Posted on 05/02/2005 12:53:25 PM PDT by paltz
VANCOUVER, April 28 /CNW/ - Dr. Patrick Moore, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. and Co-Founder of Greenpeace, appeared before a committee of US federal legislators today and called for a revitalized program of developing alternative energy sources to reduce the need to burn oil, natural gas and coal in electricity generation. "Nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand," Moore told the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Resources in Washington, DC. "There is now a great deal of scientific evidence showing nuclear power to be an environmentally sound and safe choice," Moore said. Moore believes his former colleagues at Greenpeace are unrealistic in their call for a phasing out of both coal and nuclear power worldwide, as they have called for in Ontario, for example.
"There are simply not enough available forms of alternative energy to replace both of them together. Given a choice between nuclear on the one hand and coal, oil and natural gas on the other, nuclear energy is by far the best option as it emits neither CO2 nor any other air pollutants." Moore told the subcommittee there are virtually no other beneficial uses of uranium beyond electricity production, "whereas fossil fuels are a precious non-renewable resource and have a multitude of constructive uses including the manufacture of durable goods such as plastics. "Using fossil fuels for electricity generation on such a large scale with the accompanying release of harmful emissions requires that more focus be placed on the development of alternatives including nuclear energy, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass," Moore said. Moore welcomed the remarks of President George W. Bush who stated yesterday at the Small Business Administration's National Small Business Week that there is a need to promote greater energy independence by harnessing the power of technology to create new sources of energy and make more efficient use of existing ones. Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., a sustainability consulting firm, is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. |
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Jeremy Twigg, (604) 681-4122 or www.greenspiritstrategies.com |
I've really been hoping someone would start paying attention to Patrick Moore. He was one of the founders of Greenpeace and broke off from them, perferring a much more conservative and practical view of environmentalism. Greenpeace hates the guy!
Long time freepers have known about this guy. I first found out about him a couple of years ago through a FR post about his new website and all the commie hate sites devoted to hating him specifically.
"There are simply not enough available forms of alternative energy to replace both of them together. Given a choice between nuclear on the one hand and coal, oil and natural gas on the other, nuclear energy is by far the best option as it emits neither CO2 nor any other air pollutants."
He's right you know. Wind Energy can provide all the Earth's energy but just look at the pollution. {SARCASM ALERT}. OTEC or Ocean Thermo Electric Conversion can also provide pollution free electricity. This guy has an agenda and its not a sound Energy policy!
But imagine how hard it will be to do the environmental impact study to judge the effects of taking that much energy out of our wind currents.
I don't know what percentage of the total available wind power will be taken if we try to get all our energy from wind power, but certainly at SOME point draining energy from the wind would seriously change weather patterns.
When the windbreaks were built on the plains during the depression it was designed to "break up" the windflow and effect the dustbowl conditions. The amount of wind that appears in the lowest 50,000 feet of the the atmosphere is in the GIGA Terrawatt range where the worlds energy needs are in the several terawatt range. I think that the stat was extracting 3-5% of the wind energy would satisfy world needs and certainly not effect weather or rotation of the Earth.
I like Gerald O'Neil's, (founder of National Space Society with Werner von Braun), to build large solar arrays to collect solar energy in space and beam the energy to the Earth using microwave beams. NASA has proved the microwave transmission now we just need to mine the moon make the solar collectors and "Beam me down Scotty"
I went to their forum once too...bunch of loons.
But if we collect energy from space and project it to earth, won't we just make global warming worse?
Didn't they just release a study that we were absorbing more energy than we were releasing? Wouldn't an outer-space collector just make that worse?
:->
In all seriousness though, we can't predict the weather. We can't predict climate change. So I am wary of any "prediction" that we could take even 1% out of the energy of the wind and not cause some unforseen catastrophe.
Nuclear Energy is the devil we know, and the devil we can manage.
Any additional energy input by space based generating facilities are not come anywhere near the amount of power that the sun is delivering.
Most importantly, I believe in the inate American quality of being creative. Just think, Thomas edison invented the 20th Century. The light, motion pictures films and the phonograph along with over 1000 patents resulting in General Electric! Ford, the Wright brothers, Lindbergh who financed Goddard, the list goes on and on. I have no doubt that technology can many of mankinds ills! For the rest we can depend on FreeRepublic.
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