this is all good news for solar enthusiasts. But I wouldn’t get too excited yet. Like when I first heard about a new concept in cars–the hybrid. I thought they would be the greatest thing in the world, and would conquer the market as soon as they became available.
Moral of the story:
No matter how good the technology is, people resist change. Especially if it costs thousands of dollars up front.
If you’re talking about New Source Review, I’ve debunked that to death on this Board years past. That’s the only thing I can think of that might be interpreted as that, and it doesn’t apply. In fact, the appellate court in Atlanta agreed with the utilities on it as well, where they said IIRC that the a portion of the CAA may even be un-Constitutional as-written. But you tell me what you meant, I mean, you made the post? 
Oil is not a fair comparison because the plants are run so infrequently and there are so few of the ones which do run frequently, that the numbers are hard to get a good feel for. I’ll say this - an oil plant burns a fuel that costs about 3 times what a coal plant costs. If fuel cost is 70% of a modern clean-burning plant, then figure that an oil plant might cost 2 cents + 2*(0.7*2 cents) or 2 + 2.8, or roughly 4.8 cents.
Nuclear I don’t know offhand but it’s generally given as being about the same as coal. However, many (me included) feel that decommissioning costs are way, way underestimated, so it is entirely possible that nuclear is close to 3 to 4 cents.
First, no one is storing sulfur underground, except for a handful of plants who landfill their gypsum sludge. Power plant gypsum (made from the sulfur in the coal) is highly pure and has a great market when there is a wallboard manufacturer nearby. Second, yeah, if we’re going to be capturing CO2 then the costs will probably be very high. But I don’t think underground storage is the answer, I think chemical fixing as a solid, then landfilling, is the answer. I shudder to think of what would happen if several huge CO2 reservoirs underground ruptured - we’d be right back to where we started.
Coal gasification…one of my clients is building a plant right now, so I’m somewhat familiar with it. I’m not sure if it’s worth it, relative to increased research into biofuels.
Incremental change. Hybrids are gaining popularity and I plan to buy one when my Focus dies. However, Hybrids are hardly a huge step forward in gas mileage. I wish they were. Honda had the Civic in 1975 that got 40 mpg. I am amazed that we still do not have a reasonable car that can get 80 mpg even with hybrid tech.
I will state again to avoid the later back and forth. These new cells will be adopted most heavily by industry. They will start going in, instead of building new fossil fuel power plants. It will only be a small increase to the very small home solar panel market. It really is a remarkable breakthrough when any technology can nearly double its efficiency.
Jim
On preview: Una Persson, the sulfer part is just bad grammer. I combined to thoughts in one sentence. The increased filter is to reduce CO[sub]2[/sub] and sulfer. Just the CO[sub]2[/sub] will be sequestion or chemical fixing as a solid.
To help you out with some hard data, What Exit?, see these reports.
On this link: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/electricity/034804.pdf
go to page 50 Table 8.2. It shows the operating expenses for various technologies broken down. You can assume “Fossil Steam” is about 95% coal, so call it the same as coal. It shows for 2004:
Coal: 2.4 cents per kWh
Nuclear: 1.8 cents per kWh
Gas: 5.0 cents per kWh
My coal number of “2” was apparently not a good number for the average value, although I do have a client with scrubbers, SCRs, and the works who is getting just under 2 cents at the busbar. Anyhow, that might give you more representative numbers to compare. You can see that gas and solar are not nearly so far apart…
Una, the one problem I have with the figures is the lack of the carbon cost equation. This is where Nuclear, Wind and Solar really shine. 
I have no clue what new source review is. I am talking about his actions starting in 2001 almost immediately. Some samples I found quickly. It is difficult to cite 5 years of newspaper, magazine and online articles.
As to gasification with carbon sequestration, I found a value of 4.5 cents per kWh (fixed + variable O&M) on the EIA website for a new plant, which does take into account carbon - which is still cheaper than 8 to 10 cents. However, this same site also lists solar as being 1.06 cents variable + fixed O&M - the key is you have to include the capital costs of each. Again, as I said, the math is not so easy.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/assumption/pdf/0554(2006).pdf#page=77
That was a campaign pledge that he made and backpedaled on. I think it was chickenshit of him to do so. But it was not a delay in that he obstructed any legislation from Congress on CO2. As for whether or not CO2 covered by the CAA, that’s for the USSC to decide (and likely soon).
If you want to go off of campaign pledges or interpreting the CAA to include carbon emissions, then you can ask why in 8 years Clinton and Gore did not direct their own EPA to start regulating carbon emissions. Why didn’t they? The answer is not party politics and not “evil Republicans”, I believe the answer is checks, balances, and the fact that the CAA is extremely vague in what it covers. By some definitions of the CAA, one could even say that the EPA would have the authority to ban swimming pools, since H2O vapor holds greenhouse gas. This is why we need either Congress to be more exact when it writes legislation, and/or the courts to decide what the legislation really means.
Mercury is in the process of being regulated under Bush right now.
You see, when RFK Jr. (who, last time I checked, is a politician and not an energy expert) says that plants were “excused”, what does he mean? Bush signed an executive order saying “this plant is exempt from this legislation?” Or does he mean “I think the CAA covers this, other people think it doesn’t, the CAA is unclear on it, so I’m going to make political hay on it and just say my viewpoint is right because no one else is going to take the time to study this after they read my soundbite.”
I think that the plants SHOULD be subject to legislation and much more strict limits. I do NOT think that the current CAA as-written provides a clear legal way to do that. I support fully new legislation which clarifies this issue and adds restrictions. I’m on the side of the environment here, but I’m also on the side of the law.
**Una ** are you saying that Bush did not relax existing regulations on the Coal industry?
Are you also saying there were no rules that he delayed that were suppose to go into effect on cleaning up stack emissions from coal plants?
These were two quick links to sum up what I believe were actions taken by Bush to help the Coal industry to the detriment of clean air and global warming. You can nitpick the linked articles, but tell me if I am actually wrong about the Bush administrations actions, especially in 2001.
BTW: I am a Republican. I do not consider Republicans evil. (Cheney yes, but not even Bush is evil in my book)
Jim
We’re really getting into moving target territory here. How did “coal burning plants” morph into the “Coal Industry?” There’s a big difference here and I will not get sucked into arguing over mining, transportation, mountaintop tailings, waste anthracite coal as “renewables” (which is a crock, but one which Pennsylvania somehow supports, so it’s not all Bush’s fault), the Syncoal fiasco, etc. That’s a mess of a whole different order. We were talking about something very specific.
I don’t know every single Executive Order or enforcement action for every single one of the 800+ coal-burning plants in the US, so I will not say categorically that Bush never used his Executive powers to allow noncompliance for any plant with the CAA and its Amendments as it has been interpreted since 1990 over 8 years of Republican and 8 years of Democratic Presidents. Simply because I am not a walking encyclopedia and I never claim to be. But your OP implied that Bush had on a large-scale delayed enforcement, which implies a violation, exemption, or run-around of the CAA and its Amendments. As I’ve explained my position and given some status on CO2 and mercury, I won’t repeat myself. If you can, tell me the specific thing you had in mind when you wrote the OP, and we’ll discuss it and see if we agree. Which emissions, which plants, which locations? What did Bush do in 2001?
Again, if you mean he went back on a campaign promise, I agreed with you. I also believe that he himself did not have the legal authority to carry out his promise, even if he had been willing to try to uphold it, without either 1) new legislation (which he could have pushed, but didn’t) or 2) favourable interpretation by the USSC (said interpretation is pending).
How’s this: from the EPA’s clean air act:
Etc.
I must be phrasing my complaint terribly. I thought it was commonly accepted that Bush made policy decisions that adversely affected the Clean Air Act and favorably affected the Coal Electric generation industry.
Jim
That’s the old New Source Review argument, which we debated here years ago. I’m disappointed - you said earlier that you “have no clue what new source review is”, but now you’re saying that was the basis of your OP?
(FTR, your link is not from the CAA directly, it’s a summary of it.)
Let me put a very complicated thing to you simply - the CAA and its Amendments were not “rolled back” by Bush. The limits remained in place. The question was whether or not utilities were allowed to increase generation while meeting the same limits. New Source Review said that new sources of pollution had to meet the current BACT (best available control technology) and pollution limits - something that was not in dispute. What was in dispute was whether or not an existing plant could increase its generation - in terms of MW or even MWh/year - and not meet NSR.
Here’s a parallel - your car has certain limits on emissions, which are based on a certain rate - say X lbm/hp for NOx. Let’s say that the next year, the limit drops to 0.5X lbm/hp. Your car is grandfathered in, but any new cars - or if you built a car yourself - would not be - they would have to meet the new limits.
OK, now what if you put a new air cleaner on your car, or a low-flow exhaust system, and got 1 more horsepower out of it? What the government wanted to claim was that that extra 1 horsepower meant your car was a “new car”, and thus you must now meet the new emissions limits. That hardly seems fair, but that’s what they wanted to do to power plants. What if you weren’t even trying to upgrade your power - what if the new OEM air filter gave you 0.1 more hp? What if all you want to do is standard maintenance?
Plants have been able to increase generation ever since the NSR was created without triggering it - I worked for several plants that increased generation tremendously, and were given exemptions under Clinton. Why? Because most of the time the power increase was coupled with an efficiency increase as well, and some of the time the power increase was the result of scheduled maintenance, which lead to using newer, more efficient replacement parts, and thus better performance. Turbine upgrades were a common trigger for this - the plant wanted to increase efficiency, but at the same time the upgrade led to a power increase. And we’re not talking about a lot - the “millions of tons” figure thrown out in your link is ludicrous. Most of the time the increase were less than 5%.
So who was right? Well, the Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta ruled in favor of TVA, and said New Source Review did not apply to them, so it looks like the plants had some backing for their position. Your environmentaldefense link seems to have left that out - I find that somewhat suspicious, don’t you?
The change in NSR rules was a good thing. I worked for plants who were afraid to make equipment upgrades because they were afraid of triggering NSR. They ran less efficiently and polluted more because they were afraid if they made any changes or upgrades, then the whole plant would be considered a “new source”. One plant I was working for had a 70% removal limit on SO2, and just barely made that 70% limit. They wanted to improve their scrubber to 95% removal, but at the same time wanted to increase power to cover the extra power of the bigger scrubber. Nope, that would make them a “new source” - so they kept on polluting at the 70% removal rate, when they could have been at the 95% removal rate. All because the government would not give them credit for the power of the larger scrubber. That was wrong, IMO, morally and otherwise, and the Bush Administration told the utilities that things like that weren’t going to happen.
I’m not going to debate NSR on the SDMB again; this message board is not the appropriate forum for that.
Interesting debating technique here. You define what my argument is based on your own opinion and then state you will not debate it as it has already been done.
I have never in heard or used your wonderful catch phrase before. You are picking apart one portion of my complaint. I won’t waste my time arguing this issue with you either I guess.
Jim
Good grief - I mean I’m not going to debate it because it’s a very complex issue that will take a long time (much more than I have this weekend) - there’s a reason why this thing has been dragged through the courts for years after all.
It’s been covered before on here back when it was a contemporary issue, and I do not have the time and resources and energy to revisit it in its entirety. Thus I could not show your or your counterpoints the respect they deserve.
You do not seem to be prepared to debate it with me as, honestly, you’re just going out and grabbing Google hits. That is, you have not developed a viewpoint or opinion based on study and research of the issue from different sides, thus I don’t know if you really want to debate or just argue a point.
I’ve tried to treat your arguments seriously and with respect, but I confess I’ve not really understood what they are or how you based your OP, as your own posts seem to contradict each other or change their focus. If I’ve misunderstood you, I apologize, and there’s certainly no reason for you to act like this.
My Op was based on a major engineering breakthrough in Solar panels. You seized on a one final sentence to a medium sized post that I did not think was even controversial.
I did not realized I framed a real debate. I could not even think of a debatable point. I never realized until today that there was a debate over Bush’s delaying emissions cleanups from coal burning plants. I live in a strange isolated world where this is an accepted fact. Thus I was force to place what appears to me as a major step forward in MPSIMS.
Jim
I am going to bump this once for the main part of the Op. Please feel free to ignore the barely related debate I blundered into. I should have left the last sentence off and would have if I knew this was an issue.
Jim
And those of us with intrest in technology thank you.
It was and is a very informative link.
It’s about time there was a breakthrough in solar cell tech. Every year, it seems, for the last 20 years, I casually check on what’s available for consumers, and even though the mantra is “prices are regularly coming down”, they always seem ridiculously high. I would love to be able to purchase a cheap unit, easy to install, that would power just one room in my house, or just a refrigerator, for example, but a quick check at Fry’s shows a 6 watt unit for $100 and a 100 watt unit for $700, and that’s just the panel. No way that will compete with the grid.
I am afraid that even with this breakthrough; the cost will still be higher than grid for quite awhile. However when they ramp up production and drive down some costs, I would guess that in 5 years an affordable unit will be available that would pay for itself in 10-12 years without any rebates.
That is still a steep price for heavy infiltration. Without government support or a bigger breakthrough, wide scale domestic solar panels are not going to become a big industry. This break through leverages better for the electrical industry and large corporations.
Bosda: You are most welcome.
Jim