| HN Mirror

>> So, ammonia, or synthetic methanol, metal hydride, or even mined and refined kerosene.

Perhaps one of those would be best. I really don't know. But based on my limited knowledge, at this point, I'd bet on coal over any of those.

>> You could be right about the US, but other places are geopolitically less stable.

Actually, in my penultimate posting in addition to terrorism I was going to mention, "As long as Idaho doesn't declare war on Oregon" but it seemed a little over the top to me.

>> And, transmission lines have outages, and there are never quite as many as you would like.

The rich run the world. They always have. When some rich guy living in a 10 million dollar home on the beach in La Jolla, California (near San Diego, California) has his power go out for a few hours several times in the same week, his wife will "read him the riot act." The rich got rid of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) down there (near La Jolla). They'll make sure they have a reliable source of power.

But yeah, in Flint, Michigan or rural Mississippi, well, the impoverished folks who live there are generally "hanging on by a thread." Those people invariably suffer. But their suffering isn't a result of technological problems; it's a result of political problems.

>> And, the US is getting less stable as we speak, with avowed insurrectionist election suppressors poised to take over Congress and Senate, and maybe the presidency again.

We've had an extremely long period of peace in the USA. Eventually war comes to all lands. It will return here one day. Regardless of the source of power, once war comes "all bets are off." That's part of the reason I like coal. Massive amounts of it can be stored cheaply and indefinitely. If I were in charge of running a state, I'd want a huge supply of coal on hand so we could produce electricity locally 24/7/365 for a long-time. Obviously, solar, wind, and hydro would be the ideal choices. But in case solar, wind, and hydro weren't producing enough, I'd want to have lots of coal to burn.

These days burning coal, as a first choice to generate electricity, would be absurd. But as a backup, it would be great. During peacetime it would likely be used very seldom in a country like the USA as we know it now. But, yeah, if we had something like a civil war, then coal might become a very important source of power.

>> Coal plants are monstrous beasts

That assertion is obviously false.

Certainly, most commonly used coal-fired power plants used to supply the overwhelming majority of power around the world are monstrous beasts.

Nonetheless, small coal plants are neither monstrous beasts nor difficult to fire up. They've been around for centuries, though, admittedly they aren't what most people think of when they think of coal-fired power plants.

>> and a little one makes as much economic sense as a big one

Nope. That's a common lie trotted out. Read what you wrote, and ponder about how inane it is. Utility companies lie... a lot. The problem is this: we are so accustomed to building huge power plants we simply overlook many smaller scale solutions.

Sure, the small ones tend to be much less efficient. But, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." During emergencies, "You do what you gotta do." Engineers get way, way, too focused on efficiency. Generals, particularly during wartime, hardly focus on efficiency much at all. Instead, they focus on effectiveness. In case of emergencies, effectiveness is generally much more important than efficiency. Sure. It's expensive. But, hey, guess what? Wars, which can be seen as the most terrible of emergencies, are expensive.

During wartime enemies are going to target power plants. I'd rather have a few dozen small ones to protect, than one or two big ones because I wouldn't want to "put all of my eggs in one basket." Most Americans are so accustomed to presuming that peace will continue indefinitely, that they fail to make calculations based on the assumption that war has befallen us.

"Economic sense" during peacetime is very different than "economic sense" during wartime. Put simply: when the enemy destroys both of your, big, efficient, coal-fired power plants, those plants end up being of almost zero economic value. As a result, you might end up suffering massive losses of human lives and you might even lose the war because you were unable to provide much-needed power.

It's common knowledge the USA squanders vast sums of money on its military. Nonetheless, these days most American engineers have an "efficiency during peacetime" mentality; whereas most generals (thank God) have an "effectiveness during wartime" mentality.

I am weary of Americans assuming peace will always prevail. It won't. When war returns, how are we (and, by the way, who are "we" in the first place?) going to produce power locally in case solar, wind, and hydro aren't producing enough?

Me? I'm a big, big coal guy. I think the stuff is great... as an emergency solution. But I hope we never need to burn any of it. Ditto for nuclear weapons. I hope we never launch any of them again. But I'm glad we have them. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible. But I presume you know how many Americans died in the "Battle of Hiroshima" and the "Battle of Nagasaki" that never occurred. 2 men, 1 plane, 1 bomb, 1 second (more or less). Then 2 days later: 2 men, 1 plane, 1 bomb, 1 second (more or less). Then the war was over. As a result on those battles that never occurred, in the USA, there were no grieving widows, nor any grieving children, nor any grieving parents. Obviously, that was not the case in Japan.

Any ordinary adult who is anti-nuclear weapons is a fool. I hate watching people protest nuclear weapons. Sure, the US military should be reformed. If memory serves, all retired generals and admirals who I've ever heard speak on the subject of reforming the military, have very strong opinions about the dire and urgent need to reform the military because it is currently incapable of protecting the US of A properly. But being anti-nuke is like being a pacifist: it's complete lunacy.

Having opined all of that I'll close with this: coal (and coal-fired power plants) as well as nuclear weapons are great to have... not to use. But if you need 'em; you'll be glad you have 'em.