Keystone Pipeline

[lpetrich]

Power can be moved around. So long as there are any operating coal plants on the grid electric cars emit more CO2 than gasoline cars.

But natural-gas ones emit *less* CO2. Loren Pechtel, with your great technical genius, it should be easy for you to work out the numbers. But since you fell down on the job, I'll have to do it.

From  Energy density:

What	Formula	MJ/kg	kJ / mol C
Methane (natural gas)	CH4	53.6	858
Heavy hydrocarbons	[CH2]x	46.2	647
Coal (anthracite)	C	32.5	390

[

Reactions assumed complete: C + O2 -> CO2, H + (1/4)O2 -> (1/2)H2O
Anthracite coal: assumed pure carbon -- close to CO2 heat of formation in NIST Chemistry WebBook
Heavy hydrocarbons: gasoline, heating oil (the one used), diesel fuel, jet fuel, kerosene, avgas -- all rather close
Mole = gram molecular weight -- standardizing to the same amount of carbon

So natural-gas electricity generation is even better than a gasoline engine about carbon.

That's leaving out energy efficiencies, since one must get mechanical energy from thermal energy. Gasoline engines are usually about 25 - 30% efficient, while electricity generation for all thermal sources is typically about 34% efficient. Not much difference.

So in (kJ mechanical) / (mol C), it's NG: 292, HH: 178, Coal: 133 -- coal isn't much worse than gasoline.

 

[arkirk]

Power can be moved around. So long as there are any operating coal plants on the grid electric cars emit more CO2 than gasoline cars.

But natural-gas ones emit *less* CO2. Loren Pechtel, with your great technical genius, it should be easy for you to work out the numbers. But since you fell down on the job, I'll have to do it.

From  Energy density:

What	Formula	MJ/kg	kJ / mol C
Methane (natural gas)	CH4	53.6	858
Heavy hydrocarbons	[CH2]x	46.2	647
Coal (anthracite)	C	32.5	390

[

Reactions assumed complete: C + O2 -> CO2, H + (1/4)O2 -> (1/2)H2O
Anthracite coal: assumed pure carbon -- close to CO2 heat of formation in NIST Chemistry WebBook
Heavy hydrocarbons: gasoline, heating oil (the one used), diesel fuel, jet fuel, kerosene, avgas -- all rather close
Mole = gram molecular weight -- standardizing to the same amount of carbon

So natural-gas electricity generation is even better than a gasoline engine about carbon.

That's leaving out energy efficiencies, since one must get mechanical energy from thermal energy. Gasoline engines are usually about 25 - 30% efficient, while electricity generation for all thermal sources is typically about 34% efficient. Not much difference.

So in (kJ mechanical) / (mol C), it's NG: 292, HH: 178, Coal: 133 -- coal isn't much worse than gasoline.

And if they are charged with solar or wind driven generators, there is NO COMPARISON NECESSARY...OR EVEN POSSIBLE. These methods do not rely on oxidation of fuel at all.

 

[arkirk]

In our country, we have manufactured consent. Our elections are not democracy in action. They are advertising in action. The results of our elections and bureaucratic structures are the result of billions of advertising dollars. When 70% of the people do not want us going to war and we go to war, do YOU call that DEMOCRACY. I think we could have democratically determined solutions to our problems, but our government is NOT A DEMOCRACY. IT'S A MARKETPLACE WHERE HUMAN LIVES ARE BOUGHT AND SOLD.

 

[Derec]

Humans pumping carbon emissions into the air in the name of convenience - don't you just love it when some wise guy uses words that are true, but, inconvenient - forces solar heat exchange quickly off in directions not built in to the exosphere causing all sorts of bad, for humans and life in general, stuff.

Huh? "Not built in to the exosphere"?

Yes coal sucks. Oil sucks too. So does natural gas, so do cows manufactured for food purposes.

Let's just all turn vegetarian and give up our cars and most electricity? I for one, vote no to that plan.

Face it humans are deconstructing whatever organization had been established in the exosphere. Results are predictable though.

What organization is established in the exosphere? Does SPECTRE have a secret MEO space station there or what?

As for the pipeline. Its not a done deal. Obama may relent and request congress enact a bill when all evaluations and court cases are completed. Of course if you are a betting man ....

Actually if Obama relents he can approve the pipeline without Congress. The only reason Congress has acted at all is that Obama was dragging his feet throughout his whole term in office and took personal control over the approval from the State Department to appease radical environmentalists (and secure Tom Steyer's millions).
He might approve the pipeline yet if he feels he need it to help the democratic nominee in 2016, especially if (as is very likely) oil prices are higher again then.

 

[Derec]

The oil companies are in charge.

If they were the pipeline surely would have been approved a long time ago.

The problem with this pipeline is that IT WILL HAVE ITS OWN DEMANDS ON OUR ECONOMY. Refineries are the infrastructure of the oil business...that calls itself the "energy sector."

Those refineries are already there. As is the product pipeline serving customers with things like gasoline and diesel.

Look in any Economy 101 text and learn what OPPORTUNITY COST means. We are currently paying opportunity costs within our public transportation systems due to the devotion of a great chunk of our infrastructure investment in automobile transportation in the first place.

If you want more public transit (and I would want that too) that is in no way hindered by this pipeline. What people fail to appreciate when they make arguments like "we should use the money spent on pipelines to build X instead" is that the pipeline is not built using public money, but private money. It does not cost the government anything, in fact it would increase government revenue through taxes and fees. Thus
opportunity cost" doesn't really apply here, unless I have misunderstood where you are going with it. What Dems/Obama could have done is link the Keystone to an infrastructure bill. That would truly be a win-win but the more left-wing Dems are too ideological to approve the pipeline under any circumstances.

Instead of upgrading our public mass transportation systems in the 60's forward, we built at public expense these huge rush hour idling parking lots called "freeways." At the same time the old red line systems were completely eliminated. Admittedly it was an old decrepit system, but the right-of-ways were all chopped to pieces and some of these rail corridors were actually converted to bikeways. I was around when these freeways were built and can tell you they were magnificent and you could breeze through town at incredible speeds when they first opened. It seemed the world was our petroleum powered personal transportation oyster.

And what do mistakes make in the 60s have to do with approving the pipeline today? Nothing whatsoever. So let's stay on point.

Now we are talking about a pipeline and not a freeway here, but it is the same problem.

No, it's not the same problem at all. In fact, pipelines would take traffic off the rails making them less congested to transport other goods.

Large infrastructure projects all carry with them their own special demands on society at large and on the environment. This Keystone pipeline is envisioned as something that will increase our access to energy even though it is dirty energy and even though it has increased refinery requirements. When our economy busies itself with meeting these needs, it will not have sufficient resources to also build a parallel system...alternative energy system. In order for this pipeline to pay for itself, more petroleum products will have to be produced and most of it will be in the form of fuels....CO2 emissions.

Please provide evidence that more refineries have to be built and more petroleum products produce to make Keystone XL profitable.

If we assume that this pipeline is 100% safe and operates perfectly, the end product it delivers to the environment will still be excessive CO2 emissions. It will simply be another pathway and source of pollution added to the existing ones, and one that pollutes more per unit of product than existing ones. We need to take a humane world view and not feel free to flood oceanic societies and lowland seacoast cities out of existence.

Like it or not we need that oil.

There is a real desperation on the part of many including posters here to retain their current lifestyles. I think we need to begin to consider reducing our per capita consumption of energy of all kinds and need to do so in a planned cooperative long term effort. Our economy needs to serve our entire society in the long term. We really do not need any more diversions from the changes we have to make. I don't think our future should be placed in the hands of investment bankers and speculators and our infrastructure needs to serve societal needs, not the needs of greedy investors. To my thinking, Keystone is beyond the pale.

First of all, yes, people do not want to downgrade their lifestyles voluntarily. Second, there will be a change but it will be gradual and take time. You will not replace all gasoline and diesel vehicles with electric cars and better public transit overnight or even over the next ten years. And in the meantime we will need oil, and lots of it. All the while conventional reserves are getting depleted.

Instead of trillion dollar wars, let's see numerous hundred billion dollar projects in smart grids and alternative energy projects and conservation engineering

And none of it is incompatible with letting a private company build an $8 billion pipeline.

and try to return to sanity from the Capitalistic nightmare.

Capitalistic nightmare? If you look at the example of Germany, by 1989 the capitalistic West had a much cleaner environment then the communist East.

Even here, amongst people who don't like what I am saying, I am seeing some of my opponents in this argument making baby steps in the right direction in my opinion. I don't post here with a lot a animus toward other posters. My posts reflect my personal thinking on these issues. I have seen remarks from Noble Savage and Derek that indicate they are thinking people and I really do not want to do anything to make them think I am attacking them. It is more a matter of policies that have consequences I think are unacceptable regarding this pipeline. I too am an avid bicyclist.

Well thanks I guess. I also have some sympathy with what you are saying even if I think your views on the pipeline or oil in general are quite naive.

 

[Derec]

That's from lack of modern medicine and sanitation and the like. Axulus, would you enjoy:

That is true. But existence of those is predicated on the modern high-energy (compared to most of human history) societies.

Should pollution-control efforts and low-pollution energy sources be punitively taxed or outlawed? Because they would create the moral evil of a greenie world. Even if some alternatives undersell fossil fuels. Yes, undersell them as wind and solar are starting to do.

Nobody has anything against pollution control. But that doesn't change the fact that the world and US will still need oil for several more decades no matter what other efforts are made and thus this pipeline makes sense.

All you fossil-fuel defenders, here is what you can do as renewable electricity generation advances. Go off-grid. Get yourself a diesel generator and a coal furnace. See if you can get diesel fuel refined from Texas crude oil and coal from West Virginia. What the fossil-fuel equivalent of a gourmand might do.

You are confusing people defending the pipeline with being equally ideologically blinded as those opposing it.

 

[Derec]

You don't seem to be getting it. I am not a dictator personality. Also, the answer to this problem is cooperation, not dictation. This pipeline is the way of the dictator. We do not and probably will not ever have a system where some character named either arkirk or noble or derek can exercise the kind of power and knowledge to dictate independently what everybody should do.

The thing is people like their cars. Thus they need oil. If you do not want to dictate that everybody get rid of their cars I do not see how you make this and other pipelines obsolete in the near future.

Even small matters are settled in a democracy by an incredibly large amount of discussion. Today, we have oligarchs exercising the kind of power within their organizations that your suggested thought experiment suggests and we get environmentally and socially irresponsible projects like Keystone what was routed around and not through regular environmental review on the basis of its international scope. There is no EIR on this project. Our State Dept. actually had investors in the project. How objective do you think they are going to be?

If an oligarch like Tom Steyer exercises his power to block the pipeline (which he did by funding anti-Keystone democratic candidates in 2014) is that bad too? Or is it only bad when Koch Brothers do it? As far as bypassing regular approval process, Obama did that by taking over approval of the project form the State Department in order to appease environmentalists in his own party and probably made the 2014 midterm debacle worse than would have been otherwise.
Finally, in all this thread you have failed to show that the Keystone XL pipeline is "environmentally and socially irresponsible". Instead you get sidetracked by unrelated issues like building freeways in the 60s or bicycling.

This project is precisely the product of the dictation of a very few very heavily invested oligarchs. This is not a people's project.

No, it's not a "people's project". It's a private project funded by private, not public, money. What's wrong with that? It's not taking away from any public project, be it infrastructure projects or publicly funded research. On the contrary, since it actually increases government revenues it can help fund those projects you want to see happen.

Currently the prices of oil and petroleum products are being heavily manipulated by the oil industry sectors (not all of which support Keystone) to maximize the profits they can wring from resources that by all rights belong to the people anyway and this manipulation is in part responsible for the constipated situation we are seeing in our economy.

Surely profits would be higher if the oil price were higher.

Once tooling exists, more and more of our transportation will be electric and if these things (alternative energy and electrification of things now powered by polluting oil and coal) are pursued with the same vigor as we saw building the dams and public projects of the 40's, our energy profile could shift much more rapidly that it has so far. That shift in our energy profile would result in decreases in the need and usage of petrochemicals.

Over the long run, yes. But it will take time. A long time. Electric cars may be majority of new cars sold in 20 years time in the US but that does not mean most cars on the road will be electric because there will be many older cars on the road too, including some built today, which are mostly gasoline powered.

I am aware of this and you are too, so stop trying to demand all the answers to our problems at once.

Exactly my point! Our problems will not be solved at once which is why we will use large quantities of oil for decades to come.

View attachment 2385

I kid, but seriously bikes have a limited utility.

 

[Derec]

Power can be moved around. So long as there are any operating coal plants on the grid electric cars emit more CO2 than gasoline cars.

Actually electric cars would only emit more CO₂ if they cause more coal powered power plants to go online. If you charge your electric car with your own solar power you do not increase the demand on the grid. And even if not, new utility-level generating capacity is much more likely to come from gas than coal, and gas has better CO₂/energy figures than oil.

 

[NobleSavage]

In our country, we have manufactured consent. Our elections are not democracy in action. They are advertising in action. The results of our elections and bureaucratic structures are the result of billions of advertising dollars. When 70% of the people do not want us going to war and we go to war, do YOU call that DEMOCRACY. I think we could have democratically determined solutions to our problems, but our government is NOT A DEMOCRACY. IT'S A MARKETPLACE WHERE HUMAN LIVES ARE BOUGHT AND SOLD.

Noam is that you?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Power can be moved around. So long as there are any operating coal plants on the grid electric cars emit more CO2 than gasoline cars.

But natural-gas ones emit *less* CO2. Loren Pechtel, with your great technical genius, it should be easy for you to work out the numbers. But since you fell down on the job, I'll have to do it.

From  Energy density:

What	Formula	MJ/kg	kJ / mol C
Methane (natural gas)	CH4	53.6	858
Heavy hydrocarbons	[CH2]x	46.2	647
Coal (anthracite)	C	32.5	390

[

Reactions assumed complete: C + O2 -> CO2, H + (1/4)O2 -> (1/2)H2O
Anthracite coal: assumed pure carbon -- close to CO2 heat of formation in NIST Chemistry WebBook
Heavy hydrocarbons: gasoline, heating oil (the one used), diesel fuel, jet fuel, kerosene, avgas -- all rather close
Mole = gram molecular weight -- standardizing to the same amount of carbon

So natural-gas electricity generation is even better than a gasoline engine about carbon.

That's leaving out energy efficiencies, since one must get mechanical energy from thermal energy. Gasoline engines are usually about 25 - 30% efficient, while electricity generation for all thermal sources is typically about 34% efficient. Not much difference.

So in (kJ mechanical) / (mol C), it's NG: 292, HH: 178, Coal: 133 -- coal isn't much worse than gasoline.

You're forgetting the losses from putting it through all the steps. The big generators are more efficient than the car's engine but you have three conversion steps and transmission losses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And if they are charged with solar or wind driven generators, there is NO COMPARISON NECESSARY...OR EVEN POSSIBLE. These methods do not rely on oxidation of fuel at all.

The problem with this is grid power is grid power. You can't count the greenness of solar (and it's nowhere near as green as you think--an awful lot of power goes into the production of those cells) for charging the car when you could push it onto the grid and remove some coal power instead.

- - - Updated - - -

Power can be moved around. So long as there are any operating coal plants on the grid electric cars emit more CO2 than gasoline cars.

Actually electric cars would only emit more CO₂ if they cause more coal powered power plants to go online. If you charge your electric car with your own solar power you do not increase the demand on the grid. And even if not, new utility-level generating capacity is much more likely to come from gas than coal, and gas has better CO₂/energy figures than oil.

Get a gasoline car, connect those solar cells to the grid and turn down a coal plant. This emits less CO2.

 

[lpetrich]

But natural-gas ones emit *less* CO2. Loren Pechtel, with your great technical genius, it should be easy for you to work out the numbers. But since you fell down on the job, I'll have to do it.

(my detailed calculations...)

That's leaving out energy efficiencies, since one must get mechanical energy from thermal energy. Gasoline engines are usually about 25 - 30% efficient, while electricity generation for all thermal sources is typically about 34% efficient. Not much difference.

So in (kJ mechanical) / (mol C), it's NG: 292, HH: 178, Coal: 133 -- coal isn't much worse than gasoline.

You're forgetting the losses from putting it through all the steps. The big generators are more efficient than the car's engine but you have three conversion steps and transmission losses.

You do it. You work out the numbers. Give us your sources as you go, as I have done. What is wrong with my efficiency numbers?

What is the efficiency of different types of power plants? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and Table 8.2. Average Tested Heat Rates by Prime Mover and Energy Source, 2007 - 2012. I'll use the 2012 figures.

Method	Coal	Oil	NG	Nuclear
Steam Generator	34%	33%	33%	33%
Gas Turbine	--	25%	30%
Internal Combustion		33%	34%
Combined Cycle		33%	45%

Where the Energy Goes: Gasoline Vehicles

Only about 14%–30% of the energy from the fuel you put in a conventional vehicle is used to move it down the road, depending on the drive cycle.

That's what speeds one drives at. Highway driving (engine: 31% - 36%, all: 22% - 30%) is more energy-efficient than city driving (engine: 25% - 29%, all: 14% - 20%).

 

[arkirk]

The problem with this is grid power is grid power. You can't count the greenness of solar (and it's nowhere near as green as you think--an awful lot of power goes into the production of those cells) for charging the car when you could push it onto the grid and remove some coal power instead.

- - - Updated - - -

Power can be moved around. So long as there are any operating coal plants on the grid electric cars emit more CO2 than gasoline cars.

Actually electric cars would only emit more CO₂ if they cause more coal powered power plants to go online. If you charge your electric car with your own solar power you do not increase the demand on the grid. And even if not, new utility-level generating capacity is much more likely to come from gas than coal, and gas has better CO₂/energy figures than oil.

Get a gasoline car, connect those solar cells to the grid and turn down a coal plant. This emits less CO2.

Infrastructure always implies an OPPORTUNITY COST. This is both physical and macro economic. A smart grid is perhaps the best approach to developing alternative energy. I haven't consulted with Noam Chompsky on this, but the grid appears to be the best avenue of approach to reducing and eventually eliminating the CO2 emissions associated with power generation. Ideally, usage of alternative power generation would be a mix of instantaneous usage of such power, storage, and grid feeds, with the system weighted toward the instantaneous uses first. The object of alternative power is to have a system that makes the absolute most efficient usage of power generated on site and locally and to as efficiently as possible o transfer and instantaneous local excesses to either storage or to distribution elsewhere. While this is a rather complex task, it is amenable to computerization of power distribution systems.

Whatever power can be utilized at the point of generation directly reduces the power demand of the region on the grid, exactly in proportion to the power generated by alternative methods. Only the remainder of the locally generated power should be fed to a distribution grid. I have operated a power systems at the Joint Water Polltion Control Plant in Carson, CA which used all the power generated on site to run plant processes. These were methane powered old fashioned Ingersol Rand engines and they pumped effluent and generated power that ran plant operations. There never was excess power generated in this system that was fed to the grid. In fact, the effluent pumping was directly powered by methane driven engines.

When this plant went from these old fashioned units to more efficient turbines, all the power these generated was fed to the Edison grid and all the power the plant used was bought back from Edison at an elevated price. Plant operating costs went up. While the effluent quality of the plant did not decline, the cost per unit for processing went up due purely to the economics of the buy back scheme.

There is something telling in Loren's answer to power distribution. It starts out with "buy a gasoline car." Just yesterday, I drove my gas sipping motorcycle past a gas station advertising gas @ $4.59 per gallon. If you do buy one, make sure that is has high mileage per gallon and doesn't cost too much.

 

[lpetrich]

... The only reason Congress has acted at all is that Obama was dragging his feet throughout his whole term in office and took personal control over the approval from the State Department to appease radical environmentalists (and secure Tom Steyer's millions).

So Tom Steyer joins George Soros and the Kennedy family as people that we must hate because they are rich, even though it is supposedly wrong to hate *anyone* for being rich.

 

[ZiprHead]

Rooftop solar leads to about 0.44 fatalities per TWh generated; For nuclear power the figure is 0.04 - so there are 11 deaths from rooftop solar for every death from nuclear. (Source)

Does that .04 figure include uranium miners? http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/uranium.html

 

[bilby]

Rooftop solar leads to about 0.44 fatalities per TWh generated; For nuclear power the figure is 0.04 - so there are 11 deaths from rooftop solar for every death from nuclear. (Source)

Does that .04 figure include uranium miners? http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/uranium.html

Yes.

The number of Uranium miner fatalities included is very small; Partly because Uranium has a very high energy density - you don't need to mine much Uranium to generate a given amount of electricity, but you do need to mine a LOT of coal to get the same amount of power; And this would result in much lower fatalities per TWh even if fatalities per tonne were similar (they are not). This is because these days, Uranium is very safe to mine - particularly when compared to coal. The fatalities in the study to which you linked all occurred before power generation was a significant market for Uranium - the stuff those guys mined went to making bombs.

The is explained here - and that page is linked from the page where the .04 figure is sourced from.

Modern Uranium mines generally have good management practices to minimise the risk from Radon; Uranium mines tend to be less prone to collapse than coal mines due to the geology of the target minerals; Uranium mines are not subject to firedamp (methane) explosions; They are typically less dusty than coal mines; and there are fewer 'legacy' mines using outdated equipment or methods than is the case for coal. The Radon threat is one of the largest issues in Uranium mine safety; In coal mines, Radon is also a threat, but rarely needs to be considered, as the measures needed to clear methane from the mine are usually effective in getting rid of Radon as well.

In regards to tallying deaths per terawatt hour, including deaths for mining uranium for nuclear weapons would be like adding in the deaths from falls from roofs, even if they were not installing or maintaining solar panels, against solar power.

 

[bilby]

For those who prefer a visual rather than numeric comparison.

 

[arkirk]

Does that .04 figure include uranium miners? http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pgms/worknotify/uranium.html

Yes.

The number of Uranium miner fatalities included is very small; Partly because Uranium has a very high energy density - you don't need to mine much Uranium to generate a given amount of electricity, but you do need to mine a LOT of coal to get the same amount of power; And this would result in much lower fatalities per TWh even if fatalities per tonne were similar (they are not). This is because these days, Uranium is very safe to mine - particularly when compared to coal. The fatalities in the study to which you linked all occurred before power generation was a significant market for Uranium - the stuff those guys mined went to making bombs.

The is explained here - and that page is linked from the page where the .04 figure is sourced from.

Modern Uranium mines generally have good management practices to minimise the risk from Radon; Uranium mines tend to be less prone to collapse than coal mines due to the geology of the target minerals; Uranium mines are not subject to firedamp (methane) explosions; They are typically less dusty than coal mines; and there are fewer 'legacy' mines using outdated equipment or methods than is the case for coal. The Radon threat is one of the largest issues in Uranium mine safety; In coal mines, Radon is also a threat, but rarely needs to be considered, as the measures needed to clear methane from the mine are usually effective in getting rid of Radon as well.

In regards to tallying deaths per terawatt hour, including deaths for mining uranium for nuclear weapons would be like adding in the deaths from falls from roofs, even if they were not installing or maintaining solar panels, against solar power.

Are we counting all the deaths from the nukes here? You want to separate deaths of indians who come down with lung cancer on their reservations because they worked in Uranium mines or lived too near tailings piles? I had an acquaintance who had been involved in uranium mining engineering his job involved the ventillation systems you are talking about here. Before you can trust any of these studies, you have to have an accounting of just what they count and how thorough they were and over what time period they made their observations. A terrawatt hour is 1000 gigawatt hours. Such a calculation would involve one hell of a lot of monitoring and I am very skeptical of the figures you post. It would depend on researchers being utterly devoted to their research and being everywhere at the same time. For instance, keeping track of the fishes in the sea.

 

[bilby]

Yes.

The number of Uranium miner fatalities included is very small; Partly because Uranium has a very high energy density - you don't need to mine much Uranium to generate a given amount of electricity, but you do need to mine a LOT of coal to get the same amount of power; And this would result in much lower fatalities per TWh even if fatalities per tonne were similar (they are not). This is because these days, Uranium is very safe to mine - particularly when compared to coal. The fatalities in the study to which you linked all occurred before power generation was a significant market for Uranium - the stuff those guys mined went to making bombs.

The is explained here - and that page is linked from the page where the .04 figure is sourced from.

Modern Uranium mines generally have good management practices to minimise the risk from Radon; Uranium mines tend to be less prone to collapse than coal mines due to the geology of the target minerals; Uranium mines are not subject to firedamp (methane) explosions; They are typically less dusty than coal mines; and there are fewer 'legacy' mines using outdated equipment or methods than is the case for coal. The Radon threat is one of the largest issues in Uranium mine safety; In coal mines, Radon is also a threat, but rarely needs to be considered, as the measures needed to clear methane from the mine are usually effective in getting rid of Radon as well.

In regards to tallying deaths per terawatt hour, including deaths for mining uranium for nuclear weapons would be like adding in the deaths from falls from roofs, even if they were not installing or maintaining solar panels, against solar power.

Are we counting all the deaths from the nukes here?

I am not entirely sure what part of 'Yes' you are struggling with, but if you wnat the details, they are at the links provided.

You want to separate deaths of indians who come down with lung cancer on their reservations because they worked in Uranium mines or lived too near tailings piles?

No, I 'want' to separate those deaths that were due to making nuclear bombs from the ones that were due to generating power; a reasonable thing to do if we are discussing power generation. The alternative would be to include all the WWII casualties as due to oil fired power plants, because oil was used to lubricate the weapons used to kill them. Oddly enough, deaths from unrelated activities are not included when tallying the deaths caused by an activity. Not all Uranium is used for power plants; the Uranium used for other things no more counts towards power plant deaths than people drowning in backyard swiming pools counts towards hydroelectric plant deaths - they are unrelated.

I had an acquaintance who had been involved in uranium mining engineering his job involved the ventillation systems you are talking about here.

That's lovely. I expect you are an expert then. I have a friend who is a surgeon, so if you need your appendix out, I can do it for you.

Before you can trust any of these studies, you have to have an accounting of just what they count and how thorough they were and over what time period they made their observations.

Indeed. Which is why there are all those links to exactly that information at the sources I already provided.

A terrawatt hour is 1000 gigawatt hours.

No shit, Sherlock. It is also a million megawatt hours, a billion kilowatt hours, and a trillion watt hours. You can even express it as 3.41214163 trillion BTUs.

Such a calculation would involve one hell of a lot of monitoring and I am very skeptical of the figures you post.

What rot. Are you of the opinion that you can't say how many miles an hour someone is driving at unless they maintain a steady speed for an hour?

It would depend on researchers being utterly devoted to their research and being everywhere at the same time. For instance, keeping track of the fishes in the sea.

What the flying fuck do the fishes in the sea have to do with anything? Have I stumbled into a surrealist board?

 

[Rhea]

Instead of trillion dollar wars, let's see numerous hundred billion dollar projects in smart grids and alternative energy projects and conservation engineering and try to return to sanity from the Capitalistic nightmare.

Well it's a shame you wasted so much effort on all those words that just repeat what you have already said, because I for one was hoping to see an answer to the new and interesting question you were posed by Noble Savage.

Perhaps I can re-phrase it a little, and you can try to answer it:

We have heard your opinions about what is wrong with how things are; so IMAGINE you were in charge. IF you had the powers to simply tell everyone exactly what to do, how would you excercise those powers?

He did answer it.