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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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 Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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| coboardhead wrote: | | I invite you to visit the 4 corners area of Southwest Colorado or the area around Craig, CO. Both locations with, large, coal fired plants, located in pretty scenic areas. One can observe smoke lingering for miles before reaching the plant and the stacks are visible for tens of miles. Then, there are the strip mines. I have worked on several in this state...again in beautiful locations. Compared to the windmills on the plains...I'll take the windmills.There is nothing pretty about any energy production (except for a 4.5 day on the reservoir at Doug's). |
However, with wind projects, large areas, frequently of previously untouched land, is despoiled, AND the carbon fueled plants are still needed. All that land could be saved by simply improving the efficiency of carbon based plants whose footprint is significantly smaller. Gas fired plants are much cleaner. In my view we are simply directing our limited resources in the wrong places. |
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coboardhead
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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| mrgybe wrote: | | coboardhead wrote: | | I invite you to visit the 4 corners area of Southwest Colorado or the area around Craig, CO. Both locations with, large, coal fired plants, located in pretty scenic areas. One can observe smoke lingering for miles before reaching the plant and the stacks are visible for tens of miles. Then, there are the strip mines. I have worked on several in this state...again in beautiful locations. Compared to the windmills on the plains...I'll take the windmills.There is nothing pretty about any energy production (except for a 4.5 day on the reservoir at Doug's). |
However, with wind projects, large areas, frequently of previously untouched land, is despoiled, AND the carbon fueled plants are still needed. All that land could be saved by simply improving the efficiency of carbon based plants whose footprint is significantly smaller. Gas fired plants are much cleaner. In my view we are simply directing our limited resources in the wrong places. |
Windfarms in Co are mostly on farm and ranchland...hardly untouched. Powerlines, gaslines, roads etc have been in plce for decades.
Have you been to a gas field on the Colorado Plateau? Small footprint???? Maybe the plants are small, but gas field can be hundreds of square miles of beautiful mesa country.
Why not reduce the size of the effects of the fossil fuel plants with other available tools?
The most effective way to get power plants to shift to natural gas is to require coal to clean up. |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9120
Location: at a computer
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| mrgybe wrote: | | coboardhead wrote: | | I invite you to visit the 4 corners area of Southwest Colorado or the area around Craig, CO. Both locations with, large, coal fired plants, located in pretty scenic areas. One can observe smoke lingering for miles before reaching the plant and the stacks are visible for tens of miles. Then, there are the strip mines. I have worked on several in this state...again in beautiful locations. Compared to the windmills on the plains...I'll take the windmills.There is nothing pretty about any energy production (except for a 4.5 day on the reservoir at Doug's). |
However, with wind projects, large areas, frequently of previously untouched land, is despoiled, AND the carbon fueled plants are still needed. All that land could be saved by simply improving the efficiency of carbon based plants whose footprint is significantly smaller. Gas fired plants are much cleaner. In my view we are simply directing our limited resources in the wrong places. |
In California, this is not the case. In NorCal, wind farms are in dusty, nasty, dry, uninhabited wastelands. The new worry is Central Valley farmers selling their land to Solar developers. This might have a negative impact on food prices, and start a trend that might reach the beautiful fields of Sonoma County. |
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coboardhead
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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In 2011, the Federal Government spent $24 Billion (direct subsidies and tax breaks) on all energy sources. $8 Billion in non-renewable (oil, gas, nuclear etc). $16 Billion on renewables including $6 Billion on ethanol which consisted of largely tax breaks to refiners.
So, $10 Billion +/- was spent on efficiency, solar, wind and geothermal.
This is a lot of money...enough to pay for about 15 days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (estimated total costs). Or 30 days (Pentagon numbers). |
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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| boggsman1 wrote: | | In California, this is not the case. In NorCal, wind farms are in dusty, nasty, dry, uninhabited wastelands. The new worry is Central Valley farmers selling their land to Solar developers. This might have a negative impact on food prices, and start a trend that might reach the beautiful fields of Sonoma County. |
I have no problem using desolate places for wind and solar provided the economics are valid. However, following your logic.........do you disagree with those that have for decades stood in the way of using another uninhabited wasteland for energy needs.........ANWR? |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9120
Location: at a computer
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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| mrgybe wrote: | | boggsman1 wrote: | | In California, this is not the case. In NorCal, wind farms are in dusty, nasty, dry, uninhabited wastelands. The new worry is Central Valley farmers selling their land to Solar developers. This might have a negative impact on food prices, and start a trend that might reach the beautiful fields of Sonoma County. |
I have no problem using desolate places for wind and solar provided the economics are valid. However, following your logic.........do you disagree with those that have for decades stood in the way of using another uninhabited wasteland for energy needs.........ANWR? |
I dont know it well enough to make an argument either way, BUT, there must be a good reason. Aren't there tons of wildlife issues with ANWR? There arent even flies, or garder snakes in the places most wind farms exist in NorCal. I really believe we should be very careful with our environment, or one day we will all be eating grasshoppers, and rats for dinner. |
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| coboardhead wrote: | | In 2011, the Federal Government spent $24 Billion (direct subsidies and tax breaks) on all energy sources. $8 Billion in non-renewable (oil, gas, nuclear etc). $16 Billion on renewables including $6 Billion on ethanol which consisted of largely tax breaks to refiners. |
Assuming those numbers are accurate, they could be stated differently........$8Bn for the industries that produce 90%+ of our energy needs and twice that amount (20 times more) for industries that produce less than 10% of our needs in a sporadic manner. Those numbers also put into context the "subsidies" to oil and gas companies, which are small relative to their huge investments, and are dwarfed by the taxes those companies pay. |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 4:08 pm Post subject: |
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| mrgybe wrote: | | I have no problem using desolate places for wind and solar provided the economics are valid. |
Whoa, there, Senor Gybe. I have for decades lived very near and played IN desolate areas -- my NM home was on many acres of land resembling our western national parks -- and I consider both the highlights of my life. I once encountered an anthropology or history professor lecturing students on the Indian and/or pioneer relics on a field trip in some juniper- and cactus- dotted red dunes and cliffs in the foothills of New Mexico's 12,000 foot Sandia Mountains. He seemed a bit miffed when the passage of me and my loose dogs distracted his Vibram-soled class ... until I pointed out that they were hiking literally in my front yard and asked if I may listen to his lecture.
Desolation is in the eye of the beholder.
I drive to, through, and from the Columbia River Gorge a hundred times every season, surrounded by a thousand readily visible square miles of usually empty rolling hills, gullies, rounded mountains, cliffs, fields, desert, etc, often fairly free of mankind's footprint beyond the asphalt and some poles and trains -- and many hundreds of giant, white, stark, windmills, often almost touching each other, blighting the land as far as the eye can see. My Ohio inlaws and NBC anchors living in NYC consider it all useless wasteland; I consider it freedom.
The same goes for the far more remote and incredibly beautiful "wastelands" of southern Utah (think Moab and Lake Powell without one person or road or fencepost within miles for days on end except my fellow dirt bikers). To city people, that's hell on earth. To me, it's freedom squared on steroids, like the Baron de Rosnay's ocean crossings but with 1,000 times the scenery and variety. From my viewpoint, Heaven does exist, I've already been there, and yet city people and misinformed greenies just want to pave it with windmills and solar panels because they believe Al Gore and Barack Obama know their asses from a hole in the ground and that the only legitimate leisure activities are eating and celebrity worship ... respectively.
That's not desolation, you pathetic, uptight, misinformed, sad, underprivileged, know-nothing, caged urban rats; it's figuratively my property (because it's public land), and if you have the right to plaster it with unneeded and wasteful green energy pie-in-the-sky infrastructure, I have an equal right to store the nation's household, industrial, and nuclear sewage in your streets. We're sitting on (unlimited, by some estimates) centuries of clean gas and nuclear power, yet letting misguided ideologues dictate policies the world's industry and science brains say is largely impractical and unnecessary in the foreseeable future.
DAMN, but I'm glad I'm far closer to the end than the beginning of my life. MANY modern Americans will never even be aware of, let alone experience, the freedom and independence some of us have had.
Those poor schmucks face a lifetime with a Nanny on their left shoulder if they don't wake up soon and shut this crap down before it's set in stone and power lines. |
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windoggi
Joined: 22 Feb 2002
Posts: 2743
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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| isobars wrote: |
DAMN, but I'm glad I'm far closer to the end than the beginning of my life. |
My grandaughter's glad too.
_________________
/w\ |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Count on mrgybe to rationalize oil companies not only not paying for their emissions, but continuing to enjoy subsidies. By that rationale we should also subsidize big banks and Apple. Whatever happened to the conservatives concern about crony capitalism? A little selective in application, eh. |
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