Germany’s solar panels produce more power than Japan’s entire Fukushima complex
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-22-germanys-solar-panels-produce-more-power-than-japans-entire-fuku

Quote :

"Germany is the world leader in installed solar photovoltaic panels -- and they also just shut down seven of their oldest nuclear reactors. Coincidence? Maaaaybe ... Anyway, it's worth noting that just today, total power output of Germany's installed solar PV panels hit 12.1 GW -- greater than the total power output (10 GW) of Japan's entire 6-reactor nuclear power plant. Now before the trolls come out, let me just note that 12.1 GW is max power (the output whose name you'd love to touch). The panels generated that much at one instant in time -- when the sun was at its apex -- but of course solar power production varies with the weather and the time of day. To find out how much energy those panels generated today in total, you'd have to calculate the area under that curve in the lower right hand corner. (Which, come to think of it, we should probably use as the CAPTCHA on the comment field on this post.) Regardless, Japan's facing rolling blackouts until next Winter, and it's undeniable that if the country had more distributed power generation like Germany's roof-based solar PV system, the entire country would be much more resilient in the face of catastrophe."

BTW, Germany got to be the leader when the gov't provided tax incentives and investment in solar power.

3/24/2011 12:00:29 PM

i.e. spent billions and billions more than they needed to, instead of perhaps building some natural gas plants.

3/24/2011 12:13:43 PM

^Yeah...and maybe some fracking for good measure.

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 12:17 PM. Reason : ..............]

3/24/2011 12:16:43 PM

Quote :

"total power output of Germany's installed solar PV panels hit 12.1 GW -- greater than the total power output (10 GW) of Japan's entire 6-reactor nuclear power plant."

Electricity production 101:

Can anyone tell me why this means the nuclear plant produces more power energy? Don't be shy, let's see those hands up!

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 12:27 PM. Reason : ok ok, i know, not that the 12.1 means anything physically...]

3/24/2011 12:21:30 PM

Next question, can anyone tell me what this calculation is? I'll give you a hint, it's for 2010.

(12 000 * 1 000) / (365 * 24 * 16 914) = 0.081

Let's see some participation!

3/24/2011 12:23:49 PM

^^^you're welcome to stop using electricity whenever you want.

^^without putting much thought into it I'd say that the nuclear plants produce 10 GW all the time, whereas the solar panels hit 12.1 GW briefly (probably just a few seconds) and produce well under that most of the time. Also, they produce nothing at night. So at the least if you average the daily and nightly output you're looking at 6.05...yay.

3/24/2011 12:51:26 PM

mrfrog, what about the carbon footprint of the production of solar panels vs nuclear or coal plants?

3/24/2011 12:52:39 PM

Quote :

"mrfrog, what about the carbon footprint of the production of solar panels vs nuclear or coal plants?"

No, I'm not worried about the higher carbon footprint of PV versus nuclear. It's not significant. But I could be wrong.

Quote :

"without putting much thought into it I'd say that the nuclear plants produce 10 GW all the time, whereas the solar panels hit 12.1 GW briefly (probably just a few seconds) and produce well under that most of the time."

There is no way to measure the output of PVs in Germany since a large number are not industrial in scale. The number is almost certainly manufacturer nameplate. It will never reach manufacturer nameplate.

Good news for PV advocates though, the writer's information is out of date and they've added a lot more since wherever he got that number from. So it might have hit it once, or will hit it soon.

Quote :

"Also, they produce nothing at night. So at the least if you average the daily and nightly output you're looking at 6.05...yay."

no, 6.05 GW average is way way... way too high

"insolation" is the term that refers to the kW/m^2 value, and it goes up and down. At night the value is zero, but you only have 100% of potential at one moment during the year. For the day, you basically have to integrate a sin curve, giving 2/Pi factor (correct me if i'm wrong). Seasonally it gets more difficult, you want to integrate cosine from -23.4 to 23.4 degrees. Then multiply everything. That gets you the THEORETICAL maximum for a stationary PV.

Wolfram alpha input:
(integrate cos(x) from -23.5/180*Pi to 23.5/180*Pi)/(23.5*2/180*Pi)*2/Pi*0.5

so what do you get?! Actually, I might have done it wrong, since every day is a different length, this might fully require a double integral, so you'd need a more advanced analysis.

---

revision on my calc. I was using a 2010 cumulative number and comparing to a 2010 year end value. I'll average the 2009 and 2010 year end values and do it again.

(12 000 * 1 000) / (365 * 24 * (16 914 - ((16 914 - 9 785) * 0.5))) = 0.102615305

That actually sounds closer to similar numbers I've read.

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 1:14 PM. Reason : insolation]

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 1:26 PM. Reason : ]

3/24/2011 1:07:18 PM

Quote :

"BTW, Germany got to be the leader when the gov't provided tax incentives and investment in solar power."

It certainly can't be because German days are exceptionally short during the winter and when I was there for two weeks all the panels I saw were covered in snow and the sun only came out for two days besides.

As such, for two weeks a sizable fraction of all solar panel capacity produced nothing, and the rest produced something for a total of 12 hours in a 336 hour time span.

However, the highly visible wind capacity certainly produced far more electricity, although about 25% of all the windmills I saw were parked, either for maintenance or lack of wind.

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/24/2011 1:31:00 PM

^^yeah I knew it was way too high, but I hope it was evident that I was over simplifying

Enough with the "carbon footprint"...useless statistic unless you're trying to grow more plants.

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 1:32 PM. Reason : ^]

3/24/2011 1:31:59 PM

Quote :

"Enough with the "carbon footprint"...useless statistic unless you're trying to grow more plants."

Amen to that!

3/24/2011 1:38:31 PM

this is like when you reset the MPG meter in your car and then coast down the hill and it says 100mpg.

3/24/2011 1:45:52 PM

Quote :

"(12 000 * 1 000) / (365 * 24 * (16 914 - ((16 914 - 9 785) * 0.5))) = 0.102615305"

About 9 times less the capacity factor than nuclear/fossil. Can't really compare baseload vs. peaking vs. renewable. You diversify and pick the best out of each catagory. What a pointless article.

3/24/2011 1:47:53 PM

its not a pointless article if it gets clicks and sells ads

3/24/2011 2:06:06 PM

So the gist of the opinion piece is that 'every solar panel in the entire country of Germany is infrequently capable of producing more energy conversion than a single plant in Japan'?

3/24/2011 2:12:23 PM

Fukushima Daiichi generation (2009, GWh), units 1-6

2637.414 4903.293 4037.601 5462.108 5720.079 7130.99

Germany's total solar production (GWh):

2009: 6,578
2010: 12,000

That includes solar thermal plants. But most of the capacity is PV, reflecting the fact that Germany is a terrible place to put solar power plants.

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 2:32 PM. Reason : revision: I think i was wrong, this is all PV, i can't even find much mention of S.T. in Germany]

3/24/2011 2:29:23 PM

I'm happy for the Germans and all, but all this says is that had Japan blanketed their nation's roofs with solar PV panels, they would need 49 nuclear power reactors instead of 55 assuming ideal, perpetual sunlight; this reduces the risk a bit but is far from removing the problem. Even with the tremendous investment Germany made, it isn't enough to completely replace nuclear power in Japan let alone the myriad of coal, gas, and oil plants that make up the other 2/3 of Japanese energy production. I'm all for reducing dependency, but solar panels and even wind aren't going to do it alone...

3/24/2011 3:19:15 PM

Yo Japan, I'mma let you finish but Germany has the best power generation scheme of all time. OF ALL TIME.

3/24/2011 3:56:18 PM

OF ALL TIME [during the middle of the day [sorta]]

3/25/2011 8:35:15 PM

I applaud Germany. I don't think it's the final solution but it's certainly a step in the Reich direction.

3/26/2011 6:36:58 AM

12.1 GW?!

That's like TEN bolts of lightning!!!

3/26/2011 8:29:55 AM

Well done.

3/26/2011 9:16:49 AM

I don’t see why some posters ITT are assuming solar power and nuke are mut-ex.

Solar is clean, sustainable, resilient, and safe. Nuke is clean and sustainable. You can still use both, and even push for both at the same time.

And especially in a place like NC, where we get tons of sunlight, a moderate set of solar panels on your house could easily handle 90% of your requirements, never go out if a hurricane comes crippling the power grid (assuming they aren’t blown away), while nuclear plants give you the extra power you’ll need for other things or when you get an electric car.

Nuclear’s “enemy” is fossil-fuel based energy sources, not green energy sources.

Nuclear/green is a false dichotomy.

I want more nuke plants to be built, but I would love it, when solar panels become a bit more efficient, to see these on houses/businesses to supplement energy uses.

3/26/2011 11:29:42 AM

no one is saying solar cant be ok in certain places maybe some time in the future when its cost effective.

the argument in the op is that solar can replace nuclear which is a total joke

3/26/2011 5:39:41 PM

Quote :

"And especially in a place like NC, where we get tons of sunlight, a moderate set of solar panels on your house could easily handle 90% of your requirements"

Does not compute.

3/26/2011 7:10:52 PM

Quote :

"no one is saying solar cant be ok in certain places maybe some time in the future when its cost effective. the argument in the op is that solar can replace nuclear which is a total joke"

I think this is certainly up for debate. My take on the OP was that solar power has gotten to the point where it is capable of producing quite large amounts of energy by comparing it to an energy source that is widely known to be very powerful.

3/26/2011 8:17:30 PM

Well then you don't comprehend energy production.

3/26/2011 8:23:17 PM

^^

See ^

and did you even read anything that mrfrog posted, or is that beyond your ability to grasp?

3/26/2011 8:53:45 PM

I've read the whole thread. A country that is not abundant in solar energy has set up a system that at optimal conditions rivals a large nuclear power facility.

If implemented correctly, solar can produce a significant source of energy. What if we set something like this up in Nevada or Arizona? It would produce a pretty consistent and significant source of power. Fuck you guys.

3/26/2011 9:09:49 PM

^ In 2008, Japan had 280.53 GW of generating capacity.

12.1/280.53 = 4.3%

On the best day (moment) ever, Germany's PV output would only offset 4% of Japan's installed electric generating capacity.

For some more perspective, the largest operating solar plant in the world has a maximum generating capacity of 354 MW (0.354 GW). It operates at a capacity factor of 21%, meaning its actual output averages out to about 75 MW (0.075 GW) continuous (obviously the plant doesn't operate on solar at night).

The largest planned solar plant is the $6 billion, 968 MW Blythe Solar Power Project. This is comparable in maximum capacity to a single nuclear unit, though the capacity factors would be completely different (90+% for nuclear versus 20-30% for solar).

As others have said, none of this means solar doesn't have its place. Solar simply isn't a viable replacement at this point.

http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=JA#data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEGS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe_Solar_Power_Project

Incidentally, I believe Fukushima Daiichi's capacity is closer to 5 GW than 10 GW.

[Edited on March 26, 2011 at 9:19 PM. Reason : ]

3/26/2011 9:16:58 PM

I never said it was a replacement. I said it was possible to get a significant amount of power from them. It might be expensive at this point in time to install, but I imagine it would have fairly low maintenance costs as opposed to a nuclear facility that would require 24/7 maintenance, security and also dispose of costly nuclear waste. Over a long period of time the cost of operating the nuclear will add up a lot. You're still getting more bang for your buck with nuclear but with the possible environmental damage you could cause as opposed to solar it would balance out more.

Don't mistake my position on solar for being anti-nuclear. I'm basically pro-anything-but-fossil-fuels. We're not going to get off them anytime soon, but every nuclear reactor or solar panel or windmill or offshore wave energy means less oil and coal we have to burn.

3/26/2011 9:27:42 PM

^^ The article considered the combined capacity of Fukushima I and Fukushima II

Quote :

"And especially in a place like NC, where we get tons of sunlight, a moderate set of solar panels on your house could easily handle 90% of your requirements, never go out if a hurricane comes crippling the power grid (assuming they aren’t blown away)"

This is exactly what it can not do. Yeah, you can do the battery route, but in order to still have power when the grid goes out you need to have all the equipment needed to be "off grid", and you will still either have a power shortage or a power surplus given enough time. If you're one of those who use the "grid as your battery", then not only do you not have power during an outage, but you pose a significant danger to electricians working on the local grid because your area is islanded but still energized by your solar panels.

Quote :

"I'm basically pro-anything-but-fossil-fuels"

As am I.

3/26/2011 9:36:27 PM

Quote :

"The article considered the combined capacity of Fukushima I and Fukushima II"

I was wondering about that, but it talked about 6 reactors.

Doesn't change the point in any case.

3/26/2011 9:40:33 PM

fuck all that "anything-but-fossil-fuels" noise. I'm about as anti-coal as anyone on this board, but there's nothing wrong with this country making a major shift to natural gas as our primary energy source. We've still got some work to do with getting our hydraulic fracturing techniques perfected, but natural gas will make our current infrastructure much more capable of handling a major shift to integrating intermittent renewable generation.

For those of you in here claimining that nuclear and renwables aren't mutually exclusive, you should do some more research on the subject. those two do not play nice with each other from a grid stability standpoint, since we can't vary load on nuke plants under current operating regulations and renewables are intermittent. Even if we could, I don't think we can alter load on a nuke as fast as you can with natural gas or hydro units. maybe you can with some of the newer designs; a nuclear engineer in here might be able to chime in on that issue.

3/27/2011 12:32:34 AM

You can't vary the load on a nuke plant very quickly at all, and coal is more or less the same way. They basically just run all the time, and combined cycle/gas turbines fill in the demand spikes.

3/27/2011 8:56:46 AM

Can you guys describe what is physically happening in these plants as the load goes up and down? Like, if a nuke/coal plant is delivering 50MW and 25MW of it suddenly stops being needed, what happens?

3/27/2011 11:17:48 AM

It almost never gets that far. In terms of a nuclear plant, operating at anything but full power is wasted energy, as the fuel is going to be replaced on schedule regardless of whether you used it or not. Almost always, the grid operators have planned ahead and either have fossil or hydro plants in use that can be usefully throttled or have arranged for time based consumers to be on standby, such as water management entities which use excess power to pump water either into towers or uphill reservoirs.

But, accidents happen, such as a storm knocking down power lines to much of a plant's demand. In such circumstances, a nuclear plant can be throttled in several ways to maintain a 60hz average. To reduce production over the long haul, they can move the control rods to reduce reaction and lower the temperature of the core and therefore steam production and turbine pressure over the span of tens of minutes. Over the short run, they control output by allowing steam to bypass the turbines, reducing the pressure directly.

But such behavior is risky without rapidly throttling outside power backup, such as an idling natural gas plant, because if demand shot back up too quickly and the plant operators were operating too close to the margin then a brown-out might occur. As line frequency drops transformers operate less efficiently, causing load to grow unnaturally until the whole system crashes to a stop, causing the turbines to trip and forcing a full shutdown of the reactor, which cannot be restarted for perhaps days.

3/27/2011 12:09:00 PM

^^utilities hire load forecasters that are constantly using historical data, weather reports, present load, and a slew of other factors to make an accurate guess at future load (load forecasting). They use this forecast to try to generate exactly what will be needed.

At the plant, sudden drops in demand will be seen at the generator, and the generator will either try to speed up or the excitation curve will creep up (increased voltage/torque). The steam turbine sees this shift and is electronically controlled to throttle back the amount of steam going through the turbine. If this drop is expected to be prolonged, such as from a loss of a major transmission line or a storm, then the plant operator for a coal or natural gas facility will throttle back on the fuel going into the boiler to account for the reduced generation. When the load gets thrown back online, the generator will try to bog down and drop voltage. The steam turbine throttles the steam valves back open and more coal/natural gas is thrown to the boiler.

If the generating plant is huge and supplying most of the load in the area, the frequency change will be more noticeable. In the case of something like a backup generator running a house or commercial plant, you can notice the lights get brighter and the sound of electric motors increase in pitch every time a major device gets turned off. Conversely, you'll see the lights dim and the motor tune drop when a major load gets thrown back on.

Our grid handles disturbances like these with very little problems due to how massive the grid is. There's enough rotating inertia at our numerous generation facilities to ride through large load shedding events without you even seeing a 0.1Hz shift in operating frequency. This will not always be the case if start relying heavily on intermittent renewables. The Scandinavian countries are already have grid stability issues due to the large percentage of wind energy they have, and wind complicates matters even more because it generates the best at night when we have the least demand. Having nukes as the primary generation backup to renewables is only going to make matters worse, as you can't throttle the fuel at the boiler back on those as easily as you can at a coal or natural gas facility.

It's my understanding that there are nuke designs where you can throttle back steam output, but our current regulations won't allow us to do that because it makes refueling cycles vary and varying fuel transport and refueling cycles are seen as a threat to national security. I'd like to get some imput on how true that is from one of the nuclear engineers in here.

[Edited on March 27, 2011 at 2:40 PM. Reason : this wasn't based around your 50MW to 25MW scenario.]

3/27/2011 2:39:39 PM

Quote :

"To reduce production over the long haul, they can move the control rods to reduce reaction and lower the temperature of the core and therefore steam production and turbine pressure over the span of tens of minutes. Over the short run, they control output by allowing steam to bypass the turbines, reducing the pressure directly. "

If you're talking about T-average control at a nuclear plant, it's reverse. In order to easily lower power without the negatives of control rods or Boron then you basically let the reactor heat up to an extent which gives negative reactivity and causes it to balance out at a lower thermal power. These are prescribed in the plant licenses and like anything, there are limits on it.

I don't know where you are coming from regarding reducing temperature. If one reduced temperature/pressure in the steam generator (one-in-the-same since it's saturated conditions) then, yes, you would lower the power delivered to the turbine, but you would risk greater moisture (and thus damage) in the LP turbine later blades, plus you'd have lower efficiency (although they might not care about that).

I thought that managing of the turbine power in a nuclear plant was done completely by valving, in terms of the main turbine chest and the bypass.

Quote :

"At the plant, sudden drops in demand will be seen at the generator, and the generator will either try to speed up or the excitation curve will creep up (increased voltage/torque)."

Won't this only be seen if the voltage dips? If the other plants respond in lock-step then the nuclear plant is just the dumb one who just keeps injecting current without even much an idea of what's going on.

Quote :

"The steam turbine sees this shift and is electronically controlled to throttle back the amount of steam going through the turbine."

The governor/regulator/what-have-you responds specifically to the speed signal and moves the turbine control valve(s) in response, right?

Quote :

"This will not always be the case if start relying heavily on intermittent renewables."

In your opinion, what are the problematic electro-mechanic characteristics of wind power that make it difficult? Yes, we all know the ultimate energy source is exactly as reliable as the wind, but when things are going well, what about the doubly fed induction generator makes grid transients problematic?

Quote :

"It's my understanding that there are nuke designs where you can throttle back steam output, but our current regulations won't allow us to do that because it makes refueling cycles vary and varying fuel transport and refueling cycles are seen as a threat to national security."

I had not heard the national security argument, but let me address this 2 pieces. The French do frequency-control (or automatic generation control, the terms are plentiful) with the nuclear units, but that is only short-term changes that can be handled by the thermal mass of the system, so the fuel cycle doesn't care. There is no indication that this is possible in the US due to regulatory issues, because the output has to be put in the hands of a computerized dispatch center, and the culture here is that it is vital to the safety of the nuclear plant to always have the output in the hands of an operator. Note that this is probably not true, but... tell them that.

Otherwise, there is no need for scheduled load follow. If there was, it would start with some dips compensating for low weekend demand in the low-demand season or when fleet availability was high, stuff like that.

Quote :

"You can't vary the load on a nuke plant very quickly at all, and coal is more or less the same way. They basically just run all the time, and combined cycle/gas turbines fill in the demand spikes."

Not true. Many coal plants are only started when demand picks up in the day and then don't even get to full power. With today's natural gas prices, combined cycle plants are operating as baseload in most places, and they have similar maneuverability issues to coal anyway (i mean, there's a steam plant). Gas turbines are about the lowest hassle of all of these, they just cost a boatload to run.

Quote :

"I'm about as anti-coal as anyone on this board, but there's nothing wrong with this country making a major shift to natural gas as our primary energy source."

Yes, there are many things wrong with making a major shift to NG as our primary energy source. I've heard plenty of the Marcella Shale arguments of abundance, but don't count those eggs before they hatch. They need $6 [not bothering with units right now] at least for most of those to be exploited and prices are not there right now (like $4), and we have to have LOTS of shale gas developed just to compensate for the decline in other areas.

Plus, it don't help global warming compared to coal. Fairly good science behind radiative forcing and global temperature impacts dictates that if 2-3% of the Methane that gets to market is released into the atmosphere unburned then it warms the Earth more than coal (b/c it is 20-40 times more potent of a greenhouse gas). Despite what the gas industry likes to claim, it's probably way way more than this. Fracking is creating a mini earthquake in order to get to the gas. Just rationally, do you think that < 10% of the methane you manage to extract will be leaked to atmosphere? Really? And for a good watch, go see Gasland, and when people's water wells explode into a methane geyser for 3 days straight ask yourself "will this help global warming"?

Now, I see the coming age of gas, I get it, it'll happen whether we want it to or not, and I'm not one of those sensationalists who will overstate the groundwater contamination impact with a few examples of bad apples. And even when the age of NG cooks the Earth at alarming rates, it won't acidify the ocean the same as if we went the coal route, and it would be easier to correct that with geo-engineering. But the big picture is this: NG is a transnational fuel at best, at worst, it'll quicken the route to environmental catastrophe faster than any other option while tossing the nation around on price spikes like history has never seen.

[Edited on March 27, 2011 at 4:00 PM. Reason : ]

3/27/2011 3:57:28 PM

Quote :

"At the plant, sudden drops in demand will be seen at the generator, and the generator will either try to speed up or the excitation curve will creep up (increased voltage/torque). Won't this only be seen if the voltage dips? If the other plants respond in lock-step then the nuclear plant is just the dumb one who just keeps injecting current without even much an idea of what's going on."

we currently use our nukes for base load and vary everything with the coal, hydro, and natural gas units just like you described. I was talking about in more general terms of how a steam turbine system works, not about nukes in practice. Most of our steam turbine systems in this country are at coal plants that do have to deal with fluctuating load. Nukes don't have to worry about this unless they have a catastrophic failure of the transmission grid; they just keep pumping out as much current as possible.

Quote :

"The steam turbine sees this shift and is electronically controlled to throttle back the amount of steam going through the turbine. The governor/regulator/what-have-you responds specifically to the speed signal and moves the turbine control valve(s) in response, right?"

Kind of. The turbines typically have a speed control built in, but they are also controlled by feedback from the excitation voltage regulator as well. Speed control is slow and difficult, and it is hard to detect incredibly small load changes due to the almost infinite nature of our grid. The whole situation gets complicated by the need for the synchronous generator to generate reactive power in addition to real power, and the two can vary independently of each other even though they both affect current output from the generator. The AVRs can detect and process load angle changes on the generator way before the grid as a whole bogs down enough for the speed to change. I think 50 years ago when we didn't have digital signal processors for everything, speed was the major controlling factor.

Quote :

"This will not always be the case if start relying heavily on intermittent renewables. In your opinion, what are the problematic electro-mechanic characteristics of wind power that make it difficult? Yes, we all know the ultimate energy source is exactly as reliable as the wind, but when things are going well, what about the doubly fed induction generator makes grid transients problematic?"

Wind turbines are typically constructed using induction generators, and induction generators aren't nearly as good as synchronous motors at generating reactive power necessary for stability of our transmission system. A lack of reactive power on the grid was one of the main causes of the Northeast blackout a few years back. We're also going to see more overfrequency and underfrequency events on our transmission grid, since we will be losing and picking up generation sporadically. I think the frequency problems are the reason why we are having to implement underfrequency controls and load shedding schemes even for small utilities with no generation capacity; they know this is going to be an issue in the next few years and we need to be pro-active about handling it.

Quote :

"Many coal plants are only started when demand picks up in the day and then don't even get to full power. With today's natural gas prices, combined cycle plants are operating as baseload in most places, and they have similar maneuverability issues to coal anyway (i mean, there's a steam plant). Gas turbines are about the lowest hassle of all of these, they just cost a boatload to run."

True, for the most part. Natural gas has gotten so cheap that utilities are retrofitting their existing coal plants to run off of natural gas instead. We manage a lot of our load with accurate forecasting and use gas turbine units to fill in the emergency load increases. The gas turbines are definitely more expensive to run, but they can be brought online in a matter of seconds as opposed to an hour or more like a coal plant.

Quote :

"Yes, there are many things wrong with making a major shift to NG as our primary energy source. I've heard plenty of the Marcella Shale arguments of abundance, but don't count those eggs before they hatch. They need $6 [not bothering with units right now] at least for most of those to be exploited and prices are not there right now (like $4), and we have to have LOTS of shale gas developed just to compensate for the decline in other areas."

natural gas is already cheaper than coal once you factor in the cost of running the scrubbers. once our technology increases so that we can extract the Marcella Shale just as cheap as we are currently buying imported natural gas, then we're only going to be better off for having made the switch.

Quote :

"Plus, it don't help global warming compared to coal. Fairly good science behind radiative forcing and global temperature impacts dictates that if 2-3% of the Methane that gets to market is released into the atmosphere unburned then it warms the Earth more than coal (b/c it is 20-40 times more potent of a greenhouse gas). Despite what the gas industry likes to claim, it's probably way way more than this. Fracking is creating a mini earthquake in order to get to the gas. Just rationally, do you think that < 10% of the methane you manage to extract will be leaked to atmosphere? Really? And for a good watch, go see Gasland, and when people's water wells explode into a methane geyser for 3 days straight ask yourself "will this help global warming"? "

I seriously double we lose anywhere close to 2% of natural gas in the process of extraction through fracking. I've seen Gasland, and personally I thought that movie grossly overexaggerated the problems with fracking in a documentary style that previously only Michael Moore was capable of.

I'm also not hugely concerned about global warming, because it seems like a lot of hype over some worst-case assumptions. What does bother me, though, is the amount of heavy metals and acid rain released into the atmosphere/fly ash pits by the burning of coal. I'd rather deal with natural gas contamination than heavy metal contamination in my ground water.

[Edited on March 28, 2011 at 1:25 AM. Reason : Fly ash is some nasty shit.]

3/28/2011 1:20:24 AM

Quote :

"I've seen Gasland, and personally I thought that movie grossly overexaggerated the problems with fracking in a documentary style that previously only Michael Moore was capable of"

I watched it last night. What in particular was over-exaggerated? Do you at least admit that even if it is rare, there could be a chance that peoples drinking water gets poisoned?

3/28/2011 6:47:21 AM

Quote :

"Since 2006, Cabot Oil and Gas has drilled nearly 60 wells in a nine square mile area around Dimock, using the fracking technique. In January, 2009 several homeowners noticed that water from their wells was now bubbling. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection investigated and concluded that natural gas was in fact migrating from several Cabot gas wells into local groundwater and into homeowners’ wells. But poor well construction was to blame. A properly cased well prevents drilling fluids, fracking fluids, or natural gas from seeping into an aquifer and contaminating groundwater. The casing also prevents groundwater from leaking into the well where it could interfere with the gas production process. In Dimock, gas was escaping through defective casings and cement that lined some of Cabot’s gas wells. To make matters worse, in September 2010, Cabot spilled 8,000 gallons of stored fracking fluids which drained into nearby Stevens Creek. Earlier this month, Cabot agreed to pay affected homeowners more than $4 million which amounts to twice the value of their houses. Cabot’s blunders illustrate an important point: Fracking, that is, the actual act of fracturing the shale below Dimock, did not directly pollute ground and surface waters. Of course, without fracking technology, there would have been no gas wells in the Dimock area."

http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/21/what-the-frack

3/28/2011 9:29:17 AM

Quote :

"I watched it last night. What in particular was over-exaggerated? Do you at least admit that even if it is rare, there could be a chance that peoples drinking water gets poisoned? "

I think there is always a chance of a gas well blowing out and venting to atmosphere or haphazard contamination of well water. I also attribute this to unrefined methods that will get better in the next 20 years as our directional drilling techniques get better and we figure out how to frack with pressurized air instead of tons of water. What I didn't like was how the director seemed to insenuate that groundwater contamination was the norm by going out west and interviewing people in areas where gas drilling has been around longer. He also tried to insenuate a cover-up from the EPA for past events, which isn't exactly the case.

3/28/2011 10:21:02 AM

Quote :

"we figure out how to frack with pressurized air instead of tons of water"

. . . . . and diesel fuel

3/28/2011 11:07:07 AM

I thought it was kind of central to the point of fracking that you use an incompressible fluid.

3/28/2011 11:30:25 AM

I think they have some techniques now where they can bring a gas turbine onsite, run the turbine for electricity to the pumps, and then use the exhaust gas and nitrogen for the fracking. I don't even think a liquid drilling mud is a requirement for cooling some of the new drill rigs.

3/28/2011 1:33:36 PM

i'm working on project now that involves fracking and in the specs for allowable fluids air is included, thats the extent of what i know about it though

3/28/2011 1:57:28 PM

Germany's power costs are now almost directly connected with the price of coal due to closing of some nuclear power plants.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7342z9-us-energy-coal-power/

4/5/2011 10:31:57 AM

serves those dumbfucks right.

4/5/2011 11:07:47 AM

Glad they are so concerned with global warming. I'm sure this will only further increase their CO2 output.

4/5/2011 11:29:57 AM