Current Version (what you will see when you click):

Permanent Version (what I saw this day):

 

Current Version (what you will see when you click):

Permanent Version (what I saw this day):

 

Just a few bit of info =)

Merry Christmas.

 

One of my biggest concerns about how we get our electricity is how long it will last, how long until we run out of the sources? There are methods that have waste/pollution, and then there are the clean methods like Solar and Wind. The methods that have waste/pollution tend to have the biggest bang for the buck, but we don't know how long our sources will last or if they will make us sick. The clean methods don't really require us to mine for fuel so the potential to last forever is good, we will still need the material to make and repair the solar and wind plants but there isn't really any waste/pollution.

 

In order for us to keep our home planets' value, we should take as much care of it as possible. There are jobs that people have that are important for survival, what good will the money be if it is too unhealthy to live in the world with cheap electricity? I think there will be a small shift from our current sources to cleaner sources, some of the jobs will also shift there to building and maintaining solar and wind plants. Monthly fees are still possible since the power is from plants and not the sometimes unaffordable systems that are built into the home. This will greatly reduce our resource usage and pollution without ditching our current multi-billion(?) dollar sources.

 

Here are some quotes from an article I found.
"For about $55 per megawatt-hour, EPRI found, coal could be gasified and burned, and the carbon dioxide sequestered. Power plants running on gasified coal have not been commercialized yet, but conventional pulverized-coal plants could be built that would sequester their carbon dioxide, and they would produce power at about $65 per megawatt-hour. Those technologies are perceived by investors as lower risk, and the United States has hundreds of years' worth of coal."

 

"But GNEP may be a mirage. For one thing, the sponsors have hardly any idea what it would cost; the $250 million proposed by the Bush administration is for a program that hopes to figure that out. GNEP backers say their technology will expand the supply of nuclear fuel enough to slash carbon emissions virtually forever and allow us to avoid the specter of choosing between global warming and very high-priced energy. It would appear, however, that saving money on nuclear fuel may be practical only if price is no object."
Quoted from: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17059/page5/

 

"Most of the initial $250 million would be spent just to study how the new technologies might work and what they would cost. But its proponents' thinking is that we need a very long-term vision. The Energy Department predicts that 1,000 nuclear power plants will be running worldwide by midcentury, up from 441 today. And the existing uranium supply, GNEP advocates argue, won't feed that many reactors."
Quoted from: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17059/page3/

 

"Such reactors are the most promising near-term alternative to additional conventional coal plants that produce prodigious amounts of carbon dioxide. But it is uncertain when or if they will be built. If it is to happen, the industry must persuade investors to take a big plunge. That means convincing them that the plants will compete financially with other inherently low-carbon-emitting sources, like wind turbines, or with coal plants that sequester their carbon dioxide -- a technology that may be achievable but hasn't yet been demonstrated (see " The Dirty Secret ") . According to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit utility research organization based in Palo Alto, CA, whose members include owners of coal and nuclear plants, the near-term reactor designs may barely be cheaper than the sequestration technology. And if the United States puts no constraints on carbon emissions, nuclear power will have to keep competing with conventional coal plants."
 
"Meanwhile, the industry is still waiting for a solution to its chief near-term problem: what to do with waste piling up at existing nuclear plants. Skip Bowman, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group, says that without a speedy waste solution, today's tentative renaissance will "come to a screeching halt." A company cannot get a license for a new plant without a plan for the waste, and at this point, waiting for the Energy Department to open its long-delayed Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada does not constitute a plan. In this context, Bowman says, GNEP presents a "distraction factor." "
Quoted from: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17059/page2/

 

"Today, a company called Skyonic announced a novel new system, Skymine, which uses the carbon dioxide emitted from smokestacks to make baking soda. According to Skyonic CEO Joe David Jones, the system will be powered by waste heat from factories, and will produce food-grade baking soda."
Quoted from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/29/climate.change.soda/index.html

 

So much information here. About the cap and trade system, I am afraid that this system may allow the worst polluting plants to continue for too long without limiting their pollution. It may not provide enough incentive to clean up, and that may lead to new "worst polluters". But then again, it might be a giant leap in the right direction.