Coal is fairly cheap and abundant,but sure has a lot of issues.Not counting the jobs the loss of cheap electricity would create in the auto industry and others,would moving from coal to say,nuclear.Put that many people out of work?
Bear in mind that surface mining has become much more efficient, man hour per ton of production then it used to be.
Kevin, It Looks Like A Lot Of Folks Will Be Looking For A Place To Plug In Their EV Cars Pretty Soon.
Since it takes many years to plan and build nuclear power plants, I think we’ll need both for quite some time while we try and meet the increased demand for electricity.
Wind farms and solar farms can supplement power, but they are more a “feel good” solution to a problem that needs a real solution.
The dumbest reason I keep hearing for not building nuclear plants is that they take too long, like 10 years. I’ve been hearing that for well over ten years, now.
A good friend of mine was a nuclear power plant operator for Consumers Power for over 20 years until the plant reached the end its pre-planned useful life and was decommissioned. That plant wasn’t real far from here (resort/vacation area) and never caused anybody any concern. Yes, you can put one in my backyard.
A coal plant is to built near me too if it ever makes it through the red tape. I doubt it ever will.
Go Nukes! Go Coal! Go EVs!
CSA
Cool!-Kevin
I am not sure what you were trying to say, but I did find the comments about something that both increases cost of puts people out of work.
Yea, that is true, but that increased cost ends up employing people and in the case you are looking at it likely will increase the total number of people working.
I am no fan of moving to nuclear at this time. We have yet to have any idea of the long term cost of nuclear power really is. We have yet to fully decommission even one power station.
Before we saddle our grand children as well as our great great great grand children with the waste, lets not go big into this stuff until we know what we are really doing.
I do believe that in the long run, nuclear is likely to be a safe cheap fuel, but we have a lot of research and development to go first.
Kevin; I’m not sure what your point is. Agree, surface mining of coal, as practiced in many parts of the US, is already as efficient as it is going to get. So are the power plants generating the power.
If environmental legislation to reduce greenhous gasses is put in place, coal-fired power will go up sharply in price, twice as fast as gas powered electric power. This because of the added expense of separating and sequestering CO2 in the ground. But it will take a whole generation if, indeed, we go from coal to nuclear/solar/wind. The latest studies show that the US will rely on some form of coal generation for many years to come.
The only sure thing is that power costs will likely double in the next 10 years as we shift to, and incorporate, different forms of generation.
Nuclear, if properly implemented, is actially quite cheap, once the plant is running. France gets 75% of its power from nuclear, and has closed its inefficient coal mines. Closing down one industry and firing up another always causes job losses and some economic dislocation. Think of alll the buggy, buggy whip, and harness manufacturers, as well as livery stables put out of business by the automobile. If the change is gradual, the population adjusts and young people leave for greener pastures where new industries are created.
Pittsburg, once a dirty steel town, has reinvented itself as high tech center and improved it’s appearance immensely.
Detroit was once a hotbed of business machine manufacturing before computers and calculators appeared. Two years ago, the last person repairing manual typewriters in our town closed his shop permanently. We had an old Underwood machine, which we donated to a missionary organization operating in a remote area with unreliable electric power.
CSA, you’re right. that’s a dumb reason not to build nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, there are some excellent reasons for not building nuclear power plants.
Waste disposal is one. A really big one.
Cost to build is two.
lifespan is three.
Decommissioning costs is four.
Having to expend huge amounts of money to support decommissioned nuclear plants forever into all eternity is five. Nuclear plant sgenerate for 20 years…some extended longer…but they absorb money forever.
Here in NH when the arguments were originally made we were promised electicity beyond our needs and so cheap it would be offered at a monthly fee, because it would be too cheap to meter in units. Not only did that not happen, but w now buy power from Canada’s hydroelectric plant. Nuclear power is expensive.
I’m an advocate of EVs. I’m not an advocate of nuclear power plants. There are many of tens of thousands of hydroelectroc facilities operating at limited production due to obsolete and/or unmaintained equipment. Beyond that there are countless other potential sources, many hampered in their development by protests of communities against having power lines pass through their scenery.
Wind power…the late Ted Kennedy provented wind generators from being erected off Martha’s Vineyard…because he didn’t want to see windmills when he sailed.
Nuclear power has not turned out to be safe, cost effective, or nearly as productive as promised. It’s a bad idea. The subject could fill countless books. It already has.
I’m a semi nuclear fan, but still have lingering doubts about waste disposal. Not having to do radio activity, but for the possible more disastrous uses. Plant waste fuel can be reused. But with each reprocessing, material gets closer to weapons grade. There is also the potential use for “dirty” bombs in waste state.
I’m for decentralizing energy production and making it more localized and varied which energy companies are loathe to agree with. With the money they pump into the political arena, we’re stuck with more expensive and less dependable solutions. The stroke of a pen could do more for energy conservation than any new source could ever hope for.
We in the northeast are sitting on tidal/wind and other possible hydro power solutions that politics in favor of corp. interest have seen fit to put on the back burner for years. Many other areas can make the same statement.
The employment aspect is a non-issue. For one, the coal industry doesn’t employ a large percentage of the population even in coal states. And of that workforce, most of them are engineers, equipment operators, etc who can easily integrate into other, much larger industries.
It would probably be hard on certain smaller communities, but at scales larger than that there would be little to no effect.
One thing that got me thinking about coal,was that big ash pile blowout in Tennessee.“We have seen the enemy and they are us”(Pogo?)-Kevin
“Nuclear power has not turned out to be safe, cost effective, or nearly as productive as promised. It’s a bad idea. The subject could fill countless books. It already has.”
Nuclear power is safe, cost effective and productive in Europe. Why not here?
And what are the real costs of coal fired power plants? West Virginia and Kentucky are losing their mountains as they are leveled to get the coal; there is little to no remediation of the damage done by strip mining. What is the cost of acid rain from the Midwest falling on the Northeast? These costs are ignored. If you want a clean coal pant, just build a several hundred foot smokestack and dump the effluent on everyone’s yard three states over.
Kind of what I was thinking,these guys are paid rather well though,ever seen the aerial photographs of the Mountain top removal system? Very disturbing.-Kevin
JT, I don’t know the situation in Europe, but I know how it worked out here in NH. I pay for the “privalege” of having nuclear power every month. And that doesn’t even cover the massive costs of the massive evacuation system that had to be designed and implemented around Seabrook.
Just the waste alone from nuclear power plants is more dangerous than the entire operation of any other power generation technology. To categorize nuclear power as “safe” when considered aagainst other potential sources cannot possibly be done when the waste problem is taken into consideration.
Realize too that the costs promulgated at the inception of nuclear power tuurned out not to include the costs of the extensive safety systems, decommissioning costs, handling and storage of waste, and the evacuation systems. That’s why we ended up paying extra fees due to have Seabrook. The fees are itemized on our monthly bills, because they’re fixed costs rather than variable, but I can’t at the moment remember the terms used.
I hadn’t planned on even mentioning Chernoble. That’s a whole subject of its own.
In truth, the subject has been argued for many years now. There are those of us who believe nuclear power to have been a promise not fulfillable, and those who still support it. The opportunity for one side to sway the other has long since passed. We could go on forever disgreeing on this subject.
And here I was thinking you were gonna be talking about those “life gems” that take some of your ashes and make them into real diamonds for your loved ones to wear(i.e. earrings, rings, etc.)
Get closer to home with Three Mile Island in PA. Well, it’s not too far from my home. Fortunately, there were no ill effects discovered from TMI. About the same distance in the other direction, MD has two nuclear reactors at Calvert Cliffs. These have worked very well for Marylanders, and Constellation Energy would like to build another with their French partner. I don’t have a problem with it. It seems to me that a great deal of the cost is the deliberate effort by foes and politicians to thwart nuclear power, even though the only alternatives are coal, gas, and oil. Wind isn’t an alternative in MD. Those turbines on top of the mountains will spoil the view. I wouldn’t mind the wind turbines, but someone would, and the naysayers win every time.
I’m just a old lump of coal-hey the Russians can make all the 3 carat diamonds you want for about 20 dollars a shot.But guys we need energy,how are we gonna attain it?The American lifestyle requires a lot of ergs-Kevin
Someone does this? Weird. They could probably get 1-1/2 carats out of just my schnoz!
Yessir,resir,they sure do this-Kevin
Thanks for the link.
I went to the website FAQs and I’m having a really hard time with the nebulous answers to the frequently asked questions.
Diamonds from locks of hair?
Diamonds from Ludwig Van Beethoven’s hair?
100 diamonds from one individual?
On the other hand, there was a lady I knew some of whose hair might be fun to have made into a diamond to wear…
Sorry, the devil made me say it.
Just a minor nitpick, but they don’t make ashes into “real” diamonds, but synthetic diamonds. A diamond is a mineral, which by definition must be naturally occuring. More practically, diamonds cost thousands and thousands of dollars and people buy them because they’re pretty and rare, while synthetic diamonds are plentiful, cheap and mostly used for industrial purposes.
I suppose it doesn’t really matter because it’s not like you’re going to pawn the diamond made out of your loved one. Also it would be cool if you could get your loved one made into a diamond-tipped drill bit or saw!