Side note: Didn’t T Boone Pickens just scrap his wind power investment because he said there is NO WAY to make money?
Just wait till the turbines are past there life cycle and need to be torn down or replaced, where do you think that money will come from?
Yeah, he did, thankfully IMHO.
He wanted to generate 4000 MW of power from a wind farm using 200000 acres.
The Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona does almost that (3,739 MW) using just 4000 acres, and it’s not even using modern nuclear plant design since we can’t build new plants in the US.
this probably has nothing to do with campaign financing…
The land that will be used for wind farms can be used in conjunction with agricultural crops. Do you really think we need to continue over populating this place? We need open space for farms, no matter what happens in the future. There are smart and efficient ways to do this even in places that would otherwise never be used for anything at all.
And keep in mind that there are other places that are able to produce a good portion of their energy needs through wind generated electricity. Denmark is the highest with 19%. I’m not saying that we need to dump all of our money and time into this yesterday, but we need to start making the right steps so we aren’t faced with a disaster when the choice is made for us, regardless of whether or not we like it.
Fry makes a good point. There will be a time when wind and solar energy are far cheaper and easier than obtaining oil supplies. But I think that day is far beyond any of our lives.
You noticed that too, huh
And there are most certainly a number of things that we will not see turning away from oil anytime soon. Like cars for example. But the infrastructure that we use to power our homes can be greatly altered if we wanted to do it. Don’t quote me on this because I read it a while back, but when doing research for a turbine project I read that the amount of wind power that isn’t being harnessed in the middle of the country is more than enough to power this entire continent. If we dedicate resources into building that infrastructure, and developing newer more efficient technology to produce and store the energy that we’re letting blow by it could be a great benefit to us and the world alike.
The only time I ever really got excited and hopeful about alternative energy is when a professor of mine was explaining solar technology. Our current solar panel are only able to capture energy from one spectrum of light. If scientist are able to come up with a way to harness the power from the full spectrum, solar panels will produce 8x more power. Suddenly solar panels become cost effective when they produce the same amount of power that a panel 8x their size and 8x their cost (obviously the new tech will be a bit more expensive).
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Not to mention how our entire food system would collapse without oil to make synthetic fertilizers.
Not just the fertilizer. Oil runs everything from the processing plant to the huge tractors and other farm equipment. It would be very difficult to feed the country using only manpower without slaves. Even if it was pulled off, the cost of food would be high as f@#$ to pay for all the labor involved. I know that you already know this, I’m just expanding on your point.
:tup: I am with Obama on this. We need to utilize the remaining oil supplies while we figure out alternative, sustainable energy sources for the future.
Right now we would be screwed without oil. If we ran out of oil tomorrow, I am willing to bet 3/4ths of our population (USA) would die within a few years.
I’d be first inline at the bank for a loan to make coal based everything since it’s by far one of our largest resources.
Oh god.
:picard:
Harvesting energy from coal is one of the biggest polluters and is not a realistic mid or long term option. Just look China’s air quality, that’s how they over-took us in emissions; coal.
I said SUSTAINABLE. Coal would eventually just run out like everything else…
Natural gas is a lot more feasible bridge…plus we have a ton of that.
+1
I don’t follow politics much at all, too much of a cluster fuck and usually too much of a joke for me to care…but i thought the lacking refineries was one of the biggest problems?
Incase anyone was wondering how Obama got elected ^