Politicians and energy policy

I heard a bit of a politician on the radio today. He was governor of one of the western states. He said some things that I didn't hear any supporting evidence for. I wonder if there are facts to support these ideas.

He seemed to think that driving hybrids is the answer to the oil problem. He describes this scenario. Everyone drives a hybrid which can be plugged into the power grid and charged at night when the power grid is way below peak usage. Then they can be driven up to 40 miles the next day without using any fuel.

He would also set the power rates at lower amounts at off peak times and higher during the daily peaks. You would be able to sell power to the grid at the same price that it would cost you to buy it. So if you weren't driving that day, you could sell power back from your hybrid to the power company and make a profit!

He claimed that this would eliminate our need for foreign oil.

I don't get it. Sure hybrids can save fuel. If you otherwise drive a vehicle that gets 20 MPG and you switch to a hybrid that gets 40 MPG, you save half the fuel you otherwise would use. But a 50% savings on auto use of petroleum is not a 50% savings in imported oil. There are many, many other uses of oil. The fuel saved by plugging into the power grid may not be a savings at all. Where does this power come from? A lot of power plants burn petroleum. Otherwise they burn coal which is very dirty or use nuclear energy which is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I don't remember his name. Anyone here know who this is? Do his numbers add up? Has he given any real numbers to support his claim or is this one of those half baked ideas that sounds good in a sound bite, like having a gas tax "holiday"?

Reply to
rickman
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For this to be meaningful, the consumers have to see different rates for peak usage and non-peak usage. The utility company told us to pump the pool at night (supposedly non-peak usage), but we are paying the same either way. Only total kilowatt hours matter anyway.

Reply to
linnix

Didn't I mention that? This guy would require the power company to both sell and buy at prices dependent on the gross usage compared to peak.

Turns out the power company here charges based on your peak usage. A friend works at a dairy which has many electric motors, some of them quite large. They paid thousands of dollars for control panels that will bring the motors online sequentially to prevent a huge spike in the power consumed. This saves them money because their rate is set by the peak usage at any time during the day.

That is another way to save money, if the power companies start charging residential the same way they charge commercial, the hybrid can kick in to supply current during the peak in your residence. But then most people are away during the day anyway. I guess the AC still runs.

Reply to
rickman

The problem is still the battery technology (longevity, cost, storage density, safety). Selling power back to the utility at a fair price was provided for in 1969 by the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA).

Maybe we could harness that politician's hot air?

Frank

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Reply to
Frank Raffaeli

His idea is way over simplistic, furthermore, it doesn't put one gallon of fuel into the system. If implemented 100% it would transfer oil energy to coal energy and may save a little money but create may other problems.

The governor of Wyoming wants to make synthetic gasoline out of Wyoming coal. That actually makes more sense because it powers existing vehicles. With the Hybrids the total fleet would have to change.

But, coal in NOT the answer. The better answer is biofuels. They must be fully developed an implemented.

Reply to
Bob Eld

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No answer can compete with nuclear. For people who are worried about its safety, we have a couple of useless states in the middle of the country that could be turned into energy farms.

Reply to
Richard Henry
[snip]

Biofuels? Is that what you get when you convert leftist weenie bull shit into methane ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Like Ohio ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Please step one state to the right and on the other side of the Appalachians, That way the fallout wipes out the beltway and not me. I agree that nuclear is the way to go in the long term. The concept of anyone government or utility other then a well disciplined military having quanities of reactors scares the heck out of me. You need something like the NAVY to do it, Rickover had the personnel model and the safety inspection system right. I know a few ex navy ROs, and they know how to do it right. Also copy the French system and use one standardized reactor.

If you want to see why I state this

A. I like Akron the way it is, not glowing, B. Do a google on "Davis-Besse Reactor Lid."

Short answer, nobody noticed that the reactor cooling chemistry etched a 6" deep hole almost through the top plate on the reactor over a period of years.

Steve

Reply to
osr

What is it about this group that instead of some sort of intelligent conversation, any discussion of interesting topics always turns into a s**t tossing contest?

Does anyone here have anything constructive to say instead of just bashing others and spewing a bunch of dogma?

If you like Nuclear, how about telling us *why* it is good. If you don't like Nuclear, how about telling *why* it is not such a good thing. Do you guy always have to argue like a bunch of school children?

Reply to
rickman

Political zealots.

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Political zealots.

Yeah, but nobody listens. ;-)

  1. Zero emissions, except for waste heat.
  2. 20 years between refuelings.
  3. They can be designed to actually produce new fuel, making it essentially free.
  4. Japan and France, and probably some other countries, get a very large proportion of their power by nuclear plants - obviously, somebody's figured out a way to do it safely, and profitably.
  5. Reactor waste, you say? Just find out where the gov't is putting theirs, and put the civilian waste in the same place.

Paranoia.

Pretty much, yeah. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Richard The Dreaded Libertaria

Looks to me like you're arguing with yourself ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

The Navy plan includes the requirement that the operators slept next in the same building as the reactor.

Reply to
Richard Henry

This certainly does wonders for quality control!

Steve

Reply to
osr

You still want to keep the house dehumidified during the day.

I recently interviewed with a company that makes smart power meters. They can control loads, so the power company can level loads without blacking out everything. For instance, I doesn't matter much if a water heater is turned off for a few hours, or the water heaters across town are cycled. Much better to turn them off for some hours during the day than have large peaks. The meters network with their neighbors so metering and control can be done across wide areas. Slick stuff.

--
Keith
Reply to
krw

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WAIT A MINUTE! The useless states are on either end. You want to=20 be left alone with the weenies?

--=20 Keith

Reply to
krw

krw wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:

how does the power meter control your WH or other in-house loads? It would have to have a device wired into the WH and other loads. (some may just plug in.)

My local power company offers a thermostat that they can control to shut off your AC during peak power demand periods.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

Safely? France is just slower in getting around to having its own Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Windscale

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1957.htm).

Brilliant - except that the government is sticking their waste in holding tanks until someone works out where they can set up a safe long term (hundreds of thousands of years) repository - probably on the far side of the Moon.

It does seem that way. Though some of us do know more than the average school child, not that the bulk of us beleive that.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Reply to
bill.sloman

So what happens when that fuel runs out? Oh...

Reprocessing isn't free, and in fact it costs a significant portion of the reactor's output. I've heard figures of only three times more capacity to burn U238 --> Pu239 and other transuranics, when reprocessing is factored in. Considering U235 is less than 1% of naturally occuring fuel, that's a considerable loss, going from over 100 times down to just 3. Hardly seems worth the expense.

Japan and France together occupy about half the population of the U.S., and don't burn as much energy per capita (remember we're notoriously power-hungry...politically or otherwise). If much of the world adopted nuclear for 100% of their needs, the risk would be substantially higher.

What's more, I've heard estimates of anywhere from 100 years worth of fuel, to just 3 years, if the world switched to nuclear power. I don't know the details of these figures, but you do need to consider just how much energy the world actually uses. It's a *LOT*.

Hah, wasn't there a tale of nuclear waste being burned in open pits with gasoline or something at Area 51? Probably as told by, like...Bob Lazar, but hey...

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

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Reply to
Tim Williams

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