The Cost of Flipping that Light Switch

While the rising price of oil is quickly reflected in the dollars flowing into your gas tank, there's another energy source that's going up even faster than oil.  In fact, the price has gone is up 100% in less than a year.

Benchmark prices for some grades of electricity-generating steam coal are more than $100 for a metric ton, double September’s price. Metallurgical coal, the type used in steel making, has tripled in some contracts.

Only a year ago, it was eye-opening to see met coal contracts coming in above $100, but to see steam coal at this rate is astounding.  Little wonder that investors are ecstatic about the coal industry.

Year to date, shares of Arch Coal Inc. are up 41%. The biggie of the industry, Peabody Energy Corp., has waxed 24% -- and 94% from its August trough. ... Kohler rates Massey Energy Co. a buy for its concentration in metallurgical coal, the sweet spot of the market.

You may remember Massey Energy from the number of mine deaths, from their toxic flood 25x the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and for having the CEO take a supreme court judge on vacation to the Rivera while his company was waiting for a decision on a $76 million judgment.  Regardless, as far as the investment community is concerned, Massey is a "buy."

Nothing like that disconnect between dollars and damage.

But while the cost to the consumer hasn't been as obvious as the cost of oil, sooner or later (probably sooner) that cost is going to show up in your electric bill.  And, like oil, it'll show up in the cost of everything manufactured using electricity, which is... pretty much everything.  

And of course, when it comes to coal, the cost isn't all in the bill.  

What we are paying up for is the dirtiest fossil fuel in the ground, infamous for wielding a heavy hand in the planet’s warming. In Beijing they wear surgical masks to ward off the soot from coal-fired plants, which then drifts across the Pacific to further foul the air over Los Angeles. That’s not all. Black lung disease, mercury and sulfur emissions and the ravaging of Appalachian mountaintops are part of the legacy that keeps our lights on.

The only good thing about prices this high is that it should help to encourage the rapid expansion of solar and wind.

•  Speaking of wind...

  If anyone remembers my series, "State of Alternative Energy", wind will be the second topic.  It should be up in the next few days.

  First in the series: Plasma Arc Power

  by The BBQ Chicken Madness on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:10:49 AM PDT

  •  I went back

    and read your diary.

    Very nice.  Keep up the good work, and put them out a bit more regularly for our reading/education enjoyment.  I subscribed, so I will be looking for it.

    by Prof Dave on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:26:50 AM PDT

  •  Awesome diary, thanks!

    I love the numbers - good job, I'm looking forward to your next one!

    by AnotherMassachusettsLiberal on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:28:12 AM PDT

•  Texas

  Heck!  I live in Texas.  We have a lot of coal plants here.  The worst pollution, and some of the highest rates in the country.  Coal generated energy ain't that cheap.  Especially, if you are in a deregulated industry.

  I think that having Bush in office has made it easy for them to charge any cost they want.  There is no one there to protect the consumer.

  MKC

  by Deja Vu on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:11:43 AM PDT

  •  Texas is the Wind Power capital!

    Wind power is storming Texas.  It produces more wind power than any other state in the country.

    The "Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center" is in Texas: it's the largest wind farm in the world.

    by The BBQ Chicken Madness on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:20:05 AM PDT

    •  Everything's bigger in Texas,

      both wind farms AND the use of coal...AND investment in the nuclear industry.  If all the money dumped into the black hole of the nuclear industry and all the money invested in more coal-fired plants were plowed into renewables, all of West Texas could be covered in wind turbines and all the wave energy on the Texas coast could be harnessed and all the sunlight that rains down on this enormous land mass could be converted into electricity, and we could generate enough energy to satisfy the needs of the rest of the country.

      But it ain't gonna happen.  Remember, we're also the leading oil producing state in the US, and there are mega-millionaires in Texas who will fight any responsible alternative energy measure to keep those "black gold" millions flowing into their bank accounts.

      For all of you who don't know this, the Railroad Commissioner in Texas is the most powerful person in state government, because his department regulates the oil leases here.  The reason Texas has no income tax is because the oil companies pay enormous sums into the state treasury each year for the privilege of drilling on those leases.  If the oil companies were put out of business by renewables, the Texas state constitution would have to be rewritten and the citizens would be forced to start paying income taxes.

      Like I said, ain't gonna happen.

      by SueDe on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:31:27 AM PDT

      •  black hole?

        You mean the source of 20% of our energy carbon-free?

        by The Scientific Liberal on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:38:15 AM PDT

        •  No -

          I mean an economic black hole.  What it costs to build a nuclear power plant, maintain it, dispose of the waste (which we haven't figured out how to do yet, but it's bound to add trillions to the cost of nuclear energy usage), and then decommission it.  And that excludes any costs associated with any problems that occur in plant operation.

          by SueDe on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:47:57 AM PDT

          •  Incorrect.

            It costs about 2 bil to build a plant, the cost to generate electricity afterwards is tiny, the cost to decommission it is on your electric bill, something like $.50 per month, and we have absolutely figured out how to deal with the waste.  

            And we've gone 60 years in this country without incidents that cause death.

            If you are a Democrat and are more concerned about radioactivity in southern Nevada 10,000 years from now than you are about the devastation likely due to global climate change in the next century, then you can make the philosophical decision to oppose Yucca and nuclear power.

            If you are a Republican and are more concerned about short-term profits of your exxon stock than about the devastation likely due to global climate change in the next century, then you can make the philosophical decision to oppose Yucca and nuclear power.

            Neither of those people are serious about solving global warming, however.

            by The Scientific Liberal on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:40:08 AM PDT

            •  Nuclear is not a CO2 abater

              At least, not an economically efficient one.  It costs a lot to build a nuke, it takes a long time, and the fuel-creation cycle produces large amts of CO2.  Reason 3 may be the least important, and reason 1 should be enough to disqualify it, when you add in the fact that the money spent to build a nuke could displace several times as much petroleum use if invested in technological improvements to the end-use of energy that make it possible to cut consumption, often by factors of five or ten, while delivering the same level of service as before.

              Each dollar can only be spent once, and efficiency has a higher ROI than nuclear power.  The trouble currently is that people making investment decisions with large chunks of capital largely don't understand this, and don't tend to be questioners of conventional wisdom.  But the conventional wisdom on this is just plain wrong  -- there are examples galore of energy efficiency returning wonderful results to the bottom line of people and commercial enterprises who absorb the fact that, say, building your building to use half the energy a standard building would use often costs very little more (sometimes less, as you can save on the HVAC equipment), and pays for itself very quickly, leaving you with lower operating costs ad infinitum.

              Nuclear power costs too much and takes too long. If we're going to get into Faustian bargains, let's at least get ourselves a good price.

              by MixedContent on Sun May 18, 2008 at 03:29:45 AM PDT

              •  Effeciency does not have the same ROI.

                Such a claim is silly.

                The first 2 billion?  Probably you can make efficiency improvements that rival a new react.  Picking the low-hanging fruits.  CFC bulbs.  

                The second 2 billion?  Maybe.  Double-pane every window in the country.

                The third and fourth 2 billions?  Now all the hot water heaters are insulated and the appliances are all energy star.  you are running out of things to improve.

                By the 50th 2-billion, you are improving efficiency minutely.  The 50th nuclear reactor, however, displaces exactly as much carbon as did the first (more probably, as the 50th reactor will be better than the 1st).  

                by The Scientific Liberal on Sun May 18, 2008 at 08:14:42 AM PDT

                •  Heh, running out of things to improve!

                  What you say might be true if the attention of technological innovators had been pointed at the field of end-use efficiency of energy, but it hasn't.  It's a vast unexplored field.  Just because you can't imagine any more ways to improve end-use efficiency doesn't mean there are no more ways.

                  The energy-star stuff is great, but it's single-component improvement.  The real gains come when split-incentives stop preventing people taking the low-hanging fruit based on consumer-level cursory inspection of what things cost them.  E.g., currently landlords are responsible for upgrading the heat efficiency of their buildings, but tenants pay the utility bills.  This is an institutional barrier, not a technological one.

                  Starting earlier in the lifecycle, improved building design can result in vastly reduced power consumption for  lighting ("deeplighting"), which can be provided by LED's.  The lighting bill for commercial buildings is probably several nukes' worth.  Improved design can also yield vastly reduced consumption for HVAC allowing smaller HVAC plants, which in many cases has proved to have an overall negative upfront cost -- just from a change in design assumptions.  You only get answers to a question once you start asking it, and we've barely begun.

                  And when a mentality develops around these tech improvements the way one developed around software development in the 1980's-1990's, you'll be foolish to place arbitrary bounds on what can be achieved.

                  Detroit used to complain that it was technologically infeasible to achieve fuel-efficiency improvements proposed back in the late 1970's.  This was a load of crybaby nonsense, shameful in a country that used to pride itself on its "can do" mentality.  The improvements thought infeasible back then have been achieved, and the only reason actual fuel economy is so dismal now is that Detroit preferred to take the benefits of the new technology in the form of much heavier vehicles that now get roughly 20MPG, whereas before they would have gotten, idunno, eight?  Twelve?  Anyone here have a 1968 International Harvester Scout?   Imagine a Hummer or a Denali based on that drive train.  Imagine telling someone in 1970 that a Scout could get 20MPG.

                  There's a credible design, which by a couple of years ago had been built at half-scale, of a 4- or 5-passenger SUV that would get 100MPG.  And the Aptera, currently moving towards commercial production, is a 2-passenger, crash-worthy vehicle whose effective fuel economy (based on a formula that makes its plug-in powering show up as more efficient) declines from, I think around 160MPG when you've just charged up, to 130MPG when you're running entirely on gasoline.

                  These products we're seeing now are the equivalent of the TRS-80.

                  by MixedContent on Mon May 19, 2008 at 08:30:52 AM PDT

  •  Here in NYS I buy from Community Energy.

    You can buy from:

    http://www.greenmountainenergy.com/...

    by wrights on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:34:41 AM PDT

•  asdf

  I think Bush and company knew exactly what they were doing.  They were just hoping that the chickens would come home to roost when a Democrat was in office.  They miscalculated how fast it would all unravel.

  by BDA in VA on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:12:30 AM PDT

  •  nah they're still right

    we'll look back on the situation today, in a year's time, and it'll be the good old days

    our Democratic President will face challenges greater than ANY ever faced before by any President (yes greater than the various wars both external and internal)

    by ResponsibleAccountable on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:13:28 AM PDT

    •  stop it...you're scaring me

      by Rick Winrod on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:25:15 AM PDT

•  Fortunately/Unfortunately

  the cost going up encourages conservation as well.

  So, I guess what I am saying is that high prices are good.  I guess.

  by Prof Dave on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:12:43 AM PDT

  •  you're right

    most people want to ignore the problem, but when it impacts the check book, they start paying attention (sad, but that's the only criteria for a good many people). I personally don't care about the price of gas and electricity if it promotes a healthy change in the end - the real issue, however, is whether our "leaders" will implement reasoned, sensible change or simply quick, temporary fixes that serve those with economic interests.

    by Tom in Raleigh on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:54:50 AM PDT

  •  Almost $100/year for a 100W lightbulb

    In the U.S., the average residential price of electricity is now about $0.11/kW-hour. That's about $100/kW-year = $1.00 per Watt-year: Leave a 100 Watt lightbulb on for a year, pay about $100 -- more, in some districts.

    This number makes the direct dollar cost of electricity feel more real to people. The bill for climate change comes due later.

    by technopolitical on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:29:00 AM PDT

    •  Thank goodness for my solar panels

      I have locked in my rates, as I generate more than I use.

      I stopped using the dryer - just got back inside from hanging clothes.

      It feels good.

      by Prof Dave on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:33:15 AM PDT

  •  Misleading

    This article, however, is grossly misleading.

    First off, there are many, many sources of coal out there, and they all fluctuate significantly in price.  For exaple, the largest coal mine in the world is in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.  Powder River Basin coal costs not $100/ton, but $14.00/ton.  The author of the article just picked the most expensive coal to sensationalize the story.

    Secondly, coal prices are dirt cheap.  Not figuratively -- literally.  These are prices per ton.  Even $100/ton is only five cents per pound.  A 50 pound bag of plain dirt (which they generally put a lot of water into to rip off buyers) will cost you about the same as 50 pounds of the most expensive coal, delivered.  Powder River Basin coal, a fraction of that.  Powder River Basin coal costs about a thirtieth as much per joule as oil does.

    Which comes to the last point: the cost of coal power is usually not based mostly on the cost of coal.  Let's use that most expensive figure -- $100/ton.  One ton of coal has 24-35 MJ/kg.   Let's go with the lower end -- we'll choosing the most pessimstic assumptions all-around.  That's 21,772 MJ/ton.  At the average coal generation efficiency in the US (~35%), that's 7,620MJ/ton, i.e., 7620MJ/$100, i.e. 76MJ/$, i.e. $0.047/kWh.  With the most pessimistic assumptions possible -- the most expensive coal, assuming it's the least energetic coal, and so on.

    In practice, coal plants spend more in capital costs than in operating costs.

    It's a real shame, but nature has given us orders of magnitude more than enough rope to hang ourselves with in terms of available, polluting natural resources.
    Now, oil-fired power is largely expensive due to the oil.  I was talking with someone who lives in the Carribean the other day, and they were paying $0.41/kWh(!) thanks to oil-fired generation.  I ran the numbers for solar for them -- the place wasn't very friendly to solar, with no net metering, no incentives, etc -- and showed that despite that, they could have a ~9 year payback period with a ~13 year mortgage length and a 20-year IRR of around 10% -- all excellent numbers.  And this is with photovoltaics!

    by Rei on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:35:50 PM PDT

    •  If I were a billionaire

      I would invest in solar thermal electric plants to generate power on islands, and probably wind turbines to generate some more energy at night, if the wind conditions were sufficient - and I would probably make a killing competing against .41/kWh oil-generated electricity.  Lord knows that there is plenty of sunlight in the Carribean (don't know about wind, though).  

      Or, if I were really ambitious, I would talk Central American governments into guaranteeing some price per kWh and install a bunch of solar thermal electric plants - and use it both to supply the domestic market and to export electricity to the region.

      Sing along with me:  If I had a million dollars...

      by Prof Dave on Sat May 17, 2008 at 03:56:55 PM PDT

•  Or the French approach -- Nuclear.

  One reason per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in France are 40% lower than Germany -- which is rapidly ramping up solar -- is the more than 80% of French electricity that comes from Nuclear plants.

  I could see an infrastructure based on a web of Solar-Wind-Nuclear, with Nuclear essentially fulfilling the function as the "always there, night or day" power source that eliminates the need to oversize solar and wind solutions to account for slack time storage and hence reduce the total land footprint.

  by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:16:29 AM PDT

  •  France is setting the wrong example.

    I live near a Nuclear plant and don't like it. Everytime I hear some one extoll Nuclear I think of murphy's Law "If it can go wrong it WILL go wrong". Will France accept all the world's Nuclear wast and despose of it safely? We can learn to create an enviriornment that funtions without Nuclear. All we need to do is make the commitment. Don't be misled by the Nuke hustlers including France.  Never forget Chernoble and Three mile island.

    by eddieb061345 on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:26:53 AM PDT

    •  Bass grown on the grounds of the

      Savannah River Plant are larger and healthier than their cousins not too many miles away. Now if you just overlook the dual tail and 13 eyes......

      by entlord1 on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:33:59 AM PDT

      •  I hear on of those fish was found

        in Tokoyo harbor. According to news reports thousands of Japanese were running around screaming "Bass-zilla Bass-zilla"!!

        by eddieb061345 on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:42:28 AM PDT

    •  You are entitled to disagree...This issue has

      plenty of room for reasonable people to do that.
      Nuclear absolutely has problems, even scary problems.

      I don't actually want to see us emulate France's 80+%, but I believe that nuclear could be a good way to resolve the problems wind and solar have with fluctuating supply and land use.

      Nuclear has one thing going for it that other energy sources don't: energy density.

      A relatively few plants burning a relatively small amount of fuel can produce a great deal of power on a relatively small amount of land.

      No knee-capping of West Virginia mountains required.  No carbon-dense coal burning and no massive release of carcinogenic particulates killing thousands of people each year.

      I agree that we must remember Three Mile Island -- the most serious nuclear accident in the history of the American nuclear industry.

      We should also remember that it took place nearly 30 years ago, that the reactor's containment vessel did it's job, and that no health impacts to the public have been reported.

      And, major safety changes were implemented after the accident.

      by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:40:36 AM PDT

      •  Eventually, nuclear has got to be

        at least part of the solution. The obvious question is how to make safe nuclear power (including, natch, the waste byproducts).

        While I think it is a reasonable position to oppose new nuclear power plants now, given the current safety issues, I think it is utterly benighted to oppose R&D efforts seeking to advance nuclear technology and waste disposal.

        by TerribleTom on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:55:06 AM PDT

        •  Reasonable, but not compelling.

          > given the current safety issues,

          The only current safety issues that should give pause are concerns WRT handling the nuclear waste.  The reactors themselves have earned a high degree of trust.

          by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:00:14 AM PDT

        •  Exactly

          if we had 30-50 years to get wind/solar in place, we might make it (although I question whether we can meet all of our energy needs via renewables--not until we can make solar panels without huge amounts of silica, definitely).  But we don't have 30-50 years.  The fact is, with the technology we have now, large-scale power generation, if not done with nuclear energy, ends up being generated with coal, and coal is a death sentence.

          by loretta on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:12:16 AM PDT

          •  We CAN make solar panels without silica

            In fact, there are several factories churning out such panels today.  Nanosolar's "thin film" chips are turned out in rolls, like newspaper printing.  Their entire 2009 production is already sold out and they're expanding as fast as they can -- and they're only one of several alternatives.

            Solar and wind breakthroughs have been coming quite quickly.

            by Devilstower on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:18:14 AM PDT

            •  little problem with that

              Copper-Indium-Gallium-Selenium  based cells like NanoSolar:

              Where indium is found - PDF file
              Byproduct of zinc mining and coal burning

              there's not much of it around

              December 21, 2007
              It is estimated that there is only a 10 years supply of indium left on the entire planet.  Indium is a crucial resource in creating solar cells, LCD and other devices which must have transparent electrodes to carry out their function.

              http://www.tgdaily.com/...

              I must comment that the estimate done less than two years earlier gave a 13 to 15 year supply of indium. And these estimates were done without including the huge increase in consumption that large scale CIGS solar would bring. Gallium isn't much more common than indium, either.

              by wondering if on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:36:42 AM PDT

              •  Apparently not a problem...

                We should know for certain in three years or less.

                Apparently scientists have learned to 'grow' an incredibly inexpensive and efficient material for use with thin-film solar.

                Think 25% efficiency as opposed to 12% for current products.

                Think 1/200th the cost of silicon PV, 1/20th the cost of the lowest cost thin-film.

                The right stuff....

                by BobTrips on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:16:18 AM PDT

                •  That would be spectacular, if true n/t

                  by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:20:55 AM PDT

                •  references

                  haven't seen anything truly new, and most of the newer stuff is a decade away from commercial use.

                  I mean, after all hasn't GWB and the GOP had solutions for all our problems for years?  I'd like to see hard data.

                  by wondering if on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:33:47 AM PDT

              •  We don't burn enough coal...

                ...to recover this element? Since when? I mean, it's not like we don't allow the "recycling" of industrial ash (mostly from coal burning) as inert ingredients in agricultural fertilizers. Heavy metals and radioative isotopes and all. Oregon banned its use a few years ago after farmers noticed their fertilizer was not just killing their crops, but their livestock too.

                However, electrons are cheap. All around us all the time. All we have to do - and could do if we put our collective minds to it - is collect and channel them. One of these days we'll have to invest in our grid infrastructure too. Once we do that, the same amount of energy we're using today to produce electricity will provide us with ~30% more juice.

                30% more electricity without building a single new plant of any variety. Which, btw, would be three+ times what all our expensive nukes produce right now.

                by Joy Busey on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:19:25 AM PDT

              •  These "finite supplies" arguments

                Are always silly. Let's back up for a second.

                1. It's siliCON, not siliCA. Specifically, "solar grade" silicon.  Traditionally, this has had to be made through CVD -- Chemical Vapor Deposition.  These plants are huge compared to the amount they can make, so it take a long time to build and you have to charge a lot to recoup capital costs.  This is no longer the case -- there are now two companies who are building metallurical silicon (molten, like making steel) plants that can make it pure enough for solar cells.  These plants are much smaller, cheaper, and can turn out silicon in much higher volume.  It's a whole paradigm shift.

                2. Even without that, silicon cell manufacturers have been doing all sorts of things to reduce their silicon requirements, from sliver cells to silicon inks.  The latter I find particularly interesting, as they've demonstrated multiple exciton generation, which means theoretical efficiencies up to 41% (how high they'll actually get, we'll have to see).

                3. CIGS is not the only type of thin film.  There's also CdTe (which is actually more mature) and dye-sensitized cells.

                4. There is not a single non-radioactive element on the planet that doesn't exist in volmes large enough to build whole cities out of it.  The question is always how easy it is to access.  It's not like there are "X amount of accessible deposits and then it's all inaccessible", either -- it's almost always a progression that as it gets more expensive, exponentially more becomes available.  It doesn't matter what resource you look at; this trend is broadly applicable.  

                5. Indium is more common than silver, which is produced in quantities of 18,300 tons per year.  The reason why silver hasn't suffered such huge swings in prices, unlike Indium, is that the silver market is mature.  Indium demand has not been stable.  It used to be so cheap that people weren't bothering to recover it.  Flat panel displays changed this, and now it's expensive.  To top it all off, one of the few zinc mines that had an indium recovery circuit shut down.  Now, however, many zinc mines are starting to add indium recovery circuits to processing their tailings.  Zinc isn't the only type of mineral you can recover indium from the tailings of -- also tin, copper, lead, and a number of others.

                6. CIGS cells use a miniscule amount of indium.  Most of the price is capital costs.

                7. If you actually want to learn about indium supply, recovery methods, market stability, and so on, rather than just posting a news article that repeats unreferenced conspiracy theorizing, here's a link:

                http://www.indium.com/...

                People really need to get this "drinking cup" image of reserves out of their head -- that there's X tons, and that's all there is and ever will be.  The real world doesn't work like that.  Convenience of recovery decreases, but either advancing technology or rising  put exponentially more reserves online.  And, in the case of small markets, like indium, factors completely unrelated to reserves play a huge role in scarcities, such as who's bothering to recover it and who isn't.

                by Rei on Sat May 17, 2008 at 06:51:25 PM PDT

                •  Those "finite supplies" arguments

                  Are always silly.

                  Quite so - that's why we need not worry about running out of oil, natural gas, coal, or fissionables.  Time to run out and buy a ... no, two ... Hummers.

                    1. It's siliCON, not siliCA...

                  Was't me that talked about that, but someone above I was responding to.  I'm well aware of the difference, besides being schooled as a chemist I work as an EE and software engineer; I also have specimens of both sitting on shelves. Grandma already knows how to suck eggs.

                    2. Even without that, silicon cell manufacturers have been doing all sorts of things to reduce their silicon requirements, from sliver cells to silicon inks.  The latter I find particularly interesting, as they've demonstrated multiple exciton generation, which means theoretical efficiencies up to 41% (how high they'll actually get, we'll have to see).

                    3. CIGS is not the only type of thin film.  There's also CdTe (which is actually more mature) and dye-sensitized cells.

                  Nanosolar was specifically referenced as being a savior, and NanoSolar is CIGS.

                  As for Cd based PV, all I can say is I'd rather have a nuclear power plant as a neighbor that a bunch of Cd based PV panels.  The element is toxic and carcinogenic, glove box plus respirator when I work with it.  The organics are still no where mature, and some of them are suspected or known carcinogens.

                   

                  4. There is not a single non-radioactive element on the planet that doesn't exist in volmes large enough to build whole cities out of it.  The question is always how easy it is to access.  It's not like there are "X amount of accessible deposits and then it's all inaccessible", either -- it's almost always a progression that as it gets more expensive, exponentially more becomes available.  It doesn't matter what resource you look at; this trend is broadly applicable.  

                    5. Indium is more common than silver, which is produced in quantities of 18,300 tons per year.  The reason why silver hasn't suffered such huge swings in prices, unlike Indium, is that the silver market is mature.  Indium demand has not been stable.  It used to be so cheap that people weren't bothering to recover it.  Flat panel displays changed this, and now it's expensive.  To top it all off, one of the few zinc mines that had an indium recovery circuit shut down.  Now, however, many zinc mines are starting to add indium recovery circuits to processing their tailings.  Zinc isn't the only type of mineral you can recover indium from the tailings of -- also tin, copper, lead, and a number of others.

                  This is true, but you tend to run into EROEI problems.  I've never seen any of the pro-nuclear commenter here be let get away that argument - "we'll extract uranium from seawater".  Next time I see one of them getting shot down, I'll be hoping you'll jump in and defend them.

                  Silver concentrates much more than indium does, and its chemistry makes it easier to concentrate it.  When I reclaim reaction and catalyst residues, silver is either precipitation with bromide and fusion with soda ash, or boiling with invert sugar and alkali; indium recovery is a dozen steps or more.

                    6. CIGS cells use a miniscule amount of indium.  Most of the price is capital costs.

                  CIGs runs roughly 25% Cu, 12-20 percent In, 7-12 percent Ga, and the remainder - about half - Se.  As that's not minuscule I am going to assume you mean the total amount you are referring to the the thinness of the CIGS layer - typically 2 to 3 microns.  That still adds up to major amounts when you look at the scale of PV installation being proposed.  The indium or tin-indium oxide coating on LCDs and heat reflective glass is also thin, yet the increasing demand for those applications has driven up the price of indium.

                   7. If you actually want to learn about indium supply, recovery methods, market stability, and so on, rather than just posting a news article that repeats unreferenced conspiracy theorizing, here's a link

                  • Zur Geochemie d. Germaniums u. d. Indiums, W. u. B. Voland Schrön

                  • Indium: Geology, Mineralogy, and Economics
                    Ulrich Schwarz-Schampera, Peter M. Herzig

                  • Geochemical enrichment and mineralization of indium
                    Zhang Qian, Zhan Xinzhi, Pan Jiayong, and Shao Shuxun
                    Journal Chinese Journal of Geochemistry Volume 17, Number 3

                  
                  

                  On my bookshelf, as well as several Indium Corp. publications for the recnt past to before WW-II. One of my ingots came from them, too; I sold it a couple of years ago for 5X what I'd paid for it.

                  Now if I quoted a report from an oil company stating that there's plenty of cheap oil around, no need to worry about the future, what sort of response should I expect from readers here?

                  by wondering if on Sat May 17, 2008 at 11:46:13 PM PDT

                  •  Actually

                    Quite so - that's why we need not worry about running out of oil

                    Ever heard of bitumen, ultra-heavy crude, coal liquefaction, shale extraction, thermal depolymerization, "green gasoline" from biomass syngas, and outright Fischer-Tropsch or Sabatier synthesis from CO/CO2 and H2 from water electrolysis?  Yes, that's a great example of how this line of thinking leads to hokum theories, such that something that's merely carbon and hydrogen is somehow finite.

                    natural gas

                    In addition to Fischer-Tropsch (from half a billion source materials) and Sabatier, there's enough methane in hydrates/clathrates to burn off a good chunk of our atmosphere's oxygen.

                    coal

                    A couple hundred years economical with current prices and current tech, not counting the subsea Norwegian coal that could be in-situ gassified and is 3x the volume of the world's entire known coal reserves, not good enough for you?

                    or fissionables

                    Tens of thousands of years worth from seawater extraction not good enough for you?

                    Are you going to quit reinforcing my point about how advancing technology and increasing prices put orders of magnitude more resources into play?

                    Nanosolar was specifically referenced as being a savior, and NanoSolar is CIGS.
                    As for Cd based PV, all I can say is I'd rather have a nuclear power plant as a neighbor that a bunch of Cd based PV panels.  The element is toxic and carcinogenic, glove box plus respirator when I work with it.  The organics are still no where mature, and some of them are suspected or known carcinogens.

                    I love how you completely skipped every last point made about silicon.  As for CdTe, it's not like it leaches from the cells, or like there's a significant amount of cadmium.  The current gen is only four microns thick, and the next gen is only one micron thick.
                     
                    This is true, but you tend to run into EROEI problems.

                    What the heck?  We're not talking about energy return from indium mining unless you're talking about the energy from the solar panels made from it, and if you're actually to claim that, you better laugh when you say that. An indium recovery circuit uses a minescule amount of energy per indium per panel compared to the amount of energy the panel produces.  Are you forgetting that we're working in micron thicknesses here?

                    I've never seen any of the pro-nuclear commenter here be let get away that argument - "we'll extract uranium from seawater".

                    Well perhaps you should actually learn more about a topic before you debate it, no?  This is a source of uranium widely discussed in the nuclear industry, and there are dozens of peer-reviewed papers on it.  There are 4.6 billion tonnes of uranium in seawater (and this is a resource whose reaction energy is measured in MeV, not eV; picture the Hiroshima bomb going off, and then multiply by a hundred million, then several times more for the greater burn efficiency).  There's also U238 breeders and thorium breeders, and those also offer a couple hundredfold increase.

                    Yes, seawater uranium is more expensive.  No, the fuel cost for running a nuclear power plant is not a significant fraction of its expenses, due to how energy-dense it is (most of those being capital costs).

                    Silver concentrates much more than indium does

                    A good quality silver ore is a couple dozen to a couple hundred ppm.  A good quality indium ore is a couple dozen to a couple hundred ppm (270ppm Kidd Creek, 110ppm Polaris, 40ppm Balmat, 140ppm Toyoha, etc).  So, no.  Go make up "facts" elsewhere.

                    When I reclaim reaction and catalyst residues, silver is either precipitation with bromide and fusion with soda ash, or boiling with invert sugar and alkali; indium recovery is a dozen steps or more.

                    And indium is recovered by leaching in HCl or H2SO4, by fuming in the ISP process, and can be found mixed with germanium (also valuable) in the neutral leach from zinc processing.  To give a random example: at Kidd Creek, they roast the concentrate to remove sulphur, then do a two stage leaching process -- the first removes iron, and the second, silver and lead.  Then it goes to solvent extraction, which is fairly straightforward, and you have indium metal.  Sound like a "dozen steps or more"?   No; it's no more complex than silver recovery.

                    CIGs runs roughly 25% Cu, 12-20 percent In, 7-12 percent Ga, and the remainder - about half - Se.  As that's not minuscule I am going to assume you mean the total amount you are referring to the the thinness of the CIGS layer - typically 2 to 3 microns.

                    Of course I am.

                    That still adds up to major amounts when you look at the scale of PV installation being proposed.  The indium or tin-indium oxide coating on LCDs and heat reflective glass is also thin, yet the increasing demand for those applications has driven up the price of indium.

                    Because we recover so little of it that there's not a stable market like there is for silver. Which any analyst report on indium prices and supplies will tell you.  There are only a few places in the world that currently bother to recover it; back when it was worth less than $100 a kilogram, there wasn't demand for more.  Now that it's usually $700-$1000 a kilogram, there are half a dozen places building recovery circuits to add to their mines.

                    And I'm sorry, but a couple microns thick is still a couple microns thick.  A micron of indium times a square meter (~100+W) is one cubic centimeter, which is 7.3 grams.  So, less than 0.073g/W.  One tonne of indium = more than 13.7MW.  If we produced it at the rate we produced silver, which is 1/3 as common, no more clustered, and no easier to refine -- 18,300 metric tons/year -- that'd be 250GW/yr.  With a capacity factor of ~0.2, that's a new installed capacity of 50GW/yr -- the same as building 50 typical nuclear power plants every year.  Also, CIGS has almost no time degradation (unlike silicon cells) (in fact, some CIGS cells have been shown to increase in output with time).

                    Now if I quoted a report from an oil company stating that there's plenty of cheap oil around, no need to worry about the future, what sort of response should I expect from readers here?

                    First off, straw man.  Indium doesn't have to be cheap to be useful in CIGS, as it uses such a tiny amount.  A square meter of CIGS panels uses ~$5 worth of indium at our current artificially-inflated prices (due to limited recovery due to its immature market), and each successive generation uses less and less.  If that was actually the price-limiting factor, about $0.05/W when prices are artificially high, by all means, bring on the solar revolution.  However, it's not.  Capital costs on production facilities are the biggest factor.

                    Secondly, does what people around here think actually have any bearing on what's true or not?  Debate the issues rather than appealing to popular appeal.  Explain why CIGS has to be limited to zinc mines.  Explain why zinc reserves won't rise if zinc producers can get large profits from indium recovery, raising the allowable production cost (and dropping zinc prices, encouraging wider use.  Explain why it can't be recovered from copper, lead, tin, silver, and about a dozen other resource production in large quantities.  Explain why they would have the same reserves expansion as zinc brought about by the indium income.  Explain why, in an extreme case, it can't just be mined for its own sake.  With prices similar to what they are now launching a veritable gold rush for indium recovery, that's not even remotely far-fetched if such prices were to be sustained in the long term.  Explain why the USGS is in on the "conspiracy" to pretend like there's more indium to be recovered than just from current zinc reserves.

                    And, to bring back earlier points: explain why you think that either A) it's not more common than silver, B) it's less concentrated than silver (when it distinctly isn't), and C) that its recovery processes are more complex than silver (compare to the example I gave; the others I've seen are no more complex).  Because, if you don't contest any of them, there's no reason that it can't (or won't, if CIGS is profitable) be produced in such volumes.  And such volumes amount to ~50GW/year with current generation cells, let alone next-gen.

                    by Rei on Sun May 18, 2008 at 01:40:39 AM PDT

            •  They're also producing...

              ...solar paint that can generate in low-light situations. Can't wait for it to be available so I can paint my house and outbuildings with it!

              by Joy Busey on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:41:49 AM PDT

            •  Or Solar Thermal.

              I suspect that's going to be the way to go. Just fields and fields of mirrors, focusing the Sun's light onto a boiler. They've had a plant using this system outside of Seville for a while now, and Google recently announced they're investing in the technology. I suspect that's where we need to look, long term. Even works well as a baseload source.

              by Expat Briton on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:44:44 AM PDT

          •  what's the problem with silica?

            Silicon is used in photovoltaics, and it's generally made from silica, but that's hardly a resource we're going to run out of.  I've read a paper from India describing a plant to make silicon from wastes from rice processing, the stems are high enough in silica to be usable as 'ore'.

            by wondering if on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:40:27 AM PDT

        •  It's not effective

          at reducing greenhouse emissions.  

          What's benighted is not investing dollars where they'll displace the most fuel use and CO2 production.  Dollar for dollar, an investment in nuclear power is pure opportunity cost relative to investing in technological improvements to end-use of energy.

          And this only counts those improvements that actually cost money to set in motion.  As an example, CFL bulbs cost more than incandescents, so to use them requires that some of your cashflow be diverted into their purchase, and then you wait a bit (a few months, or even a few years depending on the specifics of your hardware store and your utility company) for your reduced electricity costs to pay you back.  A 100-W equivalent that uses 25W is effectively a 75-W generator for every hour it's turned on (every hour that it would normally be turned on, that is).  So a million of these bulbs amount to a very distributed 75-MW generator that keeps running for a pretty long time, even if it's only contributing when light is actually needed, which is only a fraction of the 24-hr day.  How much does this 75MW cost?  A lot less than a nuclear power plant, unless your light bulbs cost $1000 apiece.  I've been using these bulbs for a long time, and I believe I saved some money even back in the early 1990's, but a lot of people are using them now, because as production volumes have gone up, retail prices have gone down.

          CFL bulbs are just one example of how end-use efficiency can affect the balance between supply and demand.  How much energy production could be freed up, could be made unnecessary, by investing, in aggregate, $2B in these bulbs?  The reason we still hear about nuclear power is that those who have $2B to invest can't find a way to capture the ROI on CFL's and similar investments in end-use efficiency.

          And actually, that's not quite true.  There are companies that are moving into selling certain end-use services and capturing the economic benefits of reducing their energy-intensity.

          For further details, those interested might check out Rocky Mountain Institute's many publications on this and related topics.

          by MixedContent on Sun May 18, 2008 at 04:05:44 AM PDT

      •  "No health impacts to the public..."

        ...have been reported" isn't something anyone who considers themselves politically savvy (this is DKos, after all) should be parroting as if it means anything. There is often a large difference between what is reported and what is real.

        Cluster cancers at plume touchdown points, isotope-specific thyroid, stomach, bone and blood cancers, a 280% rise in stillbirths in the first nine months... these things do not equal "no health impacts." Nor does the millions upon millions of dollars paid out by Met-Ed and GPU (and their insurer) over the years to settle claims and keep the claimants quiet.

        I realize it happened before many Kossacks were even born. But I was there and I do remember (even testified to Congress and the NRC about actual releases). Even if you work for the industry lobby to promote their cash cow, it wouldn't hurt to recognize that lies won't fly so long as any of us are still around to tell the truth. It may not matter a whole lot compared to what's happening all around us right now, but it matters enough to make this cash cow one we honestly don't need to re-invest in at this stage of history.

        by Joy Busey on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:23:01 AM PDT

        •  Parroting what?

          A study published in July, 1983 edition of The American Journal of Public Health found no increase.

          Perhaps you're parroting some lawyer's claims?

          by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:53:59 AM PDT

          •  Excuse me?

            Where the hell is that coming from? Truth is TMI hurt a lot of innocent American citizens whose only crime was to live in the wrong place at the wrong time. It even killed people - my brother being among the most notable. He'd been health physics site coordinator at the Hatch plant in Georgia when the meltdown occurred, was killed later for daring to visit us prior to testimony...

            ...we were part of the health physics rescue team called in because the HPs Met-Ed hired all ran away when site emergency was declared mere minutes after the beast didn't shut down on command (and steam generator B blew its guts from thermal shock). Sr. surveillance tech (in charge of release monitoring), TLD documentation and HP coverage for the filter changing operation in the aux building. A job that couldn't even start for two weeks because the saturated filters were too hot to handle (and there weren't any available to replace them with anyway).

            Unless you know what you're talking about, it is unwise to pretend you know what you're talking about. Honest.

            by Joy Busey on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:29:44 AM PDT

            •  Agree completely.

              >Unless you know what you're talking about, it is unwise to pretend you know what you're talking about. Honest.

              However, if you're going to claim knowledge, you can't expect me to believe you without evidence.

              People claim to be a lot of things on the internet.  For all I know you're some pimple-faced 13 year old with delusions of grandeur.

              What I do know is that you have made at least one claim that contradicts a peer-reviewed study reported in a reputable journal.

              It is not unreasonable to ask for evidence.

              by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:36:47 AM PDT

              •  LOL!!!

                You got me, dinotrac. Every 13-year old pimple-ridden teenager knows what SCRAM failure means. Moreover, they can tell you the difference between particulate releases and gases (xenon, argon, iodine) exiting the vent gas header outside containment unchecked for 3 full months before anybody 'noticed' the valve was full-open. Why, they could no doubt explain how to calibrate a body-scanner to exclude I-131 completely - they teach that in first grade these days.

                You do know about the "Void at the Center of the Core," don't you? You know, that 20+ TONS of heavy metal that disappeared into thin air (or just out the release stack), as well as that piddly little 30psig explosion of containment atmosphere 16 hours in. Funny thing about water exposed to high energy - it tends to separate into hydrogen and oxygen...

                All this, including the fact that an entire rod group (#8) failed to fall on command, is public record and has been since the 'void' was discovered in 1982 (took that long before they could get into containment to assess damage to the reactor and systems). Not that it wasn't all known by those of us present at the time (there was a heads-up rod display, after all), they were just too busy claiming nothing happened to bother with reality until it couldn't be hidden any longer.

                But you can try to sell your poked pig to pimply-faced teens whose parents weren't old enough to remember the meltdown if you like. Some of them might even believe you. What you cannot do is prevent those of us who DO know better from telling the truth when you start spewing lies.

                by Joy Busey on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:51:27 AM PDT

                •  Sigh.

                  I surrender.
                  Logic is lost.
                  Enjoy.

                  by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:54:29 AM PDT

                  •  Don't feel too bad, dinotrac

                    This one (Joy Busey) is a total basket case, as I have explained in great detail before.

                    Although, I'll admit that today she seems to be on an unusually vigorous spree of spouting of nonsense. I can only assume that her medications have run out.

                    "Void at the Center of the Core"?!! It's so appropriate that she began her ignorant rant of nonsense with "LOL" -- 'cause I was laughing my ass off at that one. You can't make up stuff this ridiculous.

                    by bryfry on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:43:10 AM PDT

                    •  Thanks for the heads up.

                      I was scratching the old (sigh) noggin there.  Didn't think that I was being unreasonable.

                      Also thought that the pimply-faced 13 year-old was an internet term of art conveying the danger of placing too much faith in the words of anonymous souls off in the ether.

                      Oh well.
                      Won't let it ruin my day.

                      Cheers.

                      by dinotrac on Sat May 17, 2008 at 11:52:55 AM PDT

      •  Most of nuclear's scary problems could be fixed

        If we had a functioning Nuclear Regulatory Commission to monitor industry. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the agency is routinely underfunded, and nearly have its employees say they don't feel comfortable whistleblowing.

        (Excuse me, isn't whistleblowing what they get paid for?)

        The near catastrophe at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio is an instructive example. The NRC let the plant operators, FirstEnergy, delay an inspection until the next refueling outage to avoid double shutdowns in one year (they're expensive). This, even though the NRC had on file photographs of boric acid holes in the reactor head. Then, two years later, when the hole had grown to the size of a pineapple, the NRC freaked out and shut the reactor down.

        They've blamed a handful of engineers for this (including one whose trial comes up in August, Andrew Siemaszko), but it's really a faulty system problem. If we stopped talking about lobbyists and waste and started really holding our authorities to account for plant safety, we might get somewhere with nuclear power -- which I agree, is a mighty form of energy with overall lifecycle carbon emissions equivalent to solar or wind.

        by ninshubur on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:57:11 AM PDT

        •  They don't get paid to tell the truth.

          They get paid to pretend they're regulating what they're concurrently paid to promote. Same problem most government agencies have these days when lobbyists run the show. Why, FDA has Big Pharma and corporate gene-splicers actually WRITING regulations so they won't apply. The NRC hasn't had the power to enforce a single ordered retrofit to reactor systems in more than 30 years, including ANY of the ordered design corrections in the wake of Three Mile Island.

          You'll have this when the inmates run the asylum.

          by Joy Busey on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:11:19 AM PDT

    •  We don't have time for this BS..

      either it's safe, or it isn't.  And the FACTS show it is very safe.  We need nuclear.. now!

      by Skeptical Bastard on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:41:22 AM PDT

      •  I hear there's free land

        waiting for folks just like yourself not far from Chernoble. Lots of sick and deformed children up for adoption too.  

        by eddieb061345 on Sat May 17, 2008 at 07:46:16 AM PDT

        •  Chernobyl

          I wish I had saved the comment someone made in a diary a couple of years ago about Chernobyl.

          Essentially, the plans for Chernobyl were stolen from the US DOE...after they had been rejected by the DOE. Chernobyl was a (I'm going to get this wrong, I'm sure) liquid sodium plant, which is apparently highly unsafe and NO ONE thinks you should use them.

          The test they were running was a test that the plant was not cleared for. The people running the test had been drinking and hadn't been trained. There was no containment vessel and the construction of the plant was substandard.

          So...yeah, kinda hard to see that one coming, huh?

          Someone around these parts made the comment that arguing against nuclear power because of Chernobyl is like pointing to a car crash test involving an early prototype of the Ford Pinto being operated by a mentally handicapped and inebriated driver as an argument for why we shouldn't have cars.

          Technology has, of course, come quite a long way in the last 40 years.

          As far as waste goes, we can only get a little bit of the total amount of energy out of the fuel rods, so the notion that we're going to bury those in some mountain is absurd. We're going to store them and eventually figure out how to get the REST of the fissionable material from them.

          I'm a fan of the multi-prong-approach. Solar makes sense in the American SW. Salon had a nice piece on concentrated solar power (think ants and a magnifying glass). Wind makes sense in the NW and great plains and chicago and boston (windier than chicago). Tidal power makes sense in the NE too.

          But in the SE, nuclear is probably the best available source of cheap, clean power. And yes, it's clean. I live within 20 miles of the Shearon Harris plant. My electricity is CO2 free everyday. Build five more in my backyard if you want. I won't complain once.

          by noahdb on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:01:54 AM PDT

          •  One of our diarists

            here (Nnadir) posts frequently about current nuke plant technology and the fact that France generates practically all of its electricity from nuclear and has never had an accident or even come close.  He takes a lot of abuse for it, but he has a thick skin.  His research on how the French reuse their fuel rods to extract every last drop of energy from them before disposal are worth reading.  He's very knowledgeable.

            by loretta on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:16:11 AM PDT

            •  Are they reporting...

              The problems that might be coming from the nuclear dumps in Russia where they send a lot of their waste?

              by BobTrips on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:18:59 AM PDT

              •  France retains its waste

                They don't send it to Russia.

                by Joffan on Sat May 17, 2008 at 12:29:10 PM PDT

              •  France and Chernobyl

                You may recall, if you were paying attention at the time, that although many European countries reported atmospheric fallout from Chernobyl, France miraculously escaped.  At least, that's what official French reports said.

                Anyone smell un thon?

                by MixedContent on Sun May 18, 2008 at 04:17:27 AM PDT

          •  Chernobyl details

            Chernobyl was a graphite-moderated water-cooled reactor, which is just about the simplest way to make a reactor - not too far off the original "pile" in Chicago. (Liquid sodium cooling is typically associated with breeder reactors, which Chernobyl was not.) The major design issue was that the cooling water had a slowing effect on the reactor - so if (when) it boiled to steam, the reactor speeds up. US designs work the other way - if the cooling water boils (or leaks), the reactor slows down.

            At Chernobyl, they were scheduled to run a test which the plant had been cleared for, but they changed the reactor conditions so drastically that I'd immediately agree that the test they ran was not the one that had clearance. They bypassed a lot of automatic safety too. The shift that ran the test hadn't been involved in test setup and didn't have the expertise needed on hand.

            There was indeed no containment vessel, and some evidence that construction was substandard.

            by Joffan on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:54:27 AM PDT

            •  Not that sodium breeders...

              are that good of an idea, either.  Nothing like your coolant being hundreds of tons of a metal that likes to explode when it comes into contact with your containment structure  :P  Sodium + concrete = hot hydrogen = explosion.

              Anyone who thinks that sodium breeders are safe should look at how close MONJU came to disaster.

              As for breeders, I'm more into molten salt and especially lead-bismuth breeders.

              by Rei on Sat May 17, 2008 at 06:55:01 PM PDT

        •  Yep, Chernobyl sucked.

          And it represents about 10% of the annual death toll from current production methods.

          Nuclear:current methods is like airplane:driving by car.  The accidents look much worse individually, but it is much, much safer when you actually know how to evaluate statistics.

          And if you think we have time to fool around trying to ramp up systems that currently represent 1% of our power supply instead of expanding a current, proven technology, then you simply do not take seriously the threats of carbon emissions.

          by The Scientific Liberal on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:25:18 AM PDT

          •  Well said..

            What diehard nuke haters just don't get is the time factor.  

            We can either dick around for decades with lame legislation to boost CAFE standards, or increase use of renewable fuels to xx percentage, or any of the other proposals currently being considered while we continue to spew CO2 into the atmosphere..

            or.. we can start building nuke plants now and get ourselves way below Kyoto targets in 10 years.

            Plug-in hybrids are just around the corner. with cheap off-peak power provided by nuclear power plants recharging them and with proper tax incentives to buy them, we could wean ourselves off the teat of foreign oil.. and in the process we can shut down hundreds of coal fired power plants.

            We just don't have time to wait.

            by Skeptical Bastard on Mon May 19, 2008 at 07:39:51 AM PDT

    •  Learn how to perform a risk assessment

      60 years, less than 10,000 deaths from nuclear incidents, compared to several times that annually from our current methods of production.

      It is an absolute no-brainer.

      by The Scientific Liberal on Sat May 17, 2008 at 08:22:38 AM PDT

      •  I, and I suspect millions of Americans,

        want to be unshackled from paying a bill every month to any energy company.

        I would rather be "off the grid". This is where the real battle lies. Centralized energy production or individualized production.

        The energy companies are terrified of this. And they will do anything, sell you any idea they can that keeps them in control of providing for your energy needs.

        by Crazy like a fox on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:10:44 AM PDT

        •  Then I suggest

          that you go purchase a diesel generator.

          If being "off the grid" is most important for you and money is not matter, than you can easily get off of the grid within a month or so.

          You could even go in with a few of your neighbors and buy a fairly large generator that could supply the entier neighborhood, but I guess that's getting away from "individualized production."

          by bryfry on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:21:50 AM PDT

          •  Seriously, are you trying to be dense?

            Every home in America should have solar panels on the roofs or geothermal heating or cooling.

            Our tax dollars are subsidizing these energy companies. Let's stop it. Now.

            by Crazy like a fox on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:27:35 AM PDT

            •  You will never be off the grid.

              Roughly one-third of electricity is domestic. That's the part you are talking about - but anything else you buy also involves electricity usage. That's two-thirds of all electricity usage, (one-third commercial, one-third industrial) and you would still be using that.

              "Geothermal heating and cooling" for houses requires electricity. It is actually geo-coupled heat pumps, very efficient in a moderate climate at multiplying up the electrical power into heat flows. But not an energy source.

              by Joffan on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:42:21 AM PDT

              •  I disagree. Smart companies are putting solar

                panels on their roofs. Maybe it's not providing 100% of their electricity but coupled with conservation and more efficiency it can get pretty high.

                by Crazy like a fox on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:51:14 AM PDT

                •  Yeah

                  because it's good PR. It plays well to the peanut gallery who have no idea about the economics of solar and how little energy is actually generated by these "solar panels on their roofs."

                  It's basically a photo op, and you're its target.

                  by bryfry on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:23:52 AM PDT

                  •  Right. Because oil, coal, nuclear and gas

                    are such great options.

                    They are finite. They are dirty. They are dangerous for our health. They are America's downfall economically.

                    I am putting my money on solar.

                    And you'd better believe we are going to have to change our lifestyle.

                    by Crazy like a fox on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:34:51 AM PDT

                    •  Great

                      then put your money where your mouth is.

                      That is certainly more productive than running your mouth off and spouting all of this nonsense. Prove us all wrong.

                      by bryfry on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:46:20 AM PDT

                      •  I have never owed a car.

                        I walk 2.6 miles to work each way. I never leave a light on in a room that I'm not in. And I don't really mind the dark so often don't even have a light on at night. I've lived most of my life with little to no heat in the winter. (I live where it gets cold. This requires long underwear, fleece, and sometimes even a beanie on the head to keep warm. Though, in the last ten years it has been much warmer in the winter than it used to be.) I recycle all that I can and try not to waste.

                        I've chosen a clean energy company for my energy choice.

                        And I am researching solar energy panels which I hope to buy and install in the next two or three years.

                        ps when I was a kid I convinced my mother to buy a car that got 50 mpg.

                        I feel like I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Are you?

                        by Crazy like a fox on Sat May 17, 2008 at 11:01:31 AM PDT

                        •  Hmm ... fun

                          A pissing contest. Normally, I don't get into "my dick is bigger than your dick" contests -- since I think that they are both silly and counterproductive -- however, I will indulge you this one time.

                          For the record, I haven't owned a car in years, and the last car that I owned (the only car that I owned) still got 50 miles to the gallon (highway miles). when I sold it. That car was almost 20 years old at the time.

                          You might have chosen a "clean energy company," but I doubt that you're getting 100% "clean energy." Have you checked the fine print?

                          Usually, these "green energy" plans are little more than scams run by energy companies. If you buy into one of these programs, the company promises to give you as much "green energy" that they have, but the fine print says that they can sell you whatever they have when the "green energy" runs out. That, of course, depends on how many people sigh up for the plan and pay extra for their electricity.

                          The US produces less than 1% of its electricity from stuff that doesn't involve burning something or fissioning something or large dams. How much of your electricity do you think comes from a "clean" source?

                          I, on the other hand, know exactly the cost of "flipping that light switch." I know that essentially all of my energy comes from a clean source. I don't have heat or cooking that relies on natural gas or oil. All of my energy comes from electricity, which is supplied by the nuclear plant that sits just outside of the city in which I live. When it comes to having a small carbon footprint or any kind of ecological footprint, I kick the hell out of just about anyone on this website.

                          For example, the computer that I'm writing this on was purchased in 1998 (how many of you who are reading this can say that?). I'm not a fan of a society that is driven by a consumerist mentality (e.g., everything would be okay if everyone purchased some solar panels to put on their house or whatever is fashionable at the time), and I know what it is like to do more with less.

                          The difference between you and me, however, is that I understand how difficult this lifestyle is and I acknowledge that everyone is not able to live like I do.

                          Now if we are through comparing hair shirts, I would like to get on to discussing real solutions that work, not fantasizing about how the world would be such a better place if everyone were like me.

                          by bryfry on Sat May 17, 2008 at 12:28:30 PM PDT

                          •  When I was a kid, our class took a trip

                            to Three Mile Island where we were told that nuclear power was the clean energy of the future. Then we ate our lunches right next to the cooling towers on the grass.

                            A few years later we were given the week off from school, (we went out and played all week since the weather was beautiful) when the accident happened.

                            You can extol nuclear energy all you want.

                            My faith in nuclear industry has been shaken.
                            And I'm not going back.

                            by Crazy like a fox on Sat May 17, 2008 at 12:58:18 PM PDT

                            •  OK, you don't have to use any of that nasty

                              nuclear generated electricity. There, do you feel better now? Christ, listening to you and Bryfry bitch at each other is like watching the "Luxury, Sheer Bloody Luxury" sketch from Monty Python, only it's not funny.

                              by Wile E Quixote on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:54:11 PM PDT

                              •  Well ...

                                That's why (as I said) I usually don't like to get into these kinds of pissing contests. I agree, it's not funny. It's rather pathetic actually.

                                by bryfry on Sun May 18, 2008 at 10:44:55 AM PDT

                        •  Bully for you.

                          But so fucking what. Really, you like your lifestyle. Great. Have fun with it. I own a car that gets lousy mileage, usually drive to work, like to heat my house and take long hot showers in the morning. You sound like one of those Xtian idiots who says "Well I haven't had sex with anyone in years (leaving out that no one would want to have sex with them). I don't see what the big deal is."

                          by Wile E Quixote on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:52:02 PM PDT

                          •  And you sound like someone whose kids will

                            hate them for their selfish, thoughtless lifestyle that caused the earth to change dramatically.

                            You got it, I believe global warming is going to pay back the next generation and the next.

                            Think about them in your lousy mileage car on your commute to work. They're going to think about you and it won't be with fondness.

                            by Crazy like a fox on Sun May 18, 2008 at 07:20:47 AM PDT

                    •  Here is the problem.

                      Both of these would work to solve climate change.

                      1.  Convince the half of America that doesn't believe or care about global warming to change their lifestyle.

                      2.  Convince the half of America that CLAIMS to believe and care about global warming to change their philosophical objection to nuclear power.  

                      The second of these SHOULD be easier, since it is asking sacrifice only of the people who CLAIM to care about the issue, yet so many even on this site continue to resist the slightest compromise to their beliefs?

                      So long as conservatives think short-term economics is more important than global climate change, and so many liberals think that radioactive contamination is a bigger risk than global climate change, we are going nowhere.  

                      by The Scientific Liberal on Sat May 17, 2008 at 10:49:21 AM PDT

            •  I don't know if they're trying to be dense.

              But you certainly are dense. Tell me, how well are those solar panels going to be working on my roof in Burien, Washington in December when we get about 8 hours of sunlight a day? Oh, and when the sun is low in the sky, oh, and it's cloudy or raining.

              Newsflash, those solar panels wouldn't produce enough electricity to run a geothermal heat pump to keep my house warm. I like having electricity in winter and in summer too. I like having hot food, hot water, cold beer, electric lights and all of those other modern conveniences, I'm funny that way, but it seems like a lot of other people are too.

              Do any of you fucking solar advocates even understand how solar power works? Are you aware of the solar constant? Are you aware of the conversion efficiencies of various solar cell technologies? Are you aware of the fact that geothermal heat pumps require electrical energy to run them? Solar power is not some magical star spangled pony that shits rainbows and solves all of your problems but Jesus Christ, from reading some of the ignorant drivel posted on Kos you'd think it was.

              by Wile E Quixote on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:48:35 PM PDT

              •  Doesn't matter

                If they're less than $1/W, they will be economical in Washington.  They'd be economical even in Alaska.  And that's exactly what the new thin film makers are promising -- $1/W or less.

                By the way, you don't have to be rude.  As for who understands what, I might add, I'm the author of this solar power economics calculator, probably the most detailed solar calculator on the net.

                The problem with geothermal heat pumps is not the (very small, proportionally) amount of energy needed to run them.  It's the capital costs for installation.

                by Rei on Sat May 17, 2008 at 06:59:07 PM PDT

    •  Accept the world's waste?

      France ships a sizable amount of of their nuclear waste off to Russia where it "disappears".

      Remember Chernoble, Three Mile Island, and all the 'near misses' that don't get discussed such as the cracked containment vessel at Humboldt Bay as well as the problem that recently went purposely unreported for a couple of weeks and could have led to a meltdown.

      Then there's the night time check that found all the security guards asleep....

      by BobTrips on Sat May 17, 2008 at 09:11:20 AM PDT

    •  God you're clueless

      Your attitude is the same completely stupid and clueless attitude that the fucking Republicans have towards terrorism. Seriously, you are as stupid clueless as they are.

      Let's look at Three Mile Island. How many people died because of the accident at Three Mile Island? Let's see, the answer to that question would be "ZERO", you know, "Z