patrick.net

I was referring to listing(not sold) price in 2009.

nosf41 says

pkennedy says

Actually power plants can’t just be turned off. They need to keep running, like a giant idle engine. They don’t need to run at peak, but they do need to keep running. Like an idle engine, they either don’t produce power or it’s used to store energy for later, such as putting water into a water tower. In most places it’s about creating new energy only for peak power. We’ll need to replace the other power at some point, but our power needs continually grow, which means we need more of each year.

Your naming is off, it’s not 24% oil, it’s 24% natural gas, which is a clean burning fuel to start with. Petroleum is 1%.

Some power plants cannot be turned off on a daily basis (nuclear and large coal fired power plants). However some other types (hydro, gas) can be turned off.
A so-called unit commitment program has to be run on day-ahead basis to determine which plants will be turned On/Off to cover the forecasted load.

Anyway my point was there is no dumping of electricity or energy. Why would any operator dump expensive energy or electricity? The stockholders would have a lynching party. There is enough load on the grid even at the lowest point that it will more than take up the production. Plant operators would obviously prefer to have high utilization rates since selling electricity is what pays the bills. Most nuclear, and coal/fuel oil steam plants run at full capacity all the time, called base load power plants. This is the most efficient use of these plants for both technical and financial reasons. Natural gas/fuel oil turbines and hydro are usually run as load following power plants. These get ramped up and down as the load increases and decreases.

You can store excess capacity. In Britain they do a lot of pumping. The excess electric capacity from nuclear and coal pumps water up to behind dams so it can be used for hydro generation during peaks. The US grid is so big and diverse it's not common here.

Yes my naming was off. I meant to type oil and natural gas. Oil is 3% by the way.

thenuttyneutron says

I just got off from work after working a 12 hour shift as one of the Reactor Operators at a nuke plant.

Curious: what's your professional opinion of thorium & "pebble bed"?

.... offers an open, airy, living space ...

Forgot: unclean - one owner.

Zlxr,

Do you have a good reference on the India and China household biogas generators? The big picture is that a family of four perhaps eats 2000 kcal * 4 persons * 4.2KJ/kcal = 33.6MJ worth of food energy in a day. The energy of that food is about the same as a 33.6MJ/(37MJ/L)= 0.9 L(iter) of gasoline. Some fraction of that energy remains in the waste and can then be recovered (again by some fraction) by the biogas reactor.

While some fraction of 0.9L of gasoline equivalent may be enough to cook your daily dinner, it is not a large scale solution to our heating and cooking energy needs, at least not in cool climates

If you are a hog farmer with a 1000 hogs, then we're perhaps onto something as a local solution.

Nevertheless, I definitely applaud family-sized biogas generation as a handy way to recover energy from waste. Way to go.

Here are some references:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2240/can-animal-including-human-manure-be-used-as-fuel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas#In_the_Indian_subcontinent

Unfortunately, actual efficiency figures are hard to come by.

Troy, I like the Th to U233 fuel cycle. The US will need to change many of the policies that are in place. The Thorium Fuel cycle does not even need to be in a pebble bed form. You can make a Light Water Breeder Reactor with this fuel cycle.

The only problem with this cycle is the nasty gamma producing U233 that it makes. It can be solved through technology, but I think people will have a big issue with the fuel assemblies traveling the roads to the plants. The current fuels are only alpha emitting.

I like the IFR design even more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor

Such a shame that this got canceled in its last few years. This can burn just about anything as long as it is fertile.

* Correction. The current fuels are only alpha emitting until they are irradiated.

Hey, nutty:

My ex was one of many who worked on the Yucky Mountain Project - a little history for the uninformed: the project was a boondoggle in the desert that wasn't so much a study in whether it would be viable as it was an actual repository build. Spent fuel rods have been stored on site at each facility, rather than at a central area. But the NRC had contracted that it would have a solution in place long before now.

There were originally three sites chosen to study, but politics weaned it to one - the desert northwest of Las Vegas. This was a political choice, and the site wasn't ever proven to be viable. To study the site, they brought in a specially made tunneling machine that actually built the repository somewhat. Now it's effectively shut down, even though millions of dollars have been thrown at it. The dollars were not tax dollars, however - they were paid by the industry in the form of fees.

So, nutty, my question is, what is the view of the worker at a facility? Especially now that the site's shut down - how do industry workers feel about the government's promise and lack of action?

I'm guessing the federal government put up that chain link fence with barbed-wire, looks too sophisticated for a guy who lives in a shack in the woods.

pkennedy said: Collecting methane from sewage is likely not viable, or they would be doing it now
Hey down there. I know the center of the universe is SV, but you should really come and visit the East Bay some time. We do amazing stuff up here, too.

Indeed, it may make a lot more sense during these days of melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels to stop composting food waste and start turning it into renewable energy. The East Bay Municipal Utility District, for instance, has been quietly doing just that for the past few years at its giant West Oakland sewage treatment plant. EBMUD takes food waste from restaurants around the Bay Area and turns it into methane gas, which it then uses to power three on-site generators. The resulting clean electricity, in turn, helps power the treatment plant.

The Swedes, BTW, are some of the leaders in biogas production and plant design.

The problem with biogas is that it generally requires so much energy as input. Collecting trash, driving around with a team. Then sorting and preparing, then getting some gas from it, then collecting that gas, then using that gas. While there is energy there, is it the best place to really invest time, money and research? It's neat, it shows that there are possible uses for it, but in the end we need to find ways to create masses of energy every day. Even if the biogas process is really optimized, collection (aside from sewage/waste) is pretty difficult.

The "American dream" is "sudden riches"? Since fucking when?

Inheriting your wealth was always a European thing, soundly rejected by Americans (except, of course, for the anti-inheritance tax people)

These people inherited $10M and spent more than half of it on a house that they never lived in. They could have taken that $10M and put it in bonds at 3% and had enough money per year to pay for a multi million dollar house, nice cars, and good schools, pretty much anywhere in the world.

This reminds me of people who win a $20M jackpot and then proceed to live like it was $20B.

There's a company called Energy Solutions that owns a compound in the West Desert - that's west of the Great Salt Lake. Here's a bit of propaganda:

http://www.energysolutions.com/uploads/documents/NR_-_12_-_National_Resource.pdf

http://utah.hometownlocator.com/ut/tooele/clive.cfm

The repository is in a sparsely populated area of the state - think Bonneville Salt Flats. It's at 4000 feet elevation, but to my knowledge there's no river that runs thru it. It's miles & miles of salt flats and desert with hardly any people at all. Not that it makes a lot of difference... but it isn't the canyon you described.

I guess they figure that, if there's very little out there, it won't hurt anyone. All things considered, it's better than a populated area. There's an article on Wikipedia about Energy Solutions too.

Kevin says

This reminds me of people who win a $20M jackpot and then proceed to live like it was $20B.

Remember the movie Brewster's Millions? It was about a guy who inherited a shitload of money and, in order to keep it he had to spend $30 mil in 30 days with nothing to show for it. He ended up much more grounded. Sure, it was a movie - but a good lesson if there is one to be had.

I had a friend who lived in a mobile home that was owned by a woman who inherited ungodly amounts of money when her (previously unknown to her) biological father died - so the woman bought another mobile home and connected them together, then put in a pool and a climate controlled 8 car garage. It was an amazing, ugly as hell property. My friend called it her "mobile mansion," which they rented for free because they paid about $600/mo utilities and maintained the place. The woman bought a farm somewhere else, but had run thru a few husbands, etc.

The people in the story were stupid, and (as Nomo pointed out) meant to be poor.

Kevin says

The “American dream” is “sudden riches”? Since fucking when?
Inheriting your wealth was always a European thing, soundly rejected by Americans (except, of course, for the anti-inheritance tax people)

Very true, American dream was never about inheriting wealth or about buying a house and being an instant millionnaire.

It was about starting your business, working hard, and succeeding if your business is right. America is the land of the free, for a long time it was the only country where people were free to start a business without needing to know someone rich.

dude ... it's median sales price .. so the junk is gone and only good stuff is changing hands now. Things are still going down my friend.

psst ... change that to "barbedwire" and then I'll erase this post!

My question is why did the realtor slash it 50%? Ted Kaczynski is infamous. This thread got posted precisely because this land sale received national news. That is some marketing. I saw links on MSN website, CNN.com, etc. Mainstream---> it's out there.

So, yeah, while 99.9999% of us kinda cringe, somebody out there will want it precisely because the unabomber hid out there. 1.4 acres in a remote Montana area in this market ---> reduce that lot. If it is the Unabomber's 1.4 acre remote lot, raise the price.

Personally, I can't get the story out of my head where Kaczynski bragged he managed to live out there in MT on about $500 per year. He evidently saved on fertilizer for his garden vegetables, if you know what I mean.

Bap33 says

dude … it’s median sales price .. so the junk is gone and only good stuff is changing hands now. Things are still going down my friend.

That's him. He will use always use median for his advantage, even though he knows that median in current RE market is just the activity at bottom.

Zlxr,

Your wrong that spent fuel assemblies can't be reused. All of the waste sitting at the bottom of the spent fuel pools and dry storage across america can be a fuel in a different kind of reactor. The IFR that I mentioned above will burn just about any of the Actinides and it has the ability to sustain us for several thousand years. The current spent waste can't be used in a light water reactor because it is full of too many neutron poisons. There is still plenty of fuel and fertile material in that "waste".

Elli,

I think the waste is valuable and it would be a shame to bury it. We should have instead developed an energy plan to recycle this waste. Once it has decayed enough, you can store it in dry cask storage and save it for later. I do believe that we will eventually move to a nuclear powered economy because we will have to unless we want to backtrack 200 years.

-Matt

artistsoul says

He evidently saved on fertilizer for his garden vegetables, if you know what I mean.

Ah! We forgot "self-sustaining" ;)

wouldn't make sense. people this year aren't making more than last year.

besides pension system is about to crash, unemployment might run out.... if people have less money prices can't go up.

artistsoul says

Personally, I can’t get the story out of my head where Kaczynski bragged he managed to live out there in MT on about $500 per year.

BAH! I bet i could like in New York City for $250 a year. Just need a cardboard box and a nearby soup kitchen and I'm all set. Cheap living it's all it cracked up to be if your quality of life sucks. With no electricity or plumbing, I'm sure there were plenty of nights he suffered having to use the facilities or lack there of outside in -20 degree weather. One drunken night be all it take to pass out outside and freeze to death.

Zlxr says

If these units use things like fruit peels, old lettuce, leftover drinks, half eaten food etc. The question for me is how much garbage does it take to generate enough to cook a meal AND what kind of a meal that might be.

Look again at the little calculation I did above based on the energy content ("calories") of food. This calculation gives you a rough idea and an upper bound (also known as "guaranteed-not-to-exceed" number) of how how much energy you can get out of the sewage of a family of four. It is not much, but perhaps enough to cook their daily meal. It is not enough for their daily drive in a car. Maybe not even enough for all four to take a hot shower.

If you want to increase the quantity of energy produced, you have to either add/waste more food (*) or have some other source of food waste. When I say (*) I'm not ADVOCATING wasting food to use as an energy source. I'm just mentioning it to illustrate the physical principle. It is not effective, neither energy-wise nor money-wise to buy food and use it as feedstock for a biogas or biofuel reactor. Think corn ethanol and you get the idea. That sort of biofuel prodcution is better done in a factory than at home, if at all.

Oh, and the 33.6 MegaJoule (MJ) energy content in the food of the family of four is also enough to bring about 80 L(liter) or 22gals of water from 0C (freezing temperature) to 100C (boiling temperature), ******IF-IF-IF******* the energy conversion process was 100% efficient, which it will not be by a long shot. You get the idea. Calculation: 33.6e6/4.2/1000/100 = 80.

You probably know all of the above already. Forgive me if I'm belaboring he point too much.

Summary:

Biogas reactors are a decent source of cooking gas, but not much more, unless you are a farmer or otherwise have large quantities of relatively high-energy food waste/sewage available in one form or another.

justme says

Biogas reactors are a decent source of cooking gas, but not much more, unless you are a farmer or otherwise have large quantities of relatively high-energy food waste/sewage available in one form or another.

Sounds like a load of crap. Perhaps we should combine a cheese subsidy with a weight-lifting machines in the bathroom hooked up to a generator. Add some methane-recovery equipment and we'll be self sustaining in no time.

"yea gravity" --- Patrick, add that to the list for T-shirt sayings!

The problem with replacing gas is that gas has roughly 30,000 calories per gallon. Here is a site doing some "rough" numbers, http://www.rough-equivalents.com/2008/04/how-many-big-macs-in-a-gallon-of-gas/

To get 1 gallon of gas, we would need roughly 52 "wasted" big macs. Creating enough gas to cook is fine and dandy, but it's definitely time and energy consuming. Someone has to sit there and work this machine, probably load it up, clean it every week, unload the used materials, etc. Farms have started using it because they have a huge input source, eg left overs + waste. They get enough to run their farms, which helps them out. But it's fairly large scale as well, not for a single owner.

We just need a *huge* amount of energy/power every day. Playing around with enough to solve our "cooking" needs just isn't worth it, we're talking about such a minor amount for the average family. Good for 3rd world countries for sure, but they already do a lot of this. They have the time, and require so little fuel that it's doable.

We use masses of electricity per day, natural gas, and then petrol for our cars. Putting up solar panels will reduce our home power needs, but replacing the natural gas usage and petrol is where it gets tricky! From all of the electric cars I've seen, it appears that 500watts / mile seems to be about average. A single solar panel running all day long probably produces 1000watts. If you were to drive 20 miles in a day, you would require 10,000 watts of power, on top of your house hold needs. If you drive further and/or can't handle a small car, you're going to consume a lot more!

Not to anyone in particular:

I highly recommend reading the aforementioned reference on extracting energy from human and animal manure:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2240/can-animal-including-human-manure-be-used-as-fuel

That article is not about biogas per se, but it is written by a scientist who has worked in the field (so to speak) and contains lots of useful numbers that give good perspective.

pkennedy says

We just need a *huge* amount of energy/power every day. Playing around with enough to solve our “cooking” needs just isn’t worth it, we’re talking about such a minor amount for the average family. Good for 3rd world countries for sure, but they already do a lot of this. They have the time, and require so little fuel that it’s doable.

I'm much in agreement what pkennedy says above.

I don't want to discourage people from doing the right thing, but if you do biogas composting all year long and then (say) reward yourself with a plane trip to Hawaii you have wasted 20x more energy on those two 5-hour plane trips than what you extracted from the composting all year long.

Perspective and scale is of the essence.

Personally, I hope micro wind power + solar power + solar water heating will come together.

The other big thing is live power usage monitoring, and more robust information on how much power everything is using. People simply don't have any understanding of how much power is wasted. Simply having a quick feedback loop I think will help a lot of people understand what kind of power they're using.

It's like losing weight. Once you realize how long it takes to burn off 200 calories, you quickly realize that not eating those 200 calories is the best way thing you can do, not trying to eat and then counter the eating with exercise. Biogas is interesting, but simply not using that power in the first place is what we need to learn to do.

It was Ted Kennedy who complained about windmills because he was concerned about the view. Last time I checked, Ted was a flaming liberal, when he was alive. Other famous liberals complain about windmills either blocking their view or harming birds.

EightBall says

Add some methane-recovery equipment and we’ll be self sustaining in no time.

I know I would be.

If the market is crashing, how come this house gained $18,200 in wholesale value in less than a year?

Could be a lot of things, and I would interpolate a trend beased upon a single home sale.

"The world gives us all we need. unless what we need is really greed."
DMC

Micro windmills are different. http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/new-micro-turbines-can-produce-electricity-from-slightest-of-breezes/ This is a pretty useless version, but the idea is small sitting on roofs. Not huge fan blades. Most large scale windmill farms are away from people anyways, the biggest draw back is that they aren't often near power lines making it expensive to get the power to the grid.

Wind has a decent amount of power potential, with fairly known patterns which makes it a good mix to blend in.

For the comments on nuclear power, most nuclear power plants now a days are fairly clean burning, outside of the US ones. They don't produce a lot of waste, and the waste becomes relatively inactive after a few hundred years (still a long time!) but better than 100,000 years! The ideas is to put the waste in a place where seismic activity isn't going to disturb it. It also won't be just jugs of crap, it will be sealed in massively secure drums encased in cement. Nuclear has just gotten a bad rep. It's fairly clean and far safer than most power generation. We have enough nuclear power to power the world for 600 years, which is enough time to easily find an alternative. It's one of the few methods available today that could replace oil.

...so I went to Wells Fargo, printed out my cashier’s checks...

How does this work? You print up some cashiers checks of various amounts and destroy the ones you don't use? So for example you have 150k in the bank, do you get the bank to print up a 100k, 125k and a 150k check and only use the one you need and destroy the others? If you don't win at all just destroy all the checks? Or do you need to cancel the unused checks? Or do you need the full 375k in the bank to cover all the checks even if you only use one of them or none?

You could also look at it as "very few people are interested in cash only deals in this area" or "everyone else in the crowd saw it as a poor opportunity after 100K."

It may turn out that they're the smart ones.

8 people at that price (130K) seems... incredibly low, actually.

CrazyMan says

... “everyone else in the crowd saw it as a poor opportunity after 100K.”
It may turn out that they’re the smart ones.
8 people at that price (130K) seems… incredibly low, actually.

And well, it's in Antioch. I am sure 'the market is done crashing' is pretty accurate there. Now over on the west side of the bay ...

Still, an interesting anecdote, thanks for posting.