A strong opinion on America's power supply.

[Veyron]

This also applies to the lack of oil refineries which operate constantly at 98% of capacity. There hasn't been a refinery built in decades.

One Reason for the Blackout Maybe . . . Enviro Wackos
Alan Caruba
Thursday, Aug 14, 2003
There's a very fundamental reason for the latest blackout on the East Coast.
The United States of America needs more power facilities.

I'm not talking about ten thousand windmills on the coast of Massachusetts or seventy square miles of solar collectors in Vermont. I'm talking about burning coal and using natural gas. I'm talking about hydroelectric plants and, yes, nuclear-based plants.

All of them gloriously producing electricity.

Reality pulled the plug from Ottawa to Detroit, from Toledo to Hartford, from Cleveland to New York City.

Millions of New Yorkers had to walk across the bridges to the other Boroughs to get home. Major cities just flat out shut down. No electricity. No elevator service. No cell phones. No traffic lights.

NO NOTHING!

We live in a technological society that is totally dependent on electricity and it isn't produced by putting forty hamsters on a treadmill.

You have to burn coal. You have to use natural gas. You have to tap rolling water for hydroelectricity. You need to build clean, non-polluting nuclear plants.

Americans, in general, are so dumb they just can't imagine not having enough electricity for everything they need to do.

The reason California experienced so many energy problems was that the stupid Californians would not allow power plants to be built and thought they could just keep buying electricity from Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and even Canada. No!

You can't have a massive immigration surge and not expect to use more damned electricity. It's a commodity and, when it gets scarce, the price goes UP.

There's a reason why California doesn't have enough power plants, nor any other State in this great republic of ours. It's called environmentalism.

It goes something like this; the Environmental Protection Agency is so busy levying huge fines on existing and older power plants that there is no incentive to build new ones.

It goes like this; the stupid attorney generals of Eastern States sue Western ones, blaming them for the air quality and crying, 'We can't get in compliance with the EPA because you people want to heat your homes and stuff."

If that doesn't stop a power plant, there's the old reliable Endangered Species Act or there's wetlands regulations. Or the Greens will run around and say that building a power plant anywhere is unfair to the poor people who may live anywhere near it.

Listen up, you dumb Americans!

There are over 280 million of us and all of us, except for those who live in cardboard boxes under a bridge, want to have our air conditioning work in the summer and our furnace work in the winter.

We expect the food in our refrigerator to stay frozen. We expect to turn on our computers, our lights, and, God help us, our television sets.

The latest blackout was a warning that, so long as this nation continues to go along with idiotic and malevolent environmentalists and their lies about darned near everything, we are going to have more and worse blackouts.

Who needs terrorists? Our national security is entirely dependent on safe, reliable and abundant energy.

Maybe 8-14-03 needs to be added to 9-11-01 as a reminder of that? Environmentalists have been attacking the economic and energy base of this nation for decades.

Call it the Californication of America.


Alan Caruba is the author of "Warning Signs", published by Merril Press. His weekly column is posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center.

[YogsVR4]

While the tone of the article was overly dramatic, the basic facts are right. Powerplants are not getting built or replaced. The demand for electricity is increasing (even if eveyones needs were the same, the population is growing) and regulations are one of the major factors stopping development.

Heaven forbid we build a nuclear plant or replace an old coal burning one with natural gas. Those older plants are much harder on the environment then new ones, but spending four+ billion dollars to do all the regulatory requirements is beyond ludicrous. I am not suggesting that there aren’t legitimate concerns and regulations to follow, but its gotten way out of hand.

Big Rock (nuclear power plant) was decommissioned just down the road after 30 years of use. Did they build anything to replace it? Of course not. It might have disrupted a blade of grass in one of the fields.

[Veyron]

There are three nuclear plants near me built on the Tennessee river, they were built by Tennessee Valley Authority which is the US government. It took forever to build them, there were many problems due to shoddy workmanship, deadlines weren't met and the cost were astronomical due to inept gov't management etc.

Hillary Clinton gets on TV last nite blaiming deregulation and privatized power providers for the blackout, and of course Bush who has had an energy plan stuck in Washington for two years. I guess she'll always think government can do things better than anyone else, wrong.

[eldiablo]

I agree with the building of new power plants just because our population is growing and we will need to meet future demand. The thing is that most reactors were only running on 75% capacity the day the blackout occured. It seems as though the infrastructure of one Ohio company and the chaotic nature of the energy of universe are to blame.

[texan]

Ick, man I don't agree with the previous posters.

IMO, the obvious solution is to decentralize the grid. The primary problem with the whole idea of our electrical grid is that power must be made in a few specially selected places, then distributed to the popluace through a convoluted and antiquated network of wiring (the full limitations of such were just shown). Back when the electricity infrastructure was designed, this approach made total sense. But now that several alternative and equally viable (or soon to be so) technologies allow for personal power production from home to home, the old status quo of centralization in power production makes less sense by the day. If deregulation can ever make sense, then decentralization can only make more sense. There is a rapidly decreasing need for large scale power plants distributing to far away places when solar and hydrogen based power plants can serve the same purpose, and simultaneously make the grid all but impervious to large scale blackouts. Think about it; if a grid produces much of it's power from "personal" production, how could you have a serious blackout in the system? By nature most of the really important systems would generate their own sustainable power (which would be fortified by link to the grid in the event of a local production failure, in essence the reverse of what we now rely on), and slowly less critical systems could come online with their own personal production. As each location shifted from central to local production, the system would get stronger and stronger, in essence the more diversified the system became the more resilient it would become to attack and infrastructure limitation.

A recent discussion with fuel cell technologists echoed this sentiment; when asked of the role the US government has played in creating a viable hydrogen infrastructure, some hated the very idea. They maintained that with our current level of technology, the worst idea possible was to centralize hydrogen production, where many people relied of a few select areas of production to supply the overall need. What made much more sense to them was the idea of personal production, where people largely reformed hydrogen for their own use, which made the system both incredibly adaptive to changing demand and also resilient to regional problems (of course it also makes it impossible to price fix the fuel, which some large corporations may take exception to).

[DMC12]

We don't need more power, we need to use energy WISELY. This is one of the few areas where me & the treehuggers can agree.

[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by DMC12

We don't need more power, we need to use energy WISELY. This is one of the few areas where me & the treehuggers can agree.

I don't disagree that using power wisely isn't a laudable goal, but with a population increase and a move to more people from a low income to middle class - more and more people will need power. Production will have to increase to meet that need.

[sidewinder69]

Well at least I know I'll always have a job as a Power Engineer!!!

Using energy wisely is a nice thought.....but would you let ppl. come into your home and attach a whole bunch of readers to all of your electricity outlets and when the reader sees that you are using too much power, turn the device off? I don't think too many ppl. would be happy with that. ESPECIALLY since they'd bitch about the price then, and not having a reliable power source.

Another thing, the REASON WHY there is a centralized grid is so that we can SHARE the power, and make money off the access that we don't need. If we didn't have this then some places would have TONS of power and others would be experiencing rolling blackouts.

Prolly. a reason WHY California is not too power savvy is because they have earthquakes regularily there....would you want a nuke reactor on a fault line? That's a dangerous game of nuclear Russian Roulette.

Alternative power is shit. Plain and simple. Even natural gas is shit, did you know that we only have about 10-15 years of KNOWN natural gas storage left? As opposed to coal where the KNOWN amount of the material is good for another 2000 years.

And who thought of these windmills and powercells? THEY SUCK!!!! Coal burning plants produce SO much more power than these alternatives, and is extremely cheaper. Was it Holland or Amsterdam that have somewhere around the region of 500 windmills and that it only makes up for about 1% of their energy needs??? The solar panels are getting more technological, but then you have to think of it like this, why buy them now when they'll be obsolete by the time they are installed.

One last point I must mention, although nuke reactors are much more reliable they are running out of the special metal NEEDED to contain the reactor. FYI that's not good.

Now you might think that coal is gross and pollutes the atmosphere but did anyone read about the coal plant they upgraded? They put a kind of rebreather on the back, cost a shitload of money but now it's somewhere around 98% pollutant free.

I'll try to find links to the resources, but I have to got to sleep cause I'm tired.

[texan]

sidewinder69- Your thoughts are entirely inside the box, and thus probably not correct over the long haul. Thinking entirely outside the box is also statistically fruitless regarding future dilemma, the best answers often find a sweet spot between new ideas and proven ones. To draw parallel to the current energy problem, let's put into perspective the evolution of transportation (the other great energy crisis).

When modern transportation first evolved, it was in a centralized form by necessity (the technology simply wasn't there to do it any other way). Railways were the first form of truly long distance mass transit, but this slowly gave way to other, more personal and far more flexible means of transportation. The automobile slowly came of age through much research and development, which just happened to coincide with a great amount of work in developing roadways for these newly sensible inventions. Air travel by plane later came into the mix, which for the most part still forms a centralized system as economically viable personal air transportation is still a distant dream. However, the model does teach a convincing lesson; while railways allowed a degree of freedom for modern society to move about, it wasn't until the advent of more personal and flexible transport that people were truly free to move around with an amazing level of convenience and efficiency.

This is the same model by which power production now finds itself in my opinion: centralized production and distribution is in some ways unable to effectively and efficiently meet today's demands. Meanwhile, personal power production is reaching a technological reality that can't be ignored, as much as you may think "alternative power" is shit. Solar cells are constantly improving in efficiency and price competitiveness, but to say that purchasing such as system is pointless because it's outdated once available is tantamount to using such argument against ever purchasing a personal computer. While the systems will certainly become more efficient over time, the whole reason for buying one is completely separate from this fact.

Finally, hydrogen based power production and storage has come of age. While fuel cell technology is still in it's infancy relative to other forms of power production, to cast it aside as not viable would be to ignore some great history lessons. What if Henry Ford had decided not to develop the Model T, as certainly one day there'd be better cars available? Then the new era he helped to usher in might never have been, and we could still be staring at horseless carriages as mere novelty items best left to the collector while we all waited in lines at the rail station or subway for the next train to come along. You talk about the next 2000 years of coal availability as impressive, but shouldn't the infinite renewability of hydrogen then be simply staggering? Hydrogen is the perfect fuel for our current needs: it can power all existing internal combustion engines as well as feed fuel cells with equal ease. No other fuel can come close to this ability, nor can any promise equally clean power production. Hydrogen is also the most abundant fuel in the universe, in short both infinitely available and easy to handle/transport/use.

If we could supplement our current infrastructure with personal power production based upon solar cells and solar powered hydrogen reformation, we could cut the yoke which has bound us regarding energy concerns well into the foreseeable future. Just as railways still command a place in transportation today, coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric plants will still find a home for our energy needs in the future. But rather than simply building more of these stations, we could instead diversify the grid by producing power on a personal level, and provide the same sort of amazing resilience and flexibility our transportation systems now enjoy. Just a few thoughts from a non power engineer, peace

[sidewinder69]

I'm not a Power Engineer YET.

Anyways, I totally forgot about the Hydrogen and I appologize. But I do stand by the fact that solar cells and windmills making a significant dent in anyone's total energy use is a pipe dream that someone thought up a long time ago. The simple fact is that the alternate forms of power (sun, and wind) just don't measure up anywhere near the current standard.

True solar cells are growing by technological leaps and bounds, but if you actually think someone would want to sink a very large sum of money into them it would NOT be a good investment for them. Pure and simple, the technology is SO good that it isn't a good idea to invest in them UNTIL they somehow come up to par with the other types of power available....i.e. coal.

Also people buy computers, and they know that the technology WILL get better, BUT they also know that you can UPGRADE your computer for a fraction of the cost of buying a new one. With solar cells you really can't upgrade them, except for ripping off the cell and gluing in a new one right?

I'd like to think outside the box, but OTHER than Hydrogen nothing can compare to the power output that we are getting right now with the modern systems, coal, nuclear, and even dams. And they are trying to improve the emissions standards by upgrading the plants with the purifying units (coal). The only problem is that they are EXTREMELY expensive, and politicians like to balance the budget.

Thinking outside the box requires a lot of research, which tends to result in time and money, and a lot of ppl. have the thinking that: "If it ain't broke then don't fix it." I love the fact that they are coming out with Hybrid cars and Hydrogen powered fuel cells, but WHY aren't these developments getting anymore attention??? These should be the things that everyone SHOULD be talking about, a revolutionary new system where the only waste product is WARM WATER!!! I mean isn't that news worthy!?!?!? Why haven't we heard any new developments? Because aparently according to everyone, nothings wrong with the current system.

It takes major almost diasters like these to shake people up and make them think about newer technologies. Because until it breaks......well, it ain't broken.

Just re-read my last post, sorry I meant that solar cells are shit, not the Hydrogen power cells, my bad. I was tired.

[texan]

Good stuff, I can agree with everything you've said. It's good to have this discussion with someone whose got specific knowledge concerning the topic, very few people seem to actually know much about power production. Myself I'm more geared towards power production as it pertains to vehicles, hence the afinity for fuel cell technology.

I agree that the vast majority of our power will come from power plants for the foreseeable future. I'm not so sold on the idea that solar cells couldn't supliment this well on a small scale by being added to houses, but that's not really the point. My nextdoor neighbor bought a system that supplies about 90% of his home's energy need (it's paying for itself very quickly especially after the California BS energy crisis and resultant HUGE rates), but of course that really means nothing when compared to the consumption of even just our block. I still believe there's a place for adding these systems to millions of homes, but perhaps not primarily for electricity needs. I think they would be best used by reforming hydrogen during the day, which could both partially fuel your car and power a home based fuel cell for some supplimental energy (and emergency power production). Anyways that's just my opinion, and I agree that it's sad so many people think gasoline is still working just fine. It's not, just look at the shit we're in regarding the Middle East, our air pollution, and prices at the pump. Not to mention the naturally dismal energy efficiency of even the best combustion engines.

[sidewinder69]

Originally Posted by texan

Good stuff, I can agree with everything you've said. It's good to have this discussion with someone whose got specific knowledge concerning the topic, very few people seem to actually know much about power production.

And THERE inlies the problem. People go about their lives without even thinking about power. Honestly do you even think about a light switch before you turn it on? No! It's just there!

That's why no one really realizes how much they DEPEND on power until it goes out and is no longer available. Honestly WHAT can you do today that doesn't require power. Can't watch tv, can't go on the computer can't read a book if it's dark, hell you can't even open a can if it you have an electric can opener.

So now that people have had their eyes opened to this, they know something is wrong with the current system and now they're SCREAMING FOR CHANGE. But I can also be pretty safe in the guess that people that DIDN'T have their power go out think that there is nothing wrong with the grid. *shrug* And think it'll never happen to them.

I sure hope someone does SOMETHING soon, or we might lose the WHOLE grid one day. And if people won't shut up about this being a terorist attack and giving terroists IDEAS for fucks sake it may happen sonner than expected. And we also won't be able to get the grid back online if it does come down to terrorism.

[racingbreed20]

Just to prove a point.....

I'm hungry where's my double cheese burger?

You see I do care...

[sidewinder69]

Originally Posted by racingbreed20

Just to prove a point.....

I'm hungry where's my double cheese burger?

You see I do care...

It seems that you have posted in the wrong thread.

WTF has that got to do with an energy crisis?