Ping.
Renewable resources are expensive and apart from sunlight, they don’t pay for themselves. The truth is that in an advanced society, we can’t really go back to “Green” even if we wanted to.
If you are referring to the normal cycles of global climate change then no amount of "combat" will prevent the inevitable. If you are referring to the myth of 'man made climate change, then I refuse to accept the premise in the first place.
From the article:
Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine...
It never before occurred to me that the sloppy-think concept of "Renewable Energy" is actually a convoluted way to get around the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Don Lancaster showed that all these efforts to create energy out of the ether will always cost more than they produce.
Only thing comes close to dependable “green” energy production would be.. hydraulic production.. in rivers and tides..
Tide water production could out produce dams in some/most places.. rivers and streams could out produce wind by a long shot.. especially in large rivers...
The energy available is large and constant.. tide water is barely touched.. Hard to imagine this source has not been tapped even to this day.. This energy could be transported by microwave..if not thru mere conduits.. Many places are extremely rich in tide water possibilities..
we get clean renewable energy every day, Its called the SUN!
The basic problem with it is it assumes demand is inelastic. In the real world, there will be increasing demand simply because there are more people. Renewable energy nowhere gets close to satisfying increased demand. And the notion we can do it cheaply and conveniently - with solar, wind and biomass fuel technologies is a mirage. We will be dependent on fossil and nuclear energy resources - in a word - non-renewables for a long time to come simply because nothing else comes close to satisfying the needs of our energy-intensive civilization.
Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. That is the great enemy of green solutions. Anything electrical and/or mechanical will break, period. Solar panels only have an expected service life of 10 years before they too deteriorate in performance and reliability. Also, as time moves along, the price of everything goes up so replacement costs are more than the original and those replacement parts also have a disposal cost as well.
I’ll bet the eco-nuts have not found a way to mount all of those little cells without the plastic panels that are a product of the oil industry. So if they just say lets use wood, then we will have to cut down their precious trees. But then again, the fact that southern pines are harvested just like their veggies has escaped them as well.
Renewable energy source:
Ping.
Of course it takes tools, manufactured goods, and infrastructure to access renewable energy. Same as for any other kind of energy. Of course it must be transported from where it’s produced to where it’s consumed. Same as for any other kind of energy. There’s a lot of fuzzy thining about the source of energy and the sources of fuel.
The only source of energy to this planet is the Sun. We tap it indirectly when we burn hydrocarbons created from long-dead plants that performed photosynthesis. We move up in efficiency when we use the solar-driven water cycle to drive a hydro, or the solar-driven wind cycle to spin a turbine. We use solar energy directly in a PV cell and are still only starting to learn how to tape the energy of atomic bonds. Earth has stored energy for hundreds of millions of years and the Sun keeps producing it every day.
It comes down to how much processing or conversion must be done to put solar energy into a form we can use, or that is convenient for our needs. For example, it’s tough to duplicate the energy density, cost, portability, and availability of gasoline, but in time that may change, just as gasoline replaced wood and coal as fuel sources before it. It’s important to distinguish between energy, and fuel.
“Renewable Energy Standards” generally try to move consumption “up the food chain” to more direct fuels. I don’t agree that is smart policy, instead by removing government intervention and nanny-state “help” the free market would develop new fuels at a faster pace and in response to market needs rather that simply to comply with an arbitrary standard.
Good grief, the cleaning products suck. They don’t work so why should they tell us renewable energy the ones they are pushing does?
Well, because it’s a scam.
Oh......
The sun shines on the ocean,
and it turns the water green.
The big fish eat the little fish,
it’s a bloody horrible scene.
Well, it all falls to the bottom,
tonnes of pressure smash it all down.
And it turns into petroleum,
Which makes the world go ‘round.
Everybody sing...