Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
Don't know how you figure that, but it seems way off. It's not all that much more expensive to build X MWatts renewable (or nuclear) power than it is to build the same amount of fossil fuel generation, and obviously the human race could afford to build the existing fossil fuel infrastructure, unless you believe it was magically whisked into existence by the fairies :-)
|
If it seems way off then present your own calculations with linked information to support your facts. The planetary electrical use can be calculated as well as the current cost per KWH of solar collectors. Then you get into land acquisition, labor to construct and maintenance required.
Also understand the present employment in industries you will render obsolete and what your plan is to do for those who would now join the unemployment lines waiting for more handouts.
Looks to me like the original sarcasm is in your last sentence here, so if you want to whine about sarcasm, you planted the seed that brought on the appropriate response.
I'll stick with my original estimate, you are certainly free to add any estimate you wish. The present net worth of the US is in the range of 50-60 trillion, with total obligations close to the same amount, so the US is broke. Financiers are not interested in providing cash to broke borrowers who show insufficient income to support their dreams. Neil claims an individual system would cost 30k. the problem is it wont replace the existing power grid and it would take over 10 years to pay for itself in savings, possibly 20 years. Paying interest on the borrowed money significantly increases the cost, while the benefit remains the same.
In fact the transition will probably take as long as it took for the original infrastructure to evolve into today's power grid. That basically means we will all be long dead before the transition is complete. In the mean time fossil fuel supply will gradually be consumed and diminish, prices will rise, and the solar industry will mature and become more cost effective. I believe that is inevitable, but at 61 I doubt I will see truly significant change in my remaining years. China, a country with no democratic govt to buy the next election can afford to invest in long term payback strategies, sadly in the US we either can't or won't, whichever you choose the results are the same.
Hydro, wave power, generation from the gulf current just off the east coast, combined with solar, wind, and novel means of energy storage are all essential components of grid evolution. The largest issue to date is energy storage, with the only immediate proven storage that is cost effective is hydro reservoirs.
What bothers me is half truths, partial facts, and other claims that just don't pass the litmus test of even minimal research. Legitimate questions that are ignored and unanswered demonstrate to the impartial observer that there is an agenda present and that agenda is not clearly defined for the reader.
When uninformed people make financial decisions that promote and ignore specific fields of development, history has clearly proven that they are seldom capable of correct decisions. Just as Hitlers dreams of super weapons that were going to save Germany from defeat, proved to have the opposite effect, we as people who consider improving efficiency in vehicles have one chance to get it right. We can no longer afford to be wrong. Solutions SHOULD be, short term, what we can fix today. The most glaring of them is engines idling as Neil posted. How stupid can we be to allow engines to do no work and consume 13% of the liquid fuels we pay so dearly for. That should be a law today that no future vehicles allow for engines to idle. Present technology is already mature and ready for implementation, but because the EPA does not test cars in such a way that the benefit is shown, the manufacturers ignore such a simple solution. Just that would provide more benefit than all the ethanol ever produced as a motor fuel.
PS: the Hitler reference was just an analogy to demonstrate the fallacy of dreaming of solutions instead of focusing like a laser on those solutions that exist already.
regards
Mech