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Re: California blocks state funds for coal terminals-Tweedle Dumb versus Tweedle Dumber?
Author: BOB2
Date: 08-30-2016 - 11:17
Where do people get this solar and wind are unreliable nonsense from?
The sun is shining and the wind is blowing almost constantly somewhere in the western US almost constantly (sun during daylight when peak demand occurs, and wind all of the time). You can even store wind and solar energy, like we did down in the Coachella Valley, as far back at the early 2000's by using night generated off peak wind and morning solar power, to make hydrogen from water, and then burn it, in a mix with natural gas, in the peaker plants that were being installed back then, during the pm peak power usage.
I was once told by Pasadena's useless (now retired) PWP head that we couldn't do solar arrays over the 210 to meet our peak load imbalance on the west side of the City, because solar energy would be "unreliable" during July, August, and September, when these imbalances occur. So, Caltech's director of facilities just laughed at her, and took Pasadena's largest user and rate payer, off of the grid completely. So much for "unreliable"....?
Not only are these increments highly reliable and cleaner, they are increasingly cheaper, as costs come down. Also, let's be real, natural gas will finally kill off coal over the next ten years, as existing coal fired plants (many built in the 70's and 80's) reach the end of the current contracts, are retired, or are converted to gas, because it is just so much cheaper.
As much as I think that this useless pandering "feel good" legislation supposedly affecting coal from the Port of Oakland is a joke, and short term counter-productive to actually reducing global CO2 emissions, the coal fired power plant, long term, is going the way of the "soot factories and dust mills" of old.
RR's, too long dependent on this very high volume, but not all that profitable traffic base, will need to adapt to that reality......with or without the very limited short term increases in Chinese exports we will likely see only for the next few years.
The sun is shining and the wind is blowing almost constantly somewhere in the western US almost constantly (sun during daylight when peak demand occurs, and wind all of the time). You can even store wind and solar energy, like we did down in the Coachella Valley, as far back at the early 2000's by using night generated off peak wind and morning solar power, to make hydrogen from water, and then burn it, in a mix with natural gas, in the peaker plants that were being installed back then, during the pm peak power usage.
I was once told by Pasadena's useless (now retired) PWP head that we couldn't do solar arrays over the 210 to meet our peak load imbalance on the west side of the City, because solar energy would be "unreliable" during July, August, and September, when these imbalances occur. So, Caltech's director of facilities just laughed at her, and took Pasadena's largest user and rate payer, off of the grid completely. So much for "unreliable"....?
Not only are these increments highly reliable and cleaner, they are increasingly cheaper, as costs come down. Also, let's be real, natural gas will finally kill off coal over the next ten years, as existing coal fired plants (many built in the 70's and 80's) reach the end of the current contracts, are retired, or are converted to gas, because it is just so much cheaper.
As much as I think that this useless pandering "feel good" legislation supposedly affecting coal from the Port of Oakland is a joke, and short term counter-productive to actually reducing global CO2 emissions, the coal fired power plant, long term, is going the way of the "soot factories and dust mills" of old.
RR's, too long dependent on this very high volume, but not all that profitable traffic base, will need to adapt to that reality......with or without the very limited short term increases in Chinese exports we will likely see only for the next few years.
