You have a cite for that? This chart shows exactly the opposite:
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Looks like in the 60s there was 300GW, now there is more than four times that.
They've killed nuclear energy on
I agree we should be pushing nuclear, but no matter what we try to recycle there is going to be highly radioactive waste for a hundred thousand years and sometimes there are accidents where that waste winds up all over outside the plant.
Sounds nuts to me, but regardless, it's obvious that it's not reproducing in places like TX and OK, we're being constantly forced to new and more extreme places to drill. And any process must take hundreds of thousands or millions of years. We don't have that time.
I don't know about that but I do know that the
Which would be great if it were not for the fact that the earth is warming because of the already greatly increased CO2. It's up over a third since about 1900, when we greatly accelerated the burning of fossil fuels.
Like there isn't big money on the side of fossil fuels too? It would be one hell of a conspiracy for 95% of climate scientists around the whole world to be in strong agreement that manmade CO2 is warming the planet. I was somewhat skeptical twenty years ago, but the evidence has only greatly increased. The problem is, a lot of people start with a position based on politics, not science, then only look at whatever agrees with that which they have already decided.
Again, you are missing the time frame. Investment NOW in a power infrastructure that MAY generate more revenue in a hypothetical future is problematic.
Maine Yankee is another example. It was built in anticipation of future demand. They are still fighting over it but Hydro Quebec undercut them. The plant was decommissioned in '99 and has become another disposal problem.
Again the point isn't nuclear power but investments that didn't pay off.
New Hampshire had a unique model. You could get a back country permit for a nominal fee, five or ten bucks iirc. It was entirely optional but if you chose not to buy the permit don't expect a search and rescue team anytime soon.
I posted the link on the sci.electronics.design group. One of the posters said the man in the video has his initial figure wrong and is skeptical about the rest.
So you want to mandate private companies to spend money for the 'common good'? I don't have a problem with the public utility concept but today many of the traditional public utilities however become private concerns.
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The municipal water supply was owned by Montana Power who sold it to a California company at the same time they sold all their power infrastructure to another out of state concern. It was a long, expensive struggle for the city to return the water supply to the 'common good' rather than a profit center for some California vultures.
They're spending it anyway. DTE is in the hot seat because of their terrible service in Michigan, and they're running new lines like there's no tomorrow. I'm sure that's happening all over the country. Except, of course, in Texas.
I see nuclear as a component of the power mix, in addition to hydro, geothermal, solar and wind.
However, nuclear isn't a panacea.
There are currently 92 reactors (in 52 plants) in the USA generating power (with one more about to come on-line in Georgia). At an average of about
600Mw each, that is about 6,000 Mw total generation capacity. Note that the typical lifetime for a plant is 60 years, and a significant fraction of those plants will reach their lifetime in a decade or so.
The USA currently has 1,300,000 Mw of generation, half of which is Carbon-based
To replace the Carbon based facilities with Nuclear would require an additional 1,083 nuclear generation plants. Vogtle 3 (the plant about to come on-line in Georgia) has cost $10.3 Billion Dollars so far. So, that's $11 trillion dollars to build enough nuclear to replace the carbon-based generation facilities in today's dollars (although economies of scale may reduce those costs somewhat).
Now, for the fuel:
"The world's present measured resources of uranium (6.1 Mt) in the cost category less than three times present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for about 90 years." (given the exiting fleet of 92 reactors).
Adding a thousand new reactors will deplete the recoverable supplies of fissionables in a few months.
So, what are the alternatives? Thorium (no commercial reactor has yet come on-line using Thorium) and Breaders, and even then, there will be a significant shortage of fuel for that fleet of 1000 reactors.
There is uranium in seawater. In 0.003 parts per million, or three parts per billion. Extracting that and converting to useful fuel is currently beyond expensive, and may cost more than the amount that can be recovered by using it as fuel (i.e. negative EROEI).
And don't ignore the waste issue. Generation of 1000 times more waste is not a small problem (and will be expensive to deal with).
It is nuts. You'll note that snag doesn't bother to cite those "scientists".
Thomas Gold advocated an abiogenic theory of formation that doesn't seem to have been verified scientficially. And it's well know that CH4 (methane) is produced naturally in many ways (although generally from organic sources, there are some indications that it is being produced near the mantle, not confirmed). However, there is zero evidence that heavy hydrocarbons are created abiogenically (e.g. oil).
And even it they were being created abiogenically, the rate of creation is on the scale of millions of years, and we can't wait that long.
If course if it costs more energy to produce the oil than the oil contains, it would be rather foolish (a negative EROEI).
I haven't seen much work on the primary distribution lines around here. They're building McMansions and apartment complexes in every nook and cranny so they are getting wired up but So far it is within existing capacity. My suspicion is the residential and commercial expansion is replacing the mills and factories that are gone.
Just as well. It helps if you're a goat if you try to follow the existing high tension lines. I don't know what the process is but I assume at some point some poor bastard has to climb down into the canyon and back up the other side with a line to pull the wire between the towers.
The pipelines must have been a pisser too. You'll see signs along some of the trails indicating there is a buried pipeline and some of them leave me wondering how they managed to put them there in the first place. It was probably a little late for the 100,000 coolies with pickaxes approach.
You're asking a lot. While I don't have a problem with either solar or wind that does point out if the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine you're screwed. Until you get almost to the NM border Texas doesn't lend itself to pumped storage either. I hate to think of how much power they shunt off when the turbines and panels are working really well. Maybe they could convert Dallas into one big lithium battery; that would be an improvement all around.
Add the fact that one of the reasons the earth's climate has been so favorable for the life forms now living here is BECAUSE all that carbon has been locked up in the ground, instead of in the atmosphere trapping the sun's energy causing this planet to become an oven in which we could not live. This planet was too hot for us before the life forms came along that could take the CO2 out of the air and convert it to carbon forms that could end up buried deep underground, allowing the earth to cool after millions of years.
The GOP and it's climate warming denier supporters intends to undo all of that, creating a disaster for everyone.
A helicopter flies a rope - which is used to pull-through a bigger rope < ? > which is used to pull conductor. " Travellers " are mounted < pulley wheels > for pulling things through, using big strong cable reel machines.
Up at Niagara Falls (paging Moe, Larry, and Curly...) they had an exhibit showing how... they brought the initial cables for one of the bridges across the river.
They had a _kite flying contest_, and yes, the old "light rope" which pulled a heacy rope, etc.
Ha ! I've never heard that story before - and I lived there for a couple short times in the '70's. < probably spending my spare time at the Sundowner, rather than the museums .. >
Ol' Niagara is rife with humour and with tragedy. .. and engineering accomplishments. Reversing the flow of Chippawa Creek to feed the Queenston Canal ; .. the river control dam - which can literally run Niagara Dry - if needed .. and has done so. John T.
I assumed a process like that after the first rope was across. A helicopter makes sense. I was also thinking something like the method to get a line between two ships.
Depending on the catenary they do have to clear cut and brush some slopes that must be fun to work. On the bright side trees grow slowly in a semi- arid climate so it isn't like the southeast where the kudzu can eat a tower in short order.
The Brooklyn Bridge is another fascinating story that starts with the infamous Boss Tweed bribing the alderman to get them on board. Roebling the father had his foot crushed at the outset and died of tetanus. The son continued the work but was also injured so his wife was his man on the project.
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The cables were constructed in place after the lead cable was across, which took two years. The wire supplier was supplying shoddy merchandise, which everybody knew, so they kept adding more strands to the design hoping to make up for the weak wire.
I forget which side it is but the caisson workers had so many problems they gave up before they got to bedrock.
Yup! Climate change is serious business. The Earth has experienced 5 ice ages and all were caused by conservative white heterosexual cave men burning too many camp fires.
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