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Dan -- Bravo!
Of course, we are not a theocracy, so who cares? Of course, way too many people care
Instant runoff -- Wait a minute? I thought we were not supposed to agree on anything.
Ken -- You need to watch "Last Years of LIving Dangerously". Natural gas via fracking is worse the coal. It has to do with methane leakage.
That would be an interesting analysis to look at that shows taxpayers have spent trillions for solar and wind.
Ou812 -- I thought the only struggle for me was to understand how you could read those links and not think that PV was a viable alternative. The PhD paper you provided only indicated that Germany needed to increase its investment. The other link seemed to indicate how viable PV was. Fuel cells can easily store energy during sunny times for when there is little or no (AKA night) sunlight. Also, the conversion of water to hydrogen and oxygen directly seems like a good way to store power.
Thom has provided association with nuclear generation of electricity and death. I am sure the nuclear industry keeps that information hidden, as much as possible.
Are you trying to say you cannot build transmission lines between the countryside and cities?
Of course, PV does not have to do it alone. Hemp is a nice CO2 net zero.
Tax and rebate would open the marketplace to make all this happen. To let the marketplace run more freely we need to repeal the Price-Anderson Act.
Natural gas won't reduce emissions significantly, when you consider the high methane releases of shale & tight gas production. And there is no chance the USA or Canada can replace coal generation with domestic natural gas. That is a fool's pipe dream, not as delusional as believing renewables can replace coal, but still flatly implausible. Conventional gas production in the USA & Canada is in rapid decline.
Shale Gas & Tight Gas is experiencing a bubble driven by incredible amounts of free money dumped into by Wall street banks & investment firms. Avg production cost of $8/mmbtu and they sell it for $3/mmbtu. The wonders of the free money we let private banks create out of thin air. Give me free money and I can produce gold for $100 per ounce, no problem.
Big Oil is expounding the myth about "abundant" US oil & gas. Industry insider, geologist Arthur Berman, explains that declining productivity combined with increasing demand will trigger a crisis that will cause prices to skyrocket, damage the economy, and have a profound impact on the lives of nearly every North American.
Relying on faulty science, bought-and-paid-for-white papers masquerading as independent research and "industry consultants," the "shale promoters" have vastly overstated the viable supply of shale gas resources for their own financial gain. This startling exposé, written by an industry insider, suggests that the stakes involved in the Enron scandal might seem like lunch money in comparison to the bursting of the natural gas bubble. Exhaustively researched and rigorously documented, Cold, Hungry and in the Dark:
www.amazon.com/Cold-Hungry-Dark-Exploding-Natural/dp/0865717435/
"...Investors have essentially subsidized natural gas through huge loss-making investments, creating an oversupply that has sent prices significantly below the average cost of new production..."
"...Petroleum geologist Jeffrey Brown of Export Land Model fame offered a startling response in a conversation at a recent conference I attended. The production decline rates of the shale gas wells that are providing the bulk of new U.S. supplies are so high—60 percent in the first year and up to 85 percent by the end of the second year—that we may never be able to return to today’s production level.
That would certainly put a nail in the coffin of the natural gas abundance narrative..."
Deborah Rogers on the Shale Bubble - How Wall St orchestrated the decline in natural gas prices and heavily subsidized surpluses
http://shalebubble.org/wall-street/
The end result of the Wall street fueled USA & Canada natural gas binge will be the next generation will be reliant on expensive imported LNG from the Middle East to supply both heat & electricity. Once again the cadre of International Banksters destroying Amercia as a free & independent nation.
Less then 5% of Americas energy comes from solar and wind and it has cost the tax payers trillions for it. The real answer is Natural gas. Very clean burning an inexpensive. But like I said before environmentalists hate oil companies more than they like clean air.
Once coming home from a European holiday, I said to my best friend that moving forward, I didn't want to be referred to as an American. I had felt more comfortable in France and Pain, for instance, as a person of color, rather than constantly feel that my racial heritage/origin was under challenge. I would prefer to think of myself as a "world citizen".
As we were coming into New York, he scolded me about being ashamed of a sort of American superiority. My friend, being Caucasian, could not understand how the disease of racism and bigotry had possibly damaged the soul of America......most evident in the behavior of the American bigot and it's oppression of the American people of color. It ended up causing a temporary rift in our communication until we were home for a couple of weeks and was reminded of discrimination and prejudice being
alive and well.
re Current events re shootings,
the battle flag, and Court decisions:
= = = = =
May it Not be Temporary
. . . . .
May it not THIS time be so temporary,
these downings of Rightists’ contemporary
contempt for our culture’s
values, - which like vultures
they chew. …
… They eschew
our culture’s notions of Good
for which for generations we’ve stood.
. . . . . . .
With Comca$h now owning MSNBC Universal which includes MSNBC, you can bet they'll try to use "Morning Joe" Scarborough to pump their pro-corporate agenda and mud-sling Bernie Sanders as much as they possibly can. In fact, likely ALL Corporatized media (meaning virtually all of it) will try to undermin him. A truly "socialist" government is supposed to support society, and that's a LOT better than I've seen from Capitalism since Reagan sold US out to them with his "trikle down theory" - so much for that crap with We The Taxpayers having to bailout the greedy financial institutions after they robbed US in 2008 - thanks to the total neglect of the Cheney/Bush abomination. Keep an eye on MSNBC Thom. They likely bribed the former FCC Chairperson who, after allowing the Comca$h takeover, went to work for them just a few months later allowing "the deal".
Chuckle, there is no advantage to supply a huge peak output whenever the sun happens to be shining brightly all over Germany and the energy consumption is low, i.e. on a warm spring sunday. You need to learn how the electricity grid operates. You can't store significant electricity and big peaks mostly end up being wasted or exported at an extreme loss, which only works if your neighbours don't have much solar.
Latest on German solar production for 2014 is 34,930 GWh of a total 576,238 Gwh total production, according to the IEA. So that comes out at 6.1% of total electricity production in 2014. And that has major caveats. The grid likes steady, reliable power sources not ones that only occur when the sun happens to be shining.
Philip, I would quite happily live right next door to SONGS or any commercial reactor in the USA, Canada or Europe. Don't need any shares. Probability of ANY health effect is so low as to be insignificant, whereas it is a clean, natural area, free of the massive pollution that surrounds coal power plants, and toxic emissions of NG power plants. As well as very dangerous gas pipelines that tend to explode incinerating dozens of persons. And SONGS has maybe a few hundred tons of spent nuclear fuel there, if that worries you, then you have zero knowledge of nuclear energy.
Maybe you should think about all the strong carcinogens you eat, drink & breath everyday from oil, gas & coal emissions. Nuclear is a weak carcinogen and emissions are tiny. Even radioisotope emissions are 100X less than from a comparable coal or natural gas power plant.
Chuckles, Come on my friend, we've been through these German numbers before. You struggled with them at that time too. Instant-Run Off is spot on with his information. PV is good (I have it on one of my homes), but far from the panacea you want it to be. PV doesn't work at night, is limited on cloudy days, and in dense population (think major cities) there isn't enough available area for PV to provide enought KW. Today, the only availabe technology that can meet our energy needs without producing CO2, is nuclear. By the way there has not been 1 death in the USA associated with the nuclear generation of electricity. Not 1 death---Ever.
Actually, the Biblical verse that Pope Francis is referring to reads thusly:
What conservatives fail to notice is the phrase in this verse that reads... "and replenish the earth." The main problem here is that there is much less profit in replenishing and much more profit in plundering. The Pope is spot on with this one!
They will never give up spending our tax dollars to accomplish nothing except to rename post offices. It's been six years and they have yet to propose a replacement for the ACA they want to destroy. They have health insurance and that's all that matters to them. I would suggest that anyone who earns enough money to pay taxes (I don't) look into finding out from the IRS if it is possible to refuse to allow any of your tax dollars to go to payment of their health insurance.
No, and they are hoping to take the white house so they can destroy it, just like the anti womans reproductive health care nuts.
Thomas L Morey -- Have you read the 2nd Amendment? Being clear is not one of its characteristics.
Do you have an example of any secretive executive order? By its very nature an executive order is on display for everyone to see.
We do not have a rogue government. At least the repug part is under total control of the billionaires.
Dr Econ -- Why doesn't the NRA let the CDC keep track of gun murders? Are there any murders by blacks on whites? How do we know?
I suggest that all shareholders of stock in public utilities be required to live within 10 miles of any nuclear power plant that they own stock in. The nuclear power plants on board aircraft carriers are safe because the people who operate the plant live on the ships. If shareholders were required to live within striking distances of the nuclear power plants they would insist that all necessary safety measures be taken.
Today, the owners may live in another country. They bear no personal consequences should the plant fail. They have no skin in the game. I believe there is no safe way to operate nuclear profit plants. We have no system or protocol to handle the thousands of tons of contaminated waste materials these nuclear profit plants produce annually. Until we develop a plan and a method to store the waste materials safely, we should cease operation of nuclear profit plants.
I live in Irvine, California about 30 miles away from SONGS. San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS). SONGS was shut down several years ago but has not be dismantled yet. They expect it to take at least 20 years to completely disassemble this facility. In the meantime there are thousands of tons of waste materials kept on site. I only hope that an earthquake or tsunami does not disrupt the facility.
No more nuclear profit plants anywhere in the world.
They have the money from their $Billionaire Devils, and seek to overthrow the government by any means. They will continue the assault again, and again, until the American People rise up, and throw the entire Republican Party everywhere, out of power.
There is a War going on, and nobody hears the gunfire.
Pal -- Remember, we do not live in a theocracy. The constitution is not scripture. If 67% of the people think the N-word should not be protected by the 1st Amendment, one could argue that it shouldn't be. However, having said that, I agree with you. I like that people can say whatever they want. Also, I often believe that we do live in a theocracy
Dr Econ -- What makes you think the people were not in bed with the idea of their leaders being nearly deities? That book Thom refers to "They Thought They Were Free" seems to support Thom's position.
Instant-runoff -- For anyone to think that your numbers have any validity you need to provide links. For example, there was that single day in 2014 in which 50% of Germany's power was provided by renewables. Your 5.6% vs. that 50% seems interesting.
gop pigheaded will try destroy aca for their donar class.
Small scale locally generated power sounds like an excellent idea. Doesn't have to be renewable energy. Just small. Smaller power plants would mean less impact from any outages or disasters. If the nuclear reactor from an aircraft carrier could power a small city, than just build it on land and do it. Seems safer. I don't see the residents of Norfolk VA getting all nervous every time a nuclear war ship pulls in. Plants of many sizes interconnected and powered by what ever is available would compliment each other.
Renewable energy is not being generated where it is needed, except for the minor component which is home or commercial building solar PV. And that only supplies power in sunny areas for ~ 1/3rd of the day. Nuclear reactors, especially Small Modular Reactors can be located close to power consumers. Tell us how you would supply the 24/7 60kw I mentioned above with your home grid. Show us details, costs.
Nuclear waste is minor. A coke can full supplies an American's lifetime energy needs, vs 70 tons of coal toxic, carcinogenic waste. Burn that coke can full in a GenIV reactor, where 90% of the uranium energy remains, and you are down to less than an ounce of waste, and that is valuable short-lived waste.
Germany is the #1 proponent of renewable electricity on the planet and after 25 yrs of all out effort they have the 2nd highest emissions in Europe per kwh generated and the 2nd highest electricity prices in Europe.