David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: Jed, maybe I feel differently about some issues that others. I honestly, > strongly dislike the appearance of the large wind turbines . . .
I don't care for the looks of them either. A British politician called them "toilet scrub brushes in the sky." However, they look better than billowing smoke or even steam. Steam kills lots of birds and uses up tremendous amounts of water. They look better than the sight of 1.5 million funerals in China, or 20,000 in the U.S. > and also find the solar plants to be using far too much land and currently > as unattractive as the wind farms. > They take up less land than coal mines or natural gas pipeline right-of-ways. Most of the land used for wind turbines can also be used for agriculture, grazing cows, etc. The footprint on the ground is much smaller per megawatt than other energy sources. Solar panels can be installed on flat building roof and other wasted space. This could generate about a third of peak electricity, as I recall, with essentially no land use at all. > Perhaps one day it will be possible to use much of the area of home roofs > for solar cell collection, and it may even become possible to make these > look attractive in some way. It is possible today. They are doing that in Hawaii, to the point of putting the electric power company out of business. > If our energy needs can be met without breaking the bank, then I would > love to see it happen. As one energy expert put it: this is not a free lunch; it is a lunch you are paid to eat. Alternative energy will not "break the bank" -- it will save more than it costs, especially when you include the cost of all those funerals and wars. 1.5 million lives is an extravagant cost for electricity, wouldn't you say? Even 20,000 is unthinkable. Imagine what would happen if the airlines killed 20,000 passengers, or a grocery chain killed 20,000 people from food poisoning. Of course cold fusion would save far more money than alternative energy. > I wish I felt as confident as you that the problems can be solved in a > reasonable manner without LENR or some similar miracle. First, the problems are not so profound. There are dozens of potential solutions. Second, the resources are gigantic. Much bigger than most people realize. U.S. wind power in North and South Dakota could generate a flow of liquid fuel larger than the flow of oil pumped from the Middle East. Wind energy on the North Sea could provide four times more energy than Europe consumes. A single installation about 100 miles to the side (as I recall) in the U.S. southeast desert could supply all the energy in North America. Third, history shows that many difficult technical problems were solved completely, to the point where they are now trivial. The production of ice, for example, or illumination, or computer data storage. These used to be hugely expensive and problematic. > And, let's hope that a method arises that allows us to extract the > government from complete control of our energy in the future. > The government does not control energy, and it never has. The oil, gas and electric power companies do. There are municipal power companies. They are usually cheaper than the privately owned ones, which indicates it would be better if the government controlled energy. At least for electricity. Energy from solar panels on your roof will be controlled by you. - Jed
