Cash for Coal Anyone?
Since the "Cash for Clunkers" program was so successful in stimulating demand for new autos, why not use the same concept to stimulate the demand for new clean power plants to replace our dirty coal plants?
How about a "Cash for Coal" program? The government will pay you for the residual economic value of your coal plant and offer to finance the construction of a new, carbon-free base load power replacement plant of equal or greater capacity provided the cost of the plant is under $2,000 per KW of average capacity (not nameplate capacity). Nuclear power (such as the CANDU reactor) has recently been installed in China for less than this, so the numbers are reasonable. Of course, any clean power technology would qualify so long as the price target is met; I'm just using nuclear here as an example.
We are installing clean power in the world at nearly 100 times slower than we need to avert a climate crisis (350ppm being the new goal which we've already exceeded). Cap and trade isn't going to get us there fast enough. In fact, some influential thinkers, such as James Hansen, will tell you that that Waxman-Markey will actually slow down the rate we install new clean power.
To give you some idea of how far behind we are, consider that in 2008, for technosolar, peak capacity for solar was 13.5 GW and wind was 122 GW. The amount of wave power and hot dry rock geothermal is trivial (small scale demonstration only). Volcanic vent geothermal is 10.5 GW. Based on average capacity factors of 0.15 for solar, 0.25 for wind and 0.75 for geyser-derived geothermal, that represents a total average 'renewable energy' power (excluding biomass) of 40 GW, globally, in 2008.
We need about a GW of new clean power each day for the next 25 years to avert disaster. So in our entire history, we're 40 days into it. Let's say we installed all that power in the last 4 years to be aggressive. So that's 10GW /year or about 36 times slower than we should be.
But a "Cash for Coal" option could get us there at a rate of our choosing. If it doesn't work fast enough, all Congress has to do is raise the incentive price until it does.
What could be simpler?
If we are serious about saving the planet and achieving 350ppm, this may be the most economical way to accelerate the rate of retiring coal plants.
If we cannot virtually eliminate the CO2 emissions from coal plants (either by replacing them or capturing all their CO2 emissions), then it is IMPOSSIBLE to hit 350ppm or even 450ppm no matter what else we do. The planet is lost.
If we develop new technologies to suck massive amounts of CO2 from the air and sequester it and then require all power plant operators to be carbon neutral, that would work too. In the absence of a proven technology to do this economically, at large scale for all coal plants, and without risk of accidental release, the Cash for Coal option may be our cheapest solution since it doesn't generate the CO2 in the first place and ultimately is more cost effective.
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Why not allow US - the American people - to own the means of a vast portion of our own energy needs by financing solar panels for every home, business and other structure which can feasibly produce clean, harmless peaker power that does not produce extremely toxic radioactive waste, does not destroy millions of acres of our wilderness, does not deplete our aquifers, does not require new wasteful, SF6 spewing/eminent domain causing massive transmission infrastructure; and which supports democracy and energy independence instead of Big Energy monopolies?
Back in 2003, the DOE made it clear that 100% of our electricity needs could be met on existing rooftops, using only (super cheap thin film) PV. An additional 90% could be provided just from in-city brownfields. All within the built environment, all subject to personal ownership, all clean and harmless (assuming the PV is produced in the US or Japan, rather than China).
I am not interested in shifting my "dependence" from one Big Energy Robber Baron to another. The time is here for decentralized, democratic, clean, reliable and affordable energy and conservation, while new storage solutions come online. Enough Big Energy giveaways!
I'm down with this. Absolutely.
What would it cost, and how would we fund it? Are the numbers out there somewhere to be read?
I'm sure the answers are simpler than they might appear. I just don't have them in front of me.
Is Repower America onto this?
http://www.unplugsalem.org/
See Cernobel Accident
See multiple metallurgical analysis on the brittleness of Salem , Oyster Creek and Vermont Yankee to name a few. The "Brittleness" to the metal after years of radioactive bombardment coupled with high temp water has caused websites like the unplug salem referenced above to note the possibility of a nuke accident. Also as an aside see the Insurance paid out in the event of a Cernobel type accident. See it the $10 billion cap will cover the costs of making an area the size of Missouri uninhabitable for 1000's of years covers everything duh
Quoting you "Nuclear power (such as the CANDU reactor) has recently been installed in China for less than this, so the numbers are reasonable" and your $2k/kw allegation.
1100 Mw plant in US would cost $30 Billion to build and by Federal State and State required Rule for a Decommissioning trust fund would cost $20 -$30 billion to decommission. The tariffs would require the $20 to $30 billion be collected over the 27 year "Whole life depreciation" of a nuke plant. So your estimate of $2k/kw "upfront" costs of a nuke plant in US is really more like $28,000/kw, When you add on the tariff collections over 27 years that likely doubles to $56,000/kw. This does not even consider the costs of long term storage at 100,000+ years.
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Where are you getting those numbers?
The most recent reactor completed in the US was Diablo Canyon as far as i know. And that was constructed for about $5.8B and is about 2.2GW.
Where are you getting your $30B to build a 1.1GWe plant? That's preposterous.
Secondly, where are you getting your decomissioning numbers? How about using the real numbers of the last plant decomissioned in the USA?
1) number on decommissing trust fund is in Rule I wrote in 1984 for Missouri Public Service Commission- Callaway 1 cost $3.5 billion to build. Tariffs set up over 27 years using my Iowa Curve Whole life Depreciation of a nuke plant to collect thru tariffs $3 billion for decommissioning . Go to MPSC site look up the Rule for Decommissioning Trust fund-Go to 8th Circuit decision upholding MoPSC adoption of my position and recommendations- Go to MoPSC tariffs for Ameren and Kansas City Power & Light to see the "rider" embedded in every retail tariff.
2) Estimates in 1974 for Callaway 1 and Wolf Creek were $700 million . Actual add to rate base FOR BOTH Plants in 1984 was $3.5 billion or 500% increase over estimates.
3) Florida Utility Progress Energy in first year of 10 year construction plant for 1100 MW plant rose from $2.8 Billion to $8.5 billion a 300% increase with 9 more years of construction - this is posted on link on internet look up Progress Energy Nuke plant.
4) Callaway II original estimate was $6 Billion , that estimate changed in 3 months to $ 9 billion before any construction has/will? been/be undertaken
5 ) A trajectory of past construction inflation is 500% .Callaway II and Progress Energy actual estimate inflation make the $30 billion conservative
6 ) no response on long term storage costs?take a look at the $ 9 Billion down a rat hole at Yucca Mountain
“Entrepreneur and philanthropist”
Why not form a company in association with energy suppliers? Installing metered solar power collection devices to homes. The occupier then pays for the “locally generated” energy used to top up their usual supply usage. Thereby negating transmission losses. When the cost of the initial installation is recovered (obviously obtained at a reduced rate due to the volumes purchased), the rest is profit. Less imported fuel, increased employment (in manufacturing and installation). And no additional outlay for the customer.
You have a pretty good idea, but I think what you are missing is the political difficulty eliminating all those coal industry jobs.
In many coal producing areas, there is simply no other industry to employee people. Coal producing states have a lot of political power, and those politicians know they don't stand a chance of getting reelected if their opponents can successfully label them as "job killers"
We need to first sponsor companies to go into those places and provide other jobs. Only then will we get politicians to support any move to eliminate coal. Then go ahead with your incentive program to replace coal with clean energy.
Steve - "What could be simpler?" Here's what:
Finance new clean-energy sources, not from the federal budget, but from carbon fees on fossil-fuel energy. Set the subsidy rate to give carbon-free energy a stable $100-per-ton price advantage over coal.
How much would the fees be? Initially zero, because there would initially be no "new" sources. Fees would increase as new low-carbon energy gains market share, but will not actually reach $100-per-ton until electricity is virtually carbon-free. When fees reach $100-per-ton the aggregate fees will again be zero because there will be no emissions.
During the transition phase, price competition from a growing, subsidized clean-energy sector will help maintain moderate energy prices and will protect ratepayer interests more effectively than giving them free "carbon dividends" (which would make consumers economically dependent on carbon emissions). And a stable price incentive would, of course, maintain market stability more effectively than the jerky jalopy of cap-and-trade.
Dear Steve, I also follow you.
All your articles, at least which I read put good solutions for absolutely wrong ideas, that GHG are main player in nature of global warming.
Mass media put ahead GHG forgetting about:
1. Soot which cover new snow after few hours and it reduce reflection odf direct sun radiation.
2. Tilling which reduce at least on month reflection of direct sun radiation and evaporation of water.
3. Deforestation, which reduce evaporation of water.
4. Food production need a lot of energy, which is mostly from fossil fuel.
5. Food production bring to big cities almost all food, where waste of human, animal do not have enough vegetation to reproduce GHG from decay.
6. Stalk of one year vegetation on the field after harvesting decay faster than usualy in nature.
7. Roads as interstate, as in cities significantly influent climate.
Blaming only GHG in these and many others cases are not scientific.
Reasons for GW are dipper than it describe mass media.
In this case it is not so important if research understand what mean peak watt, or you will found new fission or even fusion nuclear plant.
ANY SOURCE OF ENERGY EVEN WITH ZERO EMISSION WILL NOT SAVE PLANET FROM GLOBAL WARMING, IF IT OCCUR.
I INVITE YOU TO PUT YOUR ENERGY AND KNOWLEDGE TO CHANGE MISUNDERSTANDING OF REASON FOR GLOBAL WARMING.
OUR GOVERNMENT THE SAME AS MASS MEDIA ARE FIGHTING WITH WRONG TOOLS TO PREVENT DISASTER. IT IS DANGEROUS!
See Steve Kirsch's Profile
Global warming is impacted by a lot of things.
I chose to focus on the one thing that needs the most help.
Preventing deforestation would certainly help, but eliminating the emissions from coal plants is definitely job #1.
Instead of your joke about nuke power in China how about coal gasification, coal carbon capture, Fluidized beds. The Germans in WWII converted coal big time to run their tanks and vehicles. Nuke is not the way to go. I suggest you check out the insurance requirements of a nuke accident ( $10 billion max) that would render an area the size of Missouri uninhabitable for 1000's of years. I suggest you check out the fallacy of long term storage ( see Yucca $9 billion rat hole) for used fuel rods with isotopes having a lethal radioactive half live of 100,000+ years. Don't come back with reprocessing as a solution , Carter vetoed Senate Bill 1445 because reprocessing has by product of nuke weapons grade plutonium and lethal half life is still 3000+ years. Check out real life of pools now storing these used fuel rod isotopes . They only have a real life of 40 years max.
Prove you numbers of 2$per watt, with a receipt please, not just some article saying it was that much.
Rooftop solar panels are already cheaper at 3 cents per kwh, and they can get insurance without federal co signing.
Recycling our landfills and sewage can create all the carbon negative fuel and fertilizer solar doesn't.
1 billion dollars invested in thin films solar factories can produce 1 GW average per day easily. (4GW peak per day.
No increase in nuclear industry leading to proliferation and dirty bombs.
1 dollar carbon tax applied to rooftop solar and biochar of wastes.
even if the nuke is cheaper to build it ends up costing much more than solar over the long term that is per unit of energy delivered.
Solar reduces grid load, nukes increase it.
see my profile for proof.
See Steve Kirsch's Profile
You've been spamming all my posts with this idiotic 3 cents per kwh for rooftop solar.
I told you you need to give me the name of a real person who is paying 3 cents per kw.
You refused to do that.
Your future posts will be deleted until you have produced the name and contact info of any real person in the USA who is really producing electricity from rooftop solar for a cost of 3 cents per kwh.
CASH FOR COAL MAY PROVE TO BE A GOOD IDEA!
Geologist John Atcheson recently updated his 2004 OpEd piece: Ticking Time Bomb, with: Global Warming and the Only Question that Matters. Both are at www.commondreams.org He states that continuing to burn fossil fuel threatens millions of lives - and may soon pass a tipping point makeing it impossible to stop a cataclysmic series of events - that have already begun.
He suggests we have only a year or two to make the decisions that might reverse the threat.
See: www.aesopinstitute.org for a few articles that address the largely unrecognized possibilities.
The most recent one is entitled: 4 Steps to Revive the Auto Industry and the Economy. It outlines radically new technology that opens surprising paths beyond fossil fuel.
A huge number of jobs might be created.
The science is new and not found in textbooks. Skeptics will understandably be legion. But independent laboratory validation, followed by mass production of these new systems, is now on the horizon.
Fractional Hydrogen, one of these scientific breakthroughs, was recently validated by Rowan University in connection with technology developed by a competitor. Other laboratories will doubtless reproduce the experiments.
As they prove their potential, these new technologies will change most of what is presently believed about energy.
They open the door to cost-competitive possibilities that can change literally everything that depends on inexpensive, renewable, distributed energy.
For even more information, see: www.chavaenergy.com Look under the Heading HOW?
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