Coal in a hard place.. expecte to produce < 30% of electricity by end of decade

Does the current cost of natural gas reflect the possibility of long term
environmental damage resultant from "fracking." Those damages would/
will not be air quality related, but local water quality related and long lived.

Due growing concerns along these lines and rising sentiment to curtail
fracking, it seems to me to be risky to predict how much natural gas will
be available 10 years out. Less future gas = higher than projected costs...

No?

 

Compared to the risks of coal? Yes, risks of fracking are not nearly as big as what we know coal is doing.

Compared to wind? No likely wind is safer, but wind works best with natural gas filling in peaks and valleys. RIsks of nuclear, I'd say natural gas is much lower. We probably need better fracking regulations, but lighting water on fire like in the movie, that happened with plain old methods of getting natural gas from normal formations.

I don't think anything is going to stop shale gas from getting produced. It would be nice if people put up some smart regulation for fraking, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Biggest source of water pollution I see is from farming, but I don't see anyone really trying to stop the pesticides and fertilizers.

 

But then maybe, viewed from a philosophical/moral perspective, high
natural gas use predicated on high output via fracking and the resulting
contamination of aquifers/water tables is the right thing to do.

In this way, only we; our country, our people, our land suffers the long
term devastating effects of our energy overuse and wastefulness "brought
home to roost." Poetic justice?

On the other hand, air polution from our burning coal becomes a global
problem, and as such merely a Tragedy of the Commons.

 

The combination of PV or wind for electricity, and gas for heat, hot water, and cooking seems to be the best one. But there are those that want to use solar for more, and in that case these heat pump water heaters make sense along with solar PV. Solar PV seems to correspond with peak demand over here, while hot water needs have nothing to do with it, which makes it even better for the grid.

 

Please note that the massive acid rain problems of the Northeast USA were massively reduced when scrubbers were required to be put on plants. That very clearly was a serious pollution problem that killed off the entire fish population of many lakes.

For example here is a decription of Brooktrout Lake in New York:

Once a flourishing fishery, the last documented catch came in 1975. By 1984, when Siegfried first visited, Brooktrout had become one of more than 350 Adirondack lakes that had become highly acidified (a pH of about 5.5 or less) and no longer sustained fish. Soon, major media were featuring dramatic stories on these “ghost lakes,”...

Here is the result 20 years after requiring scrubbers on the output stacks of Coal Plants:

But in the Adirondacks, it has sparked a cautious celebration. “The reduced visibility means there is more algae and plankton in the water—and that means life in Brooktrout Lake is starting to recover from acid rain,” says biologist Clifford Siegfried of the New York State Museum in Albany, who has been studying the lake for more than 25 years. “It is a really encouraging sign.” So encouraging, in fact, that some 35 years after the lake became too acidic to support fish, biologists have been able to restock it with—what else?—colorful, darting brook trout.

 

PV converts about 10 - 15% of sun radiation to AC electricity; solar thermal converts about 70% of sun radiation to heat. Solar thermal does often use a pump, but when I checked a year ago it ran at 20 watts after start-up, and that is at most for 12 hours a day.

Unsubsidized, installed solar thermal is about $6k for a two panel array of 7 square meters. If my arithmetic is right, that is about $1.2/watt STC. Compare that to the unsubsidized, installed cost of PV at $5-8/watt.

 

I get that - we're just talking past each other.

 

As DOE said, it works and makes economic and energy sense...you vs. DOE...we report, you decide.

Well if Dept of Energy is correct and it will cut energy usage and cost for hot water by 50-80% that would be drop in US energy consumption of 4-6%. That's a lot of forward progress and easily and cheaply gained forward progress to 50% reduction in US energy usage.

 

We visited the fish-less lakes of the Adirondacks with our canoe in 1978. Most of the many smaller lakes were all acidic/fishless and the big lakes were OK using lime to adjust pH. I'll have to go back and check up on the improvement. The issue up there is granite soil has no natural buffering so that's why the acid rain hurts that region.

P.S.- Believe that canoe trip is where I developed some of my eco-attitudes.

 

No, its your stupidity of an idea. If you have an old inefficient water heater, and replace it with an efficient solar, you will save energy. But, if you buy a new expensive high efficientcy water heater it will cost less and save more energy.

Simply put, solar hot water heaters are a bad idea versus solar pv. Your idea is to waste large amounts of cash and save very little energy. YOu are a lier if you continue to pretend the doe agrees with you. Why spend money to save maybe 5% or less over a a high efficiency water heater, when you could add PV or buy wind and move 70% of the average homes power to renewable. YMMV.

 

Remember, we level mountains to mine coal, and have little in the way regulations concerning the toxic trailings. Not saying fracking isn't bad. The entire drilling mud ingredients behind hidden behind trade secrets is BS.

 

You have to remember the cap and trade did not pass. Cap and tax had huge give aways to coal utilities that would have pocketed the money as profits when they were under the caps, as coal plants were going to close down any way. If implemented correctly a cap and trade of ghg would have increased electric rates a little, with money going into the general fund reducing the deficit. It would have also sped the transition to natural gas and wind, which IMHO is good for the country, and reduced unhealthy pollution. Which means you can not blame ghg legislation on cost of electricity.

 

Yes, you are spot on. Doing anything without a viewpoint of sustainability is always exploiting what you can today with no concern about the effects tomorrow.

However, any sustainability approach that don't seriously take economics aspects is just as flawed as approaches that don't seriously take environmental destruction to heart. Threading the needle of long term planning that navigates both needs to overcome the following (present day) realities:
1) Corporations are organized to make money. Period. Without sensible regulations very, very bad environmental destruction will occur.
2) Politicians are organized to get reelected and push political goals, most often very short sighted agendas.

So how come we have mostly solved the Ozone destruction, kept a few fisheries sustainable, improve acid rain issues, and have a strong wind power start in spite of these realities? As far as I can determine through lots of reading the answer involves:

1) Getting as many people educated on the details as possible. The focus is NOT on educating everyone, it should be on educating those that are capable of being educated (e.g. PriusChat readership). Anybody whose energy education is primarily derived from TV does not qualify. Likewise, anyone who considers both political party approaches as faulty is probably getting educated correctly.

2) Getting well worked out regulation into a sensibly regulated free market.

 

How true.

 

DOE disagrees with your views as noted above and states that a solar hot water heater will cut that portion of users energy costs (typically 7% of total for average homeowner) by 50-70%. DOE also notes this will provide economic payback.

Sorry you don't agree with the facts but those are the facts.

You seem to prefer having just solar electric panels vs. solar electric and hot water. As pointed out, most of the solar installers will recommend both as the solar hot water heater is more efficient use of solar energy than solar electric so having both gets the most solar power utilization per foot and is most cost effective.

 

Natural gas is mainly methane. This is one of the most sustainable things possible. We can make it from garbage, we can make it from sewage, we can make it from woody plants that convert solar energy. Both electricity and methane are sustainable, but we are producing them in unsustainable ways simply because it is less expensive.

+1

I would add some politicians have the long view, and some simply are concerned with raising as much money as possible for the next election. Many are a combination of both.

In Carter versus Carter Coal in 1935, brought up recently because it was a commerce clause case, is interesting to see how interests have changed. The supreme court ruled that coal mining was a local evil, not a national evil and thus the Guffey Act was unconstitutional. What did the federal government wish to do back then, not reduce pollution, they wanted to price fix coal so that coal mines would be more profitable and provide better wages and working conditions. Afterward labor protection was removed and the federal government just decided to price fix coal to make the mines more profitable.

Fast forward to '78 and politicians fearing that natural gas would run out, or that coal companies were not making enough money, made it illegal to build base load natural gas power plants, ensuring the bulk of new power plants would be coal. They also appropriated money to turn coal to gasoline and subsidies for mining and low environmental regulation. All the while tying up natural gas with heavy regulation that made it unprofitable to produce more.

Often the goals are good - increase employment and better working conditions in 1935 - often they are bad, but either way currently congress is full of politicians set to promote coal versus natural gas or other alternatives, and most of them have poor motives.

Getting the money out of it would help. How many in congress take money and do a quid pro quo? Calling them on it would help.

I honestly think better regulation of the fracking companies would help natural gas expand in better ways and increase their long term profits. But as long as there are a few bad actors the others will follow. I am not an expert, but the biggest risk to fracking is pipes and concrete wells cracking under pressure and allowing the bad stuff from down bellow come up. People think its about the clean water act, its not really, but the epa should be regulating this on its own. If congress had proper legislation they would grant the epa this fairly new power, and at the same time have them regulate releases from fracking on oil wells as well as gas. Good environmental regulation and a level playing field greatly supports wind and natural gas, and would shut down coal much faster. We already know coal gets a pass on many of the bad historic mining practices that still go on.

The worst coal plants are being shut down not in a systematic way, but through pollution lawsuits and epa regulating them against pollution crossing state lines. Again this is a bad ad hoc arrangement, that is costly to environmental groups and industry. Congress needs to step up and passing some good legislation like the cap and trade of co2 and nox that was successful in the 90s, and expand it to include particulates and mercury removing grandfathered exemptions. Congress is fighting the epa for a few corporate interests instead.

 

The DOE does not disagree with me. The DOE has not compared them on its site, but have been pushing pv not solar water heaters, because that is what energy and economics say. Your facts are old and moldy. If solar water heaters make sense, then solar PV will make more sense, unless as mentioned you are heating a swimming pool or are off the grid.

As pointed out in that greenbuilders piece, some builders are continuing to recommend solar hot water heaters out of an emotional tie. They are simple and cheaper and historic, but the bang for buck does not makes sense today. If your solar installer is proposing both they are out of touch or incompetent if you don't have a pool. Can you email one, and post the response here? We have a local company that is importing the inexpensive isreali water heaters, that are applicable here since it is hot and we don't have freezes. They recomend PV for most people. They have these inexpensive units for people that don't care if there water is always hot enough My local utility subsidizes solar pv and solar hot water heaters 65%, and have low interest loans from a local credit union. New homes seem to all go up with PV whether they are eco or not, since installation cost is not an issue. The ecobuilders add geothermal heat pumps for hvac and hot water, they don't add solar hot water heaters as that would cost more and be higher maintenance. Again there are huge subsidies for solar hot water heaters in many places like mine, but if they are the same or more for solar pv, solar water heaters make no sense. Price them out and work the numbers. Make sure you use the electricity that you still need to use with the solar water heater.

The largest installations of solar hot water heaters are china now. They make sense there because they do not have good natural gas resources and the government makes them with low labor costs. They also appear to make sense in isreal and turkey. Solar PV will make solar hot water heaters obsolete in china soon too. Learn and drop it. Stop pretending that facts are on your side. Solar panel and installation costs have dropped.

 

The DOE site was "pushing" solar hot water as efficient and economical. You keep saying DOE is not making that comment and the quote and link prove you wrong.

You are enthusiastic for solar electric only. That's nice but your enthusiasm is leading you to make statements that are clearly contradicted by facts.

The fact that the DOE statement about benefits and efficiency of solar hot water.

The fact that solar hot water is many times more efficient than solar electric.

The single most efficient use of solar energy in a home HVAC system is solar hot water heater and radiant floor heating.

 

I wish my local solar DHW installers offered prices similar to what is shown in DOE's cost estimator. But they don't, not even close. The prices I've been given don't have a snowball's chance of paying back in my lifetime.