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Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy Possible?
americanthinker.com ^ | 5/25/2018 | Norman Rogers

Posted on 05/25/2018 6:47:00 AM PDT by rktman

The people who are best described as members of a renewable energy cult are lately promoting the idea that we should run the country on 100% renewable energy, whatever that is. I say "whatever that is" because different branches of the cult have different definitions of renewable energy. It seems to be a matter of fashion and prejudice.

One definition of renewable energy is that it is naturally replenished on a human timescale. Solar energy and wind energy fit in nicely with that definition. Most fans of renewable energy explicitly reject renewable hydroelectricity if it involves damming a river. Most renewable energy-lovers are also dam-haters. They literally feel that fish are more important than people.

Global warming, which supposedly is caused by emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels, is frequently cited as a justification for using renewable energy. But hydro and nuclear, energy that does not emit CO2, is excluded from the renewable universe.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: pieinthesky; solarpanels; windmills
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Not with the current (get it) mind set and technology. Eventually someone will perfect the perpetual energy machine but it's not here yet. Safe, reliable, efficient.
1 posted on 05/25/2018 6:47:00 AM PDT by rktman
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To: rktman

There is no such thing as renewable energy.


2 posted on 05/25/2018 6:49:45 AM PDT by raybbr (That progressive bumper sticker on your car might just as wll say, "Yes, I'm THAT stupid!")
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To: rktman
Nor will they burn wood, which already is renewable and carbon neutral.
Trees too are more important than people.

3 posted on 05/25/2018 6:50:28 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: rktman

Cheap batteries will help, but liquid transportation fuel will always be required for shipping and aviation and military use.


4 posted on 05/25/2018 6:50:36 AM PDT by cicero2k
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To: rktman

The short is not without massively subsidizing the whole thing. At best, all the renewables generate a small amount of net energy, after paying for the energy needed to create infrastructure. Unless we can overcome the third law of dynamics and keep the stuff around forever, it will never pay for itself.


5 posted on 05/25/2018 6:56:25 AM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death by cults.)
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To: rktman

Depends on your timeline for renewal.

Oil is renewable if you care to wait long enough.

Solar isn’t renewable in that the Sun will eventually run out of Hydrogen to fuse.


6 posted on 05/25/2018 6:56:48 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: rktman

“One definition of renewable energy is that it is naturally replenished on a human timescale.”

Many Natural gas fields, that have been pumped dry and capped, have been know to fully replenish in 30 years.


7 posted on 05/25/2018 6:58:24 AM PDT by JPJones (More tariffs, less income tax.)
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To: rktman
More nukes, less kooks...
8 posted on 05/25/2018 6:58:30 AM PDT by 103198 (It's the metadata stupid...)
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To: BitWielder1

“Trees too are more important than people.”

I remember the “save the trees” switch from paper bags to plastic.

Now the Pacific ocean is a sea of plastic bags.

My guess is the whole movement was for and by oil companies as a way to process refinery waste into plastic bags.


9 posted on 05/25/2018 7:02:26 AM PDT by JPJones (More tariffs, less income tax.)
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To: raybbr

“There is no such thing as renewable energy.”

Thermodynamics aren’t just a good idea. They’re laws.

L


10 posted on 05/25/2018 7:04:14 AM PDT by Lurker (President Trump isn't our last chance. President Trump is THEIR last chance.)
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To: rktman

> Is 100 Percent Renewable Energy Possible? <

Sure, if you don’t mind living in a tent and giving up all forms of transportation more advanced than a bicycle.


11 posted on 05/25/2018 7:04:22 AM PDT by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: cicero2k

“Cheap batteries will help”

No they won’t. You still have to use fuel to charge them...


12 posted on 05/25/2018 7:07:31 AM PDT by babygene (hMake America Great Again)
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To: JPJones

Sorry, that just doesn’t happen. It takes thousands if not millions of years for the hydrocarbons to migrate from the source rock to the trap.


13 posted on 05/25/2018 7:08:43 AM PDT by crusty old prospector
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To: raybbr

Not without a rabbi and a live chicken


14 posted on 05/25/2018 7:12:37 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nearly all men can stand adversity...to test a man's character, give him power." A. Lincoln)
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To: JPJones

Cardboard is the largest volume of any domestic trash. My town’s transfer station has two dumpsters for Cardboard. One dumpster for all other materials. It is very easy to recycle and turn back into more cardboard or brown paper bags. Most bags are 100% recycled paper now.

On another note: Sawdust as a byproduct of producing lumber is increasingly being made into wood pellets for use in pellet stoves and electricity generation especially in Europe. Wood pellets are being used to replace coal as a fuel for their boilers.


15 posted on 05/25/2018 7:13:25 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: Lurker

Funny...I just realised that the same people who can’t understand the law of supply and demand don’t understand the laws of thermodynamics either! They believe the laws don’t apply to them! LOL!


16 posted on 05/25/2018 7:19:22 AM PDT by gr8eman (Since God has been banished from our classrooms, Satan has filled the void.)
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To: rktman

It’s possible, certainly, if one returns to a pre-industrial lifestyle that discards such luxuries as electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones, central heating, etc. Let’s all just huddle in the dark around a fire fueled by the best renewable energy source: wood. Better yet, let the morons who keep pushing this Luddite nonsense set the example by moving into caves and shutting the f*** up.


17 posted on 05/25/2018 7:20:15 AM PDT by katana
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To: BitWielder1
Nor will they burn wood, which already is renewable and carbon neutral. Trees too are more important than people.

We have a ranch in SE Oklahoma, with a wood burning stove for heat in the house. 2100 sqft house. We heat the house on firewood all winter when we are there, and we never cut down a tree. We have 125 acres with about 25 acres having cattle, and 100 acres of dense trees (Hardwood and pines) and a creek and a few beaver ponds. We just cut up trees that fall. Big trees small ones. Storms take them out, or they just get old and fall. We can't keep it all cut up and cleaned out. And if you walk through there there are thousands of small trees that nature has sewn coming up to replace the big ones that are falling.

18 posted on 05/25/2018 7:20:57 AM PDT by kjam22
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To: rktman

Yes with hydrogen and solar etc
You can run transportation including jets with hydrogen
Hygrogen can be made from water
Now look I did my thesis on this in the 90s
It’s still about 50-100 years off
Lots of.gas and oil and uranium left
Also we need larger steady sources of power for now and for industrial
Batteries are also getting better
Most of the distributed renewables are for supporting the grid for now


19 posted on 05/25/2018 7:21:30 AM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guvmint you get is the Trump winning express !)
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To: kjam22
Ain't wood stoves great I have a 1970s era London fire 🔥 box in my house that was Originally built in the 1860s
20 posted on 05/25/2018 7:23:15 AM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guvmint you get is the Trump winning express !)
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