100% Correct. We need to go to the new Nuclear power plants. New technology is coming online all the time, and todays Nuclear power is not the same as that of the 1970's
When ideology effects infrastructure decisions, one has to ask the question, "just what did we do to our selves?". I burn wood for heat. The old farmers proverb is "He who cuts his own firewood is heated twice by it". I some how doubt that's legal in the pacific north west metro areas. Pellet stoves can be used indoors with the correct setup.
I think it is still legal to burn everywhere here, except when it is cold. If my memory is right from when I lived in one of our urban counties.
If memory serves, people in those areas can use their old fireplaces or wood stoves, but if they go to replace them they have to do so with a model certified to let less smoke escape. When it is determined that air quality is degrading, the old ones can't be used, but people with the new ones can still do so. When it degrades further, none of them can be used. Of course, when it is raining, it is warm and the air quality is A-OK. When it is cold and therefore not raining, it degrades.
I had one of the newer stoves that put out less smoke in my last house up there, and I'll admit that it worked just fine. The only real drawback I encountered was the firebox. It was quite small because there had to be room for the pipes and such that made the thing emit less smoke, so the wood had to be cut smaller than normal.
Where I live now, there aren't any of those regulations, and I'm back to a huge firebox.
Lots of people here use pellet stoves, and I've thought about it, but my wife objects to the idea because they require some electricity to operate. She likes knowing that she can cook on the wood stove if we lose power.
That said, when I moved to this little city, I was amazed at how reliable and cheap our electricity is. Our city is quite small, unlike most cities here has its own power company, and its own dam to make electricity. That dam is close in, so we don't have long transmission lines. Cheap and super reliable. Much more so than when I lived in a more urban area.
But ultimately, the population in Washington is growing at a fast clip, more and more things are being converted to electric, and we are removing electrical generating capacity. When any rational state would be adding capacity. Nuts.
Another well stated and thought provoking piece on a subject which effects all of us. Another aspect of the power distribution is the aging infrastructure. You still need to get the power, whatever the source, to the end item user. Money intended for maintenance and repair is being used for operations, even as the transmission lines age in place.
And you are right, we seem to be completely ignoring infrastructure. Not just when it comes to power.
Not long ago we took a little trip to Astoria. On that trip we crossed the Columbia River twice, first on the Longview Bridge. A bridge that opened in 1930, with a span of 2722 feet, at a height of 340 feet. Then the Astoria Bridge. It opened in 1966, is 21,474 feet long (4 miles), and provides 200 feet of clearance at high tide.
I wonder, when crossing those bridges, if they could be built today. Our State Department of Transportation seems virtually incapable of completing even small freeway projects (the rebuilding of I-5 through Tacoma took over 20 years) so how on earth could we build a bridge like those?
And maybe, government shouldn't. That mighty bridge at Longview wasn't built by the government, it was built by a private company with private dollars.
Now, I’ll give you one method of renewable energy that flies under the radar, but actually works. That’d be geothermal.
Now, some might remember some of the larger geothermal plants in California and other places that are the size and scale of our old coal plant and the larger hydro dams. I learned about them when I was in school studying renewable energy. Like “Windensolar,” it might seem like “free” energy, as you’re tapping into a natural occurring situation like the blowing wind and the daylight, and in this case, the natural subterranean heat. Two problems with that – one of them is that like the fossil fuel and nuclear energies, large-scale geothermal is dirty. Not quite like the other two with the waste, but with pumping up that toxin and mineral-laden water into the plant. It can cause buildup and corrosion, which both need to be addressed and have associated costs. The other one is the limit to what power you can tap from any particular “Spring” or subterranean earth formation to achieve desired power. And, of course, with pumping water, etc. underground, you run the risk of making the ground shift.
But those are the pitfalls of using Geothermal on a large scale. But at a smaller scale? I have talked with two customers who have worked with geothermal at the residential scale and the commercial building scale. The residential fellow had to do a LOT of digging and laying pipe. I think it was about 4-6 feet down, but he used the circulator pump found on a hot water heat system to pump 55 degree water into his house. Just like the old-fashioned hot water heat systems, the circulator pump would send that 55 degree water into the radiators and cool his house on a hot summer day with only the power needed to run the pump and whatever fans are needed in the rooms, which was considerably less than an A/C unit. In the winter? Sure, 55 can be chilly, but it’d take only a fraction of the power to heat 55 degree water up to 68 degrees or so as opposed to trying to heat based on outdoor ambient temperatures. The chief obstacle is the high initial cost of digging the trenches and laying the pipe, but from what I see, that’d pay for itself in the savings of cooling and heating. The other customer was employed by a subcontractor who would lay out the geothermal methods outlined above for the residence, but on a scale of a multi-story commercial building. Same idea, same type of savings. Drops the overall energy costs. In fact, you don’t have to do it for a new building, as the famous King Street Station that was built over 100 years ago is heated/cooled by geothermal, and we both know how effective it was when we visited it last October. It works, but it’s under the radar when it comes to media exposure, with most of the conversation, and the associated attention and activism, centered around wind and solar energy, hence my calling it “Windensolar,” as it’s usually spoken in media.
I certainly don't object to renewables, where they work and don't trash the place. Mother recently installed solar at her house in Mexico. She reports that her two month electric bill afterwards was roughly $3.50 dollars. But, of course, it's sunny there. I doubt if it would work nearly as well here in Western Washington.
I'm much less keen on wind. It might work, but all those windmills certainly trash the natural environment. And it makes zero sense to me that we would choose to build them instead of more hydro, including hydro powered by the tides.
“..where they work and don't trash the place.” Now I will admit I’ve seen solar panels that were built in the late 1980’s that still create a solid 12 volts DC. I watched the Nyholm’s employee put the test equipment on it to test it. He’s still using them on his camper to charge his deep-cycle batteries. Now, those older panels need the blue sky, while I’ve heard the newer ones also work in overcast skies, which would work better up here. So on a residential scale, I can see this working, but just like the geothermal resident, it’d take a lot of initial capital outlay to get things started (hence the government subsidies that utilities such as PSE have been pushing.)
Tidal power? I do know there are foreign countries that have explored a handful of different methods of using the tides to create power, such as a part-time dam that opens and closes during tide cycles to create a hydro-dam situation while the tides drop from high to low. Also a method of using air displacement when the water level rises and falls to work fans hooked up to generators. I’ve also heard of using buoys that rise and fall with the tides. I know that at the local level they were considering using water turbines in the Tacoma Narrows, where the tidal currents are strong, but I think it didn’t pencil out.
Water turbines have been considered up in Snohomish County as well.
I think one would have to explore much further why such things haven't 'penciled out.'
How much would environmental review and permitting, along with all of the required studies to move through those processes cost? I'd be willing to bet, based on my experience in government, more than the project itself. Mighty hard to make things pencil out when faced with crushing amounts of bureaucracy and oceans of waste.
I think the importance is to ensure the knowledge you possess, and others like you, is transferred to the next generation of those willing to pick up the mantle and carry it forth.
I have heard a number of Brothers talk about, and I was fortunate enough to witness, the tail end of an era of pride in craftsmanship. I don't mean just swinging hammers, or turning wrenches, though those are included too. I mean pride in ones profession and abilities.
The talents you possess have arguably improved the lives of the constituents of the territories you have supported. Who can you point to down the line who will carry that mantle when you're ready to put it down?
If each of us looks at the talents we possess, we might consider that they will be needed again someday. I think we should actively seek out how they will be carried into the future. Perhaps our Lodges should consider aiding in the transfer of knowledge to each successive generation, and in the process building a stronger foundation for future Masons to build upon.
100% Correct. We need to go to the new Nuclear power plants. New technology is coming online all the time, and todays Nuclear power is not the same as that of the 1970's
I agree, nuclear needs to be a part of the mix moving forward.
When ideology effects infrastructure decisions, one has to ask the question, "just what did we do to our selves?". I burn wood for heat. The old farmers proverb is "He who cuts his own firewood is heated twice by it". I some how doubt that's legal in the pacific north west metro areas. Pellet stoves can be used indoors with the correct setup.
I think it is still legal to burn everywhere here, except when it is cold. If my memory is right from when I lived in one of our urban counties.
If memory serves, people in those areas can use their old fireplaces or wood stoves, but if they go to replace them they have to do so with a model certified to let less smoke escape. When it is determined that air quality is degrading, the old ones can't be used, but people with the new ones can still do so. When it degrades further, none of them can be used. Of course, when it is raining, it is warm and the air quality is A-OK. When it is cold and therefore not raining, it degrades.
I had one of the newer stoves that put out less smoke in my last house up there, and I'll admit that it worked just fine. The only real drawback I encountered was the firebox. It was quite small because there had to be room for the pipes and such that made the thing emit less smoke, so the wood had to be cut smaller than normal.
Where I live now, there aren't any of those regulations, and I'm back to a huge firebox.
Lots of people here use pellet stoves, and I've thought about it, but my wife objects to the idea because they require some electricity to operate. She likes knowing that she can cook on the wood stove if we lose power.
That said, when I moved to this little city, I was amazed at how reliable and cheap our electricity is. Our city is quite small, unlike most cities here has its own power company, and its own dam to make electricity. That dam is close in, so we don't have long transmission lines. Cheap and super reliable. Much more so than when I lived in a more urban area.
But ultimately, the population in Washington is growing at a fast clip, more and more things are being converted to electric, and we are removing electrical generating capacity. When any rational state would be adding capacity. Nuts.
Another well stated and thought provoking piece on a subject which effects all of us. Another aspect of the power distribution is the aging infrastructure. You still need to get the power, whatever the source, to the end item user. Money intended for maintenance and repair is being used for operations, even as the transmission lines age in place.
Thanks! I'm glad you found value in it.
And you are right, we seem to be completely ignoring infrastructure. Not just when it comes to power.
Not long ago we took a little trip to Astoria. On that trip we crossed the Columbia River twice, first on the Longview Bridge. A bridge that opened in 1930, with a span of 2722 feet, at a height of 340 feet. Then the Astoria Bridge. It opened in 1966, is 21,474 feet long (4 miles), and provides 200 feet of clearance at high tide.
I wonder, when crossing those bridges, if they could be built today. Our State Department of Transportation seems virtually incapable of completing even small freeway projects (the rebuilding of I-5 through Tacoma took over 20 years) so how on earth could we build a bridge like those?
And maybe, government shouldn't. That mighty bridge at Longview wasn't built by the government, it was built by a private company with private dollars.
Now, I’ll give you one method of renewable energy that flies under the radar, but actually works. That’d be geothermal.
Now, some might remember some of the larger geothermal plants in California and other places that are the size and scale of our old coal plant and the larger hydro dams. I learned about them when I was in school studying renewable energy. Like “Windensolar,” it might seem like “free” energy, as you’re tapping into a natural occurring situation like the blowing wind and the daylight, and in this case, the natural subterranean heat. Two problems with that – one of them is that like the fossil fuel and nuclear energies, large-scale geothermal is dirty. Not quite like the other two with the waste, but with pumping up that toxin and mineral-laden water into the plant. It can cause buildup and corrosion, which both need to be addressed and have associated costs. The other one is the limit to what power you can tap from any particular “Spring” or subterranean earth formation to achieve desired power. And, of course, with pumping water, etc. underground, you run the risk of making the ground shift.
But those are the pitfalls of using Geothermal on a large scale. But at a smaller scale? I have talked with two customers who have worked with geothermal at the residential scale and the commercial building scale. The residential fellow had to do a LOT of digging and laying pipe. I think it was about 4-6 feet down, but he used the circulator pump found on a hot water heat system to pump 55 degree water into his house. Just like the old-fashioned hot water heat systems, the circulator pump would send that 55 degree water into the radiators and cool his house on a hot summer day with only the power needed to run the pump and whatever fans are needed in the rooms, which was considerably less than an A/C unit. In the winter? Sure, 55 can be chilly, but it’d take only a fraction of the power to heat 55 degree water up to 68 degrees or so as opposed to trying to heat based on outdoor ambient temperatures. The chief obstacle is the high initial cost of digging the trenches and laying the pipe, but from what I see, that’d pay for itself in the savings of cooling and heating. The other customer was employed by a subcontractor who would lay out the geothermal methods outlined above for the residence, but on a scale of a multi-story commercial building. Same idea, same type of savings. Drops the overall energy costs. In fact, you don’t have to do it for a new building, as the famous King Street Station that was built over 100 years ago is heated/cooled by geothermal, and we both know how effective it was when we visited it last October. It works, but it’s under the radar when it comes to media exposure, with most of the conversation, and the associated attention and activism, centered around wind and solar energy, hence my calling it “Windensolar,” as it’s usually spoken in media.
I certainly don't object to renewables, where they work and don't trash the place. Mother recently installed solar at her house in Mexico. She reports that her two month electric bill afterwards was roughly $3.50 dollars. But, of course, it's sunny there. I doubt if it would work nearly as well here in Western Washington.
I'm much less keen on wind. It might work, but all those windmills certainly trash the natural environment. And it makes zero sense to me that we would choose to build them instead of more hydro, including hydro powered by the tides.
I'm much less familiar with geothermal.
“..where they work and don't trash the place.” Now I will admit I’ve seen solar panels that were built in the late 1980’s that still create a solid 12 volts DC. I watched the Nyholm’s employee put the test equipment on it to test it. He’s still using them on his camper to charge his deep-cycle batteries. Now, those older panels need the blue sky, while I’ve heard the newer ones also work in overcast skies, which would work better up here. So on a residential scale, I can see this working, but just like the geothermal resident, it’d take a lot of initial capital outlay to get things started (hence the government subsidies that utilities such as PSE have been pushing.)
Tidal power? I do know there are foreign countries that have explored a handful of different methods of using the tides to create power, such as a part-time dam that opens and closes during tide cycles to create a hydro-dam situation while the tides drop from high to low. Also a method of using air displacement when the water level rises and falls to work fans hooked up to generators. I’ve also heard of using buoys that rise and fall with the tides. I know that at the local level they were considering using water turbines in the Tacoma Narrows, where the tidal currents are strong, but I think it didn’t pencil out.
Water turbines have been considered up in Snohomish County as well.
I think one would have to explore much further why such things haven't 'penciled out.'
How much would environmental review and permitting, along with all of the required studies to move through those processes cost? I'd be willing to bet, based on my experience in government, more than the project itself. Mighty hard to make things pencil out when faced with crushing amounts of bureaucracy and oceans of waste.
I think the importance is to ensure the knowledge you possess, and others like you, is transferred to the next generation of those willing to pick up the mantle and carry it forth.
I have heard a number of Brothers talk about, and I was fortunate enough to witness, the tail end of an era of pride in craftsmanship. I don't mean just swinging hammers, or turning wrenches, though those are included too. I mean pride in ones profession and abilities.
The talents you possess have arguably improved the lives of the constituents of the territories you have supported. Who can you point to down the line who will carry that mantle when you're ready to put it down?
If each of us looks at the talents we possess, we might consider that they will be needed again someday. I think we should actively seek out how they will be carried into the future. Perhaps our Lodges should consider aiding in the transfer of knowledge to each successive generation, and in the process building a stronger foundation for future Masons to build upon.