From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Jul 30 2002 - 16:58:25 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
>...
>
>They want, ...
>
>THey have latched onto wind power because it's cost
>per kwh has dropped to market competetive levels in
>the last decade, so that they can no longer be reviled
>as pie in the sky goofballs who can't count dollars
>and cents. I still think they are pie in the sky
>goofballs because there are not enough locations in
>the country that would meet their squeaky clean green
>approval to meet even a significant fraction of the
>country's power demands.
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
>http://health.yahoo.com
>
>
>
Personally, that seems a good reason to latch onto that particular
energy source. I don't feel that which energy source is used is central
to the thesis that they are espousing. Also, I have heard that there is
actually sufficient wind to generate a large fraction of the country's
needs. The problem is in distribution. Most of the "fertile" areas are
rather sparsely populated, e.g., North Dakota. Possibly people don't
like to live near a wind-storm. And with current line distribution
losses and costs, it might not be a reasonable choice, but I haven't
checked the numbers.
Whatever, if there are unused wind power sites, and they are
cost-competitive, then why *wouldn't* GreenPeace push them. For that
matter, why aren't the power companies pushing them? And why are they
pushing nuclear so hard, when it hasn't been commercial yet, and
probably won't be without the insurance disclaimer. As long as the
nuclear industry requires that they be exempted by the government from
liability costs, then I'm not going to believe that it's a safe technology.
That said, I don't expect that wind power would suffice. But we don't
yet need a perfect answer. It would, however, help considerably if we
could cut down on carbon emissions, and using wind power as a supplement
would do that. I expect that in the long term we will need to move to
either breeder fission reactors, or space based power sattelites, but I
would prefer that it not be in this decade. Those are both too
dangerous. (Well, the breeder reactors are, and the space based
sattelites are currently too expensive. We need better robots and
better launch vehicles for that.)
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:47 MST