Does 100% Pollution Free electricity cost less than fossil fuel now???

by Elsewhere 9 Replies latest jw friends

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  Elsewhere

  I'm a bit skeptical, but I thought I would give it a shot.

  I've been watching my electric bill with Reliant Electricity and over the last year it has gone from $0.09 per KWH to about $0.15 per KW.

  I looked around and discovered that Green Mountain, which provides 100% Wind and Water electricity, is charging about $0.13 per KWH.

  Could it be true??? Could 100% renewable and pollution free energy actually cost LESS than fossil fuels and nuclear energy now???

  As I said, I'm a bit skeptical, but I signed up and now I'm going to wait and see what my bills *really* show. Will my bill *really* go down??? Are there any hidden fee's that were not immediately visible to me?

  I'll keep everyone up to date on my electricity experiment.
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  Anony-Mouse

  Wind, solar, and water power cost nothing to generate power, the earth does the work for them.
  
  Besides the overhead, which normal power stations need, and maintainance, they cost less methinks.
  
  
  But the amount of raw power you get is less, so it needs to be rationed.
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  zagor

  The only problem with wind and solar electricity is that our current technology is not very efficient in capturing and converting enormous power available into electricity. For instance to power a city like Paris with wind power you would need to cover entire France with wind mills. Not exactly an eye catcher. But like water, air is a form of fluid and engineers should really focus on making improvements to power turbines that create less drag and are hence able to convert more in of it into electricity. Current wind power turbines use 'technology' that hasn't changed much in principle from the old windmills of middle ages.
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  rmt1

  You also need to compare the pollution required during manufacture with the time required to pay for itself (before it is free and clear "non-poluting"). As far as I've read, they pay for their dirty manufacture rather quickly, at least on the massive scale in Netherlands etc.
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  moshe

  Good for you switching your power provider!

  I ran the numbers last fall about using wind energy to produce electric power. IF the USA had spent the money used on the war in Iraq, instead building wind turbines on public land in the great plains wind belt, those turbines would be able to supply all the electrcity used by amost 1/3 of the homes in the US. Think how much oil that would save and how it would lower the price of oil- and you have the reason why our Corp/Oil/coal controlled congressmen would never vote on a project like this.
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  MinisterAmos

  100% Pollution Free electricity

  Would that be nuclear power by chance?
• 

  Amazing

  Elsewhere,

  The cheapest power is still coal. We have an abundance. Wind and Solar are unreliable and costly, though pollution free. For example, a wind farm will require 1,000 generators of the most modern type to equal the power output of one nuclear reactor. Solar is passive and only efficient during sunny weather. So, the best we can do right now with solar is heat water.

  One nuclear plant replaces 300 miles of railcars of coal per year. They do not pollute. The fuel is cheap, because one pellet (size of a pencil eraser) used in a reactor will power a house for about 10 cents. The cost problem is in the structure, engineering, and management of the facility and spent fuel. Though the French have proven that fuel can be reprocessed (recycled). We were ahead of the French on fuel reprocessing until our environmentalists gained enough political clout to cause our research programs to be terminated.

  Even spent nuclear fuel can be safetly stored for hundreds of thousands of years until it is no longer a threat. Reprocessed fuel can be used to the point it is no longer viable and then stored the same way as normal spent fuel.

  We have enough nuclear fuel in the USA to last us thousands of years. Illinois is now powered by 95% nuclear. And it is working just find for us.

  Anymouse,

  Wind, solar, and water power cost nothing to generate power, the earth does the work for them. ... Besides the overhead, which normal power stations need, and maintainance, they cost less methinks. ... But the amount of raw power you get is less, so it needs to be rationed.

  As I noted above, wind and solar are expensive because it takes so much more to build a wind farm. They become less expensive because they are not highly regulated, and are cheap to maintain. The problem with wind is that the environmentalists do not like them because they think they increase the deaths of birds. This is false, but they won't believe it. There is a federally funded study at the UNiversity of Iowa right now which is looking at the so-called problem. Solar is nice for those who live in sunny areas south of the 45th parallel. But as I noted, it is a passive system and is only good for heating water. For immediate benefits, nuclear is the best way to go, and the spent fuel problem is already solved as I noted above. Jim Whitney
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  zagor

  Would that be nuclear power by chance?

  I thought that myself until i saw the figures the other day. No way it would be enough. Here is the video from Caltech where professor N.S. Lewis explains it quite well. Actually, I would recommend that video to anyone interested in either global warming or energy crisis http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html

  It's about an hour long but well worth watching.

  We would need to build something like 1 Nuclear Power stations every other day for the next 50 years to catch up with our needs i.e. something like 10.000 1GW stations anywhere in the world. Not to mention that if we managed to build them that we would soon run out of Uranium, according to prof. Lewis' calculations, in about 10 years ...Because even according to conservative estimates we would need something in order of 10 Tera Watts of electricity. Only other power source capable to deliver that much power is Sun, but we still don't know how to convert all of that free energy that is coming our way.

  [to add]
  not to mention too that by building that many Nuclear Power plants we going back to high risk environment of Cold War era with not only passive Uranium like in stationary ballistic missiles but active and burning Uranium in hopefully controlled environment. Of course not to mention how uneasy we feel to provide rouge states with that technology, but if we deny them their power needs we run high risk of plunging them into internal chaos where we will need to send our sons and daughters to die in future wars to keep problem at bay and away from our borders... Just something to think about...
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  Elsewhere

  My hope is that solar power will advance to the point of at least 80% efficiency using carbon based materials. On a clear day each square meter of the ground is receiving 1000 watts of power from the sun. That's a hell of a lot of energy. You would only need to cover a small portion of your house's roof to get all of the energy you could possibly need and then have plenty to sell back to the grid and store for cloudy days.

  I'm hoping this will be feasible in 30 - 50 years.
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  moshe

  Is Nuclear Power a good idea? Well it is if you mine and process unranium, make money building and staffing one and regulating it. Everything looks good until you have to pay to decommission one, then your grandkids get stuck paying for that big bill. I have worked on the contruction and maintenance of 4 different Nukes in - Clinton, ILL, Peachbottom Atomic-PA, Oyster CreeK-NJ, Niagra Mowhawk-NY and Grand Gulf-Miss. I wouldn't want one in my backyard- it's a very complicated machine just waiting to fail. The radiation constantly destroys the wiring insulation, motors and weakens the steel to the point it is no longer safe. Plants were originally designed for 30 years, then they figured out a way to retemper and strengten the reactor vessel stell to get another 10 years- now they want to add another 10 years- make it 50 to put off the cost of shutting them dowm- no more nukes.