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[Mattasmack]

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Anyways. I would have to say coal is best, right now. Solar power doesn't even seem to be moving. Wind has too much geographical difference. And nuclear power, well it's just too expensive.
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Really?  There's a veritable boom of parabolic trough plants being built in Spain right now.  A few are under construction in the southwest of the U.S. as well.  There are even a few central tower plants going forwards too, which surprised me as I thought they were still much more expensive than parabolic troughs.  There's more solar thermal construction now than ever before.

Now, this construction is mostly in places that have introduced economic incentives, as the plants can't compete with conventional sources on cost alone.  But their cost has been coming down for decades as manufacturers and operators learn how to build and operate the plants efficiently.  My hope is that this building boom may finally bring the electricity cost down to be in-line with some conventional sources without so much help.

[Urist is dead tome]

Yeh, coal is ridiculously bad for the environment and people living near by.

Do you have any evidence of people being harmed by coal side effects? Nearly everything is powered by coal where I live and we have no shortage of healthy lads.

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Anyways. I would have to say coal is best, right now. Solar power doesn't even seem to be moving. Wind has too much geographical difference. And nuclear power, well it's just too expensive.
...

Really?  There's a veritable boom of parabolic trough plants being built in Spain right now.  A few are under construction in the southwest of the U.S. as well.  There are even a few central tower plants going forwards too, which surprised me as I thought they were still much more expensive than parabolic troughs.  There's more solar thermal construction now than ever before.

Now, this construction is mostly in places that have introduced economic incentives, as the plants can't compete with conventional sources on cost alone.  But their cost has been coming down for decades as manufacturers and operators learn how to build and operate the plants efficiently.  My hope is that this building boom may finally bring the electricity cost down to be in-line with some conventional sources without so much help.

I don't exactly watch the solar movemants' every move.

[Nadaka]

What is really going to be the kicker for solar thermal is when someone starts to truly mass produce the components on an assembly line with automation. If I had a couple billion dollars to spend, that is exactly what I would do.

[Shinziril]

Yeh, coal is ridiculously bad for the environment and people living near by.

Do you have any evidence of people being harmed by coal side effects? Nearly everything is powered by coal where I live and we have no shortage of healthy lads.

I'm just going to link to the Wikipedia article.  Basically, while coal burning is at least fairly clean (in the sense of "no deadly air pollutants") in the US, the mining still does all sorts of terrible things to the environment. 

As for China . . . oh jeez, China.  In the subsection linked from that article, it states that in 1988, 26% (!) of China's deaths were from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder) from exposure to various air pollutants.  An article from the World Bank in 2007 states that 750,000 people die every year from air pollution in China.  Soot and fly ash and mercury, oh my. 

[Nikov]

Was going to post in the Japan thread, but thought better.

Thanks for the chart, Kogut. Leaf, it is likely one guy who fell off a roof or another guy who electrocutes himself is where that number comes from. Granted, the industrial accidents at a coal plant (usually caused by machinery in the coal yard, occasionally a steam leak that produces an invisible lance of whistling death that will slice through a man) are a lot more coal-related, but if anyone fell off the roof at a coal plant, it would count just the same. And people do... one guy fell, got his midsection pierced by a piece of vertical rebar, continued to fall, and survived thanks to slowing down when he got impaled.

Growing up by a coal plant is so much fun!

To be honest, coal(or any other kind of) mines are dangerous as well, and they don't exactly make the region where they're located fit for organic farming.

As the great-grandson of a coal mine owner, I can tell you the old family drift mine is a hole in a lightly wooded hill surrounded by cornfields. In 1930 when it operated, it was organic farming right down to the horses. When I was a boy I went to a Scout camp that was a reclaimed pit mine overgrown with trees. It was surrounded by cornfields. Today I drive to town past a mine, also constructed in a hill, surrounded by cornfields. Now it may well be that "organic" farming isn't possible because of some frailty of the crops or violating a definition, or it may be that some poorly-managed coal mines have serious sulphur runoff problems, but in my experience coal mines and farms are not mutually exclusive, save the land required for any above-ground works, and if properly managed most of the old problems can be prevented. So far as safety is concerned, my wife had a classmate who got caught in a hay baler as a little girl, which is just one example of the real dangers on farms. I would hazard to say farming is far more dangerous than mining in the United States, so if coal mining is too dangerous for energy production (as you seem to be suggesting) I can only respond that by the same token agriculture is too dangerous for food production.

[Urist is dead tome]

Was going to post in the Japan thread, but thought better.

Thanks for the chart, Kogut. Leaf, it is likely one guy who fell off a roof or another guy who electrocutes himself is where that number comes from. Granted, the industrial accidents at a coal plant (usually caused by machinery in the coal yard, occasionally a steam leak that produces an invisible lance of whistling death that will slice through a man) are a lot more coal-related, but if anyone fell off the roof at a coal plant, it would count just the same. And people do... one guy fell, got his midsection pierced by a piece of vertical rebar, continued to fall, and survived thanks to slowing down when he got impaled.

Growing up by a coal plant is so much fun!

To be honest, coal(or any other kind of) mines are dangerous as well, and they don't exactly make the region where they're located fit for organic farming.

As the great-grandson of a coal mine owner, I can tell you the old family drift mine is a hole in a lightly wooded hill surrounded by cornfields. In 1930 when it operated, it was organic farming right down to the horses. When I was a boy I went to a Scout camp that was a reclaimed pit mine overgrown with trees. It was surrounded by cornfields. Today I drive to town past a mine, also constructed in a hill, surrounded by cornfields. Now it may well be that "organic" farming isn't possible because of some frailty of the crops or violating a definition, or it may be that some poorly-managed coal mines have serious sulphur runoff problems, but in my experience coal mines and farms are not mutually exclusive, save the land required for any above-ground works, and if properly managed most of the old problems can be prevented. So far as safety is concerned, my wife had a classmate who got caught in a hay baler as a little girl, which is just one example of the real dangers on farms. I would hazard to say farming is far more dangerous than mining in the United States, so if coal mining is too dangerous for energy production (as you seem to be suggesting) I can only respond that by the same token agriculture is too dangerous for food production.

I gotta go with Nikov here. And its not just 'cause I'm a sock puppet.

[olemars]

There's coal mining and then there's coal mining.

[Il Palazzo]

@Nikov: O.k., since you've included a quote from my post, I feel obliged to respond. In that post I was responding to the assertion that uranium mining is somehow inherently more dangerous and damaging to the environment than any other kind of mining activity.
By the environmental damage I mostly meant spoil tips here.

[Nikov]

Oh, I see. Well, if you extrapolate out, just about any sort of wide-scale land use is going to have negative consequences, which is what you were getting at, right?

[Leafsnail]

Do you have any evidence of people being harmed by coal side effects? Nearly everything is powered by coal where I live and we have no shortage of healthy lads.

Acid rain.  Carbon particulates.  Contamination with ash.

Not to mention the kindof smog you get if you burn too much of it in one area...

Thanks for the chart, Kogut. Leaf, it is likely one guy who fell off a roof or another guy who electrocutes himself is where that number comes from. Granted, the industrial accidents at a coal plant (usually caused by machinery in the coal yard, occasionally a steam leak that produces an invisible lance of whistling death that will slice through a man) are a lot more coal-related, but if anyone fell off the roof at a coal plant, it would count just the same. And people do... one guy fell, got his midsection pierced by a piece of vertical rebar, continued to fall, and survived thanks to slowing down when he got impaled.

Ouch.  I guess there's a baseline "People falling off things" danger for any power source thing which involves buildings.

The difference with having a nuclear plant nearby is that, if it did go wrong (however unlikely that may be), it could well affect you rather than just those working on it.  And it lowers property values too, so even if you don't think it's a problem you still probably wouldn't want one near you.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh, I see. Well, if you extrapolate out, just about any sort of wide-scale land use is going to have negative consequences, which is what you were getting at, right?

Yeah, more or less. I just thought that using that argument to discredit uranium mining, and by extension nuclear power, was silly.
If I wanted to, I could now start arguing that uranium mining is inherently LESS damaging to the environment, as the tappable energy density of the mined ore is much higher for uranium, leading to lesser scale mining operations, meaning less land usage overall, and also less mining-related accidents.
Half-jokingly one could also say that removing radioactive ores from any given place can only improve it's habitability by reducing local background radiation levels.

This is not to say that I'm a stalwart nuclear power proponent, just that there are good arguments and bad arguments, whether for or against.

[Nikov]

Do you have any evidence of people being harmed by coal side effects? Nearly everything is powered by coal where I live and we have no shortage of healthy lads.

Acid rain.  Carbon particulates.  Contamination with ash.

Not to mention the kindof smog you get if you burn too much of it in one area...

Thanks for the chart, Kogut. Leaf, it is likely one guy who fell off a roof or another guy who electrocutes himself is where that number comes from. Granted, the industrial accidents at a coal plant (usually caused by machinery in the coal yard, occasionally a steam leak that produces an invisible lance of whistling death that will slice through a man) are a lot more coal-related, but if anyone fell off the roof at a coal plant, it would count just the same. And people do... one guy fell, got his midsection pierced by a piece of vertical rebar, continued to fall, and survived thanks to slowing down when he got impaled.

Ouch.  I guess there's a baseline "People falling off things" danger for any power source thing which involves buildings.

The difference with having a nuclear plant nearby is that, if it did go wrong (however unlikely that may be), it could well affect you rather than just those working on it.  And it lowers property values too, so even if you don't think it's a problem you still probably wouldn't want one near you.

Well, living next to the largest coal-fired plants on earth, and by that I mean tied for third with another by the same company and designed to upgrade to be tied for first with two more buildings, plus the coal plant at the steel mill, and the aluminum plant, and the coal plant in Kentucky just across the river... I've got to say acid rain, carbon particulates, and ash just don't happen. Acid rain has pretty much been fixed in the United States, fly ash is now removed from exhaust and used to make drywall, and smog is in decline even where it used to be very serious. It is a problem elsewhere, though. China doesn't care for enviromental regulation because they need the industry and infrastructure immediately. I think Bush II asked Tao what kept him up at night, and the Chinese leader replied "I need 15 million new jobs a year". Coal makes those jobs. Likewise in Africa, where so little as an electric hot plate to cook on prevents women from dying of lung cancer from indoor wood fires, electrification is the best thing to ease their misery. They also have coal, and as a low-tech labor-intensive process digging it up would develop a resource and give people productive cash-earning jobs. So in some regions enviromental arguments don't hold sway. Hell, I bet in some places having a soot-belching coal power plant nearby is desirable because it means you actually have electricity!

[Urist is dead tome]

Well, living next to the largest coal-fired plants on earth, and by that I mean tied for third with another by the same company and designed to upgrade to be tied for first with two more buildings, plus the coal plant at the steel mill, and the aluminum plant, and the coal plant in Kentucky just across the river... I've got to say acid rain, carbon particulates, and ash just don't happen. Acid rain has pretty much been fixed in the United States, fly ash is now removed from exhaust and used to make drywall, and smog is in decline even where it used to be very serious. It is a problem elsewhere, though. China doesn't care for enviromental regulation because they need the industry and infrastructure immediately. I think Bush II asked Tao what kept him up at night, and the Chinese leader replied "I need 15 million new jobs a year". Coal makes those jobs. Likewise in Africa, where so little as an electric hot plate to cook on prevents women from dying of lung cancer from indoor wood fires, electrification is the best thing to ease their misery. They also have coal, and as a low-tech labor-intensive process digging it up would develop a resource and give people productive cash-earning jobs. So in some regions enviromental arguments don't hold sway. Hell, I bet in some places having a soot-belching coal power plant nearby is desirable because it means you actually have electricity!

Once again I agree with Nikov.

I mean, a bit of "ruining" the environment will provide jobs, put food on the table, and keep up the economy.

People who are opposed to use of coal aren't putting thought on the big picture. That's the way I see it, at least.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's a limit to the justification of coal use. China has areas that look literally post-apocalyptic due to the ash rain, and where going outside without a face mask is a horifically bad idea. That's not crossing the line, you can't even see the line from that point. Even if used with proper environmental standards and safety procedures, our coal supply is still going to only get lower over time. We can't keep using it as a crutch forever, and the sooner the world no longer needs coal and oil to stay functioning, the better off we'll all be.

[Nikov]

Unfortunately, according to this chart, even next generation solar plants are anywhere from twice to three times as expensive to the end user as coal. Furthermore the US has something like 250 years worth of currently economically recoverable coal reserves at current consumption rates (it grows at about 1.1% annual, yet shortages will prompt less economical reserves to be tapped, so that figure is a safe bet). In 250 years time in a free market, solar power will be less expensive than coal. But this appeal to novelty, switching to new solar power because coal is old, is a simple fallacy. Economically, practically, technically, solar power isn't ready to replace coal yet. When it is, I'll get solar panel roofing. Until then, let people make decisions and allow people to choose whatever is the most economical (or moral, if they prefer) choice for them.