Double standards galore.

You can't talk about nuclear energy incurring taxpayer liabilities, giving preferential treatment and distorting capital markets without conceding the fact that when you're funding other green energy jobs like wind power, geothermal and tide you're doing the exact same thing.

If what's needed are tighter emission standards among other regulations, then say that, rather than blanketly dismissing it as a possible alternative.

Part of the reason that nuclear energy has had patchy financing in the past is that governmental positions have constantly changed at the whims of those in power. The threat of tighter regulations and a general lack of consistency has created uncertainty.

To me, this stance on energy, and the left's positions on free trade stand out as the two most hypocritical positions of the left.

Good discussion guys. I couldn't help but weigh in with my two cents. I think everyone here agrees that this is one issue we need to get right, as there's a lot of investment on the line. While I like most of the options mentioned, I have a preference for passive solar over photovoltaics, just because of the pollution concerns involved. These too can work on a local scale for water heaters, etc. Further, if implemented on a large scale in the southwestern US, it could power most of the country. Nuclear too is an option that should be expanded in the near term, and I don't think the NIMBY problem is as bad as you think. As my father said, in his opposition to the Cape Wind Project... "I'll live next door to a modern nuclear power plant, but those waters have better purposes." Frankly, the opposition to building new plants is just keeping older, unsafe plants online past their safely usable life. It's not like our workforce is busy doing much else right now, let's get building.

Personally I feel like it will become an issue of niche solutions for niche applications. The solution that locally make sense is the one that will be adopted. Rurally, especially in areas with little rainfall, it may be more logical to use your abundant resource, land, to generate your power. In higher density areas, this doesn't make as much sense. This brings up another big issue I thought I heard briefly mentioned which is distribution. HVDC cables, coupled with smart distribution grids leads to HUGE gains in efficiency of distribution. There were also a number of notable energy sources left out of this discussion, such as geothermal (where it applies), algal ethanol/petroleum (perhaps best for their implications on plastics), or, for the super crazy, orbiting solar plants beaming microwave power back to earth (Japan is actually researching this). Geothermal, for instance, may prove critical to reducing industrial emissions. Aluminum manufacturers have already begun using Icelandic geothermal as the refining process is extremely energy intensive, and the end product is quite transportable.

More costs to Coal plants ->
Coal-Generated electricity price goes up ->
Natural Gas, Solar, Wind, Geothermal solutions become alot more viable ->
More money goes to funding, building and improving Natural Gas, Solar, Wind, Geothermal solutions ->
Natural Gas, Solar, Wind, Geothermal solutions become a more common, cheaper way to produce electricity ->
No one wants to use Coal anymore, because it's too expensive.

Hard in the short run, good for everyone in the long run.

>> ^joedirt:
"Not a single drop of gasoline"
WHAT A DUMB CUNT!
You know how much more petroleum is wasted by converting to AC, transmitting to your house, then charing your car, then storing in DC batteries.
What an ignorant fuck, compared to refining oil, shipping gasoline to gas station, then filling up a car. Even with a horrible burn ratio in a combustion engine (most of the energy goes into heat and friction), your petroleum goes a ton further.
(Now if Tom Hanks had a video about his solar power plant in his backyard, this would be a different story, but CA steals all its power from other states like a big welfare mom.. and that power is mostly coal and oil.


Here's the difference though...you have a petroleum based car and that is your only option...petroleum. You have an electric car and then your options are wide open...coal and oil? Sure...but your not limited to just that..solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric, hydrogen, manure, geothermal, etc... Some of these things such as wind or solar are things that you could conceivably generate yourself.

The nub of Banshee's comments are correct. There does not currently exist any form of energy that can replace fossil. The manufacturing, industrial, business, and residential power demands far outstrip 'green' energy's ability to supply power. Even a massive multi-pronged approach using geothermal, wind, tide, solar, methane farms, et al would barely make a dent. If we want to get off coal, we need to move to nuclear. There is no other viable option.

That doesn't even touch the massive expense of green energy. Green energy is not cheap by any stretch. It is actually the MOST expensive energy that exists. In acerage, material, maintainance, production cost, and distribution - green energy is on the order of 5-10 times more expensive than coal depending on which kind you are talking about. So unless you are prepared to quadruple your electic bill, you better pray that coal doesn't go anywhere or that the enviro-nazis untwist thier panties a few notches with nuclear.

Barak Obama said he wasn't going to raise taxes on the middle/lower class. Yet is stated desire to put the coal industry out of business would put an 'energy tax' on all Americans to the tune of several thousand dollars a year.

>> ^oileanach
The power source is a serious issue I agree. I can't stand it when people suggest that electricity (or similarly hydrogen) is a SOURCE of energy - it's just a means of transmission. Now in a place like France where they have more nuclear power than they can use (especially at night) charging batteries would be a good alternative to burning fossil fuels.

>> ^Kagenin
Quote from his comments:
Here in Southern California (power company: SCE), when I charge this bike, about 50% of the electricity comes from natural gas, 20% from Nuclear, 15% renewable (Geothermal, Wind, etc), and only 9% comes from coal

Nuclear energy and gas/coal are unsustainable/inefficient/old-fashioned/dangerous (esp. nuclear)/centralised (elitist) sources of energy, e.g. read this article by Jeremy Rifkin
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0929-33.htm
Conclusion of the article is that there are a lot better options available: "Instead, we should pursue an aggressive effort to bring the full range of decentralized renewable technologies online: solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass. And we should establish a hydrogen storage infrastructure to ensure a steady, uninterrupted supply of power for our electricity needs and for transportation."

From the youtube info, the bike does 45 MPH - changing his 6:1 gear ratio up would change his low-end torque and top-speed, and his math says it'll do about 30 miles before needing a recharge, which would take about 6-8 hours.

Which would be ideal for a short commute such as his. Better batteries would probably do a lot to improve his range, but considering that he's using 4 cheapo deep-charge marine batteries from Walmart, that's damn respectable. This is an exercise in modest necessity - it does what he needs. He doesn't need the freeway to get to or from work, so really he doesn't need anything faster than what he's got it tuned to.

Quote from his comments:
Here in Southern California (power company: SCE), when I charge this bike, about 50% of the electricity comes from natural gas, 20% from Nuclear, 15% renewable (Geothermal, Wind, etc), and only 9% comes from coal

Specs from his youtube info:
D&D SepEx Motor (about 45 ft-pd torque at 2000rpm)
400 Amp Alltrax Controller with PC link
Four 12 volt deep cycle marine batteries (Wal-Mart)
Four on-board battery chargers

Total cost: $2800, $1000 of which was the price he paid for a dead Ninja bike. It costs him roughly $0.02/per mile to ride.

Quite the bargain, if you ask me. My dad has a dead Honda Hurricane 600 in his garage, and I'm thinking a project like this would be awesome to do to that.

>> ^BansheeX:The real problem is the the ignorant opposition to nuclear in this country....


There's no ignorance about it: nuclear is dirty and the people that own and run the plants are cheap.

Nuclear is more money for a special interest cabal that doesn't give a damn about anything but their own profits.

Solar, wind, geothermal - that's where we need more development.

"Mike have proven it's possible to power his house from the sun."

Well sure, but this is not a "solution". Note how he doesn't say how much he spent on it. The only numbers he gives is how much cheaper his monthly rate is.

I've looked into alternative energy solutions for my home. Solar components alone run at an amortized cost of about twice your utility rate over 8 years. Thus, with a 50% subsidy in California, a solar system will break even in about 8 years. I can't even begin to guess how much more expensive than a normal solar system all these extra components and specialized units are. Not to mention the "state of the art geothermal" unit. The announcer just said, "Its expensive, but with sponsorship, it all came together." Which is no answer at all.

Unfortunately, this is the energy "solution" a lot of liberals have -- spend $100,000 to $200,000 per house to get a "sustainable" solution. Of course, for $100k, I can invest the money into a CD, and get enough money back on the interest to cover my power bills and then some.

Not a solution at all.

What was the cost for the house though? Strive to drive down costs of even one part of that system, and we'll make some strides forward. I nearly put a Geotherm system into my home about 6 years ago. I WISH I did. I went with a high efficiencly oil system (more common in New England). While it is quite good, and my home is quite efficient on it's own... I WISH the cost for the Geotherm system was less. I was looking at $8k for a high end oil system, or closer to $20k at the time for a basic geo system. The problem? Only 1-2 installers would handle Geotherm in the whole region at the time. As a result they overcharged like mad and cost effective maintenance of the system was questionable, making it impractical for most homeowners.

^ On your last point, "God bless America" isn't the same as "We are the chosen country of God", it's a request for God's blessing, not a "God commands that we smite the infidels!"

I think it's possible for us to end our dependency on foreign oil, just no time soon. Drilling for more oil isn't going to end our dependency, but switching to electric cars across the board would massively reduce how much oil we'd need, and we could use anything to charge those cars, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, natural gas, coal, fission nuclear, and fusion nuclear when we get there.

As for Georgia, you're right about why we care about "democracy" in Georgia, but we do care about whether Georgia (and the Ukraine) generally leans towards democracy and NATO, or subservience to Putin. Though in my mind, that should be more because of our solidarity with the EU than anything else.

Energy crisis? What energy crisis? ...prices are up, in part, because worldwide demand (supply) is up. What are people basing their entitlement to low energy prices on? Paying $1 a gallon six years ago has absolutely no bearing on current market conditions.

The government should have no role in resolving the "energy crisis"...this "crisis" can only be addressed by the free market. If you don't like our dependence on oil, invest in wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear--or start your own company. If you don't like paying $4.00 a gallon, buy a car with better fuel efficiency or inflate your tires (ha). If you can't afford a more efficient/appropriately sized car, buy a motorcycle or scooter. If you can't afford your own vehicle, take the bus. If theres no bus, ride a bicycle. If your work is too far, get a second job so you can pay for the gas. If you can't find a second job adjust your finances...

If you don't understand this concept, read a book on economics.
"Economics in One Lesson"
http://www.google.com/search?q=economics+in+one+lesson

>> ^Jinx:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:Words.
Hey, nice post.
I read a thing a year or so ago about a new technology that enabled production of much cheaper and more efficient solar panels, but I can't seem to find any information on it now, so I wonder if it was just a pipe dream or something.
If I remember correctly the panels were paper thin and flexible, like laminated card, were durable to weather but eventually required replacing after 6 months or so of use. They were also supposed to be vastly superior in efficiency and their production allowed them to be "printed" en masse, and sold at approximately one dollar per metre square.
Obviously I was very excited about this. People could turn every south facing wall into a solar panel relatively cheaply and if the efficiency was as high as the article boasted you'd probably be able to light, heat and power most of the appliances in your house on your own energy. Alas, no cheap solar power yet.
Anyway, if all of Earths energy (with the exception of Geothermal, Nuclear and The Tides?) comes from the sun, be it stored in ancient pressurised plant matter or firewood, it would seem to make sense to find a good of way of tapping energy straight from the source.


Ya, little blurbs like that are usually kinda PR moves by certain solar research foundations to generate a flow of funds to their particular areas. Not saying thats a bad thing mind you, but its kinda a red herring. I say that because paper thin sheets of silica are not going to generate that much electrical power.

That said, it isn't unimportant. I think all of us have seen the caution signs and help phones on the road sides with the solar pannel coming off the top...very useful in that kind of aplication where low amparage is needed.

The problem is...well, at least with my house of nerds, is we use....a cubic butt ton of power (standard SI unit, look it up!). Mutiple computers, projector, game systems...a cornicopia of electronic wonders suck up a lot of juice. There is no way a paper thin PV cell is going to generate enough power to do all the work required of it...even if I coated my whole house with them.

Like I mentioned before, the energy generated is from the amount of "work" the photon has to do as it travles through the substrate. Unless they are doing some magic that I haven't become aware of (like nano tube redirection which was still theoretical last I heard) those paper thing sheets have a limited applications. Movement is good, so being able to cheaply produce those things is good, and my lead to further discoveries down the line, but it is mainly a red herring it seems.

Like I said before, I have the highest hopes for PV cells than anything else I have seen. And combining it with more effective means of electrolysis is very smart indeed. Hats off to them for all their work. Hopefully, PV technology is blessed with "bright" ideas. But I really think its got a long long road ahead of it...think of it this way, it is THE most researched green tech of the past 40 years, and yet, we are still only as far as we are...which is bare minimum public use this make solar panda sad indeed, but hopefully, he will be basking in the glow of nearly infinite energy!

/rant!

(there most likely a mass typoes here as its 1am...clean those up in the morrow)

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:Words.

Hey, nice post.

I read a thing a year or so ago about a new technology that enabled production of much cheaper and more efficient solar panels, but I can't seem to find any information on it now, so I wonder if it was just a pipe dream or something.

If I remember correctly the panels were paper thin and flexible, like laminated card, were durable to weather but eventually required replacing after 6 months or so of use. They were also supposed to be vastly superior in efficiency and their production allowed them to be "printed" en masse, and sold at approximately one dollar per metre square.

Obviously I was very excited about this. People could turn every south facing wall into a solar panel relatively cheaply and if the efficiency was as high as the article boasted you'd probably be able to light, heat and power most of the appliances in your house on your own energy. Alas, no cheap solar power yet.

Anyway, if all of Earths energy (with the exception of Geothermal, Nuclear and The Tides?) comes from the sun, be it stored in ancient pressurised plant matter or firewood, it would seem to make sense to find a good of way of tapping energy straight from the source.

>> ^GreatBird:

To me, battery electric vehicles are the best solution for the near term. The technology is fairly advanced. Lithium ion batteries are becoming more available and are cleaner and recyclable. We already have a great electricity distribution infrastructure right to everyones home for charging. As for the energy production side we would then be able to focus on moving away from coal and natural gas to wind, solar, geothermal, wave, etc.


The problem with battery powered vehicles that recharge via connection in our home, is the amount of electricity this would draw daily. That kind of energy doesn't come for free and I don't think we have the means intact to support such an infrastructure.