I promise you, I was not trying to talk down to you. Please believe me - I want civil discussion.

Agree with you on all the problems. Agree that making that "when" occur as soon as possible is the best path forward.


What I don't understand is why you're so concerned about things being "forced". Who is forcing, and how? What should be done instead?

(06-02-2017 12:48 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  I promise you, I was not trying to talk down to you. Please believe me - I want civil discussion.
Agree with you on all the problems. Agree that making that "when" occur as soon as possible is the best path forward.
What I don't understand is why you're so concerned about things being "forced". Who is forcing, and how? What should be done instead?

Oh, I think there is a significant proportion of the AGW activists who would be perfectly happy shutting down all fossil fuel production tomorrow, with no realistic alternative. So what if it destroys the economy. And I think that provokes the opposite extreme, let's just keep on keeping on and let the future worry about the future. I think both sides need to come to the realization that changes need to be made but we really don't have adequate solutions for many of the issues today. So we need a three pronged approach:
1) where we do have solutions, implement them asap,
2) where we don't have solutions, push R&D as hard as we can,
3) know the difference between the two, and don't go forcing stuff that is not ready yet--and that readiness includes both scale and infrastructure--the other 90% of the development effort.

(06-02-2017 02:20 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  So we need a three pronged approach:
1) where we do have solutions, implement them asap,
2) where we don't have solutions, push R&D as hard as we can,
3) know the difference between the two, and don't go forcing stuff that is not ready yet--and that readiness includes both scale and infrastructure--the other 90% of the development effort.

Again (like in the other thread), I'm not convinced that this isn't the path we're on. So what if activists demand this or that? Let them

Towards your #1, power companies are already voluntarily shutting down coal plants for natural gas plants. That's a good step IMO, and obviously does not end the use of fossil fuel to power the country any time soon.

(06-02-2017 11:08 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-02-2017 10:07 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(06-01-2017 12:15 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Actually, most of the places where wind turbines proliferate are republican strongholds. Why? Because to make the economics work, you need a deregulated electric utility industry. And that's mostly republican states.
On a windy day, Texas gets something like 1/3 of its electricity from wind, statewide. That's not economically possible in a regulated electric environment. And Texas is not exactly a democrat stronghold.
And of course, when the wind doesn't blow, Texas gets 0% from wind. That's the problem with wind, it's not reliable. Until that is solved, it can't be truly competitive. And how many windmill-powered cars have you seen on the road lately? That's the other problem. It's not versatile.

Transmission is also a big problem. If you had a transmission system in the great plains states where the wind blows all day long you could produce a lot of energy there. There is no system and to build one now is not cost effective.

A lot of green energy ideas work well in the laboratory, but fail in the real world because of two issues:

1) Scale. It can be harder to scale something up than to invent it.
2) Infrastructure. Many green sources need infrastructure to be effective, and that infrastructure is often too costly to justify.

This is one example of the latter. For an example of both, consider hydrogen fuel cells. I can make a hydrogen fuel cell power a car, easy. Making it possible for that car to fill up with hydrogen wherever it goes is a whole different proposition, involving both scale and infrastructure.

If we want to have a national initiative to fund infrastructure from tax dollars?.... Fine with me. Just don't try and BS me and make ANY of these energy alternatives seem cost effective...They simply are not. Just be honest and admit that it will take a massive amount of "theft" to accomplish alternative energy projects. Id much rather spend our tax dollars on infrastructure than piss it away abroad on things that we get ZERO ROI from. Just be honest...and...Im fine with the spending.

(06-02-2017 04:00 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(06-02-2017 02:20 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  So we need a three pronged approach:
1) where we do have solutions, implement them asap,
2) where we don't have solutions, push R&D as hard as we can,
3) know the difference between the two, and don't go forcing stuff that is not ready yet--and that readiness includes both scale and infrastructure--the other 90% of the development effort.

Again (like in the other thread), I'm not convinced that this isn't the path we're on. So what if activists demand this or that? Let them

I don't really think we are doing any of them. Maybe 2, but not 1 or 3. We have solutions that are doable today that we are not implementing. We clearly don't do 3--we are pushing all sorts of things that simply aren't ready, and may never have a material impact. And I'm not even sure about 2. It seems to me that we spend way too much time researching how bad it is going to be in 100 years, and not nearly enough figuring out what to do about it.

Quote:Towards your #1, power companies are already voluntarily shutting down coal plants for natural gas plants. That's a good step IMO, and obviously does not end the use of fossil fuel to power the country any time soon.

This is a market decision. It did not need an executive fiat. It was going to happen anyway. So the order was unnecessary overkill. But I agree that we should let the market make these decisions.

If electric cars swapped battery cells instead of recharging them, then you could charge the cells in windy Bumfuzzle, Anywhere, and transport them to convenience stores. You don't kill the grid. You don't have the transmission line loss.

I don't think coal is nearly as dead as all of you think. Those mines want money. They can drop the price enough to compete with natural gas. It is also much safer to stockpile coal than natural gas. I think the nation should simply stockpile coal for use in a national emergency that interrupts other sources. It will keep forever. It is easily transported. And it is easy to utilize. When other sources fail, the amount of pollution is not even a consideration.

(06-02-2017 08:27 PM)Claw Wrote:  If electric cars swapped battery cells instead of recharging them, then you could charge the cells in windy Bumfuzzle, Anywhere, and transport them to convenience stores. You don't kill the grid. You don't have the transmission line loss.

I don't think coal is nearly as dead as all of you think. Those mines want money. They can drop the price enough to compete with natural gas. It is also much safer to stockpile coal than natural gas. I think the nation should simply stockpile coal for use in a national emergency that interrupts other sources. It will keep forever. It is easily transported. And it is easy to utilize. When other sources fail, the amount of pollution is not even a consideration.

We have hundreds of years of coal. It is by no means dead. Especially since Hillary's career got terminated.

(06-02-2017 08:27 PM)Claw Wrote:  If electric cars swapped battery cells instead of recharging them, then you could charge the cells in windy Bumfuzzle, Anywhere, and transport them to convenience stores. You don't kill the grid. You don't have the transmission line loss.

You then may have issues with chemicals and heavy metals from spent batteries. Even if a battery can be recharged many times, you'll still have that issue at some point. Of course it would help if there were standard battery sizes that were good on multiple brands of vehicles.

(06-02-2017 06:10 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  We have solutions that are doable today that we are not implementing. We clearly don't do 3--we are pushing all sorts of things that simply aren't ready, and may never have a material impact.

What aren't we doing, and what are we pushing that isn't ready?

(06-02-2017 06:10 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It seems to me that we spend way too much time researching how bad it is going to be in 100 years, and not nearly enough figuring out what to do about it.

I think part of the picture is crafting the narrative in order to promote conservation.

I've seen a lot of progress over the last even 10 years, in terms of people riding bikes and taking public transit instead of driving. Recycling. Trying to conserve energy usage. Etc. It has worked to some degree.

(06-02-2017 06:10 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  It did not need an executive fiat. It was going to happen anyway. So the order was unnecessary overkill.

Which fiat are you talking about, and can you provide an example where this fiat caused the premature closure of a coal plant in favor of a natural gas plant such that the decision hadn't already been made??

(06-02-2017 08:27 PM)Claw Wrote:  It is also much safer to stockpile coal than natural gas. I think the nation should simply stockpile coal for use in a national emergency that interrupts other sources. It will keep forever. It is easily transported. And it is easy to utilize.

I've said on here in the past, that we could pay coal mining companies to mine the coal ... and then simply not burn it. Throw it in a pit, for all I care.

(06-03-2017 08:35 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  

(06-02-2017 08:27 PM)Claw Wrote:  If electric cars swapped battery cells instead of recharging them, then you could charge the cells in windy Bumfuzzle, Anywhere, and transport them to convenience stores. You don't kill the grid. You don't have the transmission line loss.

You then may have issues with chemicals and heavy metals from spent batteries. Even if a battery can be recharged many times, you'll still have that issue at some point. Of course it would help if there were standard battery sizes that were good on multiple brands of vehicles.

This is the problem with a lot of green energy solutions. The hard part isn't the solution itself, it's the scale and infrastructure issues. When the battery is charged and you're in the car driving down the road, it's all good. But all of the things required to get to that point are not easy.