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China has more solar power in production than the US. Solar simply can't be scaled to more than a fraction of the power needs for any industrialized country.
China also recently created the huge Three Gorges hydroelectric project, which is supplying 14% of the country's needs. And they are rolling out wind power and solar energy as quickly as they can. But their energy needs are growing so quickly, as they modernize a huge country, that they've also continued the expediency of using coal, with all its issue, because it's cheap.
I refer you back to Dr. Washington's calculations and those of his other MIT colleagues. Renewable energy can replace all the fossil fuel derived energy we use now, or even in the foreseeable future. All we need is to go ahead and implement it.
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Lets take California. You won't see solar producing more than 5% of the total power needs. Why? Because the utility companies won't allow it and that OpenD is through regulation.
Obviously that can be changed. As I understand it, California's legal mandate is that 33% of the electricity sold in the state must be from renewable sources by the year 2020. And take a look at the example of HELCO, my local utility company. They used to be resistant to the inevitable, and once fought solar energy, but now they're already buying more than 40% of the power they sell from solar, wind, geothermal and hydro sources, etc. with a goal of 50% by 2015, and so on.
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You just don't get it and can't think about reality in this case. Solar works by sunlight. When do most households use electricity? When the sun goes down. Solar power can't be stored efficiently, how would it be accomplished, batteries?
Stop trying to make solar into a monolithic solution so you can prove it doesn't work as a monolithic solution. I don't consider it a sole solution, but it's certainly a worthwhile wedge of the whole pie. I've said repeatedly that an entire portfolio of different PARTIAL sources of power is needed. Using solar energy to satisfy daylight electricity needs, like air conditioning, that's an absolute no-brainer, since the sun is creating the primary need for the air-conditioner to run. If you simply switch over to fossil fuel generation when the sun goes down, you'd still have a net gain in the reduction of toxic emissions. Switch to another renewable source and the gain increases. Add solar thermal water heaters, which can store energy overnight, like we use here in Hawai'i, for another incremental offset.
Then if you look at solar tower thermal concentrators, which have been in use in countries like Spain for years but are just starting to be deployed in the US, you can not only generate steam power to turn a generator turbine, but their thermal energy can be stored via such media as molten salt reserves to allow round-the-clock operation.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a solar thermal power project currently under construction in the California Mojave Desert which has a planned gross capacity of 392 MW. Phase 1 of the project was connected to the grid in September. And The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project under construction near Tonopah, about 190 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is a 110 Megawatt solar thermal power project that will be completed early next year, and in full production by Summer 2014.
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If for once, you thought this through to a real solution, you'd have to change your mind about a lot of the nonsense the utility companies and wikipedia have decided you should learn.
That kind of line just doesn't work when Tariq tries it, and it's no more effective when you try it. You'd both do yourself a favor if you just accept that I know what I'm talking about.
Besides, you both keep contradicting yourselves. For example, if the utility company doesn't want to allow more than 5% solar energy sourcing, why would they want me to believe "the nonsense that solar energy is useful?"
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Originally Posted by Mack Knife
OpenD, I can and have gotten off the grid with a variety of alternative energy solutions, for practical purposes. The thing is that is can't be scaled up for more than me.
Perhaps what you used personally can't be scaled up, but there are certainly other technologies which can, and currently are being scaled up. For example, in May this year a 100 MW CSP plant came on line in oil-rich Abu Dhabi. That much power could run something like 78,000 average American homes. Why would an oil producing company install a solar power plant? Because they understand, probably better than we do, that their oil won't last forever, and the more of their own oil they can avoid burning now, the longer their reserves will last.
No one is arguing that fossil fuels, in the way we use them are harmful to the environment. The problem is that you see the solution as something that can't meet the energy needs of our society, no matter how much you want it that way.
You have to be ignoring everything that the experts say, and everything that is going on in green power development in the real world to make a short-sighted statement like that. Meanwhile, even as you say they can't do it, they are already doing it.
OpenD, you can't seem to understand why alternative energy like solar isn't becoming the solution. The same applies to other "alternative" forms of power.
What you seem to lack is the basic knowledge of why fossil fuels are so common and why replacing them is so difficult.
And you keep making the same dumb mistake over and over again, thinking I don't understand and don't know... but I actually do.
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Take gasoline for example. You buy a gallon of gas and it sits in the fuel tank. What you have there is a tremendous amount of potential. That single gallon of gas can provide enough energy through combustion to move a car upwards of 40 miles.
Yes, replacing the portability of a liquid high energy-density fuel is challenging. But electric cars are already viable for certain purposes, like an average typical urban commute of 16 miles each way, or even one twice that long. Used for that purpose the cost of the commute in many places is already cheaper than gas.
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Now compare that to an electric car, charged using alternative forms of energy, say solar power. The electric car can't be replenished fast enough to compete. Then, the batteries available can't hold enough potential to move that car as far as 3 gallons of gasoline. It comes down to practicality.
Several systems have already been demonstrated that can fully charge an electric car in 10 minutes or less. The improvements are happening so quickly it's hard to keep up with them all.
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In all your arguments you always overlook the simple facts of practicality and instead go on about what might be in the future. You can't change an entire system based on what might be, you can change it based on what you can do.
Currently about 40,000 electric cars a year are being purchased by Americans based on what it those cars are already able to do. What do they know that you don't?
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You keep talking about the next few decades where fossil fuels will be exhausted. Do you believe that all the problems with the alternative energy sources you've talked about can be solved in 20 years? Do you realize how short a time span that is? Are you hoping for some breakthrough in technology that overcomes those problems?
To start with, what do you expect to be able do with that gas burner of yours when there is no more gas to burn? See the problem? It's not like we can avoid the problem forever.
I've never said we'll run out of fossil fuels in 20 years, and experts have made various estimates that are all over the place, but a lot of scientists seem to agree that a projection that all the fossil fuels will be exhausted sometime in the 2075-2100 range is quite plausible. And I think it's useful for discussion purposes. That's far enough out to know that we don't have to panic just yet, but it's soon enough to let us know we really can't dawdle around either. Our grandchildren and their families will certainly be dealing with it. If my generation can't solve the problem, I think we can at least leave it in better better shape than we found it.
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The simplistic view of scaling up alternative energy systems is a dream because society as we know it simply can't afford it. You've talked about costs and that everyone has to understand that it just costs money. Do you realize that the financial resources needed to accomplish what you think might happen is beyond the capacity of people to fund?
Says who? Existing technology wears out and has to be replaced, so committing to replacing it with something better yields graduated continuous improvement.
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Even at today's high prices for gasoline and maybe even twice or 3 times that, people can still figure out a way to buy it. Alternative energy, to get it to the point where you can replace fossil fuel power generation is unaffordable within the way our society is structured.
I disagree. We're already seeing the first stages of that inevitable replacement occurring.
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Even the communists can't do it. The one type of government that could accomplish what you're talking about is totalitarianism.
Nobody can do it overnight. But we all have to do it eventually, so I say the sooner the better!
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The people that control power in the USA are in it for the money. There is no conscience there. If alternative energy solutions could compete with or exceed their current revenue streams they'd change in a few years and you'd get all your electricity from alternative energy systems.
There is no question that suppliers of conventional energy don't want to lose their monopoly on the revenue stream from our need to ongoingly buy what they are supplying. But oh, well, they really have no choice now.
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That isn't the case though and won't be for along time. When that time comes, it won't be any of the solutions you think about today, it will have to be a fuel that can approximate the characteristics of oil.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe our rooftop solar panels will run the hydrogen generator in the garage that breaks down water for portable energy use when away from home. Or maybe it will spin up a high energy flywheel in the car, or pump up a high pressure air tank, or melt the salt in a molten-salt battery, or... who knows? Those are all real world technologies being explored right now, and none of them has the the one thing fossil fuel has that we definitely don't want... CO2 and other gaseous pollution.
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They will control that too and some dream of alternative energy will only become a change in the way power is produced, not what it means for the environment.
Except that the genie is already out of the bottle, and the more Americans taste of renewable energy which they can personally control, the more they want it. They just have to be given reasonable alternatives.
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The environment never has been nor will it ever be the reason why "energy" companies do what they do.
Agreed, but it can certainly be the reason we make them do what we want them to do.
And you keep making the same dumb mistake over and over again, thinking I don't understand and don't know... but I actually do.
Yes, replacing the portability of a liquid high energy-density fuel is challenging. But electric cars are already viable for certain purposes, like an average typical urban commute of 16 miles each way, or even one twice that long. Used for that purpose the cost of the commute in many places is already cheaper than gas. Snip
What part of 14% when converted isn't not a fraction, just as I stated? I said solar would not meet more than a fraction of China's needs for energy and you come up with 14%. Thanks for proving my point.
The average commute? Do you understand how that figure was calculated? I bet not or you wouldn't use it as an example.
Does that average commute consider that most people who do commute in areas which you like to talk about travel greater distances than the average?
That average you talk about includes the Amish who get around in horse and buggy. The average commute, oh please.
Another you don't understand post. If you understood some very basic things about what averages are and mean you wouldn't have used that figure.
If everyone was truly average and driving only 16 miles for a commute there would be no problem, it would be manageable. The facts are that not everyone travels an average of 16 miles for a commute and a commute is not the only need that transportation meets. I guess if your life revolves around some imaginary playground in lala land, what you say works.
As for some study saying all we need to do is implement alternative energy systems, so what? We could all live on Mars because someone has figured that out too. What the heck, all we need to do is do it.
That applies to everyone and everything Open D, if it were all so possible because someone said it, we'd all be living in paradise and you wouldn't need an EV, solar or anything else. Geesh.
Your statement: "There is no question that suppliers of conventional energy don't want to lose their monopoly on the revenue stream from our need to ongoingly buy what they are supplying. But oh, well, they really have no choice now. "
I can't stop laughing. Those companies are years ahead of you in thinking. They've already figured out how to control alternative energy systems regardless of what you want or think.
10 years from now when you look at your electric bill from the utilities and wonder what happened, come back and chat.
What part of 14% when converted isn't not a fraction, just as I stated? I said solar would not meet more than a fraction of China's needs for energy and you come up with 14%.
Today. That's the figure for today. But the government of China is committed to increasing their use of renewable energy, to reduce pollution, and also in recognition that fossil fuels WILL run out. And once it does run out there will be NO choice.
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The average commute? Do you understand how that figure was calculated? I bet not or you wouldn't use it as an example.
I'll bet YOU don't know or you wouldn't try to make a point you can't possibly win.
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Does that average commute consider that most people who do commute in areas which you like to talk about travel greater distances than the average?
That reminds me of Garrison Keilor's line about Lake Woebegone, "where all the children are above average."
According to US Census figures only about 3% of the population has Extreme Commutes (90 minutes or more one way - 1.2 million) Long Distance Commutes (50 or more miles to work - 2.2 million) or Mega Commutes (90 minutes AND 50 miles 600K). Yes, they are clustered around a handful of large cities, but they are still a small minority of the overall commuter traffic across the country.
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That average you talk about includes the Amish who get around in horse and buggy. The average commute, oh please
The Amish population in the US is about 250,000, while the total population is about 314,000,000. That means the Amish are about .0008 of the population, (that's 8 hundreths of 1 percent) so their commute distance is mathematically insignificant in the overall calculation.
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Another you don't understand post. If you understood some very basic things about what averages are and mean you wouldn't have used that figure.
Why do you keep beating on this goofy "you don't understand" theme when you obviously don't even understand basic arithmetic, and I've got all the facts on my side?
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If everyone was truly average and driving only 16 miles for a commute there would be no problem, it would be manageable. The facts are that not everyone travels an average of 16 miles for a commute and a commute is not the only need that transportation meets.
It's ridiculously boring that you keep making the same errors in reasoning over and over. Not everyone needs to buy an EV for them to provide a meaningful improvement to our total energy portfolio. And nobody but you expects EVs to already be at the desired end state, when they are merely at the very early stages of development.
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I can't stop laughing. Those companies are years ahead of you in thinking. They've already figured out how to control alternative energy systems regardless of what you want or think.
That's an unsupported statement of personal opinion, which reflects a worldview I don't share with you. Come back when you have some provable facts.
Renewable energy is kind of strange fake term which implies the source of Renewable energy will never run out. Unless our future offsprings figure out how to exist outside of the universe, we will all die including the universe we know of.
Right know Renewable energy always implies direct or indrect energy source from sun or gravity(tide)...
First let's try to define the current possible sources of our energy.
1. Sun either directly or indirectly
2. Gravity or tide
3. Geothermal
4. Nuclear power fission or possible fusion
Wow! Where is the fossil fuels?
In a word -> Compost
Organic life absorbs solar energy.
Organic life dies
Compost
Years later -> fossil fuels
Is it sustainable?
Depending on when you can get fusion power on-line?
Why?
Natural gas is so cheap, then coal becomes expensive.
If fusion power is on-line, lots of industries will disappear inclusing solar power.
What about the waste of fossil fuels?
Before organic life absorbed those waste, they were here on the surface of earth.
The more fossil fuels we used, the closer the original form of earth will become.
How about preserving beauty of the current form of earth?
Earth is changing every nano second. It was not static earth and will never be static, unless someone invents a huge stasis and put earth in there.
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Green is an invented ideology that leads to a form of control. That is the end game for those who control the political systems of the world.
They will control every aspect of our lives in the not so far future and we have seen but a glimpse of it to date.
If you don't believe so ask why we have no choice in the type of gasoline we can put into our cars. Why is government mandated healthcare being forced upon us? There are lots of examples out there you see in your everyday lives...think about them.
I partially agree with you, but this is surely the time we should move towards Green tech for power production, and I don't think the government will be able to control us, as we will be producing our own energy from natural sources instead of relying over the government or private companies to provide us with power. Solar Panels, Wind Turbines are surely the excellent methods of producing your own energy, their setup might cost a lot now but in future you will surely be glad that you took this decision.
And when it comes to cars, we are already moving forward towards electrical cars, hence the need of gasoline in our cars will be reduced, but still a lot of research is needed in order to produce better electric cars that runs faster.
I partially agree with you, but this is surely the time we should move towards Green tech for power production, and I don't think the government will be able to control us, as we will be producing our own energy from natural sources instead of relying over the government or private companies to provide us with power. Solar Panels, Wind Turbines are surely the excellent methods of producing your own energy, their setup might cost a lot now but in future you will surely be glad that you took this decision.
And when it comes to cars, we are already moving forward towards electrical cars, hence the need of gasoline in our cars will be reduced, but still a lot of research is needed in order to produce better electric cars that runs faster.
I agree with everything but the bolded part. Tesla already makes electric vehicles that can run with top sports cars that run on gas. On only the battery bank I can run 90mph in my Volt which is faster than any speed limit in the US. Granted I can only do that for 33 miles on battery. 0-60 is in the upper 7 sec to 8 second range. And the Caddy version coming out is a little quicker.
There are only two forms of usable energy that keep the whole planet going. Nuclear and solar. Everything gets it's energy or has it's from these sources. We only need 14 million acres of solar panels to power the worlds modern energy needs. The enabling technology is an electrical energy storage solution at the utility scale.
Can we just give OpenD all the awards and close this thread already. He or she clearly deserves them for having the patience to destroy all the trolls and tinfoil hat wearers one by one. There mere fact that OP even owns a computer and has internet access goes against everything he believes in.
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