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2005-07-09 Home Front: Politix

Clean Air and Wind Power Get the Kiss of Death

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Posted by Flegum Thravinter3661 2005-07-09 07:14|| || Front Page|| [11135 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I hate to say "I told you so" but....

Actually, no, I don't.

I TOLD YOU SO, you idiot "environmentalists."

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-07-09 12:32|| http://www.ariellestjohndesigns.com]">[http://www.ariellestjohndesigns.com] 2005-07-09 12:32|| Front Page Top

#2 Wind and sun are free. It's the wind turbines and the solar cells that have long paybacks.

If wind power is the answer, it wouldn't require massive government subsidies. If solar power is the answer, it wouldn't require massive government subsidies. If ethanol is the answer, it wouldn't require massive government subsidies. When will the whacko environmentalists learn that it's not a solution unless it can be reasonably priced without a government subsidy?

Posted by Neutron Tom 2005-07-09 13:10|| 2005-07-09 13:10|| Front Page Top

#3 Tom - that would be never. :-(

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-07-09 13:27|| http://www.ariellestjohndesigns.com]">[http://www.ariellestjohndesigns.com] 2005-07-09 13:27|| Front Page Top

#4 Hmmm, nuclear power without a gov't subsidy...well ok I guess. But I can't afford it yet, that's for sure.

Posted by R 2005-07-09 13:28|| 2005-07-09 13:28|| Front Page Top

#5 Florida Power & Light Company, which owns many of the turbines
WTF? My cue for a stock bail.

Posted by Shipman 2005-07-09 14:22|| 2005-07-09 14:22|| Front Page Top

#6 The ultimate leftwing solution:

Keep the wind farms going and feed the dead birds to the poor. Problem solved.

Posted by badanov 2005-07-09 15:05|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2005-07-09 15:05|| Front Page Top

#7 Nuclear power is far and away the cheapest source of electricity. This study states electricity from coal costs ten times as much as electricty from nuclear. Since then the cost of coal has risen substantially (about doubled). The cost of nuclear has of course not changed. It goes on to state that were environmental costs included, the cost of electricity from coal would double relative to nuclear. So today electricity from coal costs around 50 times that of nuclear. Oil and gas are even more expensive. This is without factoring in the costs of Kyoto and global warming (were it to occur).

Care to retract that statement, R?

Posted by phil_b 2005-07-09 17:03|| 2005-07-09 17:03|| Front Page Top

#8 No, not yet. Who builds the (nuclear) power plants?

Posted by R 2005-07-09 17:11|| 2005-07-09 17:11|| Front Page Top

#9 Iran, North Korea...

Posted by Neutron Tom 2005-07-09 17:16|| 2005-07-09 17:16|| Front Page Top

#10 Who builds the (nuclear) power plants? What the f@@@ does it matter who builds them. Get the Canadians to build them along the border and export the electricity. Oops! Too late, they do that already. From the south side of Lake Ontario you can make out tall chimneys about 30 miles east of downtown Toronto. Thats the Pickering nuclear facility, one the largest in the world. From memory it has 5 reactors.

Posted by phil_b 2005-07-09 17:23|| 2005-07-09 17:23|| Front Page Top

#11 It just goes to show that it isn't possible to please everybody. Clean air, dead raptors. Live raptors, dirty air.

Take your pick, guys.

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-07-09 17:25|| 2005-07-09 17:25|| Front Page Top

#12 oil is massively subsidized... more than wind, solar and ethanol combined in both absolute and relative terms. The true price of oil has been estimated by the GAO to be well over $100/barrel when you count in subsidies to the industry, grants and loans to foreign oil producing countries and security for oil supply.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2005-07-09 17:52|| 2005-07-09 17:52|| Front Page Top

#13 And phil_b is right... nuclear is by far the cheapest and most secure source of power currently known. The reason it is not flourishing is companies can't get permits to build.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2005-07-09 17:55|| 2005-07-09 17:55|| Front Page Top

#14 phil_b... 10 times more for coal though? huh? That's simply not even close to true. It's just a little cheaper and when you count in distribution costs etc the difference in price becomes negligable.

Posted by Damn_Proud_American 2005-07-09 17:59|| 2005-07-09 17:59|| Front Page Top

#15 economically the turbines make sense - in certain locations. In East San Diego County, right before the mountain elevations drop to teh desert floor, they are setting up test towers to determine the economic feasibility of putting in turbine farms...Same thing in Tehachapi, where they have long established turbine farms....it's not subsidized here

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-07-09 17:59|| 2005-07-09 17:59|| Front Page Top

#16 Assuming of course that these companies have the cash to build a new plant, requiring no gov't input. What's it cost to build one of those things nowadays, $8 bil? Not cheap.

Posted by R 2005-07-09 18:03|| 2005-07-09 18:03|| Front Page Top

#17 that seems a bit high, R, but close, and in inflated $ - say 10 yr escalation. I'd guess that's close, within $1-2 billion ...

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-07-09 18:07|| 2005-07-09 18:07|| Front Page Top

#18 Think again, Frank. There's a federal tax credit.

Posted by Neutron Tom 2005-07-09 18:08|| 2005-07-09 18:08|| Front Page Top

#19 NT - I'd assumed as much - if we wish to wean from the oil-tick tit, I'm all for that, but that should be a visible part of the equation and I stand corrected

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-07-09 18:14|| 2005-07-09 18:14|| Front Page Top

#20 DPA, I didn't drill in the methodology used to get the 10X factor. I was just quoting it. The study is based on existing power plants and the cost of most nuclear power plants has been depreciated almost to zero. The majority are over 30 years old. Were the capital cost of new plants to be used I am sure the numbers would be different. However, improved technology would make new plants considerably cheaper to run. France the only developed country that has continued to build new nuclear plants, is now the world's largest exporter of electricity by a big margin and this is despite the high costs of distributing electricty over distances. This is becuase electricty from nuclear in France is so much cheaper than from any other source.

Posted by phil_b 2005-07-09 18:28|| 2005-07-09 18:28|| Front Page Top

#21 A massive chunk of the cost of building nukes is sunk in the regulatory process both overtly through the regulatory bureaucracy and resultant public and private litigation and covertly through changes required by regulators in each new facility that made every single nuke in the US different from every other thereby causing costs to skyrocket. The Bush administration has, apparently without anyone really noticing, greatly streamlined that process. E.g. (and IIRC): previously certified sites need not be re-certified (read "re-litigated") for new construction; operating permits are now to be issued in advance at the same time construction permits are issued which will greatly assist in preventing multi-billion dollar boondoggles that are litigated out of existence before providing their first kW; there is a move to pre-approve standardized nuclear plant designs sparing each new plant the necessity of starting from square one of the regulatory process, the arbitrary 40 year life imposed on nuclear facilities by federal regulators has been stretched with new 20 year license extensions allowing capital costs to be amortized over a much longer lifespan, etc. All of these things contribute greatly to nuclear power's newly-found economy.

Posted by AzCat 2005-07-09 18:30|| 2005-07-09 18:30|| Front Page Top

#22 Once upon a time most duck and geese migrated from Canada down to Mexico.

Mexico has no hunting laws. Now most geese and ducks that still migrate do so from Canada to Texas or Lousinia or FL. The new flocks are huge

Survival of the adaptors.

The Raptors will adapt or die. Only a short term problem. Greenpeace Lawyers are a different story.

Posted by 3dc 2005-07-09 19:57|| 2005-07-09 19:57|| Front Page Top

#23 The last sentence caught my eye: "We are suggesting turbine owners out there need to take some measures to reduce bird kill (okay so far), and that they come up with some adequate mitigation or compensation."

What will be adequate? People like Miller are unlikely to come up with any useful suggestions. And who gets the compensation? Sounds like a squeeze to me. Just another way to bilk others (us) out of cash.

On an entirely separate note, I can't get "Preview" to work anymore. Something change?

Posted by Whiskey Mike 2005-07-09 20:17|| 2005-07-09 20:17|| Front Page Top

#24 There is a who class of lawyers in the SF area that leech off of you and me through the "compensation" angle Wiskey Mike.

I say we open season on them, they are pure and simple greed heads.

Posted by Sock Puppet 0â Doom 2005-07-09 21:46|| 2005-07-09 21:46|| Front Page Top

#25 Just a quick note on Altamont Pass: AFAIK the main problem there is created by a specific model of vertical-axis wind turbine.

If those in particular were replaced there probably wouldn't be that many bird kills.

The question remains, though, whether it would stop the lawsuit.

I have some ideas of my own about this, but I haven't been able to get contact information for the operators of the farm.

(At least until the latest wave of lawsuits and the associated publicity. Now all I need is time).

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-07-09 22:55|| http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]">[http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2005-07-09 22:55|| Front Page Top

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