I am deeply in doubt of the future existence of the United States

In reply to Nick (LUCAS) Comstock:

What do you mean, where we started?

But the drastic actions mean reducing greenhouse emissions, ideally down to 0.

In reply to fritzsch:

Prior to the industrial revolution, which is cited as the starting point for all of this, in my mind anyway.

Edit; Not the industrial revolution, the ramped up global production of green house gasses over the last hundred years.

Well the temperature is already ~0.85C above pre industrial revolution levels and stopping emissions tomorrow would not stop that from rising in the short term. But I don't know how long it would take until the temperature returned to the previous trend.

What needs to happen is reduce net CO2 into the atmosphere to zero. Hopefully technology will help us out on that one otherwise its completely stopping CO2 emissions. There is only so much CO2 that the atmosphere can take to hold that temperature below 2C by 2100 above pre industrial revolution, at the current rate we will hit that in 21 years. Globally, emissions would need to start falling at 5.5% per year from tomorrow, to stay underneath 2C.

Nick (LUCAS) Comstock wrote: fritzsch wrote:

And based on scientific modeling, it is appropriate to say much of Florida, Bangladesh, Philipines, some of the most populated cities in China will be underwater in the next 100 years without drastic action. This isn't a 50% chance of rain, I don't think Ill bring an umbrella today.

It's taken us almost 100 years to reach the point we are now. In my uneducated opinion, if we shut down all greenhouse emissions tomorrow, it would likely take almost 100 years to get back to were we started. Like I said it's my uneducated opinion. I am curious as to what drastic actions you are speaking of.

It could take a lot less if we actively siphon the free Co2 from the air

So plant all the trees!!

But honestly, thinking we can reduce the CO2 emissions globally while 250,000 humans are added to the global census EVERY SINGLE DAY is just magical thinking.

we would need to stop clear cutting the amazon too

So... Let's look at greenhouse gases per capita - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita

We can complain all we want about people getting rich, and what are "we" doing about it... But lifestyle choices in the western world result in WAY more greenhouse gas production per person than elsewhere on the planet. What are YOU doing about it?

KyAllroad wrote: So plant all the trees!! But honestly, thinking we can reduce the CO2 emissions globally while 250,000 humans are added to the global census EVERY SINGLE DAY is just magical thinking.

Thinking we can cut all co2 emissions to nothing without killing every single creature that breathes oxygen is misguided at best.

I do have 2 things I would like to see done which may help a little bit, find a way to eliminate the "heat island" scourge that every massive city produces, and also replant as many trees as possible(since they consume the co2)

We also need to actually allow more nuclear power options in the US, as we haven't authorized a new one in quite some time.

I would not even go for Nukes.. lets expand on the home solar business. A lot of little solar cells atop everyone's home has a far bigger impact than one large nuke plant.

I am a bit on the fence on nukes.. the new ones are much safer than anything in the US at the moment, but as Fukasima showed us, even the safest plants can have unforeseen problems

In reply to mad_machine:

The problem is it would likely be much cheaper to do nuke plants than your suggestion. I'd also be interested what kind of reflective energy solar panels throw back up....if any heat is reflected off them, they're part of the notice le heat island issue(why cities are hotter)

I am a big fan of an approach that very few people are considering- medium scale power generation.

Here's the idea... Large scale generation has large scale efficiencies, but also large scale downsides. So, a nuke plant may be efficient, but it has waste issues, potential for meltdowns, huge environmetal impact, and a negative impact on the entire power grid when there are issues.

Small scale (like rooftop solar) is greener, but becomes thoroughly cost prohibitive when attempts are made to utilize it as a solution for many people. (My cousin's house is solar, and he readily admits that even with subsidies, the only thing he REALLY did was pay his electric bill 25 years in advance, but he did it because he believes in it). It is also prone to systemic weaknesses, because the individual systems are managed by individuals without expertise in power system management.

But medium scale could offer great solutions. Neighborhoods could be built (or refurbished) that had small power generation capability serving the neighborhood in a coop ownership model. It would be large enough to capture efficiencies, have some regulatory guidelines, and have full time operators/ managers, but small enough to avoid catastrophic impact to large populations.

The actual fuel source or method would not matter. Different neighborhoods would have different solutions. Community ground-based solar, green diesel, micro hydro, whatever. Piping and infrastructure would be in the streets, with a central power station. Excess power could be sold back to the grid, and the money returned to the community (the coop ownership model would mean they jointly own the generation system).

Every community could make the decisions they felt were best for themselves, have professional management, and an added revenue stream. It's kind of a group approach to being off-grid. Plus, it is inherently resistant to attack because of it's scale.

BTW, this was the model Thomas Edison wanted instead of a large scale grid. He lost to big business.

Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: We can complain all we want about people getting rich, and what are "we" doing about it... But lifestyle choices in the western world result in WAY more greenhouse gas production per person than elsewhere on the planet. What are YOU doing about it?

Preach.

You only get one vote, buy every dollar you spend is also a vote of sorts (perhaps is more powerful than a traditional vote). Every action you take as well. Bugs the ever living **** out of me when people talk about being green on their apple laptop, listening to their music on a smartphone, wearing all their chic leather boots and purses, consuming breakfast and coffee in disposable containers at a fast food coffee shop less than 2 miles from their house that they drove to, and they don't even own a bicycle.

I think Michael Jackson said:

I'm starting with the man in the mirror...

the problem with the "big grid" is efficiency.. we lose a lot of the power generated to losses in transmission

mad_machine wrote: A lot of little solar cells atop everyone's home has a far bigger impact than one large nuke plant.

WOW Really Paul? wrote: In reply to mad_machine: The problem is it would likely be much cheaper to do nuke plants than your suggestion. I'd also be interested what kind of reflective energy solar panels throw back up....if any heat is reflected off them, they're part of the notice le heat island issue(why cities are hotter)

SVreX wrote: I am a big fan of an approach that very few people are considering- medium scale power generation. Small scale (like rooftop solar) is greener, but becomes thoroughly cost prohibitive when attempts are made to utilize it as a solution for many people. It is also prone to systemic weaknesses, because the individual systems are managed by individuals without expertise in power system management. But medium scale could offer great solutions. Neighborhoods could be built (or refurbished) that had small power generation capability serving the neighborhood in a coop ownership model. It would be large enough to capture efficiencies, have some regulatory guidelines, and have full time operators/ managers, but small enough to avoid catastrophic impact to large populations. The actual fuel source or method would not matter. Different neighborhoods would have different solutions. Community ground-based solar, green diesel, micro hydro, whatever. Piping and infrastructure would be in the streets, with a central power station. Excess power could be sold back to the grid, and the money returned to the community (the coop ownership model would mean they jointly own the generation system). Every community could make the decisions they felt were best for themselves, have professional management, and an added revenue stream. It's kind of a group approach to being off-grid. Plus, it is inherently resistant to attack because of it's scale.

Small personal generation avoids upgrading the infrastructure. There are companies that lease solar panels and take care of the maintenance and what not. You have to remember this tech too has been stagnate since Reagan yanked the solar panels off the roof of the White House after Carter put them up. Solar had about a 14 year pause (Clinton did nothing for the first few years.)

Large nuclear is cleaner (given nuclear power tech has more or less been stagnate in the US since Chernobyl.) If you want to see what happens in modern Nuclear sites look at France. Yet there is still the issue of disposal, and upgrading the infrastructure. Although a lab in Germany just successfully completed a nuclear fusion experiment.

Medium plants are a solution but are highly cost ineffective for communities as they add layers of cost on top essentially the same cost per kW of a personal generation. There you have an infrastructure and don't have the free fuel you could of a personal system. Self generation for medium size facilities are done at many industrial facilities and hospitals (GE, Mitsubishi, ect all the big engine and turbine players sell packages ready to go it is such a big buisness. Walmart uses them to power new stores till the local power grid comes up and then moves them). They use Natural Gas (which is coming to light as cleaner than diesel/gasoline in burning but worse in air pollution in collection, storage, and extraction.) There is no such thing as true "Green" burning of any fossil fuel. All creates more CO2 and in Diesel case NOx as well. Heat absorption from concrete asphalt and the like is the point of the majority of heat increase in cities. Not reflection.

It is a complex problem which we need a solution to now, but for reasons passing and understood, we are about 20 years out.

IMHO I think the best solution for NOW is to optimize alternative energy solutions for where you are. Solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and hydro where it will work. Most areas I have been in have something they could use optimally. Others a mix would work. I believe we need to cut the losses of the power lines as much as possible.

In reply to Flight Service:

Medium scale does not have to be cost ineffective.

The simple solution is to design them to generate more power than the community needs and sell back to the grid to offset infrastructure costs.

I've done the math. A community of 100 residences can MAKE MONEY on power generation.

It can also be cash positive on a community of 20.

It is not cash positive on a small personal generation scale.

In reply to SVreX:

I agree. One of the issues with solar is you still need 100% system capacity for when the sun isn't shining, even if you can run the entire grid in a particular off solar otherwise. So you end up with a large power generation system running a low demand levels (inefficient) or even worse - sitting idle, but ready to go.

This is one of the things that makes "normal" power generation, be it fossil fueled or nuclear, entrenched in our grid: it is not dependent on environmental conditions. Doesn't care if the sun is shining. Doesn't care if the wind blows. We still don't have a solution for this, regardless of how many solar panels we install or how many wind generators get erected.

Personally, I like the idea of small-scale hydro power. but I live in the Northeast where there are countless small dams and ponds left over from the hydro-power mill era. Many of these could be re-purposed into small hydro power plants that could power a hand full of area homes.

Edison lost to big business as well as the expensive economics of DC. Since DC doesn't transmit over distances very well, local generation was mandatory. It also doesn't transform as well, so the benefits of higher voltages to reduce wire sizes (and thus wiring costs) isn't there. Still, it's amazing how long the legacy remained in use. When I was working in NYC 15+ years ago, some buildings I surveyed in Manhattan were still getting DC service from Con-Ed to power elevator motors.

As you mentioned, the thing to remember is none of the alt-energy plans is a once-size-fits-all solution. Some work better for some than others. But that said, just because something won't work in every situation doesn't mean it should be abandoned entirely. A number of small-scale solutions could make up a whole.

In reply to SVreX:

I have seen bills where personal power generation is selling back $100 a month to the power companies. A medium system has capitalization costs tons of other ancillary costs such as infrastructure and the like. Could it work? Sure but I haven't seen an all encompassing spread sheet show it would be more cost beneficial over 30 years. That's why it doesn't happen. There are few trying though. In Tennessee there are a few solar fields that are selling to the grid and they aren't profitable.

If you are coming up with legitimate numbers, you need to get some investors and start building now.

In reply to Flight Service:

Small personal generation only avoids the infrastructure upgrades if you don't count the cost of the panels, safety switches, etc. SOMEONE is paying for these, even if you lease.

Right now panels are pretty cheap, because China is dumping units on the market at prices below manufacturing costs. But this is a false pricepoint, and does not represent the cost to convert large percentages to personal generation.

And each one requires a grid-tie inverter, at a cost of about $5000 each. 100 homes would spend half a million dollars JUST on the inverters, and their systems would shut down in the event of a power failure.

A medium scale system could backfeed the grid with only 1 grid-tie inverter, and could be managed in a manner to maintain power supply for it's community while NOT backfeeding the grid, which would mean the system could continue to work in the event of a grid based power failure.

A grid tie inverter with out looking hard is $1200. One for a medium sized power generation plant is going to be much much more.

If you are serious about this contact the Alliance for Affordable Energy. Ask for Forrest Wright, he can point you to the people you need to talk to you in your state to get accurate numbers and see if it is worth it.

I appreciate your passion for the subject but the numbers you are seeing and the ones I have seen aren't matching.

Flight Service wrote: If you are coming up with legitimate numbers, you need to get some investors and start building now.

I would love to.

It is beyond my business capabilities.

I believe the key to making it work is to divide the captitalization between the homeowners and investors. So, for example, you tag every home in a neighborhood with an upcharge for capitalization of the power plant. About half of the costs would be rolled into the cost of the houses, which would be rolled into their individual mortgages. They become part owners.

The other half would be sold to investors, who are interested in managing the facility for a share of the long term revenue, the tax credits, etc.

It does increase home costs. But not by an amount beyond what the homeowner can pay, and still within the range of a good long term investment for them.

I ran the numbers based on a ground-based solar farm, but I believe it could work with many different variations (depending on the locally available resources). If you live near a lake with a large percentage of cloud cover, then maybe hydro. Etc.

We generally fail to understand our cumulative purchasing power as a group, and focus only on ourselves. It becomes an either/ or choice- either we pay all of the costs for power and it's infrastructure, or we buy it from someone else who is paying all of the costs.

A medium scale approach permits the cumulative purchasing power of the community to share in both the infrastructure costs AND the benefits received.

In other words, people's homes can become part of their long term investment strategies if they share.

In reply to Flight Service:

It doesn't matter what the cost is. It was not a hard number, just a shot from the hip.

The actual costs of grid tie inverters vary a lot. In GA, it was about $5K per household, but that was about 5 years ago. Costs are coming down.

The point was not the specific cost. The point was that regardless of the cost, it will always be better to share the costs with other people at a scale that can be managed.

Why do we all have lawn mowers in our garages? Because we can't share. The truth is it would be monumentally easy for 5 households to share 1 lawn mower and all get their lawn mowed. The problem is a cultural one, not a financial one. It wouldn't matter how much they spent on mowers. They could share a $200 walk-behind, or an $8000 zero-turn. Regardless, they still could get their grass mowed cheaper if they shared.

Cultural change only happens with incentive to do so. Why don't all generate our own power now? Because it was cheaper and easier to let someone else do it. To use your lawn mower analogy lets say to have someone mow my yard every week for the same total cost as it would to buy a mower over three years, would you let them mow it? How about 2? 1 year? Most people it costs them $25~$50 to have a lawn mowed than can be done with a push mower. That is a $250 mower paid for in 5-10 weeks. I know lots of people that don't own mowers, and don't have the desire to do so. We don't share a mower because of trust and convenience. We don't share our electricity either. The company owns it and we buy it.

There has to be motivation to change.

For what it is worth I like your idea. Kind of a self sufficient planned community. I just don't know if the numbers will work so you could sell it.

Flight Service wrote: Cultural change only happens with incentive to do so. Why don't all generate our own power now? Because it was cheaper and easier to let someone else do it.

I agree.

So, the incentive has to be it offers cheaper, greener power PLUS an investment component which will position them better for the future.

Flight Service wrote: For what it is worth I like your idea. Kind of a self sufficient planned community. I just don't know if the numbers will work so you could sell it.

The numbers can work when there are enough economies of scale involved.

The numbers don't work for personal generation because most people can't add $40K to their house price and survive it.

The numbers only work for large scale when it is distributed to enough users to make it worthwhile- very few of us have $3 or $4 billion laying around to build ourselves a nuclear power plant.

A 1 megawatt solar farm would cost would cost about $3 million (all-in, including land development, etc), and generate sufficient power for about 200 homes. That should mean about $15,000 capitalized for each of 100 homeowners, and $1.5 million for the investors. 50% of the capacity would be left to sell.

BTW, if those same 200 houses were powered through personal solar generation, the installation costs would cost more like $8 million (before incentives), and have virtually no investment potential.

Cost to homeowners? About $75 per month, with no electric bill and about a 4% return on their money forever. That's before considering all of the tax incentives, etc.

I don't think it is a hard sell. It just takes some creativity with the numbers.

My company is owned by an electric utility and they hate rooftop solar. They are ok with renewables, they just hate buying power back from the consumer. They also hate when they run infrastructure to a big house they assume will buy lots of electric only to have that customer install renewables and use virtually nothing. The idea of selling power back to the grid will soon be stopped at the federal level, hence additional costs for residential battery storage. Small scale generation works in densely populated areas, but those utilities can't afford long distance infrastructure expansion.

I don't understand why they would hate buying back power ... they all are constantly complaining about how they don't have anywhere near enough generating capacity and that brown outs are going to be the standard in the future ... buy backs would only help them ... or are they saying that they are seriously over-charging us for the power that they do generate and don't want to pay that much because of buy-backs ?