Listen to this interview about Climate change. Really answer alot of questions. http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2010/timball2/
An excellent interview. I'd have to say that though because it confirmed all my biases. I distrust the GW movement but I'm also aware that there are others who will think poorly of me for this reason. If they try to "convince" me otherwise I will simply ignore them because this is a divisive topic on a forum.
15 minutes in and I like this woman, I think the whole debate around this has been badly skewed for way way way too long. One group of people tells me the world is going to end, I'm not sure if I believe them but I'm nominally on their side. One group of people tells me everything is fine and I wont have a job if I listen to the dirty hippies. I know there is climate change, I have watched it during my life, I've lived in melbourne for about 30 years and I've seen the weather over the last 10 years is nothing like the weather that came for the 20 years before that. Not only that, I am sure there is a higher incidence of extreeme weather events in the last 10 years on a glbal basis. Despite all of this the core issue around this is for me is that I know we are dumping some horrible shit in to the environment and a lot of people are making a lot of money off this. this makes me angry.
I don't like his comments saying that subsidising green energy is wrong and it wont be competitive. I know fossil fuels are subsidised and this annoys me.
To anyone that has not listened to this interview yet .... PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS INTERVIEW. This is the most well-informed talk I have ever heard on the topic. Thanks for posting.
Wind generators use 10 times more concrete and steel per KwH than does a nuclear station, and I'm sure I know which will last longest. "Alternative" energy is too unreliable and there must always be "spinning reserve" in case the wind drops or the sky clouds over. If you need to build the coal/nuclear/hydro stations anyway, why not simply use them?
Okay so the initial build cost is more, you can't tell me the ongoing maintainance is though, any of the current crop of nuclear power facilities needs to be decomissioned after 50 years because the whole thing has become dangerously radioactive, what do you think the disposal costs on that are? (molten salt reactors might not fit in this category? but we dn't use them) I'm not talking about dismantling our current power infrastructure, I understand that you require baseload generators and they need to be reliable but subsidising dirty power and then saying clean power is too expensive is verging on evil
Check out this Geoengineering interview with an insider who knows what's going on. Allan Buckman is the President and co-founder of Microbetech, a Nevada-based bioremediation company. A former wildlife biologist and environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish & Game, Allan's 38-year career has given him crucial insight into environmental stress and the decline of ecosystems. Aerosol Geoengineering is related to Monsanto's GMO program, Carbon Taxation, water fluoridation, etc... They are all ONE BIG package of programs designed for population reduction purposes. http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2010/allanbuckman/
These renewable energy machines (Windmill, Solar Panel, etc...) although they look good on paper, in practice they don't really work. Solar panel produces so very little energy compare to the space (which we don't have alot of) that they are required to extract an X amount of energy. Very inefficient. Windmill although theoretically a viable alternative to crude oil, in practice it is too expensive to built and just like solar panel they produce too little energy compare to the size and cost of production. They've done study in France, how many windmills they need to built to supply the entire France energy needs. It turns out to supply the entire france need of energy they need to cover the entire France' coastline with Windmills. Not to mention to takes 30 pounds of Neodymium (Rare Earth Metal) to built a single windmill. Where are you going to get all of these REE from? In reality if EVERY countries in the world try to built Windmills and Solar Panel to replace the need for crude oil. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to supply enough Rare Earth Metals for these productions. Especially with China controlled 97% of Earth's REE productions. Another note about Windmill is, they are so unreliable! The working of Windmill is depended on the availability of Wind! That means you need to place the Windmills in highlands. The same way as Solar Panel, at night they're pretty much useless. The same way, in cloudy and rainy day. How would you like to live in a place where you get a power black out in your neighbourhood everytime you get cloudy day!?
I get the impression you have ignored everything I just wrote. Let me write some things out in point form. With current technology renewable energy sources are not the answer to all our problems. they may be in the future but not right now. Subsiding fossil fuels is basically evil. Solar panels just making power during the day isn't the problem you seem to think it is as peak power usage is during the day, infact is is arguably good. Your idea of limiting solar power to simply photovoltaic cells is just plain wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_pond http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/12/first-molten-salt-power-plant-approved-california.php Nothing paper about it, renewable enegry does work, or are we going to pretend that the snowy river scheme doesn't exist? The current future should be a hybrid of the two.
How much power output can solar panel give per Sq Meter? Have they calculated how much landmass required to layout solar panel to supply power to the entire country? To my knowledge solar panel only give tiny amount of energy output per meter sq. I did a bit of studying of solar panel before, because I wanted to wired up my house with solar energy. After calculating the cost vs energy output, it's not really worth it. You need to cover nearly your entire roof with solar panel to power all your household energy need day in day out. Not to mention during rainy season when the sky is cloudy most days of the week. At least with home solar unit you got the traditional electricity tower ready as a fall back plan just in case your solar panels don't produce enough energy. If they shut down ALL coal and nuclear powerplant and ONLY use solar panels to provide energy to the entire country. You got no Plan B to get your energy need, when the sky is cloudy for a prolonged period of time. I just don't see Solar energy as a reliable source of energy for an entire country. Just the amount of landmass required is staggering plus the sun don't always shine.
I went for the interview, but cancelled after about 30 seconds of music. It's accepted that you need to get peoples attention in 7 seconds.
Current PV produces at about 15% efficiency, or 150 watts per sq m (peak). Do you seriously believe we don't have the space in Australia? Really? We don't even capture the water from our roofs. Most houses these days have at least 150 sqm of roof area, enough to produce every bit of power needed for residential uses. Solar PV is quiet, input free once manufactured and installed, non polluting and requires virtually zero maintenance for 30 years or longer. I would rather spend $15-20k up front for my electricity via PV, than compound the average cost of electricity today at a rate of 5% for 30 years. The big centralised power industry has done a superb job of brainwashing.
One problem is that not all the roof area faces north, in fact on a typical house it would be a theoretical average of just 1/4, so that reduces it to 37.5 metres straight away. Then not all that roof space is useable for solar panels due to the roof design, space required for solar hot water, over hanging trees etc. I am not against home energy - I have had solar hot water for over 25 years and have recently added solar power panels, but the arguments need to be based on reality rather than magical and unrealistic figures.
