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All this will take up a massive amount of space compared to LFTR and comes with problems of its own.

And we have plenty of space. The National Renewable Energy Lab's Wind Atlas details the wind potential of different regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind energy to supply all 48 contiguous states with electricity. However that's not all. On the Pacific Coast from British Colombia south through southern California then east to western Texas, there's more. Why during California's rolling blackouts in the early 2000s, there was an idle wind farm in the Mojave capable of generating 10 megawatts per hour. Over on the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Cape Hatteras off the North Carolina coast there are good sites for wind farms. As senator before his death Ed Kennedy was one of the NIMBYs opposing one such wind farm, on Cape Cod. On-shore through the Appalachian Mountains north from Georgia then into Pennsylvania's Poconos and New York's Catskills Mountains, hell all along the Appalachian Trail to Maine, there is good wind potential.

That's just wind, solar adds more. Again according to DOE, just 100 square miles of land in Nevada, that's an area of 10 miles by 10 miles, "could supply all U.S. electricity needs with current (~10%) commercial efficiency rates." But Nevada isn't the place with good solar potential. Now let's go back geothermal. According to an MIT led panel sponsored by DOE geothermal can be a "key U.S. energy source". Here's some info on geothermal in New York state, and more for Minnesota and Wisconsin. I've already mentioned California and Yellowstone, recently there was a discussion of how West Virginia Is Geothermically Active.

With today's technology solar and wind can provide the US's peak electricity, while geothermal and existing natural gas and nuclear power plants supply the baseload until more geothermal capacity and storage is developed.

Falcon

Wind is a proven technology, although all these horizontal-axis wind turbines are stupid.

Not all wind turbines are horizontal axis. There are vertical axis turbines as well. Actually there's a Best Buy in my area that has had a vertical axis wind turbine for years, the last tyme I went there they had added another one.

Out of curiosity when I went in I asked the greeter if they were selling them. He didn't know.

Geothermal is not the answer. Solar would be far more useful, as it produces power when we need it most, and we have control over the pollution inherent to the process... which we do NOT have over geothermal.

Solar is not the answer either. The answer is to use what is available in a given location. That means solar where solar is feasible, wind where it is plentiful, and geothermal where it is. Right now geothermal provides 30 MW, 20% of Hawaii's Big Island's energy. New York State has case studies of geothermal used in the state. Geothermal sources provide 27% of the Philippines energy. In 2007 California produced 13 terawatthours of energy, 4.5% of the energy the state used. Not only does geothermal provide 24% of Iceland's energy but it heats 87% of all buildings.

It is totally hogwash to discount the energy geothermal sources can provide.

Falcon

Um... no. No they would not.

Yes they would. Simple economics says that as the cost of something goes up people look for cheaper sources or reduces the amount needed. That has been proven throughout history, even if not by choice. And as today's conventional energy gets more expensive people will move to other sources.

Geothermal, while prevalent in some parts of the world, is not that big of a resource here. And most of the places where geothermal is available are national parks. Could you imagine the uproar if you tried to build a power plant at Yellowstone?

The only reason it is not big here, in the US, is because little has been done to develop it. And it is even used in New York City. I myself have proposed geothermal in Yellowstone, but you're right so called environmentalists even oppose offshore and onshore wind farms. "Not in my backyard!" Of course I'd want a Yellowstone geothermal power plant to be blended into the landscape and I'd love both solar panels and a wind turbine on my property.

Solar is nowhere near efficient enough to power the country. It can be a nice boost, hardly economic, and government subsidies are not enough to help. For starters, government subsidies exist

Wow! Solar power got $62 million for R&D. That's dwarfed by coal's $3.302 Billion in 2007 alone or Nuclear Power's $145 Billion over the years. "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" Wars are even started over oil.

There are also several tax breaks you can receive for "greening" your home, but it will never be enough to make it cost effective

Tell all those who build off the grid that it's not effective. Solar hot water has a payback period as short as 5 to 6 years, and the equipment lasts a lot longer. The payback for PV panels is much harder but estimates have been as low as 7 years and panels come with 20, 25, even 30 year warranties. Even pro-rated replacing equipment is cost competitive. Individually owned PVs aren't the only way to go solar either. The same publication you provide a link to your article, Science Daily, also has this article, Solar Power in Ontario Could Produce Almost as Much Power as All U.S. Nuclear Reactors, Studies Find. On large scales concentrated solar power may be more effective. Another article it has, Fossil-Fuel Subsidies Hurting Global Environment, Security, Study Finds.

Oh, and does he consider the subsidies conventional energy gets too in the study? Does he factor in the billions of dollars coal and nuclear power get? The only mention I see about them is where "he favors more state and federal funding for research and development." Personally I don't think government should be subsiding most of what it does, whether energy or farms or ...

Of course, as the Kennedys showed us, some people don't like the way they look. You remember Ted Kennedy, right? That big green liberal that BLOCKED wind power because it might disrupt the view from some of his mansions?

I don't know how many tymes I commented, but I didn't find any, I posted about how Kennedy or that NIMBY environmentalists opposed wind farm o

We absolutely MUST replace coal fired electricity generation with low CO2 methods. Coal is the worst CO2 emitter.

I didn't say anything about replacing coal in the post you replied to. All I said was that nuclear power appeals to state planners not businesses.

I very much doubt that current renewable technologies are sufficient. The only stuff that is immediately deployable is wind and solar.

They are sufficient now. Those who build off the grid do so every day. And yea, solar and wind is employable today unlike nuclear power. According to Infoplease the Palo Verde 2, Ariz. is the largest reactor in the US, at 1,335 MWs. According to Wiki construction started in 1976 with it's first year of commercial operation in 1988, 12 years later. Now take wind turbines, erect and connect 10 5 megawatt turbines a month, and there are larger turbines, and in 1 year you've added 600 MWs or in 2 years 1,200 MWs. That's almost as much as Palo Verde 2 provides, in 1/6 the tyme. SciAm's A Solar Grand Plan says solar power "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the Unites States, created by the National Renewable Energy Lab of the Department of Energy, details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains along contain enough potential energy to electrify the US, but that's not the only region with large wind potential. On the East Coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina offshore wind farms could "supply all the energy needs of much of the East Coast and then some". From British Columbia to Southern California on the Pacific Coast could provide a lot as well. Actually hook a hard left in S Ca through AZ and NM to western Texas and the wind potential grows.

For baseloads geothermal is good though not for all of the baseload. Until large scale storage is available currently used power plants could provide the baseload.

Enhanced geothermal is very promising but there is still no commercial size power station.

Ah but there is commercial scale geothermal right now. In CA geothermal provided 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2007. It provides 20 percent of Hawaii's Big Island electricity. Geothermal provides 27% of Philippine's energy. Geothermal is even available and used in New York City.

If it comes to raising the planet's temperature by 5C or nuclear power, I'd have to say nuclear is the clear choice.

Fine, let businesses pay for it not taxpayers. No loan guaranties, limited liability, or other subsidies. However left to their own devices corporations will not build nuclear power plants.

When all is said and done, I think that the carbon pollution problem will only be solved by inexpensive clean electricity. Some hard choices will have to be made.

Unfortunately there is no inexpensive clean electricity. Well, except for the Negawatt, the energy not produced due to energy efficiency or simply cutting the energy used. Therein lies the hard choice, people don't want to give up what they have even if they will s

First off, wind power is a great supplement, not a replacement. It suffers from too much variability to be a reliable power source, and therefore replace fossil fuels.

True but geothermal is a reliable and steady energy source. It's also available in many places. Iceland, in the Arctic, gets a lot of energy from geothermal sources. California gets 4.5% of it's energy from geothermal sources. In Hawaii the Big Island gets 20% of it's energy from the Puna Geothermal Venture which supplies geothermal energy. Heck even the Philippines harvests geothermal energy. Mexico has 853 MW of installed geothermal energy.

That energy does not depend of sunlight or the wind. It is a steady source of energy. New York state has the webpage Geothermal Heat Pumps with contacts that can install both commercial and residential systems.

at least with nuclear power, the pollution is contained.

No it's not. Mining is not contained. Neither are leaks, spills, and other releases. Such as the tritium spills at Exelon Nuclear-owned plants in IL.

As for your road tax solution, who cares if we pay it with income taxes or fuel taxes?

I do as do many others. Only those who use the roads should have to pay for them. If a person does not directly pay for something they have no idea how much it costs for one Now if you have to pay say 10 cents a mile, in addition to gas costs, unless you're wealthy you will pay attention. And I say that as someone who loves driving and will not give up my car unless I have to.

Everyone uses and benefits from the roads.

And they will pay for it, but not with income taxes. You may walk or ride a bike everywhere but as long as you buy items you will still pay for the roads. Sellers raise their prices to cover their expenses, they are in business to make money afterall. Heck even when you order a physical object online, you're paying. Say you order a printed book from Amazon you pay shipping and the shipper pays for the roads.

Falcon

Okay, in advocating that there's enough NG to replace coal and nuclear you post a link that says "but LNG will not be a panacea for North American natural gas shortfall" ?

It wasn't meant as a permanent replacement for coal or nuclear, only as a way LNG can be used until there is a better method of generating a baseload of energy.

Second link - aren't we trying to gain energy independence from the middle east?

Both the first link and third list places where LNG come from that are not in the Middle East. The first one lists Trinidad and Tobago which is in the Caribbean. The third lists Barents Sea which is between Greenland and Northern Europe.

Besides - Natural Gas Imported To US For Electricity Generation May Be Environmentally Worse Than Coal.

That's for the link, I didn't see that before. However as you quoted in your post as a baseline capacity it should not matter if LNG plants operate at a low capacity. They are after all only meant to serve for when alternative sources do not provide enough energy.

By the way, that also increases costs for people trying to heat their homes with 97% efficient NG systems.

Properly insulated building reduce if not eliminate the need to heat with LNG. There are other ways to heat as well. Former President Bush used geothermal heating to heat his Crawford, Texas ranch. People in New York City use geothermal heating. People also use solar thermal heating, even in Northern Europe.

We'd need 27 trillion cubic feet per year to replace the coal & nuclear plants.

Only if LNG were to replace coal and nuclear, but not if it is only used as a baseload. That means when alternative energy sources do not provide enough energy. However as I said earlier SciAm has the article "A Solar Grand Plan" that says "solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." For wind power, the Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supple electricity to the 48 continuous states. On the East Coast Cape Cod, Cape Hatteras, and points in between the Carolinas and Mass are good places for offshore wind farms. On the West Coast, between British Columbia and southern California there are also good sites for wind, and solar power.

People like you are looking for the next big thing in energy when a bunch of different technologies can be used instead. You're focused on one solution when there are many others.

Falcon

About those natural gas taxis... NGVAmerica says there are 150,000 natural gas vehicles on U.S. roads today and over 5 million worldwide. Apparently this includes at least 300 New York taxis (admittedly a small fraction of the city's 12,000 taxicabs).

Ford even offered natural gas as an option on quite a few cars in the late '90s and early '00s, including the Crown Victoria, but they apparently stopped offering it around 2003 and now it's only available as an aftermarket conversion. Fleets of taxis, buses, and delivery vehicles do use natural gas but few "normal people" do.

Not unless it's a spankin' new 42V DC automotive system...

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA187806.html

Or a custom job...

http://nyserda.org/programs/transportation/TransPr oj_6641.asp ...but personally I think switching electrical loads to thermoelectric waste-heat recovery systems is a better option overall:

http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/industry_news/0 7-09-05_7

Fun fact: At $3 per gallon gasoline, with current ICE and alternator efficiencies, electricity onboard a moving car costs 55 cents per kWh.