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  #31  
Old 08-12-2008, 05:02 AM
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Stan,

I am with ya on the junk yard that is CA. I live here and see it. I find it remarkable that the state keeps fielding new generators without keeping what they have in any state of repair. If it is beyond repair then remove it.

I won't agree with you on the maintenance of wind generation. I have seen the NREL and government data and what you said is incorrect. As a matter of fact if CA is any guide the real issue is that the places fielding wind don't treat it like the would a power plant and actually pretend to maintain them. The cost per watt minus all the subsidies is cheaper for wind than any power production method your going to find over the life span of the installed plants. So I would encourage you to look up the numbers.

Your right however if the state, communities, or companies that are fielding wind cannot maintain them then people should be NIMBY.

As far as a guy in it for a buck I guess you didn't check out any of the videos and what is going on with pickensplan.org. It doesn't sound like this is about the money, but I sure wouldn't begrudge him for putting his money on the line and making money. That is what free market and free enterprise is about right? This doen't appear to be a scam, but thats just my opinion.

I am watching the results and developments for the new large scale solar operations and again I am not sure where your getting the info on the "major issue" with solar, but once again it sounds as if normal wear on the panels is being blown out of proportion. There are PV panels that have been in production for over 50 years that are still in service. The big experiments right now are in the solar reflectors with several big megawatt installations that they are testing and deploying new storage technologies. Check out eSolar which has Google's backing right now, and look at a company called Solar Reserve. There are many others as there is a rush to bring this to market. If your mind is made up that renewables won't work then don't waste your time. But if you want to see what is possible and how fast this is developing I think you will be impressed. These are major jumps in baseline power.

And onto your last point that solar is insignificant. Global demand for photo-voltaic (solar) power hit 3,073 megawatts in 2007, up from 1,985 megawatts in 2006 — 54% growth. That's on top of 41% growth in 2006 and 34% in 2005. Solar is on fire right now and the technology is leapfrogging very quickly now. Now we are starting to see new technologies drive down cost and drive up density. This isn't new technology, but it is a new industry in that energy prices have now made it competitive, and new technologies are starting to show that solar can actually have an edge over other technologies.

Now I am going to say what no politician will say, but every one of them know it is the truth. We cannot consume at the rate we consume energy today. We have to adapt new technology to conserve power. We will have to learn how to adapt, and change to the world we live in. Nobody wants to hear that, but it is the truth. Even if the government does nothing which would probably be the best thing, prices and economics will force us to change. We cannot spend our future and our money funding terrorists. We can all complain, bellyache, and curse all we want, but it is the world we live in. Renewable new technology will be a big part in that world or we will be forced back to the horse and buggy days... It is our choice.

Anyone wanna talk about nuclear power?

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  #32  
Old 08-12-2008, 05:34 AM
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I'm not going to pick apart that last statement.
But one thing did stand out...

Quote:
The cost per watt minus all the subsidies is cheaper for wind than any power production method your going to find over the life span of the installed plants.
Without tax subsidies, where does "Wind" stand, on the "Profitability" scale?? Right alongside milk and wheat?


As for maintaining the generators. The Banning/Palm Springs generators look just like what is happening in Idaho, south of Rupert, in Colorado north of Lamar, and in Kansas, east of Wichita. Nice new generators are erected, and oil is leaking from them, so they sit idle. There are not enough men or women trained to maintian them.

My friend Lance was laid off by ALCOA in 1997. He was "retrained" for repairing generators. The company he works for has 10 crews, that work a rotating shift, which gives each crew member 5 days every 23 days, home time. Lance say's that if they are lucky, they can rig up and rain the oil from a generator in 4 days. Cleaning and parts replacement can take another 2 to 3 weeks, before oil is replaced.

In a coal fired operation, as with an oil refinery and a chemical plant, service is scheduled, and units are brought up and down in series, according to need. Ideally each unit is repaired before another is taken out of service..not always the case...but it is what is planned. Instead of having an 8 man crew working on one small unit, during daylight hours only, as they have to do with "Wind", power, refinery, or chemical plants, have hundreds of workers, working in shifts around the clock, making the planned or needed repairs.

Which do you suppose is more economical? Servicing one 1,500 mega-watt plant in 35-45 days..or one 3.6 mega-watt generator being serviced in 15-28 days?? In all of it, one primary thing is being forgotten. "Oil" is still needed, whether it be coal fired, natural gas fired, or "Wind" generated.
We (the company I am leased to)just finished hauling 136 loads, at 6400 gallons per load, of transformer oil, from a processing plant outside of Shreveport LA, to a power generator in Bridgeport CT. The project started back in november. That was just one project, replacing what was originally built and placed into service in 1938.

Sooner or later the Sierra Clubs and Audubon
Societies are going to "come out against" wind generation. It is just a matter of time.
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  #33  
Old 08-12-2008, 06:46 AM
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I am sure older and earlier technology has it share of problems as early units have been nothing more than glorified tests. Especially on large scale stuff like they are fielding now. Again it sounds like growing pains to me. Frankly I plan on having wind and solar at my home... and the peta, sierra, or whatever tree hugging organization can try to take my equipment down... :lol:

I don't have any opposition to coal. I have opposition to this clean coal nonsense they are pushing. It is a high dollar boondoggle. I think we have to bring everything to the table and that includes coal and nuclear. The time is too short, and the lead times are too long to stand up new plants if we don't start to do it now.

Since your convinced renewables won't work then I hope your prepared to deal with the severe oil crunch that is upon us and getting worse. I am saying renewables will have to be a part of the overall mix of the total us energy scene. US oil produciton rates are declining at roughly 2-5% a year. We were just barely above 5 mbpd in 2007. New oil discoveries are not coming online fast enough or anywhere near our decline rate just to break even. So someone better have a plan... It takes about 6-10 years to bring new oil online even if you know where it is. The pickensplan.org is talking about 10 years to shift in our energy profile where wind can take up the slack and natural gas can be used as a transporation fuel. It still won't be cheap. Natural gas like coal and all commodities are really high and if the dollar continues to fall will only get higher.

Speaking for myself I will have wind, and solar at my home regardless what the government does or what everyone else decides to do. If someone could approach you today and say to you I can lock your energy costs in for the next 30 years, but you would have to pay a little more up front. Would you be interested? That is the proposition with solar and wind. I am saying sign me up! I am putting my money on the fact that energy will be substantially higher in the future than it is today, unless some major breakthrough happens like this MIT hydrogen discovery my assumption/bet will be true. The utilities companies cannot keep their rates down, just like state and federal government will not keep your taxes down. Wanna bet what your taxes will be in 10 years? 20 years? how about 30 years? How would you like to lock those babies in?

So I don't really care what the country does if people don't care than neither do I. I will do what I need to do to take care of myself and my family. If they take action nationally then some of the pain of the energy crisis can be averted. It is about what people decide to do, but they won't do anything as long as people keep lying to them about the problem.

I challenge you to show me a single oil discovery in the US in the last decade that has increased total US output? Better yet, go back to 1970 and show me a discovery or even a year that we have increased oil output in that time? You could stack 10 ANWR's with the projected production rates of 400k or even 780k barrels a day and still wouldn't match the production rate we had in 1970 by the time ANWR oil is producing at those rates! So again someone tell me how we can drill our way out of this?

Here are some US oil production numbers to chew on:
Year 2000: 5,822,000 bpd
Year 2001: 5,801,000 bpd
Year 2002: 5,746,000 bpd
Year 2003: 5,681,000 bpd
Year 2004: 5,419,000 bpd
Year 2005: 5,178,000 bpd
Year 2006: 5,102,000 bpd
Year 2007: 5,064,000 bpd
Wanna guess where 2008 will be? Anyone?

Our peak in 1970: 9,637,000 bpd
Total US Consumption per day in 2007: 20,680,000
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpus2a.htm
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pe...s_mbblpd_a.htm

And we can drill our way to oil independence?

Now for the big laugh since we have politicians who have decided to make this a football. How much will prices fall if we were to open up a location like ANWR? Strangly enough the US government has all that data planned out. If they started drilling today the first oil would go on the market in 2018, peak production would be 2027 at approximately 780k barrels a day, peak production 2028 when production begins decline. The total impact in 2006 dollars to the price of oil in 2026 as the low? .41 cents a barrel As the mean price in 2025? .75 cents a barrel As the high in 2027? 1.44 a barrel

Don't believe me? That is the price impact per barrel, not per gallon!

Read it for yourself: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/pdf/sroiaf(2008)03.pdf

That's right 10 years to see the first of that oil... We better get to drilling now! At a 2-5% decline rate what will we be producing in 2018? No where near 5 mbpd that we produce at today that is for sure! But to think it is going to drive down prices is just pure political BS. If the politicians lips are moving he/she is lying. It is time to run the numbers when someone starts some political rant about how renewables are going to save the world, or if we drill everywhere we can save the world, drive down prices, make genitals larger, make you grow hair... It's just what people in that audience want to hear. You want to make things better then we gotta bring it all to the table now and stop the partisan BS before the world we leave our kids is far worse than the world we inherited.

Please feel free to pick apart those numbers.... They aren't mine, they came from the people who report them... The US Government. Now is the time to get serious. Pickensplan.org would be a good start.

So I ask again, when an big oilman tells you we cannot drill out way out of this... Someone show me how we bridge the gap we have today. We produce less than 5 mbpd and consume almost 21 mbpd. Thoughts?

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  #34  
Old 08-12-2008, 04:53 PM
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Look Long...Am I against "renewable" energy?

No I'm not. What I am against are the money mongers, LIKE T. Boone Pickens, whom speak out of the sides of their mouth, when it comes to "Renewable" energy.

Take "Wind" energy. GE has hopped on board in a huge way. GE doesn't hop on-board ANYTHING, unless GE stands to gain from it financially. Do I begrudge GE being profitable. NO I don't, because if GE remains profitable, then I will stand a chance of being better off.

However...GE does not have the infrastructure in place, to SERVICE the generator's they have erected over the last 5 years. They continue to erect generators, without increasing the service crews, which are needed, to repair and maintain those generators.
Repair and Maintainence are huge deals, when you are talking about those things. Each is a stand alone job. You can not take on the task of R & M, without huge quantities of the needed equipment and personel to safely reach the very portion of the Generator which is most in need of repair, because of the heights involved.

Everything everybody pushes at the public as "Renewable" energy, require large amounts of "OLD" energy to produce, and maintain. Where are the savings?

Hydro-electric has been the most reliable "Cheap, Renewable" energy we have ever had. The Sierra Club's and Audobon Societies of our world, have attacked the dams relentlessly for years, managing to get many dams tore down, and working even now to get more removed.

Aside from money, what is T. Boone's agenda?

Longsnowsm wrote;
Quote:
So I ask again, when an big oilman tells you we cannot drill out way out of this... Someone show me how we bridge the gap we have today. We produce less than 5 mbpd and consume almost 21 mbpd. Thoughts?
T. Boone is NOT a "Big Oil" man. He isn't even close to a "Big Oil" man. Warren Buffet has made better money delving into "Oil" over the last 30 years, than has T. Boone. The Hunt's and the Koch's, all whom started about the same time as T. Boone, in their quest for "Oil" riches, did far better than T. Boone.

Can we "drill" our way out of over consumption? No..of course not. But the "Via-able" alternatives are far more expensive, than "Hydrocarbon" or "Fossil" fuels are, to produce in consumable quantities. WE "American's", with our "ME NOW" attitude, are not willing to make the sacrifices that will curb consumption, thus lowering demand, AND prices. Our society is simply NOT the same as it was in the early 70's.

Your in California....How many super-sized SUV's, Pickup's, and luxury sedans, all of which get worse fuel mileage than a sub-compact, mid-size, or even a full size sedan, do you see daily? Hell, yesterday on the drive from Bayonne NJ to where I am now, 30 miles south...errrr...west...ummmm...somewhere... of Danbury CT, I could not have counted the numbers of "Fuel-Hogs" ripping past me, while I was doing the posted 65, zipping along burning up the gas.

That aside..drilling off our coast's, while not being the end-all" that some want to be found, is still better than sending our $$$ overseas, an act which our economy and our pocket-books gain no value from.
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  #35  
Old 08-12-2008, 07:06 PM
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Yep, CA is the land of Mercedes, Lexus, BMW's, and SUV's. There are a lot of Prius's also, but for the most part the general population is clueless. They blow my doors off daily flying past me.

Most people don't understand the scope of the energy problem because it has been reduced to sound bites which are practically baseless in facts. Politicians have an elitist attitude and think they have to boil things down to things we are for or against in a 30 second sound bite. The old adage: "If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with BS!"

I completely agree we have to get busy now drilling, and looking for every alternative we can get on the table. Your completely right the realization of what is happening hasn't set in with most Americans. The future is going to be very different from our present for better or worse depending on what we do now.

As grimacing as that US production data is, the import production data is equally as scary. About the only place on the planet that claims to have any excess capacity is Saudi, and most people are questioning their numbers as we have already seen what looks like a peak from them in 2005. So regardless the world as a whole will have a relatively short time to shift their energy needs. Overall production is flat to declining.

I agree, I do wonder just why Boone is doing this. I wonder if his health is bad and he is doing this as a gesture or if there is some other agenda. For the time being I am going to watch and support it until I have reason to expect there is something wrong. It surely isn't the answer to the problem, but it would be a good start.

Most people should read that ANWR report and be alarmed at the time it will take, the estimated production figures, and the actual impact. And given the decline rate of our production, just what will we be producing by the time that happens? If that doesn't get someones attention I don't know what it will take. 2018 to start production if we started drilling today, 2027 before the biggest impact is felt? That is just too long.

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  #36  
Old 08-12-2008, 09:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Orangetxguy

Drilling off the coast's would however, be a good long term solution. Most of the "Oil" majors have the old seismic data from the 70's and early 80's at hand. Witht the up dated technology that is available, they can quickly "update" that old data, and spot drillships in "Viable" production areas all along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well as Florida's Gulf coast.
All of the tapped and capped finds have a less energy return on energy invested EROEI. And in NO way will keep up with production decline much less increased demand. Shale is a loser too. I'm not saying both will not help but in the end the world will have no swing capacity what so ever. Leaving the market vulnerable to price spikes from any little hiccup. Even optimists acknowledge that almost all supergiants have been found already and most are on the decline. There is but 4 or five that produce over a million barrels a day. Cantarell is terminal. Ghawar is at the very least in second recovery (having already produce more oil than was first estimated). And the Saudis have been forth right on any abuse they might have been giving the field. If Ghawar goes, hang on tight its gonna be a really rough ride.
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Old 08-12-2008, 09:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roadhog
:lol: Wouldn't you just like to slap the crap out of Politicians, and tell them to shape up, and simply do their job? It's madness.
I'm big on the free market and society stick. But I don't think even those economic forces will be much help in this painful transition. And I try to be optimistic.

An example of the politics of starvation is what will happen with energy. I'm thankfully we have Saudi Arabi, Iraq and we're now flanking Iran but the politicians will not solve the problem.
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Old 08-16-2008, 12:01 AM
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cant drill our way out, cant drill our way out....that democrat talking point is a big lie. We have over 2 trillion barrels of proven reserves in the United States right now. If we drilled it we could replace all of our imports and have some left over to export.
Everyone should tell Queen Pelosi to get off her book tour and reconvene the house and vote on an energy plan right now. Why are the Democrats afraid of Democracy?
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Old 08-16-2008, 12:14 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jonp
cant drill our way out, cant drill our way out....that democrat talking point is a big lie. We have over 2 trillion barrels of proven reserves in the United States right now. If we drilled it we could replace all of our imports and have some left over to export.
Everyone should tell Queen Pelosi to get off her book tour and reconvene the house and vote on an energy plan right now. Why are the Democrats afraid of Democracy?
Did you visit the DOE website listed above before typing random keys and actually posting that crap?

Once more, with feeling:

If they started drilling today the first oil would go on the market in 2018, peak production would be 2027 at approximately 780k barrels a day, peak production 2028 when production begins decline. The total impact in 2006 dollars to the price of oil in 2026 as the low? .41 cents a barrel.
As the mean price in 2025? .75 cents a barrel.
As the high in 2027? 1.44 a barrel.


780,000 extra barrels a day when we use 20 million now is a drop in the barrel. Drilling will not help us as much you or anyone else would want it to.
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Old 08-20-2008, 02:53 PM
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I don't think so...he may be giving SOME money away....but he will never miss it. Although I agree that something needs to be done, my opinion is that it's all business to him...he (along with a lot of other people who make "pushes" for things) are already owners/stakeholders with their fingers in other ventures...if you think he's doing this for the good of the USA, I doubt it...he will have a large return somewhere down the line, whether it's through his distribution systems or whatever. I am not saying it's not a good idea to search for alternatives and I'm not saying Pickens is bad...he's a great business man. But this is just more business to him. The good thing is it will probably help us out anyway, regardless.

And those huge wind farms look so stunning strung out all over Texas...
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