At last! What the global warming "debate" is all about

[Questor]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16216891.htm

At last, nukes are back.

[Dixie Dude]

What's wrong with nuclear power?  If the whole country were nuclear, the waste would only cover 4cm on a football field in something like 20 years.  This was going to be burried in Yucca mountain in Nevada.  We could also build breeder reactors which could recycle 90% of the spent fuel.  These could be operated by the government so the spent fuel wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.  We could also go with thromium reactors, in which the waste would loose it's radioactivity in a short time. Estimates are that we will need 1/3 more electrical power if we go with plug in hybrid cars or we will have brownouts and blackouts.  Also, for the economy to grow, we must have more electricity.  It has to come from nuclear, coal, solar, or wind.  Solar is best cost wise in the southwest.  Wind is best in the plains states, but everywhere else has to go coal or nuclear.  France is 85% nuclear, Germany and England are 50%.  We are only 20% nuclear.  Coal can best be used by gasification to make synthetic oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel.  

[Questor]

Nothing wrong with it according to Questor. I see it as a necessary thing.

What irks me is that these two plants have been in the advanced stages of planning for years. They are about ready to break ground for construction now.

My theory on the global warming thing has always been that it's been an elaborate way of making nuclear power palatable to the US citizen again.

As with so many things, the obstacles are government. Specifically EPA, US department of energy, and congress. The obstacles are about maintaining current environmental orthodoxy and bureaucracy.

[Dixie Dude]

Same way with imported oil.  We can wean ourselves off imported oil within 5-10 years without much cost.

1) Use natural gas in fleet vehicles (25% of US vehicles are in fleets) UPS, postal, utilities, cities, counties, states, and Feds.  It would cost about $3,500 per conversion and a $50,000 compressor to supply 25 vehicles.  Now, some companies already make NG vehicles on the assembly line for about the same cost as gasoline vehicles.  We have GM and Ford makes NG pickups, and Honda makes cars, no conversions on these.  This would cut 40% of imported oil. 
2) Begin conversion of vehicles to diesel like Germany.  (85% of Germany's vehicles are diesel).  You get 27 gallons of diesel in a barrel of oil OR 20 gallons of gasoline.  This would cut imports by 25-30% more.

There may have to be tax breaks for conversion to both these methods.  However, cutting imports by about 70% in 5-10 years is a tremendous cut on trade deficit since half the trade deficit is in imported oil. 

3) Have government tax cuts for building coal gasification plants to make synthetic oil from coal, thus cutting the imports completely.
OR tax cuts for algae produced oil.  Either way, we cut out imported oil and the associated problems with the likes of Iran and Venesuela (sp).   

[MGMorden]

Dixie on right on the money.  Whether we go electric plug-ins on the cars or not, our energy needs are ever growing.  That power has to come from somewhere, and nuclear is an absolute winner in efficient power generation.  With proper use of breeder reactors we can recycle the fuel and take it MUCH farther than we're currently taking it.  Only thing that has been keeping nuclear from becoming more prolific has been irrational fears and the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) philosophy.  

IMHO, the more plants we can get online the better.  Where possible, Hyrdoelectric power plants (which is what generates power where I'm at) are viable options too.  

[MGMorden]

3) Have government tax cuts for building coal gasification plants to make synthetic oil from coal, thus cutting the imports completely.
OR tax cuts for algae produced oil.  Either way, we cut out imported oil and the associated problems with the likes of Iran and Venesuela (sp).   

Or even better, switch to ethanol powered vehicles.  IIRC, Brazil for example has nearly completely switched to ethanol derived from cane sugar (which is more efficient than corn).  I think bio-fuels and biodiesels are a better option personally  than natural gas.  It's been a while since I saw the specifics, but from a presentation I recently saw at a convention, natural gas, though it works, has a MUCH lower energy density than diesel or gasoline.  So essentially you're very, very limited in how much mileage you're going to be able to get out of a given tank size.

[Questor]

I live in a biofuels state (Minnesota corn). At best, it's a regional option. Which is not a bad thing at all provided we have flex fuel cars.

There are a lot of economic and environmental problems with using current US ethanol crops. There is research advancing to find crops that work better but there is difficulty in finding ways to break them down for fermentation. The woody plants like switch grass have higher energy content, but are not yet practical to ferment into fuel.

After they get that worked out, I wonder whether a switch-grass option is economically viable because the key factor that makes ethanol profitable, in the 9 out of 11 years or so that it is profitable, is the sale of the by products for animal feed. I don't know if switch grass by products can be used for animal feed.

[mcwoodduck]

The Whole Man Made Climate change crap is a way to kill Capitalism.
The earth has changed climate many times due to the SUN.
After all the places where we have oil had to suport life at one time and enough life to create oil.  Alaska, the North Sea, and the sands of Arabia were all lush warm forests at one time and these small minded people that think we have any say in how much rain falls or how hot an area is (Atlanta excluded.  the large amount of Black top has a local effect raising temp by 3-10 degrees) is pure folly.
Now Green is a different story and the article was written by someone that wanted to show we either needed to have Nukes to keep the lights on due to the silly passage of emmission laws by UN ellected EPA idiots or we will have to ignore the emmission laws or costs will sky rocket, like they did here in CA a few years ago when a generator broke and the fines to run other power plants that already had reached their total emmission loads were $10,000 an hour.  And states like Tx.  Could make power and send it to CA at 9,500 make huge profits and still the power was less than what it would have cost with the fine from the AQMD board.
The Climate may be changing.  It has happened in the past.  North and South have changed a few times over the earths history.  To think Man has anything to do with it is silly and these are the same people that tell us about evolution over creationism but disreguard the main premis that the earth and life is constantly changing.

[Dixie Dude]

MGMorden, we have about a 500 year supply of natural gas already tapped and ready to put on line to use.  I am an engineer with a natural gas company.  We also have an 800 year supply of coal.  We don't have as much oil.  We are using the wrong fuels.  They have found out that using ethanol puts too much additional land into farmland, takes away from forests and swampland (hunting and fishing).  Brazil can do it because half their country is in the Amazon jungle, and they cut down the equivelant of the area the size of France to put into farmland, and it still isn't enough for 100% vehicle ethanol.  That is a big space and they only have 100 million people and they don't all drive cars.  We have 300 million and have 175 million vehicles.  Natural gas is the quickest way we can convert without strain on the farmland.  Using synthetic oil made from coal is another.  A lot of our forest land is used for paper production, especially in the south, and if you put it back into corn or sugar cane production, we don't have enough spare land to run in our vehicles, that is why they have already settled on 10% ethonol blends.  It helps, but we still need to cut more.  Convert to natural gas, then synthetic oil from coal, while building nuclear power plants, then go with hybrids to use this extra electricity.  We already produce 20% of our electricity from natural gas, 20% from nuclear, 10% from hydro dams, and about 40% from coal.  The remaining 10% is solar, wind, and fuel oil.  We need to replace the natural gas with nuclear or wind, then use it to power the fleet vehicles. 

http://www.pickensplan.com/

Read about some of the ideas.  Also, we have a 30,000 year supply of natural gas in the Burmada Triangle in hydrates that would have to be mined with underwater robot equipment.  That is 30 thousand.  Still would cost about twice as much as drilling and we already have an abundant supply. 

[teamnelson]

I've always been pronuke ... I think I read you could power my island (Oahu) for a while with a plant from an aircraft carrier. But:

As with so many things, the obstacles are government. Specifically EPA, US department of energy, and congress. The obstacles are about maintaining current environmental orthodoxy and bureaucracy.

If you look at the number of bills proposed vs. bills passed, you see trends. A congressman proposes legislation that is popular with his constituency, full well knowing it'll die in committee. He then goes back to his constituency and blames the fat cats in DC for not paying attention to the needs of the people, and vows to continue to fight. He looks good, the people feel like they have a champion, and no change occurs. The only people who don't understand what happened appear to be the voters.

I appreciate the fact that we have more capacity than we give ourselves credit for, and along with that I think we still owe it to ourselves and our children to address consumption and efficiency as we roll out alternatives. And we must also acknowledge that our resources are valuable to others as well, so a continued defense must be a foregone conclusion.

[sk330lc]

Build More Coal Fired Plants! 
 More Jobs in the Strip Pits and Deep Mines . More Jobs for the trucking Industy, trains, and River barges.  The Building trades Unions will stay Busy building and mantaining Scrubber units...   COAL is much better.. plus it will help with this darn Global warming.