Posted on 08/08/2011 7:55:09 AM PDT by bananaman22
The domestic alternative energy policy in the US seems to rotate on semantics and adding words to other words to make it look like something is going on. However, the truth of the matter is, energy policy is as defunct as ever and on most fronts the US is lagging far behind. Mostly it is a disregard of what the economist Herman Daly has pointed out about the macro-view of the macro-economic system. His idea is that the ecological system is closed and finite, not infinite created by God for our own personal use, which needs to be included into economic models. As pointed out by this author in, The Need For a Real Domestic Alternative Energy Policy, the US will need this Energy policy to spur growth, create jobs, and remain competitive going forward. Yet, with words out there such as “clean coal” and “corn ethanol” as our savings for the future, it seems that the US gets further and further from the ability to save the economy and closer to suicide.
First, let us make the argument for alternative energy, because in the end if it has no argument, then it has no point to have a policy. Can the world be powered by alternative energy? Well, let us think about this in terawatts, terawatts being a million megawatts, and humans on this Earth of ours generate and utilize 15 terawatts per year. Solar energy from the sun per year produces 101,000 terawatts on Earth, the majority of which is not captured and utilized by us for energy, but it hasn’t been lost on the plant life the importance of that statistic. Wind is producing roughly 72 terawatts of energy in only the United States, once again above demand. And of course, with advances in conductors and decentralizing through not having large electric plants, energy loss could be cut down from the 6.5-7.5% annually that we have now. Therefore, it is not “do we have the capacity,” we very much do, but do we have the political will to make this happen. That is in order to save our country from a possible Japan-style lost decade or complete financial collapse. Full article at: Coal and Ethanol Are Not Alternative Energy Policy
The author appears to not even understand the units of measure for energy.
Terawatt is power, not energy. Terawatt per year is a meaningless measurement. It must be terawatthours per year to have any meaningfull measurement.
It is the equalivement of talking about owning thousands of feet of land instead of measuring in acres.
Coal and ethanol ain’t, coal and natural gas is.
Liberals heads tend to explode when you remind them that coal is stored solar energy.
It would have been very nice if the author had explained how coal mined in the US and used in environmentally-regulated power plants in the US is dirtier than coal mined in the US and used in unregulated Chines power plants.
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