Slashdot Mirror
Green Energy Almost Cost-Competitive with Fossil Fuels
js7a writes "As reported in the Houston Chronicle, the sharply rising cost of natural gas and other fossil fuels has caused the cost of renewable energy to finally reach the price of nonrenewables. However, wind still has some catching up to do: 'a 10 percent wind- and 90 percent water-generated mix is about $9 per month less expensive than the 100 percent wind plan.' As more wind generation and grid transmission capacity is built, wind will eventually become more competitive than hydroelectric, but hydro and other sources will be required to balance grid demand in calm areas. Slashdot has been following this trend."
I'm not saying wind power isn't advantageous; it is renewable. But it's unsightly, can be costly (suitable areas for wind farms are often near the coast, where land is expensive), and is noisy. There's some research to complete, some work to do, before this technology becomes "green" IMO.
Sigs cause cancer.
It's a pity that we couldn't generate power from FUD.
If we could, man, all of the worlds power problems would be resolved.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
1) Fossil fuels have huge investment, economies of scale and infrastructure already, which bring prices down. As sustainable energy gets more popular, it will get even cheaper.
2) Nobody ever factors in the cost of cleanup (at best) or total extinction (at worst) into the cost of fossil fuels. If you add the cost of removing the byproducts and side-effects to each column, sustainable energy pulls way ahead.
Not that I expect the current administration to do anything about it.
why do 'greens' throw so much effort into things like wind, solar, and hydro, when the only real solution to replacing fossil fuels is nuclear power?
Wouldn't that be nice -- if fossil fuels actually do begin to exceed the cost of "Green" energy in the near future? Of course, then, someone (or company) would just find some reason why "Green" energy costs need to go up as well.
I wonder if the individual consumer will ever win...
Homer no function beer well without.
The visual pollution is crazy with wind farms. Nothing like industrial machinery stretching across hill and dale to make you want to get out an enjoy mother nature. No, I'd almost rather have nuclear power plant IMBY than a wind farm.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I'm glad to see research continuing into alternatives. Just because something isn't 100% ready yet is no reason not to pursue it. Just think what weaning the U.S. off oil-dependence (yes, long term thinking here, try not to let your hat fly off your head) would do for its world politics. Whoops. Never mind. This is a message from the oil companies reminding you not to think that way. We now return you to your reality-based TV program.
Because, you know, in places like North Dakota, there's no excess space anywhere. And you definitely can't put crops in the same field. No way in hell.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
I've been using green mountain for two years. It's great and makes me feel good (it's about 10-15% more expensive).
Also, it sounds pretty cool to say that my web server is being powered by windmills.
Robert Nagle
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Hopefully fusion research makes another break through.
hardly, as your arguement assumes that rampantly burning gasoline and oil has no negative side effects in the meantime, that the economic tipping point will be reached before those side effects are felt, and that the tipping point will be reached slowly enough that an infrastructure change can occur relatively painlessly.
More realistically, pollution is a problem, and a shift away from oil will be a massive shock to a world economy dependant on the stuff, and we're doing precious little to prepare for it.
One type of energy which you rarely hear about, but seems very enviromentally friendly is geo thermal. In the US the only places I can think of which have geological features which will allow this is yellow stone (active super volcanoe ?) wherever there is a hot spring you would think this would be feasable. From what I know this process has no by products and little effect on the ecology of the surrounding environment.
http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html
I have a modest proposal that should help increase the effectiveness of wind power.
The current primary obstacle is that there are many days when the weather is calm and there is less wind. My suggestion is, on those days simply CREATE the wind.
First, it is known that as heat rises, it generates a low pressure area that cool air must fill. This can be demonstrated by noticing how some dust and smoke is pulled into a campfire at the base.
Second, our nation is full of unwanted trash storage sites that consume vast acreage and are generally unpleasant to be near.
My suggestion: If we were to light the various garbage dumps on fire on those inconveniently calm days, the massive flames would generate an equally massive low pressure area. As the flames climbed hundreds of feet into the air, the temporary vacuum would be filled by surrounding air. The fires would grow in size quickly, and soon air from across the county would be moving inwards towards the fire to help oxidize this high temperature reaction.
As the air rushes to fill the spaces, the thousands of still windmills across the cities would begin to spin again, providing a continued source of pollution free wind power.
As an added bonus, each dump would eventually be consumed and could be used to build schools, hospitals, and baby milk factories.
It's a win win situation, both for a green future AND for getting rid of trash!
If I had the money I would do it too!
If we could find a way to remove pure hydrogen from coal then that would be a green energy ,wouldn't it ?
U.S. is the saudi arabi of coal.
Put the windmills near Washington DC. There's an unending stream of hot air flowing out of there...
(And if you think this is aimed at one particular political party - either one - you have some serious blinders on.)
That might be a good theory if the aim was to start using renewable energy as quickly as possible. However, that is not the main objective. Environmentalists want to transfer to green energy before we pump too much more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Using all of the oil reserves over many millenia may be sustainable. Releasing all of that carbon in one quick burst most certainly is not. Dynamic systems usually respond better to gradual sustained inputs than to large magnitude step changes. The climate is no exception.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
If we're talking about long term viable solutions nothing competes with nuclear energy. The only candidate would be thermal energy but that's situational/regional and much harder to deal with. When will people get over their petty fears of nuclear ENERGY (not warheads!) and stop talking about wind power and all that other nonsense.
What I don't understand is why Green Mountain doesn't offer a energy-co-location plan; of the sort that you pay for the generating capacity you want from their wind farm, and any excess energy that you don't use is sold on the open market to offset the cost of your yearly maintenance fee for your equipment + rent on the wind farm. Seems to me that would cut the cost way down- maybe even undercut the 9.6 cpkwh floor of traditional energy generation.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Where does the cost of pollution fit in your supply/demand curves?
The owls are not what they seem
This is great news! California has had an option to select renewable for some time.
BUT!
Being the cynic (skeptic?) I am, we need to be super-careful that the energy is what the distributors claim it is. For example, look at the organic labelling fiasco: food producers lobbied to reduce the standards of "organic" to include "some" organic procedures. They are not the same metrics that constitute "California Organic". As a result, there are misleading standards for organic, which can result in people buying products that could potentially bypass all that is good about organic processing.
Same goes for the Green-ergy.
Hopefully thsi will be monitored properly, so that when someone requests renewable energy, they don't get an earload marketingspeak "plants and animals die and become coal and oil, therefore coal and oil are nature's renewable resources!!!"
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Just because it's viable now, doesn't mean it'll be viable for the entire country. Nor does present-day viability imply that it'll scale up to the rest of the country's energy needs.
Wind energy isn't necessarily scalable: there's a finite amount of land onto which you can erect windmills, and the planet ain't makin' more of it until the Mid-Atlantic Ridge breaks the surface.
Similarly, hydroelectric power isn't renewable: there are only so many rivers that can be dammed, and a finite amount of rain falling into the water systems that feed them.
So - although wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal are nice stopgap measures that'll give us a few more years (10-20% of the energy supply) in which to solve the problem, they don't solve the problem.
Solving the problem means finding a high-energy-density portable power source (for cars), and/or an extremely high-density electrical generation source (which you then use to power everything but cars, and/or to synthesize hydrocarbons from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen).
Given the title of "Emperor", I would immediately institute a programme of building next-generation fission reactors (still a finite resource, but a much larger finite resource than current petrochemical supplies or feasible wind generation capacity) across the US as a stopgap for the 30-50 year timeframe, and a balls-out, Manhattan-project style effort towards fusion, including the use of the moon (and perhaps some asteroids) as a source from which He3 can be mined. (...if it turns out we need an He3-based solution. Who knows what we'll learn?)
This isn't about the "oil industry": Apart from a few barbarians running around in a certain desert, everyone from Apache to Exxon has realized that when push comes to shove, they're not in the oil business, they're in the energy business.
The ones that survive will evolve to be smarter. And just for your info, kitty cats kill more birds each day then any wind farm can in a year.
Life is not for the lazy.
That's price, not cost. The cost of petro fuels includes bills for things like Iraq wars, hurricanes/floods/droughts, oil spills... We'll be paying that off long after the oil's gone.
--
make install -not war
And of course, there are tide turbines and the wave-driven-air turbines and lots of other things we can build when it's worth it. With OPEC cutting output, people here will start moving away from heating oil and onto the grid, which will either stimulate green energy investment directly or raise the price of natural gas enough to stimulate green energy investment. Green energy is technologically trivial at this point... It's all economics. Once oil costs enough, this will tip over and we can start moving natural gas from electricity and heating to transportation, and reduce oil demand that way. I don't think we'll be oil free in the next 200 years, but I bet in the next couple of decades we'll have gasoline AND liquid natural gas AND hydrogen at the corner fuel station... Sort of a portfolio approach.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
Apple Computers Almost Cost-Competitive with Linux Boxen
Iraqi Junkyard Armor Almost Competitive with Manufactured Armor
US Dollar Almost Competitive with Euro
feel free to add more!
go get it
Wind Power and Temperature Change
Out of all the renewable energy sources, solar would have to be the greenest, once you take into account the damage that hydroelectric does to rivers and the possibility of wind generators killing migrating birds. On the other hand, solar is damned expensive. I did some rough calculations a while back and found that to convert all of the US's power generation to solar, we would have to spend well over a trillion dollars and cover an area the size of Connecticut. That's bound to have two effects:
a.) A national budget deficit that makes the current one look tiny
b.) someone will start whining about how all these new solar panels are destroying the habitat of the spotted lizard, which needs lots of sun to survive.
On the other hand, I've found that converting to the latest pebble-bed nuclear reactors would cost less than a quarter of what it would cost to convert to solar. I know it's an unpopular energy source, but dammit, it's relatively cheap and doesn't spew carbon dioxide everywhere, making it much greener than fossil fuels. But, hey, what do I know?
The lip-service paid to inconvenient forms of alternative fuel by United States Federal Government cronies is nothing more than a political ploy to obscure the facts for the benefit of our generation's robber barons.
A real alternative has always been available which can be produced by existing oil-refining equipment and which is capable of powering existing electric generators and sub-generators as well as existing gasoline and diesel engines without modification. That alternative is called biomass.
Pyrolysis, the process of destructive distillation by which crude oil is transformed into usable fuels, is also the process by which fresh plant cellulose--biomass--is converted into charcoal, gasoline, fuel oils such as diesel, and natural gas. By using fresh plant matter instead of ancient plant matter, you establish what is called a 'closed carbon cycle,' in which no new carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere.
The most prolific, and also the most sustainable, producer of usable biomass is the industrial hemp plant. It requires no pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, or fertilizer. Its strong, deep roots quickly break up the soil and choke out weeds, and its 3-4 month growing cycle and year-round growing season make it an ideal rotation crop. It also has no mind-altering properties.
For these reasons, several states and numerous agricultural and industrial associations have already petitioned the DEA to issue the hemp farming licenses that it has the authority to issue. In fact, the DEA has already issued pitifully small, ridiculously regulated hemp farming licenses in Hawaii for the purposes of study. The Canadian government--which put an end to hemp farming around the same time our own government did--has recently (1990s) reallowed hemp farming and has experienced no regulatory difficulties.
I therefore recommend that the United States Federal Government mandate that the DEA license and regulate sufficient acreage of hemp farming for the purposes of full biomass fuel production. Additionally, in order that the free market be further stimulated, I recommend that all federal fossil fuel-related subsidies be moved to biomass fuels, and that tax disincentives be enacted on all fossil fuel-related industry.
Thank you, come again.
Art Schools Dietzilla
I think we need to start looking at the whole picture. I think all roofs in the southern US should be shingled white, by law. This can save a lot of energy during the summer months. We also need to come up other (better) building techniques or use the better techniques available to us.
In addition to these measures to reduce power consumption, why don't we compromise in some other areas. Let power companies replace older, inefficient oil and coal power plants with newer, more efficient oil and coal plants (less pollution, more power). Building a new coal plant is a Good Thing when it replaces an older, more polluting plant. Let us build a few more damns and wind farms, and continue to do research into solar, wind and other sources.
I believe we will eventually get there, but progress of any kind and especially progress on this scale is always slow. Let not be afraid to take some intermediary steps to help curb pollution, increase power output, and decrease power consumption.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
But here in North Dakota, we're bigger fans of fuels like Ethanol and Soy Biodisel. Rumors abound lately of some new techniques in ethanol production that can reduce the energy required to produce the fuel by more than half! Why muddle about with high maintenance wind farms when plants will do the work for us?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Except that smart greenies don't want oil to run out and realize that coal won't run out. These plants they compete with are mostly coal, and coal is not anywhere near to being in short supply. But oil? Damn, man, what are you gonna replace plastic with?
How is this insighful? Burn all the fossil fuels we can. Lets liberate every bit of green house gas that we can. Lets melt the polar caps and de salinate the oceans and stop the deep ocean currents. Running out of fuel isn't the problem, the problem is the effects of those fuels on our environment.
when it affects their bottom line, when its worth the expense, they will only switch to renewable energy when renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuels and it costs more to use those fuels. This article is great news towards that eventual shift.
Jonathanjk.com
Finally we see some action! It's about time they got competive.
The US, however, still has a lot of catching-up to do: Denmark and Germany are still the key players on the wind power market.
All this talk of hydro, yet there are places that are facing increasing water shortages. You can't dam what you don't have. It also requires a lot of space and destruction exhisting habitats.
One thing about hydro that is little known is that in some cases the resevoirs can be massive produces of methane - one of the more potent greenhouse gases. Examples I've heard of have typically been large shallow ones with a lot biological material breaking down in them.
The folks over a Fieldlines.Com build their own wind gennies which OUT PRODUCE the $10,000 "consumer" Wind-Gennies out there - and the home-built ones cost maybe $1,000.
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
A few years ago I remember seeing geothermal heating options being advertised in Ohio. (Not a very geologically active state by any means). The system basically worked by burying hundreds of feet of plastic piping deep underground. A small pump would move water from radiators in the home to the underground "absorber." Considereing that the temperature underground remains around 60-65F year-round, this system was designed to supplement current heating options (i.e. if you wanted your house at a temperature >65 F you had to use something else to boost your temp. Using a similar method, my father and I built a swimming pool heater using ~400 feet of black plastic pipe and low-energy fountain pump. The pipe was exposed to sunlight, heated up, and the pump moved the water from the pool, through the "absorber," and back to the pool. Siphon action further supplemented the pumps work. Granted there were limitations to heat levels, but this set-up greatly reduced the amount of energy we used to keep the pool warm after the peak summer heat had left.
"Me fail English, that's unpossible." --Ralphie
Wind and hydro have their own environmental problems. Hydro, in particular, can have severe environmental consequences for regional ecosystems and human populations. Some of these effects may only become apparent after billions of dollars have been spent and many years have elapsed. The Aswan dam in Egypt is a good example of all the things that can go wrong when you try to control a river.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Though I'm loath to inject levity into this conversation, I'm reminded of Morbo, the evil alien newscaster in Futurama:
(due to robot emissions-induced global warming, tortoises are migrating north into Holland)
Morbo (paraphrased): "Morbo wishes luck to the brave turtles."
Co-anchor: "Maybe those windmills will keep them cool!"
Morbo (to co-anchor, enraged): "WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
Morbo (to camera, still enraged): "GOOD NIGHT!"
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
I remember reading (years ago) that so much energy is used in the planet that, if it were wind generated, is should have some effect on global climate. Since climate is not well understood, no one knows what would be the effect; but just by shear size, there must be some effect.
Does anybody know if this is true?
A couple months ago, in the foothills of Northern California, there was a story about a guy built some solar/wind/battery device that basically let him live off the grid. He saved about $100 month in electricity but the county assessor determined that the device increased his property value enough so that his property taxes increased $150 per month. Therefore, he took the device apart.
Even if green is cheaper, the people still have ass backwards ways of thinking about things.
I wonder about wind power - it seems to me that if it was feasable to maximize the use of it by putting up windmills everywhere, that it would have the detrimental effect of locally dampening the wind in different areas and thereby altering global weather patterns quite a bit. Yeah, I know that it would take a heck of a lot of windmills to do that, but it would take a heck of a lot of windmills for the idea to really be viable as a full power plant replacement rather than the tiny experimental supplement it is today. So an interesting question would be - if you calculate the global total kenetic energy of the movement of the atmosphere (wind), and then compare that to the amount of energy consumed by electricity globally, what kind of a ratio do you get? It should be possible to calculate a lower bound for how much global wind velocities would have to be reduced if all power came from windmills, even assuming 100% efficient engery conversion.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The biggest complaint I hear about wind is that it's ugly. You're going to continue polluting the environment because consider a wind turbine ugly?! Get over yourselves and get used to it. It's the lesser of two evils.
Massive amounts of electricity can be generated in coastal areas without the turbines being unsightly. I live in Toronto and I'd be happy for large wind farms to be built 10km out in Lake Ontario. It would look any worse than seeing the lake packed and overflowing with all the boats in summer time.
One of the things I like about wind generation is that it can be massively distributed. This has to be a more robust method for providing power, especially in more remote places.
It is my opinion that more research needs to be done on solar and that communities receiving a lot of sunlight on a yearly basis (like mine) should implement a policy to get solar panels on the roofs of as many homes and businesses as possible. let them be managed and maintanied by the local power authorities. We could really see a lot of energy created here in the Las Vegas valley. hell, the entire American Southwest for that matter.. This would certainly reduce the load on fossil fuels fo our little neck of the woods. It would also free us from the interstate negotiations that occur every so often for the rights to power from Hoover Dam. I say fill my roof up with solar arrays. Hell.. look at all of the roof space provided by every casino in the city.. every highrise.. every other small business.. There is a lot of power being wasted simply to heat my damn terracota roof tiles!
But are politicians and power companies ambitious enough to tackle something like that? Certainly not.
What is your penile percentile?
It's surprising, or maybe not actually, that articles such as the Houston Chronicle piece referenced by the OP completely ignore the most obvious approaches to "green" energy use. Insulation of every building, passive solar heating and electricity generation on every rooftop where it's feasible, more public transportation, and a crash program to incentivize use of fuel efficient cars would go a long way to mitigate if not solve the energy problem. It's not sexy but it works.
Up front costs may be higher for solar and other alternative and supplemental systems, but long term the payoff is there. You have to be willing to wait 10-15 years for your solar power array to pay for itself and then some.
Americans have a centralized power mindset; it's difficult to imagine a power plant on every block, or solar and fuel cells in every house. Yet, that's much more in keeping with the American tradition of pioneer self-reliance.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Have you ever seen a commercial windfarm? The blades are enormous, slow, and waaaay above the ground. The "base of the pole" is relatively small. You could build houses among them without difficulty-- and at least in the midwest, they are typically built in farmland that still functions as farmland. The single windfarm I've seen in california was built in what was clearly middle-of-nowhere desert. The only other thing I saw near it was a parking lot/graveyard for unused commercial airplanes.
Generally, windmills are a way to make the land do something extra, rather than less than it is capable of.
Of course, there's always the offshore farms, too-- and that's even better. The plans for the farm off the coast of new york puts them far enough out you can't see them from land. They're gigantic, so complaints about "hazards to navigation" fall a little flat-- if the boat's captain can't avoid a ginormous windmill, how does he expect to navigate around invisible sandbars and shallow areas?
All that said, I'd love to see working fusion, too, and have nothing against well-run fission plants-- but why not put windmills on farmland or desert? Or even housing editions in the suburbs? The space is there, and adding windmills to the average middle-of-nowhere midwestern farm does very little to its farming output.
And the wind turbines wiping out flocks of migrating birds and raptors that thrive in windy environments. Oh, wait... you mean ANYTHING we do has an impact? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. We can't stand for this! We should all just kill ourselves right now so we no longer have an impact on the earth at all!
(For the obtuse among us, that was sarcasm)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
As far as I understand, all or most of the sources of hydroelectric power in the United States have been tapped; there is a very limited amount of energy that can be harnessed from such schemes in comparison with our energy demands.
Personally, I believe we will continue the trend towards more centralized energy production, perhaps from nuclear methods--despite the political opposition. The energy demand and its growth are just too great.
While we should capitalize on practical renewable energy sources, I think our time and effort would be better spent on investing in technology that makes more efficient use of our energy. LED lighting is a prime example of a way to drastically reduce energy consumption, with little sacrafice in the quality of the desired output.
The real challenge though is managing the bottom line. New technologies not only have to be more energy efficient, but less expensive than their conventional counterparts to gain acceptance.
Wouldn't it be fun to be involved in that kind of development work?
Oil is also nowhere near running out. What is running out is the easiest oil to pump and refine. Shale oil is all over the place, and can be refined to gasoline, but it is much more expensive. Rest assured, your plastic coke bottles will never run out, not in your lifetime, not in your grandchildren's lifetime, not in their grandchildren's lifetime.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
You Crazy Dams are some of the greatest enviromental disasters EVER. Look what the the large Nile dam (can't remember the name) did to the fishing industry of the Nile delta. I can go on for days. Hydroelectric power is definately not GREEN an any sense of the word. Look at some of D.N.A's evnivromental books and paper for more info. Yes, the inpact can be significantly reduced, but you might as well strip mine for a similiar effect. Just because it doesn't cause "greenhouse" gases doesn't make it eviromentally safe.
Wind, Hydro, Nuclear... great for electricity but does nothing about Gas and Oil.
Until electric cars become efficient enough to run all day on a single charge with half a day of stored energy still available, petrol is the energy source we need to replace.
I'm betting on Biodiesel. It's still more expensive to refine than crude oil but that gap is closing fast. With current subsidies you can actually buy biodiesel for cheaper than Gasoline...
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Have you ever seen a mountaintop removal/valley fill mine? We've lost over a thousand miles of streams already. RIP
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Haliburton still needs more cash. The terrorists even play along!!!! Haliburton fixes it gets paid, terrorists blow it up, Haliburton fixes it again! Terrorists blow it ......... Guranteed growth industry. Bechtel is probably somewhere in the mix as well.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
"greenies"? That's sounds rather childish. They can't have been very smart "greenies" to be out manoeuvred by a "pollutie" like you.
I don't care about these market forces you mention... I want us to switch to something better long before fossil fuels run out. Besides, using fossils fuels more slowly gives the planet more chance to handle it. Doing it quickly will be much more extreme.
Um... we'll have to be oil free in the next 200 years.
Forgot the source, but a year ago an estimate would make that in the BEST case scenerio (except for a complete halt in oil production), our current petroleum supply won't last for another fifty years (or was it seventy... forgot).
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
>letting people use all the oil they can get their hands on is a good thing, in that it will drive people to use alternatives sooner due to supply/demand curves.
Most people want alternatives not because they hate oil, like someone hates to eat brussel sprouts or their ex-spouse.
They want people to stop because;
1. of the harm its doing to the environment.
2. They don't want some sudden forced change or crash due to everyone being so dependent on a single energy source and then suddenly running out.
Your argument addresses neither of these points.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Why do "nuke nuts" get so into nuclear power that they fail to see how a mixed power system is more practical?
I love nuclear power. But I don't see why nuke plants should keep us from putting solar shingles on our rooftops-- so what if they only make 50% of the power you need, and only during the day? It's just that much less load on the nuke plants. At the very least, it would soften the peak load from my air conditioner in the summer daytime.
And why not stick a few windmills in the middle of farmland? Indiana farmland is like a giant, flat, patchwork quilt. It's not the sort of grand scenery you'd mind a windmill in the middle of, and you can farm around the poles just fine.
Why can't anybody take a moderate, practical look at things and realize that both solutions *together* are our most likely bet to get out of the coal and oil dependency?
Nobody's going to survive on windmills alone just yet. But why not use them where it's practical?
when it affects their bottom line, when its worth the expense, they will only switch to renewable energy when renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuels and it costs more to use those fuels. This article is great news towards that eventual shift.
Damn, man, what are you gonna replace plastic with?
.are you ready for it?
With. .
Plastic!
Petroleum isn't the only source of plant based hydrocarbons. There just happen to be a lot of partially processed plant based hydrocarbons lying around for the taking at the moment.
Not that we could grow enough plants to meet our current demands, let alone our extrapolated future demands, but that's a somewhat different issue.
KFG
One idea for hydo power was to tap the gulf stream with a giant turbine. It was to be so big and revolve slowly so that whales could swim through it without harm (to either the turbine or the whale).
Another idea is to tap the power of the tides, I think they are already doing this in Holland.
Just get that zero point energy thing going.
--- Ban humanity.
this idea that oil is not renewable is ludicris. the earth is constantly making more oil. same with natural gas.
Yeah, the earth is shiting and farting.
I would be every penny I have that when a new damn is being built, it is not the hunter/fisher types that voted for Bush protesting and creating law suits, but the spotted owl types that probably (grin) did not vote for Bush.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
http://www.solarbuzz.com/SolarPrices.htm
You obviously never readed about environnement.
It is not a matter of how much quantity we keep pushing stuff in the air, it's a matter of how much in how many time.
The ecosystem is capable of dealing with pollution up to a certain point. Massively depleting our fossil fuel is not a solution. Plus, from what are you going to make your plastic after that.
These greenies kept their mouth shut to not insult you, or maybe they detected that you woud'nt understand the issues.
Tomorrow is another day...
Ugly is all relative. I certainly wouldn't put them all over the grand canyon.... but there's plenty of farmland that could handle a windmill or two. And i can think of some huge, barren expanses of stripmall asphalt wasteland in sprawling midwestern shopping centers that could hold more than a few.
How much uglier can a couple of sleek windmills make your local low-rent stripmall parking lot? And there's no need to pave access roads for maintenance if you're building in the middle of a sea of pavement.
I suspect you could even design an office park in a low-wind area with buildings carefully placed to concentrate the wind on a few well-placed windmills. If anyone's ever had to lean into the wind under the Math building at Purdue, you know the effect I'm referring to.
As you take energy away from the environment, the net result is cooler temperature. There was a scientific article earlier(could have been Slashdot) where people woried that windmills would cause 1-2 degree global cooling if used for 100% of power.
God spoke to me.
you can endlessly debate the technical merits and disadvantages of any technology...However, the Prius is selling well- and that's a good real-world start for electric vehicles. Electrical power also has an infrastructure in place; not particularly suited for vehicles, but far ahead of other technologies. And though the US has plenty of coal, it certainly is a political issue globally.
I've lost count of how many greenies I've driven insane by telling them that letting people use all the oil they can get their hands on is a good thing, in that it will drive people to use alternatives sooner due to supply/demand curves.
They are probably being driven insane by your idiocy.
Why do you think "greenies" want people to switch to alternatives? For the sake of it? Of course not. They want people to switch because using oil is harmful. So suggesting that we increase the harm is just plain stupid, isn't it?
The sad thing is that certain environmental groups seriously believe that.
check this out.
http://eesolar.com/economics.php
A javascript-based web utility that allows you to calculate your annual electric bill savings with a rooftop solar electric photovoltaic depending on your electricity provider.
if you live in California, you're pretty lucky -- there are statewide rebates that used to pay for more than half of a solar electric photovoltaic system -- but are decreasing by 20 cents/watt every half year. If you're lucky, and you live in the sunny desert, your solar photovoltaic system can pay for itself in about 8 years, and after that it's doing nothing but saving cold hard cash in your bank.
Our naturally windy environment is being destroyed by people selfishly extracting wind energy from our atmosphere! Wind is a natural force that moves clouds around and keeps our weather going. Everyone knows that windmills extract this much-needed power from our air. If we extract all the wind energy from our atmosphere, imagine the horrible consequences! Clouds would stop moving causing torrential rain on only one spot while causing severe droughts across the street! Countless yachts would be forced to use fossil fuels instead of sailing! And the multi-million dollar wind surfing and kite flying industries would be devastated! Please, stop harvesting wind energy from our atmosphere!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
"And, as usual, sane people win out against the insane, again." - Hey, I'm totally insane- you insensitive clod!! Actually its hard to be offended by such a ridiculous statement. I have my doubts that sane people ever win out, let alone usually.
History Channel has a program about salt mine, I believe it is a Modern Marvels segment, that discusses a mine somewhere in the south. They have dug so deep that temperatures are too high for humans to bear. I distinctly recall the commentator saying they can boil water at a reachable depth. If so, this could be used as the power source for a closed loop steam turbine system. Of course I have not considered the logistics of dealing with all the equipment in these conditions, but the point is, power sources are all over the place. Instead of trying to find the one catch all solution, ie oil, fusion, solar, we just have to try to use the ones that work best for our region. "I can own property becuase I'm not a pennyless hippy!" - The Profesor (Futurama)
Ehh...this is the life we chose.
You are hitting on something though. What will it cost to refine this shale oil? We need to reduce our dependence on oil, particularly foreign oil, while it is still inexpensive.
There's a lot that can be done in the US, Japanese and British people consume about 45% less energy than American people, per capita. Should the cost of energy suddenly go up, as I would expect, particularly for political reasons, they will be much less hard hit than we are.
there are currently methods of making plastic that have identical property with petroleum based plastic from organic materials.
Not sure where the source is, need to look it up.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
In Oregon, the fishing industry is indeed up in arms about dams- what I don't understand is why we don't use the solution of sustainable fish hatcheries (in which we pay near-to-the-ocean riverfront owners to create pebble-bed fish hatchery pools with temperature controled water, setting asside the land forever for new salmon and sturgeon spawning)?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Never mind the birds... All those windmills interfere with natural air currents. Air currents, in turn are what moves weather patterns like hurricanes. Too many windmills, therefore, will slow air masses to a standstill, creating unprecedented ecological disasters. Specifically, consider the recent hurricanes that impacted the south eastern US. Without wind to eventually blow them out to sea, they'd still be floating over Florida, wreaking havoc.
Just say NO to wind-farms! Do it for Florida!
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
I think that those "greenies" do not directly seek to increase the proportion of renewables used in the economy. Instead they want to decrease the amount of fossil fuels used by displacing oil use with wind/solar/whatever.
Ignoring that OPEC can just make fossil fuels vastly cheaper by increasing production and can keep the prices stable with that mechanism, your solution does nothing to actually decrease the use of oil in the near future.
wind power isn't advantageous; it is renewable. But it's unsightly, can be costly (suitable areas for wind farms are often near the coast, where land is expensive), and is noisy.
Ah, yes, unsightly.
As opposed to those decorative smoke stask or cooling towers, and those ever so pretty charcoal strip mines.
Wind power is screwing everything up! Oh how we'll miss the gentle sounds of industrial mining equipment tearing the land appart and the gigantic, whisper-quiet trucks hauling their massive loads of ore.
You can't take the sky from me...
I think most of you missed his point(s). One of the best ways to drive adoption of other energy sources is for fossil fuels to be expensive. High demand makes them expensive. His other point, totally missed by all, is that it's fun to piss people off with counter intuitive arguments.
Such as: Try not to recycle paper anymore. Growing trees then burying them is a great way to sequester carbon and take it out of the atmosphere. If you recycle paper, the trees that are growing will just rot and release C02. So recycling paper==bad for environment.
Fun to watch people twitch trying to deal with that one.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Anyone looking for a recent, comprehensive evaluation of wind power should look at the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Cape Wind project.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
Would you rather have more greenhouse gases, or less birds?
Most people want alternatives not because they hate oil, like someone hates to eat brussel sprouts or their ex-spouse.
Sadly, this is false when it comes to the people I discuss.
Most of the same people you see in envrionmentalist marches are also marching at the same time against some or all of the following:
- "Big Government"
- "Big Corporations owning your soul"
- "Big Oil"
- "Governments blowing things up for more oil"
- "SUVs"
- "Bush"
- "Human Rights" (pro, of course)
- "Fat America"
When none of those things are directly related to the cause they pretend is at the root of their protest. I might give them the last one, but then again, modern SUVs just don't use an appreciable amount of oil in the world that banning then would make any difference.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I'm not sure why people haven't thought so much about the fact that most uses for ethanol and biodiesel are combustion... (I suppose you could crack these into hydrogen for use in fuel cells, but that seems like an added step of inefficiency...).
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
We say all this about wind and hydroelectric when it's not always windy and much of the US is in drought conditions. There is a whole bunch of real estate in southwestern states that gets a whole lot of sunshine throughout the year. Hydroelectric is surely the most consistent over time, and wind turbines come and go throughout the day. Throw some sizeable solar farms in the mix ( with a significantly updated grid) and I'm thinking we can cover pretty much all the energy needs for the country (yes I'm an insensitive American clod, damnit!). If I had the capital to do it I'd be looking at buying up large parcels of land with the intention of making large solar farms and have the extra funds to upgrade sections as more efficient systems become available. If all goes well you create a solar energy market.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
In other words, Archer Daniels Midland pays congressmen millions of dollars more in kickbacks than some environmentalist hippies, so don't bother.
English is easier said than done.
Dinosaurs: Millions of years ago, nature destroyed them. Help them get even... use fossil fuels.
Ok, on a more serious note, I had seen an interesting news article years ago about someone who setup some windmills, except they were a little different than most. They consisted of long three sided objects... like the turning signs car dealerships put on the top of cars except they were long and skinny rather than short and squat. These were built into the concrete dividers on the highway. The traffic driving in opposite directions on opposite sides created MORE than enough wind to turn the rows of hundred mini-windmills.
No eyesore (no worse than a concrete divider) No dead birds (if they fly into these they deserve to die) No changing wind patterns (any more than they already are that is)
I had an energy audit done by a contractor for my gas company- Even though the house was over a hundred years old, he said installing new, efficient windows would be a 20 year ROI. Not long after that I let a salesman give me his pitch for new windows, sure enough, energy efficiency was his major selling point, although he remained vague on the math. I'm pretty sure a number of people buy "energy efficient" windows, although I suspect they're real appeal is as a status symbol. Now if only wind power was "cool!"
In order for alternative energy sources to really take off we need to put the smack down on the NIMBYs.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I've always loved the idea of electricity generating stirling engines... while not being an end all power source, it occurs to me that having the differential of temperatures in the interior and exterior of structures would be beneficial to a system that wouldn't produce all the energy but cut down on energy costs, especially in areas of extreme climate. Humans generally keep their structure in opposition to the adverse environment which would provide perfect conditions for a stirling engine.
Feel free to ad input or blow this out of the water, because this idea is off the top of my head and not technically thought out.
man, what are you gonna replace plastic with?
Don't need to replace plastic. We can make plastic from organic wastes now. We're making plastic out of stuff like soy beans and corn stalks now. It's just that the stuff that we currently use from oil to make plastic was a waste product, so it's still incredably cheap.
I don't read AC A human right
>Just because it's viable now, doesn't mean it'll be viable for the entire country. Nor does present-day viability imply that it'll scale up to the rest of the country's energy needs.
All of our electricty is redistributed anyway. But using it can't hurt. I say diversify the energy supply across the country: nothing like mixing up energy sources to reinfornce Homeland Security when it comes to electricty, etc. Fossil fuels have a long line of attack points.
>Similarly, hydroelectric power isn't renewable: there are only so many rivers that can be dammed, and a finite amount of rain falling into the water systems that feed them.
You have confused "renewable" with "infinite." It IS, by definition, renewable because of the water-cycle: there is always rain to feed that river. Please note I am not saying hydro power is perfect because that is far from the truth (although small-scale feeder stream damming is much better all around than large-scale implementation).
>Solving the problem means finding a high-energy-density portable power source (for cars), and/or an extremely high-density electrical generation source (which you then use to power everything but cars, and/or to synthesize hydrocarbons from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen).
Solving the problem also includes re-thinking our transportation needs. Rampant suburbia without viable mass-transit is a problem. Poorly designed urban areas are hurting us. We can't just look at energy needs from the supply-side; we must also must take a legit crack at lower our needs.
But I applaude you at recognizing we need to move the auto industry from many units with ICE to, at a minimum, many units with electric engines. THEN we can begin using many different energy sources to solve our most urgent upcoming problem. Right now the Bush administration's back-up energy supply after fossil fuels is coal, but that doesn't logically solve the problem of petro needs. We can't burn coal in our cars.
P.S. Ya, I know that no one really knows if we'll run out of fossil fuels soon. But I think everyone can agree that over time our methods of supplying it will have to change, and in our system change means increased costs, etc.
-----
Where is the administration on this? Pro-consumption, pro-petro, pro-coal.
Yeah, suggesting that people pollute as much as they possibly can is a sane thing to do.
Hydro can not be considered green. Hydro power displaces ecosystems, changes environments, slows rivers down, etc. There are many environmental problems with hydroelectric power. Nuclear is actually a more viable green solution if the waste products are kept onsite in sufficient containment and the waste water is allowed to cool first.
Such as: Try not to recycle paper anymore. Growing trees then burying them is a great way to sequester carbon and take it out of the atmosphere. If you recycle paper, the trees that are growing will just rot and release C02. So recycling paper==bad for environment.
I must be missing something here, but living trees take in CO2 and release oxygen as part of photosynthesis. It's an oversimplification, sure, but the overall effect of living trees is a reduction in CO2 levels.
So provided I'm not missing something, this argument makes no sense.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
While I certainly think that hemp farming should be legal...
I have to question the use of the term free market in the same sentance as subsidies and tax disincentives...
*ahem*
If I was that drunk, I would have remembered it -- H. Simpson
But... the parent has already been proven right. The rising oil prices have not come as a shock, just as a looming threat as the world struggles to keep up with China's boom, but the reserves aren't running dry yet. The rising prices have made green tech economical, and spurred a green tech research and construction boom.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
If we could find a way to remove pure hydrogen from coal then that would be a green energy ,wouldn't it ?
Ah, I see you're in possession of the philosopher's stone, with wich you will alchemically transmute coal into pure hydrogen without any byproducts!
You are a lucky man.
You can't take the sky from me...
"The rational man adapts himself to the world. The irrational man tries to adapt the world to suit himself. Therefore all progress depends on the irrational man."
-- George Bernard Shaw.
It's amazing that all these people complain about each and every power producing system. The problem I see is more these people complaining, not the power production methods. All these complaints are partly the reason(along with decaying infrastructure) California, and many other states have sever power problems, and they are not going to get any better if all people do is complain that this system is bad cause of birds, or this system produces a waste that we still haven't found a place for.
I like the idea of renewable energy systems. Wind/Solar/Geothermal seem like nice ways to generate power, without damaging the eco-system to the point of a coal burning power plant. Shoot, even a Nuclear power plant is a better option, in my opinion, than plants powered by fossil fuels.
After these systems are in place, then come up with solutions to the problems that are produced.
Wind energy is far cheaper that oil. Look at it this way:
The cost of wind energy:
Buy land in windy place
Build windfarm.
The cost of oil:
Forge alliance with dictators, oppressors, torturers and terrorists.
Provide covert funding and weapons to people who will later bite you in the ass, for example: Osama bin Laden, Sadam Hussen, the shah of Iran, the Taliban, etc. etc.
Station tens of thousands of troups in 3rd world countries full of extremists who get off on killing Americans... during PEACETIME.
During war station hundreds of thousands of troops in said countries.
Fight on average 1 major war per decade at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars to protect oil producing hellspawn from non-oil-producing hellspawn.
I think we need a new tax. No, really.
Gasoline should have an additional $0.50 per gallon tax and traditional lightbulbs should have an $0.10 per bulb tax.
The funds from this should directly fund research into alternative energy, means of conservation, and entirely new technologies.
I've heard that if every household in America installed only 1 compact florescent in place of a standard bulb, it would be the environmental equivelant of taking 1,000,000 cars off the road.
The only way America is going to change is if it's given an economic reason that hits home.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
But how about the CO2 levels when fossil fuel is expensive enough?
I agree - we must keep in mind that the True Cost (tm) of fossil fuels is much larger than most people think. This is because many of the drawbacks of fossil fuels are obfuscated, such as pollution and reliance on foreign and sometimes hostile nations. Also, much of the true cost of using oil is subsidized by the military. After all, we don't have a lot of oil here in the US, so going after world oil supplies has been a cornerstone of our foreign policy for quite some time. While it is true that, pound for pound, oil is the easiest way to harness energy given current technologies, the equation begins to shift when you factor in what we must do to secure that oil. In some ways, shouldn't the resources being spent fighting in Iraq be tacked-on to the "cost of using oil"? Unfortunately, that is a more abstract concept, and hence, people often do not consider such things... its not quite so easy to measure how much one of our soldier's lives is worth in dollars and cents.
Fossil fuels are *far* more expensive than the market price would indicate.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
oh, did we successfully transfer the world economy off of fossil fuels when I wasn't looking?
Nothing has been proven yet. Do you have any idea what it's going to take to make such a shift? We either need to have several years left of relatively cheap fossil fuels, minimum, or we should have started this shift years ago. This is not as simple as *poof* we're using green energy now because a price per kilowatt hit a magic number. Green energy isn't even ready to take over yet, nevermind the economics involved with the infrastructure shift.
We're in for a ride my friend. I don't know what industry you're in, but I've seen my manufacturers raise prices 2-4 times this year and our shipping costs are quickly climbing as well. There is a lag between rising energy and rising everything else, and we're just starting to get the effects of the first jump in price. I'm scared of what's going to happen *next year*, and there is no way green power is taking over that fast.
We're not necessarily doomed, but glibly saying "hey, keep using oil" shows a complete lack of respect for the factors at work here. We could very well be in big trouble here because we haven't been diligently working to prepare for a switch from a fossil-fueled economy. We certainly should be NOW, and we still are not. It's starting, but I seriously see it as too little, too late at this point. The math just isn't working out anymore, not with China and India in developement booms.
So, where are all the dams going to go
There.
It's amazing people still call hydroelectric power "green", but then hypocrisy in defense of liberal ideas is no vice...
You fucking troll. It's renewable, not magical. Every action causes a reaction, our energy needs aren't going away, but there are ways to minimise the impact of our actions. Hydroelectric damns cause dammage, but the impact of a local flood is not in the same ballpark as the impact that the floods from melting the artic and antartic with greenhouse gases would have.
You can't take the sky from me...
will drive people to use alternatives sooner due to supply/demand curves
Syntehtic rubber came about because of supply/demand, and maybe technologies like this will mean that supply will keep increasing for the time being.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
It's the infinite energy source we've all been waiting for.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
And, from a more authoritative source,
They do, but are a poor carbon sink. Trees do not live forever and when they die ... it all gets released again. Faster if burned.
There is a common misunderstanding that tropical rain forests produce a large portion of the earth's oxygen (and by correlary, take in carbon). They are at steady state with organic matter rotting as fast as it's created. Some does get buried, but not much. It is true that they hold a lot of carbon.
So in theory, you can help the earth by cutting down the forests, burying them (as paper), and growing a new one. Cut, bury, cut, bury. Etc. Since it would be a tragedy to cut down tropical rain forests, and since the tree farms that are used to make paper will work just as well, why not bury paper!
It's just a thought provoking joke. Some folks just don't get it. Some folks fight it, which is why it's fun.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I'd like to see a website dedicated to that. Do it yourself wind is probably really cheap, as the only component you need to buy is the electric motor. You can build the physical windmill itself out of scrap metal out of a junkyard or lumber. Then there is the problem of hooking the windmill up to your utilities. I theorized an idea that a box of batteries could be used that has plugs you can put your windmill's cords into. Then you could plug the box o' batteries into your home. You could also swap out the battery arrays for your electric car. But solid information on how to do this would rule.
God spoke to me.
No shit. People seem to forget that prices are temporary, but we can encounter far worse long term costs. I am not trying to troll here...but imagine if the cost of the Iraq war was invested into wind power...
But thats not where the priorities are. Neither is protecting the environment.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
But when the paper/trees decay/burn, the carbon is mixed with the oxygen, making CO2 again. So trees are ultimatly carbon-neutral. Unless you bury the paper underground where it won't decay in a reasonable period of time. Studies have shown that conditions in modern landfills are very short on oxygen, so any decay must be anarobic, not producing CO2.
So by throwing your paper into a landfill, you interdict the carbon in it, and make the paper industry grow some more trees, removing more CO2 from the atmosphere.
I don't read AC A human right
As I write this, workmen are on my roof installing solar power cell supports...but they're having trouble getting the panels (I understand that they've finally been able to get ahold of enough to start work...but that took months).
We're doing the changeover because a friend was satisfied with *his* changeover. So things have STARTED changing. Still, I don't disagree with you that we should have been moving faster. (OTOH, I'm a bit timid about bleeding edge technologies.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
... a theory I've heard a few times but haven't read into http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0387 985468/104-8908824-8125543?v=glance
iirc, it's sold at a loss.
Japanese and British people consume about 45% less energy than American people, per capita.
While this may be true there is a huge difference between the US other countries.
#1. Many Americans live in homes not apartments. Because of this the energy needed to heat/cool is more.
#2. Public transportation is not practical for most of the US. It works great in large cities but in small towns public transportaion is not effective. I live in the midwest and must drive 45 miles to work everyday. I could move but do not want to. (I hate large cities.)
#3. The physical size of our country is many times the size of the UK and Japan. Jobs that require travel require more energy for transportaion.
What we (the US) can do:
#1. I drive a hybrid. Many people could also drive hybrids. I understand some people need SUVs for family, camping, towing trailers, etc. More manufactures should offer hybrid cars, trucks, and SUVs.
#2. Save on heating and cooling. I live in a fairly large home and the heating bills this time of the year are bad. I keep my thermostat at 60 and wear a sweatshirt and pants when inside. I have a space heater in my room at night. I just close the door and I stay warm. During the summer I spend most of my time in the basement where it is cooler. At night I use a small window AC unit that uses less power when compared to a central air system.
#3. Harness your own power. I am currently looking into the cost of installing either solar panels or a small wind turbine. I look at this as an investment rather than a cost. I plan on living in my house for many years so hopefully whatever route I choose will pay for itself eventually.
It will be quite funny when Texas is selling wind generated electricity to California and California citizens complain about high prices.
Sure, there are people who don't like the look of wind farms, because you can see the things, just like there are people who don't like seeing cell phone antennas. I've driven by the Altamont Pass wind farms fairly often, and once looked into renting a house that was located out there, and ok, it was a bit spacey, and if you've got epilepsy it might not be where you want to live, but the wind turbines are nowhere near as ugly as a smokestack or a coal strip-mine.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You should be timid, they are called bleeding edge for a reason.
Things have started. I am simply saying, they have in all liklihood started too late, and they started too late because of attitudes like the parent of this thread had: oh, just keep using it, when it gets expensive we'll switch and go on dancing our happy little dances. It's simplistic.
Interesting. I have approximately the same agenda, and I could give you reasoned arguments for each of them (though not for the entire list).
When, however, I look at the list of characteristics that you appearantly despise... well, I wouldn't want to be you, and I wouldn't want to know your friends.
You may well have a point that the constellation of values that you have selected don't all apply with equal merit to every issue, but that's about the limit of the credit that I will give to you.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
> Why do you think "greenies" want people to switch to alternatives?
Those he was referring to as "greenies" simply want to be right and for others to tell them they are right... or at least to do what they say.
What you're talking about sounds like a ground-sourced heat pump (or ground water-sourced in your case.) It runs on electricity.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Someone give this man a job in charge of windmill placement. Quickly.
You've never seen a river catch fire downstream from a papermill, I take it. (Well, neither have I, but it happens.)
Making paper has a large number of environmental costs, much more than purely the CO2 balance (which is nearly neutral baring the fuel burned in the process of making and distributing the paper).
What? You didn't think paper released it's CO2 when you put it in a landfill (or burned it in an incinerator)? You have a short time horizon.
If you just like to see people jump (and aren't worrying about the accuracy of your arguments), then I will categorize you with those who stick pins into sleeping people, or give people a hotfoot. Vandals of a minor sort. More intellectual than some, but still only a minor vandal.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
has caused the cost of renewable energy to finally reach the price of nonrenewables.
With increasing costs in non-reusables, don't they mean that the non-reusables have caught up in cost to wind/water?
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I'm all for clean low-cost energies, but wind technology just doesn't work. The silicon valley outskirts near Livermore has had wind turbines for decades. Those things are rarely spinning, and are often broken. It can't be cost efficient to replace this giant motor/generator all the time because the technology sucks. If they worked, there would be more of them sprouting on Them Thar Hills- but its just the opposite, they're not rebuilding them as they fail.
And hydroelectric energy is hardly good for the environment either. Anything downstream from where the dam is built will be forever changed, and rarely for the better.
Its silly to invest in alternate energy supplies just for the sake of doing something different. Often the environment is worse of for it.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
God spoke to me.
Too many windmills, therefore, will slow air masses to a standstill, creating unprecedented ecological disasters. Specifically, consider the recent hurricanes that impacted the south eastern US. Without wind to eventually blow them out to sea, they'd still be floating over Florida, wreaking havoc.
IANAM (I am not a meteorologist), but I have studied weather forcasting and reading charts and so forth in support of one of my hobbies, sailing...
The scenario you describe is not likely.
The turbines are 400-500 feet tall and the wind that effects movements of weather systems like hurricanes occurs around the 5000 Meter altitudes, and at lattitudes covered by the North American continent, are mostly attributable to the movement of Polar low pressure systems...
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
This only accounts for private costs. Costs to the person using it. It does not account for the additional external social costs that the fossil fuel consumer imposes on everyone else (pollution, money funneled into the Middle East, resulting wars, etc.).
While it's nice that the private cost of fossil fuels is now exceeding the private benefit, the social cost of fossil fuels surpassed the social benefit of fossil fuels a long time ago.
If I'm not mistaken, the production of CO2 (Carbon-dioxide) is not a big deal, it's CO (Carbon-monoxide) that we don't want.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Dude, they have always hated us, get over it
Maybe you just don't study history, but have you ever heard of the Crusades? Follow that by the betrayal following WWI where France and England carved up the middle east from the old Ottoman Empire rather than putting them in charge of their own land. Then follow that up with the US forcing dictatatorial rule on them from the Shah of Iran (you know we overthrew a democracy to put him in charge, right?), the Saudi royal family, massive support to Saddam from Reagan, etc., etc., etc.
It make you wonder why they hate us doesn't it?
Or maybe history just isn't patriotic enough for you.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
Does this take into account that there is $20 billion in subsidies going to the non-renewable energy sector?? Some people seem to think that its cheaper to subsidize dirty energy, make a mess, and then try and clean it up later with our money. I just dont see any logic behind that. Technology isnt going to solve this problem by itself and anyone who thinks we can drill our way out of this problem is just ignorant.
There is one flaw with wind power, which has been quite effectively demonstrated in Germany, at the expense of the Belgian power grid.
Here's the deal. Germany, big on green energy, built a massive wind farm in the last decade or so. It generates cheap, clean energy as long as the wind is blowing.
The thing about wind energy is that, for every farm you build, you need an equally large plant as backup for when the wind dies. There is no way to get around this - if your customers are drawing 10GW from your wind turbines and the wind suddenly dies down, you have to get that 10GW from elsewhere or suffer a blackout.
Now, a calm day in Germany is also Belgium's problem, seeing as Germany then draws part of the backup power from the Netherlands, who purchase most of their power from the French via the Belgian net (BTW, gotta love the irony of the dutch anti-nuclear stance, and then buying power from the predominantly nuclear French). When the Germans begin to draw more from the Dutch (can't do anything about that, path of least impedance and all), the Dutch begin to draw more from the French via our nets, meaning that our cables on the French border start to glow (and I'm not exaggerating).
Lotsa fun, the power grid is...
Jw
Conservation
Whether it is electricity, motor fuel, or virtually anything else, the greatest impact we can have on energy supplies is to use less of it. Invest in public transportation, replace lightbulbs with low power equivelants, spend a little bit more on proper insulation, recycle. There are hundreds of ways that we can get more out of what we have and it all equates to cleaner, healthier water, air, and soil.
(yes I know that conservation isn't a direct source of energy, it is an indirect one)
of wind power generation, in a negative way, FAR exceeds that of other technologies when viewed in terms of cost/benefit.
Wind farms extract energy from the wind and this causes two problems.
1)Where the wind 'river' is shallow as through a pass, moisture is not allowed to travel as far and rainfall decreases downwind from the 'plant'
2) Extraction of energy at ground level, even wiehre the wind 'river' is deep, chagnes the vertical mixing profile which has a strong effect on rainfall patterns downwind from the 'plant'.
These 'impacts' on rainfall suggest that wind power may not be so 'green'. Less rainfall will reduce the amount of water available for hydro-power.
IMO solid state solar conversion is the best approach. It's much more efficient than alcohol from grains when all costs are considered.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Um, no. Public transport works perfectly well in reasonably small cities across Europe. The main reason why it works there and it doesn't in comparably-sized American cities is the population density within the cities, and the fact that commerce in European towns and cities is designed/has evolved more around pedestrians and public transport rather than cars.
Must? Must? Look, I'm sure you have perfectly good reasons for choosing a lifestyle that requires you to drive 45 (90?) miles a day, but as you said, it's a choice. If fuel cost you $10 per gallon, would you still live that way?
That being said, your suggestions to reduce the impact of the lifestyle choices you've made are very sensible. Another one to add would be better insulation and more efficient appliances: for instance, do you really need a refrigerator the size of a Japanese apartment?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Mr. Fuller came up with this interesting idea; it's kind of hard to describe, so bear with me...
You take a U-shaped, triangular-type thing - sort of like a canoe. But it's longer - not sure how long, but fairly long - maybe at least a couple football fields? You put some water in it. He called it a floating breakwater. This breakwater would stretch along a coast somewhere, out beyond a swimming area - not totally out in the water, but some distance away from the shore, where the water is deeper, but in an area where the waves are already forming, hitting the bottom, but not breaking. It can also help control erosion.
A wave would lift up one end of the breakwater, and the water would move from the end that was lifted up, down towards the other end, and the moving water would generate electricity in that way.
Other things like facing the long end of the house N-S, not like is normally done, facing the long end of the house parallel with the road it's on - this arrangement can keep your house warmer in the winter, perhaps by putting windows or a greenhouse on the south side of the building, and by planting vines on an overhead trellis or using some other type of canopy on the south side of the house in the summer to create shade, there is also a way that you can create airflow throughout the whole house because there will be a significant difference in temperature between the south side and the north side; this can reduce the need for A/C.
Simple things we can all do to make things more efficient; smarter. Instead of paying some large amount of money to work out in a gym, do some gardening and grow your own vegetables - essentially saving lots of money (if you know what you are doing, this can be $20+ per hour you put into it) to grow your own food, and get some serious exercise at the same time. Not to mention that variety and quality of veggies you can get this way.
However, I think that it's not a good idea to put ourselves in a position where we HAVE to switch over to sustainable energy - because it's easier to say than do. Realistically, we need petroleum products right now. We need to look into other options while we still have dead dinosaur remains, not after they are all gone. Instead of treating it as a moral crisis, we need to treat is as an opportunity for technological advancement. If sustainable energy becomes less expensive than dead dinosaur remains, which I think we can get to that point, then people will go for the sustainable energy. If building your house with the long part of the house facing N-S helps save on the A/C bill, and the heating bill, maybe house builders will start building houses facing those directions, and people will want to buy houses facing those directions. If people realize the amount of money they can save by growing their own veggies, maybe areas can be set aside for apartment dwellers where they can do that.
It can be done, we just have to stay positive and cooperative with one another, and stop blaming this or that political party - and it's probably not one particular thing - the best solution will be to use a variety of methods and processes, which, in aggregate, will reduce the need for non-renewable resources of any kind from anywhere.
Wouldn't it be ironic if alternative fuels became viable only to be rendered completely obsolete by nuclear fusion? :-)
I honestly think nuclear power is our best hope for clean power.
But politically it will be a long time before that will become a popular idea.
The piece of junk first generation nuke plants of the past have tained a lot of peoples opinions.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
First off, each of us (yes, including me) live our lives wrong. We also tend to live in (and work in) buildings designed wrong. Now, both of these statements are pretty bold - but both are very true.
How much do you throw away? What do you throw away? How much do you recycle? How much do you recycle? How much do you reuse, and what do you reuse? These are the key questions, and the answers are the key to free energy.
Want your eyes opened? Take a look around your neighborhood on trash day. If your city has such a program, especially take a look on "bulk pickup" day. What do you see? What are people literally paying to have hauled away and buried?
I have seen bikes, refrigerators, computers, car parts, engines, dishwashers, cut up trees, wood, etc. All of these items took a lot of energy to make. Several of them could still work just perfectly, if we would only take the time to fix them. Those that can't be fixed, still could be put to other uses. The wood and the cut up trees could be further processed for the raw materials, or used as simple fuel. Water heaters could become storage tanks for solar heated water. That old window could become the front to a solar collector panel. That old engine and car alternator could become a cheap and easy to build power generation system (heh - heat the scrap wood in that old 55 gallon drum using a solar panel made from busted mirrors epoxied onto an old K-band sat dish, drive off the wood gas, power the engine with that (or cook with it), the stuff left over - charcoal for a barbeque!). All of this junk - going to waste.
Go to a landfill (even better, go to one that handles construction scrap only) - watch as thousands of tons per day of scrap wood, steel, aluminum, sand, dirt, concrete, etc - get buried in huge piles! All of this could be used and reused! How many times have you seen busted up concrete (or broken brick and block) being thrown away? Why not build a wall or a living structure out of it? What about that dirt - maybe a rammed earth house, perhaps? The wood, the steel - all of that has obvious uses. Why are we throwing it away?
As far as our houses and buildings are concerned - we build all of these wrong. We build them as energy wasting monstrosities. A monolithic dome house, or a thick-walled earthship-style house - will be much more energy efficient in the long run than a stick-frame constructed house. Build it out of scrap and throwaway items, and it becomes even cheaper. Build in skylights for daytime lighting. Collect rainwater in tanks to use for the garden and yard instead of the tap. Collect your greywater runoff as well. Collect your black water runoff into a methane digester system to produce fuel. Heat your house with solar panels made from scrap plywood, windows, and 2x4s. Install LED lighting for nighttime use. Build a wind generator using old automobile brake rotors and rare-earth magnets. Build a solar oven and slow cook your food.
The answers are endless, and so are the possibilities. None of this is fiction, or dreamwork. Many people have done this and are doing it everyday. There are tons of accounts on the internet - most show "how-to" methods. Want to start? Start by building a simple solar box oven, and cook some chili or rice in it. You can easily build one using cardboard boxes, a scrap piece of glass, and newspaper for insulation. For the glass, go to a glass shop and ask - many times they have odd sizes or whatnot they can't sell, and will happily give them to you. Or, go to Lowes, to the glass cutting area - many times they will have scrap glass (and acrylic, too) that they will give away for the asking. Or, find an oven door and take the tempered glass from it (or how about an old refrigerator - use an old glass shelf). There are tons of recipies online for solar ovens - give it a shot (yes, it will work in the wintertime - you just need sun). I guarantee you will be pleased. You will then know that it is possible to get free energy. There are tons of other ways (I know of several to get free cooling in the summertime!). Think about it, learn about it, and realize what you are missing!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
carbon monoxide is certainly what kills you, but excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is what will turn Earth in Venus much quicker.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You're mistaken. Carbon monoxide is poisonous - it's one of the reasons why cars are fitted with all the anti-pollution gear they now have, which either ensures that carbon monoxide isn't produced or converts it into carbon dioxide. To a large extent, CO is a solved problem in the Western world.
Carbon dioxide, while not poisonous (except in really, really high concentrations), is, according to mainstream climate science, the major cause of global warming. However, carbon dioxide emissions are a fundamental consequence of burning fossil fuels. The only way to reduce CO2 emissions are to not burn fossil fuels (ie energy efficiency, renewable energy, or nuclear energy), or carbon sequestration.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Why is this important?
Right now the USA is split into three major power grids: East, West, and Texas. Texas law specifies that Texas must be self-reliant on energy, and have its own grid. So what's in this article is not necessarily applicable to the rest of the nation, or even the world.
The way this is written, people who use Reliant energy in Houston will realize, "Hey, for the same price I'm already paying, I can be cool with the environment, too." (Like that's possible.) The article makes a point of mentioning that Reliant is the most expensive provider in the area.
So, reading between the lines, this is an article more about price gouging by Reliant than it is about Green Energy becoming
When oil costs spike 10% it has a knock on effect throughout the entire economy.
Being self-sustaining would surely have positive economic effects.
Long-term, green energy is probably much more cost effective. Oil cannot be renewed as quickly as wind, hydroelectric, solar, or even hydrogen gas, so the long-term cost is much higher for oil.
Care to provide a little more information to back up such a ludicrous claim?
Actually, in my experience they love Big Government. Being socialists, they believe everything should be "free". Most of them don't make enough to realize that to a taxpayer, nothing is free.
Yup... And when I was a kid in the late 70s we were going to run out of oil AND food by the mid 1990s. The truth of the matter is that 1) no one has a good estimate of proven reserves and 2) we have so much locked up in oil sands and shale oil here that once it gets above $60 a barrel, we can produce unbelievable amounts from that. But when we do run out, we'll have methane hydrate mining on the bottom of the sea!
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
Which means that you're very nieve. In economics there's something called externalities, which is where you transfer some of your costs onto someone else.
Power generation and cars are the classic examples -- the power plants do not have to pay for the effects of global warming. Car manufacturers/drivers/gas companies do not have to pay for the effects of smog (ill health, etc), those costs are passed on to the general population to pay for out of your taxes, etc.
And the more of these costs a company can pass off onto other people, the more profit it makes.
Coal and oil are energy that comes from the ground, too. Do you call those "geothermal?"
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
And, well, hello, it would be nice if we made the switch away from buring up oil before the cost of petrochemicals in general becomes ten times higher than it already is. Not just petrochemicals that we burn up, but stuff like, you know, plastics.
Petroleum is nifty and cool enough that burning it and driving up the price is kind of a waste, even if you're not worried about the greenhouse effect. Switching away from burning up all the easily accessible oil before economic forces force the change on us would be nice, since it would mean we'd have much cheaper petrochemicals for centuries. But it's the kind of very long term payout that people don't typically worry about.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
From http://www.ondoctrine.com/00news33.htm
Ingrid Newkirk, PETA's controversial founder, says, 'There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights.... A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.' Newkirk told a Washington Post reporter that the atrocities of Nazi Germany pale by comparison to killing animals for food: 'Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.' Clearly, Ms. Newkirk is more outraged by the killing of chickens for food than she is by the wholesale slaughter of human beings. One gets the impression she would not necessarily consider the extinction of humanity an undesirable thing. In fact, she and other animal-rights advocates often sound downright misanthropic. She told a reporter, 'I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn't be harming anything.' And the summer issue of Wild Earth magazine, a journal promoting radical environmentalism, included a manifesto for the extinction of the human race, written under the pseudonym 'Les U. Knight.' The article said, 'If you haven't given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species.... Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.'
Consider it backed up.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
That's not because of the hydro damn, it's because of the lawns of Phoenix, draining the river to have some nice green lawns in the middle of the desert.
You can't take the sky from me...
Ok, you found a "controversial founder" of a pretty extreme group who said that in a "journal promoting radical environmentalism."
I stand corrected.
Not to mention, in 20 years the seals around the windows will leak, or they'll otherwise degrade, and you'll have to buy again. :) You get your ROI back, but then have to turn around and invest again.
Karnal
Afterall, sucking lots of energy out of anything could cause disruptions that are potentially bad for us.
Does anyone have any further details regarding this particular nuance?
wag more
bark less
One doesn't have to use solar panels. Another option is to use large mirrors on mechanical pivots that work together to reflect sunlight to a single point. At this point, water is boiled and the steam turns a turbine.
I doubt that this method is as technically efficient as using solar panels, but it probably is cheaper. But then future solar panels will likely change everything.
But what if the two ideas were combined? A few solar panels collecting energy from multiple mirrors. Depending on the efficiencies of future solar cells, this could be interesting.
So I guess my point is that solar energy shouldn't be discounted. There are places well suited to solar energy. Also, some places are well suited to wind energy. There are even places best suited to burning natural gas / alcohol / etc. For example, if the waste heat from such a plant can be recycled, like in a greenhouse, then such a plant can be very efficient. I'm told that do this in some European countries.
Future power will not come from a single source. Depending on circumstances, the best source of energy will be used. Solar will be one of those sources, as well hydro-electric, wind, nuclear, and the burning of hydrocarbons.
William
Won't it be much easier just to produce methane from human excretion? Those generate a lot of methane.
Hm...
"Powered by fart"
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
Think about it.
Biodiesel does need some breakthroughs before it is a good substitute for fossil fuels, however.
green aint cheaper cuz its coming down in price. green is cheaper cuz red is going up in price. there is a big difference. pay attention to it.
Mine the landfills!
There are some really great ideas being modded down here, simply because the moderator detected a political view (both left and right).
I suggest you read Slashdot
Fossil fuels are killing the ozone, but If I'm not mistaken, within the last year a study came out about wind mills and the harm they cause. Wind power doesn't solve anything long term.
"yes the capital cost is very high, but the fuel is virtaully free"
The reason that Nuclear plants are so expensive to build is that the government often forced construction to be halted on nothing more than a letter complaining "something could happen", until a study could be done disproving the letter, just in time for the next letter to show up.
it is the most complicated steam engine on earth
Actually, they're not all that complicated in the newer designs. That's why, after I've shut down the coal plants, I'd be looking at updating/replacing the aging light water reactors.
All of those rare earth materials used in nuclear power compents are not common and cost money.
Sure, Uranium's expensive. But you don't need much of it. It's got something like 20,000 times the power density of coal. Even more if you take steps to 'burn' it better.
Wind generators in comparison are incredibly simple. Hydro is incredibly simple.
But they're also relatively low-density. You need a lot of wind generators to equal a full size nuke plant, and the construction cost adds up. And you don't get out of maintenance either. Those blades don't last forever.
but there has NEVER been a wind/hydro/tidal plant that has cost as much as a producing nuclear power plant
And are these plants generally measered in the thousands of megawatts? Can they operate just about 24/7/365? I've had trouble finding out what an averale wind turbine runs, installed.
The University of Chicago has determined that the cost per kilwatt of capacity for nuclear would run $1,200-$1,800. (Note: The "standard" 1000 megawatt plant would start at 1.2 billion). But in the end, once your economy of scale takes over, it would only cost 3.4 cents per kw/h. Versus 3.7 cents for non-backed up wind, or 5.4 cents with backup. Add 1.8 cents to go offshore.
Hydro: Well, we're pretty much getting all that we can already get.
Backup for wind power makes costs up to 3.5 times greater?
The economies of nuclear power
Only 20 suitable tidal sites? Only 10 hours of power a day?
You know, I didn't list geothermal due to the limited areas it can be done in...
Doing research finds that Coal/Nuclear has a cost of about 2.3 cents kw/h. Wind is 3.7 cents a kw/h. Wind has quite a ways to go. Solar at least provides power when people run AC the most.
Nuclear plants are run at just about 100% load, all the time.
For the other power sources, you'd need backup power. IE, you'd have to build two plants to provide the constant power 1 nuclear plant does.
I don't read AC A human right
Solar panels are very inefficient in the real world. 40% exists in the lab, but outside, 10% is doing good. The panels just don't deal with anything other than full sun well.
By contrast, turbines are up to 60%, and turning water to steam is known technology. Overall you are less than 50%, but the biggest solar power systems in the world are steam turning a turbine.
The only reason solar panels are like is they have no moving parts. You can place them flat on a roof, and not thing about them again for 10 years, other than the surplus power they generate. This is perfect for the typical home owner who wouldn't maintain the turbines. Worse yet, boilers have a tendency to go boom if they are not maintained and inspected often.
Could you give me another source? I've read that its its being sold at a loss was only a rumor. Its hard for me to believe that an automobile is sold at a loss. Xbox, sure, but a car? Honda has also put out a hybrid, called the Insight- are they selling at a loss too?
3,602,000,000,000 kWh (2001) http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2042rank.html
3 and a half million petawatt hours.
The fucking Gulf Stream only carries 1.4 Petawatts of power. What the hell are you doing? Turn off the damn air conditioning before we're all screwed."Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
As a PE Mech E specializing in power systems and a former electrical power trader, I continue to marvel at the propeller heads who think wind is the savior of US power. Wind is a nice little side supply where the winds are right and someone is willing to foot the bill. It does not make much economic sense in most areas because of the power it is replacing. Most baseline (efficient) plants, such as cogen, coal and nukes are slow to start and stop. The least efficient generators are used to meet the peak demand on a given day because they can be turned on and off. Wind is only able to replace the peak load because an operator cannot take a large plant off line on a whim. Even on the peak power side, you would still have to maintain reserve generation for days where the wind does not blow but it is still hot. So the competition is between the marginal cost of FF generation vs the capital recovery of the wind farm. The wind farm cannot trade into the forward markets well because he cannot choose when to come on line. If the wind operator does take a forward and the wind does not blow he will be forced into the daily market to cover his obligation when prices are the highest. Often he will be able to come into market when the wind is blowing, often cooler, when the temps are lower. More supply less demand, lower prices. The theory is great, it all looks good with the averages. In practice, the no one gets the average cost of generation, they get the market price when they can bring it to market. From personal experience, the wind traders were almost always on the bad side of a trade. If you need green power, go nuclear!!
The article quotes numbers for a 90%
hydro and 10% wind mix. It doesn't say
pure wind is cheaper.
If hydro weren't competitive, then humans
wouldn't have been building hydro-electric plants
for the past 100 years or so (and fossil fuels
used to be really cheap before the 1970s).
The only problem with hydro is that there's
not enough of it, or at least not enough of
it that isn't tied up by environmental
concerns (fish gotta live too), or indigenous
people claims such as in Quebec. If there
was enough of it, then don't you think all
power plants would hydro and not fuel burners?
Nothing new to see here.
>> So, where are all the dams going to go
/. article is "Green ...". Hydro dams are not green; many (most?)
> There.
Quebec can supply all of the world's, or
even the North America's power needs for less
that fossil fuels? If so, what's preventing
the market from driving Quebec to supply more
power?
>> It's amazing people still call hydroelectric
>> power "green", but then hypocrisy in defense
>> of liberal ideas is no vice...
> You fucking troll. It's renewable, not magical.
You have a reading comphrehension problem.
The subject of the
Energy
self-respecting environmentalists and Green
Party members hate hydro.
> Every action causes a reaction, our energy
> needs aren't going away, but there are ways
> to minimise the impact of our actions.
> Hydroelectric damns cause dammage, but the
> impact of a local flood is not in the same
> ballpark as the impact that the floods
> from melting the artic and antartic with
> greenhouse gases would have.
Both destroy ecosystems and species.
And actually, hydro dams reduce flooding.
That kind of estimate is based on the assumption that we'll keep increasing demand for fossil fuel at historic rates, which really isn't likely. It also depends on the assumption that we won't find any more oil in places such as Alaska, which also isn't likely.
I'm not advocating a continual reliance on fossil fuels, I'm just trying to bring a shade of reality to the subject.
Like I said, hypocrisy. You believe that it's "green" to destroy millions of acres of habitat, eradicate species by the hundreds or thousands, because some "dammage(sic)" happens anyway? You have one warped idea of "green," that's for sure.
Draining river basins, sucking aquifers dry by preventing their natural refilling, all perfectly "green"! Astounding.
And good use of moderation points, I raise the same points as another commenter, he's modded "insightful" whereas I'm modded "troll". Well, if I lived my life for Slashdot Karma I'd be a starving man...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Or at least it would be, if the loathesome alcoholic murderer Ted Kennedy and his hypocritical limousine liberal friends would let the windmills be built where they actually had a chance at being economically viable.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
You have a reading comphrehension problem.
Nope, always tested great on that.
What I have is a troll problem, so STFU and go die, it'll help.
You can't take the sky from me...
eradicate species by the hundreds or thousands
Show us a list of hundreds of thousands of species that have been driven to extinction by hydroelectric damns. Go on.
I raise the same points as another commenter, he's modded "insightful" whereas I'm modded "troll".
"hypocrisy in defense of liberal ideas is no vice." is not an insightfull point. It is a post that is intended to incite controversy or cause offense. You got moderated accordingly. You wanted karma for your trolling? Fortunatly, you didn't get any. Sometimes, the system works.
You can't take the sky from me...
For those of us who have studied chemistry but missed out on that little part, would you tell us exactly HOW a catalytic converter will get rid of CO2 emissions?
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Oh, wait... you mean ANYTHING we do has an impact? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. We can't stand for this! We should all just kill ourselves right now so we no longer have an impact on the earth at all!
Are you mad? Do you have any idea of the ecological impact that would have? Billions of rotting carcases like that would surely...
(For the obtuse among us, that was sarcasm)
Oh! Right then, carry on : )
You can't take the sky from me...
Biodiesel is a great route for disposing of waste fat, make no mistake. And thermal depolymerization is going to be a wonderful system for turning organic waste into valuable products, too. But running our society on them? No, the energy we require is far too great for such inefficient pathways to supply it.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
... is alive and well. There are lots of farms being built currently. It's about time the Northern Hemisphere took resposibility for its current orgy of atmosheric destruction and did the same on a widespread basis.
In all current plans for nuclear fusion powerplants (using neutron producing near future fuels) they include the use of materials like tungsten that are very low in amount of activation. This causes the longest duration radioactive materials to only be hazardous for under 300 years, which is a quite managable life span.
Green energy is still not competitive with fossil fuels, even with the twofold increase in energy prices?
Yeah, that's what I thought..
nonsenese. Windmills are quite attractive IMO. They remind me of a pleasant dutch villages and sleepy villages...
They appear to be gently turning and provide an very pleasant atmosphere.
That's why I don't recycle -- somebody has to look out for future generations. We can't predict what they'll need, so it's best we leave all the stuff we don't need in convenient piles for them.
echo 33676832766569823265328479713269.8639857989Pq | dc
Actually, most industrialized second/third-world countries (for lack of a better term -- think South America, China, India) ALREADY do this :)
There are thousands of people who comb through the dumps of India and southeast Asia for metals and other materials that they can get a small bounty on from re-melters. It's a surprisingly big business in those places. Kind of like the Indian ship-dismantlement yards.
Just as oil scarcity will lead to more and more high-tech, low-yield extraction methods, a high concentration of metals/plastics/whatever in the dumps will inevitably lead to large-scale profitable dumpster-diving in the US.
Don't be dense. You kids are arguing over a definition. "Ground-loop geothermal" is the correct term for what he is referring to. A heat pump with a pipe that circulates water underground to take advantage of the nice, constant temp down there.
This may have changed since you first learned what the word "geothermal" meant, but a quick google would have prevented the confusion.
That was a bit harsher than I intended. You make excellent points all over this article, and I hate to see somebody bogged down arguing over a freaking definition rather than discussing actual issues.
Especially when you're both using valid terms for the same thing.
Sure, some of the carbon in a field comes from the air, but some also comes from the ground. I don't know if people have done the studies on this one or not - the point is we really don't know what the appropriate climate for the planet is. We just know what we like, we know that we don't want to deal with it changing, etc. Also, there's a big difference at the rate of consumption of atmospheric CO2 by the growth of flora versus the rate of release due to combustion. There's also the geographic concerns - growing crops is typically not in the same area where fuel is burned in large quanitites, so there will always be geographic issues with the whole "no net change in CO2" that you suggest.
I'm not discounting that growing crops does use some atmospheric CO2, but I'm not sure that using crops to convert solar energy into fuel is the best use of solar power. It's arguably worse than using oil because of the effects on the land (nitrogen depletion, etc.).
I'm sure there are more aspects to this issue than either of us has covered - but I do laud your observation that growing plants eat up CO2. However, I don't know the size of forests we'd have to grow to make up for the current rate of CO2 production due to combustion.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Tell me how much you're willing to wager, I can use the money.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Reality is not "socially constructed". Public opinion is not going to wish oilseed crops into existence, and it's not going to tolerate cutting down forests and plowing up parks and prairies to get enough acres planted. The change you desire will only come about if it is technically, energetically, ecologically and socially feasible, and you have not established any of the four.
And I speak as the owner of a diesel car who is going to start making his own just as soon as he has the workspace to do it. Here's a dollar, take a ride on the clue bus.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
- The National Biodiesel Board explicitly says that its production capacity is only 150 million gallons per year, with another 200 million potential. At the limit this is less than 1% of road-diesel consumption and about 0.6% of total distillate fuel consumption.
- US production of soybeans in 2004 was 3.15 billion bushels. At a yield of 11.5 pounds per bushel and a guesstimated 7 pounds/gallon, the entire US soybean crop would produce 5.18 billion gallons of soybean oil. You would need roughly 7 times as much production to replace all over-the-road diesel and 12 times as much to replace all distillate fuel oil consumption; I'm not going to waste the time to calculate what it would take to replace motor gasoline (that's your homework, and you're flunking).
You need to stop accepting the unsupported word of farm lobbyists and start using your brain. You also need to learn what "research" means. As in, research the renewable energy technologies and determine which ones yield adequate energy per unit area to support the US economy.Total US acreage of soybeans harvested in 2004 was roughly 74 million acres, or 116,000 square miles. 12 times this is about 1.4 million square miles. Total area of the USA is 3.5 million square miles, so you are talking about planting another 40% of the land area of the USA in soybeans (over and above the area already used for other crops) just to replace distillate fuel oil use.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
You should be borrowing against your property for this improvement. It'll cost you like $50-100/mo (pretax) to service the debt. Coincidentally, you will probably save about $50-100/mo (posttax) in utility bills.
In short, you should be saving money right away, and you should be adding value to your property in the process. Let the bank worry about the fucking opportunity cost because it's their money paying for the thing.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
What is it like internationally? Can anybody direct me to a report/website that will help me understand where the world stands on the use/deployment of renewable sources of energy. Are countries in Europe and Asia doing a better job than the US? Is there any large-scale national level programme to change how power is generated and distributed, or is more of a local initiative?
You haven't supported your billions of barrels of viable oils claim either. Quelle surprise.
Without a shred of support, then or now. Four exchanges since your initial post you still haven't documented that the essential resources (starting with land) exist. I suppose you don't know how. Really? Cite my post and the lobbyist (full URLs for both). Bet you a C-note that you can't. (Emphasis added.) You want to support that only claim? Put a hundred on that too? There's always coal-to-liquids. Take the other bets and I'll put down fifty bucks even-odds that wind power feeding batteries is cheaper per hp-hr at the wheels than biodiesel from virgin oil from any major crop. Solar photovoltaic is catching up, and the amount of power required is well within the limits of what we can generate with sunlight that's wasted on roofs. Efficiency matters; 15% is many times better than you get from higher plants. Oh, like it makes any difference when I'm pointing out that your claims are unsupported and your logic defective. Thanks for illustrating the logical fallacy of the non sequitur. (Two alternatives above.)Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Biodiesel is not unlike ethanol, but without the miserable energetics. It might surprise you that ethanol is way ahead of biodiesel at 2.81 billion gallons in 2003. The only biofuels that have a chance to replace petroleum will come from algae, which are orders of magnitude more efficient than higher plants.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.