The Fossil Fuel Industry Deceives the Public.

[MortSullivan]

The articles have been posted for you to review at your leisure. If you wish to dig deeper into how they determined the numbers, by all means, do so. As it stands, enough people have looked into this to reasonably vet the claims. Several of the larger news agencies that take fact checking seriously have looked into the numbers. The trend is clear.

Here is one thing you will see with coal that you will never see with nuclear:

Ahhh yes, the old picture of smoggy Bejing. Nice. You forgot to post a picture of New Delhi.

Or how about THIS picture. One of the tens of thousands of people whose lives were destroyed by the Chernobyl disaster.

This is one thing you will see with nuclear that you will never see with coal.

 

[Quetzal]

Ahhh yes, the old picture of smoggy Bejing. Nice. You forgot to post a picture of New Delhi.

Or how about THIS picture. One of the tens of thousands of people whose lives were destroyed by the Chernobyl disaster.

This is one thing you will see with nuclear that you will never see with coal.

Are there alternative energy sources you do support?

 

[MortSullivan]

Are there alternative energy sources you do support?

YES! It's called LESS CONSUMPTION.

The problem is that nobody is interested in that. Even environmentalists. Especially environmentalists.

 

[Quetzal]

YES! It's called LESS CONSUMPTION.

The problem is that nobody is interested in that. Even environmentalists.

I agree, we should consume less, however, that is not what I asked you.

 

[MortSullivan]

I agree, we should consume less, however, that is not what I asked you.

So you flippantly blow off the one right answer. Obviously you don't like the truth.

I'm in the building trade. I know for a fact that Americans could cut our energy consumption by 30% by this time next year - if we wanted to.

THAT is your alternative energy source!

 

[CabinetMaker]

Ahhh yes, the old picture of smoggy Bejing. Nice. You forgot to post a picture of New Delhi.

Or how about THIS picture. One of the tens of thousands of people whose lives were destroyed by the Chernobyl disaster.

This is one thing you will see with nuclear that you will never see with coal.

But the question is which energy source in more dangerous in terms of death. Coal is the leader in that category. No energy source is without risk. Of all the energy sources listed, nuclear has the lowest rate of deaths.

If you want to compare how people die, that is a different conversation.

 

[Quetzal]

So you flippantly blow off the one right answer. Obviously you don't like the truth.

I'm in the building trade. I know for a fact that Americans could cut our energy consumption by 30% by this time next year - if we wanted to.

THAT is your alternative energy source!

I am agreeing with you. But we will always need some sort of power supply. Which would you champion for? Wind, solar perhaps?

 

[MortSullivan]

But the question is which energy source in more dangerous in terms of death. Coal is the leader in that category. No energy source is without risk. Of all the energy sources listed, nuclear has the lowest rate of deaths.

If you want to compare how people die, that is a different conversation.

Ahhhh... So you've already decided what you believe, and nothing else matters.

It doesn't matter to you that there is NO verification of any kind regarding claims like, "300,000 people in China died from coal energy last year"? Apparently not. You want to believe it, so you do.

I could just as easily claim that 8 million people have died in China this year as a result of nuclear energy. And you should believe it because, after all, you're not looking for any verifiable proof.

 

[Quetzal]

Ahhhh... So you've already decided what you believe, and nothing else matters.

Sounds like someone else I know... :chuckle:

 

[MortSullivan]

I am agreeing with you. But we will always need some sort of power supply. Which would you champion for? Wind, solar perhaps?

Corn.

 

[Quetzal]

Corn.

I am intrigued, go on.

 

[MortSullivan]

Sounds like someone else I know... :chuckle:

This is not a confessional, and I am not a priest.

 

[CabinetMaker]

So you flippantly blow off the one right answer. Obviously you don't like the truth.

I'm in the building trade. I know for a fact that Americans could cut our energy consumption by 30% by this time next year - if we wanted to.

THAT is your alternative energy source!

That it is not an alternative energy source, that only extends the fuel for the current energy sources. You method means we use less coal or wind or nuclear, which is good, but it does not eliminate the need for coal or nuclear by substituting an alternative energy source.

I am an electrical engineer in the power industry working routinely on coal, wind and solar projects. Sadly, no new nuclear. In any case, solar is only available during the day and even then, only for part of the daylight hours. Wind is nice when the wind is blowing but when will the wind blow? Wind results in ground warming and drying for miles around the installation. Both wind and solar cannot store energy and release it when demand is highest. Whats that you say? Why not use batteries? Great idea! How much are you willing to pay for power? Batteries are extremely expensive and maintenance intensive. Wind and Solar are dispatchable assets meaning that the utility cannot count on them to provide the power they need at the time they need it. As such, utilities must keep their thermal and hydro assets fully available to handle the base load on the system.

Conservation is great. It WILL save you money. That in and of itself is why we conserve at home.

 

[MortSullivan]

I am intrigued, go on.

What do you need to know?

Every single home in the entire rural Midwest could be heated with corn stoves. It's not primitive technology, and it is extremely efficient and cost effective.

Also, every single home in the windy Midwest (and elsewhere) could run on 24-volt DC electricity, charged by a small wind generator and stored in batteries. It's what farmers were doing 75 years ago.

Do those two things and you've made a radical change in our energy picture. And that doesn't include any of the "efficiency" things my company does with buildings.

 

[MortSullivan]

That it is not an alternative energy source, that only extends the fuel for the current energy sources. You method means we use less coal or wind or nuclear, which is good, but it does not eliminate the need for coal or nuclear by substituting an alternative energy source.

I am an electrical engineer in the power industry working routinely on coal, wind and solar projects. Sadly, no new nuclear. In any case, solar is only available during the day and even then, only for part of the daylight hours. Wind is nice when the wind is blowing but when will the wind blow? Wind results in ground warming and drying for miles around the installation. Both wind and solar cannot store energy and release it when demand is highest. Whats that you say? Why not use batteries? Great idea! How much are you willing to pay for power? Batteries are extremely expensive and maintenance intensive. Wind and Solar are dispatchable assets meaning that the utility cannot count on them to provide the power they need at the time they need it. As such, utilities must keep their thermal and hydro assets fully available to handle the base load on the system.

Conservation is great. It WILL save you money. That in and of itself is why we conserve at home.

It's interesting that, 75 years ago before REA, farmers were doing the exact things you claim are not feasible.

You're also not taking into consideration the fact that solar energy is not always photoelectric. I have a 6' deep "cistern" filled with 3" rocks, under my garage floor. During sunny daylight hours a thermostat turns on a fan - powered by a photoelectric cell - that circulates air through my solar heaters & the "rock pit." That warmed air is, in turn, circulated through the house. Very very simple. Very comfortable. Very efficient.


Again, we don't need new sources of energy. We need to quit wasting so much energy.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Ahhhh... So you've already decided what you believe, and nothing else matters.

It doesn't matter to you that there is NO verification of any kind regarding claims like, "300,000 people in China died from coal energy last year"? Apparently not. You want to believe it, so you do.

I could just as easily claim that 8 million people have died in China this year as a result of nuclear energy. And you should believe it because, after all, you're not looking for any verifiable proof.

Quibbling over numbers doesn't change the facts. Under normal operation, coal plants will release a wide range of pollutants that result in deaths. This is an established fact. Under normal operation, nuclear plants release no pollutants.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Corn.

I am intrigued, go on.

Tried and failed. It takes more energy to distill corn into ethanol than you get out of the ethanol. I know this because I designed several ethanol plants a number of years ago when ethanol was all the rage. All those plants are now shuttered because of economic failure. There were also some rather sever unexpected economic impacts on food prices in this nation and others when the price of corn spiked.

 

[MortSullivan]

Tried and failed. It takes more energy to distill corn into ethanol than you get out of the ethanol. I know this because I designed several ethanol plants a number of years ago when ethanol was all the rage. All those plants are now shuttered because of economic failure. There were also some rather sever unexpected economic impacts on food prices in this nation and others when the price of corn spiked.

Wrong.

First of all, you're wrong about the economics of corn-ethanol. And you're dead wrong about those ethanol plants being shuttered. Only the old ones are closed. All those built in the last 10 years are fully operational.

Even so, that's not what I'm talking about.

 

[MortSullivan]

Quibbling over numbers doesn't change the facts.
This is one of the single most hilarious comments I've ever read! Please re-read what you just wrote.

Under normal operation, coal plants will release a wide range of pollutants that result in deaths. This is an established fact.
Uhhh, no, this is NOT an established fact. It is a fabricated fact based on numbers like the "300,000 killed in China last year" nonsense. Now... I am NOT saying that coal fired generators are good. What I am saying is that you people need to get your information straight.

Under normal operation, nuclear plants release no pollutants.
How convenient of you to add the little "under normal operation" caveat. Are nuclear accidents part of "normal operation"? Because there sure have been a lot of them in the last 50 years!

Please try again.

 

[CabinetMaker]

It's interesting that, 75 years ago before REA, farmers were doing the exact things you claim are not feasible.

Small scale versus large scale. You can buy a battery system for your home. They start at about $3,000. It is good for about 5.6 kilowatt-hours. A single solar site can produce upwards of 10megawatts. If you want to use a battery to back it up for say 10 hours then you would need 100 megawatt-hours of battery. That would be about 17,857 home battery systems. At $3,000 each that is roughly $53,571,000 worth of battery. IF you could justify the cost, where would you get the power to charge the batteries? You could charge them during the day but all the power would be needed to charge the batteries so instead of solar power being available during the day, you have made it available during the night.

Keep in mind that what works for the farmer wont work for large commerce, health care and industry. Their power requirements far exceed what batteries, solar cells and wind turbines can produce.