It's all over but for the sweating?

[Arragonis]

There are quite a few examples of abandoned renewables plants - wind and solar. Build in the cost of removing or maintaining them or just don't build them at all. After all the disposal costs are what is making Nuclear less economic.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

The term "Energy Poverty" relates to the proportion of income that a household spends on energy and not how much they consume, which might actually be very little. Energy prices here are about 2x those of the US and went up 15% annually for the last 2-3 years and at the same times incomes have stayed the same.

And so rational people would respond by e.g. figuring out how to live comfortably on less. But apparently many Britons, like Americans, believe in the Santa Claus theory of economics.

No, people can't choose to reduce energy usage by 15% a year.

Whyever not? Obviously not forever, but certainly for a few years, by which time their energy needs are met by the solar panel (with battery backup) on their roof.

And anyway about 11% of that goes to pay rich people to get richer by having windmills on their land.

So people - rich or poor - should not be paid for the use of their land? I suppose people who own coal mines, oil wells, fossil fuel power plants, and all the rest shouldn't make money from them, either?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

There are quite a few examples of abandoned renewables plants - wind and solar. Build in the cost of removing or maintaining them or just don't build them at all.

Where, exactly? And why not simply point out their locations to the people who steal the lead off roofs, copper piping out of buildings, and even try to steal live high-voltage power lines?

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Where, exactly? And why not simply point out their locations to the people who steal the lead off roofs, copper piping out of buildings, and even try to steal live high-voltage power lines?

Hey - did you know - there is this major thing called google - have you tried it ?

'Green' debacle: Tens of thousands of abandoned wind turbines now litter American landscape

Jeebus sliced

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

And so rational people would respond by e.g. figuring out how to live comfortably on less. But apparently many Britons, like Americans, believe in the Santa Claus theory of economics.

Whyever not? Obviously not forever, but certainly for a few years, by which time their energy needs are met by the solar panel (with battery backup) on their roof.

You seemingly know very little about the UK, I seem to recall you were here for a while ? (I may have the wrong person).

Originally Posted by jamesqf

So people - rich or poor - should not be paid for the use of their land? I suppose people who own coal mines, oil wells, fossil fuel power plants, and all the rest shouldn't make money from them, either?

And obviously you know very little about how energy grids work - a clue, stability is the key.

[freebeard]

Let's see what Bucky had to say:

Mankind now has enough knowledge to be able to invent our way into a future of plenty. We are just not aware of the fact that we now have that possibility. According to the engineers, the world's industrial system is now operating at only about four percent efficiency, but it could easily be improved to an average of twelve percent. In other words, all we have to do is start using already existing inventions and stop being so wasteful!

Ok. That sounds great, but having two or three times as much wealth would not do much good if the world's population keeps growing. Luckily, it just so happens that as industrialization increases, the global birth rate decreases. As the amount of energy per person increases, the birth rate decreases, so that if the world is completely industrialized by about the year 2025, the total population should peak at about 8 billion & then start declining.

Therefore, if we only double the average efficiency we could easily take care of the world's present one billion poor (the other four billion are already "making it" now). And if we triple the efficiency we could not only take care of any future population growth, but dramatically raise everyone's standard of living.

Ecomod society!

From the article at R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER'S GRAND STRATEGY
FOR SOLVING GLOBAL PROBLEMS.

Here he is on power grids:

We now have the know-how to connect together all the world's electrical generating plants. That one project would almost double the amount of energy available in the world because right now most generating plants run at about half capacity & use the other half for peak demand only. By interconnecting they could all swap power (especially between the light & dark sides of the earth) and therefore be run at almost peak capacity most of the time--without building any new generating plants.

Arragonis -- Is that you in the profile pic, or Isambard Kingdom Brunel ?

[user removed]

I think its Brunel standing in front of the Great Eastern's anchor chain.

regards
Mech

[freebeard]

But that really is Frank Lee, right?

[user removed]

Probably related Brunel was a fairly short fellow. I think Frank is rather tall.

regards
Mech

[NeilBlanchard]

I very much doubt that there are 10's of thousands of abandoned wind turbines anywhere in the world, let alone in the US. They may be counting those old water pumping windmills?

Renewable energy is the only way we will survive into the next century with anything close to the current standard of living.

For those who dismiss anthropogenic climate change as nothing more than a conspiracy by scientists looking for job security, here's another conspiracy debunked with similar logic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF...layer_embedded

It is simply not possible to fake climate change data. Except if you have a time machine - yeah that's how they did it!