Comment by Eyas

This is a post I made on another site. I know it’s kinda long; and everyone here already KNOWS that Obama will actually bankrupt coal.

But, I wanted to put some numbers with the claim, so I quickly put this together.

Obama Bankrupting Coal, And then some.
by Eyas on 11/09/08, 2:05 pm

President-elect Obama has stated that his cap and trade plan will bankrupt the Coal industry. At least he’s not lying this time.

I would bet that somebody, somewhere has done a good and thorough analysis of the potential effects that capping carbon dioxide emissions will have on our economy — but that somebody is not me. Instead, I’ve cobbled together some totally unreliable, back-of-the-envelope type information. But it should be reliable enough to get my point across.

I’ve said before that cap & trade legislation will utterly DESTROY the US economy — and, after looking up some of the numbers, I stand by that claim.
——-

First, will cap & trade actually bankrupt the Coal industry? You betcha! And then some.

The US produces some 6 Billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

About 4 Billion of this amount comes from fossil fuel energy generation — mostly COAL.

The DoE estimates the COST of Carbon Sequestration at between $100 to $300 per ton. (Because this is a government estimate, made with the motivation of endorsing carbon sequestration, I don’t buy this estimate for a second. However, because it is a conservative estimate, I’ll use it.)

Thus, 4 Billion tons @ $200 per ton = $800,000,000,000 to eliminate/sequester the CO2 from Coal plants.

The total Revenue of the entire Coal Industry is roughly $330,000,000 per year
http://www.sourcewat.....oal_Plants

Notice that this is an entire ORDER OF MAGNITUDE smaller than the amount required to sequester the CO2 from Coal burning.

Clearly, the costs of sequestration are far above and beyond the costs that would be needed to bankrupt the coal industry.

Coal plants provide 50% of our nation’s electricity.

The sequestration costs will also eliminate the production of electricity from other fossil fuels (mostly Natural Gas).

This eliminates an additional 23% of our electricity production.

Thus, Obama’s Cap & Trade plan will ELIMINATE 73% of the electricity sources in this country.

So, where does this leave the country in terms of producing/buying electricity?

——-

Second, with the enforcement of CO2 CAPS, the only remaining viable sources of electricity are Nuclear, Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Solar, and Wind Power.

Now, we all know that leftists will never allow an increase in the use of Nuclear power.

Similarly, loony enviro-nuts will not allow any Hydroelectric power — despite the fact that it is the CLEANEST way to produce energy and its potential is extraordinarily abundant in the U.S.

Geothermal energy is still in its technological infancy, and no one seems to be discussing it, so I will discount this as an alternative electricity source.

This leaves Solar Power, and Wind Power.

Many people (like T. Boone Pickens) are touting Wind Power as our best alternative. Wind Power IS superior to Solar Power — both in terms of cost AND environmental impact — so I will discount Solar Power and focus on Wind Power.

Electricity from coal costs about 1.7 cents per kilowatt-hour. Nuclear energy is roughly the same, at about 1.8 cents/kWh.

By comparison, Natural Gas costs about 5 cents/kWh.

Wind Power - depending upon who you believe, and what estimates are used - will cost (conservatively) about 8cents/kWh.

Thus, replacing ALL of our fossil fuel electricity generation with wind power will, at best, increase electricity costs by a factor of 4 or 5. That is, YOUR monthly electric bill will, at least, quadruple in price.

The current average monthly residential electric bill across the U.S. is $73 per month. Under Obama (or, had McCain won, under McCain) the average residential electricity bill will be around $300 per month.

Now, you may say, “Okay, that’s a big increase; but it’s not so much that I can’t pay it (for the worthy cause of SAVING THE PLANET).” If you said the part in parentheses — you’re a total schmuck.

But, now imagine you are a business owner in some industry that actually uses electricity (try to name one that doesn’t). Imagine you are, say, the FOOD production industry - which pays roughly $4 Million per year for electricity. Then, imagine that you suddenly are paying at least $16 Million per year for electricity.

Or, you could be the chemical industry — which pays about $6.5 Million per year for electricity. Now you’re suddenly paying (remember — conservatively) $26 Million per year.

What happens to the price of your product? Let’s say that, currently (pun intended), 10% of the price of your product reflects your electricity costs. Under Cap & Trade, your electricity costs will be soon be reflected as 40% of the price of your product. The widgets that you sell just went from $1 per widget to $1.30 per widget overnight. — Again, conservatively estimated.

This massive increase in price happens to ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING produced in this country. And, not just retail stuff.

Not only do your costs increase for electricity, so do your costs of buying ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ELSE.

So, your electricity costs quadruple, but the cost of all of your raw materials increases as well. That is, you pay much more to make your widgets AND you also pay much more for the plastic that your widgets are made of, as well as for the cement & steel that your building is made of, the plumbing, the wiring, the tile floor, the doors, the windows, your car, your clothes, your food, and OH, by the way, the massive increases in salaries that ALL of your employees need as a cost-of-living increase to be able to afford their own electric bills (and don’t forget the mandatory healthcare). Each increased cost, in addition to all of your other costs, has a multiplicative effect on the price that you must charge for your products, just to stay in business (you can stop feeling guilty about all of those EVIL PROFITS, cuz there won’t be any).

You’ve all heard of “trickle-down” economics? This is trickle-down bankruptcy.

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Thirdly, and finally, (and this is the funniest part), Wind is not as GREEN as people like to believe.

You know, there are enviro-nuts and eco-terrorists who hate the logging industry. One of the things about the logging industry that they hate the most is not necessarily the clear-cut slopes (cuz that doesn’t happen much anymore), but rather ROADS. Logging roads drive environmentalists crazy (i.e. crazi-ER). The simple use of LAND for human industry is one of the biggest peeves of environmentalists.

How much land do you suppose would be needed to build enough wind turbines to replace the electricity generated by just one coal plant?

On a per square meter basis, wind turbines produce about 1 (ONE) Watt per square meter. That’s 4000 watts per acre. A large coal plant can produce 500 Megawatts. For wind turbines, this would require 100,000 acres (1MW = 1 Million Watts), or more than 150 square miles covered by wind turbines to replace one coal plant. Or, as one study I found put it:

… in order for wind energy in Connecticut (assuming enough suitable sites could be located, and that
transmission facilities would be available) to produce the same power produced by Connecticut’s two nuclear
reactors (located on less than 1 square mile) it is estimated that windmills would cover 700 to 1,600 square
miles or approximately 13 to 31% of the state of Connecticut.

The entire Coal power industry produces 336,000 MW. Therefore, to replace all coal plants with wind power would require the clearing and usage of 101,000 square miles nationwide. In other words, the replacement of the entire State of Colorado (the 8th largest state), border to border, top to bottom, east to west, north to south, with a wind farm.

Do you think that the enviro-nuts will let that happen?

I’m not even going to address any of the other problems with wind power including: distribution problems, ice, calm periods (like the one that recently caused a blackout in Houston cuz they relied solely on wind and had no emergency backup), or the effect on regional weather & precipitation that covering the entire State of Colorado might have.

——-

Again, this is all rough estimates cobbled together quickly. I haven’t cited all the sources I used, and
please don’t rely on this post as a source of info itself.

However, the estimates I’ve used/made here are conservative estimates. The actual cost of replacing all fossil fuel plants with wind turbines would likely be far greater than what I’ve estimated here. And, no doubt, under Obama most of it would be funded directly by taxpayers — especially the EVIL RICH (What’s that you say? Obama’s other policies will ensure that there ARE NO MORE rich people to tax into poverty? oh well, the middle class will also just have to be made poor through taxation in order to afford this plan. That should help achieve “economic equality”)

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MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL: REMEMBER, this was McCain’s plan, too.

November 11th, 2008 at 10:23 AM
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Comment by LC Rainy

I’ve always wanted to go off the grid (it would be great to have Excel Energy pay me for a change!), so the other day, I looked into seeing how feasible that would be. I also thought that it would be better to do solar or wind for each building rather than covering millions of acres with solar panels or wind farms.

Solar:

I found that installing enough solar panels to replace 100% of the electricity for my house would cost around $112,000. With tax credits and rebates, it comes to $56,000. It would pay itself off in 30 years or so. Most people who purchase solar only replace part of their electricity needs or do it for hot water only.

Wind:

A residential-sized turbine with tower (80-120ft) and generator costs about the same as solar. It also requires at least an acre of land.

Summary:

Neither of the options is feasible for a residential home unless you’re really rich (not Obama’s definition of rich). They also don’t cover natural gas, which is how we heat our homes in the West. And I’m in Colorado where we have plenty of sun and wind.

If it’s not financially feasible to do this for a single home, it would be impossible, with the current technology to do this on a large enough scale to replace fossil fuels.

November 11th, 2008 at 11:01 AM
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Comment by Cortillaen

@ Eyas:
It occurs to me that Obama’s intention to bankrupt our powerplants may not be the pure pandering stupidity that some take it. After all, they will be forced into the same situation as the financial sector… See where I’m going with this?

November 11th, 2008 at 12:15 PM
Using Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3 on Windows XP

Comment by Eyas

@ Gibson girl:

Thanks for the compliment.

It shouldn’t amaze me (but it still does) that the same liberals communists who look to Europe as a model for how we should do everything in this country, are STILL bitching and pushing for the U.S. to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol — just like the Europeans — even though no country has met its obligations under the treaty AND attempts to do so have harmed every economy that’s tried to implement Greenhouse Gas controls.

Cognitive Dissonance, anyone?

November 11th, 2008 at 4:53 PM
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Comment by LCRedneckProgrammer

Hail Rotts!! :em04: :em04

@ LC Rainy

I did much of the same research a year ago with the same results. In addition I talked to an engineering teacher about the technical feasibility and it would seem that I live in an area without enough wind velocity AND sunny days to generate stable power from these sources.

Also, anyone who speaks to me that believes that C02 causes global warming or that it presently exists a la ALGORE is a hopeless IDIOT. The increased solar activity that caused the recent warming has been over for two years. All of this cap and trade lunacy is purely political and all that co-operate are useful idiots.

We are in the process of being screwed by the left. The time for real revolution nears.

November 12th, 2008 at 4:52 AM
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Comment by LC Mrs. M-ITT™-Imperial Sniper

We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim.

Oh for the love of St. Ignatius’s jockstrap…will these farking idiots make up their half dead minds? :em98:

Bikini or Fur Coat, or a Fur Bikini? Damn the decisions a gal has to make. :em95:

November 13th, 2008 at 8:51 PM
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Comment by LC Hardclimber54-Imperial Chief Pilot and Aviator

LC Mrs. M-ITT

Tell you what… You wear the bikini, with the 4 inch high heel sandals, and you get to join me on a large fur in front of the fireplace!

Cognac, Grand Marnier, Triple Sec or Martini..?

November 13th, 2008 at 9:10 PM
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