Some Energy / Renewables News

https://energynews.us/digests/virginia-gov-northam-pledges-to-reach-30-renewables-by-2030/


Good morning all,

Per ...

Article leads with mention that Virginia's Governor Northam, M.D. pledges to have state in 19 years about 30% renewable.

Don't know where in southern West Virginia the mentioned Hobet coal mine was but that site of the demolished facility has the ideal name for a club house.

Had thought a "tree - sit" was for hunters so Bambi has no chance.

Not familiar with environmental justice.

I'd love to learn who the ultimate user will be of the energy the Canadian company wants to buy from North Carolina's Duke Energy.

 

Curiously none of those so-call environmentalist ever mention "Sustainable" energy source of which is already available for decades.

 

Good evening Varuna,

Coal is sustainable.

Petroleum is sustainable.

So is nuclear.

It's really not a matter of sustainability. It's about wealth acquisition and wealth transfers.

It would assist the thread if you specified the above hinted-at fuel.

As an aside, I remember when newly sworn in President Lyndon Johnson mothballed the prototype nuclear merchant vessel N.S. Savannah.

 

"Sustainable" plays little part in the energy world. The magic word is simply PROFITABLE. Even if there was an almost free source of energy it would never be introduced. There is way too much money in an easily controlled and sustainable profit margin to allow easy and cheap power to ever be introduced. The American auto industries resisted making fuel-efficient cars until the foreign-made car makers almost put them out of the car making business. I remember when "foreign" cars were few and far in between with the possible exception of the Volkswagen. Now there are more foreign companies made cars on the road than American company made cars. we are just now catching up with the foreign-made companies in part by associating with them rather than just competing with them.

There are a lot of ways to make fuel sustainable. To some extent, even oil is indirectly a resource that is more sustainable every year. as cars become more efficient and gasoline becomes more artificial with its many additives. The truth is that at this time we could make our car fuels totally from manmade renewable sources. More of it goes to home heating fuels than cars for the simple reason that oil doesn't need to be as refined to just burn as it does to power a car's engine.

Eventually, we will bypass all of the intermediate sources and gather out power from more direct sources in either solar or nuclear power. Oil is just solar power that is stored in liquid form from plants.

 

It's my favourite, which is NUCLEAR fission. The sea water is literally diluted with uranium already, meaning there won't be any shortage of fuel. And new Gen III+ and Gen IV reactor are mostly came with passive safety features which made them very safe. No need to worry about high level waste either. We can always throw the Greenpeace and their like into the glowing spent fuel pool (which will do nothing harm to them anyway)

N.S. Savannah was expensive to operate due to the lack of Economy of Scale. And beside these days even I kinda worry with the idea of any commercial vessel running on nuclear propulsion

 

Good morning Varuna,

Same here; my favorite is nuclear.

The scare stories of Fukushima circa 2010 really related to "short cut" scandals by TEPCO - Tokyo's electric power utility. Even though the power plants were built in an area not the best for quake protection, there were - stil are - engineering means to mitigate the dangers.

How can a prototype of anything have economies of scale ?!

You don't envision commercial Polar class vessels with nuclear propulsion ?

 

I don't see any nuclear vessel will be coming from US other than USN within any foreseeable future. When you keep making stupid environmental regulations it will hamper any development. And beside there just too many whack job nowadays to entrust nuclear materials without stringent oversight.

Here is a presentation of a Molten Salt Thorium reactor. Its also earthquake proof because its floating so no worry about any earthquake



The project website

http://thorconpower.com/project/

 

Good afternoon Varuna,

The prototype vessel N.S. Savannah was US flagged and private sector.

US flag vessel problems do have overloads of environmental regulations but the biggest problem is US maritime labor laws.

There are several US private companies involved with nuclear energy such as Dominion Energy here in Virginia. Another example of a private company is US Enrichment Corporation. Oversight is strict.

When the Arctic opens to commercial use and the R.O.I. - Return On Investment - is favorable, the US will have a commercial US flag fleet using nuclear propulsion.

Appreciated reading the Thorcon link. It's definitely my style: well-written, a planned time line bar and quality graphics.

 

And China will attain 30% growth in renewable energy job production because that's where all this shit is made.

Did I mention that the manufacturing of renewable bull crap produces more pollution that the product can pay out over its life time?

These people have a firm hold on their legs with their head's up their own ass!

 

What is thicker? His glasses or skull?

 

Want a trophy?

 

Governor black face Northam is a a bonafide left-wing nut job certified in myopics from the university of duh!

 

It strikes me as a holier than thou attitude. Just because you feel like your country is doing its part, isn't. Renewables are flawed logic unless it's nuclear and that waste is reprocessed. The work in energy and its side effects of pollution don't merit the use of renewable solar and wind at this time. To make matters worse, a large amount of this crap is manufactured in China where they could care less about pollution.


In other words, it's just a feel good technology with no net positives unless it lines the pockets of politicians and scores them cheap political points.


Shame Germany is stepping back from their nuclear power ambitions. It's great there because they don't have earthquakes like California, Alaska or even Japan. For these places coal and natural gas is the way to go at this point in time.

 

You didn't read anything I said, plus, cite your sources that nuclear pollutes for thousands of years? I don't see nuclear polluting anything. The only discharge is steam and the spent fuel is stored on site here in the U.S. because no one wants to reprocess it like they do in France.

Is the half life thousands of years? Yes. Is it all over God's green earth right now like NOX and SOX? No. It CAN be reprocessed.

In the era we live in now, nuclear is the cleanest there is by fuel weight to energy output versus pollution.

Again, the spent fuel can be reprocessed to further decline the half life even more.

 

Good morning F22 and Lonewolf,

Some US spent uranium is reprocessed into ordnance projectiles.

 

Those were old reactors Gen II and III. Neither of them have passive safety. BTW Did you know that Fukushima unit 4, 5, 6 were back in operation about a week after the tsunami?. And during the Fukushima incident, there is 0 (ZERO) casualty from any radioactive. The only casualties were from the evacuation (public panic & bad traffic management)

Easy said because your privileged enough to collect gov't paycheck for footing all your bills, must be nice having the tax payer footing your bills heh, whle poor & improvised 3rd worlder like me still haven't enlightened enough to embrace socialism, thus need to work / doing business / commerce to have any foods. Guess what, if the utility that powering those paycheck ever stop working, there won't be any paycheck heading your way. Good luck with your garden for proving any Calorie.

 

The guy do strike me as a hardcore engineer rather than some paper pusher or marketing type

 

Do you know how many birds were killed by all those wind turbines? And what kind of pollution not to mention environment catastrophe were created to produce those photovoltaic solar panel?

Nuclear materials can be easily recycled or return to mother earth. The only things that making it look as if they are complicated / dangerous is POLITIC. If you think that radioactive materials is as dangerous as the medias told you about, try to think as why TF you can still alive & well even when your standing on top of a huge radioactive materials, which is Earth it selves.

 

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/olkiluoto-island-finland-nuclear-waste-onkalo

Geo-stable rock formations exist for the disposal of nuclear waste. Personally, I feel than deep storage in thoroughly-tested rock formations is best. Japan put a reactor near an earthquake fault line ... singular brilliance ... not.

"Onkalo must last for 100,000 years. A hundred thousand years ago, Europe was in the middle of the Ice Age. Homo sapiens had not yet arrived on the continent, and mammoths and woolly rhinos roamed the landscape. That period is far longer than any man-made structure has survived to date. The oldest Egyptian pyramids are only around 4,600 years old; Stonehenge perhaps 5,000. As a geologist at the site says: Onkalo will last forever."

https://world-nuclear.org/informati...torage-and-disposal-of-radioactive-waste.aspx
.

 

by lonewolf...

People are not going to have any choice in SHTF or TEOTWAWKI....no choice...adapt or die.....nuclear or non nuclear.....


People who live out in Rural America or other countries know that having power ..electrical power changed much about how we live...

Even the fishing industry changed significantly after WW2 in North Carolina and elsewhere with the advent of better transportation and or electricity/refrigeration ...the shrimp industry took off...the shrimpers down there were swamping their boats ...so loaded with Shrimp trying to meet the market demand...

What....that cannot be...compared to the Exxon Valdez disaster up in Alaska......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

You would have thought the world was coming to an end....all the news coverage..

But.......I also know about what happened on the Alaska oil pipeline in attempts to stop it by the enviornmentalists hiding behind tree huggers..

http://reformation.org/energy-non-crisis.html

Reverend Lindsey Williams was a pastor on the Alaska pipeline who was granted Executive Status on the project so that he could travel anywhere along the pipeline to minister to the workers as he was saving the company millions in personnel issues in his ministering to the workers.

As a result of his ministering to the pipeline workers he found out much information about what was going on on the pipeline and also in the Executive board meetings...which was not allowed to get into the press..for reasons of pro environmental control...emotional control by and to the public....to keep unthinking emotional Americans on the environmental herding treadmill...properly herded ..just like is going on today....emotional control...through unthinking emotions.

Someone did not want the pipeline completed and or the cheap oil coming to the continental United States driving down prices as is today with Fracking.

In the end someone arranged for most of that oil to go to Japan and the orient ...not to America.

Most Americans have not a clue about what really happened to slow and impede the Alaska pipeline...from completion.


No matter what they claim....this country does not have enough solar, nor wind power to take the place of oil, coal , or nuclear power in electricity generation...no matter what they try to claim.




The two commercial nuclear reactors around here are pressurized nuclear reactors versus the older boiling water type used in Fukashima, Japan. They are using uranium at less than 20% purity in their cores...


And yes...here in America they do not reprocess the spent fuel from commercial reactors.... at 20 percent as there is little profit from it..

It is a huge danger sitting around in pools of water ...versus reprocessing it as do the French.

Don't kid yourself ...even the French generate large amounts of nuclear waste in their programs....though they do reprocess their fuel....which we should be doing ourselves.


Most Americans do not know today that we had our Chernobyl back in 1960 in a reactor accident up in Idaho...where an experimental reactor puked out it's guts and killed three people..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1


We are so safe behind our remote controllers and Sports......gives me the warm fuzzies every time.

The Average American has no clue how many baddies and nasties are transiting through their towns, counties, and states at any time ..day or night....we live such sheltered lives....behind our blinders....even non nuclear baddies and nasties.

Most Americans do not know that there is a Russian Ballistic Missile submarine sunk off the Atlantic coast ....damaged during a collision with an American Submarine back in the 1980s....complete with reactor and nuclear missiles on board..deep in Davy Jones Locker so to speak....

So safe are we behind our steering wheels and remote controllers..


Ishmaelites run wild...


My non Ishmaelite .02,
Watcherchris

 

There are large solar farms being put up here in Virginia on selected properties...and I mean large..huge...

This kind of project can only be done and afforded by Government....

I just don't think they are sufficient to provide power for most private and or commercial uses...in the long run...

I also suspect that they have built into them the override for government uses as do the phone systems....GPS systems. airline systems...airport systems.....highway systems...et al.

But how about those Kardashians????

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Nor here in the States lonewolf.....here in like manner...

But how about those Kardashians....ESPN et al...Oprah!!!?? Dr Phil??

It is indeed my nightmare scenario Lonewolf...to be stuck on that famous desert Island with some four hundred people who only know how to Text Message!!

That television and or movie education....


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Just stumble upon this. This educational toy is the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab. It was billed as educational toy for building "solid American character" (whatever that mean) It has has actual (as in real) U-238, along with other radiation source such as Po-210, Zn-65



My goodness, what kind of society was that who give their children toy with materials for WEAPON of MASS DESTRUCTION What next they might also give their childrens High Capacity Military Grade Full Automatic Assault Machine Gun What a horrible & deplorable society that was Thankfully such society no longer exist

 

I was not aware that the Kardashians were coming to an end.....ok by me..

But they will be replaced by the next nonsensical distraction designed to prevent thinking and or independent action.....
Ishmaelites run wild..

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite

 

Have two of these in my Kit..with spare batteries.


https://www.amazon.com/RADEX-RD1503...3&qid=1603651752&sprefix=radex,aps,146&sr=8-2


One here next to this computer desk and one at work....in my locker..

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

We don't NEED electric power in the US, Canada, Great Brittian, or Europe...as long as we are willing to accept that most of our people will die in the first couple of years without power. How many people can survive a winter without heat? No electricity means that there will be no food in the stores. Do you think that most people will be able to grow enough food for themselves to survive? Our cities are uninhabitable without power. Modern civilization is totally dependent on power. Turn it off and chaos takes over. I would be fine. I live in the country and we lose our power all the time for up to a week. It is no big deal to me but then most people are not prepared on a day-to-day basis like we are.

 

Does that can display the Banana Equivalent Dose?

 

https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/californias-electric-grid-is-near-collapse/

"California’s Electric Grid Is Near Collapse"

"California’s bet on renewables and shunning of natural gas and nuclear power, is directly responsible for the state’s blackouts and high electricity prices.

"California is rich in natural resources which once powered the state: natural gas deposits in the Monterey Shale formation; geothermal energy, abundant rivers and waterways such as the San Joaquin River Delta and hydroelectric dams; the Pacific coastline; 85 million acres of wildlands with 17 million of those used as commercial timberland; mines and mineral resources, vast farming and agricultural lands, and hunting and fishing.

"But California politicians and appointed agency officials, under pressure from radical environmental organizations and lobbyists, decided to ignore the energy producing natural resources, and instead move to an all-electric grid, and the only approved 'renewable energy': solar and wind energy.

"A meteorologist friend, Anthony Watts, said Tuesday, 'we are on the cusp of a massive failure of the electricity grid in California.' Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute, and has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. Watts is also proprietor of the award-winning website, Watts Up With That?"





"Power outages and rolling blackouts are coming more frequently as California has taken nuclear power plants offline, and hydroelectric dams offline, while increasing renewables mandates for wind and solar. Nuclear power, as is hydroelectric, is clean and reliable; wind and solar power, while clean, are unreliable and significantly more expensive."
.

 

By Varuna....

LOL LOL LOL....Biologically Equivalent Dose???


No but it reads out in either Rads/Mille Rems or Sieverts....


If one knows or has worked with this stuff one knows high dosages and for how long one has been exposed....

Time, Distance, and shielding kept in mind...

Our limit at work is 500 MR per year..not a lot as were people picking up in the olde days.

You can get your limit lifted or raised but it requires special paperwork/approval....

Have not heard what the readings were at Fukashima...have you???


Also know a bit about what goes on in commercial nuclear power plants and most people would be shocked...

Watcherchris
Nott an Ishmaelite.

 

Well lets do the some back of the napkin math then. A gram of banana expose you to Pottasiun-40 of roughly around 0.0006 microSieverts/gram. Assuming each banana is around 150 gram each, a 500 millirem would equivalent of consuming 55.555 bananas

This street side stall even selling radioactive fruits This particular seller is hazardous for your financial health though

 

All due to stupidity. Yet France I believe and then Germany has a TON of them with zero incident! At least nothing major I heard about.

 

In the U.S. we have our own called Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The most studied mountain in the world if I'm correct. Yet the state says, not in my backyard so it's not used.

It's expensive, but reprocessing NEEDS to be used. You can take what you already used, reprocess it and bring the half life down even further.

 

I would love to get my hands on that. Must be quite the collectors item.

 

I've always been of the opinion that if you held a Geiger counter near a monkey's stomach who's primary source of food was bananas, that monkey will light up like fireworks. LOL

 

Than go natural gas and use massive flywheels in your system. Unless flywheels are used in a turbine, I really don't know.

 

Varuna,

Ahhhhhhh....thanks for reminding me...yes...bananas...are high in carrying certain Isotopes and showing up on certain monitoring equipment.

One of the fellows...years ago...set off the portal monitor...when he frisked out....and one of the questions asked of him was how many bananas had he eaten. If I recall correctly the dose he got from the bananas was detected in his hair follicles..under his clean cap.

We are also taught that certain types of lettuce will also tend to collect radioactive elements as well.

But it is not enough for the ordinary person to concern themselves....versus other sources of this stuff.

Bananas....I'd be more worried about those huge banana spiders than radiation. Occasionally one of them gets through to our grocery store displays and women tend to go ballistic when they find one in the Bananas.
The banana ships which come here to offload or be repaired are full of them in the machinery and or pumps...you have to be careful when working on this stuff ..sticking your hands into a pump.

Thanks for reminding me.
Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite

 

I'm not sure with flywheels other than for short term storage though, acting more like a buffer rather than a battery

Monkey actually doesn't consume bananas as their primary diet. You only see them eating a lot of bananas within human made enclosure. Out there in the wild their diet is very diverse just like we human do. Also keep in mind just like us they are also omnivore.

Just in case you don''t know where the magnets of that environmental friendly wind turbine and solar panel came from



Even coal mining is cleaner than that.

Not exactly a place you want to be around without wearing suitable PPE The so called environment friendly & clean are just mean that the pollution is move elsewhere beyond the sight & knowledge of the public & end user side politicians. Personally I'm cool with moving the lethal pollution elsewhere, however billing it as environmental friendly & clean is just preposterous at best.

I don't know which lettuce is that, but Pottasium-40 is also exist in potatoes, nuts, etc. in fact I'm currently writing this while inhaling mix of thorium, polonium, uranium (tobacco)

 

Varuna...

You are correct here...and are reminding me of a hilarious video of which I cannot recall the name..

But the scenario is of a certain season in a part of Africa wherein the highly desirable fruit of certain trees ripens and begins to fall on the ground....

Thus many of the animals including the monkeys come to gorge themselves.

Well this fruit ripens in the stomachs of many animals..particularly with slower digestive systems and begins the process of turning to a grade of alcohol.

What is in the video is of the whole neighborhood going on a drunken binge.

Even the Monkeys are having trouble remaining in the trees and are subject to be killed by predators.

Giraffes drunkenly trying to make it to the rivers and getting attacked by crocs....or drowning in the muddy banks...

But places in the video ..even of the drunken warthogs...are hillarious..

No ...bananas are not the main diet of many of the monkey species out in their natural habitat..

I also know from experience that chimpanzees love many types of fruit...even red delicious apples..


Thanks for reminding me

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

F 22 pilot..

This may be true in a monkey by as hairy as many of them are.

What is known about many animals is that toxins and such migrate to the hair follicles...and as hairy as are most monkeys ..it may show up in the stomach area as well as other hairy locations.


Certain tests for poisons are done with hair follicles....to my limited knowledge.

When that worker set off the radiation frisker on the job....it was detected at his head..under his cap/snood and by which the radiation technicians knew immediately to ask if he had eaten bananas or certain other foods..process of elimination.
He had eaten some 3 to 4 bananas that day. They sell a lot of them daily at the local convenience stores at the cash register.


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaeite.

 

Harry Belafonte sang a song about bananas and mentioned in lyrics the transula spider (spelling ?).

"Hey, Mr Tallyman, tally me (my) bananas" - pay determined by number of bunches and size of each bunch loaded onto banana boat.

Belefonte once ran for mayor of NYC. He held huge rallies in Central Park singing and campaigning. Again, the crowds, most ly youths and older teenagers were packed into these concerts on the grass.

Later, he held a campaign rally at the NY Public Library and few showed up.

Banana Boat Song Man was quoted as saying "Our kids want to be entertained".