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Pastimes : All Clowns Must Be Destroyed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MythMan who wrote (28261)	4/21/2000 5:27:00 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42523

I would add that electrical energy peak demand has "locally" (last couple of years) grown very rapidly with respect to longer term trends. Volatility was almost non-existent prior to '97. Now we have summers where the price can move from 40 - 60 bucks/MWh (the marginal price of a gas unit) to 4000 - 8000 bucks/MWh when supplies are tight -- and supplies are tight because of an increased dependence (as a fraction of the overall mix) on natural gas. These plants 50M for 100MW plant -- with hundreds of them going in -- no way they can all be profitable. It's gonna be a drag for someone. And all the while we have huge reserves of relatively clean coal ... the focus is all wrong with this greenhouse crap. Methane is 1/3 of greenhouse gases. CO2 is 2/3 and power plants (now -- i.e. mostly old technology) account for only 1/3 of CO2 -- so older coal plants account for 2/9 of the problem. Instead of looking for ways to burn the stuff efficiently and cleanly -- all the Gore types can think of is tax, tax, tax -- they and their ilk are responsible for the summer spikes we see and the costs that ultimately get passed on to the end users ... It's a pendulum ... when prices swing high enough for long enough. It'll be rethought, but the US has no real energy policy and hasn't had for years.