Raw LLM Responses

Loudon Co. VA has expensive residential land. Traditional data centers contain stored data and some processing consuming in the 10s of mega watts. Since they are used for streaming video it's best for them to be near the demand. AI processing centers are greatly for computational processing and not data storage or movement of data and can be in remote locations consuming in the 100s of mega watts. Virginia is importing about 6 GW of its is electricity in 2025. West Virginia is positioned to advance electrical power production for its neighbors with a goal of 50 GW by 2050 where it makes 16 GW today exporting significant amounts of electricity. Wind and solar electric power generation supported with the public power grid is less than worthless electrical power generation. It cost more fuel just to have fast reacting natural gas turbine generators at high readiness making near zero electricity to support large amounts of wild AC than to make all the electricity from more efficient fuel economical generation. It is the fuel saving that is important not the percentage of wild AC on the public power grid which is none to more fuel used.  On a sunny day the most economic electrical production from coal fired power station has to be curtailed to create the generating space for solar voltaic generation wild AC having to be supported by fast reacting expensive to run natural gas turbine generators.   Current steam turbine generator systems are not hyper fast reacting to support large amounts of wild AC. In fast reacting peaking mode natural gas combined cycle plants are run in simple single cycle just utilizing the gas turbine that is 33% efficient over the 50% efficiency with the second steam cycle. In supporting wild AC from wind and solar electrical generation the efficiency of natural gas turbine generators can be in the single digits when conditions are perfect. This consumes more natural gas than making all the electricity with an efficient running natural gas combined cycle plant which costs more to run than a modern coal fired power station.   The high readiness of natural gas turbine generators is very similar to jet engine behavior when a jet airliner is coming into a landing, gliding with jet engines at high readiness service idle where they can be a full thrust in 2-3 seconds used after landing with reverse thrust or when having to abort. The US EPA was implemented by US president Nixon in 1970-1 greatly to allow US coal fired power plants to pass on the cost of emission control to customers that local utilities boards would refuse. By the mid 1980s US coal fired power plants meeting emissions were greatly clean with sulfur dioxide levels being brought down far below where acid rain was an issue, particulate mater was visibly gone needing scientific instruments to detect and much of mining and processing of coal was made much cleaner. Nitrogen dioxide emissions were not being addressed. NO2 condenses at 70.2°F (21.2°C) and rains out in cooler climates in 5 - 10 days. This doesn't happen in hot Los Angles CA with little rain. US coal powered electrical power stations build before the 1970s are not modern. They have been retrofitted to meet emission requirements in the 1970s and later. They are not fuel efficient compared to more modern plants and many have to use low BTU low sulfur coal requiring 50% more over bituminous coal to meet stricter emissions significantly increasing their fueling costs. With natural gas prices below profitability its possible for natural gas generation to be cheaper than some of these old coal plants burning low BTU coal. In 2022 a new ultra supercritical clean coal power station burning high BTU bituminous coal had an estimated crossover fueling price with US wholesale natural gas at $0.80 mmBTU where the non stressed US price of wholesale natural gas hovers around $3.00 mmBTU Sep. 2025. US natural gas is barely profitable at $3.00 mmBTU. Much of US natural gas is a byproduct of the crude oil industry. Bituminous coal is profitable. The UK could drop the fueling price of electricity to about 1/10th that of natural gas with new ultra supercritical clean coal power stations burning British bituminous coal from modern mining methods. In the UK the US equivalent wholesale price of natural gas had come down to $10.50 Oct. 2024 with the estimated crossover NG fueling price verses $0.80 mmBTU for a new US ultra supercritical coal plant. The UK has large reserves of high quality British bituminous coal. The UK coal lobby in the 1970s had strikes and forbid modernization. The coal strikes caused electric power shortages with three day work weeks being implemented in some locations.   In the US during the 1970s coal mining was greatly modernized with the result by the 1980s more coal was being produced with 1/4 the people. Modernization of coal mining has continued causing far fewer actual coal miners needed today.   The UK started to produce large amounts of natural gas from the North Sea in the late 1970s that could self supply its power grid. The UK natural gas boom of the 1980s is far gone with the UK having to import a large percentage of its natural gas today. Importing LNG adds $2.50 - $3.50 USD to its processing per mmBTU. That doubles the cost of US natural gas just in production costs not including shipping. Without cheap Russian natural gas the UK price for natural gas has no method to becoming economical for electrical production. In rough terms switching the UK power grid greatly over to British coal could bring NG needs down 30% the amount of imported natural gas. ----- Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the gas of life. 1200 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide three times today's level would greatly green the earth and is used in plant growing greenhouses. The cause of global warming is not known. NASA reports global warming at 1°C where it has been since 1992 after falling from its all time news reported high of 1.1°C in 1991. All the greenhouse radiant energy from the earth is completely absorbed in earth's water vapor saturated greenhouse effect a few meters from the radiating surface adding 10°F (5.55°C) to earth's average temperature and can't have its overall effect changed. This is high school level science and it used as an example of a system always in saturation that is all around us everyday. It was at my high school.  On average a 99.5% share of earth's greenhouse effect absorption is from water vapor, less than 1/4% from carbon dioxide and less than 1/10% from human caused carbon dioxide. Water vapor has a CO2e of 18 and on average is 1% of the troposphere. Carbon dioxide has a CO2e of 1 and is 0.04% of the atmosphere. 1%/0.04% = 25, water vapor is 25 times more present than CO2. 25 X 18 CO2e = 450 CO2e for water vapor and 1 CO2e for carbon dioxide. On average water vapor has 450 times the greenhouse radiant energy absorption than carbon dioxide. Greenhouse radiant energy is a lower frequency than far inferred light behaving as a high frequency radio wave that is slowly attenuated to zero as it interacts with greenhouse gas molecules and not photon behavior that is total absorption of one photon by one atom.