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'China Oil Spill'

I must say that while the renewable energy sources have come a long way in my time. That they really are not cost efficient of very practical.. Not to mention getting the country off of oil is next to impossible when almost everything has a form of petroleum distillates in it, or is grown though the use of petroleum products (farming equipment, transported by tractor trailers, and so on). The only real way to cut costs is to start doing stuff by hand like people used to do back in the day... These days as much as I can I ride my bicycle to work, and even that has petroleum products in it, but at least it doesn't burn gas. Just takes tires, chain oil, and bearing grease every thousand miles or so. It will be a rude awakening when we either hit peak oil, and people realize it. Or China's demand outstrips our own and they stop purposely controlling their currencies exchange rate... I really suggest people start waking up and realizing that once oil is gone that the hope of life remaining as it is will not happen. If I wind up being wrong then so be it, but this is just the way I look at things. Cause once oil is gone almost everything we know will be gone. Even if you manage to build nuclear reactors and the like they still require maitenance. Oil is used to lubricate the steam turbines, and other mechanical machinery that are used in maintaining the reactor core. Hopefully someone comes up with a solution to these issues so our children and grandchildren do not have to deal with it. Although you know what the old saying is about hoping with one hand, and deficating in the other which one gets full first.
 
Bjoern said:
Every newly installed solar collector, wave generator or wind turbine lowers the need for energy from non-renewable sources.
Click to expand...

I was perfectly willing to put my money where my mouth is on this very technology. Living in eastern New Mexico in one of the wind corridors on the United States, I seriously investigated the feasibility of installing one or two wind turbines at my home here.

After much research I found that they were highly inefficient and would cost me far more money than they would recoup in lower energy costs. Besides, much of the power already going into my home comes from wind turbine farms, one of which is located a mere twenty miles southwest of my home.

When these alternate technologies become truly cost effective, you won't need any special programs to encourage people to adopt them. People will beat a path down running to get them incorporated into their lives.

I am all for alternative research. I am all for alternative energy sources. What I find objectionable is spending vast sums of money better used elsewhere in order to procure and implement plans not yet ready for operational use.

I also remind everyone, that in the Gulf of Mexico, there are many hundreds of active drilling rigs offshore. I believe given their daily operational safety record, it might be a statistical dead heat between the odds of an accident with them versus the odds of an aviation accident.

Cheers,

Ken
 
Bjoern said:
It's partially government sponsored here, so it's kind of feasible.
Click to expand...

Money is still money. If there is a way to do it then you don't need government. Private citizens will seize the initiative and do it faster and more efficiently.

Cheers,

Ken
 
Government sponsored means they are taking someone elses taxes who most likely didn't want to spend it on solar panels, and giving it to people who want solar panels but can't afford them. Like Ken said once the technology because cost efficient people will be beating the doors down to get them, and won't need government subsidies to sustain it.
 
Government subsidized can also mean something is far too expensive to be viable on its own merits, so tax dollars must be used to make it more appealing. A pig wearing lipstick is still just a pig.

To make alternative energy a viable solution it must be efficient and cost effective.
 
stansdds said:
The movie "China Syndrome" and all those who believe it is a documentary and not a work of fiction have destroyed the hope of the U.S. generating most of its power from nuclear reactors.
Click to expand...

Not entirely. Over the past few years, the power plant engineers and the ultility industry have worked together come up with a single common design for a nuclear power plant. (Before that, there were two designs, and each plant was unique, driving up construction costs.)

This will enable new units to be built at a lower cost, while at the same time be safer because they are all built and operated the same. This is the same approach that was used in France.

Already, several existing nuclear sites have permits in the works to construct these new units, with greenfield sites being possible in the future.

-James
 
Ken Stallings said:
When these alternate technologies become truly cost effective, you won't need any special programs to encourage people to adopt them. People will beat a path down running to get them incorporated into their lives.

I am all for alternative research. I am all for alternative energy sources. What I find objectionable is spending vast sums of money better used elsewhere in order to procure and implement plans not yet ready for operational use.
Click to expand...

Ken Stallings said:
Money is still money. If there is a way to do it then you don't need government. Private citizens will seize the initiative and do it faster and more efficiently.
Click to expand...

If I had a company producing wind turbines I would rather date the Devil than throwing my products out at ridiculously low prices and thus risk the very existence of the company.

It's totally okay that the state helps making the use of renewable energy on a more personal scale more attractive to increase demand and thus fuel the research into more effective ways to do it. :p

You can wait out nearly everything, but as experience tells me, just waiting mostly never helps.
 
I think the automobile is a fine example of how someone coming in and having truly revolutionary ideas and lowering costs enable a product to take off. Before Henry Ford automobiles were a true rarity due to their cost, and many of that era were built by hand. When Henry Ford came along and invented the automotive assembly line, and brought the cost of a car down from thousands of dollars into the couple hundred dollar range people couldn't get enough of them. Ironically Heny Ford's advent of an affordable car for the masses, and oil discoveries/refinement advances at the turn of the century that made gas cheaper is what drove gasoline as being the predominent fuel for transportation. Cause up until that point electric, and steam powered vehicles were fairly popular due to the low availability of gasoline.. So had those 2 advents not happened we may have had a common use fully electric vehicle years ago, or at least a more sustainable transportation structure. Once oil took off though we are now where we are.. The 1970's brought an interest in more efficient means, and reduced dependancy on oil. Once again a reduction in prices killed off interest by the masses in those efforts. I would say once somebody comes in, and as much as I hate the word, "revolutionizes" the way these renewable energy sources are produced, and their output. We will then see a large movement to purchase, and utilize these products.
 
Excellent link Bjoern, I actually listened to 20 minutes of Bill Gates...
It seems such a complete and absolute No Brainer
Develop clean power technologies that are more efficient and cheaper than burning fossil fuels.
No climate skeptic can argue about this, and if co-incidentally you fix the CO2 emissions problem, and also eat up all previous nuclear waste, well, you've saved the planet too.
Go, Bill, I have shares in your suitcase nuke company and I'm going to make a lot of money from it. ;)
 
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