A Voice in the Wilderness
on 05/01/2008 at 04:15 PM
Our elected idiots...getting paid 6 figures per year to screw us over.
You know what this story is about - forcing Americans into Government run/controlled energy which will be regulated and taxed out the wahzoo and like the (not-so-right) Rev. Wright - they are doing it going off long past energy ‘problems’ and ‘crisis’ - this is 2008 - I am sure the industries (oil, gas, nuclear etc) have all moved into the 21st century - and are much better at doing what they do, cleaner and safer. . .Is it too much to ask the racists among us and Congress to also move into the 21st century?!?
Speaking of lies and the liars who tell them: of the top ten countries we import (evil) oil from - only 4 are Middle East - therefor they aren’t exactly the primary countries holding us hostage. And to drill, pump and refine our own - would release us from dependence on the need for oil importation, create jobs and also make us a player in the World oil game (which of course would - make us richer, powerful and more free). Which it appears the liberals of America - don’t want to do, even at the cost of destroying our economy and way of life - oh wait, that is the goal of liberals - I’m being redundant. And if you look at oil ‘boom’ areas and periods of American life - they made the area richer beyond belief (and contrary to the enviro wackos - Texas and Oklahoma still exist, are inhabitable and still has wildlife). So it does appear to come down to the liberals, left, dems and msm - don’t give a damn about America, the citizens and real energy solutions and oil independence - they only care about dragging America as far down as they can - to turn it into a socialist paradise ala Cuba (from #1 in the region to the bottom under Father Fidels great leadership and control). And what scares me more is that people are buying into their lies and keep voting for them. Sad.
The problem I see is with a group of people I call “wishful tankers”. These folk believe in pie-in-the-sky solutions to our energy needs and aren’t capable or willing to “do the math” to determine whether their solutions actually work. They also stand in the way of practical solutions because of their faith in the silly ones....
So they’ll go on about fuel cells without explaining where the hydrogen will come from. They’ll rant about wind when it would take over 500 football field sized turbines to replace a single typical sized power plant. Ethanol, when it drives up the cost of food and still takes more energy to produce than you get back. Solar, when they can’t explain how to store huge amounts of electricity for overnight use.... etc
I agree with almost all of that JimS, but wouldn’t an overnight storage solution for solar power be called a “battery”? As far as I know solar cells create DC, which is perfect for battery storing.
Hey, let’s not leave geothermal out of this. All you have to do is drill a 2 mile deep hole in the backyard of every house in the world, and then install a massively expensive heat pump. Then you can heat and cool your house for almost free after that. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit here, but the idea works. You have to pay the cost up front, and if you live long enough you save money.
Drew: True, you could charge up a battery for overnight use. But that’s a sizable battery, even for a single home, to say nothing of the inverter needed to convert back to AC. You’d almost have to centralize the battery/inverter at the power plant. That’s one big honkin’ battery. There’s some city in Alaska that uses a battery as a backup to their grid power.. but it’s a monster. Here in Michigan, we’ve got a load leveling plant that pumps water at night from lake Michigan into a reservoir, then dumps it back thru turbines during the day. But you need the right geography for that.
I’d forgotten about geothermal. The problem there is that the ideal sites - dry steam are rare. A lot of the sites have brine… very corrosive. Dry hot rock is good - but then you need some working fluid - usually water - to transfer the heat.
The really stupid thing about ANWR is that it was set aside in 1978 specifically for future oil exploration.
The future is NOW.
What really bugs me about ANwR is the news coverage.... when they want to talk about it, they use stock footage of Denali National Park.. The pristine snow-capped mountains, streams filled with jumping fish, grizzlies feasting on them, real National Geographic stuff. The reality is more like a wal-mart parking lot in a Minnesota February. - flat and desolate.
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