Re: Public Trust and Other Dreams

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 4/24/02 6:00:48 PM Mountain Daylight Time, jk5554@YAHOO.COM writes:



> I support nuclear because it is the alternative to
>
> fossil fuels that is able to generate the most
>
> practical quantity of electricity (large amounts).  
>
>
> I also happen to think that solar is a good
>
> alternative for sunny (Southwestern) regions
>
> especially with passive designs.


"Passive solar" means using solar energy for direct heating, like space heating, and this is of course common in the Southwest, thiough augmented with other methods.  Incidentally, in New Mexico we use evaporative cooling in the summer in private residences, rather than refrigerated air conditioning, and evaporative cooling is both more pleasant and much less energy intesive.


.  Solar electric generation is generally referred to as "active solar" and is done either by focusing sunlight on some sort of heat transfer system on by direct photoelectric conversion.  We just finished looking at a design for a 3MW solar plant (direct conversion)  -- it would cover about 160 acres,  and the solar cells have a lifetime of about 20 years.  this ius just to give you an idea.  Passive solar is indeed very sound environmentally, but solar electric generation is another matter.  Incidentally, I taught the energy and energy conversion course at Western Washington University for about 15 years.

  However, even if


> everyone in the states of New Mexico or Arizona had a
>
> solar system on their roof, they would still need some
>
> non-solar generation, because solar cannot generate
>
> sufficient power for peaks or at all times of the day.
>
> For that other electricity need, I'll take Palo Verde
>
> over Four Corners Coal Plant any day.


Solar systems on the roof in the Southwest supply heat and hot water, not electricity.


> The article below, while admittedly heavy on the
>
> 'propaganda' side, states that Four Corners spewed 13
>
> million tons of 'toxins' in the air.  I think they
>
> mean mainly nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. 
>
>
> http://dinecare.indigenousnative.org/4_corners_toxins.html


It's sulfur dioxide, not "sulfur oxides" (no matter what EPA says).  The Four Corners plant (I have been there and flown over it many times) burns low sulfur coal -- the stuff you see is not SO2 but fly ash.  Some SO2 is carried on the fly ash.  Whar the "Dine" -- how the Navajo refer to themselves aren't telling you, by the way, is that many on the Big Reservation heat their homes with coal, and that sort of coal burning, unlike Four Corners, is completely uncontrolled. And you should know that natural gas plants emit almost as much NO and NO2 per watt as coal plants --it's mostly the nitrogen in the air that is fixed at high temperatures.


> Even if the figure is an exaggeration, the point is
>
> that Four Corners Power plant puts out enough air
>
> pollutants to obscure vistas that were once very clear
>
> in the region,


No it doesn't, at least not on a steady basis.  Moreover, automobile and truck emissions contribute substantially to any local haze in the Four Corners area.  I don't now what "once" the article is talking about, but 30 years ago, the Four Corners emissions were a lot worse than they are now, and really did obscure the local vistas on a continuing basis.  I was just in Shiprock in January, and the visible emissions from Four Corners are considerably less than from the locally operated coal-fired generating station that is about 2 miles away and the other side of the highway.

  

 while Palo Verde emits very little.  By

> the way, Four Corners was built _after_ the
>
> anti-nuclear pressure movement had its heyday out in
>
> California with Jackson Browne etc.


I don't know who Jackson Browne is, but I first flew over the Four Corners plant in 1968.  No controls were in place at all until after 1980.


 

I truly wish we could get away from "coal v. nukes."  Every form of energy generation, thermal and non-thermal, has adverse environmental consequences.    I am not going to repeat myself endlessly on this topic.  Also, the U. S. is not going to replace all coal plants with nuclear plants.  The US gets about 50% of its electricity by burning coal,  about 20% from nuclear power and the same amount from hydro dams,  and the remainder from natural gas burning, wind, geothermal and some biomass burning.  Electric generation is a poor use for natural gas, which burns clean (except for NO). The mix will doubtless change over time, but I suspect we are going to use everything we have got to generate electricity, until it's all gone.


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com