The power of power

[Toaster]

As most of you are aware, California is suffering from a power shortage. The power needs of the state fairly recently exceeded the capacity of the power industry.
Along with this is the fact that PG&E may fail.
I was wondering what you folks had for ideas as to how to ease the woes of the power stricken populous of California.
Now, they have to "import" Electricity from other states or "find" more power within the state. I wonder if the some 5 nuclear plants are operating?

[M. A. Dockter]

Solar...Wind...Hydo Damn...Wave

Solar is expensive, but shouldn't take very long to build, and is Solar. If it storms for a while or Hails, your up a crick.

Wind...intermitent

Hydo...Expensive Damn and Long to Build

Wave. intermitent

[mairving]

Obviously the way to cure CA power problem is to get rid of some of their people. My state, TN, is actively recruiting companies from CA. Their promise to these companies is no blackouts.

The power problem in CA didn't just start. It started when people refused to build more power plants but yet consumed more and more power. It takes so long to build new power plants that this problem will only get worse. Or the problem will progress to other states that are selling CA power.

[jessho]

Another problem is the type of fuel that will be used in any new generating stations. Natural gas is limited until new fields are developed. Coal is dirtier and needs more equipment to process the emissions. Nuclear, although it is probably one of the best, is out of the question due to environmental concerns and the extreme costs to build.

Needless to say, the problems in California will affect the United States and ultimately, the world. California, if it was a country, would be in the top ten economies of the world.

[Floppyman]

I think solar power is a good idea.....but Dok has a point there. Here in IA where I live we use some windpower/windfarms...which I'm sure produce a good share of power here.

[OOPS!]

Hi,

What we are seeing is the future for us all I think. There is no fast or easy way out for California. Solar and wind are not effcient enough to supply their needs. Hydro is out for them I think. They don't have enough water to drink, let alone generate power with. There might be a possibility of generating power through tidal movement. But the hardware to do so is very primitive yet.

I think they are going to have to buy what they can, and save where they can. And hurry up and build a couple of Nucular Power Plants.

Lord help'em when summer gets here!



OOPS!

[Floppyman]

I think one thing with solar power is that it is not effiecent enough yet. The sun itself is a major energy source, and afterall powers life processes.

[Kubie]

Since I live in Calif., our biggest problem is that the state got their hands into it with "deregulation" and you know what happens whan that happens. We have plenty of power, but the producers what an arm and a leg for it. The state says that distributors can only charge so much for it and that is much lower than what they pay.
WARNING!!!! Calif. is the 6th largest economy in the world. Take away their power and the whole country suffers.
We've been talking about electrical power here, but the word is that the natural gas suppliers will quit selling gas middle of this week because they haven't been paid. My winter gas bill went from 75.00 to 180.00 last month and looking for an increase of 86% next month.
Carl

[Toaster]

The biggest problem with "deregulation" is the fact that utilities no longer have anyone to answer to. Thus, prices skyrocket to weed out the "wannabee`s".
California may not "actually" have an energy crisis but the distribution infrastructure is growing more slowly then the increase in population. Calif had a good network of nuclear power but they seemed to build these plants in geologicly unstable areas. (gotta be a reason for this)
You folks arn`t the only ones feeling the results of deregulation. Here in the winter wasteland folks call Maine, fuel oil prices trippled in well under a year.
Also, here, the electric utility charges 17.3 cents per KW/hour which is near the top for the entire nation.

[jotto84]

California has its share of wind power. I recently went to visit california, and I notice that all of Indian wells, and much of Palm Springs, is powered by wind power. Never in my life would I have imagined that many windmills, I'm sure the folk from CA have seen them before... its crazy! I'll have o scan one of my pictures of them, the picure would only show about 5% of how many there really are but you'll get an idea

[Kubie]

There is also a forest of windpower generators just east of San Francisco/Oakland at the Altamont Pass. Strange thing is seeing some sitting at idle while others are turning.
The wackos (river rafters and Environmental) effectively stopped the Auburn Dam near Sacramento. It was to be used for power generation, flood control, and recreation. A minority gets to float down the river while a majority gets flooded out and blacked out.
Carl

[res07tg2]

at least now there starting to build new plants here(ca) with the on going shortage there paying a little less attention to the tree huggers and thinking about the masses who like to have lights

[jotto84]

i think its time for the fed to step in... wait till summer comes. it will be a disaster

[res07tg2]

i agree with u 110% jotto they regulate every thig else damn near to death why aren't they stepping in on this its important we need power this is one thing they shouldnt have let get away from them i wish they would step in since its out of state power thats killing us the state cant do a thing about it and is gonna end up broke that money could be used for better things

[BeardedClem]

No one has pointed out the real cause of the power problem (and a lot of the whole world's problems) and that's overpopulation.

As a Canadian, it makes me scratch my head when I see that the state of California's population is higher than that of my entire country. Combine that with the populace of California being made up of a disproportionate number of rich, spoiled, SUV drivin, oversized-house living yuppies who are not used to giving a crap about any one else's needs but their own and you have a recipe for disaster.

The situation will definitely get worse. The only solution at this time is to slow the growth down by voluntarily limiting the size of families like China has to do. That is, unless somebody finds a way to extract hydrogen from sea water in large quantities, we'll be stuck with polluting hydrocarbons and dangerous nuclear power for the time being.

[jotto84]

i dont think you should classify people in california like that...

[res07tg2]

<B>I AGREE TOTALLY WITH JOTTO </B>

most of us are just average working people like everyone else u cant have an economy this large without plenty of labor to power it

electicity is nice to

[BeardedClem]

I didn't say all Californians, I said a disproportionate amount of them. Surely you have to agree that people in california differ from the rest of North America by a sigificant degree. Namely L.A , I don't think those Hollywood types think a lot about how power is generated and the concept of conservation or the environmental impact of it.

[Xayd]

Nuke plants are expensive and hydro is expensive, yes.

But guess what, I pay over 50 cents a gallon in gas taxes, I pay over 25% of my earnings away in income taxes, and I also pay the outrageous cigarette taxes as of the last couple of years.

So, don't claim that the money isn't out there, it's just that no one is held accountable for how the money is spent.

We've got a nuke plant in Arkansas here about an hour away from me. My parents live over there about 3 miles from it. They fish in the lake that's half shadowed in the evening by the cooling towers, and my uncle in the same town is head of the lab at said nuke plant so he makes a nice living, as does everyone who works there, even the secretaries are paid quite well. There are no glow in the dark fish or three legged frogs, it's all been safe and sound for over 10 years. The way it's been explained to me, a pencil sized stick of plutonium can generate enough power to light up Little Rock for over 30 years.

There's no better alternative than nuclear power as of now, at least not to my knowledge.


Originally quoted by Mattman

The power problem in CA didn't just start. It started when people refused to build more power plants but yet consumed more and more power. It takes so long to build new power plants that this problem will only get worse. Or the problem will progress to other states that are selling CA power.



Which is why total deregulation works, but partial deregulation as in the case of CA power doesn't work. If all industries were completely laissez faire then there would be a sort of 'survival of the fittest'. In the quasi-free country that we have made for ourselves, though, those who are unfit to govern even themselves are allowed to have a voice for everyone.

There can either be incredibly tight regulation or very little regulation at all in something such as this, not a compromise between the two.

Xayd

[Edited by Xayd on 03-24-2001 at 07:04 AM]

[BishBoshBaby]

Learn to consume less and become more efficient. Bloody Americans complaining as they f*ck the world up for the rest of us.

Anway whatever happened to cold fusion?

[BeardedClem]

Originally posted by BishBoshBaby
Anway whatever happened to cold fusion?




Fraud, that's what happened to it. No one could reproduce Pons and Fleischman's results.

I figure they cooked it up on purpose and invested heavily in Paladium commodity stocks beforehand, because in the world's mad rush to duplicate the test, the price of the electrode material Paladium went up like 500%. Now they're probably on some tropical island somewhere wiping their asses with $100 bills.

But I did hear that some big private Japanese company is still funding research on it trying to get it to work.

[bob]

Los Angeles Calif is not affected by the power problems. DWP (Department of water and power) did not deregulate under the Republican plan.

Remember that much of the power is lost in transmission. Much is lost if the power must be added to the grid from hundreds of miles from the user.
Many months ago there was a thread (in Think Tank) about lightning being a possible power source. The fact that energy can not be stored for later use (economically) was determined.

[Toaster]

Harnessing the resultant powwer from a ligtning strike would be an extremely difficult thing IMHO.
You have at an instant, tetra-joules of energy that would have to be stored in a fashion that would allow "use".
Energy is all around us, nature makes it in great abundance of which is waisted almost 100%.
I heard of an experiment where 2 grids were constructed aproximately 1 acre in size by 5 grids. In this, nature gave the needed ingedients for the production of electricity.
A sort of large scale dry cell battery of sorts.
While the resultant energy production was far below useful amounts for the size of the array, it did work.
I suggest an "Island" of one material floating on the ocean as the second material. 2 things would occur, production of oxygen and hydrogen and electricity. Expanding on this, the land mass used could also be used for conventional uses.

One day, man will unveil cold fusion, or worse yet, find out that our seas that encompass over 70% of our world can be used as a "fuel". On that day, man may set the world ablaze because on that day, water could be broken down to its basic elements with ease and great abundence.