In response to Ward Uggerud about Big Stone II. He tells us that Big Stone II would decrease CO2 emissions, and suggests it's "clean coal" without downright stating it. Plain and simple there is no such thing as "clean coal" because you may be able to filter the emissions, however this merely transfers that dirty carbon and other emissions to another medium. It doesn't disappear it is simply transferred, and still needs to be disposed of.
Mr. Uggerud also states that there is no way to transfer electrical production from coal to wind without spending lots of money. Why is it Germany can do it then? Germany has nearly five times the wind power capacity of the U.S. and will be at 12 percent of their power needs from wind by 2010. Europe will overall be at 21 percent of their electrical needs via wind by 2010.
The U.S. is behind its goal of 6 percent by 2020, or approximately what Europe was able to generate from wind nearly five years ago! Here's the real kicker -- the average electric bill in Europe will only increase by one single Euro a month to do all of this. How is this being accomplished? Simple. Mandates on how profits from electric utilities are to be used.
The E.U. is mandating the building of grids of wind farms, and the interconnection of that grid into the existing electrical grid, meaning that electrical generation from one wind farm can be transferred to another part of the grid at any time. What does this mean? While one wind farm sees low generation due to less wind, another will likely see an increase. The load is then balanced across and transferred to the existing grid. Seems like a logical system which many in our power companies in the U.S. are either ignorant of or unwilling to see. The wind is always blowing somewhere!
Mr. Uggerud also suggests that there will never be a time when we would be able to stop using coal in large amounts. However study after study after study have shown that wind and solar, teamed with the use of more efficient appliances and lighting systems, would reduce coal to a minimum. So if we can reduce coal to a minimum, why do we need to build another coal plant? Maybe we should invest the same money into a wind turbine.
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Chris Asendorf
Bemidji
