OK so the situation is pretty bad. I mean just look at Alberta, Canada where they take that tar sand and completely destroying forests and turning them into unlivable toxic deserts which is now area larger then England


Then that Keystone Pipeline that has so many activist groups against it... etc Oil = destrucion

But the solution seems so easy. Building solar concentrators, especially the linear kind, are gaining steam, so to speak. There have been dubious pronouncements that 9% of the area of Nevada could provide enough solar electricity to supply the entire USA. With that much clean energy we can also easily make methanol inorganically that can fuel cars people already have. This can be done in just few years, probably less then 5 years and just imagine how much problems that could solve! Really try to imagine.

I guess the question is  why has it become so hard to build bunch of mirrors and put them in the deserts of Nevada and/or Texas or even California?

I also believe that solar power is the best answer we have at the moment. In the UK, solar panels can be fitted to your house without the need for planning permission. The tech is advanced enough now that the average household will collect enough energy to run all of its power needs and send ~10% of it's energy back to the grid. And that's with the UK being overcast almost 60% of the year! Now imagine all houses having solar panels with constantly improving tech; rechargable batteries for everything (including cars)... It's no stretch of the imagination to consider 'big industry' as a customer of the domestic energy production, basically flipping the current consumer model on its head.

Quote:I guess the question is  why has it become so hard to build bunch of mirrors and put them in the deserts of Nevada and/or Texas or even California?

Because the oil industry owns the politicians and they do not want the competition.  See how simple answers can be?

Also, the price of solar is still higher than oil... per kWh.
Not to mention the price of batteries so you can power houses and businesses during the night.
Hydro power is another great option... available 24/7.
Wind power only works when there's some wind... and not too much of it...

Last I heard, 22% of the world's total energy is now being produced by the myriad renewable sources available. That's not nothing.
We're getting there.

(September 9, 2015 at 10:52 am)pocaracas Wrote: Also, the price of solar is still higher than oil... per kWh.

That's the reason - period. Although the gap keeps shrinking, solar is still expensive.

(September 9, 2015 at 11:21 am)AFTT47 Wrote:

(September 9, 2015 at 10:52 am)pocaracas Wrote: Also, the price of solar is still higher than oil... per kWh.

That's the reason - period. Although the gap keeps shrinking, solar is still expensive.

Not if you have your own panels. That's the model that the UK's going for; literally taking energy production out of the hands of big industry.

(September 9, 2015 at 8:09 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:

That picture is fucking heartbreaking.

(September 9, 2015 at 11:55 am)Ben Davis Wrote:

(September 9, 2015 at 11:21 am)AFTT47 Wrote: That's the reason - period. Although the gap keeps shrinking, solar is still expensive.

Not if you have your own panels. That's the model that the UK's going for; literally taking energy production out of the hands of big industry.

You have to buy the panels and they are expensive. Depending on how much sun you get and your local electric rate, you are probably looking at more than a decade for break-even.

Here in the U.S. we have Solar City - yet another Elon Musk innovation. They will install the system at no cost and you pay your electric bill to them. It will always be cheaper than your local rate. I guess they can make a payback in a more reasonable time because their buying power allows them to buy panels and other equipment at high volume - probably at wholesale prices.

I think that solar thermal plants (one with mirrors) would be much cheaper then solar panels, but it's still unfortunately a delusion because the transmission problems. It could be used for production of methanol, but to drag electricity all over US is kind of unrealistic.

Also in the fusion topic I mentioned that study and plan by Jacobson and Delucchi for every state, but again I'm afraid it only works on paper because it is becoming clear that WWS (water, wind, and solar) sources have some large problems to overcome: storage of intermittent energy; transmission over large distances; use of large land areas; ecological damage to land and wildlife; unsightly encroachment on the landscape and seascape; and legal, political, and environmental objections to these intrusions. Overcoming these obstacles may take longer than developing compact power centers, like nuclear fusion, which avoids these problems.