Thread: Solar power does not work in the US...

A lot of people didn't like the idea a while ago of Germany buying solar from Sunny Greece. I guess they had realized what most of us hadn't, that Greece is nothing compared to the solar hotspot of Deutschland.

Besides the Stupidity of the Fox news staff,,, does anyone believe that Green Energy ie: Solar and Wind is actually viable or clean ????


I live in an area that many people are what we call "Off the Grid" and have been for quite some time, this is not a new trend up here... What is becoming an issue however is that our Refuse dumps are getting more than double the amount of Lead/Acid batteries then the surrounding areas.. This also must be factored with the information that it costs money to drop a battery at the land fill, which up here means that many of these batteries are more then likely ending up buried in holes on the back sides of people's property.. This will eventually leach lead into the water table

So just how clean is Solar and Wind, I know China and India are already having pollution issues from the increase in "Green" industries, also the renewable aspect is being questioned since the technology relies heavily of Rare Earth Metals (key word Rare)..


Is this just another glass of Koolaid ????

I think this just shows how stupid some people are. I remember a past prime Minister of ours (Howard) saying we couldn't 'afford' to sign up to the Kyoto agreement because 'we were a manufacturing economy' and we'd be 'unfairly disadvantaged economically'. I guess he's eating his words now as we scramble to re-build infrastructure year after year post floods etc. I won't even address the 'manufacturing economy' bit. Manufacturing WHAT?

On another ranting point, is the root cause of the issue HOW we get our power or more to the point how MUCH power we're using? When I was growing up we had no air-conditioning, no TV, no electric blinds, no electric toothbrushes, electric mops, etc. We had a radiogram thingy, an electric jug and electric lights. No TVs in each room, no 'game machines' in each room, no DVD players etc. Maybe we should just REDUCE power consumption instead of finding more ways of providing it?

It astonishes me that one would actually NEED an electric toothbrush and electric blinds, how pathetic ARE people that they can't do this [insert video of one moving one's toothbrush manually across one's teeth for several minutes]?

Of course I should put my hand up and say I'm also a consumer of too much power, but I honestly wish I wasn't. It's hard to be a peasant hermit living in the woods like Henry Thoreau, but I wish I WAS.

(hippy Carl having a hippy rant)

Not surprising coming from the "news" channel that gave us Karl Rove, the Romney Landslide, "skewed" polling, Sarah Palin, global warming denial, and on and on...

The sad fact is that Germany, France, really Europe in general, are decades ahead of us in weaning themselves gradually off of fossil fuel sources and on to more sustainable/green energy sources, which, yes, have impacts, but orders of magnitude less than coal/oil/natural gas. The country that put a man on the moon should have led the world in this initiative. But sadly, we seem to be racing backwards with respect to science and technology (not to mention government's crucial role in incentivizing their development when correctly managed), two things which helped us forge the mightiest economic superpower in world history post WWII. Very sad, really.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

The sad fact is that Germany, France, really Europe in general, are decades ahead of us in weaning themselves gradually off of fossil fuel sources and on to more sustainable/green energy sources, which, yes, have impacts, but orders of magnitude less than coal/oil/natural gas. The country that put a man on the moon should have led the world in this initiative. But sadly, we seem to be racing backwards with respect to science and technology (not to mention government's crucial role in incentivizing their development when correctly managed), two things which helped us forge the mightiest economic superpower in world history post WWII. Very sad, really.

Try this google search "The Hidden Pollution of Green Energy" it is a rather good search, and you will find some interesting ideas, I became curious when Hybrid Ford Escapes first hit the car lot and I had this little Hippy Gal explain to me that they had more overall negative impact on the Enviroment from cradle to grave then an H2 Hummer did...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

... I became curious when Hybrid Ford Escapes first hit the car lot and I had this little Hippy Gal explain to me that they had more overall negative impact on the Enviroment from cradle to grave then an H2 Hummer did...

But it has the little green leaf on the side of it, so it must be good for the enviroment. Here's an interesting article for those who think wind power is good for the enviroment:

Large Wind Farms Raise Temperature Near Ground - WSJ.com

Seems wind contributes to the increasing temperatures of climate change.

As farcical as the Fox News piece was there definitely is no free lunch with the production of green energy. It may very well be as polluting in the long run as the energy sources it seeks to replace. What you make on the beer you loose on the peanuts.

Bob

Of course Solar Power doesn't work in the United States. No one has yet to be given a patent on sunlight. As soon as someone is allowed to own all sunlight and is able to sell it to you, we'll see that it works just fine.