The answer to our energy problems is NOT clean renewable energy...

LOL! [etva the earth pig starts digging]

His point is that it isn't as simple as just moving to 'renewable' energy (petroleum is renewable too if you really look at it, we are just consuming it far faster than it can be renewed). There are a lot of other factors, some of then including that the 'alternative' may not be better in the end for the environment than what it is 'replacing'.

Hugh, I'd venture a guess (it would be an interesting study) that in this country at least, 3 or 4 times the amount of food that is actually eaten is produced. I think the bigger problem is allowing ourselves to put our food needs largely in the hands of corporations. Many, many, many people could and do produce most of the food they eat themselves.

We did, when I was growing up. If you look around and actually take account of all the arable land which is unproductive, even within the confines of urban settings, you'll see what I mean.

Consipcuous consumption is another area in this country that is way out of whack.

There are things we can do.

One man, with no power tools can easily grow enough food for 8 people.

What we really need to do is realize that with all out technological advantages, we are no happier, safer, less slaves and on and on. A complete rethought of life is in order.

blue.

land should be let periodically anyways. That doesn't make the land unproductive, it just means the land is 'recovering' from the previous years of farming.

The soil that we grow our food in should be a living thing, bacteria, worms, etc... should be a part of the soil, because it is the by products of that which actually goes into our food as nutrients. The current overuse of fertilizer is actually killing the soil, making it just a matrix to hold the root rather than the living thing that it should be.

oh now i get it, reduce the population that has been artificially supported and encouraged

what is the time scale in which you wish to reduce our numbers so that those numbers will be "small enough"?

so when where who and how do we start this population reduction?

Malamute

It was really interesting that in Canada, there is a former member of greenpeace, an organization that is extremely anti nuclear. That former member has over the last few years, actually coming out in favour of nuclear power, not because it doesn't have issues, it most certainly does, but that on the whole, nuclear powers issues are containable and controllable. That is something that you can't say about stripping off the surface of 1/4 of the province of alberta (the size of the tar sands deposits), burning who knows how many cubic feet of natural gas to 'steam' the crap out of the tar sands, all for the package known as oil and its products.

When a member of a world known environmental organization starts to show some realization of the complexity of the situation that we are in, well maybe there is hope yet.

hugh,

that's not what he is saying, though our population, along with the severely reduced infant mortality as well as much longer life spans, is actually doing more damage than good. He was basically saying that if the planet had less than a billion people on it, the impact on our planet wouldn't be as severe. That's all.

I understand fallow land Jonathan. I know farmers in Canada who use no pesticeds, no chemical fertilizers and who simply green manure 1/4 of the cropland every year, leave 1/4 fallow and grow very good yield crops on the remaining half.

Green manure and rotation.

Interstingly enough, studies have shown that when people have enough to eat, they stop having so many children, at least in undeveloped countries.

Even here, pregnancy rates are dropping rapidly. Education can save this place.

nuclear power containable and controllable, really, hmmm

i guess i'm wrong to suggest that we have yet found a way or place to store nuclear waste

and i'd talk to japan about how it sees nuclear after the fukushima debacle

also look up the wedge game with regards to energy resolutions, consumption should be the lead, reduce demand

Jonathan, I don't need everything explained to me unless you read my posts you wouldn't know why...I appreciate the effort though, but explaining the obvious is ridiculous,

no @!$%# really, if we were under a billion people, so when do we start?

Hugh:

Actually we have found a way to store it, it is just that politics won't let it happen. That isn't a 'science' or 'engineering' issue, it is a political one.

Mistakes were made at both Chernobyl and Fukashima, but remember that with Fukashima, it took a 'perfect storm' to trigger what happened, in addition to human error.

As to the explaining, this is a public forum, so I hope you don't mind that if I am posting on here, that I am not just speaking to you, I am speaking to everyone that may happen to be reading the post. I read all posts that I see by the way that are in blue, though for some reason I generally don't see a lot of yours. That could just be the articles that we tend to frequent, that's all.

Blue:

Yes, it has been shown that as societies become richer, they tend to have fewer children, with one major exception, that is china, which is different because they forced the matter through laws and instituted a one child policy even before the country was 'rich' enough to have the population growth drop naturally.

However, I sometimes wonder if the issue isn't wealth, but the natural tendency to a secular society, rather than a religious one. A topic that could be the subject of an article all unto itself.

Well I think the real reason is that when you're destitute, you need every hand possible to gather food.

If people are informed, they will choose to not have children.

malamute.

Sorry, but again, his hame is Hugh, not Hugo.

A lot of good comments here:

Blue - I agree we could grow more of our own food, waste less, and do it without major petrochemical inputs. Urban homesteading, intensive gardening, micro-farming are catching on. I'm part way through a multi-year effort to convert my entire yard into a garden and I'm already harvesting more than I can eat. Drive around suburbia and look at the large lawns that nobody ever ventures upon except to mow and you see the potential gardens (and reduced food miles and chemicals).

Regarding (over) population it is at the root of everything else. No solution or combination of solutions, technical or otherwise, will save us if we don't begin to reduce our population. Better education, women's healthcare, birth control, and social safety nets will lead to gradual stabilization and eventual decrease of population.

I think that this population issue is going to bite all the people who want less population on the a++e.

Why? If at some point the Chinese get democracy. All they have to do is copy the American constitution. I am pretty sure that all the brain power will sub plant even english as the world language.

It is all speculation. Though bigger populations means we can do things that small populations can never do.

If the USA had a population of 22 million. I am pretty sure we would not only be irrelevant. We would be taken over by someone else. We would not even have this conversation.

This big population is our security. Its not really the big compared to the whole world.

Our big problem is lack of education in the USA. The technology in learning should be pushed. We need to spend less time learning and more time being productive.

Thanks, glad you also noticed the link between the two articles.

The Earth just like it's lifeblood of oil is finite and can't be renewed through technology, but we can use technology wisely as a preventative to ensure both last longer and are used in less harmful ways.

I think that is so true and the a-holes in the oil corporations need to be regulated. We use oil everywhere. Its not so easy to replace.

I get annoyed when I see oil rigs burning off excess gas and other chemical plants burning off gas that could be used to power things and make them more efficient.

I get annoyed when I see oil rigs burning off excess gas and other chemical plants burning off gas that could be used to power things and make them more efficient.

It's a matter of profit. Gas is costly to store or transport. It requires a great deal more infrastructure than oil. As long as it costs more to use it than it is worth producers will burn it off as waste.

The concept of renewable doesn't imply any form of time scale. It just implies that the substance can be renewed. If we consumed as much oil as was consumed, say in the middle ages, then it would be completely renewable.

Lets take another item, fisheries. Something that is considered renewable, but that is only so if we consume it at a lower rate than the reproduction. With our population and increasing energy needs, there really will never be a completely renewable energy source.

Lets take wind energy, the cost of producing 50 million wind turbines (yes, hyperbole) would far exceed the amount of energy that we could ever hope to get out of them. Same thing with plastering the united states with solar panels. It just isn't concentrated enough to be able to satisfy the need, and the construction of the infrastructure itself consumes copious amounts of so called non renewable energy.

It isn't that the consumption of oil isn't a problem, it very much is, the problem isn't as simple of just stop burning hydro carbons, it is far more complicated than that.

I think another example of the offsetting benefits is the example of growing corn for ethanol. While corn is one of the more efficient plants for this (it is called a C4 converter which means that it is more efficient in converting carbon into plant matter). But the use of corn in this manner (I will ignore the cost effectiveness of ethanol production for this) actually does something very significant. The production of ethanol from corn requires the use of the whole plant, not just the 'flower/cob'. In traditional corn harvesting, the bulk of the plant is left on the field, to be used as mulch and organic matter to 'rejuvenate' the soil. When used as biomaterial for ethanol, this doesn't happen, which then means that the soil now needs more fertilizer to compensate. Guess what one of the prime ingredients for synthetic fertilizer is? PETROLEUM.

There are all kinds of examples like this. It isn't a matter of saying no to alternative energy sources, it is a matter of knowing what the offsetting issues are and making informed decisions as to what is the best solution. This is ALSO needing to consider the prime reason why oil did take over as the prime energy source, that is convenience, storability and density. That is something that very few other sources of energy possesses. The cost of which often will make the alternative less viable than oil

no @!$%#, really petroleum primary source of fertilizer, now where have i heard that, oh yeah i know, in my previous post above #3

brilliant, it is a ridiculous circular argument that makes no sense

and to say there is too much population, no @!$%# really?

did that have anything to do with crop manipulation, gmo, fertilizer etc....?

but then what does the runoff from our agriculture do to the oceans? bio-diversity destruction anyone, anyone, tink tink,

malamute,

by the way, his name is hugh, not hugo.

and my comment about renewable is a literal interpretation of the term. It renews. And oil DOES renew, albeit EXTREMELY slowly. That technically makes oil a renewable resource. However, we are consuming it FAR faster than it can be renewed. But that would be the same thing with any other resource that is called renewable. Tree's are considered a renewable resource, but if we chop them down far faster than they can be renewed, then what does that mean? are they still renewable at that point? It is the EXACT same paradigm, just different time and consumption factors.

Well my point about oil and renewability wasn't that it was practically renewable, just that using the literal definition, it is. But using the same criteria, our use of tree's is considered renewable, but it also isn't because even though we can grow more tree's, (though we tend to build other @!$%# instead of grow more trees lol), we aren't growing enough tree's to replace the ones we are destroying, so something that we consider to be renewable because the time frame is something that we can visualize, it really isn't renewable in practice because our consumption is higher than our replenishment.

And I think coal is the newer form of 'oil'. Considering that you can make oil from coal (the germans did it in WWII), it just needs another few billion years of compression to turn into oil I guess.

Not renewable on any scale like it was originally layed down, because the climate of the earth has changed so much. Oil comes from ancient swamp plants mostly, layed down in organic layers at a time when the climate was much warmer and moist than it is now.

The physical conditions for that no longer exist on this planet.

I disagree. We do not have enough people .

The population is too small. I think that if the congress was bigger it would make it harder to corrupt. I think if we had bigger economies of scale we could afford to go to the moon.

Why? Have you ever been in a class room with 100 children and 1 teacher? They can't control it.

My argument might have a fallacy in it. Though I can't see it.

The big educated populations will find and solve the problems. Everything we have is millions of man hours. Someone had to think of everything that is made.

The petrol engine is millions of man hours. Its in some cases more efficient then diesel engine. Which is theoretically more efficient then the car petrol engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine

Either way. Everything takes millions of man hours. The technology in the CPUs and computers is a result of millions of man hours.

The structures in buildings and the redundancy are from millions of man hours of thought and experience in structures.

We suffer from poor management at the top of our businesses.

They are over paid bozos that make decisions on responses to problems rather then to make decisions to prevent the problems in the first place.

Jenson,

the only legal reason that the US government can seal a patent is for national security. That would mean that opening up the patent would potentially end up doing more harm than good (patents on nuclear weapons technology would be an example of that). A friend of mine has several patents that are sealed, and that is the reason why, they are for military applications with no potential civilian use.

And the average person doesn't spend 5000/year on energy, they spend it on specific FORMS of energy.

My point was there is little incentive to not use "old" technology, most jobs are pretty "old school." But I will be like Mitt, I will bet you $10000 that their is at least one patent that is sealed, because the oil companies want it to stay sealed.

I doubt it. People think that there is this silver bullet perpetual energy system that is hidden in patents, and that is not possible. It is basic thermodynamics, and you can't defy the laws of physics, let alone the laws of thermodynamics.

will bet you $10000 that their is at least one patent that is sealed.

I am thinking it could be possible. I think it would happen if we had competition regulators. Though the reality is that the big corporations just buy up the smaller competitors and put them out of business.

The other big is export of technology from the USA to outside countries. The executives steal it and sell it. They get the corporation to pay the fine. Us usual we see the corporations pay the fines for criminality by individuals.

We need to also know that all our trading partners are trying to steal technology. Though we have to remember the USA is no saint in theft of technology from overseas.

I clearly see big oil corporations buy smaller battery tech start ups. I think this can't be good for competition and/or research.

I just don't trust these Big oil companies.

Then we have corporations like Microsoft buying up the competition and we sit and watch the regulators do nothing.

Then wonder why the software does not keep up with the hardware?

The Sherman Act of 1890 thought to outlaw the restriction of competition by large companies, who co-operated with rivals to fix outputs, prices and market shares, initially through pools and later through trusts. Trusts first appeared in the US railroads, where the capital requirement of railroad construction precluded competitive services in then scarcely settled territories. This allowed railroads to discriminate on rates imposed and services provided to consumers and businesses, and to destroy potential competitors. Trusts could be dominant in several industries, with the Standard Oil Company trust in the 1880s controlling a number of markets, including the market in fuel oil, lead and whiskey

This is historical problem still under regulated in the United States.

andrew,

no electricity is not very transportable, you can't just put it in a car and have the car go 500 miles. It is PORTABLE, but NOT TRANSPORTABLE.

You can't just put it in a car and have the car go 500 miles.

Not in a straight electric with current batteries, but that's pretty easy to get around. The range for Honda's FCX hydrogen car for example is 240 miles, comparable to many typical gasoline powered sedans. As I mentioned you can also use algae bio-fuels as an almost direct replacement for gasoline. There's a Boston company currently creating bio-diesel via algae which can produce 20,000 gallons per acre in a carbon neutral manner. You can also combine the technologies, use bio-diesel for extended range and battery power for day to day operation a la the Volt. It's not really an engineering issue, it's a logistic issue.

And how do you:

a) make that hydrogen in a cost effective manner

b) store that hydrogen in a cost effective manner that actually doesn't leak like a sieve

There is a VERY big difference between making a workable prototype and making a workable and mass marketable system.

Same thing with using Algae. Yes it works, but there is only so much algae based fuel that you can make.

You are right, it is very much a logistics (as well as mass production) issue. That is precisely why oil is the dominant fuel. The logistics are simple and the product is so flexible. It alone makes it harder to 'disrupt' it. As others have stated, market dynamics aren't enough. It needs to be forced, but it also needs to be workable enough to be forced.

a) http://actu.epfl.ch/news/a-chance-discovery-may-revolutionize-hydrogen-pr-2/

b) http://www.nature.com/nindia/2011/110131/full/nindia.2011.13.html

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2011/June/28061102.asp

I disagree that the engineering itself is inherently that much more difficult than what we're doing now. It's just a matter of actually making the shift and then ironing out the bugs that are part of any new technology. Do I think that it will happen? No, not unless the company doing it finds some way to make it cheaper than the existing technology, which would be tough. We'll simply continue to buy the inferior VHS.

Why are you placing an upper limit figure on algae oil? Theoretically it can even be done economically on a local, cottage industry, mom/pop basis. Since it eats CO2, it seems to be a win/win option

cjcold,

There is always an upper limit, but in the context of 'replacing' the fuel source for automobiles, there is also a lower limit production requirement, or at least a lower limit that would give it enough critical mass (from a marketing sense, not from a physical mass standpoint) in order to become a viable general solution. This is something that everyone seems to miss. They get something that works in a small scale, but trying to ramp it up, and they hit problems.

I totally agree with bio algae solution for part of our problem.

Though id like cleaner burning fuels or even zero emissions.

Though if we had more people looking at the problem. The problem would get resolved faster.

Again , Get it More people? More man hours ( ok women looking too) to get the job done.

:) Everything is man power ( ok women too).

Seventy-eight percent of the driving an American does is inside 40 miles. Power that using electricity and battery power using traditional power-plant generation which can slowly be shifted to alternate methods. See Germany for a prime example as they hit 20% renewables last year and continue to increase the alternative power generation.

As far as bio-algae to produce the rest, this would account for the remaining 22% of driving outside of the 40 mile range for the average American, that translates to about 102 gallons a year needed to power a gas generator a la the Volt. Based on the 20,000 gallon an acre algae production that amounts to .005 acres or 200 square feet per person, which seems feasible, all with current technology.

Russia has a patent system?

I also read about great progress in China on better nuclear power, using completely different and much safer designs than that terrible General Electric 50's pressurized water thing that caused so much trouble at 3-mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The bad rap this crappy design has given to nuclear energy will continue to grow, because the majority of the world's reactors are of this awful design. We can do much better now, but the damage has been done, not by an intrinsically "evil" technology (nuclear) , but by a VERY BAD first-crack-at-it implementation. Picture ALL aircraft being generally of the Wright Brother's first design - where would we be now?

That is the problem. We need to look at prevention and put that in the design to make it hard to fail. We need the prevention in the failure systems to be open to public debate.

I am all for a system where there is a report for two sides. I say we need the devils advocate and then someone to address these concerns.

The problem with our current system is we have one person who can be the CEO and chairman and then populate the board with his own family and friends in a public corporation.

Its wrong. Thats why we get an awful lot of bad decisions and failures. Then these same criminals then plea incompetence and spend there time destroying the evidence with a pitful small number of government investigators to check this. The FBI is too small.

We need more FBI agents. Not 1000 more. We need 10,000 more.

If you are an executive the corporations law means they are competent for the role. The same thing comes into design of buildings. We had engineering people who are qualified to do the job sign off. Then we saw a lot less engineering failures.

I think you need to do some more research,

The chernobyl reactor was a graphite moderated reactor, no water in it at all,

and the TMI and Fukashima reactors were COMPLETELY different designs, though they were both light water reactors.

Well, um, you're welcome! I guess some of us do think on parallel tracks sometimes. That is one thing that gives me a little hope.

HollyKI said:

The problem, of course, is that many people still believe in the ability of technology (some day, some way, some how) to provide the solutions to all our problems without taking into account that our use of technology has created many of those problems or that technology is only as good as the people who wield it.

Good post. In college I took a Ethics and Technology class and wrote my final paper on ethics as applied to the development of Artificial Intelligence. My research brought me to the conclusion that technology itself is ambiguous and the seed of all planned action is intent. However, unintended results can and do occur which are likely due to lack of experience, lack of scope or just plain lazy.

Thanks, Mr G.

However, unintended results can and do occur which are likely due to lack of experience, lack of scope or just plain lazy.

All of that I think is very true. As well, I think unintended consequences occur due to hubris -- that sense of being so sure we are right that the possibility of being wrong/misguided is dismissed.

Silly me. How could I forget ego??? ;-)

Never forget ego... :)

That argument is full of fallacy. Id like you to look at your over reaching arguments and see if you both can find the faults with it.

The big problem is people love to try to over reach and blanketley apply ideas. This is when failures occur big time.

Examples are numerous.

johny-388777, Your post 10.7 lacks specifics.

1) Who are you talking to?

2) What argument "is full of fallacy"?

3) HollyKI and my comments were about root cause.

The big problem is people love to try to over reach and blanketley (sic) apply ideas.

This statement expresses symptoms and not root cause.

In order to discuss your post you need to clarify your point and provide examples.

MalamuteMan,

I agree there are too many people doing too many things. This controlled chaos is uncontrollable because its very nature promotes instability.

However, I must disagree with this comment:

"...technology is the root cause of the ever accelerating RATE OF CHANGE on the planet."

Yes, technology provides the impetus to accelerate the rate of change more so than without tech but it still boils down to the user. Technology is a tool. How technology is used is root cause and that speaks to intent and action (with desired and undesired results). A hammer can be used to build a hospital or crush a skull. Very different results using the same tech.

Mal,

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, technology is very seductive. I believe if there is an answer to our ills, it lies less in technology and more within ourselves. And your comments regarding the snowballing of technological growth and seduction and the lack of self-discipline really hit the mark.

Great topic!

You are talking about changing the very nature of our species. That won't happen. So what can we do with what we have? Wait for a plague? The War for resources?

Clean, renewable energy needs to become the punchbowl.

Vis Major,

but that drive for 'renewables' is in itself is in some ways driving the extraction of the 'non renewables'.

You are talking about changing the very nature of our species.

Perhaps.

I'm certainly talking about changing the Western view of 'civilization'. It may even go further than that. But I don't think that a society not based on profit and consumerism (with conspicuous consumption being the ultimate status symbol) has never arisen on the planet.

Even in Europe (a place that I lived for several years) the differences are striking. Example: homes are much smaller. Cars are much smaller. Men own 2 or 3 suits - that's all (they wear one while the other is at the cleaners). The whole mindset on consuming, consuming, consuming is very different.

Many of them also have a negative population growth rate.

That's moving in the right direction, IMO.

physicist,

but even in europe, they compensate by having an export driven society, which is just a matter of saying that even though they don't consume directly, what they do is very much a part of the 'consumption' model.

Yes, we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking the rest of the world is as bent on consumption as we are, and as for my own children, they take this VERY seriously. Things ARE moving in the right direction. If they weren't the big dukearooo wouldn't be going on right now.

This is the most critical time in mankinds history I think.

We have it in our ability to live by the planets rules. We can either do that, or we can become like a caged monkey who starves himself to death for the euphoria of at-will cocaine.

Well, they certainly are part of the Western view, Jonathan - they just haven't taken it quite as far as we have. In fact, not even close.

Bottom line: what we're currently doing is unsustainable. It just is.

What will we do about that? My guess is 'nothing'. Or as close to 'nothing' as we can do, for as long as we can do it.

No disagreement there. I often wonder why our society has become so hell bent on the collection of a man made abstract, money, being the meaning of life.

I have TONS of money, but if it wasn't for my business objectives, I would have no use for it. It doesn't make me happy, it doesn't fill my life, it is just a number on a piece of paper (meaning how much I have) to me.

As to the doing nothing until we absolutely have to, that unfortunately is human nature. It is a sad statement on our civilization.

I do think there are LOTS of things that we can do however that doesn't really involve radical change in our lives, things like buying food locally, (this is something that our grocery chains should be doing, trying to source locally rather than from california), more telecommuting, which while it doesn't eliminate consumption, it does reduce the monotonous 2 hour drive into work and home every @!$%#ing day, etc...

What I see with a lot of so called alternative energy sources is either, not really practical from a large scale, or it potentially introduces different, but just as severe problems. There is no free lunch, and this is just another example.

Well guys let me say that Hoplessness pretty much assures that nothing will be done. I spread the word in every conversation I have pretty much. Its become my mission.

Its a good mission.

There is a true culture war in this country - and that war goes much deeper than abortion, guns, and climate change. It goes to our core belief in Capitalism. It goes to our core belief in who we are as Americans.

Excellent comments PR! I think this summarizes the issues. A paradigm shift requires serious reflection and honesty about our situation -- our actions and their long term impact. At this point, too many people are afraid to consider that we might have to embrace radical new ideas in order to truly address the causes of our problems.

I have an 87% gray wolf 13% siberian named whisky (napioki in Blackfoot) funny, but "napioki" actually means "Old Man Hello"

Wouldn't that be something.............annihilated by convinience.

What does that say about how we (try to) establish self-esteem???

That we measure self-worth (or at least individual success) by possessions instead of accomplishments.

Internal accomplishments are where its really at.

I disagree. I think our planet has infinite amounts of energy and we just need innovation to find out how to get it.

We need more educated persons to do it. Again everything is man hours to get it. Will artificial intelligence help out in our quests? Hell yea.

The commentary that some how we are always having limited resources is a fallacy when looking at our historical progress.

The forms of energy we have today did not exist when we had small populations and mass of uneducated peoples.

If you want to go live in the bush and live like cave man. You can go and do that.

Though don't be surprised when the people who do develop new tech come along and kill you off.

Comparison too what? What is the argument about? So we make the earth warmer. It means we need to be more efficient with energy conservation.

As usual we have the chicken littles running amok.

We keep having the GOP talking about tax reduction for the corporations.

We have Obama promise to push down tax rates for corporations.

As if that is the solution?

No our problem in the USA is income inequality. We need to fix that. This will fix a whole bunch of other problems.

The other problem is campaign finance reform to stop the cronyism.

idk but seems as if the rest of the natural world is SCREAMING at us "Use the SUN!!" Fossil fuel is nothing but a form of ancient sunlight anyway.

Interesting, as an article years ago discussed the possibility of harnessing energy from the magnetic fields around the earth.

There is a transportation issue - how to get the energy down to earth via some mechanism. Humans are pretty ingenious.

For the short term (within our lifetime), it will have to be a combination of things, and one of them will be to ..... drum roll please ..... use less of it.

Using less of it, will in fact be opposed by those who's being is just for the now - economic profits.

Part of our push to raise MPG in all cars has resulted in lower consumption, but we need to drive less and focus more on mass-transit than individual transit.

Though humans are ingenious, we also are stubborn.

idk but seems as if the rest of the natural world is SCREAMING at us "Use the SUN!!

It's still not self sustaining. If we start now, maybe we can figure out how to really light up our world when our own sun goes out. ; )

Actually I think we'll harness the power of thought long before we do the spin. The expectations of an experimenter impact the experiment at the quantum level. Once we find how his expectations physically get to that level of matter, we'll have another source to tap. Perhaps the miniscule size of matter involved will give us miniscule sized machines with major output of the energy we require.

Thought is powered by sunlight ;)

Rob,

but that drive for thermal efficiency (which is really what the increase in efficiency means) has for the most part, has ended up being used to create more powerful engines, not vehicles that use less fuel. This is the market dynamic at play, people want their cars to have 400 hp engines, when even in the 60's, that was largely unheard of.

yes, the sun does that, BUT, it is energy that goes out in ALL directions, so unless we create some form of dyson's sphere, we actually can't collect most of it to be able to convert it to energy.

Don't the Republicans already own the sun?

Just kidding lol ;)

no, just the sunshine up boner's ass.

Huh? i HEARD THAT WAS A DARK, DARK, terrible PLACE!

Well we do have a lot of sunlight. In spain they use a brine solution to store the heat from the sun for almost a week. It might be even longer now.

It seems like very salty water can hold heat quiet well. Its cheap. We have the de-salination plants popping up all over the Mediterranean.

What do we do with the salt that comes out of the de-sal? Ha ha. Its coming together well.

I live in North Idaho. Its COLD here in winter. This year I started an experiment: I heat only my bedroom unless I'm having company.

Seems to be that the human body adapts it's perception of comfort to the seasons after all ;)

I started thinking about my anscestors, the Blackfeet, who's traditional homeland is the East slope of the Rockies from S.Canada to about where Yellowstone is. They lived in Teepee's through the harshest winters. I thought, what did they know that I don't?

The point being that we are actually designed or evolved to handle real weather. Example would be sitting in a heated home on a cold day, then going outside. It feels soooo cold. Then go for a walk in the cold for an hour and come back inside. It feels sooooo hot!!!!

I really noticed this while out for a hike last month. Within a few minutes it didn't feel nearly as cold and was actually quite comfortable. The body adjusts with amazing speed to temperature.

We use to damn much energy needlessly!

blue wolf

I thought, what did they know that I don't?

That white men are nuts (says a man who is 87.5% white and 12.5% native American):-)

Well, I'm only 1/32 Blackfoot by blood, but just looking around and observing the price the planet seems to have paid for European expansion, I'd say the Natives are onto something lol

I'll restate this: Native views of the proper relationship between man and the earth are vastly superior than the western/european view.

God save the environment from the cities emptying and everybody thinking they can survive with half an acre and a cow. It would have the same result as a carpet of army ants descending on what few pristine areas are left.

bw,

Truth be told, native Americans weren't actually as perfect stewards of the land as myth tells us. Under current population pressures, traditional native practices would be suicidal.

Mongowildman - Bravo!

That's the strategy of the new company. To make it more affordable to more people. Still working on it but there are a lot of things that can make a difference.

Power production at the place of usage. Bravo. The only problem is that then you won't be dependent upon some "power company", and we can't have that now, can we?

Take a lesson from Nature's playbook: Nature deals locally, using the resources that are AT HAND, never needing to go outside the neighborhood, and returning everything it used back into the same neighboorhood.

Sadly very true

But we're gonna change that right?

Nothing wrong with making a living at it... Some folks though, seem to think their living requires millions. That's the sad part about industry in general - the top guns do the least but rake it in.

And do everything they can to rub out the smaller entrepreneurs so they can have it ALL.

It's the same across the business world. Like the entire driving force is to become the monopoly. Maybe I am an idealist in what I want to see happen, but I also want to make a living at it too. The major players will always be there and if they want to stay competitive, they will need to reevaluate their positions. Jacking up the energy costs to make up for the "losses" as they would put it, because they are not providing 100% to these individuals is not going about it the right way.

I can see it happening, where utility companies go after the small systems and claim they are stealing what they should be providing. Just like satellite and cable companies who go after "pirates". They call it a "loss" when someone watches HBO without paying for it but they don't consider the fact that if they had to pay for it, they would rather do without. Where is the "loss" there? It is just the missed opportunity to take another person's $$. Some day, I see the power companies trying the same thing, to keep in a position of dominance.

They don't want to buy excess power from the small systems. The only reason they do it is because the feds mandated it. They are not in business to buy power, their business is to sell it, which is why they pay only the minimum, while charging higher rates for "natural" power.

I don't think it would be admitted publicly but you can see it happen. They really don't want to buy the excess power. They would prefer you just gave it away. Some of the larger of the small systems generate 15KW at any given time. The average household can get by on just one or two KW most of the time. Stoves, dryers and other heavy appliances take a lot of power, so 15KW capacity would handle those. The times when all that is not required, it can be sold to the utility companies. The smaller systems need to work in synchronicity ad they draw from and feed back to the utility lines as the day progresses. It does reduce the overall power bill but it is very unlikely that there would be a reversal as the buyback rate is a lot lower than the usage rate.

As for being mandated, I don't think it is actually on the books as a requirement but there are things the feds can impose just because they can, if the utils decide to play unfairly. (or more unfairly)

What I am NOT in favor of is the huge commercial and utility systems that cost more than they are worth to operate and actually are a threat to the environment they are intended to protect.

Hmm. Prove it. The thing is that these huge commercial and utilities have expertise. Though again technology moves along and that expertise might be wider available.

There are experts outside of that infrastructure too. I don't want to see giant expensive windmills blotting out the countryside. I don't want to see giant solar farms blocking out huge plots of land for a central power system either.

I want to see it spread out and decentralized as much as prudently possible.

These huge expensive projects are not as environmentally friendly as they suggest. For starters, they are hideously distorting the natural surroundings. Huge towers which can't have anything within their heights in radius for a safety margin, taking up valuable space that could otherwise be put to use.

I do understand that the wind is better at higher levels but who really cares all that much about efficiency when the source is unlimited and free in the first place? Inefficient systems can be built much more cheaply and although they need to be a little bigger than the state of the art, they will do just fine. Being built from readily available parts and materials, no specially designed junk to add to the costs makes it much more economical and serviceable too.

Because efficiencies mean reduced cost. Why?

Then we have more time to do other things. Though in the real world a small number do suffer, the majority is better off for the new tech. The computers free up labor to do things that are hard for computers to do. The computers bring about quality that was not possible getting people to do it. The computers make processing payments with less error.

Efficienices mean that a doctor can look at many patients and diagonise many patients and get the right medicine the right time. The machines that analyse the blood and other products come from complex and diverse technologies that have been used innovatively.

Again I think you look at efficiency different to me. Though more efficient motors as expensive, it means they are more powerful ( more bank for buck). Yes everything is expensive when the technology is new and the development costs need to be recouped.

Im going off track but I am trying to use Analogies to bring home the point.

I dont want to go into generation and why we need efficient generation.

Read that up yourself. I will give you the problems in generation. The key problems even over short spans has been transmission. How much power you can transmit to do actual work.

Then the motors that you seem to take for granted were developed over 150 years of research and continued research with millions of man hours. Efficiencies do matter and always matter.

The cost to bring you the motors and generator sets cost money. If they were smaller and lighter. It brings a whole lot of efficiencies. IF its small. You can put it in your roof cavity. When you put it in your roof cavity. If its small it might generate less heat and small means it wont have to be water proof. Again less cost.Its easy to install if its small. Its easy to move when its small. Its safe to install when its small.

Thats why we need more efficient things. Small things are easier for us to use and install.

The more efficient it is, it means you can use more things on it.

I suspect you are talking about trying to minimize the cost. The actual building and manufacture is one cost. The logistical costs usually for small items can be 70% of the cost.

The key advantages of the USA is innovation ( people) and size. When you build bigger you get efficiencies with many current technologies in generation.

The problem with efficient things is the cost more. That's the whole point of my argument. If the energy source is free and inexhaustible, tap into it as cheaply as you can. Efficient power generation it not all that important in this case.

Using that power on the other hand, yeah, try to use it as efficiently as you can afford. Storage takes a lot of room and limits your ability to supply power for extended periods. Use it wisely and you will do fine.

The major costs are the utility companies installing these giant eyesores, and scattering them across the countryside. They may be efficient but their operating costs are high too. State of the art is always more expensive and I really don't see the need, except that they want to sell that power and still make a profit. Small systems are not in it for profit, they are in it for independence.

I have to disagree.

Its an illusion. This cost amortized over time brings down the cost. The Efficiencies we have are only the beginning. We need newer materials that are stronger and lighter. We will see greater energy savings then before. If we don't do it, someone else will.

You aren't saving anything by spending extra on something that really isn't necessary. These efficient things may all be well and good for the commercial providers but not for the farmers and ranchers that own and operate their smaller systems. They need to maintain them without having to rely on outside help so they need to be relatively simple. Sure, if they want to go efficient, that's fine but I really don't think it is essential for energy independence. If the energy source was limited or controlled, I can see it but the Sun and the wind are FREE and abundant. So it takes a little more room... It's really not that much more and there is plenty of power to go around. These systems can be built on a very limited budget and begin paying off right away. The more expensive and complicated things get, the longer the payoff, if ever.

Our choices are controlled contraction or catastrophic collapse. There will be less people one way or another.

Understandably so...all we have to do is look at the fish inna pond that is drying up to know what will happen. While we may be able to "generate" renewable energy...we are not going to be "generating" any more petrol and ALL the related products that are produced from petrol based products.

It will be at this point that we will begin to recycle our asphalt highways to extract the petrol products. Our garbage dumps will become "gold mines" of the future. They will be "mined", reclaiming all those used tires and plastic crap that we've been discarding and burying for the past 60-70 years and recycling all that petrol based material...like we SHOULD be doing now. Today's "dumps" will be tomorrows gold mines.

It makes me smile when I see ads that solicit "junk" gold, but a great marketing ploy to devalue and buy cheap and sell high. We view our "waste" in much the same way...

"One man's trash is another man's treasure".

I doubt that the dumps will be gold mines.

Though its wait and see.

We have material science moving along and even steel maybe completely replaced by super strong and super light materials that exist but hard to use practically.

as people compete for resources that become increasingly more scarce.

Which resources are becoming more scarce?

Oil? Prove which one is becoming more scarce? Water?

What grass?

We have more resources now per capital then before.