@TMTisFree

Quote:

Cool. USA is going to spend more $$ on a no-problem. This will not help its economy, other will profit.

I don't think it can be linked that directly. Spending on things such as renewals and mass transit have more reasons than solely Carbon factors.

Take wind. Where I live an analysis was done to see how a coal plant and a windfarm of the same size fair against each other. The result was in about 25 years they broke even. Now the one 'gotcha' of this equation was the price of coal. The price of coal has changed but appears to be on an upward pattern. In the comparison coal was assumed a constant as was delivery for coal to the coal plant. In the real world transportation costs and fuel costs appear to be on an upward increase. Sure there are ebbs and tides but over the corse of 30 years it increases. As do transportation cost. If we an produce some wind energy it reduces our dependence on a cost factor that is increasing. Then if others make coal plants we can sell our coal to them. This is something akin to what Iran seems to be wanting to do. Produce energy by nuclear and sell the oil. This brings in revenue for their country and stablizes their internal energy markets. Lower cost and more predictable energy expendetures in turn enhances the economic market as it allows companies to more comfortably invest in other ways. Now this isn't to say wind will work everywhere in the USA. But, there are some areas where wind or solar or geothermal or river dams, can be put to cost effective use for renewable sources. This creates competition to coal and oil and in turn helps to stablize markets. As a side effect they produce less carbon. Isn't this a win for the ecomony?

@BrianK

In my case, wind farms are only financially viable because of numerous public credits and that power is imposed to be bought at a price far above the nominal (nuclear) price. Without these helps, wind energy is not profitable. Even ecologists are beginning to fight against wind farms installation here...

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

In my case, wind farms are only financially viable because of numerous public credits and that power is imposed to be bought at a price far above the nominal (nuclear) price. Without these helps, wind energy is not profitable

Okay but in my post I did include that I realize wind energy isn't profitable everywhere in the US. I didn't say the world but certainly if everywhere in the US doen't work than everywhere in the world.

The point of public credits in an interesting one. In the USA we give large credits to oil companies. In the same sense would oil not be less viable if this was not done? We provide land to coal companies way below the market value for coal. This in turn is a loss for the public and a win for their private profits. I'd argue this is a type of credit. In the case of nuclear it can't be done in the USA without large public credits. Fuel for electricity needs to be transported and the oil, coal, and nuclear materials are all shipped on trains and trucks. Trucks for one are given large public credits too. Trains may be I'm not sure there they were quite cut off in the early 80s. So if we're giving all other power producing industries large public funds why would we require renewables to not have some sort of public credit? Seems a bit unfair to me.

@BrianK

Oh, I'm not against public credit: this helps launching these new technologies, creating new markets, etc (wind, solar, ...). When the price of the relative products (wind farm, photovoltaïc, ...) will decrease sufficiently, then the public credit will cease. But here new energies are just pushed to comply to some European politics as we already have our own energy supply (nuclear). On the other hand, I find that researches in new energy fields are somewhat slow and weak.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

Oh, I'm not against public credit: this helps launching these new technologies, creating new markets, etc (wind, solar, ...). When the price of the relative products (wind farm, photovoltaïc, ...) will decrease sufficiently, then the public credit will cease.

Except here that never happens. Clearly oil and coal are old technologies, well established in the marketplace and yet public credits are still attached to them. I agree a good part of public credits would be creating new markets. Except that's rarely done. What needs to be done is cut off the old markets (coal, oil , nukes) and let them survive on the marketplace. At the same time increase monies to newer technologies in the marketplace -- wind, solar, water. As these enter the market the market diversifies. Diversified competion keeps everyone's price lower (so goes the theory) in order to be most competitive.

Again this brings low prices to energy markets. Energy markets are needed to fuel businesses and homes. Keeping energy prices low allows home owners more spending money for other trinkets and allows businesses more spending money for investment. Again I don't see how this is 'bad' for the economy?

@BrianK

Well, here these "old technologies" are no longer helped, quite the opposite as taxes are at a very high level: >70%. Even with these taxes, energy suppliers are amongst the most profitable firms. So, policies about public funding seem to be rather different in the US. It also seems that these fundings have kept energy prices so low that US car manufacturers had not renewed their motor technologies (as opposed in Europe and in Japan with 2 or 3 motor generations in the last 10 years), probably leading to the recent crisis in this sector (in the US). So you see that, here, high energy prices have moved technologies forward (in the car sector), while providing high resources to governments. The error here (at least in France) is that most of the resources are spent into short-term social programs instead of in long-term fundamental research, new technologies development, etc. Doing that since about 30 years have not improved employment ratio, quite the contrary.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

In my case, wind farms are only financially viable because of numerous public credits and that power is imposed to be bought at a price far above the nominal (nuclear) price.

In the US, federal funding for propping up wind generated power pricing stopped back in October (new fiscal year started) and that is why Picken's was spending $74M on advertising for his scam for wind power. Not only are the things killing birds, they can be deadly to those on the ground has huge chunks of ice are being flung off the blades!

Our need for round the clock, bad or good weather, power generation is not going to be satisfied with wind and solar. Bang:buck ratio isn't there and they are not generating 24/7 so it's not viable. Nuclear power is one of the best options for now, but I would love to see serious money (Billions and not Millions) spent on a X-prize for a public patent ultra low cost fuel cells. If we can severely cut back on oil being bought from countries wanting to do evil in the name of socialism-religion (having a tough time separating those two anymore) , I'm there. The only way that is going to happen is if it's consumer driven, not government mandated.

Problem is those who mouthing they want to do the same, want me to continue to pay higher pricing in the way of limited quantity (which they control) which impacts their control over my daily life or they want more and more taxation, which again, is controlling my daily life. What I want is to be able to generate my own energy for my house and vehicles at a cheap price and not pay the government their never ending demands of taxes on what I produce and consume by myself. Imagine the financial shockwave going through all levels of government if they could not tax gasoline nor power for their revenues. That is not going to happen, they want me to pay some phantom carbon credit scam instead.

_________________
Dammy

@damocles

Quote:

What I want is to be able to generate my own energy for my house and vehicles at a cheap price and not pay the government their never ending demands of taxes on what I produce and consume by myself. Imagine the financial shockwave going through all levels of government if they could not tax gasoline nor power for their revenues.

I have the right to do that here: as a farmer I can press my oil from rapeseed and fuel my diesel cars/tractors with it. But the press machine is not cheap and the oil has to be of very high quality. The oil is also taxed by government (as if I used petrol), so it is not as interesting as it could be (and you have no more warranty on the motor if you use oil). But you can almost be energy-independent if you want to pay the price of this liberty.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

I have the right to do that here: as a farmer I can press my oil from rapeseed and fuel my diesel cars/tractors with it. But the press machine is not cheap and the oil has to be of very high quality. The oil is also taxed by government (as if I used petrol), so it is not as interesting as it could be (and you have no more warranty on the motor if you use oil). But you can almost be energy-independent if you want to pay the price of this liberty.

Excellent! What I'm hoping for is a version which Honda (OK, I'm a Honda fanboy) vision of a solar (and or wind) powering a home hydrogen fuel production - storage station (water or natural gas) which would fuel the house fuel cell and the excess hydrogen would fill the vehicle's hydrogen tanks. Fuel cell would be working 24/7 even if the solar wasn't producing anything during the night hours.

Dammy

_________________
Dammy

@damocles

Oh, me too! I have the last (well, ageing 13 now) model of Honda Prelude VTec2.2. The best car I had have.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

It also seems that these fundings have kept energy prices so low that US car manufacturers had not renewed their motor technologies (as opposed in Europe and in Japan with 2 or 3 motor gen anerations in the last 10 years), probably leading to the recent crisis in this sector (in the US)

Low fuel prices have contrbuted partially to the US crisis. Though not wholely. Toyota, a name strongly associated with fuel efficency in the market, sales dropped in the US. Ford, a US company, has the best MPG on a full sized truck (F150), small truck (Ranger), family sized sedan (Focus Hybrid), on a small SUV(Hybrid Escape), the Focus matchs the Corolla for small car MPG and has more horsepower. Gas is back down from $4/gallon to $1.65/gallon. Of course truck sales are back up. A large part of the US automaker problems are economy based.

@damocles

Quote:

Excellent! What I'm hoping for is a version which Honda (OK, I'm a Honda fanboy) vision of a solar (and or wind) powering a home hydrogen fuel production - storage station (water or natural gas) which would fuel the house fuel cell and the excess hydrogen would fill the vehicle's hydrogen tanks. Fuel cell would be working 24/7 even if the solar wasn't producing anything during the night hours

From my understanding batteries powering an electric engine are about twice as efficent as hydrogen. Essentially you're using hydrogen not as a fuel but as an electrical storage medium. Why not use batteries? The infrastructure is already in place for this today.

Though some states, Minnesota is one, force electricity providers to buy electricity from home generations. Run your solar all day and if you don't use it, it feeds the grid and you get a credit. When you come home at night and use the lights you feed off the grid and pay a fee. In Minnesota, the electric company must pay you for your excess at the same rate they charge you for the usage. In this case the grid itself is the storage medium and there's no need for hydrogen or batteries.

@BrianK

Quote:

From my understanding batteries powering an electric engine are about twice as efficent as hydrogen. Essentially you're using hydrogen not as a fuel but as an electrical storage medium. Why not use batteries? The infrastructure is already in place for this today.

I'll question if hydrogen fuels (gas, liquid or slush) are half the efficiency of batteries. I'll further question it after a hundred or more deep cycles of a given battery. Sad to say the power grid infrastructure is NOT there today. Right now the US grid is near it's maximum and could not take the load for putting that many millions of cars on charge. So if the tech does come along that provides a battery that can be deep cycled, repeatedly, and not effect it's capabilities at a low cost, you still have to deal with the power grid not being able to handle the new demand.

I'm not saying new battery tech isn't the answer, I'm saying it will only be apart of the answer.

Dammy

_________________
Dammy

@damocles

Quote:

Sad to say the power grid infrastructure is NOT there today. Right now the US grid is near it's maximum and could not take the load for putting that many millions of cars on charge.

I'm sorry to say I know the answer to this one. Few months ago an Energy conference was held locally. The many hours were live on tv. One speaker was Bill Clinton. He was talking about building a whole new grid to connect up all the wind farms etc. I can remember his statement as it was so stupid. He said we should build the new grid "because it was cheap" at one trillion dollars.

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@damocles

Quote:

Sad to say the power grid infrastructure is NOT there today. Right now the US grid is near it's maximum and could not take the load for putting that many millions of cars on charge.

I agree the current power grid infrastructure is not there today for widescale reliability for transportation. But, if lack of infrastructure is an issue then a switch to Hydrogen economy is even more problematic. There is for all pratical purposes NO infrastructure in place for Hydrogen. Even today the vast majority of the hydrogen made is done via using fossil fuels. I think this question might answer @Interesting's uncomfort with 1 Trillion dollar upgrade to the power grid being seen as cheap. It might well be the case that improving the power grid is cheap compared to building up infrastructure from scratch for hydrogen.

hahahaha,

OK, so I now no longer have a need to learn elsewhere, I can not only obtain Amiga related informaton, but global warming also.

Amiga people clearly can Kick ass with conversation starters.

As for global warming, try living in Australia now, when the sun hits 20 + degrees, italready starts brning your skin.

But when I was a kid, it was atleast 30+ before it did damage to you. So for me, thisis a slight concern, as I am thinking, how will it be in another 10 years time? 10 degrees skin burning??

Anyway, I know thats a little off topic from man made gases versus environmental natural gases, and the lcd talk at the start of the posts here.

Just felt like adding my 2 cents worth of How I feel and dislike the sun to begin with these days in australia I uch rather prefer winter.

but even in winter one can get burnt, apparently even through cloud cover.

Maybe someone wants to have a go at explaining this to me for fun?

Last edited by Gebrochen on 28-Dec-2008 at 03:35 AM.

_________________
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https://blitterwolf.blogspot.com

@Gebrochen

You are a train late. Having failed with all their predictions,
(
Quote:

2008 was the year predicted to be the "hottest in a century". Instead it became the coldest of the decade. It was the year the North Pole would "melt entirely, allowing you to swim to it". Instead, nuclear-powered icebreakers became trapped in unseasonably thick ice. It was a year of record-breaking cold and snow, everywhere from Baghdad to the beaches of Malibu. It was the year the "Gore Effect" entered the public vocabulary, as whenever global warming protestors got together to march, they were met with blizzards and ice storms...

)
the last mantra of AGW believers is "climate change" (which is a redundancy and a lie in itself), no more "global warming".



Have burn.. ehmm fun!

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

2008 was the year predicted to be the "hottest in a century". Instead it became the coldest of the decade. It was the year the North Pole would "melt entirely, allowing you to swim to it". Instead, nuclear-powered icebreakers became trapped in unseasonably thick ice. It was a year of record-breaking cold and snow, everywhere from Baghdad to the beaches of Malibu. It was the year the "Gore Effect" entered the public vocabulary, as whenever global warming protestors got together to march, they were met with blizzards and ice storms...

So while attempting to verify the first claim presented by you of what the GW scientists say I ran across this. Farmer's Almanac claims 2008 will be the warmest year in a century. Do you happen to have the info to which agency and on what date actually made that first statement? Thanks for finding the link. From what I recall wasn't the Anti-GW crowd was all a buzz earlier this year that global warming would slow or downturn for the better part of the next decade?

@BrianK

Here we've been on average about 1.5 C above normal throughout all of 2008.

http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Vestfold/Sandefjord/Sandefjord~508257/statistics.html

And it's NOT a local phenomenon. Same thing all over southern Norway...

Last edited by olegil on 04-Jan-2009 at 05:52 PM.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Oh, and the north pole ice cap WAS at it's smallest in known history this summer: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/confirmation-of-open-water-circling-north-pole/

Of course, that's just facts, and we all know how silly it is to drag facts into a discussion...

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.