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We will find that out later after you drink it. The important thing is to consume what you think is safe. We learn that when some VIP drinks what he says is safe for you.
We will find that out later after you drink it. The important thing is to consume what you think is safe. We learn that when some VIP drinks what he says is safe for you.
And you would replace it with what? Don't say wind and solar because those sources will never replace base power from fossil fuel and nuclear becsue of the storage issue. They aren't even competitive now and adding enough storage has a compounding effect that would put the costs of such systems out of this world. What are you going to replace "outdated" fuels with?
You are overstating your case. If solar gets cheap enough the problem is likely solvable.
Anther factor of 4 in efficiency and cost would probably do it. And that is not impossible. Certainly nol in hand either...but not out of reach in a decade or two.
Couldn't agree more. Who cares what an oil company says either.
I'm no tree hugger. I chopped up five of them last year. I like cheep gas too. I don't live in an area that will get fracked and the ground water is undrinkable for other reasons. I just don't believe you can inject poison in large quantities into anything without adverse effects somewhere down the line.
If we look at the planet as a living breathing body. Which I think it is. Just like the human body the less harm we do to it the better off we are. Some damage is expected and necessary and it heals itself with time.
What part of the human body would someone inject with poison. Some would say the part that is a waste land already and suggest an intracranial injection would be best. Personally I'm happy to just trim my hair and nails. Maybe I'll accept chemotherapy when it's time to make that decision, but I don't think we benefit by treating the earth like a cancer patient. Then trying to live off the dying body or a portion of it.
Sometimes I like to take the position of the underdog. They don't win that much but it's exciting when they do.
because 3,000 ft deep oil and gas wells contaminate 100ft oil wells?
Doesn't make sense, does it, really? Some folks swallow any nonsense they hear, amazing. If fracking was such a slam dunk the entire state of North Dakota would be an utter wasteland, not a state full of cows, farms and oil wells, all side by side, farmland surrounding clusters of wells.
I have 8 wells within 10 miles of my house and 3 within 1 mile. No issues with my water and it has been tested multiple times.
My neighbor has 2 wells on his property. 1 is no more than 300 yards from his house. No water issues.
You are overstating your case. If solar gets cheap enough the problem is likely solvable.
Doesn't matter, you have a compounding escalation of arrays and storage needed to meet base load.
Consider what you need for one day under ideal conditions. Suppose you get 8 hours of good sunlight, you need enough supply to meet the other 16 hours to store. Let's suppose that doubles the system size. Now you have to build and pay for storage system, suppose we pump water up hill into a man made reservoir. Now you have energy costs to pump that water and losses of efficiecy with generators.... oops! your system has to increase even more as does the amount of storage you have.
That's just for one day assuming ideal conditions. As we know the sun doesn't shine all the time, the amount of capacity and storage you need is going to balloon out of control. How much capacity and storage is enough? 3 days? 7 days?
The next question is are you going to idle billion dollar fossil fuel plants or roll the dice?
Doesn't matter, you have a compounding escalation of arrays and storage needed to meet base load.
Consider what you need for one day under ideal conditions. Suppose you get 8 hours of good sunlight, you need enough supply to meet the other 16 hours to store. Let's suppose that doubles the system size. Now you have to build and pay for storage system, suppose we pump water up hill into a man made reservoir. Now you have energy costs to pump that water and losses of efficiecy with generators.... oops! your system has to increase even more as does the amount of storage you have.
That's just for one day assuming ideal conditions. As we know the sun doesn't shine all the time, the amount of capacity and storage you need is going to balloon out of control. How much capacity and storage is enough? 3 days? 7 days?
The next question is are you going to idle billion dollar fossil fuel plants or roll the dice?
The entire question is really how efficient you can get on the storage cycle. And that is a number that is dropping reasonably quickly. I would think viable systems are now in the early lab stage.
Edit - Said badly. I mean the process is becoming more efficient.
So still some years off. Given a factor of two in price and two in efficiency one can pump twice the required electricity at half todays cost. Or four times the electricity at the same cost as today...which is just below the cost of the same service from the utility.
Can we get 33% efficiency in the storage cycle? Maybe. And maybe we need better than that. Then again if the system is hydrogen we get our auto fuel on the side. And that may offset some of the cost.
I don't see this one as solved. But it is not hopeless.
And you cycle the fossil fuel plants out over 50 years. They are the big backup while all this takes place.
And I still have not crossed off nuclear though it may well get buzz sawed by all those roof arrays.
Last edited by lvoc; 11-13-2014 at 05:52 PM..
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