Wind Power Milestone Reached!

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by Derideo_Te, Jan 10, 2017.

  1. VietVet

    VietVet Well-Known Member

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    If you have a big enough grid, an over/undersupply in one region is absorbed by other regions. You still need plants - perhaps gas-fired - for peak needs - as is true with 100% fossil generation also.
    Hopefully, times such as peak A/C loading is when there ought to be peak solar generation - the Europeans are ahead of the world in use of renewables - an area where I would like us to be able to chant "We're no 1".
     
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  2. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why won't you study the problems with wind and solar? Best of all, hands down ... nuclear. Try to get Democrats to approve that and see how that works out. I would gladly join them for nuclear.
     
  3. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The grid needs to be covered for 100% of peak capacity by energy generation that is available 24/7/365. Wind and solar capacity is redundant and results in higher electrical prices. In Germany the price of electricity is triple that in the US. The growth rates of the economies in Europe are even less than the Obama economy.
     
  4. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    [​IMG]

     
  5. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Who is all for nuclear power? Keep in mind the very long term safety of the Navy use of nuclear power.
     
  6. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    I will not be happy until we completely ban all nuclear power. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and continuing waste disposal problems should tell you why.
     
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  7. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    How has the waste been disposed of and rendered harmless?
     
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  8. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Navy has it's site or sites. The best way to dispose of this waste is to encapsulate it. This means it is encased in a form of glass. This glass is further protected. America is fortunate to have Yucca Mountain as a disposal site. My hope is Trump opens it up since it is well prepared for the mission.
     
  9. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    So you admit there is no real disposal possible. No matter what we do with it, it remains to be subject to accident, natural disasters, theft, and it remains dangerous for many thousands of years. Allowing something like that to accumulate is insane!
     
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  10. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am well familiar with all. Three Mile island i did get close to when in the Harrisburg area. By golly, I saw no deformed humans. This is a case of a situation that got called a disaster and the Democrats got called out for mislabeling it.

    Chernobyl in Ukraine was a case where the Soviets used a failed technology nobody else used or has used later.

    You may not be aware of this but the protection done to the facility in Ukraine now has a new 100 year protective cover installed. Frankly it seems safe to live in the area of that failed reactor. Some feared it as much as a bomb but we now see that is bunk.

    Fukushima could have managed to make it had better engineering been done. But then again a super earthquake coupled with a super tsunami is one heck of a blow. Best to try to do a better job engineering.

    I would say a great example is both Nagasaki and Hiroshima where both recovered magnificently.
     
  11. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I did not say that. Waste is on the low level side of contamination to begin with. If you would steal contaminated uranium, heaven help you. I never would.

    This is much like flying. A good number of people have wild imaginations thus won't fly. I flew just yesterday from Kauai to Maui thence to San Jose, Ca. No problem. The woman passenger sitting next to me on the last leg admitted she was nervous. As i am a pilot, I reassured her she would land just fine.

    I studied the nuclear problems a lot around 1995 to 2005 and found much myth about uranium along with the waste.
     
  12. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    There's always an excuse and lame explanations for anyone desperate to hold to their beliefs in spite of the facts. You're saying "it didn't have to be this way" and "the reports were exaggerated", but they happened and those people in the area of the accident don't think they were exaggerated.
     
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  13. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Self confession is good for the soul. I am pleased it happened.
     
  14. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Better data than i supplied recently.
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-the-us-do-with-nuclear-waste/

     
  15. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    You know very well that was about you. You seem to be into playing games.

    You made excuses for poor engineering, yet the fact is that the poor engineering happened and the accident happened too. You said reports were exaggerated but the "official" reports conflicted with local residents' actual experience.:

    "The official figures are too low to account for the acute health effects reported by some local residents and documented in two books; such health effects require exposure to at least 100,000 millirems (100 rems) to the whole body - 1000 times more than the official estimates. The reported health effects are consistent with high doses of radiation, and comparable to the experiences of cancer patients undergoing radio-therapy, but have many other potential causes. The effects included "metallic taste, erythema, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, deaths of pets and farm and wild animals, and damage to plants." Some local statistics showed dramatic one-year changes among the most vulnerable: "In Dauphin County, where the Three Mile Island plant is located, the 1979 death rate among infants under one year represented a 28 percent increase over that of 1978, and among infants under one month, the death rate increased by 54 percent."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident_health_effects

    Nuclear power is too risky and isn't even practical now since it's levelized cost is far, far higher than most other technologies and in particular than that of wind and solar power which are now both cheaper than coal for centralized power production.
     
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  16. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Nothing there "rendered it harmless".

    Tell me something... you enjoy speculating, so why do you suppose the wealthy folks who insist that nuclear power is safe and that waste repository technologies are safe, don't offer their own neighborhoods as acceptable places for such storage? In fact, nobody who is a nuclear energy advocate has ever offered to live near nuclear plants or waste disposal sites. They let it be imposed on others.
     
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  17. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Unfortunately the Democrats and their supporters force us all to live far too close to nuclear waste today. All over America we live with waste. I prefer it be in the desert mountain known as Yucca mountain. All who are fearful should drive to Las Vegas and take the trip up to see the area. It is a long drive up from Las Vegas so bring water along.

    Nuclear power is very safe. To cite several wide spread instances of things gone wrong is akin to calling a few airplane crashes an unsafe way to be transported.
     
  18. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    About me you say? I think you admitted to rules violations.

    I made no excuses. I made comments as to engineering. Engineers are well known as to making very improved designs. I trust them for the most part.

    There is an excellent book by a university professor, at UC Berkeley of all places, and he wrote up an excellent chapter on the Chernobyl incident. But do you really think most engineers are as poor as were those who designed the Chernobyl plant? Those were Soviets.

    I trust you are an excellent reader and enjoy real recent investigations into things you talk of. So with that in mind, get this book.

    [​IMG]
     
  19. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Maybe i can get you a map of the present nuclear waste disposal sites.

    https://www.nrc.gov/waste.html

    That site produces the various levels of danger disposal sites.

    https://www.nrc.gov/waste/hlw-disposal/yucca-lic-app/photo-loc.html

    [​IMG]

    Desert site

    [​IMG]

    Yucca Mountain tunnel entry

    [​IMG]
    Note men for scale

    Inside tunnel

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2017
  20. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good information on Chernobyl

    https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/chernobyl-bg.html

    Keep this part in mind. "The Chernobyl accident's severe radiation effects killed 28 of the site's 600 workers in the first four months"

    OK, 28 deaths is many, but out of 600 people? That means 572 survived. For such an event, that is awfully good news. Do you agree that 572 living was great news?
     
  21. VietVet

    VietVet Well-Known Member

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    Europeans live longer, happier lives, so there's that....
     
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  22. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not longer. Happier with triple the electricity prices and gasoline prices at ~ $6 per gallon ?? But why not move there ??
     
  23. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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  24. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Quality of life is not dependent upon the price of gasoline or electricity in Europe.
     
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  25. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Having a hot shower knowing that I used nothing but sunlight to heat the water is actually quite a satisfying experience. Given how much electricity is used to heat a geyser it doesn't even take that long to pay for the system to pay for itself either. There are plenty of places in the USA where peak AC loads could be reduced by households adopting the use of alternative energy. It would be nice if the USA chose to be #1 in that area alone.
     
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