Let me start off with this, I'm not the first to say this and hopefully not the last!
If Global Warming is to go away, countries and governments are going to have to smarten up and start taking Real steps forward.
Although current governments in North America and the rest of the world are "dragging their heals" to say the least, here are some Real solutions to the Global Warming problem.
First and foremost, we need to stop drilling for oil. The government has to stop bailing out car companies and saying " we know you screwed up, but here's a few billion dollars of tax-payer money. Why don't you give it another shot." They made a mess of it more than once! Instead of saying try again, they should be telling these companies to develop electric cars and get the technology moving forward. They have the technology to make vehicles that are electricly powered that go just as fast and are MORE reliable than gas powered now. So what's stopping it?
Now if that were to happen, there would surely be a need for more electricity production. Canada, specificly Ontario, has just dedicated a ridiculous amount of money to opening a new nuclear plant. That has got to be one of the dumbest things I've heard in a long time! That wouldn't even come close to producing enough electricity to move all those cars. What we need to do is invest in renewables. Specifically wind and solar.
If you look at Germany, they are farther ahead of anyone as far as investing in renewables. Canada has such a great opportunity to be the frontrunners in converting everything to renewable energy. It's not like we don't have the room. Lake Ontario for example could harvest a great deal of energy if we were to put a wind farm in the middle of the lake. Now I know your reading this saying, " but that would cost way too much money." but really, look at all the money the government blows needlessly.
Getting back to the point, if everyone drove electric cars and instead of coal burning power plants and nuclear which cost a ton of money to produce power (not to mention the waste production and cost to store the waste safely), we had wind farms to produce the needed power for our driving needs and every house had solar pannels and a small wind mill on their roof to generate power for everyday use, there would be no need for coal and nuclear plants and considerabley less emitions and the the effects of Global Warming would lessen greatly!
Now I'm not saying this can happen over night or even in a year. It's going to take some time and care and money, but the governments of the world have to come to the realization that we need to start acting now before things get so bad that we can't do anything about it! I don't know why the government has to put up such a resistance to change that is so desperately needed.
First off I believe global warming to be mostly natural. If I am right then whats the point in taking drastic measures to combat GW. It would be more cost effective to adapt to the changes.
Thats not saying I don't agree with moving to more renewables for other environmental issues, or to wean us off of foreign oil for security issues.
Germans pay twice as much for electricity than we do, renewable power is massivly subsidized. At great cost to the German people.
Wind power is great, it is somewhat competative with current generation technologies. But you would need 2-3X your generation needs to have any kind of reliablility in your power.
PV solar is comming of age, I am personally waiting for the price to come down some more to where it will be cost effective before putting up a system on my own house. I also live in one of the best areas in the country for PV solar (the US southwest). Areas up north or even east recieve as little as half as much sunlight as we do. Like wind you will need to at least double your consumption to have reliable power.
Electric cars are being developed, millions are being invested into new battery technology, and there are still major technical hurdles to overcome before they are as practical as our current cars. Right now the best we can do is a gas/electric hybrid, at a significant increase in price. Forcing car companies to jump fully into electrics when the mass driving public are not ready to invest that much extra money into a car that will not fill all of their needs will be worse. It would be saying here have billions in a bail out, then here are some new rules to guarantee that you will fail.
Some of the hurdles for mass electric cars is how are you going to quickly charge it for those that have to drive further than the cars range? You will need to deliver 1-10MW (10,000,000 watts) to charge the car in about the same time as pumping gas would take. We would also need to increase generating and transmission capacity by 2-4 times what it currently is, depending on where you live.
Don't get me wrong, electric cars are comming, the technology is being developed, its just not ready to fill the needs of the masses yet.
I do agree with you, I never said this could be achieved over night. Yes there are major hurdles the technology needs to overcome but if nobody pushes the issue it's gonna be another 30 years before it's even feasible.
Yes what the Germans are doing may be costing the people a great deal as far as price for electricity but they're on the right track. You gotta generate revenew somehow, right.
All I'm saying is all of this could be possible in the next 10 - 15 years if governments were to push for it's development. Yes there is the issue of charging stations for electric cars as far as time and convenience but it is achievable. Why do you think solar pannels are as expensive as they are. Because if they were affordable, everyone would have them and the power companies would suffer.
There are other means of producing renewable energy. There are farms in Switzerland, I believe, that are power farms. They grow crops to produce energy and on top of that they are regular dairy farms. They also convert the cows manure into electrical energy. In fact there is a swiss fellow who moved to Canada to run such a farm, who was encouraged by the Canadian government to run and opperate it, was told he would be helped financially only to get the shaft. He payed for everything to be built, he was told he had to run the underground wires to hook up to the grid (and pay for it), he did all of this and all that needs to be done is hook the wire to the grid and the Canadian government told him no. Doesn't sound like anyone is for a positive change yet.
Why can't we set up wind farms? Just put them in the boonies. Nobody is there. On top of that you could put a massive amount of solar panels under the wind mills. Hydro electric is and always will be an excellent source of energy where it can be harnessed. My real point is that it's easier than it appears to convert to renewable energy. Things will just take a while to get to that point but it's gonna be alot longer if we don't start soon.
Originally posted by broozinski: I do agree with you, I never said this could be achieved over night. Yes there are major hurdles the technology needs to overcome but if nobody pushes the issue it's gonna be another 30 years before it's even feasible.
I think we are somewhat on the same page with that.
quote:
Originally posted by broozinski:
Yes what the Germans are doing may be costing the people a great deal as far as price for electricity but they're on the right track. You gotta generate revenew somehow, right.
All I'm saying is all of this could be possible in the next 10 - 15 years if governments were to push for it's development. Yes there is the issue of charging stations for electric cars as far as time and convenience but it is achievable. Why do you think solar pannels are as expensive as they are. Because if they were affordable, everyone would have them and the power companies would suffer.
Silicon is still difficult and expensive to refine. On top of that every electronic device built uses silicon, so you have competing demands for purified silicon. The inverters are also going way up in price because demand for copper has gone way up and they use quite a bit of copper in their construction.
quote:
Originally posted by broozinski:
There are other means of producing renewable energy. There are farms in Switzerland, I believe, that are power farms. They grow crops to produce energy and on top of that they are regular dairy farms. They also convert the cows manure into electrical energy. In fact there is a swiss fellow who moved to Canada to run such a farm, who was encouraged by the Canadian government to run and opperate it, was told he would be helped financially only to get the shaft. He payed for everything to be built, he was told he had to run the underground wires to hook up to the grid (and pay for it), he did all of this and all that needs to be done is hook the wire to the grid and the Canadian government told him no. Doesn't sound like anyone is for a positive change yet.
There are also a few farms here that use manure to power their equipment, many more could.
quote:
Originally posted by broozinski:
Why can't we set up wind farms? Just put them in the boonies. Nobody is there. On top of that you could put a massive amount of solar panels under the wind mills. Hydro electric is and always will be an excellent source of energy where it can be harnessed. My real point is that it's easier than it appears to convert to renewable energy. Things will just take a while to get to that point but it's gonna be alot longer if we don't start soon.
For a while we would see a set of wind turbine blades roll through town once or twice a week, headed off to our west. When I was traveling east not long ago we saw a wind farm that was almost completed, so at least in my state they are building them, at least 2 new ones anyways. Things are moving, probably faster than you thought they were. Market demands are seeing to that even if our government drags its feet. Though I have a feeling our current administration will probably try to push too hard and in not exactly the right direction.
They use a novel process and something other than silicon to manufacture solar pannels very cheaply. Germany is currently buying up all of their manufacturing capacity.
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