Ecologically-friendly nuclear

[xoxoxoBruce]

Right on Rich, don't for one minute sell TW short. He's no fool and he's right in that all the power produced goes into the grid like the ingredients of a casserole.
I'm just pointing out most of the power produced in the Cellars immediate area is non-fossil. The actual power the Cellar gets at any one time could be coming from Canada, so watch out for pages coming up in French.

Btw, if you want to have more money than Bill Gates, invent a practical way to store electricity. We could run the whole damn world on lightning.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Btw, if you want to have more money than Bill Gates, invent a practical way to store electricity. We could run the whole damn world on lightning.

Well, trapping and harnessing lightning would take large capacitors. One alternative would be attaching generators to 2 million hamsters on exercise wheels. The lightning would frighten the hamsters, causing the wheels to spin faster and generate more electricity. The advantages of this method is that it merely requires proximity to lightning and the effect would outlast the short burst of energy from the lightning itself.

Now where's that DOE grant request form.....

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I'm just pointing out most of the power produced in the Cellars immediate area is non-fossil. The actual power the Cellar gets at any one time could be coming from Canada, so watch out for pages coming up in French.

To get non-fossil sources, one must go out to what I described as the third layer. Outside of the third layer are more coal plants, nuclear, natural gas, and wind power plants.

PJM now purchases and monitors power from sources in VA, WV, OH, IN, IL, and upper NY State. Dominion Power of VA is the latest addition to the PJM. Exelon also generates power on the Mississippi River, New England, and other places that are too far (electrically) to be considered power for the Cellar. Also not included in that list are power plants in places such as N Jersey that would really be providing power mostly for that region and NYC.

PJM has a bottlneck when it buys power from OH, IN, WV, etc. the interconnection is not very good. Just one reason why plants in MD (such as the nuclear plant at Calvert Cliffs are not included in the list of UT's electricity.

The chart is accurate for UTs electrical supplier because most of his closest generator plants are fossil fuel powered.

[xoxoxoBruce]

One more point...when you buy "wind generated" power, the power you get probably won't be actually be made by a wind generator(turbine) unless you're real close to the wind farm. Even then it's a variable supply depending on...well...the wind.
What you are buying is wind generated power to be slipped into the grid to replace some power that now won't be fossil fuel generated.
You're still doing a good thing, it's just globally or at least regionally rather than locally.

[russotto]

Electricity is fungible. There's no practical way to know whether the electrons you're harnessing get their juice from the big nuke plant up the street, or the Conowingo dam or whatever.

However:

Power companies don't transmit power long distances if they don't have to. Limerick is an enormous plant and it's right in the Cellar's (and my) back yard. It stands to reason that the vast majority of the power running the Cellar (not to mention my own laptop) is coming from the nuclear plant. So unless you've got specific information otherwise, region-wide information (covering 50,000 square miles in 5 states and D.C.) simply doesn't refute that claim.

When you come home from work every day to a scene from the opening of _The Simpsons_, you know where your power is coming from.


As for natural gas, current prices make such plants unattractive propositions.

[tw]

Originally Posted by russotto

As for natural gas, current prices make such plants unattractive propositions.

If that were true, then why are most every new plant listed in the NERC coming online (for the Mid Atlantic and NY regions) using natural gas?

[Troubleshooter]

Because nobody wants to authorize a new nuclear plant.

That's the debil.

[lookout123]

which is why Rush Limbaugh types are so powerfully influential.

what is this fascination with rush limbaugh? limbaugh is just a schmo who takes his opinion, proof-texts to support it, and then presents it to everyone as if it were fact. then he insults anyone who disagrees with his view of things. over and over and over.

i don't really find that style of discussion to be very valuable. YMMV.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

Because nobody wants to authorize a new nuclear plant.

At about $15 per megawatt hour to produce electricity, a nuclear plant can only be profitable if oil prices rise AND if premiums for insurance (due to high risk) is carried by the Federal government. For those who believe in a free market, nuclear power (fission type) remains only marginally profitable.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

If that were true, then why are most every new plant listed in the NERC coming online (for the Mid Atlantic and NY regions) using natural gas?

We're going to get lots of natural gas from Alaska as soon as we displace the critters and Colorado as soon as we displace the hippies.