BS: The president speaks

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 08:02 AM

The inescapable fact is, fossil fuels are a finite resource. They will run out and we will be forced to come up with some other source. Will we wait until the last drop of gasoline is burned? If we wait until then will our air be so polluted with hydrocarbons that solar panels wont work?

As long as bought and paid for "scientists" who tell us what we want to hear are allowed to get away with their false reports we will do nothing,and the polluters will continue to laugh at Al Gore.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Genie
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 12:13 AM

The most effective and probably least expensive short-term AND long-term way of dealing with the energy crisis is to cut down on demand.   That can be done in lots of ways, including reducing speed limits, building more energy efficient buildings and appliances and retrofitting older ones, encouraging and facilitating things like walking and bicycling and mass transporation, and discouraging overconsumption in many areas.   (E.g., why do so many Americans throw away stuff like plastic and paper containers and then go out and buy exactly what they just threw away?)

Yes, we do need transportation, heating, lighting etc., but do we Americans really need half as much as we use?

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 11:43 PM

Subsidies will help to jump start the economy that will make solar, wind, and other green technologies become cost effective through economy of scale. Once that happens, the growth in this sector will fuel an economic boom in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 11:34 PM

Wind and solar energy are not a big factor in US energy production simply because the cost per KWH is higher than that of energy produced by coal, gas or nuclear energy. This may change some as technology improves and fuel prices rise, but in the next decade or so, these "free" energy sources can only survive with the help of sizable subsidies.

I speak as one who is happily living with solar electric panels on my roof--but I couldn't have done it without a big boost from the State of New Jersey.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 10:09 PM

To bring this back to the presidents, energy efficiency is part of the new energy agenda.

quote
"Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source – Energy Efficiency."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/energy_and_environment/

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 09:34 PM

What Alice said.

A modest proposal. It certainly won't solve all our energy problems, but it will certainly go a long way. And it has been done, so it is proven.

For two and a half years I worked as a technical writer under contract to the Bonneville Power Administration. The BPA had been commissioned by the Department of Energy (formerly the Atomic Energy Commission) to come up with new and economical sources of electricity. The BPA did a number of different studies repeatedly, and much to their general distress (they were bucking for more power dams, coal-fired power plants—and to overturn the voters' vetoing the WPPSS [Woops!] nuclear plant program [see my post above]), they were dragged, kicking and screaming, to the conclusion that the most environmentally sound and economical source of new energy was—conservation.

So the BPA instituted a program of providing funds for a statewide residential weatherization program. This program proved to be very popular (saved everybody money), except with those who wanted to build various kinds of new power plants. Lowered people's light and heating bills. It proved so popular—and successful—that the State of Washington initiated the Oil Help program for insulating residences that heated with oil rather than electricity. This, too, proved very popular, since it saved those who took advantage of the program substantial amounts on their yearly heating bills. The only folks who were unhappy with the program were the oil companies, especially the home heating oil companies. I worked on this program as well, writing reports consolidating the findings of field inspectors, so I was privy to what was really going on.

After about three years, for some unexplained reason, these highly successful and popular programs were terminated.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 04:05 PM

No matter what sources of energy we develop, the first consideration should be efficiency (and I'm not talking about freezing in the dark type of ideas).
Cutting down on all the ways we waste energy is important for our national security and economic stability. Building efficient buildings, transportation systems and land use planning is fundamental.

Efficiency is the foundation concept at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Sweaters Are Not the Answer

snip
"It's cheaper to save fuel than it is to go find more of it. And it's ineffective to put our efforts into developing biofuels or renewable energy if we pump it into an inefficient system that fritters most of it away."

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 03:38 PM

Does a Big Economy Need Big Power Plants?

Amory Lovins is an economist and a physicist. His think tank fosters efficiency for business and government.

The article is worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 03:28 PM

The book I alluded to in an earlier post is "Power to Save the World
The Truth About Nuclear Energy" by Gwyneth Cravens.

I have not read the book, but have heard her speak about it twice. As I recall, she feels technology at the power plant level makes nuclear power very safe. She also said that if nuclear fuel is reprocessed until the reprocessing process becomes becomes uneconomic, the remaining fuel is very compact, can be encased in thick glass and stored in deep underground areas without problem. The US does not currently allow reprocessing, according to her, while European countries do. I simplify from what I heard...her facts were much more detailed.

She said when she began to research the book, she leaned towards an anti-nuclear power position, and as she researched the engineering and science she came to a pro-nuclear power position.

If sailors can live for months at a time in nuclear powered submarines, I see no reason for not using nuclear power on land where few people live in such close proximity to controlled radiation.

Finally, it is an apples to oranges comparison to speak of experimental radiation programs at Hanford fifty or so years ago to well engineered, closely monitored power plants of today.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 03:21 PM

see my link to the Amory Lovins article
It addresses your question about the best course for electrical generation in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: pdq
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 03:11 PM

The subject started out being Obama's speech. We seem to be getting was off-topic, as usual.

As I said already, some people have serious problems with coal, hydrolectrical and nuclear power plants.

So, what do we use so that our 310,000,000 people get electricity?

Perhaps someone closer to the state of Washington could explain why there are many areas in Grand Coule Dam that are intended for generators that are not being used?

Perhaps someone could explain why no Obama Stimulus Bill money goes to upgrading the aged generators to "stste-of-the-art" ones?

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 03:00 PM

Why dance with the Devil when other sources of power are free and non toxic? It's a no brainer!

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:52 PM

This is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Maybe the skeptics will believe the NRC.

"High-level wastes are hazardous to humans and other life forms because of their high radiation levels that are capable of producing fatal doses during short periods of direct exposure. For example, ten years after removal from a reactor, the surface dose rate for a typical spent fuel assembly exceeds 10,000 rem/hour, whereas a fatal whole-body dose for humans is about 500 rem (if received all at one time). Furthermore, if constituents of these high-level wastes were to get into ground water or rivers, they could enter into food chains. Although the dose produced through this indirect exposure is much smaller than a direct exposure dose, there is a greater potential for a larger population to be exposed."

snip

"At this time there are no facilities for permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Since the only way radioactive wastes finally become harmless is through decay, which for some isotopes contained in high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored in a way that provides adequate protection for very long times."

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:41 PM

It the leakage from the waste storage tanks at Hanford make it to the Columbia River, then nuclear waste will be flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Another consideration:   the Columbia is a major salmon spawning river. What will that do to the salmon, already an endangered species. Or, for that matter, how would you like to sit down to a nice salmon steak that has a tendency to glow a bit?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:35 PM

pdq, I and most mudcatters know what half life means.

The long term storage problem still stands.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: pdq
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:33 PM

"...radioactive species have half-lives longer than one million years"

The term "half-life" means that the crap is only half as bad as it was. It ain't truely harmless for perhaps billions of years.

Another voice for "no nukes".

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:24 PM

The problem is that radiation is deadly long beyond the time we can foresee being able to control its disposal or storage.

a quote:
"Because some radioactive species have half-lives longer than one million years, even very low container leakage and radionuclide migration rates must be taken into account.[31] Moreover, it may require more than one half-life until some nuclear materials lose enough radioactivity to no longer be lethal to living things. A 1983 review of the Swedish radioactive waste disposal program by the National Academy of Sciences found that country's estimate of several hundred thousand years—perhaps up to one million years—being necessary for waste isolation "fully justified."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 02:23 PM

Hanford, Washington, where much of the initial research on atomic bombs was conducted, has unintentionally become a toxic waste dump, with nuclear waste from leaking tanks making its way through the ground water toward the Columbia River. Experiments with nuclear power, both the explosive and non-explosive kinds, have been conducted there since the early 1940s. Hanford practically glows in the dark. There are people in the area, the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, Kennewick), who refer to themselves as "downwinders." Among this group, the rate of things like thyroid cancer are way above average.

Some years back, the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS, aptly acronymed "Woops") was going to build several nuclear power plants around Washington State. The voters protested and voted it down, out, and gone. It wasn't just the ecological impact, it was because even before the first shovelfuls of dirt were turned over, the projects went into huge cost over-runs.

There are also rumors of an "incident" that took place at the Trojan nuclear plant on the Columbia River in southwest Washington, but it was hastily hushed up.

There are a number of alternative energy sources, relatively inexpensive, with no waste problems and minimal environmental impact, that have hardly even been investigated yet

Nuclear power? No, thank you!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 01:05 PM

John-
No. One mile got suppressed.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 07:29 AM

As far as I know, there is no such thing as safe storage of spent fuel. John, if you know something I don't let's hear it.

By the very nature of nuclear power it is very dangerous. Accidents happen. I've never heard of a windmill blowing up, or run away solar panels.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 Feb 09 - 12:15 AM

What happened a Four Mile Island?...did Three Mile Island mutate...grow another mile because of radioactivity?

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 11:59 PM

The full story of what happened at Four Mile island may never be told...

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 11:10 PM

Still, as noted above, micropower generation is the most secure option. A nuclear power plant that serves a large area is much more vulnerable to all kinds of things than a lot of much smaller plants in a large network.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 11:03 PM

Damn it, why don't people read what is written?
"You've never heard of Chernobyl?"
I didn't say I've never heard of Chernobyl. Read my statement and then my response to the Chernobyl comment that followed. I know you're smarter than those comments you just wrote, Alice.
The design and engineering and the redundant safety systems (if there were any) in Ukraine were well below the standards of the US and France.
Speaking of France, they seem to be handling their nuclear facilities and waste quite well
There is a book out right now, the title of which escapes me, but I've heard the author speak twice; she makes a compelling case for the safety of running plants and the safe storage of the spent fuel. I'll try to recall it in the next day or two.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 10:10 PM

I guess I should have been a bit more careful. I should have said, I don't know anyone who has stocks.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 10:09 PM

I worked in the field of alternative energy and conservation in the late 70's, early 80's, and my mentor and teacher was Amory Lovins.

Decentralized micropower generation is much more secure (harder to disable a region or city), and can be more reliable, efficient, and have less impact on the environment than large, centralized power plants.

I'd just like to share with Mudcatters who are interested in solutions to the energy problems, this blog post by Lovins at the NY Times:

snip
If I told you, "Many people need computing services, so we'd better build more mainframe computer centers where you can come run your computing task," you'd probably reply, "We did that in the 1960's, but now we use networked PC's." Or if I said, "Many people make phone calls, so we'd better build more big telephone exchanges full of relays and copper wires," you'd exclaim, "Where have you been? We use distributed packet-switching."

snip
Meanwhile, generators thousands or tens of thousands of times smaller — microturbines, solar cells, fuel cells, wind turbines — started to become serious competitors, often enabled by IT and telecoms. The restructured industry exposed previously sheltered power-plant builders to brutal market discipline. Competition from a swarm of smaller electrical sources and savings created financial risks far beyond the capital markets' appetite. Moreover, the 2008 Defense Science Board report "More Fight, Less Fuel" advised U.S. military bases to make their own power onsite, preferably from renewables, because the grid is vulnerable to long and vast disruptions.
snip

It's a short article, and well worth a read.
Here is the link.
Does a big economy need big power plants?

Here is the web site for Amory Lovins' research, The Rocky Mountain Institute.
http://rmi.org/

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Alice
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 09:47 PM

"with a much smaller footprint, less impact on the environment, and more aesthetically pleasing than the other alternatives"

What alternate reality did that come from?
You've never heard of Chernobyl? Just because a Chernobyl hasn't happened in America yet, that means it can't happen? ... and oh, not to mention the radioactive waste no one knows what to do with.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 09:23 PM

Kendall, you may be wrong about stock ownership.

In 2005, the last year I could get figures for easily, over 20% of Americans directly owned stocks; about 49% of American families owned shares in mutual funds. Allowing for some overlap between the two, and considering that most funds invest all or part in equities (stocks), I would surmise that perhaps 60% or more of Americans own stock either directly or indirectly.

Considering the market turn down, this figure may have dropped a bit, but many people have had to hold on to dwindling prices in hopes of a comeback, I would think the percentage is still well above 50%.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 09:08 PM

Most of us have no stocks, Doug.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: DougR
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 07:59 PM

I wish the president would speak less often. Every time he opens his mouth the stock market takes a dive.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 01:35 PM

That scenario reminds me of The Cat in the Hat, the one with the pink cake icing that spreads more and more the more the Cat tries to make it go away.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 01:29 PM

And then, Robo, we'll have to create/discover an antidote to the bacteria. Radioactive bacteria. 'Tis ever thus.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 11:03 AM

I expect we'll solve the nuclear waste problem by developing a bacterium that eats all the nuclear out of it!

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 08:42 AM

They seemed to forget that one of our staunch allies in the middle east was named Hussein, King of Jordan.Remember the photos of the King of Jordan driving O'Bama to the airport? And the photos of John McWar being driven around in a golf cart by former president Bush? Some contrast, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 03:10 AM

Yes, that's probably true.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Genie
Date: 27 Feb 09 - 02:52 AM

Mick and Carol, you're right, obviously, that Obama's opponents emphasized the "Hussein" middle name as a way of trying to tie him (quite irrationally) to the terrorist attacks of 9-11 by playing up the name he shares with the former dictator of Iraq.    (Trying to make Americans forget that there are and have been other leaders named "Hussein" and some have been our allies. And that Saddam Hussein was neither a friend of Al Quaeda nor involved in the 9-1 attacks.)   The aim was to lead the gullible to think "Hussein" = muslim = Arab = terrorist.   
They also tried to capitalize on the similar sound of "Obama" and "Osama."

But beyond that, there was still the idea that a name like Barack Obama just plain stands out like a sore thumb amid all the other Anglo-European sounding names of our other Presidents.   Even if we'd never invaded Iraq to depose a guy named Hussein and even if a Muslim guy named Osama hadn't been behind a major terrorist attack on the US, a candidate like Barack Hussein Obama would probaby have had an easier time getting elected if his name had been something like Jonathan Williams or Edward Stevens.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Stringsinger
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 07:39 PM

The banks (the zombies) hoodwinked the people who bought into the mythology of "the American Dream" home ownership scam. The banks sat on their big fat bad ass-ets.

it was one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history.

When the president speaks, Smith-Barney doesn't listen.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 06:00 PM

Anyone who suggests that the use of Barak Hussein Obama in the campaign rhetoric was anything other than an attempt to create fear in the minds of the masses is either ignorant, or they have taken the term disengenuous to new heights. It was a blatant attempt to play on the anti Moslem fears, and ignorance, of the ill informed. These are the same people that would deny the ape cartoon, or the watermelon patch at the White House, were racist.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:51 PM

They demonized Obama's name because they considered that it sounded Muslim, rather than because it sounded strange. And especially because he shares his middle name with one of the most demonized and hated people in US' list of enemies. Of course, the idea that a name can confer on a person the same characteristics or loyalties as another person with the same name is pretty moronic.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 03:17 PM

I don't care what his name is. He can call himself Rumplestiltskin for all I care. I just would not want to listen to him for 4+ years.

He is said to be quite 'intelligent', but intelligence is expressed in various ways. Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich were not dumb.

Subject: Piyush "Bobby" Jindal
From: Genie
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 01:53 PM

Thanks for that Bobby Jindal to Kenneth The Page link, Carol. LOL

Here's one of the best 'morph' jobs (and pretty easy to see even if you're on dial-up).

http://thedw.us/post/81401310/via
Bobby Jindal morphs into Kenneth The Page in 4 sec.

And, oh, by the way, I misstated his first name. It's Piyush, not Prakash. Om Prakash Jindal is a different person.    Piyush Jindal, who, as a child watching The Brady Bunch, adopted the nickname of his favorite character, "Bobby," is the current Governor of Louisiana and reportedly among the Republicans' favorites to run for US President in 2012.

(To those who criticize or ridicule Jindal for choosing to be "Bobby" instead of "Piyush" even in professional/political life, I must ask if that's any more odd than Edmund Gerald Brown, Sr. being commonly known as "Pat."
To those Republicans who try to marginalize or demonize Barack Hussein Obama for having a name that sounds strange and foreign to "most Americans," I ask whether you'd want your political rivals to similarly exploit a name like Piyush Jindal.)

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 01:10 PM

Kendall's suggestion of Cobscook Bay led me to this article which is a good overview of tide and wave generated power proposals:

http://alliance.strategies.org/docs/All_ocean_energy_presentations.pdf

"Energy from the Oceans." Well-worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 12:42 PM

ORPC has experimented with a turbine pilot in Cobscook Bay. The site would require transmission lines. It might provide a percentage of power to Maine, but approval of any large scale turbine system is questionable. Many of the same problems as the Nova Scotia site.

Wave energy proposals seem more likely to generate larger amounts of power, but so far experimentation seems mostly confined to Europe. It's future, however, looks interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 10:09 AM

(a 300 pound Avon Lady -- I laughed like a drain!) Thanks, kendall.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: kendall
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 09:34 AM

Q Cobscook Bay is entirely on the American side, and the only heavy industry there is a 300 pound Avon Lady.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:01 AM

And don't forget the fact that a windmill farm won't be a lasting monument. After all decommissioning of a windmill farm is a pretty minimal and fuss free business compared to a nuclear power plant. Where's the grand legacy in that - I mean who's ever gonna remember your great big 'monument' and gift to to civilisation, if it can just get demolished like so much lego?

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Peter T.
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 04:47 AM

There can only be two reasons why building windmills is seen as less fun than building nuclear power plants: (1) bad teaching of engineering. A good engineering problem is a good engineering problem (designing a good paper airplane is perhaps the most fun of anything); (2) penises. Nuclear power plants are seen as big guy penises, and windmills wimpy. Perhaps the solution is to design big thick vertical windmills with two smaller windmills on either side. That might get the attention.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Genie
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 12:02 AM

mg -"
... I wonder if Obama has given much thought to farms and maintaining the food supply in these trying times...

One big problem is agricultural lands being turned into vinyards. The other of course is development. As long as we can revert to growing food, I don't mind, but that is a big if."

Good questions, Mary. I wouldn't assume Barack isn't planning to address these issues just because they weren't specifically addressed in this speech, but I hope he and Congress plan to deal (wisely) with them.

He also didn't address how legalizing the agricultural hemp industry could do wonders for addressing our needs for fuel, fabric, paper, and a host of food and medicinal product, but I'm holding out hope that maybe the public can be brought to open their eyes about that too.

mg: "I also wonder why to stimulate the economy we don't hire a bunch of local people damn near everywhere and build standard, plain, community health clinics. A few staff added, head by a nurse, and there you go. I would build health for all up through public health programs to start with. Many many everywhere. No nurses? I say again, free tuition for anyone wanting to go into public health nursing."
Again I agree. Although right now we wouldn't really have a shortage of nurses if competent licencsed RNs were allowed to return to practice more readily after taking 3 or 4 years' leave of absence (e.g., to have kids).

The most important thing we need to address -- and this is something Obama did not deal with in this speech -- is the question of why the corporate profit motive should be thrown into the mix between the patients and the health care providers (doctors, nurses, aides, and essential administrative staff).

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 11:58 PM

Bobby Jindal and Kenneth the page

Subject: RE: BS: The president speaks
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 10:22 PM

",,,so what are the thousands of engineers out there doing? Redesigning ashtrays in automobiles and tinkering with nuclear power and coal scrubbers."

If that is the case, Peter, then this administrations needs to change the proportions...just as they would alter the types & use of troops in wartime. Engineers like **solving problems** and as my friend at EPA pointed out years ago, some technical problems are just more fun than others. Building windmills is viewed as kinda dull compared to nuclear power plants. So, incentives would need to be offered, as well as subsidies to the green power industries. That doesn't mean that corrective measures that we already have can't be improved & applied to coal plants and mining techniques. A few engineers can be spared until we get up to speed on green technologies.

why am I remembering the old sign...

"When you are up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember your objective was to drain the swamp."?