Posted on 02/12/2004 4:53:51 PM PST by wallcrawlr
Not just France, but Canada as well. Ontario "Hydro," a major power exporter to new england has nuclear for over a third of its generation capacity. Considering there is a higher concentration of environazis in new england than anywhere else except Kalifornia, I find this somewhat ironic.
What is the SUN if not one giant reactor?
It is entirely possible to heat/cool your home and have all the electric/electronic toys as well using solar photovoltaic panels ;the downside is the initial cost adds $25 to 45 thousand dollars to the home's cost. Persons willing or not who live simpler(enegy misers) can get buy with $7 to 15 thousand dollar systems. Once people in this nation had only a few 60 watt bulbs ,and perhaps a radio. The water pump was hand-cranked,the cookstove wood=fueled.These are NOT viable options for 95 % of the population. But we do have hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of acres of roof space which could support solar-powered electric generation.
Perhaps someone could work up the numbers re:cost vs. benefits of displacing imported oils with roof power.
I think Henry Ford envisioned farmers fueling their new Fordson tractors with farm-prouced ethanol;unfortuneately our government was hijacked by anti-alcohol wackos about that same time.And once having gained control,few relinguish it readily. Yes ,you may be able to get a permit to make alcohol fuels if you don't mind jumping through gov't hoops and paying fees;plus they WILL suspect you are making "shine" whenever you can instead of fyou said:uel.
No it is not. Night, winter and cloudy days prevent this without some sort of energy storage. Are you proposing hydrogen as the storage medium?
My fault for not making more clear that annual energy is balanced;sometimes you send(sell) power to the grid, sometimes you take(buy) from the grid. LARGE batteries can be used to store a few days of power .
I don't advocate shutting down coal-fired plants but using American coal. Why not burn solid fuels in place and liquid fuels in motion.
There is a lack of appreciation for APPROPIATENESS;no one fuel or power source can do all things well. (A solar chain saw is silly unless you are willing to pull a wagon with a BIG battery.)
Very expensive and not particularly long lived in that they would have to be replaced every few years at considerable expense. In fact this storage system would be about the same cost as the solar cells themselves, but not las as long. SOlar cells decline in output over time, so what whould be adequate in 2004 would only be putting out 80% of it's rated power in 2007.
I read were tied to the utility power grid with bidirectional flow(and automatic cutoff in case of failures).It's not cloudy EVERYWHERE at once.
You still need the power grid and the conventional generation, because although it's not cloudy everywhere at once, it does get dark everywhere on an interconnected grid more or less at the same time, and winter affects an entire hemisphere at once.
I don't advocate shutting down coal-fired plants but using American coal.
Why not nuclear?
Solar is just not practical for most usage.
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