The Black Vault

Pandasex, I hate to do this to you girl but the GW crowd has conspired for the purpose of greed to force the government to force you to conserve and accept being denied the resources of this planet which are not in short supply. Sure there is nothing wrong with developing new energy sources but who says that wasn't already happening. What non-knowledgeable people don't understand is that technology is very expensive and very risky to develop and government is the reason why. The people of the world are going to be made artificially poor through denial of access and that is what it is really all about.

Many of the "green" technologies are actually more wasteful overall and most of them are not cost effective. And they are being forced onto the market through CARB standards and smokestack emission limits and other laws. The auto makers have been forced to create hybrids which hurt the auto business, you see the result. All of this raises the cost of everything you buy. Yes, we would like less pollution and less toxic waste but green tech is doing little for that. Do you know how many products are made with oil? Thousands. Even if some green technologies are eventually made economical, you still will want all those products that are made with oil.

And what's worse is that the inept manner of dispersal of funds by the government will actually slow the overall development of any real breakthrough energy technology. Businesses run by smart people would concentrate funding on technology that might actually solve problems because that would be profitable but government has no interest in profits or in solving problems other than the next election cycle. All very bad for people who truly want to clean up this planet.

Ultimately the people pushing government for green laws are those who have given up on America competing with the world technologically and opt instead to corrupt the government for their own personal gain, and your loss. GW is bunk.

Hopefully the current system has not completely destroyed the entrepreneurial spirit in America and some will continue to develop real technology.

You know one of the most telling aspects of the green b.s. is ironically the businesses of George W. Bush. They went out of business because the price of oil was so low. Oil is in great supply. We are not running out. If the market was left to its own devices eventually the price of oil would spike up which would provide the necessary and correct motivation to develop another energy source. And the temporary artificial spike in gasoline prices several years ago had that exact effect. Somebody waving their magic wand and saying "we must develop new energy sources now", is not a sustainable motivation nor is it wise policy for governments. You can't just fake an energy shortage or crap the cash necessary to replace oil.

Funny, I say this while sitting here watching Dune, a movie that is metaphorically all about how oil runs the world.

The problems is that "green" technology is being forced upon the market. It's unproven and in many cases, such as cars making them pollutes more than the regular cars. This is due to all the metals used in the batteries etc.

That's why we should move to environmentally friendly Ultracapacitor is instead of using old tech LIon and Lead Acid Batteries. http://www.allbusiness.com/energy-utili ... 076-1.html

Wind requires regular power plants and is wholly inefficient.
What he's not metioning is wind blows mostly at night when energy is least used and that by storing this energy in flywheels, ultracapacitors, and Compressed Air Energy Storage systems
http://www.solarfeeds.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=173

Solar is the same the cost of making the cells for the power returned is out of whack and will remain so for years to come.

Plus solar still requires normal power plants to operate.

This is another technology that require a Energy storage system like above. The cost of solar cell is coming downeven as their energy capture is going up as well.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20702/
http://earth2tech.com/2008/11/27/solar- ... -heats-up/
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41224/113/


We can also get through much of the shortcomings of the above systems by creating electricity from sewage gases like methane (a gas far worse than Carbon Dioxide if not burned). In fact it can produce between 1/10 and 1/130th of the electricity needed for a city depending on usage. http://cleantechnica.com/2008/09/11/san ... om-sewage/

The question of efficiency is not one of intermediacy of supply, because that can be overcome through storage. The question of efficiency is one of building costs, maintenence, transport of fuel, power transmission losses over long distance of electricity. When these are taken into account the localized well planned alternative energy smart grids are far superior than the current model.

One of the important notes to take into consideration is that for any global green plan to work alternative sustainable energies and technologies and ways of living must be introduced into devolping and third world nations so the avoid the pitfalls the developed first world nations have gotten themselves into.

The problem is that people are thinking too "little picture". Sure 1,000 points of light can add up but it won't be enough. And all the conservation in the world is not gonna fix the problem. We need a radical departure in technology for energy production. Politicians simply use this topic as a football, have no interest in solutions. I believe the eventual answer will require de-centralization of power generation but don't tell that to the statists. That is what Tesla was after but the gov confiscated all his work.

For the near and long term NUCLEAR POWER is the way to go. It's simple straight forward and well tested. Plus it produces enormous amounts of power. We have a great storage facility and just need to use it.

The govt should approve 5 - 10 reactor designs so costs can be contained and systems aren't always needing fresh engineering. Nuclear works everywhere else it's time to use it here.

Jaack
Wind currently costs 1/2-1/3rd as much as much as nuclear plants for the same amount of power even with a CAES System its far less expensive than nuclear.

Part of the reasons of why windpower makes sense. Note that windturbines especial Horizontal ones have turbulence can affect local weather, the solution is to use better low turbulence rotors or using Verticle ones. Other than that minmal spacing of 1000 feet to 1/2 mile is good to keep them from making downwind turbines ineffecient.]
Cost of a 1600MW nuke plant=$6 000 000 000
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2008/Jun ... ews002.asp

As for costs

The Cost of 1600MW of Wind turbines at $1700 per kW
2 720 000 000 or assuming we'd build the old non-Maglev style (those that need 8mph winds instead of 2mph winds) we can assume they operate 1/3 of the time so the cost is x 3 for triple the turbines=$8 160 000 000. Still no centralization, no nuclear waste, and harder target is very appealing even at the slightly higher price.
http://www.jcmiras.net/surge/p83.htm

By todays 6-25-08 exchange rate
0.04 EUR=0.0626638 USD per kW hour for nuclear energy
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

The new Maglev wind turbine site is
0.40 CNY=0.0582725 USD per kW hour
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007- ... 016626.htm

One of the hidden costs of nuclear energy is toxic waste, and I'm not talking about the depleted fuel rods I'm talking about the mining operations polluting the local areas and the health hazards of processing the uranium into fuel. Really how many places like Fernald ( http://offo2.epa.state.oh.us/Fernald/Fe ... o/fact.htm ) and uranium mining sites ( http://www.nirs.org/miningandpollutioni ... idwest.pdf , )http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/uri.html, http://sccchatham.blogspot.com/2008/07/ ... e-for.html ) Wind is less of a hazard.

will citizens put up with for a nuclear future and uranium mining sites ( http://www.txpeer.org/toxictour/uri.html )"- Aquatank Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:04 am
"A small bit on why nuclear power should be avoided.

The cost of a nuclear reactor is up from $2-$4 Billion 2 years ago to $7 billion

The price of Uranium has gone up from $10 per pound to $60 per pound and easy to get supplies of it are becoming rarer hence the Sharbot Lake, Haudenosaunee & Algonquin vs. Canada standoff. ( http://www.mohawknationnews.com/news/si ... /news4.php )

The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility is 19 years behind schedule and $38 billion over original cost estimates. leaving 121 temporary sites in 39 states with inadequete security.

"There is a growing risk of radioactive material getting into the wrong hands," Brown said. He said there were 250 incidents last year of nuclear material being lost or stolen, and a lot was never recovered. "

Reactors only last about 40 years, and decomissioning costs $250-$500 million each. Over 100 reactors have closed but not all have been fully decommisioned since 1954.

Comparing nuclear power with wind, Brown pointed out that nuclear power already costs twice as much as electricity produced from the wind, not including the additional costs he cited.

"If we look at the economics comparing nuclear with wind, a dollar invested in wind produces more energy, leads to a greater reduction in carbon emissions, and creates more jobs than one invested in nuclear power," said Brown.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/01-2

Now we have the Clipper Windpower Britannia and the Enercon E112 Wind Turbine. Seven of these babies will power a 12000 home town.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04 ... 6.php#ch02
http://cleantech.com/news/2718/uk-getti ... -windpower and in a CAES 1/3 the size of Giants stadium and you'd have back up power for 2-3 days not hours at that size.