POGW ping
Posted on 08/06/2007 5:27:36 AM PDT by radar101
Push for renewable energy in state seen as high risk, high reward
In the week since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would do everything he could to block three proposed coal-fired power plants in Nevada, this much can be said:
He probably can carry off his threat, especially since they would be constructed on federal land. Just look at how he has stalled a waste repository at Yucca Mountain, where so much more is at stake for the nuclear power industry, which is clamoring for a place to bury radioactive fuel rods.
Environmentalists are embracing Reid's bold pronouncement, welcoming the high-profile addition to their campaign to shift the country away from fossil fuels at a pivotal moment.
But as the Democrat joins a growing chorus of politicians and environmentalists trying to distance the nation from coal, skeptics say he is putting his own state at risk because the nascent alternative-energy industry isn't ready to take on all of Nevada's energy needs.
Doug Fischer, a utilities analyst with the investment firm A.G. Edwards, said coal opponents, including Reid, could "put us in a bind where we're not going to have the energy we need."
"The Al Gores and Harry Reids of the world need to get real with how we're going to deal with our need for power," Fischer said, "because we're not going to get there solely with conservation."
The utility industry simply scoffs at the notion that Nevada could be the first state powered mainly by renewable energy: wind, solar and geothermal.
"To go cold turkey and say we're going to do it all with renewables right now? You could never bring the amount of resources on in the time necessary," said Tom Johns, senior vice president of development for Sithe Global, the power developer proposing a 750-megawatt coal-fired plant in Lincoln County.
Power plant builders LS Power and Dynegy Inc. also proposed a 1,590-megawatt coal plant outside Ely in White Pine County, one valley over from a proposed 1,500-megawatt Sierra Pacific Resources plant. Through two subsidiaries, Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific, the company provides power to Southern Nevada and the Reno area, and is regulated by the state, unlike the other three developers, who would sell their power on the open market.
The three plants would create enough power for almost 3 million homes.
So an ideological joust is under way, the outcome of which could turn Nevada into the greenest state in the nation - or leave it energy-starved.
On the one hand is Reid, the latest voice urging dramatic measures to battle global warming. On the other hand is the conventional power industry, emphatic that today's coal plants are not your father's pollution monsters and are needed to keep the lights on.
Ray Lane, a former chief operating officer at Oracle Corp. who now represents clean energy companies at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said, "What's happening in this battle is going on in just about every state ... What do you do as a politician? Do you come out strongly in allowing the power needs to be met through coal or do you say renewables are ready?"
In a letter to Nevada's three coal plant developers, Reid laid out a vision - one observer called it a manifesto - of an energy independence plan for the state. He calls for systematically abandoning coal in favor of conservation measures and enough renewable energy generation to power 4 million homes by 2024.
The three power plants in Reid's cross hairs would produce 35 million tons of polluting carbon emissions, the key culprit in global warming, each year.
As he has on other issues, Reid seemed to seize the stage for no clear reason other than he believed the time had come.
Reid has long agitated for renewable energy development in Nevada, but the issue has taken on a sense of urgency as Americans awakened to the repercussions of global warming.
The senator is also a great tactician. He timed his anti-coal message as Congress is deeply engaged in energy policy debates and lawmakers are preparing for what could be a showdown this fall on global warming.
Reid essentially set down one of the boldest markers yet in the energy debate: If the Senate majority leader can kick coal, maybe other lawmakers could think about it, too. But that's not his objective, Reid told the Sun.
His plan to eliminate dependence on coal, he said, "has nothing to do with the nation. My involvement in Nevada has everything to do with Nevada. I think that we have a worldwide problem, a nationwide problem, and I don't want a Nevada problem.
As Congress tackles global warming, he said , getting rid of Nevada's dependence on coal "is only one part of it."
Keith Martin, who co-heads the energy finance group at Chadbourne & Parke in Washington, sees the senator's position as part of the arc of coal's journey this past year.
Coal, once the reliable workhorse of the energy industry by supplying half the nation's power, is now its bad actor.
Utilities have abandoned plans for coal plants in Florida, Texas and other states. As they factor in the enormous costs of pollution-control technology, potential legislation limiting greenhouse gas emissions and public opposition, the bottom line no longer makes sense.
"You'll look back on the year and Reid is just another voice that's consistent with what's coming out of Washington," Martin said.
But what sets Reid apart from other pro-green voices is his ability to kill plans for Nevada's three coal power plants. Witness his efforts to derail a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
Reid has staved off construction of the nuke dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas for decades using stall tactics and budget maneuvering.
His strategy to fight the power companies could be similar - bleed the coal projects of the federal government support they need to plug in.
For example, he could introduce legislation to block federal agencies from spending money to permit the plants. Or he could offer bills requiring that new utility development include a sizable amount of renewables.
But unlike its stance on the nuclear dump, the state's political class is not united behind Reid's plan to kill coal.
Gov. Jim Gibbons has said he supports coal as a component of a diverse energy portfolio and an economic development measure for rural Nevada, despite a petition by seven environmental groups last week asking him to suspend permitting of new coal-fired power until a cap is in place on the amount of carbon dioxide plants could emit.
And Reid's Nevada colleague in Washington, Republican Sen. John Ensign, supports the proposed coal plants and vowed to fight Reid, doing "whatever we can do to try to make sure the process is fair.
"It's kind of like the idea, 'Do cars pollute today?' Yes, but they pollute a lot less than cars of yesterday," Ensign said. "These are new power plants with new technology coming on line that will pollute a lot less."
Utility executives remain confident.
Last week Sierra Pacific Resources Chairman Walt Higgins, whose company is proposing a plant in White Pine County, told investors and Wall Street analysts that Reid is trying to influence state and national policy.
Reid indicated no intention to participate directly in the Sierra Pacific plant's approval process, but simply to oppose plants that don't store the greenhouse gases emitted by coal-burning plants.
Higgins said his plant will store greenhouse gas once technology is available.
Coal plant developers say they support renewable energy development as one piece of the energy picture.
LS Power's plans for a White Pine County plant include a 500-mile transmission line that would connect Northern and Southern Nevada's power grids for the first time, which the company believes would stimulate renewable energy development near their plants.
"We understand that there is a need for a push for renewable resources. But at the same time we don't think that replaces the need for coal-fired power generation," said Eric Crawford, director of project development for LS Power.
State regulators say they embrace alternative energy, but worry that Reid's plan goes too far.
Jo Ann Kelly, chairwoman of the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, said that with 1,000 megawatts of new electric demand under construction on the Strip, an increasing population in Southern Nevada and utility plans to retire older coal plants by 2013, the state needs to take advantage of every power generation method - including coal.
"I don't want anyone to think we didn't look at the issues of greenhouse gas emissions," Kelly said.
But she said she is sure the state needs at least one more coal power plant.
Sierra Pacific generates 19 percent of its power from coal. Nine percent comes from renewable energy, conservation and energy efficiency programs.
"We know solar works. We know geothermal works. We know wind works. What's the risk?" Reid spokesman Jon Summers said. "We should be asking, 'What's the risk of building another dirty coal plant?'
"We need to look beyond today and into the future," Summers said. "That's what his vision does - both from an environmental perspective and looking down the road to Nevada's economic future."
Venture capitalists, who have more than tripled their renewable energy investments to $4 billion in recent years, are measuring the effect of Reid's alternative-energy challenge.
Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, said that although "one statement is not going to change the way we invest," Democratic leadership in Congress has "made it very clear there needs to be a major change in energy policy."
Coal can be burned cleanly. This is madness...
Why in the world do Nevadans keep re-electing Reid, who is against Nevada’s interests?
-—”it’s what Harry does for Nevada”-—the cry from the newspapers, TV, etc.,-—powerful incumbent-—
Renewable energy?
Fantastic...
So we are going to use our coal as much and as cleanly as possible until they get nuclear ramped up? Great!
Oh... they mean diverting the food supply to fuel and still staying dependent on oil from dictators.
Bummer.
I wonder what Bobby Byrd thinks of this? He is from a big coal state.
When Las Vegas experiences a few rolling blackouts that phrase will take on a different meaning to the citizens there.
RE. Global warming -- Take a look at this Newsbusters article:
Newsweek Disgrace: ‘Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine’
FYI ping.
Like cutting off 2/3 of the sign lights on the strip, or cutting 1/2 of the Bellagio water pumps, or 4/5 of the excess lighting on slot machines, or increasing the temperature of air conditioned spaces in all hotels and casinos
That would do the trick
Head line:
“We know solar works. We know geothermal works. We know wind works.”
Wind plants covering the horizon and acres and acres of solar panels will be also be opposed by the environmentalists. Won’t be long before geothermal will set them off as we are unnaturally cooling the planet’s core which will lead to environmental disaster.
These people that want a pristine landscape at the expense of modern life, should live totally underground 24/7.
So we (the power industry and consumers) would need to build (and pay for) MORE energy-sucking processes and piping and the chemical and process energy itself to convert, store, ship, and bury the CO2 now freely released. Yeah. Right. Sure. Er, yes.
But the power companies couldn’t charge more this extra energy and piping and pumps and tanks and people though, could they?
Socialists like him don't need to justify minor things like energy budgets, piping, fuel, and processing costs that reduce energy efficiency.
Magically and immediately, all those homes and businesses in his state are going to become "more fuel efficient" so coal plants are not needed.
Las Vegas lights off at 10:00pm Go ahead Harry, do it.
It’s OK, only the elites like Hollywood stars, Harry Reid, Al Gore and John Edwards will be wasting energy resources. The other 99.9% of the population will be forced into energy conservation by guv’mint.
The new globull warming plan for these alarmists is to starve the market for electricity, drive up the price and force cutbacks, since no one can afford to pay. Simple economics. Everything else these globull warming zealots have tried has failed, carbon taxes are a non-starter, they are now in stealth mode which if not exposed now, will likely succeed. By the time the public catches on, it will be too late to do anything about it. Power plant construction, like refinery construction, takes years and costs billions.
Notice the fix for high gas prices the Democrats promised, $16 billion in new taxes on the oil companies -- Some fix, not a new well or refinery in sight. Sounds like the 1970s of Jimmuh Carter doesn't it. Why else are we not drilling in ANWR?
This is the Democrats carefully calculated plan, starve the market of supply, drive up prices, high prices force conservation, not an accident. Who says Democrats don't understand supply side economics.
I say cut off all outside sources of power into Nevada and let them fend for themselves.
Harry Reid is probably unable to get a cut of any profits from the new coal-fired power plants, hence his choosing to block their construction.
Maybe dingy Harry should go to Baghdad and see two things. First how the surege is going, and second, what happens to a society when they do not have ample, reliable supplies of energy. What a moron. China is OPENING one new coal fired generating plant EVERY 7-10 DAYS and dumb ass Harry is worried about clean coal plants in his home state? Hasn’t he seen the recent pictures from space showing the pollution clouds crossing the Pacific from China? He could lay solar panels on every square inch of his desert state and it would not stop the Chinese from wrecking the environment.
Fantastic thought.
Here’s my email this morning to the the article authors Phoebe Sweet and Lisa Mascaro at the Las Vegas Sun.
I slightly modified your thought and incorporated it with mine.
The e mail....
“Subject: Senator Reid’s letter To power plant builders”
“””To quote from the article:
“In a letter to Nevada’s three coal plant developers, Reid laid out a vision - one observer called it a manifesto - of an energy independence plan for the state. He calls for systematically abandoning coal in favor of conservation measures and enough renewable energy generation to power 4 million homes by 2024.”
The Senator calls for conversation measures. Many conservation measures have been suggested for Las Vegas from diminishing by 2/3 the number of sign lights on the Strip to increasing the allowable temperatures in air-conditioned hotel spaces by 5 degrees. Others have suggested cutting off all but minimal lights on the strip from midnight to dawn.
Will you please follow up and ask Senator Reid for comment on electrical energy conservation measures proposed for Las Vegas?”””
Maybe Reid should also shut down the Silver and Gold operations in NV. I bet they are wonderful for the environment
Not a lot of people know it, but there are geothermal plants that emit much more radiation than nuclear plants. That is because some of the steam generated at depth passes through formations that are relatively high in uranium concentration. The groundwater thus entrains many of the radon daughter products. When processed at the surface and released, the steam releases those effluents to the environment.
I think the one plant in California (is it Geyers?) releases so much radon and radon progeny on an annual basis that if it were a nuclear plant regulated by the NRC, it couldn't get a license to operate. But I guess because it's "natural" radioactivity, it's okay. Sheesh...
Yeah, they tried that in CA when they trashed the Rancho Seco nuclear plant, a perfectly good plant with zero GHG emissions. They said they were going to make up the loss by conserving. We saw the result. They got conservation alright, but it was of the forced variety, i.e., blackouts. So FL wants to go down that same road? Idiots.
That makes sense. Lots of radioactivity goin on down deah..
It must be frustrating to be an environmentalist. Every solution they have, seems to have nasty side effects.
The difference is no one wants to willingly go down that road, it’s all a stealth plan by liberals to force their agenda on the public. Shhh, don’t tell anyone, the liberals are now using the tactic of starving the market of supply, to drive up cost, and reduce consumption. That would be those same don’t question patriots that want to surrender.
I notice that other world economies, like China and India are having none of the globull warming hysteria.
In other words, the companies didn’t offer Reid enough bribe money!
Must be. They propose hydropower and turn around and form groups agitating for the "removal" of hydropower dams on the Columbia River so the salmon can make it back upstream more easily. They want to exploit windpower and then have to deal with people like Teddy and Robert Kennedy complaining about visual pollution and towers standing where they sail their yachts and bird lovers worrying about minced and diced falcons and eagles.
I am a pro-nuclear pragmatic environmentalist. Lots of reliable, economical energy with no GHG emissions and readily manageable waste forms of relatively small volume. A tough combination to beat.
Yes, yes, coal can be burned cleanly.
But wanna know something? This hard-core conservative is happy Harry is opposing those plants. Want to know why?
Power plants need water. Lots of it. All of the coal-fired plants were planning on using a LOT of groundwater for their cooling. The LS plant in White Pine has already bought up at least two very good, productive ranches, just to get their water. We’re talking over 10,000 acre feet for the first stage of the LS Power plant alone.
Now, here’s what the news media isn’t telling people: most of the power from these plants won’t be used in Nevada. These plants are being planned and sited in Nevada because there is money to be made wheeling the power into California.
That’s especially true of the LS plant in White Pine County — their plans are for a 1,600 MW plant. The article says that there is “1,000 MW of new demand” being planned on The Strip and in Clark Co. from new development. Where’s the other 600 MW going to go?
Onto the transmission corridor into SoCal.
Oh, and we’re being told here in northern NV that the LS plant could go as high as 2,500 MW when fully built out.
Again, where’s the excess going to go? They’re not planning on this much additional power to make power rates cheap. Utilities are *quite* happy with where the current power rates are in Nevada - thanks to the RINO Kenny Guinn, deregulation was aborted in mid-birth, leaving NV Power and Sierra Pacific in limbo, and getting power rate increases easily approved by the PUC to clean up Guinn’s mess.
I’m perfectly happy to see these coal-fire plants prevented from siting in NV, because the real impact won’t be on Nevada: it will be on California. And I detest California so much, that seeing California go dark is the *least* of what I want to see happen to them.
We could use 30 to 40 new nuclear plants right now. We’d want to prohibit any harassing lawsuits that the left employs. I would involve the environmentalists in the process.
Tell them that we are going to build these plants, you (environmentalists) tell us where they should be built. We’re not going to go to extremes to accommodate you, but we will listen to your concerns. If you don’t like them apples, don’t bitch. ANY lawsuits will be ignored and harassment of workers or contractors will earn you jail time.
Because Reid panders to the geezers, promising them ever-larger Social Security and Medicare benefits.
There’s a lot of geezers in Clark Co., so there’s no shortage of people who will pull the lever for Harry.
Planning on using a LOT of groundwater for their cooling?....You mean for steam generation for the turbines?.........
A simple exercise:
A 160W 24vDC solar panel has an area of 15 SqFt.
To generate 1590 MW (mega watts) of electricity using an example from the article, replacing one of the threatened plants.
1590 MW = 1,590,000,000 Watts
1,590,000,000/.16W * 15 SQft = 14,906,000,000 sqft.
So if a square mile is 5,280ft*5280ft, that = 27,878,400 sqft.
So 14,906,000,000 / 27,878,400 = 5346 SQUARE MILES of solar panels to equal the output of that power plant.
Im glad that Sen Reid is also an engineer so he can see the ramifications of his policy.
>....I wonder what effect shutting down “Big Coal” will do to the economies of states like W. Virginia and KY??<
Good question. In addition, that coal is moved by rail through Virginia, to the coast. Dingy Harry is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks the other states will stand by and allow him to lick the toes of the enviro-nazis without a fight.
Actually, the big power draw in Clark Co. isn’t any of what you mention.
Most of the power on The Strip (and in southern NV) is consumed by three-phase induction motors powering HVAC systems.
Knowing a little about this, there aren’t many ways you can make those systems more efficient — three phase induction motors are already about 94% efficient, and the HVAC systems are monitored rather closely for efficiency, because they are such a huge expense for the major buildings down there.
What a power shortage would do is put a crimp on new building and new development. Something that needs to be done in Nevada.
I would really rather see nuclear power plants built than coal.................
Sure, we’ll take that deal.
Just as long as we get to do the same thing.
If we get all the power from Hoover Dam, for example, we’d never need to talk about another power plant again.
(popular misconception is that Hoover Dam powers The Strip. It doesn’t. The vast majority of Hoover’s power goes to SoCal, not Nevada)
Steam and cooling. Their press says “cooling”, as did their groundwater application to the State Engineer.
As a EE, so would I, but that ain’t gonna happen. I’m a big proponent of getting our collective head out of our collective rump on the power issue and doing the following:
1. Re-starting the fast breeder reactor project in Idaho.
2. Create a national policy that we re-process our fission nuke plant fuel for re-use, as well as re-tune all this military-grade Pu we’re getting out of the former USSR for civilian power plant use.
3. We put only depleted fuel stock into Yucca Mtn. No re-processable material.
4. We start building new technology fission power plants. Lots of them.
Most of our coal would come from Wyoming and Utah. There are large deposits (huge deposits, actually — that dwarf anything found in W. Virginia) in Wyoming.
Our rural co-op gets most of our power from a coal-fired plant in Delta, UT, which is situated right next to a coal mine. Little to no transportation cost. It is cheaper to transport electrons than coal.
POGW ping
Yes, the IFR concept. A closed fuel cycle. Very sweet. Clinton killed that project just as the EBR-II was gearing up to demonstrate the passive safety of a pool-type sodium reactor. It would have been good for the nuclear industry, and Hillary! couldn't stand the thought of that.
2. Create a national policy that we re-process our fission nuke plant fuel for re-use, as well as re-tune all this military-grade Pu we’re getting out of the former USSR for civilian power plant use.
Reprocessing of commercial fuel is the smart choice. Recover all the useful stuff and reduce waste volume by 99.999999%. Hard to argue with the logic of that.
3. We put only depleted fuel stock into Yucca Mtn. No re-processable material.
If we do full actinide recycle, Yucca Mountain has currently designed would have an essentially infinite capacity. Not only from volume reduction by waste partitioning, but burning out the actinides reduced the heat load, which is really the limiting factor now for repository capacity.
4. We start building new technology fission power plants. Lots of them. An ABWR built on an existing plant site, already approved for use, would be a simple, sweet way to go. The K6 plants in Japan were something like 48 months from initial concrete pouring to grid connection. Surely we can do as well. It's basically our technology, after all.
You’re forgetting the same thing that the enviro’s forget when they do the exact same calculations, that I, a retired EE, has to remind them of.
It is pretty hilarious when I bring this subject up in a meeting with greenies (and I’m NOT accusing you of being one). So many people think solar is simple, but they forget one very important detail:
Every 24-hour period, we have this thing called “night,” when there is no “sun.” If we wanted to be capable of generating 1,590 MW on a round-the-clock basis (as any other power plant could do), we would have to double the solar capacity and store 50% of the output for use when this “night” thing happens.
Storing large amounts of power like this is not done with batteries and AC inverters, the way you might do with a home solar setup. Storing this amount of power is done by doing things like having a hydro dam and pumping water uphill behind the dam for use later, or by sealing up an old salt mine underground and pumping it full of compressed air.
The only viable way I, as an old, burned-out EE, ever sees “solar” making a viable contribution would be to install no-storage solar power onto rooftops at as many user locations as possible. Each installation has a phase-matching inverter, connected to the grid. When the sun is out, the solar installation offsets some of the user’s power use, and *possibly* (but not likely), the solar installation might feed back some power into the grid.
Then at night, the utility picks up the slack. The utility power sources were stored during the day by pumping/compression and are released at night.
Take the storage issue away from the consumer and solar power becomes more practical (but still hideously expensive) for the end consumer, most of whom should not be allowed to meddle with any technology more advanced than a sharp stick.
Actually, what I remember of the bellyaching from 1994 was that Clinton canned the EBR/IFR project to “prevent nuclear proliferation” — at the insistence of the anti-nuke flower children in the left.
Since that project was canned, we had seen the following in nuclear proliferation:
1. India exploded a fission device.
2. Pakistan exploded a fission device.
3. N. Korea has a credible nuclear weapons program underway.
4. Iran now has a nuclear weapons program underway.
5. We learned that Libya was in the very early stages of a nuke program, providing us with evidence of how farm A.Q. Khan had peddled his design(s).
So much for that “canceling IFR will prevent nuclear proliferation” idea that the anti-nuke left was peddling in 1994, eh?
If countries want a weapons program, they're probably going to get one somehow. The cat is out of the bag. Other than limiting access to raw materials or key technology, there's not much the international community can do to stop it. There are always ways around sanctions. We shouldn't be giving technology away, like Clinton did in the 1990s. But likewise we have to know that useless and ineffective gestures like canceling IFR will hurt us more than help us.
I defer to superior knowledge.
I did in fact mention a change in AC space temperatures that would reduce the load you noted.
If we play like the Rats, we appeal to what is felt, or in this easily case seen. That is the lights. That is Las Vegas.
One would wonder if a Presstitute (or Dingy Harry) could even comprehend a three phase motor whereas they can clearly comprehend lights.
It is all moot because we all know they will concentrate on alternative sources rather than outrageous load conservation.
Aye, carumba. Dontcha just love it...?
Never let an ME tread into the EE world.
I was just doing the SF example to demonstrate the insane amount of acreage it would take to generate the power. I didnt have the heart to tell them it would take an equally insane amount of batteries to store energy for nighttime use.
Just remember it takes a EE to spell gEEk. /jk
Yea, I do. Bringing these little “issues” with solar up in a public meeting does wonders to dispense with the idiocy being flouted by the greenies as “alternatives.”
Wind power, in the right places, does pencil out, so I don’t pooh-pooh wind power. Wind power here in Nevada... a much more dicey proposition. There are some places where the wind power resource is exploitable, but they’re mostly in the northeastern part of the state, and they’re not nice, steady wind sources as we see in the midwest (eg, WY, ND, SD, MN, etc).
Geothermal — well, we do have geothermal resources. We have more geothermal resources than any other state in the nation. Trouble is, most of the geothermal areas are out in BLM areas, and the permitting to site a power plant (and transmission lines) out into the BLM is a Big Freakin’ Deal, for a very dubious payback. The greenies would fight it tooth and nail, despite their propaganda otherwise. They’d say “Yes, we’re all for geothermal, but not at this particular pristine site...” and so on.
There are homes and ranches here in northern NV that use geothermal heat sources directly for heating. There’s a ranch (the Gund Ranch) in Grass Valley (about 80 miles west of us) where they have nothing but hot water coming out of their domestic well. Know how your mom used to tell you to “leave hot water for someone else?”
Well, at the Gund Ranch, they worry about running out of cold water, not hot water. They have to store water and cool it, and they have only so much storage. The natural temp of the water is about 140F.
There’s a power plant using direct geothermal here in Eureka County — up in Beowawe, near the Horseshoe Ranch. Well temp is something like 230F — so it flashes directly to steam upon escaping.
I am in the Midwest and there are some days that are dead calm. Like today with temps pushing into the 90s and humidity almost as high. The chaotic nature of wind as a generating source makes it dicey for a grid-based distribution system. Having been in the "hot seat" in the control center for a regional system operator, I know that the last thing you want is to manage a variable source when reserve margins are tight. It might make a decent source of energy (not capacity) if the storage problem can be solved, but pumped storage reservoirs are going to be opposed by the same groups that advocate wind as an electricity source.
Best bets IMHO are to use passive solar where possible in new construction, nuclear for baseload power, and renewables for occasional supply if costs can be brought down and the storage problems addressed. Use coal reserves for synfuels to offset the use of petroleum in the transport sector. Maybe eventually go to electric substitution in the transport sector if the range of electric vehicles can be extended. Right now I can "recharge" by gasoline-fueled vehicle at the pump in 5 minutes, then go another 600 miles on the highway. Unless electric vehicles can come close to that, they aren't going to cut it for general use, where families sometimes have to make those kinds of trips once or twice a year.
Here is the reply from one of the reporters.....
“Thanks for your comments — will keep them in mind for future stories.
Best,
Lisa Mascaro
Washington Correspondent
Las Vegas Sun”
Radar......
please keep your eyes peeled for the future article where she asks the conservation questions.
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