Modern Vespa

Yes!

That's pretty cool. I checked this out a few years ago (when I was doing the solar at the camp) for my house but then it would have been 20+ years to pay for a system. Maybe I should look into it again.

I think the point was to demonstrate that even without the major subsidies, the current renewables are not the answer that we are all looking for.

I wonder out-loud how much energy prices vary among the nation.

For instance if Cali has more renewables contributing to the equation than say Texas, does energy cost more?

Though this is not the forum for it, I think rowdy caustic loud obnoxious debate on this topic is a wonderful thing.

The more people who are looking for solutions the closer we are to finding that solution.

IMHO

R

8)

I also looked into small hydro for my camp in Maine. I have a small creek that runs through it with about a 25ft drop which may be enough to spin a small DC gen but I stopped messing with the idea when I found out that it is almost impossible to get approval for small hydro in Maine because of environmental laws. So I have the solar panel and have a small windmill I will be installing for the cloudy days.

PS I think it is pretty cool that this topic is on its second page and no one has blown up or gone political.

I don't think the status quo is (the answer) either. Like an ecosystem, the more diverse energy resources you utilize, the more protected you are from perturbations in one of them. Survival is not 'of the strongest' but of the 'most adaptable'.

I'll touch the "third rail": POPULATION.

Alternative energy sources and conservation are -- of course -- important parts of the solution, but we're all doomed unless the current global population starts abandoning old paradigms (including religious ones) and taking serious steps to curb the growth of the future global population.

I'm afraid that getting to that point isn't going to be pretty, even if large segments of the world suddenly become enlightened. In the meantime, though, selfish behaviors such as excessive consumption only hasten the arrival of the cataclysm.

The list of things we can do is long. starting with just shutting down items not in use. Tv, Computers, Ipods, lights, shorter showers. the problem is us not the big power producers they just sell what we are using at the moment.

Hmmm sell the scooter ride the bus?

Not sure a bus in much better than the scooter. I bicycle commuted for around twenty years. I even walked to work every working day for a year (to see if I could do it). I'd like to think the world's better for it but I know I am.

I agree with you 100%. but we as people are not doing it then try to shift the blam . we have the power in our own home to make a change. I watch the grid all the time. trust me its now AC season now and power demad will spike just from people cooling houses that are empty for the day

I think if they gave us more incentive in forms of rebates we would all buy into solar. I know I can't afford 30k for a system on my house with a 20 year payback.

Good point. Besides, we ALL pay for the subsidies anyway. (Subsidies are like government jobs! )

IMHO the blog from which the OP came from seems to have an agenda and is not based on fact, just his opinion.

You are correct. In fact, he states that. No evidence-based practices whatsoever.

The Feds are offering a tax credit (not deduction) of 1/3 the cost.

Also PG&E and SMUD are paying for production for a 5 year period. Right now SMUD is 30c per KW generated, on top of not having to pay the 19c per KW peak tier 2 rates.

PG&G payback is faster as the rates are so dang high.

IF you think rates will go up, it will make sense in 5 to 10 years (assuming you dont move)

IF you think they will go down, then it does not make sense.

Don't worry, if you look how much oil production supports farming, once the oil runs out the population goes down.

Egypt. Saudi Arabia, and pretty much the rest of the Middle East (Iran, Jordan and Israel are the exceptions) produce 20% of the food they need to sustain the population at a starvation level.

20%

It will not be pretty when the oil starts to run out, or if they decide to cut off our oil supply to "punish" us.

Yeah, haven't figure out why no one is trying a fuel cell for each home concept, instead of trying to make them portable for cars. Leave the oil and natural gas to stuff that moves.

I repeat: there is no free lunch

From the Wikipedia: So:
1. You need to make the electrolyte using acids or other highly reactive (toxic) materials
2. You need to provide a constant supply of hydrogen or other fuel--usually after making it from petroleum products
3. You need clever high energy processes to make the anode & cathode

The point I'm trying to make is that nature never just gives us free energy

They're apparently getting there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_fuel_cell

So far they're looking to cost $8,000 per kilowatt to install (a typical home may require 5 kilowatts) with around 8-10 cents per kilowatt in natural gas running costs.

I believe that once a diesel engine is warmed up, killing it and restarting it should not cause an increase in pollutants. This is assuming that the engine is still warm on restart, which for quick trips in most weather should be the case.

Jay Leno is right. We need to drive hydrogen fuel cell cars and trucks and save the gasoline for our classic cars and two wheelers.
I don't like T. Boone Pickens "Plan", because his ulterior motive is to sell us more of his natural gas.
We all need to conserve, and stop talking about why other forms of energy won't work. Why is China #1 in solar energy production? Why not us?

GT you see the big picture.

Asking people to drastically change their footprint is great, but as you can see by simply reading through these posts...it's overall effectiveness is going to be pretty marginal...if it's left to the individual, the defection rate will be huge. Folks living off the grid are truly a very very small part of society, and take extreme measures to do so. It must be systemic and involuntary...like...a radical shift to low-voltage equipment across huge swaths of industry. Change like that will not happen in one lifetime.

I didn't think nuclear energy was renewable...just plentiful.

Have you heard of Bloom Energy servers?

http://www.bloomenergy.com/

Personally, I like the system, from what I've seen. Super-cooled for efficiency, making small-scale fuel cells alot more possible. Does not have to be a zero-sum game.

I don't believe the article succeeded in demonstrating that. A series of half-truths and some convenient ignorance do not make a compelling case.

For instance:
- Solar, quoted by the article as 15% efficient, is actually going to exceed that efficiency in a very short amount of time. A lot of people are working on it from a lot of different angles, and the efficiency levels are getting higher.
- The wind may not blow in the summertime, but the sun shines. Wind and solar are therefore complementary.
- The author says we'd be lucky to hit 10%, but California is already hitting 11%.

Finally, saying "We can't do it, so we shouldn't even try" is defeatist, stupid, and runs counter to all the things that we now know because someone had the courage to try.

Not sure where you got the supercooled from... 800 C = glowing red hot

It's a worthy technology,
but there's still no free lunch

Here's their explanation of its inner workings:
http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-animation/

What do you call that bright, obnoxious thing in the sky? Looks like a giant source of free energy to me.

Yup, that's a giant source of free UV, IR & visible energy

If you want it in any other form,
then some effort on your part will be required

OK, my 2 cents...

Conservation, wind, solar, nuclear, and hydro are all part of the equations but not the final solution.

Coal is still king and won't go away for quite a while. Large units are already using wet/dry Flue Gas Desulphurization for SO2, baghouses and electrostatic precipitators for particulate, SCRs for NOx, sorbent injection for mercury, blah, blah, blah and the stuff coming out of the stack is mostly water. Companies that provide these pollution control systems are working diligently on CO2 capture. And the efficiency gains of modern super critical boilers is also of note. I'm not arguing that coal is "good" for the environment, simply that it provides about 50% of our country's power supply, is cheap, reliably, and not as bad as many environmentalists may suggest. Mothballing old, inefficient units and replacing with modern plants with best available pollution control equipment is also part of the equation.

Increased use of natural gas in the form of combined cycle power plants should also be considered as old coal units are shut down and power demands return. At approximately 50% efficiency (significantly higher that a coal plant), negligible SO2 and particulate, 90% less NOx, and roughly 50% CO2 emitted, they are considerably more environmentally friendly than a coal plant without the pollution control and resulting parasitic load needed for the control systems. Price of natural gas is back down from the early 2000s thanks to the development of methods to recover gas from the Shale reserves along the east coast. Natural gas prices are expected to remain competitive. Again, not the solution, but part of the equation.

Different parts of the country can take advantage of particular power options such as solar in the southwest and wind along the coasts, but they won't replace fossil fuel for baseload capacity. Nuclear has the capability but it'll be 10 yrs away before any additional nuke plants are put online.

No comment about the political crap at the end of the OP article.

Well it is a free source but not free to collect. Many costs involved in harnessing it and distributing it as there are in fossil fuels and other fuels. The difference being that some fuels are just more cost effective to use because of higher concentrations of energy.

For instance a few years ago, as I said earlier, I found it cost prohibitive to add solar panels to my house as it would have taken 20 plus years to pay off using a grid tie system.

But that said. New tech is always coming out. Whoever figures out how to do solar efficiently and cheap will make a lot of money. I read a few years ago that an Australian firm (I think it was Australia) was perfecting a way to make cheap solar panels that don't rely on expensive microchip silicon. Thank god for the innovators out there.

Sure. But the energy is free.

It's not just UV, IR, and visible light, either. It's also the cause of evaporation that brings rains that form into rivers and the driving force of the wind.

To add my $0.02, the thing that the article in the OP completely ignores is that the petroleum industry in the US already receives FAR more subsidies than renewable energy sources do, and they very likely will continue to for years to come. I'd be willing to bet that if all subsidies were ended for all sources of energy, you'd see a huge boom in renewable/sustainable forms of energy in a very short time. Of course, that's not feasible because it would cause an unbelievable disruption in our power supply, industries and our economy as a whole... but I'm just saying that the author is totally incredulous because he's unabashedly castigating renewables for the subsidies they receive, while completely ignoring the massive subsidies that are already given to oil, gasoline, natural gas, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, etc., which are all giant profit centers for the petroleum industry. So not only are we getting gouged at the pump, but we're also paying them indirectly to do this to us, through our tax dollars that are being used to prop up those industrial behemoths.

With that, here's a counterpoint to the OP, a guide to oil industry subsidies for dummies:

http://cleantech.com/news/554/oil-industry-subsidies-for-dummies

And, of course, the coal is heavily subsidized using your tax dollars as well:

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/mrgreen/2010/03/does-the-coal-industry-get-subsidies.html

Just imagine what those billions of dollars per year could do, if they were invested in developing and creating new energy industries that don't pollute, or which at least have a minimal impact or risk, relatively speaking. Of course we don't have all the answers yet, and it would be very difficult to completely replace our dependence on fossil using current technology, but that doesn't mean that it can't be done or that we shouldn't work toward that goal. I believe with enough investment, research and development it should be possible for us to reach that goal within my lifetime, particularly if we make a real effort to reduce our overall use. As an example of what can be done even today, Germany (which is not known as being a particularly sunny part of the world) has been on a huge push to implement solar energy solutions, far outpacing the US, which has drastically reduced their reliance on fossil fuels and it has negated the need to build any new nuclear power facilities:

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/06/germany-to-raise-solar-target-for-2010-adjust-tariffs?cmpid=rss

I believe that we can also do this without relying on nuclear, which will only become a bigger and bigger albatross around our necks, the more we rely on it. No matter how many safety systems and procedures are in place, this type of energy production is inherently fraught with enormous risks, which don't end once the energy is converted into electricity. There are no good solutions for disposing of the spent rods and other radioactive materials that are left over post-production, the best we can do is process them into more concentrated forms and store them indefinitely for tens of thousands of years. That's a RIDICULOUSLY long time and I'm not willing to rely on that as a feasible solution. When it comes down to it, all that nuclear energy is doing in the first place is boiling a friggin pot of water. I can think of a whole lot better ways to do that than potentially exposing the world to huge doses of radioactivity in the event of a "mistake" or an "accident". If there's anything I've learned, it's that nothing is ever foolproof or fail safe, and Murphy's Law will reign supreme given enough time. You need look no farther than the Gulf of Mexico for proof positive of this.

So, the way I see it, we need to move toward energy solutions for the future that not only cause less damage by their use, but which minimize the potential for disaster when things go wrong. There's very little potential for disaster with a wind turbine or a solar panel, which is why I'm so passionate about those solutions. They're relatively easy to implement, they create lots of local jobs, which is good for our overall economy, and they have the potential to free us from the shackles of the gigantic industrial complexes which are running our world, and which are very quickly running it into the ground.

Between tax subsidies, foreign aid to brutal dictators, our military not defending "freedom" but instead defending brutal, murderous, corporate interests the actual cost to you of that gallon of gas is close to $20.

Plus a lot of pain and misery.

Plus the fact that left unchecked the burning and mining of fossil fuels will leave this planet uninhabitable within 100 years. Yay!!

It may be less than convenient, but the path to renewables is clear and possible. Had Reagan not committed treason (not politics, a fact) to keep the hostages in Iran to get elected, we'd be at about 20-25% renewable right now.

I'm 58, I will only be around 29 more years (my family dies at 87 with few exceptions), and my son is a childless ass, so I don't have a vested interest in human survival. I'm betting others do.

It's a shame so much energy has to be wasted fighting with willing stooges. Keep it up. It's too bad with all the social sciences, anthropology and history, it turns out that the most accurate depictions of the immediate future are "Mad Max" and "Soylent Green".

And it's really too bad that we're not all in this together.

P.

(edited to say: it was a massive effort to keep my head from exploding and my language civil. I hope it's appreciated.)

well my 0,02:

taken fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy

....The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year.[6] In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year....

sounds like a very reliable and powerful source , but in fact needs some intelligence and future investments and inventions to use and distribute it.

Regards

Thar she blows

I see a lot of promise in Solar Energy. In the central San Joaquin Valley, where I live, we have an abundance of sunshine and with the ongoing water crisis, we have hundreds of thousands of acres of farm land that is not being used for crops because there is no water available. In April, the first of hopefully many "Solar Farms" opened near the small town of Mendota in western Fresno County. Not only does the "Farm" produce enough energy to power 500 to 800 homes, it also provides much needed jobs.

It makes sense to me for every region to use what resources are naturally available to it. Maybe collectively, it will make a difference.

Use solar energy to operate some power-hungry de-salination plants.

I'll do you one better than that, Jim... use solar concentrators to boil water that turns turbines to generate electricity, then just filter/treat the runoff (which will already be desalinated) to provide a clean water supply!

Yepper - that'd work.

Fresh clean potable water is actually the human race's biggest concern, and yet gets very little press.

LOL guys just try to get new generation permits in CA also AB316B is a deal Buster , they are called the Water Resource Board

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/npdes/cwa316.shtml