)
there isn't enough air pollution in LA already?
Re: (Score:2)
Of course it's a good idea. Just like cities outsource farming and wood cutting to rural areas.
Also do you really think LA gets all its water from within the city limits?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:5, Informative)
The transmission plant is HVDC(bipolar), at 500mi the loss is less than 3% compared to AC around 60% for the same distance. Or EHVAC which is around 15%
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like California is using 500 kV HVDC lines. Why should that have such lower transmission losses than the EHVAC equivalent, which would probably be 735 kV or 765 kV?
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:4, Informative)
Because HVAC has inductive and capacitive losses [ieee.org] not shared by HVDC.
Re: (Score:2)
Transmission of what? Electricity? Coal? Gas? The only thing that really is transmitted freely is water, light and air, if your plant doesn't run on one of those you may just be trading one inefficiency for another.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:500 miles of loss (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't free, but the losses over 500 miles aren't bad at sufficiently high voltage. Quebec is geographically large, and the power is primarily generated in the north, so Hydro Quebec has 11,422 kilometres of 735 and 765 kilovolt transmission lines. Electricity has to travel nearly a thousand kilometers to get to Montreal. The transmission losses are only a few percent. Of course, we do it like that because of geographic restrictions: hydro dams have to go where the rivers and reservoirs are.
Sun and wind don't always shine and blow. (Score:2, Insightful)
A power grid needs SOMETHING to generate power when renewables don't meet demand. When everyone in LA turns on the AC during the summer, you can't meet this with just wind or solar. You can scream batteries all you want, but wind and solar still only produce so much, and the batteries can run out.
Natural gas gives off HALF the CO2 per unit energy generated vs big bad coal. These so-called "environmentalists" (really more like hard-liner extremists) need to realize that they can't demand perfection.
Re:Sun and wind don't always shine and blow. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's L.A. the sky is clear and sunny during a heat wave. That's when you have peak demand.
There is something to be said about having a higher capacity infrastructure, where the city can temporarily access power from far away at a significant cost that may be fossil fuel. The base line power needs to come from renewable resources and needs to be local and ideally cheap. If they can run on renewable energy for 90% of the day for 300 days a year, that would be huge. It's a fallacy to assume that it's a non-starter if the problem isn't 100% solved by one solution.
What is needed is a web of redundant and supporting systems that solves the multi-dimensional problem of base line versus peak demand. Politically it's probably impossible to accomplish in L.A. when setting up wind farms outside of the city triggers multiple anti-development activist groups. It's NIMBYism combined with overreaching, ill-conceived environmentalism.
It's not all bad news. Solar panels work very well in the area. And people get panels installed once they figure out how to finance them. I have far fewer sunny days than LA and I save a ton of money, mostly because I have similarly insane rates.
Re: (Score:2)
There is something to be said about having a higher capacity infrastructure, where the city can temporarily access power from far away at a significant cost that may be fossil fuel. The base line power needs to come from renewable resources and needs to be local and ideally cheap. If they can run on renewable energy for 90% of the day for 300 days a year, that would be huge. It's a fallacy to assume that it's a non-starter if the problem isn't 100% solved by one solution.
The issue here is that someone is dropping nearly a billion dollars on a new power plant to replace the old one at the Intermountain site. Whoever is fronting that money is going to want to get that money back -- and the easiest way to do that is to operate the new plant at full capacity for some number of years (probably decades). There are probably going to be deals, if they're not in place already, to guarantee the market at specific minimum rates.
It's all well and good to talk about cleaner sources of
Re: (Score:2)
I would point out that people turn on the AC when the sun shines, and when the sun is shining then there is plenty of solar power to be had. Turning the lights on when it gets dark sure, but AC and solar are a great match as there is very little load shifting required.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution is right under their feet. The west coast is sitting on the Ring Of Fire. Geothermal is the solution. Iceland has been running on geothermal for decades.
Re: Sun and wind don't always shine and blow. (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that in CA the heat isnâ(TM)t generally close enough to the surface to be accessible. There are a few geothermal plants, but they service smaller communities close to the remote mountain regions where the activity is located. The hotspots also tend to be in national parks and forests, so unavailable for significant usage.
Re: (Score:2)
The solution is right under their feet. The west coast is sitting on the Ring Of Fire. Geothermal is the solution.
It isn't for the same reason that nuclear isn't a workable solution in this country, which is a mix of corruption and incompetence. Our big geothermal facility is located in the most geothermally active region of the country and possibly the surface of the planet, and yet it is perpetually over budget and under [planned] production, and has also produced a superfund site.
Small-scale geothermal is great. Heat pipes, heat pumps, cooling ducts. There's huge amounts of energy to be saved by using such things. I
Re:Sun and wind don't always shine and blow. (Score:5, Informative)
I live near the Geysers in NorCal and it's definitely not "the solution". First, it generates an ongoing micro-quake swarm that's easily visible on the USGS quake site. Most of them are 2s and 3s, but occasionally a larger tremor happens. People who lived near there complained for years about slow damage to their houses. Until a wildfire swept through, it was their biggest environmental concern. It's a rural area, so few people are affected.
On cold days, the steam plumes from the plant are visible for miles around. This is a minor aesthetic concern.
Finally, vents can shift or become exhausted in various ways. Finding clean water to pump into the holes and maintaining good steam quality can be an issue.
Don't get me wrong. The Geysers plant is a valuable addition to our grid, but it's not a silver bullet that will work everywhere in the state.
Re: (Score:3)
There was me reading yesterday that for the first half of the year in Scotland we generated enough wind power to power all the homes in Scotland twice over.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
That's before we even get to all the hydro power in Scotland or any of the other potential sources. In 2018 74% of gross electricity consumption in Scotland was renewable, and we are on target for that to be 100% by the end of 2020.
They won't be happy until the lights just go out (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, the Green Emperor, though he may boast of all sorts of impressive-sounding things when he tells you with all seriousness that we already live in the Star Trek future, is quite naked.
Re:They won't be happy until the lights just go ou (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
When did Americans just give up? (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is the 80s. That's when the rich and powerful stopped being afraid of Russia and decided they wanted their taxes slashed (and also to ship all the jobs overseas and do away with those pesky Unions). NASA spent billions getting to the moon. That money didn't come from McDonald's employees and shelf stockers making $15/hr (inflation adjusted, wages were higher back then).
Re: (Score:2)
Why not in California's own backyard? (Score:3)
Better is Better (Score:5, Informative)
Natural gas is much better than coal. There's no question about that. Moreover, you can burn methane/biomethane captured at the many waste facilities and biodigesters thereby producing and consuming an on-demand fuel.
Ya, solar and wind would be nice, but we're just not there yet.
(Nuclear would be lovely, too, but there is much NIMBY everywhere you look.)
Re:Better is Better (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Realistically speaking, we've already built hydroelectric dams at virtually all of the viable spots in the nation. Hydroelectric construction didn't stop because of any political pressure, but because there wasn't anywhere else useful to put them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Given that CA is right on the coast, offshore wind would make a lot of sense. Lots of manufacturing/engineering/technician jobs, and a chance to develop lucrative new technology for export.
Re:Better is Better (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Check the average depth of the coast off of California compared with that off of Scotland. Much of Scotland's offshore wind is in 100 foot deep water. That MIGHT get you 40-50 meters off the seashore for much of California. Move 4-5 km off shore, and we're into water that is 1200+ feet deep.
Additionally, if you look at the levelized cost of energy [eia.gov] for offshore and nuclear, offshore wind is 50-80% more expensive (50% with subsidies; 80% without) than nuclear.
It makes zero sense - especially when you consi
Re: (Score:3)
Hydroelectric sounds good, but in reality it is FAR worse for the environment than natural gas. Not as bad as coal, but coal is just plain EVIL.
Hydroelectric requires the complete destruction of the local environment, covering it with water. Yes, sometimes a new environment can be created in the lake, but drowning all the current habitat is not 'good for the environment'.
More importantly it also divides the river for most aquatic life. Salmon are the most famous, species that this kills, not not the onl
On nuke I'll stop being NIMBY (Score:2, Offtopic)
The Fukushima disaster happened because the executives ran the plant past it's decom date and didn't pay for the necessary safety equipment. Given that you can run a power plant hundreds of miles away from the consumer it's even more tempting to do that in the States since, as the Flint MI water crisis taugh
Re: (Score:2)
Fukushima was overbuilt and could survive earthquakes at two magnitudes higher than what had ever hit Japan in history. Then: Japan got hit with a magnitude 9.8. It STILL stood until the excessively-high tidal waves got past the wave breaks and hit the plant, taking down the backup generators that were running the safety systems.
Imagine if one of them Russian meteors that detonated like a nuclear bomb a few years ago hit a nuclear plant. Irresponsible management not properly installing safety equipme
False dichotomy is false. (Score:3)
Yes, some disasters can't be prevented. But this one could and the CEO choose no
Re: (Score:3)
You know the generators ran for a while and the pumps were fine...until they were taken down by the big wave.
40-meter-tall waves. The waves traveled inland for six miles. The consensus among scientists was that there was a smaller earthquake likely in the northern region, and smaller waves; a few sounded the alarm about enormous, devastating tsunamis reaching hundreds of meters high, and that never happened. What happened was those people turned out to be nutjobs and the wave that hit was smaller...but
Re: (Score:2)
when someone can give me a convincing argument for why nuclear is 100% safe
Nothing is 100% safe.
If that's your criteria then I'll support rooftop solar when someone can make a convincing argument that it is 100% safe.
Re: (Score:3)
We have over half a century of data demonstrating that nuclear is the safest form of energy production known to man. You mention the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. That was a level 7 (the worst accident on the scale) incident. And you partially identified the problem there as a series of problems (known-inadequate sea wall height, known tsunami risk, known deviation from original approved construction plans, multiple reports detailing faults in the design that went ignored, etc.) that plant operators didn't wa
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a resident of Phoenix, AZ, which is partly served by Palo Verde Nuclear plant, I would be proud if further investments were made in this plant to add capacity. Palo Verde is already the largest nuclear generating station in the country, and when it was originally build, plans for a potential future phase of expansion were considered. California pulls significant power from this facility, so an expansion makes sense. The cost of construction would likely be lower on this existing site than erecting a new
Re:Better is Better (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree. It would be like an article from the 70s criticizing catalytic converters because cars with catalytic converters still pollute. TFA seems to be of the opinion that natural gas is no better than coal because it's not 100% carbon-neutral. But the difference between coal and natural gas is like the difference between straight-pipe cars and catalytic converter cars.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's better at the point of consumption, but increased natgas production comes from fracking, and fracking contaminates water systems because fracking fluid is refinery wastes.
Nuclear fuel is strip-mined, and uranite is the least concentrated ore we mine. The mine tailings are radioactive, and regularly wind up contaminating water systems.
Renewable power is like tree planting. The best time was long ago — in the case of solar, in the 1970s. In the case of wind, since about the 1950s, when fiberglass b
They're just trying to make it sound better (Score:3)
So basically, the state forced the shutdown of a nuclear plant (refused to reauthorize it for operation following repairs). The loss of its 100% CO2-free energy generation required the state to get power from a coal plant in Utah. And that coal plant (and thus the nuclear plant) is now going to be replaced by a CO2-spewing natural gas plant. It's not coal->
Re: (Score:3)
The only thing stopping wind and solar is that you aren't accounting for the energy storage needed to utilize an unpredictable source. Every other power plant on the grid has to provide or contract for spinning reserves in the event that their source goes down. It's just part of the business. But wind and solar treat this as an externality, to be paid for by someone else. So if by political will you mean 'How am I going to get other people to pay my expenses' then yes, we lack the political will.
What kind of bullshit is this... (Score:5, Informative)
Hey this didn't 100% solve the problem so clearly it's all bullshit, right?
Never mind that natural gas produces about half the CO2 per BTU of heat [eia.gov]. Never mind that natural gas is more efficient at turning that heat into electricity [eia.gov]. It doesn't matter how much less CO2 it produces, or how much better is it, still produces CO2 so clearly the whole thing is a farce and a waste of time, right?
(If only sarcasm would be used as fuel...)
Partial remedies are still remedies. Imperfect and/or incremental improvements are still improvements. I'd rather not have a gas plant either bit given all the politics and logistics involved, I'll take what I can get, especially when a gas fired turbine plant can be potentially be upgraded in the future to run from renewable fuels.
But apparently the attitude here is if something can't solve the problem 100% on the first try then it's not worth doing at all. I hope you explain that to your doctor before agreeing to any form of treatment...
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:3)
Hey this didn't 100% solve the problem so clearly it's all bullshit, right?
To save space, I'm just quoting the first line in your excellent post. I have no mod points to give you, but at least right now others are modding you up. Yeah, this is a big ongoing gripe I have at Slashdot. People post articles or write replies on environmental topics where just like you said, if it doesn't 100% solve a problem then it's terrible when they should be cheering that things are improving.
Re: (Score:3)
(If only sarcasm would be used as fuel...)
We experimented with that at my university, we found it far too volatile to use as a fuel. It burnt off some of my hair during the first test run, good thing I was wearing goggles. We had the tests ended early out of safety concerns. After that the rest of the semester was cleaning up the mess and writing reports. There was sarcasm just dripping everywhere to clean up.
Moving plant out of South Coast Air Basin = good. (Score:3)
The South Coast Air Basin is a smog trap. Moving power production away from it makes perfect sense. So does discarding coal in favor of NG.
Why burning coal in the SCAB is bad: https://timeline.com/la-smog-p... [timeline.com]
Re: (Score:2)
How about dump your crap in your own yard? And if it's too much crap for the yard to hold, there are too many people dumping there.
This whole idea that California is such a great economy: Your 'economy' extends to the neighboring states and environments that you are imposing on for your resources. Taken all together with the negatives, your economy isn't that great after all.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop with the clickbait headlines!! (Score:2)
This is what we get...
"Los Angeles is Finally Ditching Coal -- and Replacing It With Another Polluting Fuel"
What we should have...
"Los Angeles Switches Coal Plant to Natural Gas -- Environmentalists Concerned"
My headline has the what, where, and who. The click bait headline may as well have said...
"You Won't Believe What Trump Tweeted"
Because that gives about as much information as the original headline.
Re: (Score:2)
"You Won't Believe What Trump Tweeted"
At this point in time, you’d have a hard time finding anything I wouldn’t believe he’d Tweet.
Nuclear plant at Yucca mountain (Score:4, Insightful)
My plan (which will never be done:
Build a large nuclear power complex at Yucca mountain, where the US intended to store nuclear waste anyway. Build a bi-directional pipeline from LA to it, send salt water from the ocean to Yucca mountain, use the power to crack the water to oxygen and hydrogen, and send the hydrogen back to LA (and maybe Vegas) to use for power.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Put it on a train. Send it to a processing plant. Put it into little jars and sell it.
If you're processing that much seawater, though, there's a good chance that you'll be able to find cheap ways to even extract some of the valuable elements.
On the other hand, the whole scheme sounds ridiculously wasteful to me. It's got to be cheaper to send the power back electrically, because hydrogen is such a PITA.
"Los Angeles is trying to lead the world in fight" (Score:2)
A furnace is a furnace (Score:3)
Was a furnace not good enough that the author had to call it a raging furnace? Is this supposed to scare me into believing something? I'm already a fan of renewable and anything that makes us less dependent on other nations. You don't have to scare me by trying to paint a coal power plant as mordor. There are pros and cons to everything, just take a step back and be happy when we move the needle forward.
Re:California (Score:5, Interesting)
Incorrect. California has lower CO2 emissions per capita than any state except New York [wikipedia.org].
(Incidentally, the fact that New York does so well shows how important it is to build densely and not put zoning restrictions on building in large coastal cities)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The study in the Wikipedia article is a national (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
California imports 1/3 of it's electricity. It's literally outsourcing pollution to other states.
California produces nearly half of the food consumed inside of the USA (the majority of many other ag states' output is either exported, or made into gasohol) and the majority of the nation's entertainment. And that's to say nothing of all the tech that has to flow out of California. It's not like you're not getting anything for your pollution.
Re:California (Score:5, Informative)
Just hover over the state, they only produce 1/3 of what they consume - they are pushing it out over surrounding states and playing a numbers game, poor Wyoming looks like a victim here.
'California is the largest consumer of jet fuel among the 50 states and accounted for one-fifth of the nation’s jet fuel consumption in 2016' [eia.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
It's based on consumption per capita, so they take the total consumption of energy and the sourcing etc. and consequences and divide that by the number of people to see the population-based impact.
High per-capita, low output means spreading it around over more area. Low per-capita, high output means concentrating in a small area, but operating more-efficiently.
Re:California (Score:5, Informative)
Neat little graphic map here: Total energy production and consumption by state, 2017 [eia.gov] Just hover over the state, they only produce 1/3 of what they consume - they are pushing it out over surrounding states and playing a numbers game, poor Wyoming looks like a victim here.
Maybe Wyoming and North Dakota should stop mining coal and producing oil and gas? Shut down their major industries is a good way to not "be a victim" I guess.
OP is being dishonest, pretending that total energy consumption is electricity, which it isn't. The chart references total energy consumption, most of which is fossil fuels -- natural gas for home heating, fuel for vehicles and so forth.
Fossil fuel producing states sell fossil fuels, sell them to urban areas, and make money. That makes them victims? Really?
Tell you what, we should help them out. Replace coal and gas with non-polluting sources of power, and not buy their major export. Then they won't be victims.
Re: (Score:2)
(Incidentally, the fact that New York does so well shows how important it is to...
...have Niagara Falls in your state generating huge amounts of hydro power.
Re: (Score:2)
The AC offered no explanation, evidence for the claimed "biggest polluting" title for the Bay Area. Your link does nothing to support it.
The sleight of hand SuperKendall dishonestly attempts is to substitute local air quality for "biggest polluting" (undefined). Due to urban concentration (lots of people want to live there) and unfavorable geography (wind patterns consistently trap air against coastal mountains, plus lots of sunlight), even very low levels of pollution emission per capita (which is the actu
Re: (Score:2)
yes it is pollution. Everything which has a negative effect is pollution. Greenhouse gases definitely have a negative effect, which is called global warming.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Except that in this case it's the opposite. People living in small apartments and using transit use far less energy than those living in suburbs with big houses, big cars and swimming pools.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The majority of methane in the atmosphere is caused by those cow-farts, Conservatives like make fun of Greenies for wanting to control
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. Storage can take care of the inconsistency of solar or wind. Renewables with battery storage are already slightly cheaper than fossil power, and there are also thermal and kinetic storage options that could be even cheaper than battery storage (I particularly like this idea. [qz.com])
Also, while NG produces a lot less pollution than coal from combustion exhaust, it's recently been found that if you include the methane leaks involved, it's having almost as much contribution to the greenhouse effect as coal:
Re: (Score:2)
The only additional water loss from hydro is extra evaporation, I doubt that's even a double digit percentage contributor to the Colorado river water consumption.
Re:Backup (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to learn about how fucked the Southwest is going to become in the next few decades read "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner. Basically the measurement of water flow at Lees Ferry was done during an historically usually wet period for the Southwest and this measurement was for a long time considered to average. The flow of the Colorado has been dropping for decades now.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the book recommendation.
I lived in Phoenix for a few years, never considering the water situation, but now I'm back in the midwest (plenty of water with the Mississippi flooded). Shoot, we had an inch of rain just yesterday (from Barry moving north).
I just ordered a copy off ThriftBooks (the ultimate site for used books).
Re: (Score:2)
The depletion of the Colorado isn't due to hydro power. It's due to Los Angeles watering their golf courses with the water. Fsck your landscaping. You moved into a desert. Learn to live with it.
Re: Backup (Score:4, Insightful)
The huge amount of land and people affected by hydro throw up far more legal hurdles than a fossil fuel plant.
The endless ways citizens can use to stymie government so beloved by certain people (lawyers among them) make hydro a complete non starter nowadays.
Re: (Score:3)
No, it is not NIMBY, environmentalists, or lawyers its that fact that all the good places to build dams already have dams there. The United States Bureau of Reclamation has spent that last 70 - 80 years building dams. Read Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner
Re: (Score:2)