The question is, what the cheapest mean: for example the electricity from wind plants is really cheap at the markets - because it's solely unpredictable.
The electricity which can be drained just in time is very expensive instead (coal and gas plants in particular can generate electricity twenty minutes after start).
And the wind plants can be also cheap due to massive governmental subsidizes and due to neglecting the hidden portion of TCO - it's just game with numbers.
And we subsidize the coal plants too, we pay with our own and our children's health and the health of our planet. I am happy to pay more for clean electriticty (and do) by choosing a supplier who pledges to buy as much as possible from renewable sources, a small amount extra on my bills that is well worth paying.
There is no clean electricity: even the wind plants consume lotta concrete (2% of energy output goes to the production of concrete), steel, plastic matter, copper and neodymium. These all very dirty materials and the life-time of windplants is limited and their energy is diluted. Not to say about hidden cost of electricity, which just needs the backup or balancing and increases load of grid (another copper for wires and transformers). Bellow is a toxic lake in China – the result of rare earth mining..
All power plants have a limited life-span, boilers particularly so. All consume raw materials too wether thay are powered by coal, gas, oil, wind, or the sun. But they don't all have smoking chimneys, and that is the kind I like.
The question is, what the cheapest mean: for example the electricity from wind plants is really cheap at the markets - because it's solely unpredictable.
No, it isn't unpredictable. With modern weather forecasting, you can predict that amount of energy that will be produced by a wind farm a week in advance. This allows scheduling of maintenance, and it allows plenty of time to turn on or off other sources. For example, if you have to do maintenance on a 1 GW combustion or nuclear plant, you can schedule that for a week in advance knowing there will be a lot of wind so the wind turbines can make up for the loss.
Large nuclear plants can go offline in an instant, with a SCRAM, for something like a plumbing problem. They are actually somewhat less predictable than wind farms, and they go off completely -- from 1 GW to nothing an instant later -- whereas wind farms go off gradually, by degrees.
The capital costs are multiples of alternatives, the efficiencies are low due to transmission losses, maintenance is high and expensive, they decimate large quantities of migratory birds, and the availability
As I showed in the EIA website, the capital costs are lower, not higher. They are no farther from population centers than nuclear plants -- and closer in many cases, because they are safe.
Wind turbines do not decimate migratory birds. Birds are evolved to avoid running into large moving objects, such as trees blowing in the wind. Combustion and nuclear plants that emit huge steam plumes kill many orders of magnitude more birds than wind turbines do. Also, reflective glass windows kill millions of birds, and so do domesticated cats. These are big problems. The problems with wind turbines are imaginary.
Jed,
Take a look at the recent 2016 outage in Adelaide_Outage. It's a wikipedia, then goto the references and download the AEMO pdf. The windfarm collapse (due to the storm) caused the total outage as the feeders could not recover. I mention this as not to argue, but to get you to look at the report. It is very interesting reading quite educational.
It shows what/when/how/why.
The windfarm collapse (due to the storm)
Extreme weather causes all kinds of problems with electricity. Nuclear plants in California have been shut down by storms at sea. The storms cause large waves that tear kelp off the sea bed, which then clogs up the cooling water inlet pipes.
QuoteWith modern weather forecasting, you can predict that amount of energy that will be produced by a wind farm a week in advance
The success of modern weather forecasting is still rather low. This article says, it could be improved by 30% and the final level will not be definitely 100%, so that the initial level is lower than 60%. And I don't think, that arrays of wind plants are better than few chimneys - the main problem of fossil fuels is, they're of limited resources, but the renewables provide any sustainable perspective neither.
The so-called "renewables" and "green-solution" just convert the fossil-fuel crisis silently into raw source crisis. As this article points out clearly, a shift to renewable energy will just replace one non-renewable resource (fossil fuel) with another (metals and minerals). Right now wind and solar energy meet only about 1 percent of global demand; hydroelectricity meets about 7 percent. For example, to match the power generated by fossil fuels or nuclear power stations, the construction of solar energy farms and wind turbines will gobble up 15 times more concrete, 90 times more aluminum and 50 times more iron, copper and glass. Also, the wind turbines only work when there’s wind, although not too much, and the solar panels only work during the day and then only when it’s not cloudy.
Renewable energy needs copper, steel, aluminium, indium, neodym and concrete. If the contribution from wind turbines and solar energy to global energy production is to rise from the current 400 TWh to 12,000 TWh in 2035 and 25,000 TWh in 2050, as projected by the World Wide Fund for Nature, about 3,200 million tonnes of steel, 310 million tonnes of aluminium and 40 million tonnes of copper will be required to build the latest generations of wind and solar facilities. This corresponds to a 5 to 18% annual increase in the global production of these metals for the next 40 years. Most of indium is consumed with solar cell industry -
but we have reserves of indium to the next fifteen years only. This is not how the sustainable evolution is supposed to look like...
And 25,000 TWh is still just one sixth of the total world energy consumption. It's evident, the cold fusion is not just the alternative - it's actually the only one possible option of the energetic future of human civilization. The faster we will implement it, the better.
Jed,
Agreed. I wanted you to read the pdf as it shows the usage and the balance of wind/hydro/solar/gas-turbine/oil for a large region in the report and how a large recovery works. I personally am a believer in a mix and that includes nuclear( warts and all for now) has to be part of it. I would imagine you know how well solar can work (and upset the apple cart) and how hard we they are trying to kill it. I am reading your paper now btw. But lets face it today is a great day for watching the Rossi channel show!
In this discussion, I mentioned that Sec. of State is in favor of going to war with China over the oil in the South China Sea. Pres. Adviser Steve Bannon also favors war with both China and in the Middle East. See:
"Steve Bannon: 'We're going to war in the South China Sea ... no doubt'"
https://www.theguardian.com/us…-south-china-sea-no-doubt
So, now you know the Trump energy policy. It is what Trump himself said during the campaign. He intends to invade other countries and seize their oil. He and the others apparently do not realize that the Chinese could easily sink an entire U.S. fleet in the South China Sea or anywhere else within ~1000 km of China.
These people are playing with fire.
My thought about Trump is that he is not a statesman and has no place doing statecraft. I get the idea that if someone can bend his ear and he agrees powerful forces will be brought to bear. And like physics where the language is math. Money is the language of power. I worry about his since of pride. God help if he ever meets Rossi 
I can not wait for my grandaughter to see Asia /s
A note on power and money. Recently Peter Thiel financed the Hulk Hogan trial that bankrupted the rag Gawker. Originally this was hidden behind the scenes. Terry Bolla (Hogan) could not have afforded that case.
While people talk about the billions that Bill Gates and Carlos Slim have, the Walton family quietly sits around the thanksgiving table. Their combined worth equaling Gates easily. Their product comes from China. Under the money equals power principle Trump would be impeached before he could get far in the war. This is providing that the 1% still want to be the 1% and I am pretty sure they do. So no war or limited war and political impeachment.
I am happy to pay more for clean electriticty (and do) by choosing a supplier who pledges to buy as much as possible from renewable sources, a small amount extra on my bills that is well worth paying.
Alan,
I think most here would do the same (pay extra). We are all save the planet types. The problem though, is that we represent only a tiny fraction of attitudes regarding the environment. Most, whether conservative or liberal, simply go where the cheaper option takes them. Only difference is that one group talks the talk, while the other does not.
When you really get down to it, human nature being what it is, if technology and industry does not save us from ourselves, then we are doomed. 
Now, just to throw a bone to my liberal, big government colleagues...government can hasten the process along. Then again, they can muck it up too.
When you really get down to it, human nature being what it is, if technology and industry does not save us from ourselves, then we are doomed.
There are countless instances in the past in which technology, industry and government worked together to alleviate problems and dangerous technology. For example, when Westinghouse invented air brakes, it was clear to everyone they were much safer. Many other improvements were made in railroad technology, such as safer couplers. In 1892, the Congress passed a law mandating the use of what nowadays we would call "best practices" technology. It was a great success. See:
Railroad Safety Appliance Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Safety_Appliance_Act
More recently, the Obama administration invested a great deal in solar and wind power. A few of these ventures failed, but most succeeded, making the government a large profit overall. More important, it spurred a tremendous increase in capacity and a reduction in cost to the point where wind and solar are cheaper than coal in some geographic locations, such as Texas. Electricity is so cheap there now, the power companies give it away for free at night. It is "too cheap to meter."
People think that government and industry are in opposition, but they have worked together far more often than they have been at odds with one another.
I am quite sure that with an enlightened government, we could easily solve the problem of global warming, even without cold fusion. There are dozens of ways forward. Unfortunately, the present administration is not enlightened, and its members do not even believe global warming is real.
. Unfortunately, the present administration is not enlightened, and its members do not even believe global warming is real.
Jed,
Not to worry. We will probably die in the nuclear war Trump will start, well before his environmental policies kill us off.
Not to worry. We will probably die in the nuclear war Trump will start,
I believe the plan is to re-fight the cold war, only this time we let the commies win. That's awfully sporting of us!
Trump's statements on a number of subjects are flatly contradictory. That may be a disadvantage diplomatically, we will see, it certainly confuses everyone else. I guess if you think uncertainty makes for good international relations you'd approve of it.
He has shown a decent ability to defer to others in his team when his core beliefs are not involved. I think most people hope that after a bedding in period this will allow wise decisions - always assuming his advisors are well chosen.
His attitude towards science is appalling. He thinks scientists should be politically censored. He has weird ideas about some topics (e.g. climate change), not shared by 97% of scientists, and clearly has a distrust of science (not that that is unusual in US politics). Of course scientists are sometimes wrong. But, who would you reckon is more reliable? Scientists over 100 countries who have a fertile and variable but nevertheless pretty solid consensus, or a few politicians, out-of-field science mavericks, and people with no scientific knowledge at all?
Trump supports fossil fuels. That is pretty short-sighted given the current good position of PV as a long-term energy source and fact that continued research shows every sign of driving up efficiency and down cost/W (you need higher efficiency as well as lower cost/W since total cost is installation + panels. The arguments about intermittency are complex but a wind/solar mix with lots of EVs, and smart charging that allows the EV batteries to act as load-balancers, will go a long way to reducing this extra cost.
So for PV solar all the technological drivers are towards lower cost and as long as research continues there is no reason to suppose they will not end up cheaper than fossil fuels.
Another issue in balancing these factors is pollution. In Europe the evidence linking diesels and PM2.5, and PM2.5 and bad health, have just recently gone from "probable but not quantified" to "known and nastier than previously thought". Now, diesels can be made clean. But that costs more. In the end all these decisions are about costs, present and future.
I think to be a wise capitalist in a massively interconnected world where human activities have significant effect on the global (rather than local) environment you need to think beyond national horizons. I don't see Trump doing that. Hope I'm wrong.
I see all these technological factors as moving us over time in the direction of wanting PV (and some wind) quite irrespective of climate change. And I see Trump's choices of team so far, with strong links to big oil, as not likely to help him go down that path.
Interesting if lengthy article - Carl Page and cold fusions are mentioned though not together:
QuoteShares were available for $100 million each, in case anyone was interested. That got the group chatting admiringly of Tesla Motors, the electric car company, which led to smaller huddles debating cold fusion, artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and billion-dollar startups. As an evening, it seemed flawless, an intimate mingling of science, technology and substantial fortunes, including all of the fine touches “to reflect their stratosphere,” just as his clients prefer, Doll later said. In his time in Stavanger, members even closed a business deal that, with his cut, covered his expenses “four times over.”
https://qz.com/844487/meet-the…rom-destroying-the-world/
And then, there is this about Darden and IH:
http://www.bizjournals.com/tri…at-continues-mission.html
PS: Do you'all really want opinions about Trump expressed here?
I want to hear Mary's opinions on Trump.
Do you think he has nice hair?
