AutoblogGreen

1. i really hate green peace. What we need is carbon captioning and modern nuclear. Right now all the nuke plants in this country are 40-30 years old. Modern technology is much more environmentally friendly and safer.

Combine that with solar, and wind and water well as geothermal, and wave power. When the renewable sources isnt giving enough power to the grid the coal plants kick in as well as the nuke plants.

OF course you cant turn off a coal fired plant because it would take 3 days to get back to temp but you can greatly reduce its power hence use less coal. And turn is up when demand is predicted to increase.

I dont know if you guys know this buy Oregon Washington, Idaho and Montana all could use geothermal power.

Posted at 8:03PM on May 7th 2008 by stevefazek

2. I hate it when organizations like Greenpeace make what sounds like a perfectly logical and reasonable argument, and then cap it off by saying we should use clean energy sources "like solar or wind turbines".

Wind power has its niche, but it's a drop in the bucket compared with the world's energy needs. This is like giving a starving man a couple of peanuts and telling him, "There you go, eat 'till you bust!"

Solar is somewhat better, but it still has cost problems that aren't yet resolved, and it's still an intermittent power source. It's hard to see solar carrying the main burden any time soon. And soon is exactly when we need clean power.

Meanwhile. . . According to a study by MIT, much of the USA could use geothermal power. All we need is a relatively modest R&D investment in deep drilling and "enhanced" geothermal technology. Why isn't Greenpeace pushing for this?

Nuclear fission technology has indeed improved a lot. Why isn't Greenpeace pushing for new nuclear plants?

There are some promising new approaches to nuclear fusion, like the late Dr. Bussard's "Polywell" reactor. They're trying to develop these on a shoestring. Why isn't Greenpeace pushing for more research funding for fusion?

Posted at 8:37PM on May 7th 2008 by Tony Belding

3. I Hate Greenpeace for a simple reason:

99% of their efforts are against things, 1% for.

Posted at 8:50PM on May 7th 2008 by Mike Z

4. i hate people who bitch about problems yet never come with solutions

Posted at 9:29PM on May 7th 2008 by stevefazek

5. We need more nukes.
No greenhouse gases.
And they work even when its cloudy and the wind isn't blowing.

Posted at 9:38PM on May 7th 2008 by Dave

6. I think Greenpeace has a point.

Adding carbon sequestration to coal plants will take a long long time, will increase our electric bills (a lot), and may not even work. I think its OK to pursue, but its not going to be the main answer.

I don't think there is a good understanding of the logistics of CO2 sequestration. A large coal plant gets a coal delivery every day or two -- a 100 car coal train with 100,000 lbs of coal per car. The CO2 that this will generate is about 3 times that weight of the coal, and its a gas -- a gas that won't go through a lot of existing pipelines -- its just a huge huge project.

I think that in Greenpeace's answer they should have included efficiency and conservation. Reducing usage through efficiency and conservation has a much lower initial cost, AND from then on it saves you money every month. CO2 sequestration costs a lot to put in, and then keeps on costing.

We have cut our household electric use in half. The total cost to do this was about $900. This is saving us about $60 a month, so a payback of just over one year. An 80% return on investment (tax free and inflation protected). Not to mention a reduction in our CO2 emissions of 7.2 tons a year.
Its a piece of cake to do, and has not effected our lifestyle one bit.

We are in Montana, and the Judth Gap windfarm come on a couple years ago (our first large one) -- the wind power in MT went from 0% to 8% overnight. They are doing a phase 2 which will increase it a lot more. Large wind is competitive with other generation on a cost per KWH -- they don't need huge subsidies.
So, (I think) wind could be a significant part of the answer.

I think nuclear is more troubled. I suppose all the waste etc. issues can be tackled, but the plants are incredibly expensive. Even with the gov willing to put in a lot of your money to get new nucs going, the money lenders have not touched it so far. As someone said "nuclear went from being too cheap to meter to too expensive to matter".
I can remember lots of experts in the 70's putting out the "to cheap to meter" story.

The story is the same for transportation energy (cars) and for space heating -- the answer is really in our hands -- we just need to be more efficient (I think).

Gary

Posted at 10:20PM on May 7th 2008 by Gary Reysa

7. I don't want to be rude but this is a automotive blog with a focus on green technologies. not a green blog with the occasional auto info... I've let some posts on the boarder slip past but this blog post just is not on topic. heck throw in a PHEV reference just to have a minimal on topic content.

Posted at 10:39PM on May 7th 2008 by ltclloyd

8. Greenpeace will come up with some criticism of anything that doesn't have us all living in huts, growing our own food, and living as our ancestors did a thousand years ago. Seriously, that's their agenda.

Less.

Posted at 12:10AM on May 8th 2008 by AMcA

9. While I kind of disagree with their protests as well, I think the spirit of what they are saying is right. In the US, we spend more money on coal R&D than we do on renewable energy. This kind of serves as one example.

What if we were investing the money we're spending on turning coal to liquids, and capturing coal plants pollution, on renewable energy?

The concern here is that our policy, as always, is being dictated by powerful industries instead of good judgment.

Ideally I would like to see us make a huge push for renewable energy, as the studies have already confirmed that we could generate more than enough (with technology like offshore wind farms), and supplant it with nuclear power.

Posted at 2:12AM on May 8th 2008 by Clark

10. For all of you who don't know how to interpret what Greenpeace is saying, I'll do it for you:

Don't jump the gun when technology isn't there. What they want to do to coal plants is akin to taking a car that makes 200HP, putting an emissions control system on it that reduces the power to 100 HP...and doesn't control emissions very well. Would ANY of you do that to your cars? I'd venture to say NO...so why are you criticizing Greenpeace for stating the obvious?

Their philosophy is LESS and it's a good one too. You folks have become so used to pissing away your resources and living a life of ludicrous waste that anyone even suggesting you throttle back a bit is automatically labeled a Commie, a Treehugger, or a facist environmentalist. I wonder what the other side should the wasteful loser camp then?

As for Nuclear...yeah...well...I'd like to see how some of you nuclear advocates would feel once a load of nuclear waste rods are going to be dumped and buried in your neck of the woods. I'm sure then everyone will suddenly start "thinking about" their kids.

Posted at 3:12AM on May 8th 2008 by armmat

11. OK, first things first, Armmat you need to chill out a bit mate, you're going to give yourself an infarction.

Anyway, back to energy, the solution is obvious:
- nuclear for base-load,
- solar and wind to top it up,
- biofuels for ships and aircraft,
- batteries for cars

Nuclear because:
I'd rather be in charge of managing the occasional half swimming-pool of nuclear waste than keeping the lid on millions of tons of a clear odorless gas, and the only two realistic options for massive base-load are either nuclear or "burning stuff".
Plus, nuclear waste doesn't have to be stored forever, only until we get the Star Trek teleporters up and running.

Wind and solar because:
They keep getting cheaper and cheaper, and are more and more reliable the bigger the grid they are hooked up to. Good for security too, very tedious to bomb a windfarm, although one might be able to train kamikaze seagulls.

Biofuels for ships and aircraft because:
Only liquid hydrocarbons have the power/weight ratio to give sufficient range (ie. portability), at least for the foreseeable future.

Batteries for cars because:
If you were looking for a place to outlet exhaust fumes for any other application, I don't think anyone would suggest a million small pipes at knee-level dotted throughout the city.
Hydrogen takes care of the exhaust problem, but it's only around 25% efficient to split it out of water, so batteries have a permanent 4X head start, and they're already almost good enough.

Cheers all!

Luke

Posted at 9:13AM on May 8th 2008 by Luke

12. "Solar is somewhat better, but it still has cost problems that aren't yet resolved, and it's still an intermittent power source."

Solar thermal can store some of the heat it absorbs from the sun during the night in tanks of molten salt and therefore keep producing electricity when the sun isn't shining. The deserts of the Southwestern states could be filled with these plants. See link below.

http://www.sandia.gov/Renewable_Energy/solarthermal/NSTTF/salt.htm

Posted at 9:45AM on May 8th 2008 by Chad

13. Nothing will save our climate but our climate. Our climate is in the climate saving business and knows best what it needs to save itself. The more we muck around trying to save the climate the more the climate will become screwed up. Just ask yourself what any government has done to save anything other than themselves, and now we want to put climate management into the hands of government? You must be kidding. I would rather take my chances with climate change than give government a mandate to manage the climate. I heard last week that some one is forecasting a 15 year NATURAL cooling trend. So why can't we also have a NATURAL warming trend. We have way too many people with not enough to do, so these same people with not enough to do go around mucking up the lives of countless millions of people in the name of whatever cause these limp wristed lame brains are pushing on any given day. You may choose to disagree with my rant, but I just don't care about you disagreeing with me. My one regret is that I won't live long enough to learn I am right.

Posted at 10:03AM on May 8th 2008 by Gumbo

14. Does it strike anyone as odd that Greenpeace is on a CO2 spewing boat protesting CO2 spewing industry?

Posted at 10:31AM on May 8th 2008 by Dad

15. "Of course, Greenpeace states that this can be fixed if we all change to renewable sources of energy, like solar or wind turbines. "

Ummm, that's not going to be possible anytime soon. What about Nuclear? Had Green Peace not fought nuclear (they now admit they were wrong,) this might all be a moot point.

By the way, how much diesle do you think it takes to run the Greenpeace barge?

Posted at 11:31AM on May 8th 2008 by Wise Golden

16. What people forget about solar thermal is that you need cooling water to drive the process. Which we all know there is a lot of in the middle of death valley.

Posted at 11:32AM on May 8th 2008 by Mike Z

17. @Armmat,

I think you shoul'd get some info about modern Nuclear waste-fuel management (High Level/Low Level). You would look to a coal plant or to a seaside walk with other eyes.

Remember, the french get 80% of they're e-power from nukes.

Posted at 11:34AM on May 8th 2008 by MH

18. It's pretty obvious that Green Peace doesn't know very much about energy issues. There's nothing new or untried about CCS. If CCS adds to the cost of coal based electricity then it is simply reflecting the true costs of the power and puts it on a level playing field with other energy sources.

Posted at 2:03PM on May 8th 2008 by Neil

19. Once again Greenpeace presents arguments that don't have the slightest base in reality. Of course we could all switch to wind and solar tomorrow if there were that much capacity and if our energy budget was unlimited. I love how they're so concerned about "passing the costs onto consumers" and want everyone to switch over to energy that costs double the price of coal.

Posted at 7:31PM on May 8th 2008 by Scorch

20. "You folks have become so used to pissing away your resources and living a life of ludicrous waste"

So what do you propose? a gov't mandated rationing of energy? A massive energy tax?


And more importantly how will you sell this to the population?

This is a democratic society after all.

Posted at 7:56PM on May 8th 2008 by Mike Z