Anyone live near a windfarm?

[etpm]

I'm glad your comfortable with your location and I sincerely hope you never have to experience a TMI like incident.

When I had radioactive "seeds" put in my pelvic region to kill my prostate cancer I decided to learn about radioactivity. Knowing what I do now I would not be scared of a TMI level leak if it happened near me. Nevertheless we still need greater safety controls on nuclear plants than we have now. Witness the amount of radiation released from the TEPCO plant in Japan from the flooding caused by the tsunami. That plant should have been much better protected.
Eric

 

[rontaki]

Because when the closed loop blows out, there has to be a large enough reservoir to continue cooling indefinitely would be my guess.

The nuclear plants near us use Lake Michigan and put it back in the lake, so not much water loss.

The fishing is quit good at the warm water discharges in spring and fall, but the fish glow in the dark.

Precooked!

 

[KennyG]

Every nuclear "event" has resulted in a review and upgrade of US safety standards. The basic problem at Fukushima was that the emergency power diesels were in an underground chamber, which was flooded by the tsunami. No US plant had this design. However, all the US plants were upgraded to provide a portable offsite emergency equipment that could be used if the onsite equipment was disabled. The new generation of nuclear plants do not require emergency electrical power to safely shut down. This just another example of how technology advances.

 

[DarkBlack]

Burning gas in a power plant to run an electric stove top of some kind not only keeps the pollutants out of the home, there's less pollution generated for the same amount of cooking.

I’d say the science isn’t settled on that statement .
It’s a fact that over 60% of NG energy is lost before it is used in your home as electricity.
I guess your possible saving grace might be, by arguing “pollution”, not “energy”.
That term allows “science for hire” “experts” , to give the desired data

 

[azbinder]

The best info I can find says that Palo Verde uses less than 5% groundwater. When the plant construction started 50 years ago (design started 60 years ago), nobody wanted the Phoenix wastewater. Things would probably be done differently today.

The waste water that Palo Verde uses is transported via a 6' (I think) "drain" from the 91st Ave treatment plant. I was working for an equipment dealer in the late 70's - 80's, half way between the sewage plant and Palo Verde. Had a couple of contractors whose equipment that we worked on. Been on service calls to the water plant, pipeline, and Palo Verde.

 

[NorTracNY]

Very interesting discussion here. A few things to note.

$12K/yr/windmill is a joke. I know someone that makes a lot more from just a cell tower. That same person has been given over $10K just to let a solar farm company explore the possibility of putting in solar panels on about 10-15 acres of their land.

We certainly have plenty of windmills here in NY. I just came back from Europe and went by several windmill farms. It's EXTREMELY rare to see all of them working. I believe solar is a lot better than wind. There are moving parts and there's always going to be maintenance and problems. Even the solar farms near me which move and track the sun often have about 5% of the arrays not tilting.

As for nuclear, it's certainly not the cheapest. There is a small amount of highly radioactive material which must be stored. It's a small amount, but highly dangerous. The problem is that it will be that way for thousands of years. Anyone want to tell me the cost to rent a storage place for that long? People say it's the cheapest because they are not paying for the full cost. What happens when the government falls? No government has lasted anywhere close to how long that stuff will be dangerous.

Energy is dirty.

 

[gsganzer]

I can’t argue with that, except as I stated earlier about nuclear. It needs a large and abundant water source, so not a really good idea for the interior western U.S. The Arizona nuclear plant is sucking the groundwater dry.

The correct thing to be done by our federal government would have been to tap the brakes on decommissioning coal plants until they completed the testing and design of the modern modular nuclear reactors, like the molten salt design. Every coal plant could have been replaced with a MSR. Coal plants are usually a power grid node and have water readily available.

 

[jyoutz]

The correct thing to be done by our federal government would have been to tap the brakes on decommissioning coal plants until they completed the testing and design of the modern modular nuclear reactors, like the molten salt design. Every coal plant could have been replaced with a MSR. Coal plants are usually a power grid node and have water readily available.

Most coal plants were decommissioned because they were end of life and utilities don’t consider building new ones to be a wise investment because of economic factors. Natural gas turbines are cheaper to operate than coal plants, and renewables often are also.

 

[ning]

The problem with gas stoves is that the combustion products just go into the home's air. To make it worse, the burners are open flame which is the least efficient and most polluting way to burn gas.

Power plants being large can much more economically install pollution control equipment than putting it on every stove. There are big economies of scale for that stuff. Burning gas in a power plant to run an electric stove top of some kind not only keeps the pollutants out of the home, there's less pollution generated for the same amount of cooking.

There's plenty of studies on how gas stoves pollute indoor air- they emit stuff like nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5. I used to not think they were a problem because my cheap air quality meter didn't show it. But my meter is very limited and there's so many studies from reputable sources that show otherwise.

In addition, more and more modern homes have very little fresh air intake / stale air exhaust. It's one thing if the house is drafty, but a modern house is pretty bad with open gas flame.

Which saddens me; we've got a 1950's O'Keefe & Merritt and love it, but I recognize it's not the best thing for us health-wise. Of course 75% of the year we've got doors open so I'm not too concerned... but in the winter, it's a bigger deal.

 

[1 Old Man]

In addition, more and more modern homes have very little fresh air intake / stale air exhaust. It's one thing if the house is drafty, but a modern house is pretty bad with open gas flame.

Which saddens me; we've got a 1950's O'Keefe & Merritt and love it, but I recognize it's not the best thing for us health-wise. Of course 75% of the year we've got doors open so I'm not too concerned... but in the winter, it's a bigger deal.

Newer HVAC systems require a fresh air intake.
Elec cook tops .....nope..... give me the gas for cooking. Instant heat control.
O'Keefe & Merritt? Fantastic! Don't buy an economy exhaust hood. Spend the
bucks, get a good vent system (exhausting to outside air). Enjoy that
O&M range, it's a beast.