Cuyo
Training a Guineapig army
Dirty coal burners, if you believe there is such a thing as clean energy you should prove it, if you can believe in clean energy you should believe we can make clean coal energy.
If Los Angeles is going to have Clean Energy they should be required to have the coal plant that provides the energy to make the hundreds of thousands of tons of fiberglass, cement, steel, copper, magnesium, aluminum, used to make your Clean Energy.
The energy in coal is ancient sunlight, and it's running out. Oil - Same thing. Even if your a climate change denier, you should still be concerned about what happens to the global economy - And food supply - When we push beyond peak of both.
Than you should be concerned about green energy that uses Oil disproportionate to the energy produced. You ever consider the worlds largest Solar Power plant uses the worlds largest amount of natural resources to build.
Energy companies have a long history of research investment. They should be able to research technologies that are the most promising not the most mandated.
If Los Angeles mandates green energy, they should build the coal burning power plants that supply the power to the plants that manufacture Polycrystalline silicon, from what I understand, Green Energy is unable to provide the large amount of power required.
If you think we are running out of oil and coal why use oil and coal at a faster rate producing Polycrystalline silicon for solar panels, use the energy directly, it makes no sense to burn coal in china and marvel at how clean the end product is or be astonished that it produces a little electricity when you used a lot to produce it.
If mandated, they become most profitable, not?
I understand what you're saying. Yes, there's a reasonable chance that markets will eventually solve this problem on their own. But they don't seem to be in any terrible rush to do so as long as FF's continue to be just so damn profitable.
I'm not saying solar is automatically the answer, nor that it doesn't take a lot of energy to produce them. But it does appear from various sources that the energy payback is 1-7 years for a solar panel. In other words, after 1-7 years (depending on who you ask) you've generated the energy you expended on building the panel; Everything beyond that is found energy. Life expectancy of the panel 20-30 years.
It's a little like buying a hybrid vehicle; sure you spend the extra money up front, but ultimately you save money due to the lower fuel consumption. I suspect where we part ways on the issue is whether or not the government should incentivise either scenario, and I believe it should.