It’s time to abandon old coal plants and invest in cleaner energy sources
April 30, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Minnesota Power has been ordered by state regulators to study its options in diversifying the types of energy used to power Northeastern Minnesota. It is deciding between investing millions to extend the lives of old coal plants or to replace those plants with other sources of energy.
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Well all that environmental damage may be real, but the real damage you will feel is to your wallet if coal does not start to be phased out. New plants that will be needed if we ‘stay the course’ will start out at about 15 cents per kilowatt hour. And the cost of coal itself is skyrocketing. Get this- we give great tax breaks for coal companies to take coal from OUR federal lands so they can sell it to China, India and other countries. Remember the DNT reports about delivering coal to new coal markets this past year? The cost of extraction is going up, and demand that we are satisfying to other countries is also driving the price up.
We are at a crossroads, and that path that leads to clean energy without any fuel cost would seem to be the best route, eh?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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The headline says it all…“It’s time to abandon old coal plants and invest in cleaner energy sources”. Abandon??? I guess it’s all or nothing when you are an environmentalist. It would be great if we could transition that direction over the next 30-40 years. Solar and wind would be a part of that. But do they realize how much power heavy industry uses? So you get a patch of cloudy weather and then what? Taconite plants run 24-7. Maybe those solar panels can run on moonlight. It’s a great idea but not practical yet. Not to say we shouldn’t try to reduce our dependence on coal. We should try to conserve where we can. It will take time.
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While moving from coal to an alternative energy source would be nice, I do not believe that Solar would be able to provide the same amount of power as the current plants do. Main reason being is that our Minnesota climate would work against it. The largest US solar power plant being built is the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in Riverside County, CA with a capacity of 550W. They have an average of 200 sunny days in the year, with only 75 cloudy days. Duluth on the other hand has around 77 sunny days, with a rather large 187 cloudy days. This would cause the solar power plants to be operating at 50% or less efficiency up here for the majority of the time.
Wind suffers from a similar fate in the arrowhead region. According to this map: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/images/home_usmap.jpg the arrowhead has marginal wind speeds for effective power production. Though off shore farms in lake superior could be a possibility.
Basically, if Mn Power does not elect for solar or wind power plants it may not be that big coal bribed everyone and is evil!!!1omgs. It may just be that neither one could provider the power the customers need.
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Josh, thanks for inserting the map. But it appears that there are a number of places in this country that have the same wind resource that are indeed creating wind energy at very competitive prices. Check you map and look at the ‘thumb’ region of Michigan. Consumers power and Detroit Edison both have wind farms there that produce well under a dime per kwh. And as far as solar goes, having a cool climate can actually help a solar array operate more efficiently. Maybe not in comparison with the Southwest, but when solar does its best is when utilities are buying off the grid spending ratepayers cash for the most expensive power on those hot summer days.
And if you wanted to make sure the renewable technology could not operate effectively all you have to do it limit access to the market keeping it from enjoying economies of scale, and have your richest partners run a muck-raking campaign to get the likes of Ulysses to spout off with nonsensical comments whenever possible. All you have to do is look about you, well, actually look at the rest of the world to understand how far behind we are. But there is hope.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Oh yes, there are a few pockets even in the arrowhead and Duluth where it may be possible to set up a wind farm and gain acceptable power generation. And of course there is always continued research and development regarding both solar and wind power generation. I was just saying that given the climate of Minnesota and current technology it may not be economically feasible to set up a wind farm to replace all current MN Power coal stations. Certain sites maybe, or use wind as an augmentation to another power source. But base load power may not be possible through wind or solar at the current time. Someday hopefully though.
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Considering we have no major fault lines here, and are free from tsunami risk, “green” energy is entirely possible. That being the green glow of uranium and nuclear power. With having the best economies of scale in the power generation department, along with all the jobs it would provide, both short and long term, northern Minnesota would benefit tremendously.
But here on Planet Reality every tree-hugging, dirt-worshipping hippie and every tribe would be trying to block it, or extort as much money as possible from it.
Never mind the technology is vastly superior to those of reactors at Prairie Island & Monticello (let alone elsewhere in the world), never mind that Dr. Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace supports nuclear power, never mind the French & other countries have found ways to cohabitate with nuclear facilities.
Nope. It would never happen. Heck, you can’t even put up a cell phone tower these days.
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Actually nuclear would probably be one of the better options for power up here. Considering the power that needs to be generated and relative land area required they would almost be a drop in replacement for the coal plants. Obviously that is over simplifying it a bit but it would be easier than setting up a solar or wind farm.
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When you look at the big picture, Nuclear power is the safest and cleanest of all energy sources we currently use. Nobody seems to notice the pollution from gas or coal fired boiler operations because the discharge is relatively small and gets dispersed by the wind. but when you consider the impact of that same type of power generation per Gigawatt generated, gas/coal fired plants are absolutely filthy when compared to nukes, even when factoring Chernobyl and Fukishima in, they still are cleaner and safer in the long run. And the US doesn’t use a dry system like the failed Chernobyl plant, and our fail-safes and much more rigorous than the Japanese systems.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Green energy is at this point just a feel good idea for the enviro-wackos to wrap their arms around when there isn’t a tree close by. With all the solar panels and windmills in place already this country is deriving single-digit percentages of our energy used from those sources. BTW, any of you greenies ever think about the energy used to mine and ship the raw materials, process those raw materials into production supplies and ship them to factories, make those supplies into windmills, package and then ship (by several modes) the windmills to the installation, prep the installation site, install the windmills, run power lines to the windmills, and then to keep them maintained? Obviously a cost vrs benefit analysis is beyond the comprehension of the greenies.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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i agree with you somewhat here ulysses in that it is true no one realizes the amount of energy used in the process of say biofuel production or recycling for instance. The point isnt always whats most efficient ( coming from an economist seems contradictory but hear me out) because environmental factors are not priced into the cost of production, if they were the price of clean renewable energy (and recycling) would be affordable in comparison. I believe in climate change, however i dont necessarily think humans are behind it all. That doesnt mean we shouldnt try to take steps to limit our impact on the environment though. If their is new and better technology to lessen our impact on the environment every polluter should want to be at the forefront of said technology and innovation (they shouldnt need the government make them do it ((by grants and subsidies)) but sadly they do). And even if we are contributing to quicken the pace of the change i believe in human ingenuity to overcome anything. Matter of fact we already have many solutions its just a matter of getting them institutionalized which is hard since many people dont feel this is much of a problem in the first place. Changing our energy infrastructure is a paradigm shift away from fossil fuels which means the oil industry stands to lose in this shift. So this industry will do anything in its power to ensure their is no paradigm shift until they choose to shift it themselves. This is why they are buying up patents and alternative technologies to ensure they will be players in the new paradigm. The change will happen just a matter of when.
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Levi: Please enlighten me … if citizens of the United States pay through the nose for our energ needs, destroy our economy and forever deminish our standard of living by paing to switch to so-called green energy, why should we suffer these traumatic costs if the rest of the world does not make the same changeover? Not only is the world not making the changeover but China is building dozens of coal-fired power plants each year and they are buying our coal and they will buy all the Canadian oil that Canada can produce, meaning a dramatic increase in pollution. Several foreign nations are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for deep water oil, over wich we will have no control, thus exposing our shores to foreign nations oil spills. The US is already exporting to various countries refined gas and diesel products. Brazil is still clear-cutting thousands of acres of the Amazon rain forest each year to feed their charcoal industry which is key to their growing steel industry. This means as the US pays extravagantly to go green while major industrial nations such as China, India, Korea grow and pollute unchecked. If you think we can “lead by example” you are very naive. Those countries will thumb their noses at you…and then carry on doing what they were doing because that is what is in their own best interest to grow their economy and feed their people.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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thats like saying i might as well smoke cigarettes since everyone around me smokes cigs and im getting all their secondhand smoke. Or a better analogy would be the baseball player caught using steroids using the arguement that everyone else was doing it so i had to as well just to compete. And yes you are right they will do whatever is in their best interest however you and them are mistaken in where your best interest lies. What happens when all the rainforest is gone for these countries and all the oil? SUSTAINABILITY IS EVERYONES BEST INTEREST.
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You’re waxing hypocritical complaining about sustainability here. I have yet to see you decry the runaway spending habits of the Obama administration. They’re so bad(unsustainable) that they threaten to destroy our economy and relegate us to 3rd world status. If you really cared about the US, you’d start by complaining to your anointed leader about his unsustainable spending. If you think things are bad now, how much worse will they be when we as a nation cannot afford the greenie goodies you so cherish?
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Have you ever asked why so many third world countries are deforested? It’s because the general population is so destitute poor that they scavenge the remaining woods for everything and anything of value. Once Obama and company destroy our economy, those of us who remain in the northwoods will immediately turn to those woods for our livelihoods and everyday necessities. The nasty little secret the greenies don’t want us to hear is that corporations aren’t causing deforestation, poverty is. If you deny a man the ability top feed his family, he’ll go where the resources are, AKA, the woods.
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If you environmentalists think that electric cars are “green” you need to do a little research into exactly how dirty and dangerous the processes are that create the Nickle- metal-hydride and lithium ion batteries really is. There is nothing green about a prius or a chevy volt. And how do you dispose of the used batteries? That’s another one of those dirty little secrets the greenies refuse to acknowledge.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Sound bites, little pieces of information disguised as reasons for full condemnation. The question is not in finding something that is ‘totally’ green. The questions going forward are about making better choices. So are the electric cars greener or more sustainable than other choices? And by the way there will be some very nice uses for those batteries to be revitalized and used for energy storage for home grown energy. Is it perfect? No. But it is a step in the right direction. But you have to want to get past the sound bite and learn some details.
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You’re aware of course that GM has discontinued the production of the Chevy Volt, right? Lack of sales as a result of battery fires. Great green technology, eh?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Where’d you get that misinformation?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/2013-chevrolet-volt-gains-upgrades-adds-new-drive-mode-and-safety-features/
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I believe many people have the same position as the author when it comes to caring for nature, however a large portion of the public understands that there really are no alternatives at the present time. Letters similar to this are placed in countless newspapers daily to sway the public that there is an alternative but when it comes down to it there are no viable alternatives at this time other than nuclear. He mentions Boswell being a 1000 M/W unit, I don’t see him mention where in the boundary waters that he would like to place the 3500 wind turbines that it would take to replace Boswell. He also does not mention what 10000 acres of land he would like to use for the solar plant that may produce close to what Boswell does. Until an alternative is truly offered there are not a lot of choices. Keep in mind that Mr. Bennett and thousands of others like him are also protesting fracking (natural gas for combined cycles instead of coal power), protesting precious metals mining (transmission lines required to transport wind energy from remote areas), hydro power (damage to the rivers and species within), new nuclear due to being unsafe, etc.. If you have no alternative there is not much to discuss. Based on his view the author must also be against the selling of coal to foreign countries for burning and keeping their power rates low to enable economic growth, domestic production of steel and importing of steel due to coals requirment in that process, mining along the range etc….
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Wrong questions dude. The real discussion should be in understanding WHY there are no alternatives at this time. The answer is less about technology and more about power and money. In the big picture, with history as a backdrop, the efforts of enviro’s to stop harmful or degrading develop will pale compared to overall affect of the all-out assault by the utility industry in this country to thwart a change from ‘business as usual’.
Climate change, energy security, resource depletion, and the clean economics of a fossil fueled future have been known for decades now. The strategy has been to wring out the very last penny from an antiquated business model instead of starting a transition that would be more beneficial to all.
Utilities for the most part operate in a monopoly. To enjoy that position they should shoulder extra responsibility for being sustainable over the long term, not leverage it to jack their profit margins.
This can be seen as a leadership opportunity for Minnesota Power, maybe.
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So the blame is on the power companies due to them not wanting to invest in a technology that will never have a payback? Would you tell your investor to do the same with your money? You can also search this paper’s archives for the Minnesota Power solar rebates which coupled with the federal governments pay about 70% of the cost, this should tell you a little bit about their payback and the ability for the average citizen to have interest in these alternatives. Say what you want the alternatives will be developed by private money very similar to every other great invention that has come along, but it must be competitive.
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Great example. MN Power should get praise for opening the door to solar with some great programs. But in digging in to the details, getting past the sound bite, you would find that there is only $180k in the pot for rebates. $180k is very much pocket change in the utility business. You can form a nice press release around it, but it is not something that helps to create real change. The IRRRB just put $2 million into a dental company in Gilbert as an example of an agency looking to leverage real change.
Wind is now cheaper than new coal, and solar will be too if the markets are created. After the demand is established it will run on its own. Battery technology is coming along the same way. Out in the future there is a design for an energy system that is much much less dependent on costly and destructive fuels. But those who control the system now have to want to go there.
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A little truth with every lie. “Wind is now cheaper than new coal”. Not exactly. Most areas don’t have a dependable, constant source of wind. The infrastructure required for siting a windfarm is almost never included in the cost of wind power. And where do you find the space to place enough turbines to generate a gigawatt of power within a reasonable distance of where it would be used? and what happens when the wind quits? Do you call the taconite plants and say “sorry about that power disruption. we ran out of wind.”? Solar only works when the sun shines, wind, only when it blows. You cannot power industry with an unreliable, unpredictable power source. You don’t randomly shut down a production line, or furnace just because mother nature is uncooperative. You need a consistently reliable source of power, and that means fossil fuel or nuclear generation.
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We could buy natural gas, oil and coal produced within our counrties borders to run our economy but you advocate buying foreign made windmills and solar panels in huge quantities just to produce what will amount to an insignificant percent of our needs? Don’t you see the huge transfer of wealth to foreign nations that causes rather than keeping our money within our borders thereby helping our own economy? I guess I care much more about helping Americans than greenies like you do.
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every other great invention??? maybe ones before 1940 …every important invention/technology has been started by the military not private money buddy nice try though…..computers, internet, cell phones,….all military which means anything invented to supplement them (apple microsoft, intel, google) owe their products due to the investment made by the government in the military.
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ulysses no one advocated buying these things from other countries quite the opposite in fact. And dont you think their is a reason these other countries are investing so heavily in these technologies? What does America know that they all dont? The reason we arent making the technology here is because of people like you who think its not needed and refuse to have their taxes pay for the investment needed (see solyndra “scandal”). If only private investment can make this happen in america it will never happen and the rest of the world will be at the forefront of these new industries instead of us. Solyndra went under because the Chinese govt pumped more investment into their own country as soon as they saw the US do it hence pricing them out of market. When there are barriers to free entry into a market it is not free market and pure competition does not exist that is why government steps in to facilitate entry into said market to keep industry viable until it reaches economies of scale and can at that point be better managed privately.
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Levi, were dropped on your head or something? Solyndra can about EXACTLY because of gov’t mandates and tax subsidies. No same invester would invest half a billion dollars in a company without any assets or markets. DUH!
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and hugh j how is something by its very nature an exhaustible resource be dependable/consistent/and reliable??? i guess it can be…..till it runs out eh? And the point is to not get off fossil fuels the point is only use them when like you say their are wind and solar disruptions. If you continue to use them as a primary source it will be depleted eventually.
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How much wind will you have tomorrow? Next week? Even tonight? We know how much fossil fuel we have. We know how much continuous, sustained energy we can get from any of our existing plants. You can’t predict the weather(except for the global warming alarmists, who know with absolute certainty what will be happening 50, 100, 200 years from now.). Do claim otherwise only spotlights your naivete. Rather than parroting the greenie handbook, try actually R E A D I N G !
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ever heard of HARP??? if we can manipulate weather im pretty sure we have a good idea of how to predict it…if not why do people watch the news just to see the weather. So they can base decisions on said predictions. And yes we know how much oil there is, but its too expensive to extract in many places, thus reducing the amount recoverable in our present situation and making alternatives viable in the near future. Im not advocating for a complete switch that would be impossible and naive, but to keep putting it off until the future will only make other countries the major players in these technologies. Therfore foreign entities will reap all the profits associated with the eventual switch. The only way to drastically reduce the amount of foreign oil imported is to reduce our consumption of said oil, not to drill our way out of it.
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Check the last post about UND projects.
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Levi: The only sensible approach to our future would be to use our own fossel fuels, rather than importing, while our government offers huge tax breaks and incentives and perhaps even cash awards for energy break-throughs outside of fossel fuel useage. By buyingand using our own fuels we keep our nations money stateside which in turn stimulates our economy. This sensible transition to new energy sources (or new nuclear plants) will take time but it is better to make a gradual transition as opposed to an abrupt change as advocated by utopian enviro-wackos. Regretably our incompetent president has announced that he wants to kill the coal industry, even though currently there is no practical alternate energy source.
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wow hugh you are the one with head problems if you think there is no market for alternative energy where have you been hiding the last 20 years….and yea solyndra came about because of govt help exactly my point thanks for reiterating it. No sane investors would put money into such a risky investment (except the ones that want higher returns). If there is a market for commercial space travel and enough investors for that venture theres definitely a market for alternative energy and investors will come around eventually. Just like oil companies wont drill for oil that is too expensive to extract so they need govt tax breaks and subsidies as well. You spout conservative talking points in every single post and insult not just our president but all liberals in general. You argue just for the sake of arguing and when someone corrects one of your posts you resort to inflammatory rhetoric and petty insults without convincing or persuading anyone to come to your side on any issue.
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So glad to see people coming to recognize that nuclear power is the future. It would be the present if we hadn’t been distracted from it forty years ago. Let’s get back on the right track. Produce inexpensive electricity for our heat, light, transportation.
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Refreshing to witness public debate in its finest online form. There are some knowledgeable readers participating. I am enlightened both by the author and the readers’ comments. Thank you. At heart, I’m a conservationist, too. I do my best to conserve energy and that option is conspicuously absent from Clint’s posting. Lifestyles and behaviors have to change in a big way, too. Americans are used to excess. In the case of Minn Power – its biggest consumers are the taconite and timber industries. Can it transition to new sources of power generation without disruption to those customers? Can it guarantee affordable and uninterrupted power to them if it moves to new sources? Just a thought…
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To Hugh and the old general; no one ever said that we had to change our energy supplies overnight. No one said it has to be all solar and wind and nothing else. And it is just predictable that Hugh can’t site enough wind in his backyard so that makes it unworkable, but he is all for putting coal on a train in Wyoming and burning it here. There National Renewable Energy Labs tell us there really is enough wind from the Dakotas to Texas to power this country, but it would require transmission upgrades to an old system. You can ship coal across the country but not wind energy?
The both of you use the old red herring debate form to avoid the real discussion. For example-
Even though General Electric has manufactured the most dependable wind turbines on the planet, they are a world wide corporation and take their manufacturing to where the market is. The reason so many clean energy components come from overseas is because the United States is late coming to the party. Late to realize what most of the rest of the planet can see. The Pentagon and the CIA already recognize that the wars of the future will likely be ‘resource’ wars. Would we rather fight and kill in the future instead of preparing for our energy future now?
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Now you’re showing your ignorance. Have you ever heard of “line loss”? You can’t transmit power all the way across the country. You couldn’t site all of your turbines in a small location because the energy used to turn turbine “A” is no longer available to turn turbine “B”, etc, etc.
What is one of the principle laws of physics? That energy cannot be created or destroyed. That it only changes states. The energy absorbed by generator “A” has now been converted to electricity and is no longer available to power generator “B”. But yo already knew that, right? There comes a saturation point when siting wind farms. And what of the environmentalists’ concerns regarding the towers? They won’t allow a cell tower within view of the BWCA because it allegedly damages panorama? And the anchor cables are accused of killing millions of migrating song birds every year. Now you want to site thousands of 200′ diameter Cuisinarts in the sky to slice and dice our avian friends? YOU BUTCHER, YOU!
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Hugh, the new grid may very well be a DC based system. And new turbines are geared to about 30-40 revolutions per minute. Cuisienarts – not so much. But your concern for the birds is duly noted. Ane why don’t you just take your concerns to the National Labs and try and point out where those scientists are wrong and you are obviously the smartest guy in the room. You can reach them through NREL.gov or just Google National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Boulder CO, wind research good luck with that.
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The rpm’s are irrelevant. It’s the angular velocity that counts. At 40rpm, the angular velocity of the tip of a 200′ dia turbine blade is nominally 135mph. Plenty fast to take out an unsuspecting songbird.
You continue to cite thenational lab as if it’s nirvana for scientists. It’s not. Do you believe everything the gov’t tells you about the national debt? The insolvency of SS and medicare? That there are enough rich people to fleece to provide everything Obama has promised his supports? Those three items alone should be enough to discredit any one “lab” or gov’t sponsored “research” group. In my years of stumbling ’round this planet, I’ve had the privilege to work with a great number of gov’t funded researchers and academics. When asked what their top priority is, they usually respond by telling me that they need to continue to get funding for their projects. This means that they are already spending too much time padding the numbers so they can secure another grant. This makes most gov’t sponsored research questionable at best. After all, it was gov’t sponsored researchers who told us back in the early 70′s that we were entering in to a new ice age. Now it’s globull warming. So which way is it? The gov’t has claimed both. The only thing we can be certain of is that gov’t lacks credibility in the matter. And if they lack it in one area, they lack it in all. As the lawyer said to the witness on the stand, “are you lying then, or are you lying now?”
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Hugh: Enviro-wackos apparently view birds as a “renewable resource” since they are OK with windmills killing birds by the thousands, especially during migration. Since the birds have not had a chance to nest and produce off-spring killing them en-route is somewhat akin to the spearing of walleyes when they are nesting, which has led to a crash in their populations on some lakes. Enviro-wackos must not feel a need for birds or fish.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Thats all you got? Enough said.
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OK know-it-all. Thomas A. Edison bet his fortune on a DC power transmission system and it proved inadequate for distances of over 1 mile and totally useless for distances over 2 miles. That is why we have Westinghouses’ AC power transmission system. Right back at ya, Ranger.
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At the time of this posting there are seven thumbs down on my previous post. It amazes me that there are 7 people so ignorant of the facts surrounding our most basic modern day convenience, electricity. I can understand Ranger not knowing the facts. Ranger has demonstrated a lack of real world knowledge time and time again, but 7 others? Don’t people study ANY history any longer? What are our schools teaching nowdays? How can people be so ignorant of something so fundemental to todays world?
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SCHOOLS TEACH???? When did that happen? I thowt dey jus indoktinated.
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….and apparently they have no time for REAL science(as opposed to the global warming fraud) either. But what can you expect from an educational system the values indoctrination over education, eh?
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What ever happened to the research into nuclear fusion power generation? The last I read about it, it was supposed to use the waste materials from fission, generate electricity cheaply, and the leftover ‘waste’ would be inert and safe to stack outdoors.
Just another thing the coal industry got the funding cut for through lobbyists?
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or clean hydrogen technologies….
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Casual observer here…. not to be confused with peace broker or energy guru. Hugh J – you seem to know your stuff but you alienate your audience with your combative style of arguing your point. Healthy debate is good. Discussion is better. Maybe like me, you’re becoming jaded as the years roll on. Be careful not to tar everyone with the same brush. Ulysses – you are simply IRRELEVANT. “Environmental whackos, the DFL, unions”,,,,, Change the record!! Ranger – thanks for raising the bar of public discussion and debate on here. I would put my money on you to find a solution. I don’t understand electricity but I know that our energy consumption habits must change.
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Blighty: You pulled you head out of the sand (or some other similarily dark hole) just to squawk a little and then you stick you head back in. If you wish to hide from the problems that confront us ie: ignorant utopian enviro-wackos, Dumb F ‘ n Lemmings voting the way their grandparents did because it is easier than actually thinking about the issues, and corrupt unions stealing from their members just for the sake of funneling the dues to political candidates of the union leaderships choice…so be it. That still doesn’t change the fact that there are problems facing us. Why should you care if I continually shine a spotlight on those problems until they are solved, you can’t see the light with your head stuck in somewhere dark anyway.
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I challenge the assumption that someone exhibiting ranger’s dismissal for the facts will find an solutions any where. Solving problems means taking into account all the information. No drunk dries out without first confronting his addiction. “Hi, my name is Ranger, and I dismiss the facts.”
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“Hi, my name’s Hugh. I stick my fingers in my ears, say ‘lalalala’, ignore facts and call anyone who disagrees with me names.”
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Hi! my name’s bac, as in backdoor, as in I’m frequently involve in an “end run”, AKA, using the “bac door” as an entry point.
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The good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good here is that for those independent voters out there, they can look at the quality of debate offered here and see which members of a particular party may be, shall we say less than familiar with science, and research, and understand that there is a vote for smart energy coming up this Fall.
The bad is that someone visiting or researching Duluth for possible business expansion may get the wrong idea about Duluth from a couple of these posters.
And the ugly, well, it is what it is, what do you expect from a dead general? Safe travel to all.
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Ranger: I understand you are a little embarrassed by me pointing out that you are ignorant beyound belief concerning DC power transmission vrs AC power transmission. What can we expect from an enviro-wacko who obviously has only limited real world knowledge and is functioning on only the talking points provided to them by the enviro-wacko left. Sorry to point out your ignorance…go lick your wounds and then try to educate yourself in real world facts a little more.
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OK, I admit I was just toying with you general. Not everyone has read or understands why the next powergrid may well be a DC grid, but I do. So I looked for a real easy article from a conservative utility stance that will bring you up to speed a bit. It talks about technology advances from the 1970′s, very cutting edge from your perspective- Here is a short clip-
“It sounds as if DC is now a true complement to AC systems rather than a rival.
Very much so. The number one application for DC today is connecting two AC systems that are not synchronized, allowing transfer of power from one AC grid to another. The ultimate case is where one grid is operating at 50 Hz and the neighboring grid is at 60 Hz. By installing an AC-to-DC converter station and a DC-to-AC converter station back-to-back where the grids meet, you can change power from one frequency to another continuously. Because direct current is not in the form of a sine wave, it has no frequency or phase angle, so any mismatch between the AC systems is cleaned up as the power goes through the DC link.
Here is the link
http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/147925/articles/electric-light-power/volume-80/issue-6/power-pointers/primer-on-transmission-ac-vs-dc.html
You have driven yourself to the brink or irrelevancy. Safe travel.
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Ranger, as is typical, you’re about half right. Have you ever considered a career in meteorology or baseball? They’re about the only folks making a consistent living being right less than 50% of the time.
The disadvantages of HVDC are in conversion, switching, control, availability and maintenance.
HVDC is less reliable and has lower availability than alternating current (AC) systems, mainly due to the extra conversion equipment. Single-pole systems have availability of about 98.5%, with about a third of the downtime unscheduled due to faults. Fault-tolerant bipole systems provide high availability for 50% of the link capacity, but availability of the full capacity is about 97% to 98%.[17]
The required static inverters are expensive and have limited overload capacity. At smaller transmission distances, the losses in the static inverters may be bigger than in an AC transmission line. The cost of the inverters may not be offset by reductions in line construction cost and lower line loss.
(taken from Wikipedia)
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Ranger: You take a grain of truth and try to plant a whole field of argument with that one grain. The DC “patches” you refer to are typically at the Canadian border where electricity purchased from Canada (at 50 hz) needs to be converted to US usable electricity (at 60 hz). The DC transmission distances will be absolute minimimum, possibly within the same building, to reduce loss from the inadequacies of DC transmission. There may also be other patches between other nations but I don’t care about them. Admit you screwed up and I will cut you a little slack.
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Minnesota Power is coping out if they choose to close their coal-fired power plants. These plants can be retro-fitted with new stacks and refined feedstock to improve their emissions, if only the wacko enviros would go along with it.
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UND’s huge energy research program has gone a long way to creating clean coal so coal isn’t out of the equation. Wind mills are produced in Grand Forks not in just Europe. Windmill bird kills have now been shown to not be the problem we thought. Dr. Sadoway of MIT was one of last weeks Time/Life 100 most influential people. He is 2 yrs. from perfecting a battery that is large enough to put in the field & store wind or solar energy when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. The National Hydrogen Research Lab @ UND is at the forefront of hydrogen fuel development. The scientists that developed the concept of climate change 40 yrs. ago say the new nuclear technology needs to be used to save the planet.
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Isn’t it funny how people on the Left care about the enviroment and try and protect it so people on the Right can have a good,c lean enviroment for their hunting and fishing?
Maybe if all regulations were stripped away, you would hear them crying about their inedible fish and venison along with the lack of hunting land after land are made into superfund sites due to companie practicing to streamline their bottom dollar without any thought about the enviroment.
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Part of the problem is the desire to simply find alternative sources of energy to feed the “grid”. Transmission over large distances is incredibly expensive and inefficient. If we look instead at moving away from large production facilities that then transmit the energy across large areas, towards smaller production (even single homes), efficiency can increase dramatically. If I was builing a new house, I’d look pretty hard at using a geothermal system for heating, and solar/wind combined with a battery bank to meet my electricity needs and go completely off the grid.
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