Pages: 1 ... 37 38 [39] 40 41 ... 107   Go Down

Author Topic: The American Constitution  (Read 137802 times)

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #760 on: June 25, 2019, 07:45:53 am »

You need a combination of alternative energy generation and storage.

1. Putting the solar panels of the house roofs and feeding the electrical energy into large batteries in the garage would alleviate (at least partially) the need to carry the energy over long distances.

2. Adding thermal batteries in the backyard could help in cooling and heating the house.

3. More efficient house design and better wall and window insulation would help, too.

The cumulative effect of just these 3 approaches might help a great deal.

This is all true, however it only works for single family homes with large roofs and backyards.  The majority of people today live in cities, and the trends are showing this is increasing, with little roof space per capita and pretty much zero space for thermal batteries.  Additionally, manufacturing uses significantly more energy than a residence, and the available roof space of a plant would not be able to hold enough solar panels to generate the electricity it needs, let alone produce it consistently.  So, if you really want to get rid of fossil fuels I would suggest you stop living in a fairly land and start thinking about nuclear, the only other base load power supply other than fossil fuels. 

Second, those solar roof panels only work, in terms of price, because the government has implemented both tax breaks to manufacturers and rebates to purchasers.  They would not be able to stand on there own without those. 

Third, and this is something I am surprised many environmentalist ignore, is the environmental impact.  Wind and solar farms need to be clear cut, which destroys natural habitats.  Wind mills kill large bird, many of which are threatened or endangered.  Solar panels cant be recycled (I know they are trying to figure this out in Europe, but no one has come up with a solution yet) and are usually put into land fills at their end of life.  They have high concentrations of lead, cadmium and other other toxic elements, which never loose the toxicity. 

Last, batteries are very inefficient.  When you charge a battery only to use the power later, you loose 20% to 40% of the power depending on the age, design of the battery and the length of time between charging and usage.  A modern electrical grid, powered with a base load power source, is a much better option since you are not loosing energy due to storage. 
« Last Edit: June 25, 2019, 08:21:04 am by JoeKitchen »
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

Robert Roaldi

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4918
    • Robert's Photos
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #761 on: June 25, 2019, 08:02:24 am »

This is all true, however it only works for single family homes with large roofs and backyards.  The majority of people today live in cities, and the trends are showing this is increasing, with little roof space per capita and pretty much zero space for thermal batteries.  Additionally, manufacturing uses significantly more energy than a residence, and the available roof space of a plant would not be able to hold enough solar panels to generate the electricity it needs, let alone produce it consistently.  So, if you really want to get rid of fossil fuels I would suggest you stop living in a fairly land and start thinking about nuclear, the only other base load power supply other than fossil fuels. 

Second, those solar roof panels only work, in terms of price, because the government has implemented both tax breaks to manufacturers and rebates to purchasers.  They would not be able to stand on there own without those. 

Third, and this is something I am surprised many environmentalist ignore, is the environmental impact.  Wind and solar farms need to be clear cut, which destroys natural habitats.  Wind mills kill large bird, many of which are threatened or endangered.  Solar panels cant be recycled (I know they are trying to figure this out in Europe, but no one has come up with a solution yet) and are usually put into land fills at their end of life.  They have high concentrations of lead, cadmium and other other toxic elements, which never loose the toxicity. 

Last, batteries are very inefficient.  When you charge a battery only to use the power later, you loose 20% to 40% of the power depending on the age and design of the battery.  A modern electrical grid is a much better option since you are not loosing energy due to storage.


No one is living in a "fairy land", solar & wind are not expected by anyone to be total replacements for other methods of power generation. They will be useful in those places in which they are useful. Why do we keep having to repeat this.

As for tax subsidies of solar and wind, of what industry is that more true than of nuclear? And I am someone who is in favour of nuclear, we should be using it. Why does no one ever calculate the subsidies to Big Oil? Free market arguments don't apply, none of these society-wide technologies would ever be implemented by any corporation or group of corporations. They all require public input and wider research, things that only public bodies would ever undertake. This is a non-argument.

The re-use of discarded panels is a real issue. But so are abandoned oil and gas wells (90,000 of them in Alberta alone) so please let's not pretend this is a new problem. And clear-cutting never bothered anyone who wanted cheap lumber, so far as I can tell.

All technologies have cost and benefits, what else is new?

Logged
--
Robert

LesPalenik

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5338
    • advantica blog
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #762 on: June 25, 2019, 08:06:59 am »

Thanks for the interesting and valuable information, Joe. It can get indeed very complex.

However, there are a few good stories:
Apple Park's huge roof is covered completely with solar panels, and one of their solar farms is in desolate country near the town of Yerington, Nevada with low population of birds and animals. Apple with all their facilities  is now running 100% on the green energy.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40554151/how-apple-got-to-100-renewable-energy-the-right-way
Logged

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #763 on: June 25, 2019, 08:19:30 am »


No one is living in a "fairy land", solar & wind are not expected by anyone to be total replacements for other methods of power generation. They will be useful in those places in which they are useful. Why do we keep having to repeat this.

As for tax subsidies of solar and wind, of what industry is that more true than of nuclear? And I am someone who is in favour of nuclear, we should be using it. Why does no one ever calculate the subsidies to Big Oil? Free market arguments don't apply, none of these society-wide technologies would ever be implemented by any corporation or group of corporations. They all require public input and wider research, things that only public bodies would ever undertake. This is a non-argument.

The re-use of discarded panels is a real issue. But so are abandoned oil and gas wells (90,000 of them in Alberta alone) so please let's not pretend this is a new problem. And clear-cutting never bothered anyone who wanted cheap lumber, so far as I can tell.

All technologies have cost and benefits, what else is new?

So most of this argument is, "hey we did it before with this industry, so why not with wind and solar?" 

Kind of like China saying, "you guys polluted the world with fossil fuels, now it's our turn!" 

Yes, solar will be useful on roofs, but clear cutting land for a very dilute and intermittent form of energy is foolish.  Same thing with wind, not to mention regardless of where a wind mill is placed, they will always be a threat to birds. 

By the way, yes, without tax subsidies, fossils fuels would have continued to grow in use.  Wind and solar are such an expensive form of energy, they would not be here today without both subsidies and rebates.  The only reason Nuclear is so expensive right now is the government red tape; literally if any other power source needed to deal with the amount of red tape nuclear does, nothing would ever get built.  I would argue if you removed this red tape, nuclear would be a good option for private companies to invest in creating new innovations as well, just like private companies did at the advent of oil, coal and natural gas industry.  Also, nothing is yet standardized; most of all nuclear plants are one off designs, which makes them expensive. 

It is simply not the case that governments need to fund innovations.  I don't know where you came up with this.  in late 1800s, the innovations with oil and gas where all privately funded.  The government tried to fund air exploration in the 1890s, but the privately funded Wright Brothers beat the government to it.  There are plenty of other examples. 

Lumber companies are required to replant trees, not to mention it makes business sense to do so.  And even if they did not, the land would naturally reforest itself (albeit over a longer period of time).  Wind and solar farms remain clear cut lands for the duration of their use.  Even if the land was abandoned, the amount of concrete used would make it much harder for natural reforestation to happen since the concrete would need to decay first.  No concrete, or other forms of land development, is used during lumber explorations.  Although this was not previously true, lumber companies only harvest the old growth trees, which are more spotty and distributed throughout the forest just due to over harvesting in decades past.  Young trees are not worth harvesting and left in place, so not everything is destroyed. 

On top of this, many wind and solar farms are being built in deserts, which there are fewer of and take significantly longer to return to nature.  Contrary to popular belief, deserts are not empty of life, and nearly all desert animals die when being moved to a new habitat, even if it is relocated to a different spot in the same desert. 

Last, all energy sources have cost and benifits.  But with wind and solar, the cost are a lot more and the benefits are pretty small. 
« Last Edit: June 25, 2019, 08:34:44 am by JoeKitchen »
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #764 on: June 25, 2019, 08:47:51 am »

Thanks for the interesting and valuable information, Joe. It can get indeed very complex.

However, there are a few good stories:
Apple Park's huge roof is covered completely with solar panels, and one of their solar farms is in desolate country near the town of Yerington, Nevada with low population of birds and animals. Apple with all their facilities  is now running 100% on the green energy.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40554151/how-apple-got-to-100-renewable-energy-the-right-way

Thanks for the article.  I was only able to skim it right now. 

As stated before, putting wind and solar farms in deserts still destroys natural habitats of animals that do not fair well at all of being relocated. 

I would love to know at the exact size of the farms they are using and how much land was destroyed to make these farms.  Also, how much total energy is Apple using and what percentage of this is the total amount of energy used in CA?  How many times more energy is the entire state of CA using than Apple headquarters?  After multiplying this by the total size of Apple's energy farms, how much land would that be?  What percentage of the size of CA would that amount of land take up?  See where I am getting at here. 

Last, is Apple using all green energy for their manufacturing overseas, and are all mining and refining processes by third parties using green energy?  If not, and I suspect this is the case, they are not really 100% green energy are they?  They are actually using green energy only for their headquarters, which has a much smaller energy requirement then mining, refining and manufacturing. 
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

RSL

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16119
    • http://www.russ-lewis.com
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #765 on: June 25, 2019, 08:58:09 am »

Storage is the least of the worries!  Production is the biggest. 
Nuclear is it.

Exactly, Joe. but because of "The China Syndrome," since 1979 the left, including the news media, has been deathly afraid of nuclear. The lousy reporting on the Three Mile Island meltdown, which happened the same year, and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, neither of which resulted in a single injury from radiation, people are even more frightened. In between we had a demonstration of Russian incompetence at Chernobyl that resulted in widespread contamination and death. More fright.

Nuclear can solve all of our energy production problems if Hollywood will get smarter, but I'm not going to hold my breath until that happens.

But even unlimited production capability won't get you five hundred miles down the road. We need a way to store energy the same way fossil fuels store energy. It's probably gotta be something besides batteries, though there may be huge breakthroughs in battery technology somewhere down the line. Thee's a lot of work going on in that field. But it's gotta be relatively inexpensive, unlike gas prices in California at the moment. Replacing batteries in current electric cars is almost like buying a new car. That ain't gonna cut it.
Logged
Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

OmerV

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 513
    • Photographs
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #766 on: June 25, 2019, 09:38:54 am »

Exactly, Joe. but because of "The China Syndrome," since 1979 the left, including the news media, has been deathly afraid of nuclear. The lousy reporting on the Three Mile Island meltdown, which happened the same year, and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, neither of which resulted in a single injury from radiation, people are even more frightened. In between we had a demonstration of Russian incompetence at Chernobyl that resulted in widespread contamination and death. More fright.

Nuclear can solve all of our energy production problems if Hollywood will get smarter, but I'm not going to hold my breath until that happens.

But even unlimited production capability won't get you five hundred miles down the road. We need a way to store energy the same way fossil fuels store energy. It's probably gotta be something besides batteries, though there may be huge breakthroughs in battery technology somewhere down the line. Thee's a lot of work going on in that field. But it's gotta be relatively inexpensive, unlike gas prices in California at the moment. Replacing batteries in current electric cars is almost like buying a new car. That ain't gonna cut it.

The Japanese didn’t have a nuclear catastrophe probably because the plant was built with government regulations. The libertarian view of unregulated business always seems to conveniently omit the very real human capacity for greed and corruption.

But hey, no one will stop you and Joe from moving next door to an unregulated/self-regulated nuclear power plant. Let us know how it goes, alright?

jeremyrh

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2514
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #767 on: June 25, 2019, 09:46:04 am »

It is simply not the case that governments need to fund innovations.

You’re typing that on the internet, right?
Logged

RSL

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16119
    • http://www.russ-lewis.com
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #768 on: June 25, 2019, 09:56:15 am »

The Japanese didn’t have a nuclear catastrophe probably because the plant was built with government regulations.

ROTFL! So you believe Chernobyl wasn't?
Logged
Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

Robert Roaldi

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4918
    • Robert's Photos
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #769 on: June 25, 2019, 10:31:34 am »

Exactly, Joe. but because of "The China Syndrome," since 1979 the left, including the news media, has been deathly afraid of nuclear. The lousy reporting on the Three Mile Island meltdown, which happened the same year, and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, neither of which resulted in a single injury from radiation, people are even more frightened. In between we had a demonstration of Russian incompetence at Chernobyl that resulted in widespread contamination and death. More fright.

Nuclear can solve all of our energy production problems if Hollywood will get smarter, but I'm not going to hold my breath until that happens.

But even unlimited production capability won't get you five hundred miles down the road. We need a way to store energy the same way fossil fuels store energy. It's probably gotta be something besides batteries, though there may be huge breakthroughs in battery technology somewhere down the line. Thee's a lot of work going on in that field. But it's gotta be relatively inexpensive, unlike gas prices in California at the moment. Replacing batteries in current electric cars is almost like buying a new car. That ain't gonna cut it.

You might be crediting Hollywood with more power than they actually have.

Your comments about price of electric technology is confusing. It's usually conservatives who trust that innovation will always disrupt things, something with which it's hard to disagree. Except when the so-called "left" is in favour of some disruption, then it's bad, I guess.

People often point to the price of new technologies, citing that as evidence (or maybe even proof?) that it holds no promise. It wasn't that long ago that people were saying that "full-frame" sensors would never become mainstream because of wafer failure rates (etc.). Since when has new technology been cheap or reliable out of the gate?

Some of the promises about solar/wind won't pan out, some will.

If the price of gasoline doubles or triples in the medium term (5-10 years, say) electric cars will become much more viable, regardless of the price of a replacement battery. They likely will not be useful in pulling your sailboat down the interstate, but a low-maintenance e-car with reasonable range (200 km) will look awfully good to someone who is not within walking distance of a grocery store or their dentist. This is already the case for many people. If the price of gasoline does double or triple, it will mean major changes, because a lot of people will at that point stop buying gasoline-engined cars. What would be the point of buying something you can't afford to operate. But of course there will be applications where the high stored energy properties of fossil fuels will be advantageous for years to come.

Is there any sensible reason why discussions of technology roll-out need to be laced with current-day infantile black vs white political debate? Surely the need for virtue signalling is merely ego-related. The perception that solar/wind is a "lefty" idea (not true) is enough to denigrate them, end of discussion. We can do better than this, folks.

In any case, the opinions of a few entrenched people on a photo forum are irrelevant. All over the planet people are spending tons of cash implementing those very technologies that you claim can't work.


Logged
--
Robert

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #770 on: June 25, 2019, 10:36:38 am »

It is simply not the case that governments need to fund innovations.

You’re typing that on the internet, right?

Hey, I never said that some industries did not arise from government investment, only that most industries did not.  Furthermore, the amount of times government got it wrong is much larger then when they got it right.  A broken clock is right twice a day, right? 

Anyway, it was not really until Cisco (a private company) entered the realm that the Internet really took off. 
« Last Edit: June 25, 2019, 10:48:02 am by JoeKitchen »
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #771 on: June 25, 2019, 10:47:47 am »

You might be crediting Hollywood with more power than they actually have.

Your comments about price of electric technology is confusing. It's usually conservatives who trust that innovation will always disrupt things, something with which it's hard to disagree. Except when the so-called "left" is in favour of some disruption, then it's bad, I guess.

People often point to the price of new technologies, citing that as evidence (or maybe even proof?) that it holds no promise. It wasn't that long ago that people were saying that "full-frame" sensors would never become mainstream because of wafer failure rates (etc.). Since when has new technology been cheap or reliable out of the gate?

Some of the promises about solar/wind won't pan out, some will.

If the price of gasoline doubles or triples in the medium term (5-10 years, say) electric cars will become much more viable, regardless of the price of a replacement battery. They likely will not be useful in pulling your sailboat down the interstate, but a low-maintenance e-car with reasonable range (200 km) will look awfully good to someone who is not within walking distance of a grocery store or their dentist. This is already the case for many people. If the price of gasoline does double or triple, it will mean major changes, because a lot of people will at that point stop buying gasoline-engined cars. What would be the point of buying something you can't afford to operate. But of course there will be applications where the high stored energy properties of fossil fuels will be advantageous for years to come.

Is there any sensible reason why discussions of technology roll-out need to be laced with current-day infantile black vs white political debate? Surely the need for virtue signalling is merely ego-related. The perception that solar/wind is a "lefty" idea (not true) is enough to denigrate them, end of discussion. We can do better than this, folks.

In any case, the opinions of a few entrenched people on a photo forum are irrelevant. All over the planet people are spending tons of cash implementing those very technologies that you claim can't work.

The left really wants wind and solar to work, which are by their very nature, impossible to make work on a large scale.  This is a natural problem of the diluteness and intermittency of the energy, not a problem of technologies.  We have already far past the inflection point of the advances in wind and solar; future gains will be very small.  Innovation insofar as energy production is flat lining for wind and solar.  Wind and solar are doomed by their nature and every one (right or left) who takes a thorough look at them comes to this conclusion.  Even top environmentalist are preaching this.  The left keeps on pushing it down our throat even though the technology will never work.  Not really an apples to oranges comparison when talking about what the left wants versus what the right wants. 

Funning you should bring up sensor technology when talking about government investments in new technologies.  How much government investment was put into Kodak when they developed the first sensor?  How much government investment was put into Sony when they brought their technology to fruition? 

Insofar as battery powered electric cars, this is another technology that will fail.  Hydrogen fuel-cell, being heavily researched by Toyota (a private company and the number one hyrbid car manufacturer) will more then likely replace battery powered vehicles just due to pure convenience of not needing to be charged over a long period of time.  On top of this, when gas gets as expensive as you say, making bio-fuel will become profitable.  Since there is already an in ground pipe infrastructure to transport gasoline, changing over to bio-fuels will be very easy and painless.  This will be made even easier when the investment is there from private companies to come up with technologies to figure out how to extract bio-oils from algae, which can grow pretty much any where extremely fast and are very oil rich.  The price of gasoline is too low for it to be worth investing the money, but when it does, I feel this will be the next transportation technology. 
« Last Edit: June 25, 2019, 10:58:05 am by JoeKitchen »
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #772 on: June 25, 2019, 10:52:24 am »

Exactly, Joe. but because of "The China Syndrome," since 1979 the left, including the news media, has been deathly afraid of nuclear. The lousy reporting on the Three Mile Island meltdown, which happened the same year, and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, neither of which resulted in a single injury from radiation, people are even more frightened. In between we had a demonstration of Russian incompetence at Chernobyl that resulted in widespread contamination and death. More fright.

Nuclear can solve all of our energy production problems if Hollywood will get smarter, but I'm not going to hold my breath until that happens.

But even unlimited production capability won't get you five hundred miles down the road. We need a way to store energy the same way fossil fuels store energy. It's probably gotta be something besides batteries, though there may be huge breakthroughs in battery technology somewhere down the line. Thee's a lot of work going on in that field. But it's gotta be relatively inexpensive, unlike gas prices in California at the moment. Replacing batteries in current electric cars is almost like buying a new car. That ain't gonna cut it.

This is an unfortunate reality. 

I predict that we will go down the wind and solar rabbit hole in this country, seeing massive increases the price of energy along with ever growing increases in our carbon emissions (from the additional base load fossil fuel plants built to produce energy the 70% to 90% of the time when wind/solar cant) for a couple of decades.  Then, one day someone here will look at France and say, "hey, they get 95% of their electricity from nuclear, they have never had an accident and their electricity is really really cheap, the cheapest in Europe actually.  Maybe, just maybe ..." 

I only hope it takes just a couple of decades, not 4 or 5 until we get it. 
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

faberryman

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4851
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #773 on: June 25, 2019, 10:55:19 am »

The left really wants wind and solar to work, which are by their very nature, impossible to make work on a large scale.  This is a natural problem of the diluteness and intermittency of the energy, not a problem of technologies.  We have already far past the inflection point of the advances in wind and solar; future gains will be very small.  Innovation insofar as energy production is flat lining for wind and solar.  Wind and solar are doomed by their nature and every one (right or left) who takes a thorough look at them comes to this conclusion.  Even top environmentalist are preaching this.  The left keeps on pushing it down our throat even though the technology will never work.  Not really an apples to oranges comparison when talking about what the left wants versus what the right wants.
Well, the right is advocating coal, which seems like a losing proposition for the future too.
Logged

Alan Klein

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 15850
    • Flicker photos
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #774 on: June 25, 2019, 10:56:48 am »

Germany, that has one of the highest renewable electric grids, (close to 40%) also pay the highest for "free" electricity. 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-energy-retail/german-consumers-paying-record-prices-for-power-portal-idUSKCN1P9233

A KWH in America costs US$.13 or .11 Euro.   A KWH in Germany costs EUro.30 or US$.34 two to three times the cost in America.  Of course, these high costs affect the poorest who need energy to stay warm, prepare their food, and have lighting. 
https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/

In spite of their renewables, their carbon use and CO2 production has remained flat.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/449701/co2-emissions-germany/


RSL

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 16119
    • http://www.russ-lewis.com
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #775 on: June 25, 2019, 10:59:22 am »

You might be crediting Hollywood with more power than they actually have.

Your comments about price of electric technology is confusing. It's usually conservatives who trust that innovation will always disrupt things, something with which it's hard to disagree. Except when the so-called "left" is in favour of some disruption, then it's bad, I guess.

People often point to the price of new technologies, citing that as evidence (or maybe even proof?) that it holds no promise. It wasn't that long ago that people were saying that "full-frame" sensors would never become mainstream because of wafer failure rates (etc.). Since when has new technology been cheap or reliable out of the gate?

Some of the promises about solar/wind won't pan out, some will.

If the price of gasoline doubles or triples in the medium term (5-10 years, say) electric cars will become much more viable, regardless of the price of a replacement battery. They likely will not be useful in pulling your sailboat down the interstate, but a low-maintenance e-car with reasonable range (200 km) will look awfully good to someone who is not within walking distance of a grocery store or their dentist. This is already the case for many people. If the price of gasoline does double or triple, it will mean major changes, because a lot of people will at that point stop buying gasoline-engined cars. What would be the point of buying something you can't afford to operate. But of course there will be applications where the high stored energy properties of fossil fuels will be advantageous for years to come.

That’s probably true, Robert, assuming we can come up with windmill farms and solar farms not much larger than a coal or oil or gas-fired power plant, and that don’t clobber or fry wildlife. And yes, wow! we may have an e-car that can go 200 km without having to be plugged in at least overnight. Golly, that’s a whole 124 miles. That can get me up to St. Augustine for a shooting trip, but it can’t get me back home again. Oh, and that kind of technology isn’t going to do much – anything -- for long-haul trucking, or even long-haul rail. It doesn't even address the question of overseas ship traffic. I guess we could build ships with wind propulsion. We used to do that with square riggers.

The point is, we need a way to store energy that’s a hell of a lot more efficient than batteries. At the moment, that way is fossil fuels. And in the case of fossil fuels the storage already has taken place. All we have to do at the moment is release it. I’m sure we’ll find an answer somewhere down the line, but it probably ain’t gonna happen soon. Oh, and if you’re depending on a doubling or tripling of the price of gasoline to drive this revolution, you’re going to have to wait a while.
Logged
Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #776 on: June 25, 2019, 10:59:46 am »

Well, the right is advocating coal, which seems like a losing proposition for the future too.

Yes, I agree.  It is dirty.  I wish it were gone, but at the end of the day it works, and works well.  I just wish people would see the light for nuclear so we could get off of coal as fast as possible. 
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

Alan Klein

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 15850
    • Flicker photos
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #777 on: June 25, 2019, 11:03:28 am »

This is an unfortunate reality. 

I predict that we will go down the wind and solar rabbit hole in this country, seeing massive increases the price of energy along with ever growing increases in our carbon emissions (from the additional base load fossil fuel plants built to produce energy the 70% to 90% of the time when wind/solar cant) for a couple of decades.  Then, one day someone here will look at France and say, "hey, they get 95% of their electricity from nuclear, they have never had an accident and their electricity is really really cheap, the cheapest in Europe actually.  Maybe, just maybe ..." 

I only hope it takes just a couple of decades, not 4 or 5 until we get it. 

If the Democrats win the presidency and take the Senate in 2020, I agree with your prediction.  We will also have a lot of other social programs that will bankrupt us even quicker. 

Alan Klein

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 15850
    • Flicker photos
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #778 on: June 25, 2019, 11:10:24 am »

Yes, I agree.  It is dirty.  I wish it were gone, but at the end of the day it works, and works well.  I just wish people would see the light for nuclear so we could get off of coal as fast as possible. 
China, who does not have to comply with reducing carbon emissions until 2030 per Paris Accord, plans to build 850 coal-fired electric plants around the world.  While trying to reduce pollution in their own country, they think little about choking the rest of us.  The west is living in a dreamworld if they think their renewables are going to change anything on a global scale.  In addition, our higher prices for renewables make us live more poorly and make our products less competitive due to the higher cost of energy. The Chinese Communists may be bastards, but they're smart bastards.   

JoeKitchen

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5037
Re: The American Constitution
« Reply #779 on: June 25, 2019, 11:28:44 am »

If the Democrats win the presidency and take the Senate in 2020, I agree with your prediction.  We will also have a lot of other social programs that will bankrupt us even quicker.

What I find even funnier about this whole wind/solar vs. nuclear thing is that Germany is trying to get its neighbors off of nuclear. 

France's (which literally today gets 95% of its electricity from nuclear) electricity prices are about a third of Germany's and they have lower emissions.  Meanwhile, Germany has been closing nuclear plants left and right, putting up wind/solar like crazy, along with additional coal plants, watching their energy increase in price and nothing has happened with getting emissions down. 

But hey, nuclear is clearer not the winner.   ;D
Logged
"Photography is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent
Pages: 1 ... 37 38 [39] 40 41 ... 107   Go Up