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SACRAMENTO SHOCKED! PUBLIC SECTOR SOLAR CAN'T REPLACE PRIVATE NUCLEAR OR HYDRO POWER! (My Title)
Sacramento Bee ^ | 9/6/2002 | Carrie Payton Dahlberg

Posted on 09/06/2002 7:35:43 AM PDT by SierraWasp

Edited on 04/12/2004 5:42:26 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

The showpiece of Sacramento's electric utility, an internationally known solar power program, is in shambles.

It has fallen short of its goals, rocketed past its budget limits, lost its long-term chief and left Sacramento Municipal Utility District directors scrambling to figure out how to salvage their commitment to renewable energy.


(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: calgov2002; calpowercrisis; crisis; energy; government; power; solar
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To: sasquatch
PV's have been energy-positive for some time. Here's the most recent article I found, from about a year ago:

Critics of solar energy have been known to claim that it takes more energy to produce photovoltaic (PV) modules than the modules will produce in their lifetime. We've conducted a detailed and scientific empirical study to look into this question. We found that the skeptics' assertions are false. PVs recoup their production energy in two to four years, and go on to produce clean, renewable energy for twenty to thirty years or more.

PV Payback

61 posted on 09/06/2002 11:24:25 AM PDT by jiggyboy
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To: balrog666
There's no real market for used plastic or metal (other than cleaned aluminum). And the newsprint recycling market is saturated with a 50 year supply at this very minute.

The market for recycled materials is down, but not saturated. Here are some charts:
Metal prices at the Larimer County recycling center.
Paper prices at the Larimer County recycling center. (ONP#8=newspapers, OCC=corrugated cardboard, OMG=magazines and catalogs, OMX=paperboard and low-grade paper)
Plastic prices at the Larimer County recycling center. PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics include items such as soda and other drink bottles. HDPE-N (high density polyethylene-natural) includes milk jugs and other similar "natural-colored" containers. HDPE-C (high density polyethylene-colored) includes brightly colored items such as laundry detergent bottles.

My guess is that prices are down because the economy as a whole is down. Less manufacturing means less need for raw materials. But - the charts are clear. Recycling is an economically profitable endevour. Except for idiots in the NorthEastern part of the US, the recyclables are usually not being wasted in landfills - they are being sold to US industry which uses them as raw materials.

62 posted on 09/06/2002 11:31:20 AM PDT by dark_lord
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To: SierraWasp
"It's all baloney!!!"

One of my lifelong friends (I started kintergarden with him in 1941) is an electrical engineer working for SMUD and was working with the Rancho Seco nuke plant and when 3 Mile Island happened he told me that the only way that it could have happened is that someone had to have manually shut off a certain valve and couldn't have possibly have been an accident, that he was certain that it was sabatoge. The Rancho Seco plant was a direct copy of 3 Mile Island.

My personal estimation is that it was timed to go along with the nuke horror film that came out immediatly after and that Fonda and Hayden were right in the middle of it.

Durring that period Fonda and Hayden ran a training camp for commie subversivies in the Santa Monica mountains with armed guards.
63 posted on 09/06/2002 11:32:04 AM PDT by dalereed
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To: dark_lord
Recycling is an economically profitable endevour

If it was, every recycling plant in the country would be running 24 hours a day. And cities and counties wouldn't be dumping that potential profit into holes in the ground.

Those markets are for cleaned products, not garbage. They exist solely because of government mandates in various parts of the country require them or require cities to "clean" their garbage. The real cost to sort and clean garbage to make it sellable makes the entire endeavor of "recycling" unprofitable without government subsidies or tyrannical environmental mandates.

64 posted on 09/06/2002 11:41:03 AM PDT by balrog666
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To: dalereed
Man!!! What a beautiful reply and condensation of the FACTS or HISTORY!!! The sabotage idea can't be proven, but it is obviously terribly strong, given all the coordinated circumstances that you so rightly reviewed for all of us!

Thank you dalereed! I knew you were a great Freeper when I saw you on TV against Clinton speaking!
65 posted on 09/06/2002 11:56:47 AM PDT by SierraWasp
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To: balrog666
Another beautiful reply!!!
66 posted on 09/06/2002 12:06:52 PM PDT by SierraWasp
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To: SierraWasp
Excellent! Dare I add "Yeah, and it's HO gauge, too!"?
67 posted on 09/06/2002 1:45:23 PM PDT by talleyman
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To: SierraWasp
"I served the district for better than a decade with honor, and I brought honor to the district and to Sacramento.

Methinks he doth protest overmuch.
68 posted on 09/06/2002 2:11:26 PM PDT by Frumious Bandersnatch
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To: dark_lord
I don’t know much about recycling except that at one time the city charged us by the size of our garbage can but gave us recycle bins for free. So initially we were charged for a 20gal can and recycled the rest of our stuff. It worked pretty good for us and cost about $9.00 per month.

Then the city decided to get out of the recycling business and farm it out to an outfit that handled the county. They now charged for the recycling service. Then the city decided to get out of garbage collection all together and farmed it all out to the county service. Now we still have the 20 gallon can plus three plastic, wheeled bins for yard clippings, paper/cardboard, and glass/foil/cans/plastic.

Now we have a garbage truck that picks up garbage, another that picks up papers/cardboard, another that picks up glass/plastic, and one that picks up yard clippings – four trucks that come by at various times every Wednesday. Oh, it costs $48 for two months now – up from $43.40 last year.

I don’t know if they’re making money from the recycling or if they’re just making money from me, but I bet it doesn’t get cheaper next year… Ha!

69 posted on 09/06/2002 2:30:36 PM PDT by Who dat?
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To: SierraWasp
It had been considering increasing its current 10 megawatts of solar power by as much as 30 to 40 megawatts over the next nine years. But that goal counted on far lower costs than SMUD now faces.

40 megawatts of capacity by 2011? BFD. Rancho Seco's rated capacity was a little over 900 MW. So they've replaced about 4% of it in about three decades of trying. No wonder they're going down the tubes. We haven't even accounted for load growth during that time, and they haven't made a dent in the deficit in capacity that they threw away for no good reason.

Any more decisions like this and the district won't have to worry about capacity shortages. They won't need it, because they'll be back to a third world lifestyle and standard of living. I say let the wackos stew in their own juices, and cook their beans and rice over campfires, and freeze in the winter and die of the heat in summer.

70 posted on 09/06/2002 2:32:35 PM PDT by chimera
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To: SierraWasp
I took a couple of semesters of Solar Engineering when I was doing graduate work in Sac. You do the math and find out all of SMUDS claims were nothing more than a fraudlent sales pitch for federal money and tax credits. None the less a few students that were willing to propagate the company lie got jobs.

There is no technology that can make use of the incident sunlight in Northern California and turn it into a viable energy replacement. Basically they don't have enough annual sunlight. Solar energy doesn't become a viable consideration until you get down around Los Vegas and El Paso. Even in Los Vegas it would take solar collectors of about 25,000 square miles not including the service roads to supply all of the cities heating needs.

You can find the facts in the Building Code or an ASHRAE handbook.

71 posted on 09/06/2002 3:51:33 PM PDT by SSN558
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To: SierraWasp
I took a couple of semesters of Solar Engineering when I was doing graduate work in Sac. You do the math and find out all of SMUDS claims were nothing more than a fraudlent sales pitch for federal money and tax credits. None the less a few students that were willing to propagate the company lie got jobs.

There is no technology that can make use of the incident sunlight in Northern California and turn it into a viable energy replacement. Basically they don't have enough annual sunlight. Solar energy doesn't become a viable consideration until you get down around Los Vegas and El Paso. Even in Los Vegas it would take solar collectors of about 25,000 square miles not including the service roads to supply all of the cities heating needs.

You can find the facts in the Building Code or an ASHRAE handbook.

72 posted on 09/06/2002 3:53:37 PM PDT by SSN558
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To: no one in particular
I have a small solar array on my roof. My electric bill was 32¢ last month. At this rate it will pay for itself in 20 years or so.

I'd love to have a larger array (the DC to AC converter can take 4 times the power I generate). But, by California law, any power I generate above what I actually use is a GIFT to PG&E...

73 posted on 09/06/2002 4:09:39 PM PDT by null and void
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To: SauronOfMordor
PV panels are getting more efficient and cheaper

Last I heard it was $5 per watt, just the panel, not the associated electronics. Has the cost changed from that?

74 posted on 09/06/2002 4:17:26 PM PDT by RightWhale
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To: dark_lord
Hey! Do me a big favor and just recycle all this super subsidized garbage and graphs, etc.

The State of CA keeps issuing these unfunded mandates on it's County governments to reduce solid waste into the landfills by 50% by a date five years hence! Only about 3 or 4 of the 58 Counties have been able to comply.

You recycling cultists are doing very little to solve anything economically and are simply making everything cost more through government mandates. The only ones profiting from your fanatical preaching is Waste Management, Inc. and a few other monster corporations.

That's quite the cryptic screen name you have. Is it always dark where you live? Or what?

Besides, what has any of this recycling got to do with the abject failure of another radical experiment by a governmental entity that can't shoot straight?
75 posted on 09/06/2002 4:24:36 PM PDT by SierraWasp
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To: SierraWasp
So now I'm a recycling "cultist"? Heh. Look. The trash is being picked up anyway. The primary separation is done for "free" by the individuals. Just means throwing cans & bottles in to a bin in the garage, putting newspaper and magazines etc. into paper bags from the grocery store and putting into that same bin. So - it is subsidized there - by the "free" labor of those folks sorting their trash instead of throwing it all into trash bags.. Beyond that - as those charts prove - the money made by sale of the material from the recycling center covers the costs of the trash truck pickup, the trash guy's salary, and the administrative overhead. So - thus far, breakeven. But the industries - which are US industries - can now buy some raw materials that are preprocessed. Thus my point about the mini-mills being profitable against foreign steel companies because they can buy their metals as input. There needs to be no subsidy up to this point in the chain. The recycling centers run break even or slightly profitable - not much.

Of course, I am sure that in some areas of the country like CA they do subsidize - and the companies thus subsidized kick back campaign contributions to the politicos. Not my problem. My point is that recycling is a break even process, the material would otherwise end up in landfills, and US industries use it as a way to reduce their costs.

76 posted on 09/06/2002 4:40:53 PM PDT by dark_lord
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To: dark_lord
I'm sorry you are just plain wrong! Out here they hire P.R.I.D.E. Industries (literally, the mentally challenged) to sort what individuals haven't already spent chunks of time out of their busy lives, working to further subsidize a lot of unambitious and ungrateful, but expectant people through their taxes. So they've made a social program out of it besides all the other phony crap!

The earnings do not cover the cost and they keep coming back to the County Boards to raise the fees for dumping!

Get REAL, will ya?
77 posted on 09/06/2002 4:52:58 PM PDT by SierraWasp
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To: SierraWasp
I think your operant words are "out here".
Sorry if you have the misfortune to live in CA.
78 posted on 09/06/2002 5:07:35 PM PDT by dark_lord
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To: dalereed
As I recall the TMI scenario (I was an engineer at Diablo Canyon at that time), the pressurizer lost pressure, causing the water in the presurizer level delta-P transmitter reference leg to boil. That caused the presurizer level indicator in the control room to go UP, not down, misleading the operators to back off on the charging pumps.

It was a simple design problem, not sabotage.

79 posted on 09/06/2002 6:09:58 PM PDT by snopercod
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To: null and void
How often do you change out your storage batteries, and what does it cost, please?
80 posted on 09/06/2002 6:12:54 PM PDT by snopercod
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