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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Hi Cam-
To address your thoughts (and thank you for your reply):
I have two concerns:
1) What is really green
2) Where does the US see an economic benefit
I understand there is some conflict in those questions. My concern is that the US is spending big bucks in other countries that create more waste than would be created in the US. There is a dichotomy here; pay them to pollute the world or put the money into our economy?
I do not see solar as green on an industrial scale. To do solar on a residential scale I am all for.
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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There is no energy option that is green OR sustainable given our current scale of industry.
I love broccoli.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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johntp ain't far off in his criticism, although he neglects to mention that the waste stream generated from San Onofre back in 1964 "would never be permitted in the US" today, either.
Can't respond to that as I was not a part of it. My OT discussion is to the solar energy equation. Thread drift; my bad.
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tooth
Trad climber
B.C.
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There is a dichotomy here; pay them to pollute the world or put the money into our economy
It is called pollution outsourcing. When I was in Russia in the 90's they had terrible pollution coming from some factories in the Ural Mountains. My friends laughed when I asekd them what it was. Catalytic convertor factories. The US didn't want as much pollution they said, so they made a product which was terrible in how it polluted in production, essentially shifting the net pollution.
Another shift in net pollution is electric cars. Nickel mines in Canada are terrible. Strip the land bare and never grow back kind of terrible. Then the nickel is shipped to the other side of planet earth for production into batteries. Then back around to assemble into cars, then back again to sell the cars! But at least the air in LA isn't as thick as it used to be!
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Dr. Christ
Mountain climber
State of Mine
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It ain't all about the $. The convenience, mobility, and quick energy available from fossil fuels is absolutely fantastic. Short lived and not without consequences, but still fantastic.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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I have mixed feelings about this shutdown.
On the one hand, nuclear generally makes me nervous. The cowardice of not coming up with long term solutions to waste probably bothers me the most.
I can't help but feel that the reactor could have been made adequately safe, but the factions that were set on putting their will on top of what people generally feel, won out.
Instead, instantaneously, we will have a massive increase in carbon release, and that is really unfortunate. After all, we cut the energy source by that much, we did NOT cut the energy need.
I still think that the best solution is having diverse sources, so no one source is subject to cut-off for the same reason.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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I'm a liberal. I love nuclear power. Don't lump us all together.
I also see a future that includes solar power and consider projects like Ivanpah to be steps towards that, not the end product or the final solution. we have to do something, and hopefully something includes large solar projects and NEW nuclear projects.
And I think the boobs will be there for quite some time.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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There are something like 300,000 mirrors for the three towers.
Somebody has to keep those things clean. Paging Cosmiccragsman!
You do have to wonder about wind/sand damage on those mirrors over time.
Pretty awesome sight nonetheless.
There is no energy option that is green OR sustainable given our current scale of industry.
Yup^^^ Every option has it's issues.
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Scole
Trad climber
Joshua Tree
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All other factors aside; an aging nuclear power plant in an urban area, especially one that has been hot-rodded to increase output, is a setup for another major nuclear disaster.
There are millions of people who live within a 50 mile radius of San Onofre.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Once again, I understand that as a byproduct of the steam operation, the heliostat mirrors get cleaned by the system.
I am not a proponent of this installation at this point, even though one dear reader above seem to think so. I just don't know enough about it. And of course neither does he. What I clearly do like already though is the fact that it is pretty simple tech and materials, though gobs of them. It is not nearly as menacing a design as some other methods of generation. And it does not have a waste product that we cannot really handle.
When I saw the first array being trialed a few weeks ago, and I understand it was not being run at full capacity, just enough to do some tests and blow scale and debris out of the steam part of the system, it did seem that I couldn't really safely look at the top of the tower. It was that bright 8,000 feet away. It was the nearest to I-15; the other two towers are much further away.
There was plenty of opposition to this Ivanpah installation when it was in permit stage. Much of it was based on wildlife and ecosystem concerns which I am sure were and are very real. Measures supposedly mitigating these issues were then built in somehow. I have a large report downloaded but think also I will need much more than that to comprehend the decision to proceed building it as a correct one. And to determine whether the mitigative steps in place are sufficient or a reasonable practice.
Watching the thing in operation is really really impressive though. I had no idea what I was looking at for a while and had to reason out what I was seeing and then google it too.
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Lets get real here. That's not a "power plant".. it's really an alien counter-attack weapon.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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"My OT discussion is to the solar energy equation. "
johntp, you sound pretty well informed about the true impacts of solar energy, and I share some of those concerns. However, I always have trouble applying such views when they come from someone with an (apparently) narrow, specializing perspective.
I'm not ripping on you, but my point is that every source of energy has tradeoffs to it, and every choice has an undesirable impact. Your views of the negative impacts of solar are probably quite valid, but I'd be more interested in hearing your view of alternatives alongside the negative criticism of the impacts of one particular source.
Edit: Almost forgot the OP....I've been a lifelong skeptic of nuclear, and having grown up in SD county, always kinda feared San Onofre. I'll be driving by it in the next day or two, and will bid it a fond farewell.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Justhemaid...I'm with you...that's exactly what Hahn saw...A tower top that was too bright to look at..Has anyone verified that the parts are built in China or is that another smoke screen to hide alien intervention...?
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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BrightSource Engineering and its partner, Bechtel, were signatory to the SBCTC and the Building & Construction Trades Council of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. In other words, its a full-on union project.
The majority of materials and supplies to the project were domestic, coming from 18 states. More than 50% of ocean freighted materials were on US-flagged vessels.
The gear boxes for the heliostats (that was a big number…170,000 or maybe double that for all axis?!) come from Traverse City, MI: Cone Drive Corporation.
The prefab steel structures came from Surprise, AZ: Gestamp Renewables.
Here is a map showing the downstream domestic/USA benefits of the construction project:
Here is a blurb on the environmental aspects of Ivanpah particularly vis a vis competing technologies:
Here below is BrightSource's image of the first steam "blow off", showing the system running at some lower level capacity. See that many of the mirrors are not focused on the tower but laying flat/horizontal. What I saw was quite a bit more intense than this photo represents and I thought maybe it would become a big issue especially at full power---I can't say:
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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I just don't know enough about it. And of course neither does he.
Assuming you are referring to me there. I've been in the power industry for around fifteen years. Am not an environmental engineer; I'm a mechanical engineer.
My experience is relative to natural gas, parabolic solar and photovoltaic solar power generation. I can't speak to nuclear, wind or coal.
I don't have numbers, charts and graphs; my perception is the figures are distorted depending on who is pushing their objective and are worthless.
In general, power suppliers tend to minimize their environmental impact on an operating basis. What is not apparent is the environmental impact of the manufacturing processes behind the technologies. The impact of the production / disposal of millions of parabolic mirrors and photovoltaic cells and the associated installation equipment is never addressed.
Agree that all energy resources have environmental trade offs.
The solar plants I've been involved with average 1400 acres. Much more than a gas station.
Electrical cabling is required to tie all the units in. We are talking miles and miles of cable for a single plant. There are so many bits and pieces that need to be manufactured; cable, nuts, bolts, wire ties, rebar, steel, concrete that it boggles my mind.
My point is that we need to understand the cradle to grave cost of our energy sources.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Thanks for saying the obvious so I don't have to type it
"It amazes me that we filled up the entire LA basin with houses and cement but folks are disturbed about a small array in the mostly unpopulated desert - an array that doesn't take up more room than your average full service gas station.
The alternative?
Radiation accidents and exposure that we will mostly never know about or one so large that Southern California will be uninhabitable for a few million years..
How many accidents and close calls has this been since Fukishima had that minor steam leak? I've lost track ..."
Big difference. Nothing a solar plant can do will kill thousands to millions of people and make an area off limits for countless generations. It must stop. Fukashima proved it
Peace
Karl
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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We may not need a bunch of Nuke reactors, but having 1 per State, for example, is a great back-up for all this Green bullshit that is still unreliable.
Just sayin'
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Karl,
We'd have to be hit by a giant earthquake and tsunami for that to happen. And if that ever does come to pass, we're all screwed anyway - nukes or not.
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John M
climber
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We'd have to be hit by a giant earthquake and tsunami for that to happen.
he was talking about a meltdown or any other kind of nuclear accident where material is released. Karl was not specifically saying an earthquake or a tidal wave to cause the exact same type incident. Nuclear energy is vulnerable to all kinds of accidents/natural disasters. The nuclear industry will tell you that there is back ups for backups, but we now know that even the backups can fail, and we can't plan for everything. Last year some scientist went to congress to warn them that our power grid is vulnerable to a massive solar flare. Like one that happened in the 1800s. If a plant doesn't get power from the grid to run its cooling units, then it has to go on backup power. We have had multiple incidents where backup generators failed. I asked a question a few years ago about why nuclear plants don't have smaller power generators that run off steam so that they could create their own back up power in amounts that they could use without needing massive transformers that would reduce the power that they already produce to an amount that they could use. I was told that that would cost too much and the back up generators were sufficient.
The point is that solar energy doesn't have the inherent risk if something fails that nuclear energy does.
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