[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
There is no substantial primal green power source and if you think a few pretty wind mills in the north sea . . .
With existing technology, North Sea wind turbines could produce four times more energy than all of northern Europe consumes. This is not debatable; it is an engineering matter of fact. The cost would be enormous, of course, and a gigantic new infrastructure would be needed to convert some of the energy to hydrogen for transportation and for times when most turbines are out of service, such as during severe storms.
There ain't enough generational capability without gas, coal and nuclear. FACT.
This is not a fact at all. Someone just made it up. There is not a single authoritative government or industrial study that denies the overall potential of wind power in northern Europe. The only question is cost. If Cornwall knows differently, he should CITE HIS SOURCES. I can point to dozens of authoritative studies, and I do not think he can cite even one that contradicts them.
Of course there are many parts of the world which do not have wind resources, but northern Europe and North America are sitting on top of more wind energy than all of the Middle East can produce at peak oil pumping capacity.
Energy conservation good but not all the story.
That's true. You need a primary source of energy. In the U.S. conservation is by far the cheapest and fastest way to begin solving the problem because we consume twice as much energy per dollar of GDP compared to our economic competitors, so all we need to do is buy the technology from them. Other countries that are already efficient will need new sources of primary energy.
Kyoto seems good but is impossible at present. FACT.
Lots of things can become possible overnight. For example, the 9/11 attacks made it possible for the Bush administration to invade Iraq. That would have been unthinkable in 1999. Here are some plausible events that might cause vast changes to our energy policies nearly overnight:
The U.S. and Japan are hit with three more category five hurricanes this season, one in Miami that causes another $200 billion in damage. The public demands action. The 1952 London smog crisis finally triggered reform in the U.K., after 700 years of expert study and inaction.
A terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia closes down 5% of the world's oil production. The price of oil jumps to $160 per barrel. Something like this is bound to happen sooner or later.
Here is a somewhat less plausible nightmare scenario: al Qaeda destroys three major US cities with thermonuclear bombs stolen from the former Soviet Union. The surviving public would demand that we stop financing the war against ourselves with oil money.
If you were trained you'd know Kyoto is impossible - right now.
There are no technical impediments to solving the energy crisis, merely social and political roadblocks. Such things can disappear overnight. I have often quoted Freeman Dyson on this:
". . . [The] experiences of World War II made an indelible impression on people of my generation. At the bottom of our hearts we still believe you can have anything you want in five years if you need it badly enough and if you are prepared to slog your way through the barriers of confusion and incompetence to get it. . . . The accepted wisdom says that, no matter what we decide to do about economic problems, we cannot expect to see any substantial results [for 15 years]. The accepted wisdom is no doubt correct, if we continue to play the game by the rules of today. But anyone who lived through World War II knows that the rules can be changed very fast when the necessity arises."
- Jed
