High voltage transmission lines

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dillon
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

Post by dillon »

JohnH wrote:I read that NIPSCO (Northern Indiana Public Service Company) which serves the northern third of Indiana is going to phase out coal burning plants in favor of renewable energy as the projected costs with renewable energy is going to be less than coal. I also read there might be a time for fossil fuel for transportation might have to come down to $9.00/barrel of crude to be competitive with electric vehicles.
Market pressure can accomplish as much as regulation. That's the current situation with coal. The president called it a war on coal, but regulation has little to do with the demise of that fuel. Cost is the real driver, especially the shift to natural gas. But gas is NOT a clean alternative. Fracking, which has brought down natural gas prices over the last 2 decades, also releases untold volumes of methane, uncontrolled, into the atmosphere, and methane is considered 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. Some sources say 80 times as much. Luckily, methane does not persist for a long time in the atmosphere, but the CO2 conversion product does...essentially forever. But I suppose if you swallow the White House rhetoric, then you would have called the invention of the automobile a "war on horses" and the invention of the electric light a "war on candles." The progressive demise of coal is evolution, but what will be needed to change our headlong rush to global annihilation is a revolution.

The Saudis - MBS - are warning that if the US doesn't become their mercenary army against Iran, then oil prices will explode. But that's exactly what is needed to get us moving away from a carbon energy economy.
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moonshadow
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Ahh the middle east... there there's a section of the planet that will be come largely worthless in the "renewable era" (assuming it ever happens).
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Stevie D
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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dillon wrote:Fracking, which has brought down natural gas prices over the last 2 decades, also releases untold volumes of methane, uncontrolled, into the atmosphere, ...
I am surprised by your statement and I wonder if you can provide a source.

Having worked for many years as a professional geologist in the UK drilling and coal industry, I can assure you that well-head gas emissions are very stringently controlled. Blow-out preventers on the rigs shut down and seal the well if an unexpected gas surge is encountered. Once development drilling and fracking is complete, the production well-head gear only allows gas to flow into storage and distribution. Certainly in the UK, fracking target strata are normally very deep (typically 1500 - 3000 metres depth) and always confined beneath low-permeability formations. So there is minimal risk of uncontrolled gas leakage to the surface.

I wonder whether your mention of uncontrolled methane being released is a leftover from a few instances in the US where a combination of relatively shallow target strata combined with poorly constructed and poorly managed well-head apparatus which did release methane into shallow deposits and from thence into shallow groundwater aquifers. Yes - I've read the sensationalist newspaper reports of methane escaping and igniting from kitchen water taps. But those were isolated instances (not sure if there were actually more than one) due to poor practice, as mentioned. As far as I know all the design and working practices are now far more rigorous.

In the UK the biggest problem (apart from further exploitation of fossil fuels) associated with fracking is low intensity seismic activity induced by the fracking proccess. One again the press have got hold of, and sensationalised, it, but in truth it's much less than what was previously experienced in coalfield areas, where people were used to the occasional 'bump' resulting from mining activity, mostly only felt when lying in bed quietly at night.
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JohnH
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Natural gas gives off half the carbon dioxide as coal for a given amount of heat. Coal is nearly pure carbon so when it burns it turns to almost all carbon dioxide. Natural gas, on the other hand, is mostly methane, CH4. Hydrogen burned yields water.

Natural gas can also be used in peaker generators that can come online quickly to take up the slack when there is not enough electricity produced by renewable resources.

It takes fewer wellheads to produce oil and gas with fracking as compared to non-fracking for a given amount. Fewer wellheads mean less methane is released and minimizes the risk of ground water contamination. But coal is a lot more destructive to the environment in its extraction, with leachate polluting streams of water, etc. And we certainly do not want to rely on the Middle East if we can help it.

About minor earthquakes due to fracking water: There are sections of the San Andreas fault where the plates slide on past each other since they are not locked in place. If you have plates locked in place then the stress builds up until there is a violent lurch as the plates give way. One way of thinking about minor earth quakes due to fracking is the stress is relieved by minor earthquakes instead of the stress building up so there is a major earthquake. Here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area we also have minor earthquakes due to fracking, on the order of 2.5 on the Richter scale.
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Fred in Skirts
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by trees and we have cut down way way too many, this has allowed more CO2 to build up.

We (humans) are cutting down the rain forest so fast that we will see more of the world die off due to the loss of habitat and CO2 reduction. Already many species of animals and plants are gone and never to be replaced. A lot of our medications come from plants that only grow in the rain forests and along the Amazon river. And the third world countries that are in that area are the worst offenders allowing the rain forest to be cut down to make way for farms...

If we want to survive as a species we need to stop destroying our world. More stringent laws and enforcement will help. But getting them in place will be nearly impossible!! :x

The only way forward would likely start a war that would do more damage to the already very sick environment. So what are we to do???????
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JohnH
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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dillon wrote: The Saudis - MBS - are warning that if the US doesn't become their mercenary army against Iran, then oil prices will explode. But that's exactly what is needed to get us moving away from a carbon energy economy.
Hey, that would be very good for Texas as it would make oil and gas production more profitable. Also Texas leads the US in wind power. One reason is it has its own electrical grid, ERCOT. The rest of the US and small parts of Texas rely on the Eastern Grid or the Western Grid. Those grids extend up into Canada. With ERCOT it is much easier to enhance transmission lines to carry the wind power compared to elsewhere in the US.

I hate the idea of the US defending Saudi Arabia due to the persecution of Christians there. They don't permit any church buildings there, and the penalties are severe for people who convert to Christianity and those who tell others about their Christian faith.
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Fred in Skirts
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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I am probably going to get castigated for what I am about to say but I am going to say it anyway.
JohnH wrote:I hate the idea of the US defending Saudi Arabia due to the persecution of Christians there. They don't permit any church buildings there, and the penalties are severe for people who convert to Christianity and those who tell others about their Christian faith.
THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MUSLIM NATIONS ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS THEY ARE OUR ENEMIES.

Just look at Chicago and Michigan where they are taking over and making them change to accommodate the Muslim ways, there are places in Chicago that the police are not allowed to go to because they are controlled by the Muslims living there and use the Sharia (0) laws and not the laws of the city, state or the US.

So beware!!


(0) not sure of the proper spelling....
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crfriend
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Watch it with the religion-bashing.

Also, if you think that national politics is a mess you'll find that international politics is ever more fraught with perils and pitfalls. In that mix there aren't just one or two packs of scoundrels lying to you there are dozens all at once -- and it's up to you to try to divine out what's actually going on.
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JohnH
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Fred, I agree with you 100 percent.

Muslims have been a scourge on the Earth since the religion was founded.
Over the centuries in the Middle East they have persecuted Christians.
I have read the writings of Jean (John) Calvin about the scourge of Muslims in the 1500's

We in the United States are expected to put up with mosques with the calls to prayer with men screaming over speakers 5 times a day and the lack of assimilation into American society.
It is ABSOLUTELY intolerable for the police not to be allowed to enter certain areas due to the control of the Muslims in Chicago. And we have to allow Muslims to practice female genital mutilation (removal of some or all the external genitalia).

And yet, once again the Saudis do not permit any church buildings.

We need to speak up against threats against our society and never mind political correctness.
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JohnH
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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crfriend wrote:Watch it with the religion-bashing.

Also, if you think that national politics is a mess you'll find that international politics is ever more fraught with perils and pitfalls. In that mix there aren't just one or two packs of scoundrels lying to you there are dozens all at once -- and it's up to you to try to divine out what's actually going on.
There is not another religion that has brought about terrorism to the level of SOME Muslims. You don't read about Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and other religions excluding Muslims who make it a general practice to perform suicide bombings. I say some Muslims are guilty, not all. And yet there is a widespread silence among other Muslims in denouncing the violence. So they are passive accomplices.
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moonshadow
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Friends... friends... the power that flows through the high voltage transmission lines cares not... for it is not supernatural... but alas it is all powefull!

Don't think so? Grab a-holt of one and experience the power of physics in action! :D
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Don't underestimate the power of low voltage !!

In my working days, I saw the effect of 24V DC of a starter battery. Somebody was installing a battery set for an auxillary generator on board of a ship. By accident he touched with his wedding band the plus and the minus leads. One short flash and most of his finger fell off. It was a horrible sight. The guy was rushed to a hospital but the only thing they could do was finishing the amputation. I took the rest of the day off and had a few drinks to get over the sight and lose the stench in my nose.

It is one more reason I don't wear jewelry and have wrist watches with rubber/plastic bands.
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JohnH
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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It's the current that kills and not the voltage. You have to pass only milliamps of current through your heart and it can go into fibrillation so it can't pump blood. And the poor individual who lost his ring finger might have had hundred of amps pass through the ring.
However, you can put your hand on a Van de Graff generator with hundreds of thousands of volts and not be harmed as the current is so minuscule.

If I do any electrical work I NEVER wear a ring. I don't wear a watch since I can pull my cell phone out of my purse to read the time. And if I do any electrical work on a vehicle I ALWAYS pull the negative cable off the battery.
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beachlion
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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Even as a mechanical engineer, I have some basic understandings of electricity and electronics. My first and only shock I had when I was about 10 years old. I was disassembling a vacuum cleaner with the plug still in the socket. ;)
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JohnH
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Re: High voltage transmission lines

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When I about 3 years old I had a toy iron that had a string "cord". I happened to find a plug you place on a cord if the original plug needs replacing. I cut the fake plug off the iron "cord" and moistened the "cord" and jammed it into the plug. Then I plugged it into an outlet, and boy, there was really a blue spark.

And then my parents were a little sloppy in making sure outlets had plates on them. I remember sticking my finger into the sides of outlets and getting a tingle, which I did a number of times.

After all those episodes maybe that's why I'm a little odd...
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