Appalachian Energy Conference 2025

[AppinVA]

Just watched that last night. Loved it

BBT is the male equivalent to Meryl Streep.

I am eagerly awaiting Season 2.

[hapapp]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... enewables/

When it comes to wind power, it seems the most important decision is where to put the turbines.

[AppSt94]

One of the biggest detriments to our environment has and continues to be deforestation. Trees are needed to clean the air. Solar farms and wind farms are fine as an alternative source,however solar farms are put in places where trees can go.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

One of the biggest detriments to our environment has and continues to be deforestation. Trees are needed to clean the air. Solar farms and wind farms are fine as an alternative source,however solar farms are put in places where trees can go.

Unless you are advocating for getting rid of the electrical grid I am not sure of your point. For what you said, the same can be said for any electrical generating source. The big pile of coal at Belews Creek Steam plant could be used for trees instead. And damming up Belews Creek itself is not really great for water quality, and the lake has to be there for any coal plant to dump the waste heat. But the lake is taking up space that could be planted with trees.

Plenty of solar is rooftop though there are some near me in open fields. Putting some trees in that same space would be a good thing but maybe not as much of a good thing as the solar farm. It need not be an either/or decision. We have plenty of room to plant more trees while still providing a greener source of electrical energy with solar farms. And there are plenty of places that just are not going to grow trees. For those of us living in the Tree-Basket of the world that is the SE US, that might be easy to forget.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/christophe ... enewables/

When it comes to wind power, it seems the most important decision is where to put the turbines.

There are many variable as play for sure and that makes things complicated for sure.

The interesting part was the overall lower carbon footprint when everything is put into place and how much wind energy really blows away other forms of electricity production. It surprised me.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

If we really want to change the energy landscape we'd have been working towards building 4th generation nuclear reactors for the past decade. Those are overall better for the environment, and economics.

Offshore Wind power subsidies were supposed to lower the consumers electric rates, but once costs mounted to build them the government decided to use those dollars to lower the supply chain cost to build shifting the rate difference (increases) back to the consumer.

The devil is in the details when it comes to wind and it isn't positive.

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima have a way to turning people off to nuclear. My views are softening on nuclear. We certainly need a multimodal approach and reductions in demand so we are not needing to build so much.

[Saint3333]

The fear mongering of antiquated technology propaganda worked very well.

Who do you think pushed that narrative?

China is going to have much lower electrical costs than us going forward which will further provide them economic advantages for manufacturing and in the AI/technology race.

[AtlAppMan]

I was speaking to the President of our EMC in GA a few months ago and he was telling me the reality of the solar cost. For every KW that is built with solar (they have been doing it a lot around here) they also have to have build the equivalent with a source that is available 24/7/265 because regardless of the solar capacity, there are times when it is not available therefore you are building double. I would like to know how the calculations are for wind.
I majored in physics in the early '80s and Dr Rokoske said then, solar will never be commercially feasible until we increase the efficiency by an exponential factor. That still has not occurred. I support all types of energy as we need multiple sources but reality is you have to have sources that produce at all times of day, night, weather, non-stop, etc. I will take the two new Plant Vogtle units producing 2200 MW total fulltime. We just need to make construction cost effective by making it repeatable.

[Saint3333]

Solar is pretty efficient actually, the biggest issue with solar today is an economic and feasible storage solution to bridge the gap when power isn't being created. Solar can work for residential needs most of the time but the high users of uninterruptible power can't rely on it. Think hospitals, data center, large manufacturers, etc.

We're probably 7-8 years away from small modular reactors (SMRs) being commercially feasible at the earliest. The development of these is important to solve the grid connectivity issues as well.

The Landman rant got more right than wrong when it comes to power generation and usage.

[AppDub]

Good thing birds can't vote. Wind turbines would be banned.

[Bootsy]

Solar is pretty efficient actually, the biggest issue with solar today is an economic and feasible storage solution to bridge the gap when power isn't being created. Solar can work for residential needs most of the time but the high users of uninterruptible power can't rely on it. Think hospitals, data center, large manufacturers, etc.

We're probably 7-8 years away from small modular reactors (SMRs) being commercially feasible at the earliest. The development of these is important to solve the grid connectivity issues as well.

The Landman rant got more right than wrong when it comes to power generation and usage.

As several have mentioned, there is no perfect answer here. And SMR technology is light years ahead of what most people think of when the word “nuclear” is mentioned. Adding nuclear back into the mix necessary to meet the explosive growth in long-term energy demand related to AI/Data farms.

Some good investment plays may present themselves as well

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

The fear mongering of antiquated technology propaganda worked very well.

Who do you think pushed that narrative?

China is going to have much lower electrical costs than us going forward which will further provide them economic advantages for manufacturing and in the AI/technology race.

Sunlight is going to be around for a few more billion years and as long as we have differential heating of the earth we will have some winds as well.

Reactor fuel is a limited resource as well. We are not running out for many centuries from what I have read but it is a finite resource. Disposal of waste is another concern. And I am not sure if anything we mine or pump out of the ground can be done without a good bit of harm to at least the local environment in a few different manners.

I was just reading a few minutes ago about a uranium mine that is run by a French company and the mine might be taken over by the Nigerian government. My gut tells me the miners themselves are not treated in a manner that I would prefer to begin with. And I can see the costs for the uranium going up for France and their numerous nuclear power plants. Maybe it works itself out to the benefit of all parties.

But with all of that said I do think nuclear is going to need to be a bigger part of the mix going forward as the base load and our goal is 24/7 electricity. I am not sure how I feel about that yet. As I said earlier my views on this are changing.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

I was speaking to the President of our EMC in GA a few months ago and he was telling me the reality of the solar cost. For every KW that is built with solar (they have been doing it a lot around here) they also have to have build the equivalent with a source that is available 24/7/265 because regardless of the solar capacity, there are times when it is not available therefore you are building double. I would like to know how the calculations are for wind.
I majored in physics in the early '80s and Dr Rokoske said then, solar will never be commercially feasible until we increase the efficiency by an exponential factor. That still has not occurred. I support all types of energy as we need multiple sources but reality is you have to have sources that produce at all times of day, night, weather, non-stop, etc. I will take the two new Plant Vogtle units producing 2200 MW total fulltime. We just need to make construction cost effective by making it repeatable.

Solar efficiency has gone up a lot since 1980. I wish I had the graph in front of me but I was at a workshop and it was a graph of solar cell efficiency and it may have gone back to early 1800s when Stoletov made the first solar cell. Efficiency has increased a lot the last few decades. I always wonder where we would be had research slowed in the early 1980s. Also storage is a whole new ball game with Li-Ion technology that was not around when I was studying physics almost a decade after you.

Side note: I assume you heard about Dr. Rokoske passing away a few months ago. Dr. Coffey sent out a note.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Good thing birds can't vote. Wind turbines would be banned.

If birds are really worried they need to spend their time banning house cats that are let out to roam. Blaming wind turbines is THE MAN's way of distracting birds from the real killer of birds.

[AppWyo]

Good thing birds can't vote. Wind turbines would be banned.

If birds are really worried they need to spend their time banning house cats that are let out to roam. Blaming wind turbines is THE MAN's way of distracting birds from the real killer of birds.

I see you have been reading MAUS.

[Saint3333]

The fear mongering of antiquated technology propaganda worked very well.

Who do you think pushed that narrative?

China is going to have much lower electrical costs than us going forward which will further provide them economic advantages for manufacturing and in the AI/technology race.

Sunlight is going to be around for a few more billion years and as long as we have differential heating of the earth we will have some winds as well.

Reactor fuel is a limited resource as well. We are not running out for many centuries from what I have read but it is a finite resource. Disposal of waste is another concern. And I am not sure if anything we mine or pump out of the ground can be done without a good bit of harm to at least the local environment in a few different manners.

I was just reading a few minutes ago about a uranium mine that is run by a French company and the mine might be taken over by the Nigerian government. My gut tells me the miners themselves are not treated in a manner that I would prefer to begin with. And I can see the costs for the uranium going up for France and their numerous nuclear power plants. Maybe it works itself out to the benefit of all parties.

But with all of that said I do think nuclear is going to need to be a bigger part of the mix going forward as the base load and our goal is 24/7 electricity. I am not sure how I feel about that yet. As I said earlier my views on this are changing.

Your views or my views aren't going to change the future electric needs of mankind. The electrification of everything will grow exponentially unless society would like to produce less and decrease population growth and live with 1990s tech, which of course has negative societal and economic implications .

Getting another two centuries of power from 4th Gen+ nuclear should get us to a point in which fusion energy production is commercialized, which changes everything.

[AtlAppMan]

Look at power grid failure in Spain and Portugal lately. Underlying problem was due to over reliance on Solar which uses DC to AC converters and they shut off when surges in demand occur vs how traditional base AC generation handles it. When AC cycle swung out of mandatory allowable deviation parameters, the DC converters shutoff grid. The traditional AC generators from nuclear, coal, gas, hydro can adjust quick enough to keep rolling without interruption.

Shut off was to protect grid equipment but catastrophic on consumers end. Also creates safety issues across country. Point is infrastructure still has a long way to go to be viable as the primary source of electricity in our society.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Good thing birds can't vote. Wind turbines would be banned.

If birds are really worried they need to spend their time banning house cats that are let out to roam. Blaming wind turbines is THE MAN's way of distracting birds from the real killer of birds.

I see you have been reading MAUS.

Back when it was banned I was going to get a copy and it was sold out. I did get a copy of MAUS II or something and have yet to read it. I wanted to read the original first. I need to go back and try and find a copy.

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Look at power grid failure in Spain and Portugal lately. Underlying problem was due to over reliance on Solar which uses DC to AC converters and they shut off when surges in demand occur vs how traditional base AC generation handles it. When AC cycle swung out of mandatory allowable deviation parameters, the DC converters shutoff grid. The traditional AC generators from nuclear, coal, gas, hydro can adjust quick enough to keep rolling without interruption.

Shut off was to protect grid equipment but catastrophic on consumers end. Also creates safety issues across country. Point is infrastructure still has a long way to go to be viable as the primary source of electricity in our society.

And they will learn from that and develop solutions I am sure. It is not as if we don't have blackouts in the US at times.

None of this is going to happen overnight and all our problems will be fixed. It will take time but more wind and solar in our future is better than less or just maintaining what our capacity is for those types of generation.

Our grid needs some work, but it will need some work even if we don't do more with greener sources.

Sadly this discussion of energy is only one problem. We have soooo much plastic in the world. It can be found everyone, including in a fetus. And all the PFAS in water. I could go on. Another reason to help and do all you can do with the zero waste efforts at events hosted by App State and elsewhere.

[Saint3333]

If you can get China on board we can talk.