[XCSSA] Man Made Global Warming Consensus A Farce?

Wed Jan 7 09:47:25 CST 2009

Quoting "X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio" <xcssa at xcssa.org>:

>
>> Well, not really. Wind power is unreliable, it can't meet the
>> spikes in demand that exist as people use electricity. The only
>> plants that can come online quick enough to supply those spikes are
>> natural gas plants. Those aren't terribly efficient. If we really
>> wanted to provide a substantial amount of cheap power, we'd build
>> nuclear plants. Nuclear plants are safe, terribly efficient, and
>> produce huge amounts of power.
>
> I said "renewable energy" now specificially "wind".  AFAIK,
> "renewable" energy could meet all our energy needs, without including
> Nuclear energy.
>
> Sure wind itself is very intermittent and does not match our demand
> curve.  However, it is complementary to solar energy, which pretty
> well tracks our demand curve but provides nothing at night.  And then
> there are very steady sources such as geothermal and wave energy.
>
> What would work is to combine energy from all these sources over a
> large geographic area.  Then add energy storage systems and demand
> management.  Energy storage is obviously a key, and better methods of
> energy storage are being developed, such as Vanadium Flow batteries
> which are currently being developed in 10 MWHr capacities, and no
> reason they couldn't be scaled up to GWHr capacities.  And then
> there's also good old "pumped water" energy storage systems, which
> have been used for a long time (though not on the scale that might be
> required in future).  Use surplus energy to pump water up, then let
> it run down through turbines when energy is needed.
>
> All this costs lots of money, but so does nuclear, and nuclear has
> unsolved problems (long term waste storage) and will, before too
> long, require reprocessing (which increases risk of material ending
> up in terrorist hands) and ultimately "breeder" reactors (which have
> proven to be a very complicated and dangerous technology...typically
> sodium cooling is used...the few that exist, none in the USA, are
> mostly offline).
>
> One great idea is the use of grid-managed plug-in-hybrid or electric
> vehicles.  We will need large amounts of battery storage using
> appropriate technology (such as Lithium Ion) for future vehicles
> anyway, so why not let the grid "borrow" energy from that storage
> when it wouldn't be a problem and then pay back when there is surplus
> juice.  As incentive, if you allow such "borrowing" your electric
> rate could be much lower.  Motive power from electricity runs at the
> equivalent to $1/gallon gasoline anyway.
>
> Similarly, water pumping and aluminum refining require lots of energy
> but can operate on as-surplus-power-is-available basis.  This has
> also been done for a long time.  Also we now have primitive demand
> management with utility-controlled-thermostats.  In Baltimore, you
> can get a hefty discount on your electric rates if you install one.
> Here the situation is a bit different (we have more surplus capacity)
> and CPS only gives you a free thermostat and installation...hardly
> worth the effort IMO, besides I didn't like their thermostat.  (I
> just got a Honeywell VisionPro IAQ thermostat, far better than what
> CPS gives you.  It cost $475 installed.  It's better because it's not
> just energy saving but better humidity control, etc., and it's just
> way cool.  It's a little touchscreen computer with temp and humidity
> sensors running your HVAC system.)
>
> So you build "nominal" capacity quite a bit larger than you would
> need with fossil sources, and dole out any intermittent surpluses for
> storage to be used later or water pumping etc.
>
> Sooner or later we will need to do all this anyway.  Oil will become
> unusable for energy in this century (if not the next 30 years) simply
> because the price will be too high or the energy-return-on-energy-
> investment will be too low.  Oil will still be available for chemical
> uses for which EROEI doesn't matter or perhaps specialized uses such
> as jet fuel.  Coal will hit a similar situation either in this
> century or the next.  Nuclear as it is now would only be useful about
> as long as oil, though with reprocessing and eventually breeders it
> *could* last longer.  But why do that, when for about the same cost
> we could build renewable systems now which will be useful forever,
> are far safer, etc.
>
> The sooner we do this, the easier it is because we now still have
> lots of oil energy which is handy for large scale construction.  As
> time goes on, it will become more difficult.
>
> This cannot be done overnight anyway, and as we build more renewable
> we will figure out how to do it better.  Right now, we get so little
> energy from wind (even in Texas, the nation's leader in wind power)
> that it can simply be put online with no concern about its
> intermittancy.  It simply displaces fossil use on the grid.  But when
> it gets above 20%, that becomes an issue, you begin to have larger
> surpluses than you can use at off hours.  For solar, intermittancy is
> even less of a problem.
>
> And further, if you believe in global warming, as most climatologists
> do, then there is an additional reason to get building large scale
> renewable energy now as much as possible.
>

[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation_needed

-- 
David Kowis
Source Mage Linux - www.sourcemage.org
Liberty! - www.campaignforliberty.com
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