The price of natural gas could soar 71% this winter, making home heating costs rise sharply:
Natural gas prices could rise as much as 71% in places, the largest increase in projected energy costs as a result of Hurricane Katrina, the Energy Department says
The department’s statistical agency, the Energy Information Administration, says price hikes will depend on how quickly oil rigs and Gulf coast refineries damaged by Hurricane Katrina can be repaired.In its report, the agency said natural gas prices for the Midwest will increase as much as 71%, while heating oil prices in the Northeast could rise 31%. Electricity prices in the South could jump 17%.
But barring an unusually slow pace of repairs, the agency said domestic oil production should return to just under 5.4 million barrels a day in November, where it was in August before Katrina disrupted most Gulf production and knocked out 10 refineries.
While this is being blamed partially on Hurricane Katrina, prices for natural gas have been soaring for years (I think a five-fold increase), in large part because the vast majority of new plants designed to generate electricity are fueled mostly or in large part by natural gas.
We really need to revisit nuclear, and now, not later. Your thoughts? And if you can find the graphs charting the price increase in natural gas, that would be appreciated. I am relying on memory.
p.lukasiak
let me put it this way…..
feel free to put a wind turbine in my backyard.
But I’ll go all NIMBY on anyone’s ass who suggests putting a nuclear power plant there….
TallDave
Hell yeah, if not for the red tape in a few years we could build dozens of pebble-bed reactors that are safer than gas or coal and produce far less waste.
Never thought I’d be so happy to be under ComEd’s nuclear-powered thumb.
Doctor Gonzo
Why is this filed under “Democratic Stupidity?” I’m just curious, since there doesn’t seem to be anything in the story relating to Democrats. I doubt there are a lot of Republicans who would lobby for a nuke plant in their backyards either.
I’d be perfectly fine with nuclear if we found a terrorism-proof way to transport the waste to its final destination, and if we standardized nuclear plants like the evil French do.
ppGaz
Nuclear = BRING IT
Steve
We have a huge source of domestic natural gas in Alaska, but the government dawdled for years on the process of actually getting it to market. As far as I know it’s still in the early stages which is a shame.
capelza
I was all ready to give my thoughts…energy is something I have a very strong interest in, and yeah, I don’t hate intelligent nuclear power…but then as I got to the bottom and saw that Domocratic Stupidity my brain went all mushy trying to figure out how a party out of power for years is the source of this stupidity…
ppGaz
Well, the rule apparently is, Dems are to blame for anything that doesn’t work until at least 2009.
Repubs get credit for anything that does work, until at least 2009.
Anything that does not work and reflects poorly on the GOP, is said to be working fine, and all further criticism is banned.
At least, that’s the way I understand the rule. There may be other interpretations out there. Mine version is just based on observation.
Trevor
Wind turbines on average cost more to build than they ever produce. They are only marginally viable in the few places that have a steady wind that’s not too rough. Secondly, they are only a supplement to a supplier’s base load generation. Nuclear is definitely helpful, but they are only used for base load production. This means they make up the bulk of the power produced by a supplier, but they do not respond well to the increased demand that is seen during daily peak load. If nuclear does become more popular it will only replace the coal plants that currently supply most base loads. Natural gas generators are useful because they can turn on with a switch and start generating various levels of power in a short amount of time and can be turned up and down to meet varying load faster than any other source.
If you want answers to these gas prices, you’re going to have to look for new sources, like shale oil or coal gasification.
james richardson
the technology for nuclear power is light years beyond where it was 30 years ago. the question is, what do you do with the nuclear waste?
ppGaz
Ooops, based on John’s new thread ” … WordPress”, I may have revise-eat-take down-backpedal from – modify my earlier blame-credit rule description.
Paulie (that’s me), you’re (I’m) doing a heck of a job.
John Cole
It was a mistake.
ppGaz
Consider my earlier snide (but hilarious, let’s face it) blast, withdrawn.
p.lukasiak
gee, and here I was thinking that this discussion was based on RISING energy prices—a fact that would make it far more likely that a turbine would be a cost effective alternative.
jobiuspublius
Wind power. I’ll dig up the link later if someone threatens to burn me at the stake. I posted it at the last energy thread. One of the Dakotas has the largest potential. Surprised I never heard them say anything.
Steve
This is one of those things, which I view as yet another failure of the Bush administration. That is, I do think this is important, and I do think that Nuclear power is viable if handled correctly. It will become more viable as we address faults with technological research.
Yes, if it was pushed in the US there would be some protests. But I believe that scientists could make an argument to these protests in a convincing manner.
Instead, Bush has completely dropped the ball on pushing Nuclear power, and instead has focused on divisive actions which really are not important. Like the religious whackadoodle evolution debate, or gay marriage, or abortion, etc.
Yes, I’d like to see more nuclear power. I think if we followed a model similar to France where we standardized the design we could streamline construction and maintenance. We can deal with the disposal via further technological research. It’s entirely viable, and it’s more environmentally friendly even with the disposal, than the pollution we emit through coal and oil fired power plants.
KC
We definitely need to build more nuclear. Storage is still the big issue though (been to Yucca, there are some issues there). I also think that if we go nuclear, we need to follow France’s lead and institute a smarter more redundant policy. There’s no need to have every state build multiple types of reactors. Select the best technology and go with it on a national scale.
John Cole
And you would not got a word of dissent from me on that statement.
Steve
There are a tremendous number of wind generators in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota. North Dakota especially has a lot of flat land and steady wind and not much else.
The other thing which would be helpful would be improved energy storage devices. Power plants generate a flat load. So when there isn’t much usage at night, the potential is wasted. If we could store the power and then retrieve it during the peak daytime hours that would be benefciial.
Energy storage would also make solar power more viable.
capelza
Is this because of market forces possibly? Would more demnad for them or other independent engery sources lower the price? Would solar cells on roofs be a whole lot cheaper if the demand was higher?
So many things that start out very expensive become much, much cheaper as demand allows anough production to make it economically feasible to be affordable to the general public and not just us “enviro wackos”? Really, just asking.
Trevor
Actually, P. Lukasiak, the cost of electricity has only marginally increased as petroleum prices have increased. The U.S. alone has over 200 years worth of coal supply that can be extracted with current technology. Since coal currently makes up the bulk of U.S. electrical generation, the overall price of electricity has remained relatively steady. If wind turbines are to become cost effective they are going to have to become significantly cheaper.
I’m a big proponent of power diversification. I think it’s a great idea to have as many differnet sources of power as possible. That doesn’t mean that we should expect wind or solar power to suddenly start producing more power at lower prices than they are now. We can all hope, but to expect cost improvements due to mass production or to expect new technology to appear due to increased useage, belies the actual reasons for the high cost of these products.
DJAnyReason
Y’know, if we had a real leader as President (I’m thinking a Kennedy, or FDR, or the like), he’d step up to the plate and declare that, one way or another, the US will be energy independent in 10 years. Seriously, if we put the full force of the US govn’t and our massive national intellectual research and development ability behind it (like, say, building the air force in WWII or the space race) we could accomplish this.
Nuclear might be part of the solution – I don’t really know, but I suspect there are massive gains to be made on both the supply and demand ends of the equation. Of course, encouraging development is never good for the status quo businesses, since they’d have to put money into R&D rather than their own pockets, and the potential for a new company to come up and steal market share increases immensely. So, in the current bought&sold District of Columbia, we get energy policies that try and preserve the status quo, rather than making real gains for the American people.
Davebo
Having served on nuclear powered ships I’m all for it. But if we decide to get back into nuclear generation of electricity we need to learn an important lesson. And unfortunately we will have to learn it from the French.
Standardized reactor designs are the answer.
farmgirl
I just gotta say I’m glad my co-op locked in propane at $1.53 for the season.
p.lukasiak
Actually, P. Lukasiak, the cost of electricity has only marginally increased as petroleum prices have increased. The U.S. alone has over 200 years worth of coal supply that can be extracted with current technology. Since coal currently makes up the bulk of U.S. electrical generation, the overall price of electricity has remained relatively steady. If wind turbines are to become cost effective they are going to have to become significantly cheaper.
trevor….
its called “supply and demand”. Demand for electricity will increase as people switch from direct use of fossil fuels to electricity for various purposes. Increased demand will mean higher prices, making wind power more (relatively) efficient.
….and despite the fact that there is “lots of coal”, there are numerous other considerations that need to be taken into account when determining energy policies….like whether we want to have to risk having to build a levee system around every major coastal city as the ice caps melt and the ocean levels rise thanks to Global warming…
Jim Allen
Two quick things — first, nuclear power would be terrific if it wasn’t for that small matter of nuclear waste products when you’re all done. Disposing of the spent fuel makes scrubbing CO2 out of “traditional” exhaust seem small potatoes.
And second, I’m kind of hoping that the current administration doesn’t start pushing for more nukes. Having to listen to Bush say “new-kew-ler” for three years would probably put me over the edge.
Just saying.
goonie bird
Yes nucular power and screw HANOI JANE And CHINA SINDROME and nuts with the idiots at GREENPEACE AND AND WORLD WILDLIFE FUND and the rest of the antinucular activist pests running around in the sandals while munching the granola bars
Jim Allen
Question to Davebo: Given the wide variety of locations/sites for nuke plants and the inherent differences in topology/geology and such, what kind of standard design would be used? Or is that independent of location?
Would the same design be appropriate for California, with it’s earthquakes, as for, say the midwest or the east coast?
Edmund Dantes
Add me to the list of people that believes we need to set up a Manhattan/Apollo Project to find alternative and viable energy technology.
It should be an easy sell. It works on multiple fronts. It has the potential to make America both safer and more economically robust. The only problem is it may take some short term sacrifices for some extremely amazing long term results. (It’ll never happen for this reason alone).
Imagine instead of dropping 300 Billion dollar (a number we will pass easily before it’s all said and done) into the War on Iraq, the government instead focused that 300 billion dollars on paying for the best and brightest to come up with and develop a technology and infrastructure that moves us away from fossil fuels.
Some fringe benefits are we would be hurting many of the middle eastern mullahs where it hurts them the most. Two pillars holding up their rhetoric against the US are suddenly gone. Our presence in the Middle East could no longer be construed as the US wanting to “steal their oil”, we could also, if need be, remove ourselves from the region except to support our allies that are our allies for the reason that they share the same dreams and goals for democracy rather than for their mineral wealth. We also would be reducing the demand side of the equation which in turn will reduce the extra cash that’s being funneled into the radical mullah’s mosques and schools from the Middle East.
The potential good goes on and on.
Pyst
Wind power is safe and does pay for itself as long as hurricane force wind doesn’t hit it.
We have multitudes of new natural gas wells started in the last 2 years in Montana and Wyoming so we have more than enough natural gas reserves. The problem is processing and distribution on mass scale…most of it was done in New Orleans.
Nuke power won’t heat your home unless you want electric heaters spread throughout your home. I don’t like the idea of waking up in the middle of the night home on fire from that scenario. And lastly…who the hell wants more nuke plants in their backyards or period???? A lunatic that thinks accidents don’t happen thats who…N.O. anyone?
ppGaz
Yes, but isn’t Global Warming one of those “science as religion” things, like Evolution, that can’t be proven and therefore is to be ridiculed?
Otherwise, we’d have to modulate the rate of coal burning, and that would harm the
Republicanseconomy. I think Global Warming should be taught alongside the Rapture, for balance. And, for irony.Steve
Jim Allen – Honestly, I think that any part of the country is potentionally at risk for a disaster, even an earthquake. There’s the New Madrid fault line down in Missouri…
Japan builds their reactors to shutdown in the event of an earthquake…
http://www.uic.com.au/nip20.htm
I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to design for the worst case scenario, and standardize on that.
Trevor
P. Lukasiak, you’re making the assumption that there is a limited ability to supply coal at current capacity. A gradual increase in demand for coal for electrical generation will not increase the price per ton of coal. It’s called shifting the supply curve. The cost would remain the same, and perhaps decrease as suppliers’ ability to extract and deliver coal is possibly reduced by mass production and improved technology. No matter what, suppliers can build more equipment and extract more coal with that equipment as long as there is some time to prepare. If we’re talking about a sudden increase in demand then you’d be right, but the very scenario you describe is one of a gradual increase as more people switch over.
Please stop assuming that I’m against wind power. I’m not. I’m simply trying to say that it is not there yet, and we have no clear avenue to get it there. I would love to have wind or solar power become a viable source of electricity.
Wind only marginally works in a few areas, and in those places I’m happy to see it. Nonetheless, it is not even close to being a significant energy alternative. And as for building wind farms to head off global warming, apparently I’m less enthused about building a bunch of prohibitively expensive devices to head off something that might be true, we’re just not sure yet.
Kirk Spencer
Pyst, what’s this “electric heaters spread throughout the home” business? I suppose only if you have rather old-fashioned (and no longer code) direct coil heaters. Me, I’ve got a heater coil as part of the HVAC system that warms the air that passes through it – works the opposite from how the airconditioner cools the air. That particular box is outside the house. Fire hazard? Yep – so is the breaker box, and so is the air conditioner. The risk level is VERY low. It’s as low as – and possibly lower than – the same risk from natural gas. (And I don’t have to worry about the pilot light going out and a pool of gas forming somewhere.)
As to the power generation source, I don’t live in a wind-power location. So I have the choices of solar, nuke, or gas/coal (mostly the latter). Solar, well, right now the estimates to fully power a ranch-style house that I’ve seen say you need four times its square footage in panels. That is a bit difficult in your typical urban/suburban address. I’ve lived near gas, coal, and nuke plants. The former two stink – a lot – with coal fumes having interesting colors in the rain. Nukes – the normal vent is steam.
As to safety – we don’t use Chernobyl style plants. We consider them extremely unsafe. AFAIK all the designs in operation today are some variation of ‘shutdown default’. That is, action is required to keep the system running. Three Mile Island wasn’t of such a design – and that plant’s closed. (How do you guarantee it’ll shutdown? You use a “leaky spring” to push the dampening rods OUT of the pile. If you don’t keep reinforcing the push, the rods come back in and shut it down. That’s not the only, it’s not the best, but it’s an effective example.) On the other hand, coal dust is big-time nasty and a major safety concern at that type of powerplant. (Look up grain silo fires for examples as to why the stuff’s a problem. Or recognize it’s essentially half of a field expedient FAE in operation.) Natural gas is better, but if the pipe gets cut (in, say, an earthquake) you’ve got a really nasty gas leak – a HUGE pool of gas that, if ignited, is not going to be pretty for anyone in the neighborhood.
Given the choice, I’ll take a nuke in my backyard. It’s cleaner and it’s safer. Oh – waste? Yep, it’s a problem. The containers are “only” expected to be good for a couple hundred years due to degradation. And they’re so inefficient that one of them a hundred feet from you over a year gives you less radiation than you get from normal background. On the other hand, coal waste includes such safe items as sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide and hydrochloric acid.
Note I’ve excluded wind power. There are two reasons for this, though the principle is real nice. First, wind isn’t reliable – not even on the plains of North Dakota. For urban power you’ve got to have reliability, and that means you have to run extra power into some sort of storage (battery) to be drawn when the winds have died down or are too strong to safely operate. Second, the amount of power wind generators can produce per square foot of ground is (at this time) comparable to solar above. There are some theoretical designs on the board that would make them almost ten times more efficient. Which makes them a measurable percentage (about 5%, IIRC) for the same groundspace of a coal or nuclear plant. Yes, I’m including the almost mandatory parking, maintenance, and security region of those plants.
Final thing. I suspect that the eventual power source will be a classic of science fiction. Solar satellites that beam power (via microwave) to large collection points for further distribution. There are problems with that, of course, but you’re not dealing with limited resources (coal, gas, uranium) and you’ve no need to worry about the weather (if your transmission frequency is right so as to penetrate clouds, of course). But that’s a personal suspicion, not “the truth”.
Dave Ruddell
If we had an abundance of electrical poweer generation (say from pebble bed nukes), could the excess be used to extract hydrogen from water via electrolysis (for using in fuels cells and such)? I honestly don’t know if this is practical or not, and I have a PhD in materials science. Anyone? Buehler?
Trevor
Dave, it would take an abundance of electrical energy to make electrolysis practical on a $/joule basis. One of the issues with hyrdogen gas as a mobile fuel has been it’s volatility. There has actually been some neat developments recently that could eventually lead to the eliminaion of that problem. Unfortunately, electrolysis is still an energy intensive process that won’t become feasible until the $/joule cost gets much closer to the $/joule cost of gasoline. With the loss of energy over power lines, transformers, and storage/retrieval of the hydrogen gas, we’re still far away from that. Nonetheless, I do think the technical achievements required are possible.
In terms of the electricital generation, I do agree with the above posters that nuclear power has the best chance on a cost basis to get the higher levels of capacity required for this kind of change. Putting aside the regulatory/NIMBY concerns, nuclear has by far the best joule/$ capability. To those concerned with the waste issues I would like to point out that this waste itself has potential as an energy source. Right now, nuclear waste is only waste because the cost of further refinement exceeds the cost of storage. There is still a lot of energy in there. With further development, it might be feasible to recycle the waste into a useful fuel source.
Shygetz
I’ll say one thing–when Katrina hit and we were facing a possible oil/gas shortage here, we were thankful for Duke Power and our nuclear plant. Yes, nuclear. And you can put it in my backyard if you want (not literaly, since that’s where my kids play, but near it).