Ecologically-friendly nuclear

[tw]

Back in Mar of 2005, UT posted this

My heat is generated through electronic heat pump, through energy generated by ecologically-friendly nuclear. I can set the thermostat to whatever I like and feel good about it. Until the bill comes.

Finally found the real numbers as provided by the NERC in a reliability report of bulk electricity for 2005. This pie chart defines fuel consumption for the MAAC region (which is PJM). Electric source for The Cellar is not dominated by nuclear as UT believes:

[xoxoxoBruce]

The Cellar gets juice from Excelon.
154.5 Mw wind power in PA and WV, owned by FPL and sold by Excelon.
Excelon produces 1619 megawatts of Hydro, 6,500 megawatts of coal, oil, and natural gas, and 129.7 million megawatt hours of Nu-clear. Unless my math sucks worse than I thought, that’s 15,046 Mw of Nuke.

In this area: (PECO).
Cromby~ 358 Megawatts, 2 units; 1 coal, 1 oil or natural gas.
Eddystone~ 1,359 Megawatts, 4 units; 2 coal, 2 oil or natural gas.
Schuylkill~ 175 Megawatts,1 unit; oil-fired – peaking
Philadelphia Distribution Center~1,078 Megawatts 38 natural gas and oil fired units at 11 locations in and near Philadelphia, 35 combustion turbine (CT) units at 10 sites in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania.
Also local Fairless Hills~ 60 Megawatts, 2 units; landfill gas or oil.

Conowingo~ 548 Megawatts, 11 units, hydro.
Muddy Run~ 1,071 Megawatts, 8 units, hydro. (Muddy Run is primarily used for peaking and load leveling. Excess system capacity is used to power motor/pumps during off peak hours to pump water from a lower reservoir into an upper reservoir.)

Limerick~ 1,200 net megawatts, 2 units, nuke. (power more than two million average American homes.)
Oyster Creek~ 636 net megawatts, 1 unit, nuke.
Peach Bottom~ 3186 net megawatts, 2 units, nuke.
Three Mile Island (unit #1)~ 850 net megawatts, 1 unit, nuke. (Damaged unit 2 is owned by someone else)

I’d say you’re good to go, UT.

[lookout123]

4 months planning an "i told you so", the time to post it, link to the original text, oh the anticipation of that feeling of superiority... and then bruce has to come along and spoil it. some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

[wolf]

Given The Cellar's actual proximity to Limerick, UT should just be able to drag the plugs out the sliding glass door and stick them in the mud.

[Undertoad]

That's what I was talkin' 'bout... I say if you're within the planned evacuation zone of a nuke plant, and have test sirens that go off every month, you can call yourself nuke and be done with it. Although Exelon is planning a gas plant up around there last I looked.

[Trilby]

It would be cool if we could harnass tw's insanity for good instead of evil.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Brianna

It would be cool if we could harnass tw's insanity for good instead of evil.

Personally, I like some of his stuff. He's certainly more rational than most of the talking heads I see on MSNBC and, god-forbid, Fox. He also does his own research , something which puts him above Ann Coulter and ilk.

I wouldn't mind seeing a few TW matchups on some of those talk shows.

TW vs Robert Lutz - Vice Chairman, Product Developement and Chairman of GM North America

TW vs John Marburger - Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

TW vs Sen Bill Frist

Rock on, TW!

BTW, interesting tidbit. Development can be written as developement. Here I was thinking GM had screwed up again.

[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 Undertoad

That's what I was talkin' 'bout... I say if you're within the planned evacuation zone of a nuke plant, and have test sirens that go off every month, you can call yourself nuke and be done with it. Although Exelon is planning a gas plant up around there last I looked.

Numerous natural gas plants were planned for UTs region. Local politics killed them all off. The plants were rather interesting in that they claimed 60% thermodynamic efficiencies. Most plants do only 35%. Limerick has even less thermodynamic efficiency - for safety reasons.

Meanwhile, if distance was a deciding factor, then Cromby (that burns oil, coal, and natural gas) and Montgomery County Recycling are the source of UTs electricity. IOW all of UTs electricity is then generated by fossil fuels. The next layer out includes Richmond, Schuylkill, Delaware, Eddystone, DRMI, Eagle Point, Camden Paper, Limerick, Burlington, Croyden, US Steel, Mercer. Going farther out, the third layer includes Transenergy, Gilbert, Lakewood, Oyster Creek, Edison, Werner, Sayreville, Glen Gardner, Martins Creek, Sherman Ave, Cumberland, Hope Creek, Salem, Deepwater, Delaware City, Allentown, Portland, AES, Harwood, Jenkins, Susquehanna, Montour, Sunbury, Three Mile Island, Safe Harbor, York, West Shore, Jackson, Muddy Run, Peach Bottom, Conowingo, and a few other fossil fuel plants whose names I am not familiar with.

Bottom line: to get significant nuclear generated electricity, UT must get electricity from the third (outermost) layer. Most of his electricity (if distance was a factor) comes from fossil fuel. The plants closest to his home - the first layer - are all fossil fuel. The second layer only has one nuclear power site - Limerick. In reality, nuclear only provides about 20% of his electricity.

[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.

[tw]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I wouldn't mind seeing a few TW matchups on some of those talk shows.

I would lose, hands down, in those talk shows. I cannot say something unless I first have sufficient supporting evidence. This thread is typical. Long ago remembered UT claiming his electricity was all nuclear. I had that above list of power plants. But that list alone was not yet sufficient information. A chart finally obtained from the NERC demonstrates UT's mistake. Numbers required to demonstrate that UT was only speculating - did not first learn the facts.

I don't talk like Rush Limbaugh: make half baked claims without numbers and supporting facts. Posts are longer - no sound bytes - when reasons for 'why' are also included. The 'Rush Limbaugh' technique is to keep running - keep changing the discussion - so that 'real world' facts, numbers, and other details never get presented. An effective propaganda technique that keeps one like me silent.

Some foolishly say, "Rush says what had to be said". They forget a Rush statement is 'quick and move on' so that research and numbers arrive too late. It takes time to first find the details behind a Rush Limbaugh statement, then find the real world details, and then organize those details so that eyes do not glaze over. Rush knows that many of us don't first wait for and demand numbers. Too many instead believe the first thing we are told. Exactly why propaganda and junk science reasoning are so effective.

It took about 4 months to find a chart for UT's electricity. In a Rush Limbaugh discussion, that chart would never be presented. Reality provided by numbers takes longer.

Political types, in verbal discussions, would run all over me. Too many people believe those who only provide 'sound bytes' - never provide the supporting facts. Propaganda promoters are good at sound bytes, half truths, propaganda, and changing the topic before details are sufficiently examined. But the devil is in those details. Same details also demonstrated Saddam's WMDs were not as the President claimed. As more numbers appeared, then those aluminum tubes were for cloning an Italian rocket called Medusa - not for processing uranium. Better to just claim uranium was from Niger, then out a CIA agent, then claim Saddam had an intercontinental missile system in development, then claim bio-chemical weapons, then claim Al Qaeda was working with Saddam, etc - so that numbers and real world facts never get presented. Lie after lie presented fast enough means the numbers and other details never get learned.

UT's electricity is not mostly nuclear. UT assumed otherwise because he knew Limerick existed. He did not even learn how Limerick electricity gets to his home. Limerick electricity must first pass through Cromby - a coal, oil, and natural gas plant- to get to UT. His electricity would only be nuclear if the multiple plants at Cromby first did not meet his electricity demands. Another fact he did not first learn.

It takes time to first learn the details. UT did not first learn the numbers. He assumed and then declared that all his electricity is nuclear generated. He used Rush Limbaugh logic. Even Lookout123 (routinely) chimes in (in classic Rush Limbaugh tradition) by posting insults; provides no numbers and no facts. One would think my name was Hilary.

I stand criticized for not providing the facts and numbers soon enough. To many, that would be sufficient for talking heads to win an argument. To a majority, only the first statement is accurate. It demonstrates why propaganda is so effective and why I would lose to those talking heads.

[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.

[wolf]

I like the interesting puffy, almost mushroom shaped clouds from the tops of the towers. I see them most days on the way to work.