Renewable energy - Thoughts?

[Tamas]

Needs more fracking, because getting fire instead of water from your taps is cool!

Didn't the US managed decent emission-reduction according to the latest stats?

[jimmy olsen]

Why don't we just build big fields of solar panels out in desert?

[Josquius]

Theres quite a lot of turbines around my place back home and I agree they look rather good.
And they are of course a good thing.

Meanwhile in my city here I notice that both the new government offices and new library being built have solar panals as standard. Seems increasingly the done thing in Japan. Which seems quite sensible.

Cities seem to have short memories.  Just a few decades ago everybody was removing their street cars.  They may want to try to remember why.

Dodgy dealings by the automotive industry. And idiocy.

[Phillip V]

Needs more fracking, because getting fire instead of water from your taps is cool!

Didn't the US managed decent emission-reduction according to the latest stats?

IIRC, carbon emissions are at their lowest level since the 1990s due to recently switching from coal/oil to cheap, abundant natural gas (even adjusting for economy, population, etc).

[Tamas]

Needs more fracking, because getting fire instead of water from your taps is cool!

Didn't the US managed decent emission-reduction according to the latest stats?

IIRC, carbon emissions are at their lowest level since the 1990s due to recently switching from coal/oil to cheap, abundant natural gas (even adjusting for economy, population, etc).

yeah but the greens hate on shale gas as well don't they? And nuclear.  And some on wind. And once they would do some reading and realize that producing solar panels is an industrial process, they would hate on solar too.
I think a lot of the vocal greens would only be happy with medieval levels.
Until their iPhones run out of power.

[Josquius]

yeah but the greens hate on shale gas as well don't they? And nuclear.  And some on wind. And once they would do some reading and realize that producing solar panels is an industrial process, they would hate on solar too.
I think a lot of the vocal greens would only be happy with medieval levels.
Until their iPhones run out of power.

Nuclear is iffy.
Mainstream greens got over disliking that years ago and were pretty for it. Then Fukushima came which bred a tonne of ignorance and really set many folks, many non-greens too, against it.

[Viking]

Needs more fracking, because getting fire instead of water from your taps is cool!

This is the most annoying of the untrue tropes that are circling around fracking.

Brian Dunning from the podcase skeptoid has an excellent discussion of the issue

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4275

However, the burning water is an undisputed fact. So where is this methane coming from, if not from fracking? As it happens, it's natural, worldwide, for anyone who has a well in a natural gas area. Natural gas is not found only in the deep shale beds, it's in shallower layers as well; so we always expect some gas to make it into well water in particular regions. But the mining of natural gas also has a few consequences that can force methane into aquifers. First, the underground changes in pressure can prompt methane to migrate from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. Second, poorly sealed natural gas wells can (and do) leak methane into adjacent strata. These poorly sealed wells are human errors that it's the responsibility of the driller to repair. Third, old abandoned wells do the same thing, but often without anyone repairing them. None of these problems are related to fracking, per se.

burning water is natural and sometimes badly operated and maintained and poorly plugged abandoned wells can contribute, but this has nothing to do with fracking.

[Vricklund]

yeah but the greens hate on shale gas as well don't they? And nuclear.  And some on wind. And once they would do some reading and realize that producing solar panels is an industrial process, they would hate on solar too.
I think a lot of the vocal greens would only be happy with medieval levels.
Until their iPhones run out of power.

I don't consider myself very green but I do think that the issue is not how do we produce more energy but rather how can we be more energy efficient. I think renewable energy could be enough but it would have to be a whole spectrum of solutions. Windmills won't be a solution for all. As a species we've always harnessed whatever benefits our particular habitat had to offer.

[Valmy]

Why don't we just build big fields of solar panels out in desert?

Because it is expensive.  Heck we would have to work just to keep dust and crap off it.

Nuclear is iffy.
Mainstream greens got over disliking that years ago and were pretty for it. Then Fukushima came which bred a tonne of ignorance and really set many folks, many non-greens too, against it.

Yep.  All the pro-Nuke momentum we had been building for years was lost with Fukushima.  Now Nukes are dead again.  Pity as they really are a great energy source.

[CountDeMoney]

Yep.  All the pro-Nuke momentum we had been building for years was lost with Fukushima.  Now Nukes are dead again.  Pity as they really are a great energy source.

Companies don't want to pay for them anymore.  Granted, they pay for themselves when they're finally done, but none of the big energy companies except Southern want to have anything to do with them. 

Constellation scrapped their deal with EDF for a third reactor to feed into the DC metro area because the investors didn't want to pony up the $150 million marker for the billions in Federal loan guarantees; Exelon scrapped their plan for one in Texas because of natural gas prices, and they decided that decommissioning Zion Station at 3 times the cost of refitting its turbines would be more profitable in the long run, since removing its available megawatts from the grid would drive up the conventional prices.

The mid-range projections for natural gas are too profitable right now; so why bother with a 50 year energy solution when you can make so much more money in the next 5?

[Syt]

I liked the solution in Transmetropolitan: cover the planet Mercury in solar panels and beam the energy back to Earth. Though it never explained how that energy was transmitted . . . 

[merithyn]

The mid-range projections for natural gas are too profitable right now; so why bother with a 50 year energy solution when you can make so much more money in the next 5?

That's my biggest beef with corporate thinking in general in the modern era. It used to be that long-term thinking (like 50-75 years out) was the norm. Now "long-term" for corporations is 5 years max. I honestly believe that that's a huge part of why we're such a throw-away economy anymore, and why we use so much more in natural resources than we need.

[PDH]

I liked the solution in Transmetropolitan: cover the planet Mercury in solar panels and beam the energy back to Earth. Though it never explained how that energy was transmitted . . . 

Really long extension cord.

[CountDeMoney]

The mid-range projections for natural gas are too profitable right now; so why bother with a 50 year energy solution when you can make so much more money in the next 5?

That's my biggest beef with corporate thinking in general in the modern era. It used to be that long-term thinking (like 50-75 years out) was the norm. Now "long-term" for corporations is 5 years max. I honestly believe that that's a huge part of why we're such a throw-away economy anymore, and why we use so much more in natural resources than we need.

Hey, it's the American Way.  Shareholder Value = Freedomism and Libertyness.  God Bless America.

[Valmy]

Yeah that was what I was thinking...a really long cable 

Of course it would have to pass through the sun a few times a year.