Solar power & Wind Power for residental use

[buickanddeere]

For those who think coal is so great, here is an interesting article. Taxpayers hand out massive subsidies to coal companies, who turn around and dump their liabilities on the public safety net. Beyond the environmental disaster, it's a dirty business in human terms too.

How your taxes ended up enriching coal executives who are betraying their workers - Vox

The article in it's bias left out a few things . Such as coal power power plants being shut down by enviromentalists . Hence less demand for coal. Whose fault is that for the loss of coal mining revenue? No mention either of the cheap natural gas leases on public land which is replacing coal in fossil power plants. The headline is misleading and leave the impression that th government has been writing cheques to the coal mines. Btw what are the lease rates for hydro electric power, forestry and other kinds of mines ? The coal leases are not any cheaper any other resource lease.

 

[dickfoster]

For those who think coal is so great, here is an interesting article. Taxpayers hand out massive subsidies to coal companies, who turn around and dump their liabilities on the public safety net. Beyond the environmental disaster, it's a dirty business in human terms too.

How your taxes ended up enriching coal executives who are betraying their workers - Vox

Along these lines it's worth noting that all of those so called clean emissions electric cars are actually running on coal or other fossil fuels for the most part. That is unless through your rose colored glasses you see the tooth fairy putting the electricity to charge it in those sockets. In that sense physics dictates that regular gasoline fueled vehicles are more environmentally responsible that the idiotic electrics ever can be, unless and until we get something like a some decent form of nuclear technology going. So I ask, why are we forced to subsidize the stupid things? Someone simply isn't paying attention or they are ignoring the math and economics.

 

[KennyG]

I don't recall anyone saying coal is so great. The issue is that generating sources fall into categories with different characteristics and creating an overall electrical supply system that works means you can't ignore the benefits and limitations of the sources.

Coal, gas and oil have high availability, relatively high fuel costs and relatively low capital costs.

Nuclear and hydro have high availability, low fuel costs and high capital costs.

Solar and wind have low availability, limited predictability, low fuel cost and high capital cost.

This all has to match with demand profiles, load management options and storage to make sure we have power where we need it, when we need it.

The coal article was kind of a cheap shot. All energy companies (including renewables) spend a lot of effort getting preferential treatment from the government. There is nothing close to a level playing field in the energy business. But it has been with limited success for the coal companies. When Peabody files for bankruptcy, it will mean that all 5 of the largest US coal companies are bankrupt. President Obama said that you can build a coal fired plant if you want to but you will go bankrupt. As usual, he did not understand basic economics. Coal plants that remain operating are quite profitable, it's the coal mining companies the government policies have forced into bankruptcy. A coal mine in the US now has negative capital value. The operating costs to mine coal are higher than the market price.

 

[buickanddeere]

The real indicator will be who quietly purchases those coal mines. Knowing that someday energy made by anything, including coal will be worth a fortune

 

[Redneck in training]

Many plants burn low energy content coal such as lignite. The problem is that they have very low turn down ratio. In other words they require about 90% night load. Natural gas burning gas turbines are cheap to build, but use more expensive fuel and have efficiency less than 30%. They can be operated from about 60%, idled or shut down and restarted when needed. The most efficient are combined cycle plants burning NG but they are expensive to build, have reasonable turn down ratio but are not easily shut down and restarted. So it is apparent that solar could be great complement to coal or combine cycle especially down south where AC is a major energy consumer and peak consumption coincides with peak PV performance.

Speaking about electric cars. The overall efficiency taking into account efficiency of coal burning or combine cycle plant, battery charging and discharging trough the electric motor in the cars is way greater than IC engine. If you add no oil changes they look even better. And they are fun to drive. Once they get the range to over 200 miles/charge at 30K or less we are buying one. We make our own electric power. In fact electric cars would provide, if used in large numbers, excellent night load for coal burning plants supplement all the LED and high efficiency appliances.

 

[KiwiBro]

The real indicator will be who quietly purchases those coal mines. Knowing that someday energy made by anything, including coal will be worth a fortune

A wee hint: one of if not the most powerful in the coal industry is buying out (at least some of) the others.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I don't recall anyone saying coal is so great. The issue is that generating sources fall into categories with different characteristics and creating an overall electrical supply system that works means you can't ignore the benefits and limitations of the sources.

Coal, gas and oil have high availability, relatively high fuel costs and relatively low capital costs.

Nuclear and hydro have high availability, low fuel costs and high capital costs.

Solar and wind have low availability, limited predictability, low fuel cost and high capital cost.

This all has to match with demand profiles, load management options and storage to make sure we have power where we need it, when we need it.

The coal article was kind of a cheap shot. All energy companies (including renewables) spend a lot of effort getting preferential treatment from the government. There is nothing close to a level playing field in the energy business. But it has been with limited success for the coal companies. When Peabody files for bankruptcy, it will mean that all 5 of the largest US coal companies are bankrupt. President Obama said that you can build a coal fired plant if you want to but you will go bankrupt. As usual, he did not understand basic economics. Coal plants that remain operating are quite profitable, it's the coal mining companies the government policies have forced into bankruptcy. A coal mine in the US now has negative capital value. The operating costs to mine coal are higher than the market price.

Coal mines have just been forced to clean up after themselves. In the old days they could just rip it and run, leaving the mess for the next generation. Coal is a toxic industry. Unfortunately for the coal companies, they didn't clean up their act until they were forced to. Their old coal mines were not designed to deal with toxins and tailings. In true vulture capitalist style, they are just going to go bankrupt and hang the taxpayer for cleaning up their mess. They are going to hang the taxpayer with the bill for treating all those miner disabilities. They are going to hang the taxpayer with the bill for paying all those pensions they promised now that they stole the pension funds. Then they are going to blame Obama for turning them into thieves and frauds.

Meanwhile, there won't be any shortage of coal.

 

[Egon]

[video]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693168/#!po=98.3333[/video]

Appalachian coal

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Growing up in the middle of coal mining country, i personnaly cant name one person who died due to coal mining. I know there were some, but not thousands. I also know they got paid very well for the risks they took. Many in my time went from HS to the coal mines.