Would you support renewable no matter what the climate does?

[ScienceRocks]

Would you support renewables no matter what the climate does? Yes, as I feel wind, solar and wave energy have a place and must be developed. Honestly, I feel there's a market for it and climate plays no part in my support for it.

Electric cars=
Lower imports from the middle east

Solar, wind, wave=energy we don't have to pound out of the ground. Making it easier.

 

[techieny]

Yeah sure!

 

[Mr. H.]

I support renewables regardless. I just don't support them at the expense of other industries.

 

[skookerasbil]

Far too expensive and not competitive in this country. Not even debatable anymore. Natural gas is where it's gonna be at for at least the next 25 years.......as well as clean coal. Wind and solar are 20th century technologies.

Graphs like this absolutely kill the k00ks..........but it is what it is. There are about 1,000 similar graphs out there.

 

[Mr. H.]

That graph hasn't changed much over the years.
Nor will it in the future.

 

[skookerasbil]

That graph hasn't changed much over the years.
Nor will it in the future.

Not according to the bubble people.

 

[Oddball]

Solar, wind, wave=energy we don't have to pound out of the ground. Making it easier.

ORLY?

Where do you think the taconite and coke for the steel to build the towers for those goofy windmills comes from?

Where do you suppose we'll get the copper for the windings in the electrical armatures?

All those moving parts need lubrication...Where do you imagine all that oil and grease is going to come from?

Will the silicon and cadmium for solar panels manufacture itself?

 

[freedombecki]

Solar, wind, wave=energy we don't have to pound out of the ground. Making it easier.

ORLY?

Where do you think the taconite and coke for the steel to build the towers for those goofy windmills comes from?

Where do you suppose we'll get the copper for the windings in the electrical armatures?

All those moving parts need lubrication...Where do you imagine all that oil and grease is going to come from?

Will the silicon and cadmium for solar panels manufacture itself?

So far, you've mentioned the half that makes harnessing these difficult energy customers expensive. You should hear engineers talk about "energy inefficiency" of the monumentally elusive splurges of waste in and near where green artifacts are supposed to be doing the job of supplying man with unlimited power!

Unfortunately, the electrical engineering vocabulary is so specialized, many Green enthusiasts have their extreme negativism on ignore, and hucksters are quick to take advantage of this capacity for intellectual omission in the rob-the-treasury equation for routing public taxpayers' money where the quantity makes them quiver with covetous longing.

Just sayin'

We're talking that for the 100% of the inflow of energy, there is output of 5% on a good day. IOW, Green energy is a big FAIL. And why should taxpayers have to be forking over billions and billions of dollars to pour into failed enterprises that are still using the same theories to create more efficiency failure than we can even wrap our heads around.

 

[flacaltenn]

Would you support renewables no matter what the climate does? Yes, as I feel wind, solar and wave energy have a place and must be developed. Honestly, I feel there's a market for it and climate plays no part in my support for it.

Electric cars=
Lower imports from the middle east

Solar, wind, wave=energy we don't have to pound out of the ground. Making it easier.

I support sound design, good engineering and results.. Renewables have a place in all that. But I imagine that place is OFF-GRID pumping out stored energy products like hydrogen, desalinized water and biofuels..

You can't run an advanced civilization with statistically flaky sources of power. When we accept those better renewable ideas as SUPPLEMENTS and not replacements for primary sources of power and APPLY them properly --- I'll fully support that...

 

[westwall]

I agree with Flacaltenn, when renewables become more efficient than the energy systems they wish to replace they will replace them. Until that time they are a drag on the economy and on scientific research because there really is no need (the way they are subsidized) to get any better.

 

[flacaltenn]

I agree with Flacaltenn, when renewables become more efficient than the energy systems they wish to replace they will replace them. Until that time they are a drag on the economy and on scientific research because there really is no need (the way they are subsidized) to get any better.

Besides -- you've DEMONSTRATED your good GREEN heart by your DEEDS. You are like a Knight of Econauts.. Flaunt those things --- it gets you street cred....

Heck they don't even NEED to compete for efficiency with existing sources of electricity. All we have to do is PLACE THEM in appropriate jobs.. NOT as a primary source of 24/7/365 power...

Kudos to Becki for sticking to the Engineering and Design issues. I'm one of those engineers not impressed with one time record numbers for wind production.. Doesn't mean it's time to tear down any coal, nat gas, or nuclear plants ----- OR blow up a major dam..

 

[freedombecki]

I agree with Flacaltenn, when renewables become more efficient than the energy systems they wish to replace they will replace them. Until that time they are a drag on the economy and on scientific research because there really is no need (the way they are subsidized) to get any better.

Besides -- you've DEMONSTRATED your good GREEN heart by your DEEDS. You are like a Knight of Econauts.. Flaunt those things --- it gets you street cred....

Heck they don't even NEED to compete for efficiency with existing sources of electricity. All we have to do is PLACE THEM in appropriate jobs.. NOT as a primary source of 24/7/365 power...

Kudos to Becki for sticking to the Engineering and Design issues. I'm one of those engineers not impressed with one time record numbers for wind production.. Doesn't mean it's time to tear down any coal, nat gas, or nuclear plants ----- OR blow up a major dam..

Thanks, Flacal. When Oddball punts ya the puck, you just gotta hit it with the truth stick, don't you?

Actually, I know this because my husband was for many years divisional power engineer for a western utility that was interested in trying everything. After one of the first power windmills was erected near a little remote town name of Medicine Bow, it did squat until the company, frustrated, tried to sell this million-buck investment to the highest bidder, because its maintenance cost was a bazillion times higher than its output, so they accepted a $10,000 sole bid by one of my husband's engineering society buds, who thought "Oh, free power for life..." <wah-wah-trumpet>
Unfortunately, he should have tried to sell it for scrap metal. One month, it only saved him $4.10 off his electricity bill! He learned to be careful of what you buy, it may not be all it's cracked up to be, and he brought it up regularly at their professional engineering society meetings.

There is something those who are engineers interested in doing the world a green favor: to improve the energy efficiency of fossil fuels, namely coal and gas. There is loss between ignition and output, and there's the rub: that could be hugely advantageous to use to the fullest extent what you already have.

That's where biosavings would bless the earth the most and keep people in the comfort and convenience of having electricity to run computers, air-conditioners, heaters, kitchen equipment, power tools, and even automatic lawnmowers.

When you hear the word "batteries," I hope the hackles on people's necks stand up. Their life ends at some point, and battery discards have such highly toxic substances in their makeup they should not be an option for automobiles UNLESS our best and brightest tackle the poison problem. Since I've not followed the progress in the last few years, maybe someone has already fixed the problem, unless that's why my mouse batteries have to be changed every 3 weeks or so. If that is a fix, I think the little 6-month life batteries need a comeback.

 

[flacaltenn]

MARK THAT POST ^^^^^^^

It's a testament to the REALITY of trying to FORCE renewables into places they probably shouldn't be.

And certainly, we are underestimating the waste stream from leveraging battery tech into vehicles and temporary "smoothing" of wind/solar output.. It's an enviro nightmare that we will be facing in 10 years or so. While we fret about the 1/2 life of nuclear waste, CHEMICAL waste is forever...

 

[Katzndogz]

While renewable energy sources MIGHT someday be useful, they aren't today so I would not support forced development of renewable energy under any circumstances.

 

[freedombecki]

While renewable energy sources MIGHT someday be useful, they aren't today so I would not support forced development of renewable energy under any circumstances.

If only we could get it across to the brainwashed Congresscritters that their investment of our money has resulted in nothing but trouble, which it was before jumping into its shrapnel-laden waters headfirst, while trying to use our tax money to float their childrens' failed companies with it, which of course didn't work. Well, they walked away with all their money, leaving taxpayers holding the bag, because that's what the criminal left figured would happen after reviewing all the data.

The left has caused a lot of hurt by not paying attention to people in the industry with experience in the fields they seek to exploit, filling their own pockets first, and voters have haddit with them.

/shaking head

 

[LOki]

Absolutely.

In three generations people will not believe that instead of using fossil resources to make advanced polymers inexpensively, we chose instead to literally set them on fire.

 

[Grandma]

There's no such thing as One Size Fits All.

Windmills are a great source of energy - in places that get lots of wind and aren't in bird migration zones.

Solar power is wonderful - in places that get lots of sun.

I've seen both applied in the wrong places. But even where windmills are viable, why is there just one type - those mega giant huge ugly things? Why aren't there smaller ones on the market for smaller communities or farms? Where are the horizontal windmills?

Coal is declining. It is not going to last forever. It may well not last throughout our lifetimes. Even with mountaintop destruction it's expensive to mine and transport, and the clean coal factories don't operate cheaply.

If there were lots and lots of natural gas, why is fracking necessary? Why do they have to extract it from shale instead of from wells? Because there aren't any more wells?

Is anyone burning shit? Farms have an awful lot of manure, why aren't more farm communities powering up with methane?

 

[polarbear]

Absolutely.

In three generations people will not believe that instead of using fossil resources to make advanced polymers inexpensively, we chose instead to literally set them on fire.

I understand You sincere concerns, but as a (retired) chemical (& military) engineer I have to inform You, hopefully You don`t take it the wrong way that "we" don`t burn the crude oil fraction which is used to make polymers...!
That stopped after almost all refineries in the western ( & free market ) countries quit simple crude oil distillation and tarred our roads with what was left behind. Except for countries like China and so on who really don`t give a damn about the environment. I read not just the U.S. newspapers but also all the main European news and have seen all this "big oil" bashing especially so (again) in the count down to Your election in the U.S....about the "dirty oil"...the Keystone pipeline that Mitt Romney wants to green light to bring our Alberta Oil directly to Your refineries in Texas...

Northern pipelines.wmv - YouTube


Instead of Americans buying oil from rather rogue States who have as little regard for the environment as for human rights. In Canada we have now a conservative majority Government after many years of way left of center Liberal Government that paid a lot of lip service to the environment, raised gasoline taxes and built wind mill farms...in short copied what Germany has done and long since found out that the only way to make these work is at a huge environmental impact and co$t

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2H38UpdQhM&list=UUvj7dbOY14kt_MFIR1Y1iwA&index=28&feature=plcp"]How Climate Science destroyed Germany.wmv - YouTube[/ame]

This is the only way wind and solar can serve as a power on demand grid as the industry and Your house hold needs it. To do that You can`t just build wind mills and hook these up to a main power grid...but as You can see in the video there is way more to it. Non-engineers just can`t understand what it takes to phase in a large generator to a grid at precisely the right phase angle so that the generator does not pose a load but adds power to the main grid. To do that when wind and solar fluctuates the only way to adapt "renewable energy" was by decapitating most of the world famous black forest hill tops to install huge water storage basins that run hydro-electric turbines from the water that wind and solar "farms" pump up there when they supply power when there is no use for it, but can`t supply when there is at peak demand times. In addition to that entire mountain regions have been tunneled like Swiss cheese at astronomical costs...hydro rates in Germany have gone up just this week by another whopping 47 % to finance this "green power" insanity.
I grew up in a well to do neighborhood, mostly lawyers, surgeons, investment brokers,...and so and ....

My "hood" in Landsberg.wmv - YouTube

and they are the only ones with expensive solar arrays on their rooftops...something not too many people with "Jo the plumber" jobs could afford..and who are being hurt severely by all these "green taxes" on regular fuel and electricity. My friend Stephan who drives that nice vintage Ford Mustang is a (very rich) stock broker, drives only exotic gas guzzlers and made a fortune in solar and wind energy investments, courtesy of the "enviro- conscious" taxpayer who is being told to drive expensive and silly electric toy-cars that can`t even make it from Landsberg to the nearby Oktoberfest in Munich. He has been laughing all the way to the bank ever since this crap got started in earnest...now even more so with the new "Carbon Credit" trade.
But hey despite that we are still good friends and they all send me (video) birthday greetings like that every year.

Canada`s PM Stephen Harper is quite a bit more right wing than Mitt Romney will ever be...but I do know for a fact that the "right wing" has it right...I know for a fact because I did work for environment Canada as a research Chemist during the years when Canada signed the Kyoto accord..and made a complete joke out of this department...it was in short order staffed no longer by scientists but a bunch of left wing radical political hacks with huge budgets.
Our "Oil lobby right wing Government" has been doing and is planning to do...

weird,... the screenshots show up in the editor window, but not in the post preview...well no matter, it`s getting late and I`ll call it a day


Now just to show You an example what the "Green party NDP and the left wing Liberals have done...a video I made today when I drove to Minnedosa to have my income tax done shows what I meant by that
Minnedosa Manitoba - YouTube

15 years ago they built a heavily (tax) subsidized "Bio-fuel" plant in this charming Prairie town...and it`s thee biggest polluter for miles and miles around, fogging and stinking up the entire river valley...but the management drives "politically correct" cars and the "gophers" run their errands in thee most ridiculous "pick up trucks" that I have ever seen.
The "Bio-fuel" Ethanol plants in North Dakota and Minnesota are even way more messy than this one. Go there and check in their backyard where the hopper trucks dump the corn down the chutes...You won`t like the stench and the rats...and quite often You can`t see what`s in front of You on I-29 when You pass by there. It`s completely fogged in on colder days just like Minnedosa or Gimli.
The energy budget for this Ethanol"fuel" is also beyond ridiculous if You factor in the fertilizer, the tractor fuel, the fuel for the hopper trucks that bring the corn and how much energy is required to distill 1 liter of fuel grade ethanol. But hey Obama won`t shut these down,...we will soon in Canada.

Do like one of the GOP TV ads says "I`m an energy voter" and don`t fall for 4 more years of the same (Democrat) crap that Germans want to get rid off , they found out after it was too late...and if Obama gets re-elected You may some day too..
But hey...it`s Your soup and I know time will prove that American engineers will come to the same conclusion as German engineers who had been rail-roaded when the likes of "green Peace" and other ***.orgs foisted all these green energy pipe dreams on the German tax payers.
By the way German engineers have been making synthetic fuel big time during WW2...but that is taboo "Nazi technology"...which was called project "Blech Hammer". It converted coal into high grade Diesel and high octane gasoline. The only country which did it again after WW2 was South Africa when it was under a world wide boycott for human rights violations.
All it takes is coal, limestone, electricity and water...from that You can also make all the starting materials for all the oil based polymers.
Ca +2C===> CaC2 (Calcium Carbide) +H2O===> HCCH (Acetylene )==>( @ 400 C & "copper wool" catalyst)===> C6H6 (Benzene) and that You can already use as jet or diesel fuel or crack & extend to octane or cetane...or any carbon chain length You please. "Blech Hammer" has even made the world`s first synthetic rubber...check You war history records. Allied bomber command had the motto "every bomb landing on Blech Hammer means no rubber tires for Messerschmidt fighter planes"
That ("Blech Hammer") will be thee energy source of the future...the same energy source from Germany`s darkest past,...that powered German Blitzkrieg tanks, Stuka`s and the famed ME-262 jet fighter.
Not "wind or solar power" or any of theses silly "bio fuels" ,...mark my word

 

[Skull Pilot]

I support renewables regardless. I just don't support them at the expense of other industries.

Or at taxpayer expense.

If you want to put up a solar panel be my guest but there should be no tax credits for doing it.

 

[Mr. H.]

I support renewables regardless. I just don't support them at the expense of other industries.

Or at taxpayer expense.

If you want to put up a solar panel be my guest but there should be no tax credits for doing it.

Well, I support tax credits for the end user- residential, small commercial.

But not to the manufacturer. And I don't support the manufacture of alternatives/renewables components financed with money that is taxed away from the producers of hydrocarbons.