Free Republic

“You are living in the past. New coal plants have low particulate levels and capture over 90% of the mercury.”

Here is a response from 2008 on that topic.

Coal gasification is certainly the best way to generate electricity from coal. It has many advantages. The reduction of airborne mercury by 90% (if claims are true) is a very big help. One big concern that I have is what are they going to do with that 90% of mercury in the coal byproducts which did not go up the chimney. Right now federal regulations do not cover this, but the government is aware of the potential for a problem even with regular power plants. 1)

Maine is looking to put in a coal gasification plant. It is expected to release only 22 pounds of mercury per year. 2) To put this into perspective let’s consider the figures on this site. 3) I have not double checked their figures, but it seems consistent with what I know, and have run across before. Based on those figures the 22lbs of mercury released each year would be sufficient to contaminate 352 new lakes twenty acres in size every year. Consider that on a personal level, rather than a national level. If I were to go over to my neighbor’s twenty acre lake and dump in two ounces of mercury, it would be entirely unethical, and ungodly. If caught, in this litigious society, he could probably sue me for millions. And that still doesn’t answer about the other 90% of the mercury in the byproducts. As Christians, how much damage is it acceptable to do to our neighbors in order to avoid a better solution?

your posts are so rude and so ignorant as to be unworthy of further response. Funny, how over a hundred posts simply because people could not even accept the idea that one family had a successful solar install. I think Taylor Swift said something about “haters gonna hate”.

Thackney’s subject was the relative cost of solar. I did not change that subject.

“look up what kind of toxic substances go into manufacturing solar panels.”

Irrelevant. Toxic substances are used in almost all high tech manufacturing. So. It is used in a controlled environment with many regulations on proper handling and disposal. That is not the same as dumping a million tons of mercury into the air to contaminate practically every body of water on the planet.

https://sunelec.com/index.php?_route_=sunpower-435w-modules-grade-b.html
These are 72v panels.

“Bird killer.”

Yee haw. If only I had my 22 handy I could add to the numbers. :-)

“Who you calling “ignorant” n00b?”

anyone who tries to act like solar is evil cause it gets
govt subsidies but coal is great because it doesn’t. Even the detractor had to admit after doing research cola gets over a billion a year.

“Interesting how you want to keep changing subjects when challenged.”
The amount of power produced per dollar spent is an interesting point. But the amount of dollars it costs to kill thousands of people and poison the planet with mercury is not at all unrelated. It is integrally related and ignored by all anti-solar folks. You are simply putting money ahead of human lives. Try cleaning all the mercury dumped in every body of water, and reimbursing every family of those who died prematurely from dirty energy particulates. Then we can have a real conversation about relative costs.

how many respiratory deaths and how much mercury poisoning did the solar cause?

“But don’t expect an honest analytical response from Prophet2520”

“Talking to yourself is a sign of impending mental collapse.”

Do you EVER say anything of any meaning or is your wit limited to insults?

” One prominent economist notes that, if you include government borrowing costs to finance the loans, it puts “taxpayer losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars....”Sounds good, but a tiny footnote in the DOE’s report casts some doubt on the overall profitability of the green loan program, which has so far funneled more than $30 billion to finance renewable energy and alternative vehicle projects.

The DOE did not factor in borrowing costs incurred by the Department of Treasury in financing the green loans.”

This is potentially a legitimate argument. Though looking at this actual DOE page on it I cannot confirm or deny the allegations.
http://energy.gov/articles/energy-department-s-loan-portfolio-continues-strong-performance-while-deploying-innovation

More importantly it brings up a topic far more important than the alt. energy loans. The Treasury Department should NEVER have to pay borrowing costs. It prints money. Only the evil implementation of the FED allows for such nonsense bankster stealing from Americans.

The article speaks for itself. My tolerance for endless, useless arguments today has already reached its limit. I leave you with only one last thought.

Mutual Funds, or ETFs. The principal is simple, picking 100% winners in companies is very unlikely. So you pool your investment into many. If one or two fails you can still make a profit on the overall.

“No. That is not how it is done.

Fast starting Gas Turbines and the like are used to ramp up and down with load changes. “

In some cases you are right. That is kind of an over generalization but my statement was a generalization and simplification as well. I have no interest in debating how centralized power plants work or are designed. My point is that energy storage is increasingly being considered as important at the grid level.

Here is a starting point on that if anyone is interested.
http://energy.gov/oe/downloads/grid-energy-storage-december-2013

Again you are ignoring things, making assumption and over simplifying. I’ll use the data YOU provided on total 2010 federal subsidies even though it is only a small part of the whole picture.

Coal total 1358 million
Electricity transmission (i.e. grid for coal) 971 million
Total = 2329 million
Solar = 1134 million = less than half

The revenue the Federal government gets from things the industry takes from federal land is not tax at all, it is only paying for what was take. But even if you use those figures as well it still doesn’t add up, even when you ignore all other factors which you have been.

I have no interest in beating this dead horse further. If you want to prove your case show me all federal and state money spent in support of the power grid and the fuels it uses since its inception, don’t forget a portion of things like rail road subsidies which the coal depends on. Then compare that to total solar expenditure since inception. I’ll even accept leaving out the scientific advances that solar research has led to for other areas, vs. coal’s simplistic technology.

“Solar will not work in an industrial modern system. There is only so much energy from the sun. If you have an off grid rural house you can get by.”

see here

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/solarenergy.aspx

excerpt: “Every hour, the sun radiates more energy onto the earth than the entire human population uses in one whole year.”

That said, solar should just be a significant part of the energy mix.

“What is the added cost and environmental impact of maintaining Operating Reserve?”

Good question. I don’t know. I haven’t studied much into this area, because it is all about distributed power, which I am not a fan of. In communities where solar, wind, hydro and geothermal are not enough, I think cogeneration is the answer. Cogeneration is FAR more efficient.

“Of course, some windows or clear panels in the roof would probably help too...”

Just realize that in almost all cases roof windows are bad compared to side windows. Roof windows increase indoor temperature in the summer when it is least desired, and increase heat loss in the winter when heat is most needed.

“Unless we’re talking a high density area... It’s 1/2 a mile to my closest neighbor and another mile to the neighbor after that.”

That is quite rural. Most of America’s population doesn’t not fall into a category even close to that. The 220V fed back through the meter would be used instantly be the next house. I wonder who paid for the power lines to come to all those houses a half a mile apart? It sounds like it would be thousands of dollars per house.

” it assumes that the neighbor actually needs the power at the time”

How many houses do you know of that have a meter that stops turning, EVER?

“It’s best to develop a thick skin and deal with the negative, rather than whining about it.”

No whining, only addressing your accusation. Never would have been mentioned otherwise.

“But it seems to me that well-intentioned NEW posters shouldn’t start throwing attitude right out of the gate. Do you agree?”

The attitude in this case is labeling ignorant as ignorant. I don’t see that as attitude. Statements like “smug, holier-than-thou lifestyle” which was commented, I see as attitude. I try to avoid that sort of thing completely. I do tends towards a sharp tongue, and constantly work to suppress it. :-) So I don’t think any poster new or old should be insulting and slanderous, but I don’t see calling a spade a spade a problem.

if you are a do0it-yourselfer see this source for affordable panels
https://sunelec.com/