On 23 February 2010 17:10, Stephen Liedig <slie...@gmail.com> wrote: > The green initiatives such as wind and solar are the *ultimate goal*, but > unfortunately won't be ready as a replacement fossil based energy sources > for at least another couple of decades at best. Investment sould continue in > these areas but they are not going to fix our problems now or in the short > term. >
My (albeit very limited) understanding of power generation is that you need a consistent base load of power generation to create power for the base level of demand on the grid. This rules out any transient supply as far as I know. Peter Garrett might have to get on the blower to the Blue Sky Mine and friends because the only way you can currently generate base load without building hydro dams is Nuclear. If they come up with "New Technology X" tomorrow - the first plans won't be able to be turned on at scale for decades. For all Nuclear's safety concerns - at least you can *manage* the waste. [ ... ] The real miracle would be if governments would finally stop coming up with > schemes that only encourage us to coninue with our bad habits and start > investing in technologies that make our "current" energy services more > efficient. Recyclying energy from factories and mining operations (which we > have plenty of) is far more productive that any renewable energy source we > currently have. By doing that we produce more net energy, without actually > using more fossil fuels to generate the same amount of energy, and thereby > reduce the amount of carbon dioxide we generate. > We recently moved from a large five bedroom house with a massive A/C plant into a more modest place without A/C. When we had our second kid (born in Dec 08) we ran the A/C all the time to keep him cool - the bill for that quarter was $1100. In this new house without A/C our last quarter for the same time was $78 (note I'm not trying to be all haughty/holier than thou in saying this - we just don't have A/C because the new house didn't come with it and we're demolishing it [?]). In talking to people quarterly power bills for people with A/C of $500++ are not at all uncommon. It occurs to me that we could all significantly reduce our power consumption by a large proportion without too much government intervention at all! Unfortunately, like all feel-good causes, everyone agrees that there is a need for a change so long as YOU make the change NOT ME. Al Gore's family are grown up. The Gates Family could live in a nice 2-3 bedroom apartment - yet I know I certainly wouldn't be telling my family to man up and enjoy the heat if it weren't for the transient nature of our house. Hands up everyone who is worried about AGW and wants to disconnect their A/C at home and work, sell their car to only catch the bus, move into a small unit, have no power hungry XBOX/PS3/gaming rig/whatever at home? *crickets* > Its a huge discussion, but if people like Bill (who made him an expert in > energy matters anyway?) start talking about miracles, then we would be best > served talking about miracles that can help us now, not in 40 years when > alternatives are at a level to replace our dependance on fossil fuels. > Personally, I don't think we can wait that long. > The merits or not of the main AGW arguments and the concomitant worrying are a whole discussion in itself - especially in light of the debacle that is IPCC AR4 and the EUA leak/hack. For now though, people could significantly cut the gross CO2 they emit through simple lifestyle changes. Instead, people don't. They turn their lights off for Earth Hour and think that helps - or buy carbon credits if they're rich so they can belch and fart as much as they want without worrying about any implications. The gross figure is the only one that matters - bulldoze Australia into the Pacific tomorrow and the gross improvement for the planet is stuff all. -- David Connors (da...@codify.com) Software Engineer Codify Pty Ltd - www.codify.com Phone: +61 (7) 3210 6268 | Facsimile: +61 (7) 3210 6269 | Mobile: +61 417 189 363 V-Card: https://www.codify.com/cards/davidconnors Address Info: https://www.codify.com/contact
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