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High Voltage Solar Power Controversy

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2007/07/high-voltage-so.html

Brian, you can be likened to a child putting their finger into a hole in a damn. I have news for you. The damn has broken and in fact, it is no longer there. Wake up, relax and join the second millenium. (At least read the comments on the link you posted. This is how one can broaden their perspective - something that you are way past due.)

I posted an interesting related artical on solar energy about what is going on down in San Diego, why don't you get a life. I read the comments, so what.
You can blow your snide comments out your behind.

I would like to comment that I've never been aware of ANY alternative energy source that does not have to be subsidized with taxpayers' money in some way to be able to function! This of course means that if the free market won't support it, it's not needed (a basic economic principle). The answer to national energy independence is to greatly expand nuclear power facilities and oil development (France has close to 80% nuclear power generation,- we less than 20%). The amount of reported oil reserves in our country is estimated to last hundreds of years so we don't HAVE to depend on foreign oil in any way. See: www.JBS.org (search: nuclear power): The power stored in uranium fuel boggles the mind. Suppose you have in your hand a penny-sized piece of the uranium isotope U235. It would seem strangely heavy because its density is more than 2.5 times that of the metal in a modern penny. An enormous amount of energy is pent up in the disc, but it is not hot — either thermally or radioactively. With a half-life of over 700 million years it gives up its radioactivity gradually, (A half-life is the amount of time it takes for a radioactive substance to give up half of its radiation.) and being an “alpha emitter,” its radiation is too weak to penetrate your skin. You could wear it as a necklace your entire life without any danger.

Let’s further suppose you are Mr. and Mrs. Joe Average living in the Midwest. The average amount of heat energy necessary to heat your house through the snowy days and clear, still, cold Iowa nights from October to March is 80 million BTUs — the BTU being a measure of energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. Not only would the energy stored in that penny-sized bit of uranium be enough to heat your house for one heating season, it would be enough to heat the average house for more than six years! In fact, a single pickup load of U235 has the equivalent energy of the coal carried in 36,500 large (90-ton) coal cars. Let's greatly increase nuclear power plant construction and tell the oil companies to drill where they want-NOW -time is short. Ed Nemechek-760-246-8059 (ednemechek@verizon.net)

who gets more subsidies than big oil?

subsidy-- a direct pecuniary aid furnished by a government to a private industrial undertaking, a charity organization, or the like.

Obviousy, any touting of the USA having a free market economy relies on extreme ignorance. What is the actual cost of gas per gallon?

The following quote is from a letter to the editor about getting the US out of the United Nations. It comes from the Pahrump Valley Times of May 21. 2003 and it is attributed to Ed Nemechek of Landers, CA> It may go a long ways toward explaining why Mr. Nemechek is so gung ho for nuclear power:

"As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Titan II missile program (ill-fated because of U.N. inspired international restraints on our military, as the U.N. has recently attempted again) my hearts is certainly warmed by these signs that give us the opportunity to disentangle our country from the worst gang of third world criminal terrorist governments in all of history, who never seem to miss an opportunity to try to plunder and drag us down to make us pay for our own destruction."

"I would like to comment that I've never been aware of ANY alternative energy source that does not have to be subsidized with taxpayers' money in some way to be able to function! This of course means that if the free market won't support it, it's not needed (a basic economic principle)"

Ed, as for the supposed safety of U-235, have a look at this article from Truthdig

I reject your "basic economic principle" and I won't even get into Adam Smith's idea of free markets. Suffice it to say that he is probably spinning in his grave whenever he hears one of these guys comparing the market we have today with Smith's ideas in The Wealth of Nations . By your logic the US auto industry that has been bailed out by our tax dollars three times is of no use. While I might agree with you on that score whenever I see a Ford Excursion(Extinction) or a Hummer driving around, I seriously doubt you would call for the end of the Big Three. How about the US Airline industry? Should they go the way of the pterodactyl?

If you really want to talk about subsidies, other than possibly Big Oil, there has NEVER been an industry so heavily subsidized as the doomed nuclear power industry. As we speak US citizens are paying our tax dollar left after the wholesale theft that is the Iraq War to provide, free of charge, government insurance to all of the commercial nuclear power plants in this country. No other insurance carrier will cover them because the risks are too high. The volume of nuclear waste being housed onsite at every nuclear power generating station is an unbelievable environmental threat With the demise of the poorly planned Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site, all of that wast is going to sit right where it is next to the over 100 commercial power plants in this country. The issue of nuclear power has been much discussed on the ojaipost. Following is a comment I made on this issue some months back and here is the link to the whole thread if you want to see how the issue was treated before you joined us on the ojaipost:

From January

Nuclear power from fission reactors is not the answer to our energy crisis. It is so not the answer that it boggles the mind. Sorry Brian(Ed), but anyone touting the benefits of nuclear fission reactors has very little understanding of nuclear physics and even less understanding of economics.

Has anyone ever heard the term "Sacrifice Zone"? It's an official term used by the Department of Energy(DOE). There are over 100 of them in the United States right now. A Sacrifice Zone is where an accident involving high level waste has essentially erased all potential human uses for an area of land for the rest of human history. Either it would be too costly to clean up the area or simply impossible to do so.

This is not hyperbole. For instance, the primary fuel for nuclear reactors, Uranium 235, has a half life of 713 million years. This is not a time span easily understandable on the human scale. One must go to the geologic scale to fully grasp it. 700 million years ago the Sturtian Ice Age was just ending and the first known supercontenent, Rodinia, had formed. The highest form of animal life on Earth was the sponge. Neptunium 237, a major component of high level waste from nuclear fission reactors, has a half life of 2 million years. 2 million years ago Homo Habilis, five steps down the evolutionary ladder from most of us, was new on the scene. Other transuranic waste products from nuclear power generation have half lives ranging as high as 4 billion years. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old!

High level nuclear waste and transuranic waste comes almost exclusively from nuclear fission power plants. According to the DOE there are thousands of tons of this crap being held all over this country. It is currently being stored on-site at every commercial nuclear reactor in America because they can't get settled on a place to put it, or even how to get it there. A federal judge has side lined the Yucca Mountain dump site because the Bush Administrations set an arbitrary time limit of ONLY 10,000 years for the Yucca Mountain site to "safely" contain the waste. Apparently the Bushies pulled this number out of their collective asses and the judge, correctly, called them on it. It's a very good thing for us that he did, because the people up at Brian's(Ed's) beloved Diablo Canyon had planned to first ship their tons of waste on a barge past the most expensive real estate in the country in Santa Barbara, dock at Port Hueneme and truck it all down the 126 to the Yucca Mountain site. That could certainly make the morning commute more interesting.

All this and I haven't even begun to talk about the military's nuclear waste problems. We don't even know how much there is because they don't have to tell us.

Brian, your link was indeed valid. You should not have been persecuted for posting it. That particular project is very interesting. I've seen the prototype at Sandia and it is impressive. The trouble down there in San Diego is the power transmission lines that would go from the solar generating station through the Anza Borego State Park. At any rate, it's not really what Michael's post was about. His post seems to be about photovoltaic cells, not mirrored solar dish arrays.

Perhaps Michael will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the major benefits of solar power is that it tends to be de-centralized, adding energy to the grid from thousands of sources rather than from a centralized location as in the solar power station discussed in the link Brian provided that would require a long run of transmission lines. Does anyone know what the power loss is over transmission lines? I've heard that it can be as much as 60%.

To respond to comments by SPK, SUBSIDIES, & ANONYMOUS: I would like to comment that it is WRONG to subsidize ANY private activity with taxpayers' money (unconstitutional with federal money) and we should stop ALL governmant subsidies immediatly at all levels and return to a free market economy which is what built America. Also, my affilliation with the Titan-II missile program has no bearing on my support of nuclear energy as no power is generated by a missile warhead. However, we should certainly GET OUT OF THE U.N. as it is destroying our national independence as we increasingly come under U.N. law (the ILLEGAL war in Iraq is a U.N. war) (see: www.GETUSOUT.org). I'm not going to try to address the nuclear scare hysteria except to say many scientists (who aren't being paid off with government paychecks) say it's the SAFEST form of power generation in existance. See: www.JBS.org (search: nuclear power), and CONSIDER THIS: Even though coal remains an attractive option, nuclear energy is far superior. For one thing, despite the bad press it gets, nuclear is safer. No one in the United States has died as a result of nuclear-power generation. That can’t be said for coal. Historically, more than 100 lives have been lost annually at train crossings owing to coal-hauling unit trains.

Those tragic accidents are examples of the numerous accidents related to fossil-fuel energy generation that claim many lives each year. According to scientist and acclaimed science-fiction author Ben Bova, “If you count up the number of people killed in coal mine disasters or oil well accidents and the wars being fought over oil, nuclear power looks positively benign. Then there are the natural gas and propane explosions that kill hundreds each year and destroy millions of dollars’ worth of property.”

Finally, and far worse still if we are to believe the Environmental Protection Agency (a practice to be carefully considered), coal-fired plants in the United States annually cause 24,000 early deaths — including 2,800 from lung cancer. According to the EPA, emissions of fine particle pollution (or soot) resulted in an average loss of 14 years of life for the victims, along with 38,200 non-fatal heart attacks and 534,000 asthma attacks each year. (For more on concerns about radiation and the safety of nuclear energy, see article "Myths About Nuclear Energy.")We shouldn't let the nuclear power disaster Chicken Littles and Big Oil smear campaigners destroy our energy independence and prevent the restoration of the free enterprise system that made our nation the greatest in all history. -Ed Nemechek-760-246-8059. (ednemechek@verizon.net).

I totally believe in nuclear power. I just prefer to use the nuclear reactor that's 92 million miles away!

I find it refreshing to read a post like the one above from spk who seems to have done some research and is offering actual data to the conversation. Let those who disagree start by contesting his data. Isn't the point of civil discourse to try to arrive at "the truth" through a process of rational analysis of the best information available? Obviously, there will be disagreements about who is a reliable source of the data but that can be resolved, too, by thorough vetting of the sources. Of course, one must come into the discourse with an open mind, willing to be proven wrong if the facts don't fall in favor of one's position. Me, I tend to distrust those who must make their points with lots of capital letters and worn-out bumper sticker cliches, especially when they are making claims as to the safety of nuclear power. If it's so safe, why do we have a Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the first place? God help us if the American people decide it's no longer the role of government to oversee the use of potentially lethal substances like uranium.

spk- what does France do with their nuclear waste?

It is combined in glass, the process is called "vitrification".

http://www.cea.fr/var/cea/storage/static/gb/library/Clefs46/pdfg/14-wastevitrification.pdf

Folks, I hate to inform you, but you have been paying (for years) how the US is planning/studying how to handle it’s nuclear waste. The ‘bank’ account has mega-$$ and several programs have been started by DOE to resolve it - Yucca Mountain is just one of those programs. Don’t believe me? Look at your electric bill. The ‘tax’ you pay is listed on your power bill. My SCE bill lists it as ‘Nuclear Decommissioning Charges’ and/or ‘Trust Transfer Amount’ – we’ve been paying it for years.

As much as I hate it, I have to agree with our nemesis - Ed (sigh). Nuclear energy is a viable alternative, but we (US) haven’t dealt with it properly. In the early days, the US plan for nuclear energy was ‘good’, there was no waste. The original plan was power plants would be built, and as the rods were depleted they would be sent to reprocessing plants to be ‘recharged’ and returned to use. Whatever waste resulted from this process would present no danger to anyone. The problem occurred when the reprocessing plants weren’t certified, and therefore weren’t opened (various reasons) – hence waste accumulated at the power plant sites. I won’t go into the problems of storage at the plants, but then came the problem of where do ‘we’ store this waste (pool water, rods, etc.) – hence the tax we pay on our power bills for this research.

DOE has been actively researching this issue (for years) – good, bad and ugly. ‘Active’ nuclear waste is not an easy problem to resolve; hence years. Yucca Mountain is not the solution (in my opinion). Yucca is located next to the nuclear test range of days-gone-by, and the Earth’s mantel is fractured in that area – aka potential leaks into ground water, etc. Not a secure, long-term storage facility – but again my opinion (with some scientific support). If the US could open reprocessing plants (a closed-loop system), nuclear power would be a very viable energy alternative. The plants were built and exist, but they are not certified for various reasons.

As for storage of waste, we (US) have been storing waste in salt mines for years. If you look at Sweden and Norway, they handle their nuclear waste by dumping it in containers deep in to Ocean off-shore. This idea is abhorrent to US citizens, but the Ocean is salt – a natural barrier to radiation. These dumps have resulted in amazing coral reefs that promote sea life – coral reefs, fish, etc. In fact the fishing industry has thrived in these countries as a result of these dumps. The Ocean water is warmed and promotes sea life minus the radiation effects.

I believe (personally) nuclear energy is a possible alternative, but we (US) need to learn how to deal/handle it. By the way, this storage problem is why you haven’t heard of ‘new’ nuclear plants being built in recent years.

The people ‘in the know’ at the power companies and DOE are dedicated to resolving these issues, and are cautious at the proliferation of new plants without a solution to this problem. The East Coast plants are at storage capacity, so everyone is actively working toward a solution – but to move forward they have to be watchful for everyone’s safety. They don’t want repeats of 9-Mile Island, Russia, etc.

Solar and wind power energy are good, and nuclear energy is good if handled correctly (in the original ‘closed-loop’ system). Don’t discount nuclear energy, we (US) just haven’t managed it very well. By-the-way, U-235 is weapons grade uranium, and (to my knowledge) is not used by US power plants. In addition, yes - the US has U-235 in storage facilities due to the decommissioning of missiles (Salt Talks), but that is a different discussion and different problem.

Nuclear power is a very viable alternative, and is used successfully in other countries – kinda like desalination plants for water (again another discussion that should take place on another thread considering the recent water rate hikes). (I digress, but I could talk about US engineers from (CA and the East Coast) that have traveled to Pacific islands to install such plants with great success.) So don’t discount nuclear energy – we (US) just have to figure out how to use it. With the correct control systems implemented it really can be ‘safe’ with unlimited potential. Remember the ol’ nuclear powered cars of the future? It is possible. The age we live in now is reminiscent of what our ancestors probably faced with the advent of electricity. The dangers of an invisible ‘mythical’
electrical source powering lights over their tried and true kerosene lamps – but caution is the hallmark here.

OK, now I’ll wait for ‘Ed’s’ rants on conspiracy theories and ‘mindless’ rants about plots to destroy us all (sigh). Does ‘Ed’ really exist? Has anyone ever taken him up and called him? Tyler, is this you spurring the conversation on? (chuckle)

Hello terrestrials. I am aware of your nuclear waste plight and offer my services. I can easily use our transporter to teleport the radioactive waste into the sun. I am currently orbiting the Earth in the Enterprise. We've been transporting the whales and dolphins to a safer planet. Please do not worry about them. Just say the word and the nuclear waste will be fuel for your hungry sun.

Tyler: I certainly agree with you about the gross civil liberty violations of the Bush Administration and wish to add the Gestapo of Homeland Security (Hitler called his Security Act 'Fatherland Security') to your list. I'm sorry I wasn't able to cover the waterfront, so to speak, in the above posting but the power-grabs destroying our Republic are exceedingly numerous and seemingly endless,i.e: Ecology, environmentalism, executive orders, internationalism, 'free trade agreements' on and on. I mentioned global warming and Earth Day because they are both of the Ecology scam ("the earth is dying") genre. But still the global warming - Earth Day propaganda and laws over decades has caused the massive destruction of our industry and made us dependent on foreign oil and products ,as we are now, which I feel is far more destructive than Bushs' power-grabs. Nevertheless we shouldn't stand still for any of it. Global Warming may be occuring as cyclic geologic history shows but it's not a concern and cannot be shown to be man-caused unless people are willing to employ very creative imaginations. Scientists are greatly devided on this issue and to allow our economic and industrial policy to be influenced by such myopic speculation is foolish. We need to rebuild our national industrial base to the levels of decades ago when America was great and we have to get rid of the strangle hold the Ecology laws have on our country along with the power-grabs by tin-pot politicians in Washington D.C..--Ed Nemechek.

Also, I think it's obviously very significant that 'Earth Day' was founded in 1970 on April 22 which is Lenins' birthday (a Communist holiday). I think the significance of this is demonstrated by the influence of all the Earth Day 'love the earth' hoopla propaganda that layed the foundation for the 'environmental' laws that have destroyed our industry and created our dependency on foreign oil and just about everything else, which is of course a main communist goal toward the destruction of America. Ed Nemechek-760-246-8059

Ed, you're still afraid of communists? don't you know the enemy-du-jour is terrorists now?

April 22 is also the birthday of Ashraf Ali, Pakistani cricket wicket-keeper in the mid-80s. so Earth Day is also clearly a middle-eastern plot to destroy America.

or maybe it's a feminist conspiracy, since it's also the birthday of Denise Baldwin, an LPGA golfer.

or it could be any of these folks. there's no escape!

It seems to me that all this 'hoopla' about the 'destruction of America' is an invention of our own political machine. Here's an interview, which can help shed light on this subject:An INTERVIEW with Dr. Sheldon Solomon and Dr. Tom Pyszczynski

My folks still clearly remember nuclear bomb drills at school when they had to hide under their desks. Along the lines of the article, it can go a long way towards understanding the older generation's susceptability to the boys who keep crying wolf. There was some heavy imprinting going on back then about the 'red scare'. Same tactics are going on now - just change the names...

April 22, 1778 : John Paul Jones leads American raid on Whitehaven, England

April 22, 1915 : Germans introduce poison gas

April 22, 1937 : Jack Nicholson born

April 22, 1945 : Hitler admits defeat

April 22, 1954 : McCarthy Army hearings begin

April 22, 1994 : Former President Richard Nixon dies

Wow. Draw your own conspiracy conclusions.

(http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=4/22)