We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 49 Comments

Chicago Boyz;

Here’s a fact you won’t see mentioned in the public policy debate over “alternative” energy:
There exists no alternative energy source, no combination of alternative energy sources, and no system of combinations of alternative energy sources that can fully replace a single, coal fired electric plant built with 1930s era technology.
Nada.
Zero.
Zilch.
Yet many want to make this group of functionally useless technologies the primary energy sources for our entire civilization.

It’s the math, stupid.

49 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans”

  1. I am not so sure there are no “alternative” sources that can beat a coal plant.
    I suspect if we released all the surface tension in Nancy Pelosi’s heavily stretched face we could probably power all of Obama’s teleprompters for a week.
    Environmentally though, this would be a disaster as all the loose skin released could cover most of her voting district. However, sometimes sacrifices must be made, for the greater good of course.

  2. One of the attractions of alternate energy, is the myth that you can generate electricity “free”, without burning any fuel. Since wind and sun are freely available, they can be harnessed as power sources. Our great grandparents abandoned wind power in the 19th century because fossil fuels were more reliable. The idea that the wind doesn’t blow consistently has to be relearned by people like Dalton McGuinty. The proposed turbines in Lake Erie would require a whopping subsidy of 19 cents per kwh, about over 3 times the cost of conventional power. If McGuinty continues his wind fantasies, the lesson for Ontarians will be expensive indeed.

  3. Cool article! Persuasive in favour of nuclear power indeed.
    One stone left untouched, however, is: who pays for it?
    As Lawrence Solomon pointed out in the Post a few weeks ago, Conservatives spouting the benefits of fission are being disingenous at best. At no point in time, he argues, has a nuclear power project ever been completed w/o public funds. The capital cost vs payback is just too high for the private sector to go it alone. He cites France as a country that has meddled so much in its nuclear program that now it’s a mess.
    I personally think the nuclear power is the way to go: I just don’t know how we get there.

  4. The are many investors who stand to make a great deal of money in putting in those Giant Fans, smart grids/meters.
    The AGW alarmists have this wonderful pyramid scheme taxing policy in the works for over a decade.
    Our banks, MSM, Governments, Energy companies stand to make a great deal of money with a new regulatory administration.

  5. “The prairies sit over huge reservoirs of coal, natural gas, and oil. The infrastructure for extraction and use is in place.”
    And enough Uranium to possibly power the prairies into an unlimited future.
    The budget almost made me throw up – I thought there would at least be cuts to the size of the civil service (I would have welcomed them no matter how small as a move in the right direction) but that didn’t happen.

  6. Ned: I like nuclear energy, it’s a much drier heat and delivers a warmer softer light to the lamps in a room.
    Teresa: It’s a lot quieter too.
    Ned: Let’s switch from this giant noisy, ugly fan to nuclear energy. I am tired of picking up dead birds in the yard every day and the insect population is out of control with fewer birds to eat them.
    Teresa: Okay! And Ned, you know that people who use nuclear energy are more likely to recycle and less likely to start wars and they are also very generous regarding giving black people free money.
    Ned: Done!
    That may be how you will need to sell nuclear power to the idiots of the left.

  7. I guess the federal budget doesn’t have any new spending for chasing windmills which has all the eco-greenies in a tither. They have even tried to all the windmill technicians moving south to work. If wind and solar are viable on a grid system then eventually the technology will get to the point where there will be a profit without subsidies. Until then let’s get readddy to glowwww (in the dark) with those broken atoms.

  9. Too many Popular Science magazines laying around Arts and Journalism School lounges. That is the problem!!
    They think pie-in-the-sky ideas are food for thought.

  10. Fossil fuels reserves are for all practical purposes infinite and far cheaper than nuke.
    Like so many other things that are cheap and common and simple (at least at first glance. Some of the tech is cutting edge) it is frowned upon by the elites and fashionistas. Following these groups will make us all very much poorer.

  11. I think I’ve seen this article before, but it’s worth revisiting. There weems to be a reluctance to accept, particularly on the the left, the fact that there are physical limitations governing human behavior and aspirations. Wishing it so doesn’t make it so and passing more and more laws won’t necessarily produce the desired result. As pointed out above, our ancestors abandoned some of the so-called “new”, “green” energy technologies precisely because of their unreliability. Even if made more efficient, wind power will simply become a more efficient unreliable technology. It can never underpin the stable power grids needed by modern technologies to function in any useable fashion.

  12. So, what if we take all the monies that were/are earmarked for alternative energies and put them into R&D to clean the emissions from coal plants? Do you think we’d have an ace?

  13. “Weems” should be “seems”. But then maybe there’s a new verb in this i.e. “weems” = “wishfully seems”.

  14. To Quote a senior power engineer & economist I know: “the only way solar-electric energy will every be worth a damn, is when we get a cheap way to orbit solar panel farms and transmit the power using microwaves to the ground. And if you think people hate fission, wait till you tell them you are going to order HUGE microwave emitters that can beam down GW of power…anywhere you point the beam, even where there aren’t receptors, like their pointy heads.”

  15. The math indisputably points to nuclear energy as the cheapest, safest, and cleanest potential form of reliable energy. The socialization of hysteria has prevented its further development. Taking just the issue of waste handling, safe, clean technologies abound but to this day no permanent North American site has been approved for storage or containment of the relatively trivial amount of spent fuel. Add to that the issue of liabilities and regulatory environment and process……..
    No, much easier to go for dirty, expensive and unreliable but politically correct energy. The anti-industrial revolution is almost complete. Praise be to Gaia and the Sierra Club…..

  16. If the cap and trade thing passes, nuclear plants would be able to sell carbon credits which make them suddenly lucrative.

  17. Phil, most nuclear power plants in the world were built by public money because most of the utilities in the world were publically owned at that time. However, there have been many reactors built by the private sector over the years, nearly all of the reactors in the US, and most of the reactors in Japan and Sweden, just to name a few.
    The problem for the nuclear sector is not necessarily the size of the project. Oilsands operations are on the same scale as a nuclear project. An important problem is schedule and revenue. Schedule risk can come from government ordered delays and approvals processes. Since this is borrowed capital, investors are taking a huge risk without government assurances about process. With respect to revenue, the product is electricity. Every government in the world controls electricity rates to very low rates of return, meaning that the capital cost payback can be very long.
    As to who pays for it, that’s easy. It’s who has always paid for it, the customers of nuclear generated electricity.

  19. Nuclear is good, so is hydro. Here in B.C. we have a few logged off or beetle killed valleys that would be good possibilities for a dam and production of hydro power.
    The upper McGregor, which BC Hydro was interested in developing in the early 70’s, is a logged off and burnt off valley that would make a good hydro project and provide a lot of work for a Province that recently lost it’s forest industry.
    The Sierra club and other environmental activists made it into a “hot potato” issue back then, claiming the usual “virgin forest” BS, but now there’s not much there anymore.
    The creation of a new lake is also beneficial to tourism but we need a government that isn’t so afraid of the Green lobby they’ll buy into wind and solar power with not a thought to our great hydro potential.

  20. I’ve always wondered about the amount of energy needed to produce the steel, concrete foundations and copper wiring of generators and transmission lines of a wind farm. How many years of intermittent wind power electricity is needed for the payback.

  21. “The prairies sit over huge reservoirs of coal, natural gas, and oil. The infrastructure for extraction and use is in place.”
    Kate, why was the rest of this post deleted?

  23. Excellent Kate.. saw some of this before and glad to see the whole thing.
    It will be some time before we can have a lead lined reactor [like a furnace], in the basement at home. Until then, not throwing out the bath water, quoting from Tucker’s piece.
    [Quote]
    Solar’s great advantage is that it peaks exactly when it is needed, during hot summer afternoons when air conditioning pushes electrical consumption to its annual peaks.
    Meeting these peaks is a perennial problem for utilities and solar electricity can play a significant role in meeting the demand. The problem arises when solar enthusiasts try to claim solar power can provide base load power for an industrial society.
    [/Quote]
    The reason we are all feeding cash into a central energy coffer is simply our own old fashioned thinking. We allow ourselves to continue to depend upon ‘father provider’.
    Stupid me; john Q public.
    Only ‘Industry’ requires Mega-power transmission.
    Households should be in transition to independent on site power with the tech we have today.
    Have tasted my independent power and I am addicted. I love it. My shack in the bush has no power pole, no hydro bill, and no risk of power out in a storm.
    Yesterday, BC Hydro was installing 6 new local power poles and removing 6 very old and cracked ones. There were five big diesel rigs, 4 with cherry pickers and crews of 12.
    Looked like a million$ dollars to me, and I don’t mean good.
    Poles, lines and step down transformers may be our most reasonable hydro today, but it ain’t cheap, and yes, the power was off for six hours.

  25. PS: Most of us still depend on the one and only thing to power us around town and the country… Gasoline.
    It will get cut off from time to time.
    What then? I HATE dependency!

  27. Sundance Film Festival adds fuel to Fuel.
    thefuelfilm.com/#panel-1
    Peruse this and become a heavy hitter.

  29. Coal will be largely gone in a century.
    Wind will keep blowing forever.
    Our grandchildren will use ‘giant stinking fans’ whether you guys like it or not.

  30. GreenNEck
    The state of colorado alone has 10 trillion tons of coal. Please explain how we could exhaust the world’s reserves in just a century.
    TG – this fantasy that home-based power generation is cheaper than centrally produced power truly is sad. Please cite a case that really is cheaper to operate and maintain than centrally generated power.
    And BTW the idea that thousands/millions of small generators is better than one central one is simply false. Synchronizing power sources and balancing the variances of production is a nightmare that even the most advanced smart grids would have trouble dealing with. Add-in instabilities caused by weather and even solar-flare activity and you have a recipe for huge quality and up-time problems.

  31. Gord Tulk, As usual, you miss the point.
    Where did I say it was ‘cheaper’, less expensive to have home based independent power?
    Where did I say it was less expensive to buy a Nissan Leaf than a Chev Cobalt?
    You insist upon shopping at WalMart? That’s your choice.
    Readers who are smarter than both of us will decide for themselves if they think central power delivered by wires on poles is the smartest way to go.
    As long as we are not smelting aluminium in the basement, and with super efficient appliances… who needs it really?

  32. A simple challenge for you GreenNeck – at what time in history were the oil, natural gas, and coal reserves at their peak? If we’re trending to depletion then it should be in the past, right?
    Look at Ehrlich’s bet with Simon had a bet about that. An expected scarcity makes a lot of people compete to produce more (so that they can make more money), technology improves, extraction increases. That’s why we’ve been able to mine copper for over 2000 years and haven’t run out yet.

  33. Hmmmm. This batch of dandelion wine is a lot stronger than the last grape batch. Let’s try that sentence again….
    Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, a former supporter of Ehrlich, had a bet about resource extraction and deletion. Ehrlich lost, badly.

  34. Article out of the NY Times on a hybrid solar / Natural Gas generating plant in Florida.
    The telling paragraph:
    “At its peak, the solar plant will be able to generate 75 megawatts of power, enough for about 11,000 homes. But that is dwarfed by the adjacent gas plant, which can produce about 3,800 megawatts of power.”
    Cost: $476M
    Less power at orders of magnitude more cost. Pure stupidity.

  36. Don’t invest in any tall tower. The garage roof acts like the foil on your car and concentrates the wind into the turbines.
    Oh yeah, efficiency; 3 small wind-gens… not one big expensive monster.
    I’m saving you money here. Smart people @ HomeWindPower7.com are making good sense.
    youtube.com/watch?v=pJgygjassM4&NR=1
    Turbines to 130 MPH in ice and snow.
    Self warming and de-icing.

  37. OK, let’s apply some common sense here. Some, of what we call in the Navy, CDF.
    Which is better?
    A huge 400 ton wind turbine on a giant pillar subject to tremendous stresses.
    Power from which is processed on very expensive equipment for long distance transmission via wires on tall ugly towers feeding expensive step-down transformers for local distribution. Those wires, so exposed to falling storm trees. All this comes with a reliable monthly bill.
    or
    Garage roof mounted turbine with 20 foot delivery cable to the controller and battery storage. No monthly bill.
    Looks simple to me, but I am easily confused.
    If my neighbour neglects his tall pines and one snaps in a storm. My power continues and there are no harsh words.

  38. Posted by: Abe Froman at March 5, 2010 11:26 AM
    Abe, I’m assuming here that you don’t believe in MonsterCable and the “warmer sounds” of tube amplifiers.

  43. Here in Ontario, McSquinty has stirred up a hornets nest in the GTA.
    He has proposed a big NG generating plant in Oakville, and made the astute observation that “there are times when the sun doen’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.”
    This has more NYMBY’s and Greenies roaring around than Tamil Tigers.

  44. This is a start if McGuinty has figured out he needs back up capacity for his giany wind mills.
    The location, close to where the electricity is required in GTA is also correct. Ironic how the protest story is carried in all the media, the same media that is silent on wind “farms” in large parts of rural Ont. According to his Green Energy Act, the citizens of Oakville can lump it.

  45. Just a comment on coming back to Toronto last night about 6:30 after 2 great days of skiing in sunshine at Collingwood.
    The traffic was insane around the city on this clear evening. According to the traffic helicopters the gridlock extended from the Parkway to past Mississauga Road on the 401 both ways, from east of Jarvis to Trafalgar Road on the QE Highway, Parkway was jammed to from the lake to the 16th line, coming into the city was solid from Winston Churchill to Dufferin. Every feeder road to these highways was choked.
    For those who don’t know Toronto this is literally hundreds of kilometers of roadway filled with crawling cars. This is getting to a be a normal occurance. Consider the absolute waste of lakes of fuel being burned and hours blown away just sitting in traffic.
    There simply isn’t any alternative as there is no way public transit can make any impact on urban sprawl, which continues with no thought to the overnight impact of a few years ago when gas prices rapidly rose.
    Each week it seems to get worse as the traffic monitors in their planes noted.
    We passed through McGuinty’s growing wind farm west of Shelbourne on the way down. Stunning waste of money that should be used to address the lack of any provincial road and transit plan at the very least.

  46. TG – I’m guessing that you don’t get -40 weather where you live. A couple of very cold weeks (when there’s no wind, as there usually isn’t in the middle of a cold snap) would have you changing systems the following summer. If you and your family survived (some good high-carbon-use backup is recommended).

  47. C_Miner.. I don’t want to embarrass you in front of all these SDA readers but you should really check the snow and Ice turbine link I provided above.
    .youtube.com/watch?v=pJgygjassM4
    As you know a by-product of electric generation is heat so wind-gen is self de-icing.
    I know, it slipped your mind… could happen to anyone.
    Similar sets to these are used year around in Alaska with no stalling or freeze-up whatever.

  48. Thanks so much for the link to the E=mv2 article. That is profound. It was surprising to see the original October 2009 publication date. Something as elegant and succinct as that should have seen more air time.

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