Global Warming News

[dave1949]

Dave,
I still have alot of reading to catch up to current posts, but I wanted to comment on this.

A couple of years back, we were invited to tour a local wind farm by the engineer who designed and oversaw the build of it for the local power company. He is a neighbor & carpool partner for our supervisor. One thing I found interesting was when he explained the the expected revenues from the wind farm would take ten years longer than the life of the equipment to pay for it. Local regulations require the use of alternative forms of energy for a percentage of their power production so they were installing several wind farms and, I belive, two solar sites even though they would loose money in doing so.

I was going to post pix, but it looks like they are all on my work computer.

There is another poster further on that says an engineer told him the turbines would be paid for in 15-17 years. A lot depends on the wind power viability of the site. Not saying that is the issue in your post. And, I have no way of resolving two knowledgable people's opposing statements. There are countries that are investing heavily in wind power, I have to assume they have valid reasons. I know some are political and some are based on a country's available natural resources. If Russia could hold you hostage by turning off the natural gas pipeline for example, wind power looks real good.

The other aspect is when somebody compares wind or whatever alternative power production costs, to producing power from coal, nothing will beat coal costs from the utility's profit perspective. They paid $X and got $Y worth of marketable energy. Coal is absolutely an energy rich fuel that most other fuels cannot even come close to in up-front production and delivery costs. Real clean coal technology would be one of the best things that could happen. We would still have the mining/extraction issues of environmental degradation like watershed damage and missing mountains.

There are many side effect costs to mining and burning coal above and beyond the delivered per ton price - that are very difficult to put a price tag on. I don't believe those costs don't exist or can be ignored. If you do some reading on environmental and health issues, even putting aside AGW theories, you will get a sense of what I mean.

In the end, it all comes down to what value do different people put on different things, that's what makes it a contentious issue IMO.
Dave.

 

[keegs]

Maybe someone will verify this but I think the federal subsidy for wind energy is 2 cents per kwh. If that's correct then with the subsidy and the proper scale and conditions, wind energy is competitive with energy produced from coal.

If all that's true then the question becomes why pay the extra two cents per kwh. Dave suggested whether the price of energy produced from coal truly reflects the price and provided some examples of why it may not.

I'd add that if you don't understand international efforts to address high concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere as a conspiracy, then discounting the risk and consequences of high CO2 concentrations may have long term costs much higher than the current 2 cent differential.

 

[IH3444]

The great global warming collapse - The Globe and Mail

 

[dcyrilc]

Or maybe heading in a good direction. Remember the meaning of non-renewable - there is a finite amount of fossil fuels and as the demand goes up and they become more difficult to extract the price will go up. Its even possible that wars could be fought over this and that the burning is doing serious harm to our environment. (many people agree on the possibility) Someday fossil fuels will be gone.

Loren

According to the State of Washington, Hydroelectric power is a non-renewable source of power.

Sorry for the late post, I'm catching up, but still a long way to go.

 

[dave1949]

FallbrookFarmer,

Spoke to my friends, Walter and Rita, in Germany today. So I had a chance to ask about healthcare. Rita worked many years as an aide in a gynecologists practice and is fairly familiar with healthcare in Germany.

Sorry to say, Rita told me that their healthcare is getting more and more expensive, nothing like it was 15 years ago. She says it is morphing into something more like we currently have. If you are not wealthy, don't get sick - her words.

As to out of country treatments, you have to get special allowances to do that, which was always true, and they are rarely granted these days. But it does occur.

So, my shining example of German healthcare is getting tarnished. I don't know how exactly to compare theirs to ours in detail. That would take a very long conversation with enough beer to rehabilitate my German fluency. Suffice it to say from their perspective, it has deteriorated from what it used to be. Guess they better get Otto von Bismarck back on the scene.

Oddly enough, the Germans are busily discussing climate gate and healthcare too. They have had more snow than Walter remembers getting for 20 years. says he is running out of places to pile it in his dooryard. Cold too.

Dave.

 

[Pilot]

10 or 15 years ago, coming back from Germany a young German woman sat beside me and we talked about health care. He family had money, at least enough to buy private health care, so they did. Se was coming to the US to get treatment for a back problem.

According to a PBS show on health care in several countries around the world, those in Germany with private insurance see the same doctors as everyone else, but when they walk into the clinic they go to the front of the line and get the best treatment.

 

[Loren49]

Good morning,
Remember when comparing the US with Germany that we spend $7290 per capita and they spend under $3600. (2007) How would they compare with the same funding? Kinda like comparing a Toyota with a Mercedes. I would have used Hyundia instead of Toyota until a few weeks ago. (Actually auto comparison added for ). My most recent experience-my GP referred me to a specialist for a test - waited 10 days tohear from specialist's office and then another 10 for the appointment. Now waiting to hear report to be sent to my GP for another referral. (nothing serious) I immagine I should be at the front of the line as my policy costs $12000 a year (wife ad me).
Just out of interest do you know the cost of the prviate policy of you German friend?

Loren

 

[keegs]

When a doctor orders another CT scan, is she doing so because she thinks it's in my best interest? Is she concerned about liability if she doesn't? Has she just received her son's college tution bill....a bill from the plumber....her 401k statement? Does she have all the information necessary to make a prudent decision?

It seems to me the incentives in our system are misalligned. I want good health which I'd imagine should mean less care. Alligning incentives for the consumer and the provider around those objectives seems to me to be the goal here?

I think we can all agree on that.

 

[dave1949]

Good morning,
Remember when comparing the US with Germany that we spend $7290 per capita and they spend under $3600. (2007) How would they compare with the same funding? Kinda like comparing a Toyota with a Mercedes. I would have used Hyundia instead of Toyota until a few weeks ago. (Actually auto comparison added for ). My most recent experience-my GP referred me to a specialist for a test - waited 10 days tohear from specialist's office and then another 10 for the appointment. Now waiting to hear report to be sent to my GP for another referral. (nothing serious) I immagine I should be at the front of the line as my policy costs $12000 a year (wife ad me).
Just out of interest do you know the cost of the prviate policy of you German friend?

Loren

If you are asking me, no I don't know what the cost is.

I doubt if they have a private policy. Walter is a retired German Dept. of Defense civilian employee, I would guess he has reasonable benefits that go with his retirement.

Germany has been through some economic strains since the Berlin Wall came down in Nov. 1989. The reunification of East and West Germany meant rebuilding the entire E. German infrastructure from sewers to phone lines. Tons of money spent revitalizing Berlin as the capital city, moved the W. German capital in Bonn to Berlin, etc.

A young E. German couple visited our friends, some shirtail relation I think. We had dinner with them one evening. Two interesting things I took away: They were having a real hard time meeting Ami's face to face, like we must have been demonized pretty well. And, he told how in E. Germany you had to remove the good quality valve stems from your bicycle tire tubes at night or they would be gone in the morning. Then you would be stuck with the poor ones that always leaked. Something we can hardly imagine. When E. Germans were first allowed into W. Germany, they would have tears in their eyes just to see the variety and quality of goods in a large supermarket.

These things are why I say it is nonsense to compare socialism to tweaking our healthcare system into something more cost efficient and available. It just ain't apples to apples.

Germany has also been flooded by German ancestry immigrants from central Europe since the end of the USSR. They came for the freebies and the only thing German about them, as my friend likes to say, is they may have had a German Shepard dog once. They don't speak German, and tend to live in clusters in what used to be US-Brit military housing areas. Instant welfare ghetto creation.

At the same time, the US was pulling out of many bases and that really cut into the local economies around those bases. At one time Ramstein Airbase had the largest concentration of US citizen overseas in one location. Late 1980's I think the total number of US military in Gemany was 350,000 +-. There were another 50,000 US civilian contractors. This pumped enormous amounts of cash into regional economies. Housing, auto sales, food, restaurants, supporting German civilian employees, etc. Since the US installations were more or less self contained, there weren't many social/public service expenditures required from the Germans. At the federal level, I believe they did underwrite/share some costs.

I think these issues have a lot more to do with the current strains on the German healthcare system rather than how 'socialist' it is or isn't. As usual, there is a history of how one gets from point A to point B. As the Germans say, 'You can't leap over your own shadow.'
Dave.

 

[Loren49]

Good afternoon,
Medical Appointment update - will get to see specialist March 1. Process started 3rd week of January and specialist's office is about 50 feet from my doctor's office.

Just what NYS taxpayers need???
Toxic coal-tar cleanup to cost New York $3 billion
Utilities deploy to reclaim dangerous residue of manufactured gas

Toxic coal-tar cleanup to cost New York $3 billion | recordonline.com

Loren