An Energy Question?

[flacaltenn]

While the debate rages on both sides about such things as wind,solar, nuclear, nat-gas, oil, and a whole host of other energy sources, it leads me to ask a question. At what point does this debate become harmful to this nation? let me explain, by picking and choosing what technology is good and what is bad are we not then putting our feet at the throat of American innovation and as a by-product of that American Jobs ?

Take the Chevy Volt for instance, while not everyone's cup of tea, and perhaps a little pricey amongst other things, I'm frankly stunned that Americans especially in todays economy and todays global atmosphere that some would be so against this car just on the off chance it is associated with a political figure they dont happen to like.

The same is true for domestic oil and gas production and solar, and wind, if we as a nation intend to stay at or near the top then we have to have the energy sources to do so. To produce, explore, and make the products needed for this here in this nation can serve only one purpose, it makes this nation stronger and less dependant on nations that do not have our best interests at heart.

While it's true that some of these new technologies might take time and even some might fail before it becomes a part of our daily lives , that is the cost we pay to take that path and realize the benefits of those technologies. Take for instance the auto industry, at it's inception there were over a 100 different companies producing cars in this nation, and over the years as the technology grew , companies came and went. In short no matter what the technology, if we STOP innovation then we choose long road to decline.

Great post Navy1960 (your screen name always makes me recall Joe Bellino)

America is in a war. I'm not talking about Afghanistan or Iraq. I'm talking about a war most Americans don't even know we are in, or know that America is losing badly. We are having our heads handed to us while we argue over climate change.

Green China? You'd better believe it

A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that China was the world’s number one investor in green energy in 2010.

With a total investment of $54.4 billion, China was well ahead of second-ranked Germany ($41.2 billion) and the US in third place with $34 billion invested, not to mention Australia with $3.3 billion and ranked 12th.


The New Chinese War for Energy

“We’re fighting our own war against terrorism. They’re fighting a war to accumulate enough resources so that they can live through the next century with a new kind of energy system,” reveals Stephen Leeb, author of Red Alert: How China’s Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life. In this episode of Radio Free Dylan, Stephen describes the ever-growing political and economic power of China, and how their wind, solar and renewable energy development is leaving other countries – especially the United States — in the dust.

“China is spending all the money they possibly can to create and better those particular industries and they’re creating a lot of jobs in the process… The two critical renewable alternative energy industries on this planet are wind and solar and both of them, China has a hammerlock,” says Stephen. “They’re in a war to acquire resources, not just for the sake of depriving the rest of the world of these resources, but to have the resources that they need to build out a new energy infrastructure.”

The United States, he says, will be left playing catch up unless we make a dramatic push for redesigning our national energy infrastructure, affecting not only how we power our country, but our financial and economic future as well.

“We spend a lot of time talking about how we can reduce debt in this country and I think that that’s a very good discussion. But at the end of the Second World War, we had government debt as a percent of GDP was greater than it is today, but what’s the difference? The difference was that at the end of the Second World War, perhaps inadvertently, we had created, in order to win that war, we had created an infrastructure that allowed the United States a generation of great economic growth,” says Stephen.

In terms of installed capacity, China’s wind power sector alone doubled every year between 2005 and 2009. According to the latest statistics from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), China added 18.9 GW of new wind power capacity in 2010, thus overtaking the US with the most installed wind power capacity in the world.

China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), recently considered a 'New Energy Industry Development Strategy’ which is to be adopted as a major policy document by the State Council (some changes are expected due to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster).

According to this proposed development strategy, during 2011-2020, China will invest about $800 billion in seven green energy areas, namely, wind, solar, nuclear, bio-energy, hydro, coal cleaning and smart power grid.

The name does tend to age me somewhat, but then again what would the world be without a few of us old codgers out there to make the young folks lives miserable ( my attempt at humor) before everyone takes that too seriously. As for my thread here, I tend to think that our nation still has more than enough brain power and will to choose it's own destiny and once again take its place at the top of the economic energy production stand. It's my humble opinion that for too long now, during both Republican and Democrat Administration we have settled into this comfort zone of dependence on foreign sources of energy and allowed ourselves to fall into a 2nd class status when it comes to being a major player in the world. I fail to understand the need to use technologies as political "fodder" be it wind,solar, gas, oil, nuclear, when the production of those technologies makes this nation stronger, employs Americans, makes this nation more financially secure and most of all keeps money to buy weapons out of the hands of nations that dont like us very much. So what if an energy company fails, that is all part of how technology advances for the benefit of everyone in a free market. Take for example the PC, does anyone here still run out an buy an Osborne computer or any number of the 100's of companies that have come and gone during the evolution of the PC? The bottom line here we as a nation need to understand that sometimes seeking cheap offshore goods for that sake of saving a dollar, doesn't always benefit this nation and doesn't always save the dollar you think it does and when it comes to energy, if we want jobs, and security as welll as long lasting financial security for this nation then we begin by advancing EVERY form of domestic energy that benefits Americans and let those that survive do so and those that fail do the same.

There's nothing more serious than a nation not having a reliable, consistent, plentiful and cheap source of energy. Wind and solar are failing because they are neither reliable, consistent or actually cheap (when all factors are considered). Before you write off my comments as political --- I have posted uses for PROPER utilization of wind and solar that involve using it OFF-GRID for producing transportation fuels and other commodities.

There was a shake-out in computer manufacturers (like Osbourne and TI) but NEVER in that period would the ETF for the entire sector look like the following graphs for the overall Global solar and wind markets..

Data tells us that solar and wind are MATURE. That the market is OVER-SUPPLIED, and subsidies for PRODUCT should cease. I would however fund basic R&D on the technologies, but they are now commodity items. And they have limited application on a grid that MUST operate EVERY MINUTE 24/7/365 days a year..

 

[Bfgrn]

Great post Navy1960 (your screen name always makes me recall Joe Bellino)

America is in a war. I'm not talking about Afghanistan or Iraq. I'm talking about a war most Americans don't even know we are in, or know that America is losing badly. We are having our heads handed to us while we argue over climate change.

Green China? You'd better believe it

A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that China was the world’s number one investor in green energy in 2010.

With a total investment of $54.4 billion, China was well ahead of second-ranked Germany ($41.2 billion) and the US in third place with $34 billion invested, not to mention Australia with $3.3 billion and ranked 12th.


The New Chinese War for Energy

“We’re fighting our own war against terrorism. They’re fighting a war to accumulate enough resources so that they can live through the next century with a new kind of energy system,” reveals Stephen Leeb, author of Red Alert: How China’s Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life. In this episode of Radio Free Dylan, Stephen describes the ever-growing political and economic power of China, and how their wind, solar and renewable energy development is leaving other countries – especially the United States — in the dust.

“China is spending all the money they possibly can to create and better those particular industries and they’re creating a lot of jobs in the process… The two critical renewable alternative energy industries on this planet are wind and solar and both of them, China has a hammerlock,” says Stephen. “They’re in a war to acquire resources, not just for the sake of depriving the rest of the world of these resources, but to have the resources that they need to build out a new energy infrastructure.”

The United States, he says, will be left playing catch up unless we make a dramatic push for redesigning our national energy infrastructure, affecting not only how we power our country, but our financial and economic future as well.

“We spend a lot of time talking about how we can reduce debt in this country and I think that that’s a very good discussion. But at the end of the Second World War, we had government debt as a percent of GDP was greater than it is today, but what’s the difference? The difference was that at the end of the Second World War, perhaps inadvertently, we had created, in order to win that war, we had created an infrastructure that allowed the United States a generation of great economic growth,” says Stephen.

In terms of installed capacity, China’s wind power sector alone doubled every year between 2005 and 2009. According to the latest statistics from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), China added 18.9 GW of new wind power capacity in 2010, thus overtaking the US with the most installed wind power capacity in the world.

China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), recently considered a 'New Energy Industry Development Strategy’ which is to be adopted as a major policy document by the State Council (some changes are expected due to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster).

According to this proposed development strategy, during 2011-2020, China will invest about $800 billion in seven green energy areas, namely, wind, solar, nuclear, bio-energy, hydro, coal cleaning and smart power grid.

The name does tend to age me somewhat, but then again what would the world be without a few of us old codgers out there to make the young folks lives miserable ( my attempt at humor) before everyone takes that too seriously. As for my thread here, I tend to think that our nation still has more than enough brain power and will to choose it's own destiny and once again take its place at the top of the economic energy production stand. It's my humble opinion that for too long now, during both Republican and Democrat Administration we have settled into this comfort zone of dependence on foreign sources of energy and allowed ourselves to fall into a 2nd class status when it comes to being a major player in the world. I fail to understand the need to use technologies as political "fodder" be it wind,solar, gas, oil, nuclear, when the production of those technologies makes this nation stronger, employs Americans, makes this nation more financially secure and most of all keeps money to buy weapons out of the hands of nations that dont like us very much. So what if an energy company fails, that is all part of how technology advances for the benefit of everyone in a free market. Take for example the PC, does anyone here still run out an buy an Osborne computer or any number of the 100's of companies that have come and gone during the evolution of the PC? The bottom line here we as a nation need to understand that sometimes seeking cheap offshore goods for that sake of saving a dollar, doesn't always benefit this nation and doesn't always save the dollar you think it does and when it comes to energy, if we want jobs, and security as welll as long lasting financial security for this nation then we begin by advancing EVERY form of domestic energy that benefits Americans and let those that survive do so and those that fail do the same.

There's nothing more serious than a nation not having a reliable, consistent, plentiful and cheap source of energy. Wind and solar are failing because they are neither reliable, consistent or actually cheap (when all factors are considered). Before you write off my comments as political --- I have posted uses for PROPER utilization of wind and solar that involve using it OFF-GRID for producing transportation fuels and other commodities.

There was a shake-out in computer manufacturers (like Osbourne and TI) but NEVER in that period would the ETF for the entire sector look like the following graphs for the overall Global solar and wind markets..

Data tells us that solar and wind are MATURE. That the market is OVER-SUPPLIED, and subsidies for PRODUCT should cease. I would however fund basic R&D on the technologies, but they are now commodity items. And they have limited application on a grid that MUST operate EVERY MINUTE 24/7/365 days a year..

Although some authorities on nuclear power around the world have said that it would be unwise to radically change energy policies due to one incident, nuclear power is getting much less popular throughout the world. Several of the European Union member states are conducting extensive reviews of their nuclear energy safety programs and Germany has gone so far as to shut down several of its oldest nuclear reactors.

If the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant worsens, it could be a blow to the nuclear power industry but it could also give a huge boost to the prospects of companies with operations in the alternative energy sector, such as wind and solar.

Read more: How to Trade the Japanese Radiation Scare (LDK, TSL, HSOL, FAN, PWND, GEX) | Benzinga

 

[flacaltenn]

Wind and Solar are not and never will be an alternative to a 24/7/365 nuclear plant. It's hard enough balancing the grid with FULL-TIME facilities going down for maintenance..

You do not build the energy supply for a modern economy on STOCHASTIC models. With a wind source, it's there for 20 minutes -- gone for 40 minutes. NO ONE is gonna idle a coal powered plant to take 20 minutes of wind power onto the grid. ((UNLESS - the GOVT demands that they do -- in which case the coal/gas plant keeps running but the energy is sent wasted into the ground)) That kind of lunacy is coming to an end.

The COST of wind considering this redundancy requirement is Astronomically high -- and the enviro savings because of the sporadic nature are waaay less than is attributed to it..

It's about peaked.. Nice experiment -- bad economics and engineering.

 

[Navy1960]

The Solana Generating Station is a 250-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona. The plant will be located on the northwest corner of Interstate 8 (I-8) and Painted Rock Dam road.

It will produce enough energy to serve 70,000 APS customers when operating at full capacity. The plant will be built by Abengoa Solar Inc., and is scheduled to provide renewable energy beginning in 2013
APS :: About Solana - Arizona's Largest Solar Power Plant

The use of wind power in the United States has expanded quickly over the last several years. Construction of new wind power generation capacity in the first quarter of 2012 totaled 1695 megawatts (MW) bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 48,611 MW.[1] This capacity is exceeded only by China.[2] For the 12 months from June 2011 to May 2012, the electricity produced from wind power in the United States amounted to 129 terawatt-hours, or 3.17% of all generated electrical energy.[3] In 2010, the wind power industry in the US received 42% ($4.986 billion) of all federal subsidies for electricity generation.[4]

New wind farms can produce electricity in the 5-8 cents per kWh range, making wind power competitive with the cost of fossil fuel electricity generation in many markets.[5] Fourteen states have installed over 1,000 MW of wind capacity, and a total of 37 states now have installed at least some utility-scale wind power.[6] Texas, with 10,337 MW of capacity, has the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 4,322 MW.[7] The Alta Wind Energy Center in California is the largest wind farm in the United States with a capacity of 1020 MW of power
Wind power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As of 2011, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008.[1] The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Just a thought here, it would seem to me that if you concentrate on ALL these technologies as a means to produce power, alongside domestic oil and gas production as well as a whole host of other domestic energy technologies, then its a large upside for this nation. It creates millions of new jobs, as well as makes this nation stronger in terms of its own domestic energy supply and takes financial power out of the hands of oil producing nations that currently use monies from the US to fund groups around the globe that do not have our interests at heart.

 

[Trakar]

I can't help but think if the Apollo program were today, we would have never gone to the Moon because on one side you would have people saying, "it costs too much" and on the other "rockets cause the birds not to migrate" and as we did the rest of world would wave as they flew past us. As they are now.

Eer, ...that's largely the way it was!

NASA was under constant reproach and attack by environmentalist extremests, and was a big target for fiscal conservatives (most infamously for the amount of "Golden Fleece" awards it received) "a Kennedy project" that deserved diminishment and swipes wherever possible (and I was a Nixon Republican who often nodded my head at such comments, even as many of my classmates were headed toward eventual aerospace engineering jobs in the field) The political vitriole of the past may have been more private and less mainstream in the past, but I can vouch for its existence in the '50s and '60s.

Yout last sentence in your post is EXACTLY why I put that statement in there, in fact I was in the Navy at the time of the "Apollo program" so am well aware of the history of the project. The reason in which I posted my comment was to show that political vitriole today has become so toxic that the program would never have accomplised it's intended mission regardless of the talk at the time. All programs had at one time or the other, people who disagreed with them on issues of cost, performance, environmental, and even a political basis, but for the most part there was a sense of national pride regardless of the disagreements even for a Nixon Republican and a Kennedy Democrat.

Sorry about the delay in response, real life frequently interrupts my discussions here. Training camp opened and I've spent most of the last week up in Renton watching my Seahawks get ready for the coming season! As for the partisanship, there are more people, thus more extremists and a media driven to accentuate the conflict to draw voyeurs, participants and most importantly, advertisers, to their venue.

People are pretty much as they have always been. In times of societal stresses, some people tend to respond and react with an exaggeration of their personalities. Perhaps these factors play into the types of polarizations we see in so many aspects of our modern culture, not really my specialty.

I don't think that national pride nor the lack thereof is any more pronounced in prevalence or absence than it has ever been, but I'd be interested in what evidences led you to that conclusion.

 

[Trakar]

Oh one more than too, if you have not guessed, I'm sort of the ALL in type as long as it benefits the Good Ol USA and our people!!.

The problem, as I see, it is that the 'green' agenda has been hijacked by very left wing politics as a means to an end. Do they care about green principles? No, but they see it as an opportunity to grab power... political power...

What leads you to this net of understandings? What evidences led you to accepting this as the most accurate and plausible explanation of the vaguely described and largely undefined "'green' agenda" and "very left wing politics"?

 

[Navy1960]

Eer, ...that's largely the way it was!

NASA was under constant reproach and attack by environmentalist extremests, and was a big target for fiscal conservatives (most infamously for the amount of "Golden Fleece" awards it received) "a Kennedy project" that deserved diminishment and swipes wherever possible (and I was a Nixon Republican who often nodded my head at such comments, even as many of my classmates were headed toward eventual aerospace engineering jobs in the field) The political vitriole of the past may have been more private and less mainstream in the past, but I can vouch for its existence in the '50s and '60s.

Yout last sentence in your post is EXACTLY why I put that statement in there, in fact I was in the Navy at the time of the "Apollo program" so am well aware of the history of the project. The reason in which I posted my comment was to show that political vitriole today has become so toxic that the program would never have accomplised it's intended mission regardless of the talk at the time. All programs had at one time or the other, people who disagreed with them on issues of cost, performance, environmental, and even a political basis, but for the most part there was a sense of national pride regardless of the disagreements even for a Nixon Republican and a Kennedy Democrat.

Sorry about the delay in response, real life frequently interrupts my discussions here. Training camp opened and I've spent most of the last week up in Renton watching my Seahawks get ready for the coming season! As for the partisanship, there are more people, thus more extremists and a media driven to accentuate the conflict to draw voyeurs, participants and most importantly, advertisers, to their venue.

People are pretty much as they have always been. In times of societal stresses, some people tend to respond and react with an exaggeration of their personalities. Perhaps these factors play into the types of polarizations we see in so many aspects of our modern culture, not really my specialty.

I don't think that national pride nor the lack thereof is any more pronounced in prevalence or absence than it has ever been, but I'd be interested in what evidences led you to that conclusion.

Initial NASA estimates of the costs of Project Apollo were about $20 billion through the end of the decade, a figure approaching $150 billion in 1992 dollars when accounting for inflation. Webb quickly stretched those initial estimates for Apollo as far as possible, with the intent that even if NASA did not receive its full budget requests, as it did not during the latter half of the decade, it would still be able to complete Apollo. At one point in 1963, for instance, Webb came forward with a NASA funding projection through 1970 for more than $35 billion. As it turned out Webb was able to sustain the momentum of Apollo through the decade, largely because of his rapport with key members of Congress and with Lyndon B. Johnson, who became president in November 1963.34

Project Apollo, backed by sufficient funding, was the tangible result of an early national commitment in response to a perceived threat to the United States by the Soviet Union. NASA leaders recognized that while the size of the task was enormous, it was still technologically and financially within their grasp, but they had to move forward quickly. Accordingly, the space agency's annual budget increased from $500 million in 1960 to a high point of $5.2 billion in 1965.35 The NASA funding level represented 5.3 percent of the federal budget in 1965. A comparable percentage of the $1.23 trillion Federal budget in 1992 would have equaled more than $65 billion for NASA, whereas the agency's actual budget then stood at less than $15 billion.

Out of the budgets appropriated for NASA each year approximately 50 percent went directly for human spaceflight, and the vast majority of that went directly toward Apollo. Between 1959 and 1973 NASA spent $23.6 billion on human spaceflight, exclusive of infrastructure and support, of which nearly $20 billion was for Apollo.36 In addition, Webb sought to expand the definition of Project Apollo beyond just the mission of landing humans on the Moon. As a result even those projects not officially funded under the Apollo line item could be justified as supporting the mission, such as the Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor satellite probes.

Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis

This bill (PDF) actually keeps NSF at the fiscal year ’11 funding, although that’s $900 million less than the Presidential request. NOAA is being cut $100 million (2.2%), or $1 billion less than requested. NIST: cut by $50 million over FY11 (6.5%), $300 million less than requested.

But NASA is the one where the cuts are nothing short of savage. The cuts total $1.64 billion from last year, which is nearly $2 billion less than requested. That’s a cut of 8.8%. A billion of that is due to the Shuttle retiring, but the galling part is that the House is requiring that all funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s successor, be cut entirely. In other words, they are canceling the JWST program
Congress puts NASA and JWST on the chopping block | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Heres the deal, while it was true that during the 60's people were basically split on public opinion about going the moon my reference was in a Govt. that set its mind to a task and then accomplished it. Let me cite you an example, as you are well aware the Space Shuttle was recently retired, and for years now as various Administrations both Republican and Democrat decided upon a direction for NASA , the current President came into office and after a review of the last one's plan to return to the moon led to its cancellation and as a result when the Space Shuttle was retired, the US was left with no ability for manned space flight for the first time in almost 45 years. I submit this is because you have a lack of direction at NASA and as a result no " national pride" in its achievenments. This can be seen in a congress that cannot even agree on it's direction and with each Administration you have a changing focus that results in no accomplisments. In fact the in the last several years I would submit to you that the biggest accomplishments at NASA were a result of unmanned low cost space flight that had little or no fanfare, i.e. the Mars Rovers. Forgive me if I see out society as more politically divissive than during my younger days , at least during that time the Govt. could at least disagree on issues as well as the American public and still come to a point whre we could accomplish great things. I believe we still have that ability today, however, I am of the opinion that many see their political party as where their loyality needs to be above their nations and to be and while many may disagree with me, in the past at least in my humble opinion always took a back seat to the nations.

 

[whitehall]

A debate is never harmful. A forced agenda is. It's hard to believe that there are Americans who really believe that a substitute for oil is right around the corner, oil makes you sick and government can force the private sector to invent something. Meanwhile we are selling our grand-kids future to oil producing countries while we are in an economic crisis. A person could reasonably assume that democrats are conspiring to ruin this Country.

 

[flacaltenn]

The Solana Generating Station is a 250-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona. The plant will be located on the northwest corner of Interstate 8 (I-8) and Painted Rock Dam road.

It will produce enough energy to serve 70,000 APS customers when operating at full capacity. The plant will be built by Abengoa Solar Inc., and is scheduled to provide renewable energy beginning in 2013
APS :: About Solana - Arizona's Largest Solar Power Plant

The use of wind power in the United States has expanded quickly over the last several years. Construction of new wind power generation capacity in the first quarter of 2012 totaled 1695 megawatts (MW) bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 48,611 MW.[1] This capacity is exceeded only by China.[2] For the 12 months from June 2011 to May 2012, the electricity produced from wind power in the United States amounted to 129 terawatt-hours, or 3.17% of all generated electrical energy.[3] In 2010, the wind power industry in the US received 42% ($4.986 billion) of all federal subsidies for electricity generation.[4]

New wind farms can produce electricity in the 5-8 cents per kWh range, making wind power competitive with the cost of fossil fuel electricity generation in many markets.[5] Fourteen states have installed over 1,000 MW of wind capacity, and a total of 37 states now have installed at least some utility-scale wind power.[6] Texas, with 10,337 MW of capacity, has the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 4,322 MW.[7] The Alta Wind Energy Center in California is the largest wind farm in the United States with a capacity of 1020 MW of power
Wind power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As of 2011, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008.[1] The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Just a thought here, it would seem to me that if you concentrate on ALL these technologies as a means to produce power, alongside domestic oil and gas production as well as a whole host of other domestic energy technologies, then its a large upside for this nation. It creates millions of new jobs, as well as makes this nation stronger in terms of its own domestic energy supply and takes financial power out of the hands of oil producing nations that currently use monies from the US to fund groups around the globe that do not have our interests at heart.

Nice sales job.. Quick Question.. Have you ever seen a daily production schedule from a large wind farm? Got any idea how to use something that 20minutes on and 30 minutes off without WASTING the energy from a fully fledged primary back-up system???

 

[Navy1960]

The Solana Generating Station is a 250-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona. The plant will be located on the northwest corner of Interstate 8 (I-8) and Painted Rock Dam road.

It will produce enough energy to serve 70,000 APS customers when operating at full capacity. The plant will be built by Abengoa Solar Inc., and is scheduled to provide renewable energy beginning in 2013
APS :: About Solana - Arizona's Largest Solar Power Plant

The use of wind power in the United States has expanded quickly over the last several years. Construction of new wind power generation capacity in the first quarter of 2012 totaled 1695 megawatts (MW) bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 48,611 MW.[1] This capacity is exceeded only by China.[2] For the 12 months from June 2011 to May 2012, the electricity produced from wind power in the United States amounted to 129 terawatt-hours, or 3.17% of all generated electrical energy.[3] In 2010, the wind power industry in the US received 42% ($4.986 billion) of all federal subsidies for electricity generation.[4]

New wind farms can produce electricity in the 5-8 cents per kWh range, making wind power competitive with the cost of fossil fuel electricity generation in many markets.[5] Fourteen states have installed over 1,000 MW of wind capacity, and a total of 37 states now have installed at least some utility-scale wind power.[6] Texas, with 10,337 MW of capacity, has the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 4,322 MW.[7] The Alta Wind Energy Center in California is the largest wind farm in the United States with a capacity of 1020 MW of power
Wind power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As of 2011, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008.[1] The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Just a thought here, it would seem to me that if you concentrate on ALL these technologies as a means to produce power, alongside domestic oil and gas production as well as a whole host of other domestic energy technologies, then its a large upside for this nation. It creates millions of new jobs, as well as makes this nation stronger in terms of its own domestic energy supply and takes financial power out of the hands of oil producing nations that currently use monies from the US to fund groups around the globe that do not have our interests at heart.

Nice sales job.. Quick Question.. Have you ever seen a daily production schedule from a large wind farm? Got any idea how to use something that 20minutes on and 30 minutes off without WASTING the energy from a fully fledged primary back-up system???

third storage project envisaged by Gamesa is the creation of high-capacity flux batteries. These batteries will be able to store a dozen of MW per hour. This system could be used to efficiently store excess power generated from wind farms. The project is still in its initial research phase.

However, companies such as Xcel Energy have such systems readily available. They have developed a storage system which can save 7.2 MWh of electricity with its wind-to-battery system.
Wind Energy

Thats just one idea out of many, so what is your point? don't develop any of these domestic energy resources because its too hard? Or simply keep importing more and more oil and gas from the middle east and watch as billions of American dollars flow offshore to nations that don't have our best interests at heart? If your suggesting that Nuclear and drill for more oil and gas is the solution, you do realize how much it costs to not only build a nuclear plant , then you run into costs, and others issues associated with waste storage. So there is no perfect solution . My contention is why simply, spend your time on calling into question issues with one technology when all of them together serve to move this nation into a positive direction . Frankly what I posted reflected what is in place now, not a sales job as you say, and is a indication that utility companies are starting to broaden their focus into these energy fields. Finally, if your going to develop a technology , then as that technology matures , solutions will evolve as well. Even a mature field like oil and gas is no where near the same as it was 100 years ago, and as technology improves so to does the ability for that industry to harvest that resource as well as wind and solar.

 

[flacaltenn]

The Solana Generating Station is a 250-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona. The plant will be located on the northwest corner of Interstate 8 (I-8) and Painted Rock Dam road.

It will produce enough energy to serve 70,000 APS customers when operating at full capacity. The plant will be built by Abengoa Solar Inc., and is scheduled to provide renewable energy beginning in 2013
APS :: About Solana - Arizona's Largest Solar Power Plant

The use of wind power in the United States has expanded quickly over the last several years. Construction of new wind power generation capacity in the first quarter of 2012 totaled 1695 megawatts (MW) bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 48,611 MW.[1] This capacity is exceeded only by China.[2] For the 12 months from June 2011 to May 2012, the electricity produced from wind power in the United States amounted to 129 terawatt-hours, or 3.17% of all generated electrical energy.[3] In 2010, the wind power industry in the US received 42% ($4.986 billion) of all federal subsidies for electricity generation.[4]

New wind farms can produce electricity in the 5-8 cents per kWh range, making wind power competitive with the cost of fossil fuel electricity generation in many markets.[5] Fourteen states have installed over 1,000 MW of wind capacity, and a total of 37 states now have installed at least some utility-scale wind power.[6] Texas, with 10,337 MW of capacity, has the most installed wind power capacity of any U.S. state, followed by Iowa with 4,322 MW.[7] The Alta Wind Energy Center in California is the largest wind farm in the United States with a capacity of 1020 MW of power
Wind power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As of 2011, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008.[1] The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Just a thought here, it would seem to me that if you concentrate on ALL these technologies as a means to produce power, alongside domestic oil and gas production as well as a whole host of other domestic energy technologies, then its a large upside for this nation. It creates millions of new jobs, as well as makes this nation stronger in terms of its own domestic energy supply and takes financial power out of the hands of oil producing nations that currently use monies from the US to fund groups around the globe that do not have our interests at heart.

Nice sales job.. Quick Question.. Have you ever seen a daily production schedule from a large wind farm? Got any idea how to use something that 20minutes on and 30 minutes off without WASTING the energy from a fully fledged primary back-up system???

third storage project envisaged by Gamesa is the creation of high-capacity flux batteries. These batteries will be able to store a dozen of MW per hour. This system could be used to efficiently store excess power generated from wind farms. The project is still in its initial research phase.

However, companies such as Xcel Energy have such systems readily available. They have developed a storage system which can save 7.2 MWh of electricity with its wind-to-battery system.
Wind Energy

Thats just one idea out of many, so what is your point? don't develop any of these domestic energy resources because its too hard? Or simply keep importing more and more oil and gas from the middle east and watch as billions of American dollars flow offshore to nations that don't have our best interests at heart? If your suggesting that Nuclear and drill for more oil and gas is the solution, you do realize how much it costs to not only build a nuclear plant , then you run into costs, and others issues associated with waste storage. So there is no perfect solution . My contention is why simply, spend your time on calling into question issues with one technology when all of them together serve to move this nation into a positive direction . Frankly what I posted reflected what is in place now, not a sales job as you say, and is a indication that utility companies are starting to broaden their focus into these energy fields. Finally, if your going to develop a technology , then as that technology matures , solutions will evolve as well. Even a mature field like oil and gas is no where near the same as it was 100 years ago, and as technology improves so to does the ability for that industry to harvest that resource as well as wind and solar.

Before we run off Rube Goldberg style and try to patch a fundamentally unsound method of supplying a grid with sketchy power sources --- we should check the original enviromental premises. You CAN run home on 24/7/365 on nuclear power with only 0.7 ounces of waste per year. Something that is imminently solvable considering that putting mercury or lithium or any other heavy metal into a waste stream has a longer "half-life" of toxicity than nuclear material..

When I see us REPLACING and BUILDING out considerable amounts of nuclear (like 150 new plants) I'll be a lot more receptive to the meme that "we should be using ALL AVAILABLE methods" of energy production..

Adding local battery storage to wind will:

1) Greatly increase the price, perhaps doubling the installed cost of a wind field.

2) Create a Ginormous environmental waste stream from toxic materials that have a limited useful life.

3)Still not address the redundancy and back-up costs of idling a nat gas or coal plant for periods of time that can't be served from the battery - buffered wind. Like Tuesday and Saturday).

4) The design of wind turbines will have to change to reduce the inefficiencies of "inverting and re-inverting" the power stored in the batteries. Meaning that OLD existing designs will not be as efficient with battery systems and be less valuable. Add to that the inefficiency of charging and discharging and leakage and you have reduced a wind turbine from producing ONLY 30% of it's capacity today -- to perhaps 20% of its rated capacity tomorrow.

5) ALL of these battery-backed wind concepts that I know of are talking about TRANSIENT short-term storage of wind energy. Nothing exceeding a couple hours of production.. The idea being to "bundle" the wind spikes into parcels more easily sold and managed on the grid. STILL does not address the MEAN or AVERAGE unreliability of the system. Typically you buy 3X the generation capacity that you will get. That's why I'm not impressed with the numbers for INSTALLED capacity. But typically you get energy above 30% only 2 to 3 a week on a GOOD week..

The Danes have virtually thrown their hands up on handling wind on the grid. They invested immense cash in "electric water boilers" that take the bulk of their wind generation and pre-heat water as a "storage element".. This dictates that energy from somewhere ELSE on the grid be used to finish it off into steam and turbine movement.

The Germans are tearing up MOUNTAINS in their pristine wilderness to put in Wind hydro storage. With MILES of pipes that add huge inefficiencies in pumps and motors and infrastructure to merely attempt to smooth unreliable wind power.

Rube Goldberg language ""over the top""??? -- not to this Electrical Engineer...

Now to be fair.. I'm a HUGE FAN of taking wind/solar OFF THE GRID and using them to make HYDROGEN, chemicals and OTHER energy intensive fuels. Another more rational type of "energy storage". THIS -- would enable a transport energy shift to Fuel Cells and BioFuels created with wind/solar and is HIGHLY rational..

 

[lectricgenius]

While the debate rages on both sides about such things as wind,solar, nuclear, nat-gas, oil, and a whole host of other energy sources, it leads me to ask a question. At what point does this debate become harmful to this nation? let me explain, by picking and choosing what technology is good and what is bad are we not then putting our feet at the throat of American innovation and as a by-product of that American Jobs ?

Take the Chevy Volt for instance, while not everyone's cup of tea, and perhaps a little pricey amongst other things, I'm frankly stunned that Americans especially in todays economy and todays global atmosphere that some would be so against this car just on the off chance it is associated with a political figure they dont happen to like.

The same is true for domestic oil and gas production and solar, and wind, if we as a nation intend to stay at or near the top then we have to have the energy sources to do so. To produce, explore, and make the products needed for this here in this nation can serve only one purpose, it makes this nation stronger and less dependant on nations that do not have our best interests at heart.

While it's true that some of these new technologies might take time and even some might fail before it becomes a part of our daily lives , that is the cost we pay to take that path and realize the benefits of those technologies. Take for instance the auto industry, at it's inception there were over a 100 different companies producing cars in this nation, and over the years as the technology grew , companies came and went. In short no matter what the technology, if we STOP innovation then we choose long road to decline.

Right, and we have known abt things like the zinc air battery for over three decades now as can be evidenced by this site search for argonne national labe via google: site:anl.gov zinc-air. Furthermore we were on track to go to completely electric with our fleet of cars before george w bush n dick chenet hijacked our government and took us to war for oil!

 

[Trakar]

As of 2011, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008.[1] The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear power in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah, the hazards of relying on Wiki! I've made changes that will be reviewed. The EIC source (1) stated .807 TWh not 806.2 TWh for annual US nuclear power generation. (makes sense as current total net electrical energy production in the US is around 4-5 TWh and is expected to be 9-10 Twh in 2030).

I support a 5 TWh/by 2030 nuclear baseload program, along with carbon bond programs to help establish solar (both pv and therm), wind, geotherm, tidal/wave/current and more traditional hydro where they are viable and reliable alternative systems, this in addition to a replacement of coal and oil generation systems by natural gas systems and a national smart grid backbone to support this energy production and distribution over the same time frame.

 

[flacaltenn]

While the debate rages on both sides about such things as wind,solar, nuclear, nat-gas, oil, and a whole host of other energy sources, it leads me to ask a question. At what point does this debate become harmful to this nation? let me explain, by picking and choosing what technology is good and what is bad are we not then putting our feet at the throat of American innovation and as a by-product of that American Jobs ?

Take the Chevy Volt for instance, while not everyone's cup of tea, and perhaps a little pricey amongst other things, I'm frankly stunned that Americans especially in todays economy and todays global atmosphere that some would be so against this car just on the off chance it is associated with a political figure they dont happen to like.

The same is true for domestic oil and gas production and solar, and wind, if we as a nation intend to stay at or near the top then we have to have the energy sources to do so. To produce, explore, and make the products needed for this here in this nation can serve only one purpose, it makes this nation stronger and less dependant on nations that do not have our best interests at heart.

While it's true that some of these new technologies might take time and even some might fail before it becomes a part of our daily lives , that is the cost we pay to take that path and realize the benefits of those technologies. Take for instance the auto industry, at it's inception there were over a 100 different companies producing cars in this nation, and over the years as the technology grew , companies came and went. In short no matter what the technology, if we STOP innovation then we choose long road to decline.

Right, and we have known abt things like the zinc air battery for over three decades now as can be evidenced by this site search for argonne national labe via google: site:anl.gov zinc-air. Furthermore we were on track to go to completely electric with our fleet of cars before george w bush n dick chenet hijacked our government and took us to war for oil!

If it wasn't for Dick Cheney and the Iraq war -- we'd all be driving EVs? You sure of that??

Welcome to the board -- we like to do one topic at a time (doesn't ever happen, but that's the underlying infrastructure).. UNLESS of course there's a connection I don't know about...



And didya know -- If it wasn't for Al Gore -- we'd have a rational energy energy policy instead of an over-hyped list of Alternatives? And we wouldn't have food riots in Mexico and be paying $1 per ear of corn?