[Oldeconomybuyer]

The US Senate continues debate on an Energy bill this week. There will surely be much talk about spending billions on renewables.

[backhoe]

Bttt^

I wish I had saved a link to article here a few months ago where some wind power proponents were argueing that new advances in wind turbines had finally made wind power turn the corner and become competitive with conventional power plants. Guess that was more vaporware....

[FreedomPoster]

Idiots who write copy for newspapers, think their journalism degrees qualify them to write on topics requiring a strong technical and business background for anything close to a decent understanding. They are sadly mistaken, and mislead John Q. Public.

[Tuor]

That was the gist of a series of passionate editorials in The Dallas Morning News during the past several weeks. Read them, and you might wonder what is wrong with those blockhead politicians and energy executives.

One of the reasons no strong alternative to the current power generation/allocation system is that the Powers That Be have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Big Money is invested in the current setup, not to mention the lobbying that they fund. No one wants to be the odd man out after a shake-up caused by some alternative energy source made viable.

Tuor

[snopercod]

Finally, someone tells the truth about all these feel-good fantasies.

Being an engineer who passed through my "Mother Earth News" days in the 70's, I have tried much of this stuff on a small scale. The only one of these schemes that actually has some benefit is solar hot water, and then only in the right climate.

This latest "hydrogen economy" is probably the biggest hoax yet. Until three years ago, I was involved in filling the space shuttle external tank with a few million gallons of liquid hydrogen, so I have some knowledge in that area, too.

I can only begin to list all the safety hazards of dealing with LH2.

• It must be stored at -423 degrees in order to keep it liquid (That takes energy, whether your "hydrogen-powered-vehicle" is running or not.)
• And where do you vent off the hydrogen gas, into your garage? Hydrogen becomes explosive at a 4% concentration in air. At KSC, we had flare stacks where the gaseous hydrogen was burned off. I guess you could tow one of those on a trailer behind your "green" car.
• It also burns with an invisible flame - you can walk right into a raging hydrogen fire and not even see it. That's why technicians used to carry brooms in front of them when they had to walk into the hydrogen farm area at the Cape. That's why the space shuttle has little pieces of butcher paper glued on the orbiter-ET disconnect - if they catch fire, the folks in the firing room know they have a hydrogen fire.
• Hydrogen expands 600 times when it changes from a liquid to a gas. A small leak can cause big problems.
• You must use cryogenic transfer lines and dewars to move the LH2 around. These are very expensive, vacuum jacked lines and tanks which must be serviced on a routine basis to keep the vacuum down or you will soon experience that 600-times-expansion in a very explosive way.

I can't wait to see the first auto accident involving a "clean-burning" hydrogen-powered vehicle. It will make those car bombs in Israel look like childs toys. Then the feds will mandate that all drivers wear flame-retardent coveralls, leather gloves, and non-sparking footwear, I'd guess.

[Tripleplay]

The US Senate continues debate on an Energy bill this week. There will surely be much talk about spending billions on renewables.

Typical government solution........throw money at it.......make speeches pandering to emotions.........But never determine the facts and debate the options rationally

[DugwayDuke]

The one thing this fellow fails to mention is that the hardcore environmentalists who propose these renewables do not believe we can provide all our current energy from these sources. These environmentalists believe that we should be able to live only on the energy provided from renewables. IOW, if we can only provide half our current energy from renewables then we should live on that half alone.

[RadioAstronomer]

My vote is for nuclear. It's clean, reliable, and effective.

[The Great RJ]

The most efficient and yes the least polluting means of generating electricity is (gasp) nuclear power.

One reason nuclear power has been not our main meansd of producing electricity (aside from the kooks in birkenstocks waving signs saying "split wood not atoms") is that every nuclear reactor operating in the US is a one off design.

France, which produces some 20% of its electricity from nuclear power, used a basic single design for its reactors. Yes, there were improvements in succeeding models, but the basic engineering is much the same for all plants. This allows for better training of operators and lower construction costs.

Current computer assisted design technology and state of the art engineering could allow the production of very efficient, easy to operate and SAFE nuclear plants. However, the required mountain of government paperwork and the environmentatist wackos making every attempt to block the construction of nuclear plants will keep us chained to fossil fuels for a long time.

[lewislynn]

Renewable Energy Systems -USA- Inc.,

"The Texas market has boomed this year as a direct result of the state legislation signed by then Governor Bush...dictating that within the next ten years 3% of all Texas energy should come from renewable energy sources."

[lucysmom]

Something that hasn't been mentioned here is the use of methane gas. Methane gas is produced as a by product in sewage processing plants. The gas is now used in a limited way to generate power need to run some plants. Certainly this is a renewable resource, particularly in place like Washington D.C.

During the energy crisis last year in California some dairy farmers began producing their own electricity using the methane gas produced in their slurry ponds. The surplus was sold. Apparently this was so profitable that one farmer said "it looks like we may have been milking the wrong end of the cow".

[zog]

-hmmm. Loggd on, saw the article. Once again I'm being told the solar power here doesn't work. Put it this way, I get a lot more solar power out of my system for the energy used to create it than all the tv sets ever built. That's if you can even understand that point. That might be difficult, but you can struggle with the idea. We can use energy to make devices to extract/convert more energy, or we can just keep building toys. And I've also had neighbors fuel powered generators just breakdown and not work when they needed juice, too, when the grid was down, which in some areas of the country happens quite a bit..

IMO, there is no one single "solution", you do a site survey, decide which of the alternatives makes the most sense for your locale, and start building the system, it can be from very small to whole house sized, anything you want. The "cost" is also a factor when you wish to be independent and not be tied as much to some politicised monopoly cartel. But, if that's what you dig, if that's your political scene to be part of the corporate/governmental bribery scandals, then go for it. Keep waiting for this "they" guy to do something about 'energy", ity's certainly not the official approved 'conservative way" to actually personally DO anything about it. I'm so glad that point has been cleared up for me, I forgot we have to be a herd animal to be part of the clique, can't possibly ever "do" anything that's not approved by...whomever this offical "conservative" leader is. Didn't know that me producing my own energy and having it paid off was so terrible a political sin. Didn't know that an open ended lease with zero price or delivery guarantees was the 'approved' contractural method of getting energy. Glad that got cleared up by this article and thread comments so far. Silly me, I shoulda bought a 35 inch teevee instead. What was I thinking? I'll do ten "let's rolls" and ten " ditto maha rushies" as pennace.

And subsidies? Gimme a break, nuke, coal, oil, centralised power with all it's land seizures, tax breaks, laws and regulations passed making a certain 'form" of electricity 120Ac-the household "norm" under reguilations, etc, etc, over the past century, complete and total government involvement from federal to local in full collusion with corporate cartels, is way more than the combined total of all the "alternative" methods. Hundreds of billions of dollars so far and counting. Subsidised, government involvement, complete with the added benefit of having bribery and scandal run most of those places. Go ahead, make the claim that there has been no 'governmental involvement" and taxpayer money in centralised energy. Prove it. yep, nukes, not one penny subsidised. uh huh. coal plants, never heard of it. Oil plants, naw, we don't support hundreds of billions in military efforts with tax payer money to keep the mideast oil flowing, that can't be called a subsidy, it's just money going for something, a subsidy is when your superiors in government and on internet forums CALL it a subsidy, then it's "official". if they don't call it a subsidy, then it doesn't exist.

You don't have to do either/or, that's another fallacy. it's just silly. You can get a decent amount from not that many panels, great for day to day use and to have a guaranteed supply, see no reason this is such a threat to folks. I mean, it's taken as a threat here. Look out! them solar panels is sneeking up on ya gonna get ya! Whoops, that wind genny almost got through, glad we headed it off at the pass!

Another fallacy is who owns these systems, you'll find most owners are fairly conservative gun owning folks, everyone I know personally who has some form of alternatives is, and that's around the country. This "left and right" thing is so totally overblown and ridiculous. Only "conservativews" support this or that, and only "liberals" support this or that. It's totally stoopid. I own some solar panels and associated gear, that makes me automatically some enviro nazi liberal, right? Ridiculous. Stupid. I believe in having a credible 'backup system" in home and personal self defense. Ya, I got access to government "911", so I guess that 'enough", right? I mean, look at how 'cost effective" a simple phone call is compared to owning a firearm and learning how to use it. It's way cheaper to just use the phone for 'centralised security" delivery. Cheap gun 100$, phone call, less than a quarter. See/? "cost effective". No sense in me being "independent' on that, either. I mean, everything is just dollars and cents.

The market is growing, people who get systems like them, that's the bottom line. Most folks I have met who got any sort of system actually wish they had done it sooner. It's just neat. It's way cool to know you got something so useful and functional. And there's also this deal of comparing long tern renting of energy with actual purchase price. Like, here's an open offer to anyone. The bashers, the 'botom line" folks. Here's the dare if you really want to compare costs strictcly from a federal reserve note angle. First, you'll have to show me where any local utility company anyplace in the US will give you a bottom line firm fixed purchase price in dollars on juice for the next twenty years, where they will give me or anyone else as joe homeowner a price guarantee and warranty and let you pay it off up front. Now I want in addition to that the added in real numbers on what comes out of your income tax with holding to 'support" this monopoly juice from wherever it starts from all the way to the socket in your wall, the complete vertical and horizontal journey, that's part of the "dollar numbers' as well. Say you buy a new home, homes definetly need the juice, where can anyone get that 'electric" part of that home ownership tied in with the mortgage for the same amount of years. Where is it, what does it cost, actual company name, actual website, actual dollars and cents and watts numbers. Twenty years, same as the panels I got.

Put it up, let's see it. Where is it, what are the numbers? Anyone, go for it, show it, details, not vague generalities. Then we can talk numbers.

It doesn't bother me one bit it's a small number now of system owners, even though it's approaching one million last I looked and saw. It used to be a small number owned "useless and impractical" home computers, too, because there wasn't much of anything "practical" you could do with a 4,000$ dollar electric typewriter back then. It wasn't "cost effective". Regular cheap typewriters and manual file cabinets and adding machines were more 'cost effective".

I'm so gald the luddites didn't win on that one, despite all the pompous bashing that went on.

I'm so glad most folks want to be tied 100% for their energy, food and water needs to big gov/corporate brother. I'm just so proud, true "real" conservatives are part of the herd, right? Just so gosh darn proud of them, being 100% dependent. That's really "cost effective" too in other ways, you don't even have to think anymore, big bro and big corporate can do your thinking for you, like why waste your time when they can decide what you want and what you think for you?.

have fun.

[VOA]

bump

[Willie Green]

Related threads:

US takes role in Colombia to new level
BP Cuts 500 North Sea Oil Jobs

---

U.S. Petroleum & Crude Oil Overview
(thousand barrels per day)

	1960	1965	1970	1975	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000
U.S. Crude Oil Production	7,035	7,804	9,637	8,375	8,597	8,971	7,355	6,560	5,834
U.S. Petroleum Imports	1,815	2,468	3,419	6,056	6,909	5,067	8,018	8,835	11,093
Total	8,850	10,272	13,056	14,431	15,506	14,038	15,373	15,395	16,927
Imports as % of Total	20.5	24.0	26.2	42.0	44.6	36.1	52.2	57.4	65.5

As North Sea oil production continues to decline, America's dependence on imported petroleum will shift even more towards OPEC. While drilling offshore and in ANWR may help, it would still be insufficient to dramaticly reduce our ever-increasing consumption.

The obvious solution to this dependency would be to begin construction of modern, efficient mass-transportation systems in our nation's most densely populated regions and urban areas. Electricly powered light rail, high-speed rail and maglev systems could be easily fueled by clean-coal and nuclear technology power plants.

Unfortunately, RINOs have been bought-out by Big Oil special interests. Alaskan representative Don Young, who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, continues to sidetrack and delay implementation of energy efficient mass-transportation systems. A whole contingent of Nevada RINOs unite to obstruct our nation's efforts to utilize abundant nuclear power. And Dubya's own sibling, Jeb, brags about his obstruction on his re-election website:

Protecting Florida’s Coasts From Offshore Drilling – Thanks to Governor Bush’s hard work and leadership, Florida’s coastal and marine resources will continue to be free from the threat of offshore drilling. Protections secured by Governor Bush far exceed those agreed to by former President Clinton, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and the late-Governor Lawton Chiles.

[tm22721]

Geothermal will put the towelheads out of business when we figure out how to tap magma without creating a volcano.

BUMP

[Grampa Dave]

Most renewable energy pushers have inhaled too much and too often. This causes them to have these power fantasies re renewables.

[hinckley buzzard]

I remember reading this exact same editorial--thirty years ago.

I have no problem, myself, with fossil fuels, and I trust the market to take care of future demands. But I resent being patronized by shills for the oil industry.

The fact is, if Jimmuh Carter had taken the 60 billion dollars he pissed away on bogus "synfuel" projects, and put it into solarfarms in vast empty areas of the Southwest desert, California wouldn't have an energy problem now, and if they did they wouldn't need oil to solve it.

If the gov decided to do the proverbial "Apollo" program in the 70's, we could tell the Saudi's to shove it, today.

BTW, isn't James K. Glassman the einstein who told us a few years ago that the Dow was going straight to 36,000?

Real credible futurist, that boy.