Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
of course, there are more important things then money, in hundreds of years they are going to look at our culture of greed and profit and wonder what was wrong with us
As someone on here said "At some point John Wayne became Marie Antoinette."
LOL
I'm ready to send a thank you note to all the coal miners for supplying the coal to keep my house warm. Brrrr.
My heat/hot water is included in my rent. Its Oil heat (its a 12 unit building, with 2 storefronts downstairs). My landlord is being thrify on the heat. Thank god I am a cold weather person! BRRR! I think my bedroom (where I am typing this) is about 55 degrees F, some tennants are using little electric heaters to comphensate. I am not, my apartment mate is running one in his room. Building was built in 1870 with the traditional no insulation in the walls. Hate to see his montly oil bill, or my electric bill from Connecticut Lighten and Gouge!!!! Glad I am not in Europe though! Parts of the continent have no heat! Due to lack of Natural gas! Others are burning wood, Oil or coal to comphensate, air pollution is terrible in some cities. Try being green when all you see is ice and feel cold! Bigger BRRRRR!
I think the easiest way to discern what is viable alternative is to look at what private investment is doing, if green technology was truly a wise investment the private investors would have a conga line going out the door of these firms providing it but that is not the case. It simply has not matured enough yet.
I do agree with this on some fronts, but any good investor won't invest where there isn't a market yet... not even if the tech is sound. So maybe the problem is part lack of product maturity AND part lack of adoption. There's so much negative publicity for green technologies (going back to the 70's!) that it's a hard sell for most people. The corporations and government agencies that are making the profits on the old tech certainly don't want us to change and they're distorting some of the views to us right where we are. Really, would you want to invest in something that you knew would bring you endless redtape and corporate hostility? Talk about bringing the hounds of Hell down on you! Conversely, in other parts of the world, there is an investor conga line around green tech (like Germany, for instance).
I think the easiest way to discern what is viable alternative is to look at what private investment is doing, if green technology was truly a wise investment the private investors would have a conga line going out the door of these firms providing it but that is not the case. It simply has not matured enough yet.
$150 Billion worldwide invested in 2007.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
As far as cost go coal is most certainly the cheapest even with all the added expense added over the last 3 decades. Even with the new regulations and expense it can still remain the cheapest. The issue as I see it is if green technology is forced upon the American public prematurley energy costs are going to skyrocket, even in good economic times that would be a tough pill to swallow.
If coal can find a way the capture and sequester CO2 it may. Right now there is no technology that can do that. Energy costs are not skyrocketing from introduction of renewable electricity, they are up because natural gas and coal prices are up substantially.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
Green technology is the future, just not yet. As far as keeping ahead of china and others I think it's imperative they go forward with coal technology so that technology can be sent overseas to clean up their act. China and India are not going to stop building coal plants for much of the foreseeable future because it's cheap energy which is the bottom line.
The new president has called for a doubling of alternate energy production over the next 3 years.
I do agree with this on some fronts, but any good investor won't invest where there isn't a market yet... not even if the tech is sound. So maybe the problem is part lack of product maturity AND part lack of adoption. There's so much negative publicity for green technologies (going back to the 70's!) that it's a hard sell for most people. The corporations and government agencies that are making the profits on the old tech certainly don't want us to change and they're distorting some of the views to us right where we are. Really, would you want to invest in something that you knew would bring you endless redtape and corporate hostility? Talk about bringing the hounds of Hell down on you! Conversely, in other parts of the world, there is an investor conga line around green tech (like Germany, for instance).
There's a lot of money being made, but its only the beginning. The hottest area is conversions, old buildings, old machinery, whatever. Its like getting into computers in 1977. We have a town out this way that was flattened by a tornado. The thought they were finished. Many green companies donated technology and labor to get the exposure and the market penetration. Similar things are being done with Habitat for Humanity. We have a town in my state that has bought enough to get the whole town "off the grid" If you live there you don't pay an electric bill. Our downtown area has bought the technology to get off the grid, as has San Francisco.
FOXNews.com - Residents of Kansas Town Destroyed by Tornado Allowed to Return; 2 Survivors Found - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270395,00.html - broken link)
Going green is all about the green - Company Briefings - Blog on Modern Materials Handling (http://www.mmh.com/blog/1000000500/post/790021079.html - broken link)
For people who aren't keen on electric cars (long distance, heavy loads, etc), it's relatively easy to convert any gasoline engine (including electric generators) to run on another liquid fuel source such as LNG, LP & alcohol (ethanol/methanol). If you're a little mechanically handy, you can get the replacement parts for around $50 (alcohol) or $100 (pressurized liquid gases).
So, if you can do the job yourself for less than $100... why aren't the big car companies doing it? It would be ridiculousy easy to engineer a cr to accept multi-fuel and they'd barely have to retool their production line! The cost of the new parts are almost the same as the parts that need replacing, and the fuel mixture is easily changed with a few lines of code in the computerized injector.
If more cars were made multi-fuel (like they are in Brazil) then there would be a higher demand for other fuel types at the pump. But since it's nearly impossible to find a station near you (unless you live in a really big city) that supplies greener gasoline alternatives, there isn't a demand for the cars and the auto companies can keep delaying. We've got lots of farmers and forestors more than willing to provide biomass for ethanol and methanol production (sustainably), but no production plants and stations that want to buy it. It's a vicious cycle!
The system needs a kickstart (or a kick in the ass, whichever) to break through the resistance and accelerate adoption. I think an excellent place to start is for fed & state gov't to reroute the bailout money to green incentives for consumers and businesses... make things as easy and attractive as possible! We (the people) don't end up spending more money, because the government is just using the tax money it already collected from us and providing us with tax credits and deductions that it can recoup from the taxation of the new businesses and products.
If coal can find a way the capture and sequester CO2 it may. Right now there is no technology that can do that. Energy costs are not skyrocketing from introduction of renewable electricity, they are up because natural gas and coal prices are up substantially.
.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Glad I am not in Europe though! Parts of the continent have no heat! Due to lack of Natural gas! 
Others are burning wood, Oil or coal to comphensate, air pollution is terrible in some cities. 
Try being green when all you see is ice and feel cold! Bigger BRRRRR!
