----- Original Message -----
From: Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 12:16 AM
Subject: Re: W. on the Environment
> Dan Minette schreef:
>
> > Like nuclear? I was asked to give a talk on the next 50 years of
energy. I
> > predicted that solar would multiply by 100 fold, and be 0.5% of the
total
> > energy budget. Of all energy sources, the use of coal should increase
the
> > most.
>
> Don't you think wind energy would do much better. In The Netherlands and
as far
> as I know in Germany there are already large windparks built to get cheap
and
> clean energy.
Well, I'd like to see what the subsidies on the windmills are before they
are proclaimed cheap. I know that Europe subsidizes energy sources like
wind substantially, and has a high tax on petrol. I'm not arguing with
doing this, but it does confuse the issue of large scale financial
viability.
Right now, wind is about 0.05% of total energy. My guess is that it will
increase 20-40 fold in the next 50 years to 1% or 2% Limitations include
the massive footprint required by any large scale wind powered farm: much
larger than coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear. They also include the
plethora of moving parts. Solar has the advantage that, with an overwhelming
breakthrough, it could go on roofs with minimal added impact.
> As for solar power.... I kind of doubt it's a long term solution. The
solar
> panels have to be made first. They are expensive to produce if you
calculate in
> terms of energy necessary. They only last 10 to 15 years in which they
only
> produce a little more energy then was used up in their original
construction.
At the present time they are beginning to rival generators for use in
isolated areas. They are also used in the states for low energy yard
lights. There is plenty of room for improvement, and I arm waved in
significant improvements over the next 50 years in my assessment.
>
> How about wave energy? In France and (I think) Japan there are some
projects
> that produced moderate but encouraging results sofar.
In the last chart I got, the results were less than 1 MW of capacity,
worldwide. If we assume that wave energy's use is multiplied by 1000, it
would still be less than 0.05% of the total.
Thermal energy seems to
> work in New Zealand and Iceland as far as I know.
>
Well, I know Iceland has hot springs. I'm guessing New Zealand does do.
> I guess it all boils down to what kind of region you're in and what kind
of
> natural resource is available for energy conversion. I wonder if somewhere
far
> far in the future people will migrate to places with some specific sort of
> natural energy reserve is present......
I hope that in the far future we will have a good long term source of low
entropy energy. If fusion energy works, that could do it. If we have many
breakthroughs in solid state physics, that would do it too.
Dan M.
