Shouldn't you replace Dick Cheney with Barack Obama by now? The new prez is all about Clean Coal Technology. So, you'd better get on board or you're a racist.
Obama's EPA is moving quickly to regulate CO2. They are also supporting global regulation of mercury which will likely result in limits on coal fired power too. Furthermore, Obama's choice of Nobel prize winner Steven Chu as Sec. of Energy shows he gets it and is a welcome change from the criminal Sam Bodman in the Bush administration. So yeah, like you I'm not thrilled by everything BO has said on this topic but there is a huge difference between Lord Vader Cheney and BO on this matter.
Well said. Anybody can go throwing around claims that anyone is a hypocrite. Look at religion, there whole game is hypocracy. Anyways, the fact is that we didn't create the current dilemma, we can't take the blame. We can on the other hand do something about it at this point. This video from RFKactionfront is doing more by spreading knowledge about RE than making accusations will do. The energy embedded in a PV module takes about 1.5 years for it to recoop in free energy from the sun.
I wonder where the power in your home comes from because your other options are pretty expensive. I am willing to bet you are a hipocrit and your power comes from exactly what you claim to oppose.
And I am willing to bet you don't know how to spell hypocrite. I know exactly how much of the power in my home comes from coal -- 50%. How do I know that? I went to ilovemountains[dot]org[slash]myconnection and typed in my zip code so that I could see exactly where my power comes from. I suggest you do the same. It is precisely because I know how much of my electric power is coming from coal that I want to work even harder to covert our energy supply to renewable energy. See how that works?
Did you know that all the power- coal and green feeds into one main power control and on given any day there is no actual way to tell what percentage of your homes power is coming from green energy? Companies are constantly buying and selling power based on power load and equipment outages. Believe me I think green is the way to go too but I think solar energy has a long way to go before it can be a viable replacement to coal, it would require thousands of acres to repace a 500MW coal plant.
Utilities contract with power suppliers for a set amount of power generation -- so even though the mix of supply varies over the course of the day -- the total ratio over time is relatively fixed. In CA, NM, NV, AZ, TX, UT, etc. there are thousands of MILES of desert that could accommodate solar facilities. Solar is already cheaper than coal and Google is gonna drive the price down further. New technologies can "print" solar cells using dot matrix-type technology. The future is here now.
Solar Energy will never account for more than a few percent of our energy. It will not be used at all for transportation industries. Does anybody think that a solar powered car is feasible? Besides what do you do when the Sun does not shine? You only get about 6 good hours a sunshine a day and this is when the sun is shining and in the summer months. What do you do at night? I guess the solar people never thought about that. Wind is almost as stupid but I'm running out of characters.
Coal isn't used in cars either, so that's a different conversation. I think many of your other concerns have been solved by new technology. Biomass and geothermal plants can meet base load power needs and solar thermal plants can even store the sun's daytime heat for overnight electric generation. Cloudy old Germany is actually leading the solar industry right now. In a coal-fired plant, 64% of all the energy burned to generate electricity is lost as heat -- there has got to be a better way.
I totally agree, and I like the production. One suggestion, all the cooling tower shots you showed to demonstrate coal emmissions were nuclear power plants. Our opponents can use this an example to say that we are misinformed (although the statistics are accurate). Other than that, great video.
Interesting question but no. Both shots of the cooling towers are from coal-fired power plants. The first video shot of the power plant is from "the largest brown coal power plant in the world" (according to iStockphoto). The second shot, (the black and white photo)is from the coal-fired Ratcliffe Power Station -- the site of recent protests against coal-fired power. The cooling towers look similar but they are all from coal-fired power plants. Thanks for watching the video!
I apologize for being presumptuous. I had never seen coal plants with cooling towers. I wonder if that's more common in Europe. Sorry to jump to conclusions. Great video.
No worries. There are lots of different designs out there. But at the end of the day, no matter what design they use -- coal-fired power plants are setting fire to a non-renewable resource which causes huge pollution and health problems (and global warming).
1. Coal can't be both cheap and green at the same time. When they actually have to block all that nasty stuff going into the air, the price of the plant skyrockets.
No longer do you have $1500/KW coal plants.
The most recent price tag is $3700/KW following current US pollution laws.
And you get into the $6500/KW range if you have to sequester the carbon.
Excellent point. Coal-fired power plants pocket huge profits and then pass off enormous costs onto the public (including global warming and huge health costs -- asthma, lung disease, heart attacks, and higher autism rates). If we're gonna compare apples to apples -- the cost of producing the energy plus all of the external costs (global warming plus all of the health costs of dirty coal-fired power) then solar, wind, and geothermal quickly become the only choices that make sense.
Shouldn't you replace Dick Cheney with Barack Obama by now? The new prez is all about Clean Coal Technology. So, you'd better get on board or you're a racist.
ClaudeParish 2 years ago
Obama's EPA is moving quickly to regulate CO2. They are also supporting global regulation of mercury which will likely result in limits on coal fired power too. Furthermore, Obama's choice of Nobel prize winner Steven Chu as Sec. of Energy shows he gets it and is a welcome change from the criminal Sam Bodman in the Bush administration. So yeah, like you I'm not thrilled by everything BO has said on this topic but there is a huge difference between Lord Vader Cheney and BO on this matter.
RFKactionfront 2 years ago
Well said. Anybody can go throwing around claims that anyone is a hypocrite. Look at religion, there whole game is hypocracy. Anyways, the fact is that we didn't create the current dilemma, we can't take the blame. We can on the other hand do something about it at this point. This video from RFKactionfront is doing more by spreading knowledge about RE than making accusations will do. The energy embedded in a PV module takes about 1.5 years for it to recoop in free energy from the sun.
solericb 3 years ago
I wonder where the power in your home comes from because your other options are pretty expensive. I am willing to bet you are a hipocrit and your power comes from exactly what you claim to oppose.
duvallweb 3 years ago
And I am willing to bet you don't know how to spell hypocrite. I know exactly how much of the power in my home comes from coal -- 50%. How do I know that? I went to ilovemountains[dot]org[slash]myconnection and typed in my zip code so that I could see exactly where my power comes from. I suggest you do the same. It is precisely because I know how much of my electric power is coming from coal that I want to work even harder to covert our energy supply to renewable energy. See how that works?
RFKactionfront 3 years ago
Did you know that all the power- coal and green feeds into one main power control and on given any day there is no actual way to tell what percentage of your homes power is coming from green energy? Companies are constantly buying and selling power based on power load and equipment outages. Believe me I think green is the way to go too but I think solar energy has a long way to go before it can be a viable replacement to coal, it would require thousands of acres to repace a 500MW coal plant.
duvallweb 3 years ago
Utilities contract with power suppliers for a set amount of power generation -- so even though the mix of supply varies over the course of the day -- the total ratio over time is relatively fixed. In CA, NM, NV, AZ, TX, UT, etc. there are thousands of MILES of desert that could accommodate solar facilities. Solar is already cheaper than coal and Google is gonna drive the price down further. New technologies can "print" solar cells using dot matrix-type technology. The future is here now.
RFKactionfront 3 years ago
Solar is almost as cheap as coal.
Wind is now cheaper than coal.
More, we can save excess wind/solar power by making hydrogen, then burn it in old coal plants for peaking and emergency power.
The Battery Electric Car can fill 90% of our transportation needs.
We don't need coal.
But we do need a new tax structure change to make the new technology happen fast.
I say, "push for targets to implement the new, not just targets to phase out the old."
JohnDeBunkTest 3 years ago
Solar Energy will never account for more than a few percent of our energy. It will not be used at all for transportation industries. Does anybody think that a solar powered car is feasible? Besides what do you do when the Sun does not shine? You only get about 6 good hours a sunshine a day and this is when the sun is shining and in the summer months. What do you do at night? I guess the solar people never thought about that. Wind is almost as stupid but I'm running out of characters.
juscurious 3 years ago
Coal isn't used in cars either, so that's a different conversation. I think many of your other concerns have been solved by new technology. Biomass and geothermal plants can meet base load power needs and solar thermal plants can even store the sun's daytime heat for overnight electric generation. Cloudy old Germany is actually leading the solar industry right now. In a coal-fired plant, 64% of all the energy burned to generate electricity is lost as heat -- there has got to be a better way.
RFKactionfront 3 years ago
I totally agree, and I like the production. One suggestion, all the cooling tower shots you showed to demonstrate coal emmissions were nuclear power plants. Our opponents can use this an example to say that we are misinformed (although the statistics are accurate). Other than that, great video.
wuicker 4 years ago
Interesting question but no. Both shots of the cooling towers are from coal-fired power plants. The first video shot of the power plant is from "the largest brown coal power plant in the world" (according to iStockphoto). The second shot, (the black and white photo)is from the coal-fired Ratcliffe Power Station -- the site of recent protests against coal-fired power. The cooling towers look similar but they are all from coal-fired power plants. Thanks for watching the video!
RFKactionfront 4 years ago
I apologize for being presumptuous. I had never seen coal plants with cooling towers. I wonder if that's more common in Europe. Sorry to jump to conclusions. Great video.
wuicker 4 years ago
No worries. There are lots of different designs out there. But at the end of the day, no matter what design they use -- coal-fired power plants are setting fire to a non-renewable resource which causes huge pollution and health problems (and global warming).
RFKactionfront 4 years ago
Take that one step further.
1. Coal can't be both cheap and green at the same time. When they actually have to block all that nasty stuff going into the air, the price of the plant skyrockets.
No longer do you have $1500/KW coal plants.
The most recent price tag is $3700/KW following current US pollution laws.
And you get into the $6500/KW range if you have to sequester the carbon.
greyflcn 4 years ago
Excellent point. Coal-fired power plants pocket huge profits and then pass off enormous costs onto the public (including global warming and huge health costs -- asthma, lung disease, heart attacks, and higher autism rates). If we're gonna compare apples to apples -- the cost of producing the energy plus all of the external costs (global warming plus all of the health costs of dirty coal-fired power) then solar, wind, and geothermal quickly become the only choices that make sense.
RFKactionfront 4 years ago
Thats what I'm saying though.
Solar/Geothermal/Hydro/Wind are already cheaper than NEW Coal given existing laws/markets.
Why? Because usually it's competing with existing grandfathered power plants.
greyflcn 4 years ago
But thats the point.
We don't need to worry about that.
greyfalcon. net/ costlycoal
greyfalcon. net/ costlycoal2
NEW coal is already extremely expensive, compared to new natural gas, or new renewables.
New Nuclear is also looking to be extremely expensive.
greyfalcon. net/ costlynuclear
greyflcn 4 years ago
Fossil fuels are for dinosaurs! Do you dig?
lostinmaya 4 years ago