Coal future?

 
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joeq
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Post by joeq » Fri. Jan. 25, 2019 6:36 pm

Image
This is gunna be good.
(TOTP) :x


 
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Post by Bubbalowe » Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 10:28 am

Drove my Grandson to Yellowstone last year and was surprised driving I 90 corridor through Wisconsin, wind generators as far as the eye can see and high voltage power lines being erected along the interstate. Guess they haven't read the latest Earth is flat it will never work blog or seen an empty building. These wind generators can easily be seen on Google maps. Personally I preferred the Norman Rockwell scenery I saw in 1990 when I drove through last but hey, that's progress for you.

https://www.renewwisconsin.org/wind-energy/

 
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Post by warminmn » Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 11:30 am

Bubbalowe wrote:
Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 10:28 am
Drove my Grandson to Yellowstone last year and was surprised driving I 90 corridor through Wisconsin, wind generators as far as the eye can see and high voltage power lines being erected along the interstate. Guess they haven't read the latest Earth is flat it will never work blog or seen an empty building. These wind generators can easily be seen on Google maps. Personally I preferred the Norman Rockwell scenery I saw in 1990 when I drove through last but hey, that's progress for you.

https://www.renewwisconsin.org/wind-energy/
Yes, those ugly things go all the way west, probably until Idaho by now. Uglier than hell. I can see 200 from my upstairs window but none are closer than 10 or 12 miles from me, thank God. If you live near one you cant even leave a window open at night if the wind is light cuz they screech and scream all night. They really ruin a landscape, my opinion. Sadly the power is not usually even used locally, but is sent to Chicago or Florida. And driving at night, its like driving thru an airport with all those flashing lights. I hate them.

They were going to surround me a few years ago and of all things, bats saved me. Theres some rare bats in a cave near me and they were worried they'd all get killed by the blades. Long live the bats!

 
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Post by Bubbalowe » Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 3:08 pm

They seemed to end at South Dakota. Curious what the farmer makes for planting wind generators on his land and if it compares to the gas boom. And yes, bats are cool :)

 
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Post by tcalo » Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 3:49 pm

Rufcar wrote:
Fri. Jan. 25, 2019 5:50 pm
Recent testing has shown for instance that a good old, well fit, well maintained, single glass wood window works as well as a double pan window in savings! Plus , maintained properly will last centuries vs 8- 12 year life of a vinyl double pane. window. I have over 60 in my home and they are all over 115 years old! Enough said for today!
I respectfully disagree. My house was built in 65’. I recently started renovationg. I replaced some old single pane windows (mix of aluminum and wood frames) with new Anderson wood frame double hung gas filled windows. The old windows were cold to the touch and would frost up on the inside. The new windows I installed stay warm to the touch while the outside of the window maintains the oat. They aren’t expensive by any means, cheap line of Anderson’s sold through Home Depot. I have other windows that are original which I can literally feel the cold air coming though when the wind kicks up. Proof is in the pudding!

 
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Post by Rufcar » Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 4:10 pm

1st you are correct new windows are efficient as long as the glass seal does not go bad but they ALL do. Few last more than 12 years most last 8 or less. Plus is you fold a piece of saran wrap like a snake and lay it under the old window, air no longer comes in the bottom. Most heat loss of through the ceilings of each room., If an older home was designed with cast iron radiators and they are under the window that's by design to allow any heat loss to flow over the hot radiation as it goes toward the ceiling and around the room re entering at the bottom as cold air and re cycling over and over. I have single panes and NO wall insulation. Only ceiling insulation in most rooms.

 
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Post by Ttkrouse » Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 9:55 pm

I worked on the windmills that coal jockey is speaking of and live on a farm in Sidman Pa where they are located. I'am ironworker by trade. Let me tell you coaljockey speaks the truth. They came here completely destroyed the top of the mountain to be able to truck the blades to us to set. not to mention the size of level pads we needed to set up 350 ton crawler cranes. Trees soil pushed all over the place timber removed without any trees being replanted. They used tax payer money to build them. The company I work for told them they could not possibly give them a number to put the windmills up. They gave us a contract that worked off of 7percent. what we spent we would be reimbursed all monies + 7 percent profit. This encouraged us to spend as much money as possible no matter what we made 7 percent. Probably not a good thing to do with government money. No competitive bid! The more we spent the more we made! It was taken full advantage of. We worked overtime d practically everyday. That's not counting all the extra equipment, trucks and people we didn't need. The windmills were up for 2YEARS before they ever got tied into grid. We also got a lucrative maintenance agreement to change out the blades. They make no blade that lasts for 15 years many have been changed out if not all by now. The biggest maintenance is changing the brakes to keep these beasts from spinning to fast in the wind. They will simply over rotate and fly apart so brakes are well maintained. Thankfully i'am not part of the maintenance gang. All government money .sure easy to build them when the people don't know it's there money. You can build a lot of nuclear plants or clean up a lot coal plants with the money we wasted there. Probably the best part was were erecting the blades after the tower was up and we had wind speed restriction on crane of 25 mph wind speed. One of their engineers say's hey krouse don't the wind ever stop blowing on the top of this mountain we can't set any blades. So you think this guy would know the wind is the reason were put them here. This is the genius that tells you wind energy is cost effective! Sorry greenies you lose on the wind theory.


 
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Post by swyman » Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 6:10 am

I live in rural farming area in SE MI. Grew up farming but have moved on to factory life but still live on the family farm....what's left of it. We were going to get a windmill farm put up just a few miles south of me. I can't remember the $$$ numbers but they were very significant for the properties they were going to be constructed on. It was really 50/50 and the fighting between the 2 sides was not good. Of course the properties they were going on the farmers wanted them ($$$$$$) but the neighbor that lived across the street where one was going to be installed was totally against....naturally. They tried everything to stop them from building them with no luck and just before they were getting final approval the good old airport, Toledo Express which is also home of the 180th fighter wing National Guard said the windmills would interfere with their radar and that was it...end of story! This was a 2 year ordeal and I don't know why the airport was overlooked for so long. The really bad part is there were multi-generation friends/neighbors that still will not talk to each other 8 years later.....it's a shame. At the time I thought the windmills were pretty cool but I didn't have a say as they were a township over so I had no vote. Now I am really glad they were not installed. I vacation on the West side of the state around Ludington MI and they installed a bunch of those monsters there and seem like only half are running......other broke down?

 
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Post by lsayre » Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 6:51 am

Germany just announced that it is closing its 84 remaining coal fired electrical power plants and will replace them with renewable energy plants. This represents 40% of the electricity generation of Germany.

Germany is also exiting nuclear power.

 
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Post by swyman » Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 9:37 am

lsayre wrote:
Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 6:51 am
Germany just announced that it is closing its 84 remaining coal fired electrical power plants and will replace them with renewable energy plants. This represents 40% of the electricity generation of Germany.

Germany is also exiting nuclear power.
Wow, hope we don't follow their lead! As long as Trumps in office we'll be good, then I guess we will have to brace ourselves!

 
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Post by lsayre » Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 9:45 am

Coal power plants are still closing at a good clip under Trump. The power companies can't afford to keep them running, knowing that Trump won't be around for long enough to make it worth while to keep them operating, and knowing that there is a very high likelihood that the next President will be Obama redivivus.

 
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Post by McGiever » Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 1:51 pm

lsayre wrote:
Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 6:51 am
Germany just announced that it is closing its 84 remaining coal fired electrical power plants and will replace them with renewable energy plants. This represents 40% of the electricity generation of Germany.

Germany is also exiting nuclear power.

Germany's direction to exit Nuclear Power and to focus on renewables both began simultaneously shortly after the Fukushima accident..
There were no coal sentiments at that time whatsoever involved in the switch from Nuclear to the renewables.

But it would seem Germany see the change as being a success as to move forward with the coal now to be weaned off.

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 5:26 pm

Ttkrouse wrote:
Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 9:55 pm
I worked on the windmills that coal jockey is speaking of and live on a farm in Sidman Pa where they are located. I'am ironworker by trade. Let me tell you coaljockey speaks the truth. They came here completely destroyed the top of the mountain to be able to truck the blades to us to set. not to mention the size of level pads we needed to set up 350 ton crawler cranes. Trees soil pushed all over the place timber removed without any trees being replanted. They used tax payer money to build them. The company I work for told them they could not possibly give them a number to put the windmills up. They gave us a contract that worked off of 7percent. what we spent we would be reimbursed all monies + 7 percent profit. This encouraged us to spend as much money as possible no matter what we made 7 percent. Probably not a good thing to do with government money. No competitive bid! The more we spent the more we made! It was taken full advantage of. We worked overtime d practically everyday. That's not counting all the extra equipment, trucks and people we didn't need. The windmills were up for 2YEARS before they ever got tied into grid. We also got a lucrative maintenance agreement to change out the blades. They make no blade that lasts for 15 years many have been changed out if not all by now. The biggest maintenance is changing the brakes to keep these beasts from spinning to fast in the wind. They will simply over rotate and fly apart so brakes are well maintained. Thankfully i'am not part of the maintenance gang. All government money .sure easy to build them when the people don't know it's there money. You can build a lot of nuclear plants or clean up a lot coal plants with the money we wasted there. Probably the best part was were erecting the blades after the tower was up and we had wind speed restriction on crane of 25 mph wind speed. One of their engineers say's hey krouse don't the wind ever stop blowing on the top of this mountain we can't set any blades. So you think this guy would know the wind is the reason were put them here. This is the genius that tells you wind energy is cost effective! Sorry greenies you lose on the wind theory.
I appreciate all of that TTK, what you said brings back some memories. I will get off my soapbox but to this day I’ve never seen so much waste on something that was touted to save so much.

I don’t know Jack about solar so I will stay out of that. If the wind projects I’ve hauled to were able to put to use everything that they wasted they might possibly have swayed my opinion quite differently, but that ship sailed long ago.

 
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Post by oros35 » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 9:10 am

Germany's exit from traditional generation is not going so well. Cost to consumer is 4x what it is for the rest of the world, and that doesn't include all the government funding everyone is paying for. Had a friend that just went over there to do some benchmarking and it was quite a poor story.

The US pays $11 Billion for renewal energy subsidies (the wall @ 5 billion that everyone is fighting over is just a drop in the bucket)

Wholesale price for electric is about $30 per megawatt hour. Wind subsidies are $15-57 per megawatt hour and solar is $43-320 per megawatt hour. (wide range is due to lobbyists and politicians masterfully disguising where the money goes and making it nearly impossible to accurately track) Bottom line is without taxpayer funding, you would not have wind or solar. And the wind and solar don't have to produce 1 megawatt in most cases to be profitable. They make money off the subsidies for simply existing. (windmill not turning, no problem it's still making a profit!!!)

The chart is electric subsidies over the last 30 years. Everyone gets some government help. Who gets what and how much is the problem. The electric market is supposed to be a competitive and free market, but with numbers like these it is anything but. The electric market is broke and we have our current government to thank. Nuclear and coal plant shutdowns are not due to outdated inefficient plants, it's due to political pressure and govt funding technology that cannot be profitable on it's own.

I work in the industry. See it every day and even more so now that they are planning to close my plant.

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Post by VigIIPeaBurner » Mon. Jan. 28, 2019 10:26 am

Coal use is foretasted to be at 17% well into the future. Get a pot of coffee going, you'll need the eyelid lift :lol:
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