The Energy Generation Megathread: Heated Exchanges

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freezepops: Aug 21, 2007; witty title not included; Fun Shoe

Cingulate posted:

I strongly believe in the Baseload Meme, why am I wrong?

Baseload generation isn�t really a thing if you have a power grid with significant sources of non-dispatchable generation. Since you don�t have control of energy sources like PV, other than curtailment, the minimum power generation required to meet the lowest load point can be zero or even negative (depending on market structure and how renewable energy like wind and solar are incentivized). It also doesn�t take much renewable penetration for baseload requirements to be eliminated on a year long basis, even Texas with a renewable energy penetration of about 15-20% has had the grid operate with negative prices as non-dispatchable energy sources exceeded load.

Now, you still need dispatchable power generation to meet load, but baseload doesn�t factor into how you meet those power requirements. Instead, ramp rates and peak output are the primary factors in how useful the power generator is going to be.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 19:31

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 00:43

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

freezepops posted:

Baseload generation isn�t really a thing if you have a power grid with significant sources of non-dispatchable generation. Since you don�t have control of energy sources like PV, other than curtailment, the minimum power generation required to meet the lowest load point can be zero or even negative (depending on market structure and how renewable energy like wind and solar are incentivized). It also doesn�t take much renewable penetration for baseload requirements to be eliminated on a year long basis, even Texas with a renewable energy penetration of about 15-20% has had the grid operate with negative prices as non-dispatchable energy sources exceeded load.

Now, you still need dispatchable power generation to meet load, but baseload doesn�t factor into how you meet those power requirements. Instead, ramp rates and peak output are the primary factors in how useful the power generator is going to be.

this is the difference between someone who actually understands the topic at hand, and people who formed their opinion of renewables in 2010 and refuse to learn anything new since (genx'ers incrementally ossifying their brains as they become the new boomers)

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:03

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

freezepops posted:

Baseload generation isn�t really a thing if you have a power grid with significant sources of non-dispatchable generation. Since you don�t have control of energy sources like PV, other than curtailment, the minimum power generation required to meet the lowest load point can be zero or even negative (depending on market structure and how renewable energy like wind and solar are incentivized). It also doesn�t take much renewable penetration for baseload requirements to be eliminated on a year long basis, even Texas with a renewable energy penetration of about 15-20% has had the grid operate with negative prices as non-dispatchable energy sources exceeded load.

Now, you still need dispatchable power generation to meet load, but baseload doesn�t factor into how you meet those power requirements. Instead, ramp rates and peak output are the primary factors in how useful the power generator is going to be.

Can you simplify this a bit for me? I don�t understand most of that to be honest.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:14

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Cingulate posted:

Can you simplify this a bit for me? I don�t understand most of that to be honest.

Baseload are plants designed to stay on 24/7 and provide power (almost) all the time. As more of the grid takes advantage of electricity generated by sources we can�t completely control (non-dispatchable) we end up with times where we have so much electricity generation from the non-dispatchables that we don�t need the plant that runs 24/7 (or we need so much extra supply because the non-dispatchables aren�t producing) instead we want a plant we can turn on and off quickly (dispatchable) so we can respond to the changing demand and supply.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:31

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Right - and that�s stuff like gas turbines? What spins up quickly and shuts off quickly?

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:34

Orvin: Sep 9, 2006

It all depends on the region, but the traditional pre-2010 load curve is starting to no longer apply. With behind the meter PV (effectively reducing load), and your other renewables that run when they can, the concept of base load generation is changing or disappearing.

More accurately, wind power is displacing base load generation. Since wind power has no fuel costs, you just let them generate whenever the wind is blowing. At night, there tends to be more (or at least constant) wind, so the wind acts as baseload generation at night. The issue with that is that wind has a tendency to die off at bad times. Look to California a week or two ago. So you need some sort of capacity to make up for potential wind shortfalls during daylight higher load times. Baseload generation is not a good fit for this, as that type of generation does not start quickly, or react to load changes quickly. It wants to sit at a constant output.

Baseload generation was economical in the past for a couple of reasons. Early utilities were vertically integrated, so they were getting the same price per kWh any time of day. So those baseload plants made money around the clock. Then when the markets started forming, and deregulation hit, they were still profitable because they made just enough (or pretty close) to cover their costs at night. During the day when the price for power shot up due to running expensive gas turbines, they made good money.

But now with wind power dropping the market price to near $0 at night, base load plants are losing a lot of money at night. And the price of power during the day is barely getting to their break even point most days. That is no way to run a coal or nuclear base load plant for the long term.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:39

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Orvin posted:

It all depends on the region, but the traditional pre-2010 load curve is starting to no longer apply. With behind the meter PV (effectively reducing load), and your other renewables that run when they can, the concept of base load generation is changing or disappearing.

More accurately, wind power is displacing base load generation. Since wind power has no fuel costs, you just let them generate whenever the wind is blowing. At night, there tends to be more (or at least constant) wind, so the wind acts as baseload generation at night. The issue with that is that wind has a tendency to die off at bad times. Look to California a week or two ago. So you need some sort of capacity to make up for potential wind shortfalls during daylight higher load times. Baseload generation is not a good fit for this, as that type of generation does not start quickly, or react to load changes quickly. It wants to sit at a constant output.

Baseload generation was economical in the past for a couple of reasons. Early utilities were vertically integrated, so they were getting the same price per kWh any time of day. So those baseload plants made money around the clock. Then when the markets started forming, and deregulation hit, they were still profitable because they made just enough (or pretty close) to cover their costs at night. During the day when the price for power shot up due to running expensive gas turbines, they made good money.

But now with wind power dropping the market price to near $0 at night, base load plants are losing a lot of money at night. And the price of power during the day is barely getting to their break even point most days. That is no way to run a coal or nuclear base load plant for the long term.

The problem is there's no reason to operate a nuclear plant like that at all anyways. It makes more sense, especially if power storage becomes more of a thing, to use the wind to supply the grid and let the nuclear plant charge energy storage for use during the day.

But at the end of the day, the issue remains: The bulk of our energy still fossil fuels, and wind may drop evening (low demand) prices, the fossil fuels are still the ones providing the grid for the majority of the actual generated power.

Another problem is we cannot keep framing it in $/MW cost, because it just excuses poor environmental decisions for power generation companies and providers. There's going to be a significant cost to address the damage done by fossil fuels.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:45

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Cingulate posted:

Right - and that�s stuff like gas turbines? What spins up quickly and shuts off quickly?

Gas turbines, hydro, battery, diesel/oil/jet fuel (yup we still use it), CSP, demand response (asking/telling customers to shut off/turn on things) are the quickest ones. Curtailing renewables (turning them off) works quickly as well but not the other way (since we don't control the weather). Mostly gas turbines on the US grid.

But other sources are dispatchable too but might not have the flexibility to dispatch as quickly like a gas combined cycle plant would be able to ramp up or down but not as fast as a gas turbine.

Also because of external reasons there are a bunch of plants that are "dispatchable" but aren't completely so. An example might be a big hydro plant that can't actually ramp up because they're required to keep that water for environmental/legal reasons. Or when all the plants water intakes "freeze" on the exact same day as the new maximum price goes into effect.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:46

Orvin: Sep 9, 2006

CommieGIR posted:

Another problem is we cannot keep framing it in $/MW cost, because it just excuses poor environmental decisions for power generation companies and providers. There's going to be a significant cost to address the damage done by fossil fuels.

Until you nationalize the grid, companies will not think of it as anything other than $/MW. Especially when so few electric utilities are vertical anymore. When the transmission/distribution company is buying MW from a market pool, they have no concern of where the MW come from, just that they are the lowest price. Sure there are some occasional PR moves to buy renewable MW, but that is all capacity contracts on paper.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:56

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Orvin posted:

Until you nationalize the grid, companies will not think of it as anything other than $/MW. Especially when so few electric utilities are vertical anymore. When the transmission/distribution company is buying MW from a market pool, they have no concern of where the MW come from, just that they are the lowest price. Sure there are some occasional PR moves to buy renewable MW, but that is all capacity contracts on paper.

And that's why we're likely hosed as a species. We're going to cheap ourselves into the ground.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 20:58

mediaphage: Mar 22, 2007; Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

personally i think better energy is becoming more realized daily and thus while things will get worse, they will not be apocalyptic. at least, for most people (i�m not being entirely callous, obvs we need to care for climate refugees to the extent that we haven�t already entirely destroyed their culture)

anyways, content. if you haven�t seen it, there�s a cool graphic page that shows ontario�s energy sources. I bring it up because nuclear is still super important here. growth in the area has stalled, though.

http://webroots.ca/static/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html

i was surprised to see the biggest hydro project outputs 1.5 times the energy of the biggest nuclear plant.

nuclear, hydro, and gas supply ~ 55, 21, and 18 percent of the province�s power, proportionately. wind is currently around five but i gotta imagine that�ll go up.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 22:37

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

mediaphage posted:

personally i think better energy is becoming more realized daily and thus while things will get worse, they will not be apocalyptic. at least, for most people (i�m not being entirely callous, obvs we need to care for climate refugees to the extent that we haven�t already entirely destroyed their culture)

anyways, content. if you haven�t seen it, there�s a cool graphic page that shows ontario�s energy sources. I bring it up because nuclear is still super important here. growth in the area has stalled, though.

http://webroots.ca/static/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html

i was surprised to see the biggest hydro project outputs 1.5 times the energy of the biggest nuclear plant.

nuclear, hydro, and gas supply ~ 55, 21, and 18 percent of the province�s power, proportionately. wind is currently around five but i gotta imagine that�ll go up.

Is the big pie chart on the top capacity or generation? If its generation why is it in MW not MWh? edit: ah it must supposed to be instantaneous at the time of viewing

Also pretty lol saying Natural Gas "avoids CO2" is uh...a take.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 22:45

mediaphage: Mar 22, 2007; Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Trabisnikof posted:

Is the big pie chart on the top capacity or generation? If its generation why is it in MW not MWh?

Also pretty lol saying Natural Gas "avoids CO2" is uh...a take.

it's generation, it's functionally real time. should be interesting to see what wind does or does not do overnight, maybe? if you scroll down and look at the bar charts, it has capacity listed for each plant (for most, anyway).

i lolled at that when i saw it, too. i mean, i get their point is versus coal or whatever but that's a pr talking point to me.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 22:46

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

https://twitter.com/RARohde/status/1300573837529165827?s=20

Not surprised in the slightest.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 22:54

MomJeans420: Mar 19, 2007

It would be pretty shortsighted to institute a fracking ban and leave the US at the mercy of other energy producers. I know this is the energy generation megathread, but there are a lot of geopolitical concerns besides climate change, and shooting yourself in the foot just to set an example for other countries who aren't going to follow along is pretty stupid.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:09

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

MomJeans420 posted:

It would be pretty shortsighted to institute a fracking ban and leave the US at the mercy of other energy producers. I know this is the energy generation megathread, but there are a lot of geopolitical concerns besides climate change, and shooting yourself in the foot just to set an example for other countries who aren't going to follow along is pretty stupid.

Would be even possible to import the volume of Natural Gas required? How many megawatts are generated from all US NG Plants?

As far as I see it, it's impossible. Unless we re-activate coal or implemented a de-growth strategy.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:14

mediaphage: Mar 22, 2007; Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

Gabriel S. posted:

How many megawatts are generated from all US NG Plants?

last year ng was responsible for 38.4% of all us power generation

# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:28

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

Ballparking that chart... That comes out to 11.52 Gigawatts?

Thinking this though more much time does it take to build a wind farm, solar farm or Nuclear Power plant?

I'm trying some basic napkin math how on quickly we'd be able to replace Natural Gas to understand the difficulty.

# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:35

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

MomJeans420 posted:

It would be pretty shortsighted to institute a fracking ban and leave the US at the mercy of other energy producers. I know this is the energy generation megathread, but there are a lot of geopolitical concerns besides climate change, and shooting yourself in the foot just to set an example for other countries who aren't going to follow along is pretty stupid.

Yes, surely those who want to avert a disastrous future are just being shortsighted. We'd be preventing the apocalypse, but at what cost? Think of the lost shareholder value!

# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:43

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

MomJeans420 posted:

It would be pretty shortsighted to institute a fracking ban and leave the US at the mercy of other energy producers. I know this is the energy generation megathread, but there are a lot of geopolitical concerns besides climate change, and shooting yourself in the foot just to set an example for other countries who aren't going to follow along is pretty stupid.

Of course the USA isn't a consumer in the international natural gas market, so obviously a frac ban wouldn't "leave the US at the mercy of The Other" in the natural gas market. So that leaves oil.

Please do tell us what you think would happen in the oil market if the US banned new frac jobs in January 2021? And why would that be bad for Americans?

# ? Sep 1, 2020 23:51

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

Trabisnikof posted:

Of course the USA isn't a consumer in the international natural gas market, so obviously a frac ban wouldn't "leave the US at the mercy of The Other" in the natural gas market. So that leaves oil.

Please do tell us what you think would happen in the oil market if the US banned new frac jobs in January 2021? And why would that be bad for Americans?

Someone just showed a few posts ago that Natural Gas generates nearly 40% of electricity in the United States.

What do you intend to replace that with exactly in January 2021?

# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:06

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Gabriel S. posted:

Someone just showed a few posts ago that Natural Gas generates nearly 40% of electricity in the United States.

What do you intend to replace that with exactly in January 2021?

Conventional wells and non-hydraulic-fracturing unconventional wells, obviously.

Besides, if we stop new frac jobs that doesn't preclude previously fraced wells from continuing to produce.

(Note: this is a very different argument than the one I was initially replying to, which was about the importance of US fracing in the international energy market.)

The US gas market is already oversupplied, so we literally don't need as much gas production capacity as we have already onlined. Now is the perfect time to end fracing if there ever was one.

quote:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=43755

Before the economic contraction caused by mitigation efforts in response to COVID-19, EIA expected natural gas production would flatten in 2020 because of the oversupplied market created as natural gas production growth has outpaced demand growth. The United States set annual natural gas production records in 2018 and 2019, largely because of the increase in drilling in shale and tight oil formations. This increase in production led to higher volumes of natural gas in storage and a decrease in natural gas prices.

Declines in crude oil and natural gas prices in March and April have led producers to announce plans to further reduce capital spending and drilling levels, as well as curtail production from some existing wells. Most of the expected decline in natural gas production is from associated gas in oil-directed plays, particularly in the Permian Basin that spans parts of western Texas and eastern New Mexico.

Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Sep 2, 2020

# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:36

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

Trabisnikof posted:

Conventional wells and non-hydraulic-fracturing unconventional wells, obviously.

Besides, if we stop new frac jobs that doesn't preclude previously fraced wells from continuing to produce.

(Note: this is a very different argument than the one I was initially replying to, which was about the importance of US fracing in the international energy market.)

Typically wells don't work in the US. For our geography, fracking is our only option.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:37

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Gabriel S. posted:

Typically wells don't work in the US. For our geography, fracking is our only option.

That's just a flatly wrong.

:shrug:

edit: to be more charitable, perhaps you're confusing "cheaper when we ignore externalities" for "only." Like do you actually think the US didn't produce natural gas before fracing became big?

Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Sep 2, 2020

# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:41

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

Trabisnikof posted:

That's just a flatly wrong.

I mean... we could drill in protected areas along and just spend so much more to get oil out of traditional sites but that would just make importing more cost effective.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:43

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Gabriel S. posted:

I mean... we could drill in protected areas along and just spend so much more to get oil out of traditional sites but that would just make importing more cost effective.

That has nothing to do with your other very incorrect statement. You said that convention gas wells don't work in the US. That's just wrong.

The USA was the #2 producer of natural gas before the frac boom. That's kinda the opposite of "fracking is our only option"

Now you're trying to make it seem like the *only* conventional gas sites are in "protected areas," but why would anyone trust your (unsourced) opinion on available natural gas reserves when you're wrong about the basic facts of natural gas production?

# ? Sep 2, 2020 00:49

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

I mean, it's not that they don't work but the places that it's easy to drill are long and gone. That's how fracking along with horizontal drilling brought back so much drilling to the US. Along with recovering previously retired wells.

That's my understanding from quite a bit of reading. If that's incorrect, I'm a little unclear what's wrong with this train of thought.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 01:12

Bucky Fullminster: Apr 13, 2007

MrYenko posted:

Speaking as a federal civilian employee, nuclear shouldn�t be publicly operated, either.

loving government managers can�t operate their way out of a wet paper bag.

.. Are you saying that you don't want nuclear to be operated at all? Because if I had to choose between it being operated for the greater good, or for profit, I'd have to say the former. Federal government managers and private company managers are all equally human, it is the motive behind it which matters. A private company is incentivised to cut corners wherever possible to make a buck, a public one is not.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:19

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Pretty weird that we managed to be a leading natural gas producer despite all of our wells running dry

# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:34

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

QuarkJets posted:

Pretty weird that we managed to be a leading natural gas producer despite all of our wells running dry

It's that can't this oil and natural gas without fracking to the degree we do today.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:40

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

Gabriel S. posted:

I mean, it's not that they don't work but the places that it's easy to drill are long and gone. That's how fracking along with horizontal drilling brought back so much drilling to the US. Along with recovering previously retired wells.

That's my understanding from quite a bit of reading. If that's incorrect, I'm a little unclear what's wrong with this train of thought.

you are mistaking narratives for numbers. narratives are things to paint on top of understanding the numbers, but are almost always marginal changes in rates and derivatives. the bulk of underlying things doesn't follow the marginal narratives, it trudges on much the same. if all you ever learn is narratives you'll trip over your lack of context into thinking wildly oversimplified narratives are an accurate understanding of real world numbers.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:47

MightyBigMinus: Jan 26, 2020

Gabriel S. posted:

Ballparking that chart... That comes out to 11.52 Gigawatts?

Thinking this though more much time does it take to build a wind farm, solar farm or Nuclear Power plant?

I'm trying some basic napkin math how on quickly we'd be able to replace Natural Gas to understand the difficulty.

the US installed 9GW of wind in 2019: https://www.windpowerengineering.com/2019-was-the-u-s-wind-industrys-third-strongest-installation-year/

MightyBigMinus fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Sep 2, 2020

# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:53

lobotomy molo: May 7, 2007; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

MomJeans420 posted:

It would be pretty shortsighted to institute a fracking ban and leave the US at the mercy of other energy producers. I know this is the energy generation megathread, but there are a lot of geopolitical concerns besides climate change, and shooting yourself in the foot just to set an example for other countries who aren't going to follow along is pretty stupid.

Hmmm, I wonder if there are other ways to generate energy that won�t cause human extinction.

...nah, that would be shortsighted.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 02:55

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

MightyBigMinus posted:

you are mistaking narratives for numbers. narratives are things to paint on top of understanding the numbers, but are almost always marginal changes in rates and derivatives. the bulk of underlying things doesn't follow the marginal narratives, it trudges on much the same. if all you ever learn is narratives you'll trip over your lack of context into thinking wildly oversimplified narratives are an accurate understanding of real world numbers.

Okay, what are these numbers?

# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:04

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

MightyBigMinus posted:

the US installed 9GW of wind in 2019: https://www.windpowerengineering.com/2019-was-the-u-s-wind-industrys-third-strongest-installation-year/

Is 2020 going to exceed 2019 growth in wind, or has the downturn affected new deployment?

Wind really does seem to be one of the best avenues we have. I'm in awe of the size and outputs of modern turbines.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 03:10

hypnophant: Oct 19, 2012

Trabisnikof posted:

That has nothing to do with your other very incorrect statement. You said that convention gas wells don't work in the US. That's just wrong.

The USA was the #2 producer of natural gas before the frac boom. That's kinda the opposite of "fracking is our only option"

Now you're trying to make it seem like the *only* conventional gas sites are in "protected areas," but why would anyone trust your (unsourced) opinion on available natural gas reserves when you're wrong about the basic facts of natural gas production?

I think you�re underestimating how much natural gas fracking has made available and how big of an increase it�s led to in us production. Cost is part of this but prior to fracking reserves like the marcellus shale basically couldn�t be exploited at all, and the marcellus shale now makes up around 20% of us production. There�s been a massive increase in usable reserves, not cost-effective but technologically usable, which has driven the price low enough and volume high enough that ng is on its way to replacing coal in the marketplace entirely. This would not have been possible with traditional wells.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 04:51

hypnophant: Oct 19, 2012

Gabriel S. posted:

Okay, what are these numbers?

NG production grew from around 24 trillion cubic ft in the mid-2000�s to over 40 trillion in 2019, a 66% increase. In 2018, the last year I found data for, 23 trillion cubic feet of NG was produced by shale wells, more than was ever produced in a single year by traditional gas wells. these numbers are from eia.gov

# ? Sep 2, 2020 05:14

MomJeans420: Mar 19, 2007

If you're fine with conventional oil and gas wells but just don't like fracking, you're the anti-vaxxer of the energy world.

Also, it's not just replacing power generation from gas. There's this stuff called oil, it's pretty important for getting things like food delivered to your city. And the "generate power without causing extinction" argument is ridiculous and ties back into my original post of the US doing something while places like China are building huge amounts of new coal power. But please lets not get into this because a huge portion of the posters here are spergs with a myopic viewpoint who can't see things big picture and focus solely on one issue, and we're going to have the same argument again and again where people just ignore the hard to answer questions because wow, they don't have an answer.

MomJeans420 fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Sep 2, 2020

# ? Sep 2, 2020 05:59

Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

MomJeans420 posted:

If you're fine with conventional oil and gas wells but just don't like fracking, you're the anti-vaxxer of the energy world.

Also, it's not just replacing power generation from gas. There's this stuff called oil, it's pretty important for getting things like food delivered to your city. And the "generate power without causing extinction" argument is ridiculous and ties back into my original post of the US doing something while places like China are building huge amounts of new coal power. But please lets not get into this because a huge portion of the posters here are spergs with a myopic viewpoint who can't see things big picture and focus solely on one issue, and we're going to have the same argument again and again where people just ignore the hard to answer questions because wow, they don't have an answer.

China building out a magnitude more than the US of nuclear, wind, solar and hydro is not a great argument for why the US should decrease use of the same and revert to oil/NG.

We were talking grid power generation so oil can be and is irrelevant to that discussion for most developed countries. Maybe a good use for small modular nuclear is places like African mines where we need about 15-40 MW around the clock generation instead of the HFO reciprocating engines we use.

I'm not sure ad hominem arguments add to the discussion.

Agreed that fracking is similar to conventional O&G.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 07:49

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 00:43

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

MomJeans420 posted:

If you're fine with conventional oil and gas wells but just don't like fracking, you're the anti-vaxxer of the energy world.

Is it not true that fracking results in pollution of underground water supplies and in some cases even seismic activity where a traditional well would not? If there are legitimate differences in the impact on the local area then I think framing it as being like an anti-vaxxer is unfair at best and leaning heavily towards straight up dishonest.

I mean I'm in favor of cutting our use of fossil fuels as much as is possible, but since that's going to be a long process I'd rather have the fossil fuels we're using acquired in the least impactful ways, and if that means leaving some deposits where they are and increasing prices as a result then so be it.

# ? Sep 2, 2020 15:44

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