T. Boone Pickens has a Big Ol’ Plan to get Americans off oil and onto wind. Which is all well and good, except that he has a tough time keeping his promises, as some Vietnam vets could tell you.
One thing that’s been a constant throughout T-Bone’s career: He does whatever’s best for T-Bone. One of the reasons he’s heavily into wind is that he figures that the more wind power there is, the more natural gas is freed up to be converted into fuel for cars and trucks — and guess what? Mr. Pickens has got tons and tons of money in natural gas! Amazing how that works.
Of course, as the Houston Chronicle points out, there’s one big problem with T-Bone’s plan: It won’t work. To wit:
The proposal is typical Pickens, who’s known for bold predictions and grandiose proposals. His plan for a billion-dollar water pipeline from the Texas Panhandle early in the decade still doesn’t have any takers.
[...]
It’s hard to grasp, though, how parts of the plan would be implemented. Assuming all the rights to millions of acres could be acquired and the wind farms built, there’s still the problem of wind itself. It doesn’t always blow.
A recent study by Cambridge Energy Research Associates found that wind power is least available between June and September, the peak months for electricity consumption.
When the turbines are becalmed, we’ll need other power plants — primarily gas-fired ones, which can be started more quickly than other types of generation — to meet demand.
What’s more, someone has to pay for building transmission lines to carry the power from the prairies. Guess who? In Texas, the cost of new transmission lines is born by consumers, not the generators.
That’s how rich people get rich — making other folks pay their bills.
Ah, but it gets even more fun:
Pickens has championed natural gas vehicles since he converted his Cadillac and drove around Dallas in the early 1990s, but it’s unlikely average drivers would do the same.
Thousands of service stations would have to spend millions to install new pumps and storage facilities.
Why don’t we just switch to plug-in hybrids, which automakers say they already have in development? We already have the infrastructure we need in our wall sockets.
Then the natural gas generation already in place could still be used and we’d decrease our foreign oil dependency at the same time. Wind could still be used to augment generation as it becomes more viable.
But that would make sense, y’know. And it wouldn’t be grandiose.
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Hey PW!!!
Hello?
Good morning, Phoenix Woman! We’re back!
This site must have been hiding in the land of OZ this morning. Glad it it is back in Kansas now.
Hello!
Yep, I saw T. Bone when he was introducing it on CNBC. Seemed pretty obvious he was long natural gas.
That’s kinda what I was wondering, what’s Pickens’ angle? Yes, he always has one.
Good Morning everyone, here are some peace signs I put up recently:
http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..signs.html
I know they’re a bit toothless politically, but they stay up for a long time, which is important while I wait for the rest of the peace movement to summon up some cardboard…
Nice work, fwb.
T. Boone’s plan isn’t a plan but rather a strategy or a conjecture based on two observations:
— Wind is current the least expensive of the scalable sustainable energy sources.
— Natural gas is an excellent way to store and transport energy and has an in-place infrastrucutre.
A couple of weeks ago, looseheadprop mentioned that, back at the time of the 1973 energy crisis, she came up with a scheme for solving the crisis based on natural gas. I, for one, would like to hear more about that scheme.
Eggzacktly.
It’d be one thing if it actually helped us all out, too. But it would only help us out if it worked — and in the meantime, work or not, he’s sitting pretty.
I’d much prefer cutting the $14-$15 billion a year in subsidies that Big Oil gets and giving it to the renewable-energy industry.
As much as I like the idea of huge fields of wind turbines and solar panels, they both need transmission lines. Solar panels on your house need no transmission lines. A small home wind turbine (yes, they exist) wouldn’t need them either.
Oh, wait. No utility pinheads make money off your home setup, so they don’t get pushed.
Mods — I just got this notice when I opened FDL this morning:
http://software-traffic.com/go.php?id=2523
The deal is that Pickens is a bigger talker than he is a doer (as his water pipeline plan shows) — and when he does something, he either wants minimal skin of his own in the game, or a maximum profit for himself and screw everyone else. The biggest expense of this plan of his isn’t the wind turbines, it’s beefing up the transmission lines — and in Texas at least, those costs won’t be borne by him.
((((((((((scarlett))))))))))
I liked MoveOn’s nifty & modest size bumpersticker
Bush’s Third Term
McCain
so much I went a bit bonkers & ordered fifty and invite firepups who would like one to email me mailing address & I’ll send one or more along via snail mail. npbrat AT gmail DOT com.
Pickens put the green in greenmail.
Good Morning Phoenix Woman and Firedogs -
the only good thing about the TBoondoggle is it will attract the corporate media lemmings
fyi – firedogs you can bookmark and go here as a meet up place when the Lake is down (IANABW)
Done, thanks cb!
R.I.P. Tony Snow
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..12295.html
I love how Americans are so willing to listen to a Texas oil and gas man for new solutions… when the truth be told all the billionaires are looking for is a new way to milk the public teet.
Keep Pickin’, PW! Maybe we ought to send T Boone and his MSM cohorts a two dollar banjo.
rich people getting poor and middle class to pay their bills.
that is what they do
when they refuse to pay for the health care of their workforce, when they pay wages so low a family has to go on welfare, when they get the community to build the roads to access their business, when we run our water works to their facility and when they use public property to run their electicity lines
it’s what they do, get everyone else to pay their bills.
this is what needs to be changed and the way we do make the change;
we do NOT call the fees to charge industry “taxes” because they are NOT “taxes”
they are fees plain and simple, when we charge a company to clean their air through the epa we call it a “clean up fee”, when we make them pay for the health care of their labor force we call that cost “health care fee”
we call all these charges “fees” so when they try to claim they are “overtaxed” all we need to do is say;
“are you paying more fees then the cost of those services?”
if they are we can of course lower the “fee” but we will NOT lower the “fee unless the fee is higher then the cost.
bing, framing the discussion so their is a policy concept that is hard to argue against
tony is one of the few people who advocated for the republicans that actually knew he was lying.
there is no love lost from me on this man and I cannot make nice just because he moved on
did I say one of the few?
I meant he was one of the many republicans that know they are lying.
Xcel has a scheme where if you install panels, they hook them up to your meter, and as the panels generate more than you use, your meter runs backwards, giving you a credit on your bill. This is available to private and business users;
http://www.metrodenver.org/new…..solar.html
http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWE…..-0,00.html
The beauty of it is, it doesn’t require additional land or transmission lines, just an unobstructed southern exposure. If I can pull the money together, I’m considering it for my house.
I am not in your area.. May I ask what your calculated payment amount was/is?
I don’t see giving T. Boone a contract to do all of this, but some public subsidy of the development of alternate energy sources is going to be needed. One way of subsidizing such development is the public financing/subsidizing of transmission lines.
I’d like to see more projects aimed at renewable/sustainable natural gas, e.g., http://articles.latimes.com/20…../fi-cows10
I think you asked the right question: What is T-Bone’s steak in all this?
And you made a good point: Pickens is full of gas, natural and otherwise.
Hi Perris. I put this up earlier. I think you will “enjoy”
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3637
I’m just holding off for a while re Tony Snow:
I figure at least a two-hour grace period is about right. It’s something of a mortality kick-in-the-butt though, to see a guy that close to my own age die…
Digg this
Self interest as define by Bentham translates into accumulation of wealth. He has plenty of wealth and power tweaking things to his benefit. Until energy is treated as an essential requirement of a modern industrialized society, opposed to monopolizing forms of stored potential energy or energy itself, we are all at the mercy of corporations. Reduction in per capita cost of “clean renewable energy” is the the only course of action. Demand will always increase absent major reductions in the population???
I recently attended a sustainability expo here in Denver, where five or six locally based solar panel installation contractors were exhibiting. They all said that with rebates and incentives that are available, the cost for a smaller house like ours (1400’sq) would be about 10 grand. The panels have a twenty-five year warranty that includes hail damage, which is a big deal here. The inverter (the doohicky that converts power from DC to AC) had a ten year warranty, I think.
It would pay for itself, and of course, you reduce your carbon footprint substantially. I am waiting to see that if Obama gets elected, the tax incentives are improved even more.
I’ve seen my friends, people my age, die. One in a car accident one of Hodgkin’s.
My condolences to Tony’s family. And I won’t speak (or write ill of the dead). I’ll focus on the living.
Independent.co.uk
New windows double as solar panels
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Friday, 11 July 2008
A new type of solar panel that allows light to pass through it like a pane of glass has been invented by scientists who said that it is 10 times more powerful than conventional methods of producing energy from sunlight.
The discovery raises the prospect of using ordinary domestic windows to generate electricity with minimum structural alterations, although scientists have not yet worked out how much it would cost to convert a domestic home to a solar-powered generator.
Instead of coating the entire solar panel with solar cells – the expensive semiconductor devices that turn the energy of sunlight into electricity – the new solar panel works on the principle of concentrating the light, and the energy, at the edges of a pane of glass where it can be collected by the solar cells.
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston said that the “solar concentrator” is made from a film of organic molecules that can be coated on to glass window panes or other surfaces exposed to sunlight. This allows light to pass straight through the window even though it is being used to generate power.
It also means that the expensive solar cells need only be placed around the edges of the collecting area, so that there is little need to track the movements of the Sun for generating maximum power, as well as reducing overall costs.
“Light is gathered over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges. The cost of photovoltaic power can be reduced with organic solar concentrators,” said Professor Marc Baldo, the leader of the research team at MIT.
Existing solar concentrators using in commercial solar generators have to track the movements of the Sun during the day to generate the highest optical intensities. This often involves expensive mobile mirrors and are difficult to maintain, Professor Baldo said.
“In addition, solar cells at the focal point of the mirrors must be cooled, and the entire assembly waste space around the perimeter to avoid shadowing neighbouring concentrators,” he said.
The MIT solar concentrator involves a mixture of two or more dyes that are painted onto a pane of glass or plastic. These dyes absorb light across a range of different wavelengths, which is then re-emitted at a different wavelength and transported across the pane to the waiting solar cells at the edges.
Jon Mapel, one of the MIT scientists who worked on the project, said that the trick was to improve the efficiency of the process, which ultimately leads to better performance and lower costs.
“We made it so the light can travel a much longer distance. We were able to substantially reduce light transport losses, resulting in a tenfold increase in the amount of power converted by the solar cells,” Dr Mapel said.
Solar power is seen as one of the greenest sources of energy but it has been dogged by the relatively high costs of installing photovoltaic cells on houses and buildings, which can take years to pay off in terms of energy savings.
Their efficiency in low-light conditions is also a problem for countries such as Britain were sunlight is a rare commodity in the coldest months of winter.
Did you all see that our very own selise had her diary rescued?? Hit the recommend. It’s excellent work.
FYI link to average wind speed in the lower 48.
Thanks PW.
I’m all in favor of making TBone pay his share. In terms of a net net, however, I think he’s dealt the oil cartel a bigger blow than liberals
tree huggersever could have. Wind energy creates value (”behind the meter” in most cases right now) on lands with sufficient wind speed (there’s more to assessing feasibility than just speed). This could provide significant revenue for land controlled by federal, state, and local governments. My hope is that a lot of FDLers will contact their local representatives and ask them about the status of feasibility studies in their communities.As power storage technologies grow more efficient, imho, the value of wind energy grows commensurately.
I’m also very interested in the possibilities for harnessing the flow of rivers (in a way that doesn’t kill the wildlife).
Done. Great piece of writing.
Done.
Thanks for the link.
“In Texas, the cost of new transmission lines is born by consumers, not the generators.”
Well, golly! The cost of anything I incorporate into my business is borne by my customers, or I go broke.
That’s a trip. The potential for these technologies in the southwest is enormous. Colorado averages more than three hundred days of sunshine annually.
What if you replaced all the windows on the Strip in Vegas with these?
BTW, solar panels cost money, the converters, regulators etc you pay someone for.
I suppose that if you can figure a way to stand in the sun, stick your finger into the electric socket and meet your power needs, well more power to you!
I saw this earlier, yesterday I had FISA burnout but went over today for a peak. Selise has put together an amazing time line.
I love it when people write nonsense like this:
I’m not sure what “powerful” means in this context. We compare solar panels on their relative efficiencies, which are typically about 9% to 14%. The record is 42%, and there is speculation that we might be able to achieve 65%.
Peony – are you here? Are you breathing okay? I saw that the air level is still hazardous in Paradise.
So Pickens wants to use windpower … so we can burn natural gas in all our cars (low efficiency) instead of in power plants (high efficiency). (I know gas companies push this, but it’s still quite limited, and mostly for buses and their own vehicles.)
WRT the idea of plug-in cars: Why do the people pushing them always assume everyone has an electric outlet right where their car is parked? Have they never seen parking lots? Or apartment buildings with outdoor parking?
thanks for hitting this PW. Good stuff. One area that’s a little more complex:
wrt to who bears the cost of transmission, the consumers always do, one way or another.
If you are in a traditional utility jurisdiction, then the total costs to the utility of serving all customers, which includes generation, transmission, distribution, administration and system operations, are all put in the utility’s total revenue requirements (overseen by the regulator), and the retail rates are set by the regulator to recover the total revenue requirements. The consumer pays the full cost of serving them, including transmission.
If you are in a restructured region/state (like most of Texas), generation costs are recovered via market prices, distribution/admin costs recovered via the utility, and transmission costs are split, but when you’re all done, consumers pay for it all, or it doesn’t get built.
There are typically two categories of transmission costs. Short distance connections from the generators to the main grid are initially paid by the generation developers/owners; the main grid is paid for via a transmission rate. But both sets of costs are eventually paid for by consumers. In the first case, if the generator cannot recover its transmission connection costs via the market price of the energy it produces, the plant doesn’t get built. So consumers pay for this piece of transmission via the price they pay for energy.
There is subsidy issue, however. When large transmission lines must be built or upgraded to carry wind-generated energy long distances, the total transmission rate is often allocated across a wide region of consumers in several states, even though consumers in some local areas benefit more than consumers in another area. Consumers pay, but the equity issue becomes: which consumers? The long-distance transmission upgrades to carry energy from wind farms in remote areas (Montana) to urban centers (Chicago) face this issue.
Nice catch, thanks.
I just recommended it.
Many thanks to selise for all the work.
Just saw on the news that shrub’s repudiated the clean air act of 1970 in open defiance of the Supreme Court. The oilmen ruleth.
I think what’s meant is, the entire cost, rather than just part of it. Some states expect utilities to actually pay part of the improvement costs themselves. (Yes, they will eventually get it all back via the customers. It’s just not as painfully obvious to the customers.)
The other thing is, and I’m sure Pickens knows this, a lot of the utilities in TX, power and telephone both, are co-ops. Guess how much money they have to play with.
I’m told that almost any vehicle can be converted to run on natural gas for about $2000.
Home natural gas hookups are about as plentiful as electrical hookups.
Batteries take a long time to charge. Natural gas can fill up at a station in a matter of minutes.
Thanks so much.
FWIW, I’m going back to the early FDL days Jane, Christy, and emptywheel were “excavating” the scant evidence about Plame-gate.
It strikes me that FDL might be in a similar place on renewable energies. You with your experience in the electricity markets (I remember how helpful you were during Lamont’s run (reminder to those that don’t know, you went to CT on your own nickel to knock on doors for Ned)) are even a more valuable asset imho to FDL than you used to be.
Back when the learning curve on Plame was a lot steeper, there were some attempts at consolidating some of the basic vocabulary online. This doesn’t have to be an FDL project. There may be something in wikipedia or an already existing web site on which FDL could piggyback. I don’t necessarily want you to spend time on that, but I am concerned that you will spend time answering the same questions over and over again. If there’s a way to link to answers you (and others who are similarly qualified) have already written, that might be helpful.
From a macro view, I just see our dependence on oil migrating to electric alternatives, vehicles, machinery, and mass transit. That’s going to dramatically increase the demands on generators, transmission lines, and the infrastructure. The more fluent this community can become with all those languages and all that complexity, the more effective we can be as liberals.
Thanks for all you do (and have done) for FDL.
I don’t think this criticism on Pickens’ idea is fair. For a high-profile oilman to see the light and start talking about getting our country off oil is a watershed event.
He’s been on CNBC for months talking about this plan. He’s building the world’s largest windfarm. He’s putting his money where his mouth is, which is much more than most.
At least he’s trying. I saw an interview a few months back where he said essentially that he’s old and he doesn’t want his legacy to be an oil-dependent US.
I think we should embrace him for at least trying. If we can get more converts to renewables, we are better off.
And do you honestly expect a Houston-based newspaper to SUPPORT a renewable energy plan? That’s prime oil country. That’s Bush country, and all they want is to drill, drill, drill.
Rather than being jaded, why not at least look at the plan first. This is not news. He’s been talking about it for months.
I have to agree. T. Boone is an investor, who will try to maximize his return on investment. It is the responsibility of we the people to elect officials that will properly incentivize/disincentivize the investment landscape, e.g., oil-depletion allowance are not a good idea but a carbon tax is.
pickens is very big in natural gas. he has flooded the LA harbor area with his push to put goods movement trucks(the ones that haul all the containers from ships) on natural gas.
pickens seems to think that electric cars are not a good plan. yes, some cant plug in now cause they park on the street, but eventually we will solve that.
right now, natural gas for a car at home requires it be compressed, and that requires special equipment at home or a fill up station that has specialized pumps. they exist to some degree in socal and CNG cars are viable here.
a few months ago it was way cheaper–per mile driven–than gasoline.
to budd and wigwam–i wouldnt trust t boone with a rattlesnake. this is about his bucks and his friends.
i guess you could say swift boat veterans were just out for the good of the country. we had to be warned about kerry.
I’m told that filling up on CNG at home costs the equivalent of $1.50 per gallon of gas (aka gge) and at a CNG station costs $2.50 per gge.
The equipment to fill up a CNG vehicle at home supposedly costs $2000. A friend has told me that getting that $2000 sparkless compressor installed costs another $7000. OUCH!!! That of course is a crazy price for installation, and is sure to come down.
This is very interesting got a link?
The link is at the very top of the comment.
Great post PW.
I am reminded of the great and noble Texan philanthropist H. Ross Perot, who schlupped and gobbled at the federal trough for years, then turned around and regurgitated some of the lucre into worthy causes. Never did quite regard him as all that much of a goldenboy, since it was a relatively small slice of the people’s money being returned to the public, but at least, according to Molly, he done some good.
dumbya? not so much, and no expectations of anything but further mayhem from the overgrown brat.
Pickens? we’ll reserve judgement.
And there is no reason we should. The courses of action he recommends (wind-to-electricity and CNG as vehicle fuel) are both very good ideas. The question is what are the best public policies to pursue with respect to those two and other alternatives, e.g., subsidies, tax incentives, carbon taxes, tarrifs, emission regulations, etc. T. Boone should get no special treatment, and I don’t know if he is asking for any.
dang. storm’s here. buckets & buckets overflowing the gutters, plus lightening.
it’s been great, guys. bye!
the compressors have a short life….something around 3-7 years. I forget which.
Thanks. I’m pretty sure energy issues will be covered a lot, and over time, we’ll build an inventory/library of posts, just as Jane, Christy and Marcy did wrt to Plame (and FISA, etc). We’re fortunate to have PW and A.Siegel who have additional expertise on energy/global climate issues. Plus Ian to put it all into a larger context. And our commenters have tons of related expertise they bring in when relevant. I learn stuff here every day.
Thanks that’s great news. I think it’s completely consistent with FDL’s core branding.
I saw that, and I’m waiting for her to post the appendix (she said she’d be doing that today). This was fabulous work. Selise rocks!
Pickens may have a heart of gold- or his heart may just lust after gold..That doesn’t really matter as much as the fact that he is raising issues that badly need to be discussed.
We will move away from fossil fuels. It’s not an issue of “if” but rather “when?”
There will be a fairly long period in which our system will be mixed with renewables taking a larger role…
Wind power is currently the most economical method of generating power except for traditional unrestricted coal fired plants which are dirty as hell. It is a part of the future as is solar and nuclear power. Natural Gas will be in use for many years as well.
It is not likely or even possible that there will be one best solution that will win out. The wind doesn’t blow in all places or at all times. Solar only produces during daylight hours. The supply of natural gas is limited and is subject to price increases just like oil. Hydroelectric power is probably nearly maxed out- but it’s cost effective in some areas.
I’ve been looking into solar panels…after all rebates, I would pay about $23,000 installed for a 5 kw system that would cover most but not quite all of my use…if in the future I get a plug in hybrid- that would require more power. In return for the $23,000 I would save about $150 per month or $1,800 per year at current electricity costs. The return on investment goes up of course with electricity prices.
It’s not a bad decision- but if we get a dem govt. in Washington- and some design and production breakthroughs on the panels, the net price should come down- so I’m waiting a bit to see what happens.
There’s a dangerous shell game being played here I suspect. The oilmen like Boone make pledges and vague promises about seeing the light, all while making billions more than their token hedges for change. Meanwhile, shrub facilitates their greed by quietly repudiating the Clean Air Act, blocking change, stifling dissent, drilling on federal land, and fighting wars designed to keep oil prices conveniently high to the benefit of the oilmen. Am I wrong?
nuclear power is not environmentally safe. there is NO solution for the waste. we should not be adding it to the inventory in any sort of expansive way. if the market wont insure its liability we should not subsidize it.
we are having a 3.5 kw system installed. it will do all our power. the cost is about 28k. the cost to us after utility contribution and federal rebate is about 11.5k.
Yep, sure do
I’ve read that using Thorium as the fuel produces 1/1000 as much radioactive waste (per unit of energy) as Uranium and/or Plutonium.
I don’t like T-Boone, I think he has to much Swift Boat baggage him getting involved in wind power could hurt the green power movement.
But Should Texas be forced to build transmission lines so T-Boone can sell power to other states? I’d say no.
Should Natural gas be used in cars sure if you want to increase the price of natural gas, which is what I’m sure T=Boone wants.
Also if Natural gas is no longer used to generate power well it will take years to build enough wind turbines to power our country but maybe only a year to retool some car factories to make natural gas cars so what fills the power gap until wind can step up? Coal
I bet T-boone has coal.
I think you have to realize that people who write articles for news papers are frequently not scientists. Take things with a grain of salt and don’t get your knickers in a twist
There is a way to store wind or solar power use the green power to charge the batteries of your solar car and then when your home needs power your car batteries can power your home.
Blue America upstairs with this week’s guest Mark Begich of Alaska, running against Senator Ted “Toobz” Stevens.
Just a wild hair of an idea for a series would be a geographical evaluation of the current electrical infrastructure. Maybe some iteration of this is modestly helpful. Maybe a high level summary that would let FDLers in the northeast (for example) have a rough idea of how their transmission lines compare with the rest of the country…. .
Your comment reminded me of a friend of mine who worked in a nuclear power plant. He is a bit fan of pebble bed reactors. Apparently, when the thing overheats, the worst accident is that the pebbles will spill. They have to be cleaned up, of course and reused, but they don’t put radiation in the atmosphere or blow up. From what he says, they’re being used in european and african countries, and in australia, but we’re not allowed to use them here. Our government has decided they are unsafe.
I got that from a friend who is a nuclear physicist and have read the same in the Wikipedia and elsewhere. Here is what the Wikipedia says:
I’ll have to google around for the comparative numbers.
I’m far from an expert on nukes- but the french use them successfully. Reprocessing spent fuel helps to minimize the quantity of waste- although even the french don’t reprocess everything currently…
I certainly wouldn’t rule nukes out as a contributor to the future.
re #77: According to my friend, a small plant will power a city.
The Chinese are pushing very hard on pebble bed reactors. The look to deploy about 600 Gigawatts of nuke generating capacity in the next decade or two.
Wow- the federal rebate is only $2,000 so someone else is eating half the cost of your system. Which state do you live in?
I don’t rule them out. I think we need to consider all our alternatives. Qualified people should consider those alternatives. Not the U.S. government, which if trying to suppress science for their own purposes.
Here is a good article on the Chinese push on pebble-bed reactors: http://www.wired.com/wired/arc…..china.html
Global population is growing.
Oil demands are accelerating while oil supplies disappear. The price of oil products will continue to increase. Even coal is a finite resource.
We must develop alternative power supplies.
Boone may be on to something.
What in heaven’s name does that have to do with solar panels? Nuclear power is a bloody loser (I am a clamsheller) and I would never, ever advocate such silliness.
[Edited by mod to remove personal comment]
Thanks for that link.
After years of watching the tax credit, tax shelter, new bidness game played in Texas, I am all for fees being charged to the buisness.
Further I think that any deviation from the tax code should not be permitted without some very substantial national interest. Their is no reason any buisness should be exempted from the normal taxes, no matter how much payroll ect. they bring in. Play on a level field and things get decided different. Before there was NAFTA, their was hey move south to the right to work states. Hey we will give you a tax break and another when you expand or threaten to leave.
O but they will off shore these bidnesses. not with the tax to reimport, as they are no longer a real patriotic American buisness.
I thought this was an open discussion. I think we need to look carefully at all sources of energy, and I don’t trust our government to do it. That’s all I said.
Quick response:
1. The entire eastern US and much of Canada is interconnected as one grid. It’s one huge electrical machine that must be continuously coordinated.
2. Different regions of this Eastern Interconnection are controlled by “independent system operators” — ISO — (in the North) and/or large utilites (in the South). They coordinate with each other, because it’s all one system, and distubances in one region can propagate into other regions, very quickly.
3. The New England ISO controls the grid in the six NE states. The NE ISO coordinates with the NY ISO and PJM (Pa, Jersey, and most of mid-Atlantic into the midwest) and part of Canada
4. wrt to Texas, there is an ISO for most of Texas = ERCOT.
5. The typical transmission cost allocation rules I describe above apply in each of these ISO regions.
6. In the past, there wasn’t enough transmission into SW Connecticut or Boston, which forces ISOs to run higher-cost generation in those sub-areas. Market prices for electricity are thus highest in those two areas (though regulators may conceal this via averaging). It’s cheapest in Maine, where there’s lots of generation but not enough transmission to ship the power south to MA and Conn.
Once people face the fact that fossil fuel is a sure global disaster, it will be impossible to avoid a major push into nuclear energy on a worldwide scale. The U.S. will, of course, not be a leader in that effort. The Chinese, for example, are planning to deploy hundreds of gigawatts by midcentury. The Japanese (Toshiba in particular) are developing small reactors of a scale to serve apartment buildings. South Africa is at the forefront of pebble-bed reactor technology.
With great respect to Firedoglake principals and participants, I’m surprised that Firedoglake readers believe everything that the Whitehouse or the Houston Chronicle says. At best, the Chronicle quote from Cambridge Energy Research Associates is uninformed.
The Cambridge Energy Research Associates study has never been vetted by experienced wind researchers, as far as I know. Wind energy may not always blow on the power system’s peak, but it blows pretty regularly and smoothly if the wind turbines and wind projects are distributed over a large area. Studies by General Electric Company for New York State, the Minnesota Department of Commerce for the entire state, and the California Public Utility Commission, to cite a few, show that large amounts of wind power, say 20 to 30%, of electric generation on an annual basis can be readily achieved.
The host power system is used to dealing with fluctuating sources, only they are called loads. The addition of small amounts of wind is barely noticed on most systems. As penetration of wind increases, addition of small amounts of flexible capacity will be desirable and can be added.
Recently, the Department of Energy has completed a study showing that 20 percent of total annual electric energy could be supplied by wind power for the lower 48 States for a minimum cost. This study was performed using last year’s conventional energy prices and the economics would look better today.
Check that study out at: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wi…..41869.pdf.
It’s true that wind does not always blow when we need it, but on a statistical basis it blows steady enough to displace a lot of fossil fuels that would otherwise produce greenhouse gasses. Not only does wind power displace greenhouse gasses, but it generates jobs and revenues for landowners and state, local and the Federal government(s).
But do not take the word of a 25 year wind researcher retired (me), check out Jerome A Paris on DailyKos who finances European wind projects, the US-based Utility Wind Integration Group who reflect electric utility interest in wind power at http://www.uwig.org, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Wind Program at http://www.nrel.gov/wind or the American Wind Energy Association (www.awea.org).
Plug-in hybrids, as the FDL article states, are likely much better for transportation than a natural gas infrastructure.
Wind Power is not the answer to our climate problems, but it is part of the solution.
JackNVA
Yes, a substantial part of the solution.
Pete, in reading their faq, I noticed they require a 20yr contract. Under the question of what if I sell my house? the answer seems to be either your purchaser must assume your contract or you remain libel for the 20 yr term —
wth does that mean and why are they worried about a 20 yr term? Sounds like one could get really stiffed (i.e. locked in as technology shifts and perhaps unable to realistically sell one’s house). Unless they are looking for a long term monopoly, seems they should have a clear buy out provision going in. No doubt it’s also an investment on their part, but 20yr total lock on a res property??
The natural-gas hookup I’ve seen in houses are not designed for fueling cars. There are safety requirements – ventilation and fire safety in particular – not to mention pumps and compressors, because the pressure in your house is nowhere near what you need for the stored gas in the vehicle.
Home natural-gas car fueling? Not anytime soon.
I get “document not found” for http://www1.eere.energy.gov/wi…..41869.pdf.
There was a reactor design, called CANDU, that could use unenriched uranium, or depleted uranium, like spent fuel rods. It always sounded like a good idea: recycling the rods, in a sense.
I‘ve been wondering if vertical-axis turbines (or windmills) would be safer for wildlife than the current common designs with the short horizontal axis and long blades. Would you know anything about that?
T. Boner Pickens is nothing more than a fascist in sheeps clothing. He was a big backer of the “Swift Boat Vets for Truth.” T. Boner can’t stand the truth.
Wrong. This is from 2005: http://www.aqmd.gov/news1/2005…..nitpr.html
IIRC, the same is true of the modern pebble-bed designs.