Alternative Energy Sources

Environmentalist even hate solar power "US Halts Solar Energy Projects Over Environment Fears?

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:56:54 +0000

Can anyone please tell me of one form of energy the enviromentalist will not attack?
I guess solar power is now evil.
Wind power kills birds.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/28/9949/

Wind power doesn't kill birds. The towers are hundreds of feet high and the wind farms are cleared of undergrowth - there's nothing to attract birds to the site.

It's not about CO2 with these people. It's not even about pollution. It's about lifestyles. They prefer a David Kaczinsky lifestyle and it's not enough for them to live it, they need to impose it on us. They see humanity as a pox on the earth.

“If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it…” – Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute.

“The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world”
– John Shuttleworth, founder of Mother Earth News.

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, Secretary General 1992 UN Earth Summit

“Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed.” – Pentti Linkola

We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects…. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land. —David Foreman, Earth First!

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing….This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run.
—Economist editorial

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight.—David Foreman, Earth First!

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.—Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS. —Earth First! Newsletter

I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.
—John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

“Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental”– David Foreman, founder of Earth First!

“If there is going to be electricity at all, I would like it to be decentralized, small, solar-powered”– Gar Smith

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States…”– Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

“Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape.”
– John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.

The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982)

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion — guilt-free at last! — Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue)

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets…Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. — David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans.—Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.—Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels.—Carl Amery

Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby.—Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists

To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem.—Lamont Cole

Cannibalism is a "radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation." — Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

This is an anti-human, anti-progress, anti-civilization movement. The only thing that has changed is the pretext for their argument:

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000.—Lowell Ponte in “The Cooling”, 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. … This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. —Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

Why's coal nuclear wind and solar energy used for electricity and oil for transportation? Is this good or bad?

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:56:45 +0000

I pretty much agree with Jeffry.

Except with the comments about solar manufacturing producing pollution. While that is undoubtedly true, why single out solar? Pretty much everything we make has some environmental impact.
Wind turbines too. Carbon fiber blades must have some impact in their manufacturing for instance.

Solar thermal power plants may have less impact in their manufacture than PV. It's basically glass and steel, with a generator of some type.
(turbine, stirling engine for example)

At any rate, both wind and solar have small impacts over the life of them, providing completely clean energy once they are installed.

They both have advantage of being able to be built in relatively short times, compared with coal or nuclear plants.

Mass production of plug in hybrid cars in the U.S. would save lots of oil. They are more marketable than pure electrics, because they have no range limitation. The average American driver would get overall mileage of 100 mpg. Recharging at night for $1 of electricity.

Plug in Partners - advocacy group for PHEVs
http://www.pluginpartners.org/

"Charging the battery each night would cost less than $1.00 at current rates. PHEVs outfitted with a battery pack providing a 40-mile electric range could power, using the all-electric mode, more than 60% of the total annual miles traveled by the average American driver. That means tens of millions of motorists could make their daily commute using little, if any, gasoline. "

"PHEVs would result in significant fuel savings for most motorists. The initial cost of the plug-in vehicle, however, would be more than a conventional car or one of the existing mass-produced hybrids. However, a 2004 study by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) found that plug-in hybrids can achieve life cycle costs parity with conventional gasoline vehicles – meaning that over the life of the car the cost will be equal or less despite the initial higher cost. The study calculated gasoline price as $1.75/gallon."

So at $4 a gallon which we will see soon, how much would you save?

Using the grid to charge cars at night is already cleaner than burning gasoline. As we make the grid cleaner, PHEVs and EVs will make more and more sense.

Good ideas here:
http://www.setamericafree.org/blueprint.pdf
A Blueprint For U.S. Energy Security

and here:
Scientific American A Solar Grand Plan
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

and here:Green Wombat several stories about solar thermal power plants in California etc.
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

Which alternative energy source do you think is most practical?

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:56:35 +0000

There are many, many, alternative energy sources solar, hydro-electric, wind, electricity, bio-fuels and such, geo-thermal, nuclear, and the list could go on for a long, long time, but which energy source do you think is the most practical? Like in the future, which energy sources will be used.

I think solar energy is a great idea, and that we have only scratched the surface of what it could do for us. However, as of now solar energy has some flaws, for example you could use solar energy in California easily because it is sunny for most of the year, but in states like Oregon/Washington where it rains a lot, you couldn’t use it as efficiently.

I don’t know why, but I have never been a big fan on hydro-electric power… I mean, I know dams can produce enough power to give energy to entire cities, but there is always the chance of the dam breaking, if you’ve happened to watch a special about dams, you might have heard that many dams that have been inspected are classified as not safe… I dunno… Lots of people like hydro-electric, it
just never seemed to turn me on..

Wind… lots of people like wind power…. I mean, it, out of all the energy sources is probably the cleanest… its just that, they don’t generate a tremendous amount of power as of now at least…

Electricity is my favorite, thus I’d give a biased explanation favoring it, so I won’t even bother.

Bio Fuels… The only problem that I really have is, what if there is a blizzard or drought how are you going to get your Bio Fuel?

Like solar, I think Geo-Thermal could be used to generate more energy than it does, but I have always thought it as.. I don’t know how to explain it… sort of an old idea… I know lots of people use it to heat there homes but I think it can be reinvented to be greater than it is.

Nuclear-Powerful, Dangerous.

So, which source do you think is the answer? Or do you think a combination of some of the energy sources will be the future. Or do you think we will find a new source of energy in the future that will surpass all the current forms, maybe from space or something. Or do you think we won’t survive to find out… So yeah… what do you think?

I think you have to look at the particular climate and environment you live in, e.g. hours of sunlight, amount of wind, closeness to a suitable river system, closeness to the ocean, availability of hot-rocks and geothermal activity. All of these natural assets can be used to provide power in a clean and economical way. I think the best sources of “Green Power” are Hot-rocks/Geothermal sites and wave power as they seem to use the least use of expensive technology to utilise them. I think they would also leave the smallest “footprint” on our precious environment.

explain me about working of scientific calculator using solar energy when battery power is down?

admin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:53:59 +0000

that is, how a scientific calculator works when its battery power is totally down?how it works when it is shown in sunlight for sometime?please give me the mechanism involved in it.

when batt not available the triac is used so the base power switches to solar cell and there if it gets energy it emmitts power to 7-segment and again ur calc is on solar batt. when u replace battreis again the triac actives through batt power.

What has president bush done in terms of renewable energy? best answer gets 10 points?

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:22:43 +0000

I know he's done a lot to make sure that we have an adequate supply of oil but what has he done to make renewable energy more practical for the future in terms of research and funding?

~please include websites for me to read up on

i'm thinking, i'm thinking.

seems i'll have to get back to you on that.

you could say corn ethanol, but that's raised the cost of food, and with an expanding population, that's surely not going to be practical in the future.

how does wind electricity cost compare with fossil fuel cost for KW/h at this time?

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:22:28 +0000

The cost of wind-generated electric power has dropped substantially since the first modern turbines were installed in the 1980's. By 2004, according to some sources, the price in the United States was lower than the cost of fuel-generated electric power, even without taking externalities into account.[1][2][3] At this time, wind energy was reported to cost one-fifth as much as it did in the 1980s, and some expected that downward trend to continue as larger multi-megawatt turbines are mass-produced.[4] However, in the U.S., installation costs have increased significantly over the past couple of years, and according to the major U.S. wind industry trade group, now average over 1600 U.S. dollars per kilowatt[5], compared to $1200/kW just a few years ago. A British Wind Energy Association report gives an average generation cost of onshore wind power of around 3.2 pence per kilowatt hour.[6] Wind power is growing quickly, at about 38% in 2003,[7] up from 25% growth in 2002. In the United States, as of 2003, wind power was the fastest growing form of electricity generation on a percentage basis.[8]

Most major forms of electric generation are capital intensive, meaning that they require substantial investments at project inception, and low ongoing costs (generally for fuel and maintenance). This is particularly true for wind and hydropower, which have fuel costs close to zero and relatively low maintenance costs; in economic terms, wind power has an extremely low marginal cost and a high proportion of up-front costs. The "cost" of wind energy per unit of production is generally based on average cost per unit, which incorporates the cost of construction, borrowed funds, return to investors (including cost of risk), estimated annual production, and other components. Since these costs are averaged over the projected useful life of the equipment, which may be in excess of twenty years, cost estimates per unit of generation are highly dependent on these assumptions. Figures for cost of wind energy per unit of production cited in various studies can therefore differ substantially.

Estimates for cost of production use similar methodologies for other sources of electricity generation. Existing generation capacity represents sunk costs, and the decision to continue production will depend on marginal costs going forward, not estimated average costs at project inception. For example, the estimated cost of new wind power capacity may be lower than that for "new coal" (estimated average costs for new generation capacity) but higher than for "old coal" (marginal cost of production for existing capacity). Therefore, the choice to increase wind capacity by building new facilities will depend on more complex factors than cost estimates, including the profile of existing generation capacity.

Alternative energy resources? solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power?

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:22:20 +0000

I am giving a presentation on alternative energy and need to find a good source of statistics, graphs, charts, diagrams etc to use. specifically, i will be referring to hydroelectric, wind and solar power.

thanks for your help in advance
answerer 1, you need to chill out…its for college. im not an oil barren you dodger

A graph of how much revenue oil barons and the refining process would lose in relation the % of renewable energy as a total of energy production would be the most pertinent in modern society.

Yes we think that you huge businesses should stop your hugely profitable exploits and instead spend billions investing in renewable energy. Afterall it's only money isn't the planets more important and I am sure you didn't become Oil barons because you are incredibly selfish and want far more than everyone else even if it means millions have to starve and die and suffer.

People wake up stop your governments from supporting these people renationalise your power industry invest in research and maximise renewable energy. Or sit back and let them charge you interest on the loans your govenment takes to buy weapons that you manufacture to send your own people to die for their profit and finacial security.

Death to MYism long live WEism.

How much I need to invest to get solar energy system for generating electricity for home?

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:22:17 +0000

What is the establishment and maintenance cost?

If your handy, you can do it yourself and build a solar panel / wind mill for under 200 / 100 dollars, Its now affordable, will make to less dependable from the utility companies, safe for our environment, and save your money!

how many researches carried on renewable energy diffusion modeling?

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:23:04 +0000

I am doing research in the area of renewable energy diffusion modelling and would like to receive methods used for simliar concepts or research.

you can try this web page and see if it has anything in it that will help you.
http://www.dsireusa.org/index.cfm?EE=1&RE=1

Do u think, we should support & subsidized wind power, solar energy and green marketing ?

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:23:01 +0000

I think its Very Late to even think about it "WE SHOELD HAVE DONE IT"