How Lucky Can You Get?

Complicated but certainly interesting. That’s life. I was reading the news again this morning and found so many things to ponder! If I fear anything at all about the effects of aging it would be the possible loss of curiosity. Does that happen with aging (genetics) or is that cultural?

And I’m still reading the book, Lights Out by Jason Makansi. I definitely recommend this book as it explains, in common language, the technical difficulties found in the various solutions to our power problems. And one of the more interesting points was the fact that most power plants are burning Powder River Basin coal. That’s low-sulfur coal (good) but high water content (1/3 and bad). Since the cost of transport for this coal is higher than the value of the coal itself, it seems we are paying a lot of money to transport water, which is released as steam and contributes nothing for our power needs. In fact, the water vapor contributes to the ‘greenhouse’ gas effect.

And then there is the fact that the power ‘grid’ must always be on. It cannot be allowed to collapse. So some power plants are running simply to keep the grid in operation. And the substations that provide that service are usually unmanned and their only security comes from a chain link fence and the fact that most people do not know where they are. Compare that to the level of security in an airport.

The last ‘fact’ for the day would be that our power needs increase at 2 to 3 percent every year and the rest of the worlds needs is increasing exponentially. It’s estimated that the world demand for power will be doubled by the year 2030. That’s 22 years from now. OK, one last one; the majority of the worlds natural gas supplies are located in Russia, followed by Iran. Luckily for us, these are very friendly nations.