Comments on: Why does the right-wing media choose to make their listeners ignorant about alternative energy?

By: MrZ

MrZ — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:54:59 +0000

rijim2001 is correct. You should look into the numbers and not fly off the handle ranting and raving using vague generalities about alternate energies. i looked up some info:
Humanity’s current energy consumption rate
is 13 trillion thermal watts, or 13 terawatts. As rijim2001 said if you used ALL THE USABLE WIND SURFACE OF THE EARTH windmills would only generate 2 to 4 terawatts. That's only 20 to 30% of humanities CURRENT needs!

As far as Denmark goes just what is its energy needs? Only 9.57% of its energy production comes from RENEWABLE sources like wind turbines. (SEE 1st SOURCE BELOW). And of that 9.57% about 17% is generated from the wind.

In the from 1980 to 2006 its energy production has increased about 30 times. Its renewable energy production in the same period increased less than 5 times while oil production increased nearly 6 times and natural gas increased a whopping 20,000 times. Check these numbers out at the Danish 2nd website below.

I believe you need to re-assess your ideas about the scale of renewable energy sources before you star to condemn any one political party when there seems to be a very large gap in your own source of information.
References :
http://www.energistyrelsen.dk/graphics/Publikationer/Statistik_UK/energy_in_dk_2006/html/kap02.htm

http://www.energistyrelsen.dk/graphics/UK_Facts_Figures/Statistics/yearly_statistics/Figures2006.xls

By: Thom1274

Thom1274 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:17:59 +0000

The truth is that we will need all sources of energy in order to meet energy demand over the next 100 years. Whether that be alternatives or fossil fuels. I hate to say it but most of that energy will still come from fossil fuels. The main reason is that although we have a lot of these technologies they are still not able to produce energy on a scale that would make them commercially viable.
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By: whimsy

whimsy — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:42:59 +0000

I think some politic folks would rather continue top alienate people under “divide and conquer” techniques, than to actually try to solve problems.

____
namsaev:

I suppose the concept of batteries has escaped you and the “storage” problem…
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By: Patriot P

Patriot P — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:54:59 +0000

your deliberate ignorance sort of makes me a little ill
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By: imaguy1212

imaguy1212 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:23:59 +0000

Becuase they love them some oil, and oil companies.

Hey Bob, your big on that tire guage thing huh? I bet you think your pretty sharp, ha there skippy. That was a snippet out of a much broader speech taken out of context so McCain could have a sound bite that the righties could hold on to and parrot. Bob, let it go man, the tire guage has run it’s course. It’s a good idea in a much broader solution, unfortunately people like you can’t get past the little things like that. It feels pretty good to make fun of a good thing huh?
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By: rijim2001

rijim2001 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:02:59 +0000

Why are you liberals out of your mind and so gullible about things that are not economically feasible or even physically possible.
I am an alumnus of Caltech and what they're currently researching are:

1) a way of making butanol, a better motor fuel than ethanol, without using food crops.

2)transforming sunlight—far and away the most plentiful source
of energy available to us—into hydrogen, a chemical fuel that can be stored and used after dark.

3)fuel cells, which liberate that energy by turning the hydrogen back into water.

Wind is the cheapest renewable-energy source now, because we cherry-pick the high-wind-velocity sites. As a bonus, the wind’s potential energy goes up as the cube of the wind speed—1/2 mv2 times the mass of air per unit time,which introduces another factor of v. And wind energy is relatively economic, about five cents perkilowatt hour in very high-wind-speed areas, but, even adding in the lower-wind-speed areas, when you calculate the total kinetic energy that we can get at the surface of the earth, there is to be had in practical terms about two to four terawatts.
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By: namsaev

namsaev — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:57:59 +0000

They don’t! But how many libs are overlooking the problems of the technologies you’ve mentioned. Solar power is great– when the sun’s out but doesn’t work well after dark. It’s can’t be stored. The same thing goes for wind. You can’t store wind.

Where are you going to come up with the electricity for electric cars? That power that comes from your wall has to come from somewhere. Where are you going to get your compressed air?

Hydrogen fuel cells are efficient. But it takes a lot of energy to make hydrogen from anything. And hydrogen is very flammable. Remember the Hindenburg? That was all over with in less than one minute.

Natural gas generates CO2 and if there’s a wreck and the fuel tank ruptures you can have a very big explosion.

You can make bio fuels from a lot of things soybeans, corn, wheat, and other crops. But those are things that can be eaten by humans. Which would you rather have fuel or food? You can’t have both from the same thing.

Liberals are all for alternative energy. And I am too. But be realistic. There aren’t many sources that are viable alternatives to fossil fuel.

GeoThermal, nuclear, and hydro are the only ones that can be varied sufficiently to meet the changes in loads. And what is the liberal side saying about those? They are too messy. They will harm the animals. They are too dangerous.

Conservative aren’t ignorant. And they aren’t blind to the facts.
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By: SIDNEYGOOD

SIDNEYGOOD — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:12:59 +0000

Your insults define your intelligence. The alternative sources will become the norm but not in our lifetime and until then we will need OIL, COAL, WIND, SOLAR but oil will still be the #1 source and that we will have to be drilling for and our reserves are the largest in the world.
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By: Pro Deus Et Patria

Pro Deus Et Patria — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:24:59 +0000

Because it doesn’t further their agenda, which is driven by personal profit.

Don’t worry, things will turn around in a big way once the right-wing figures out they can get stupidly drunk rich off of alternative energy too.
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By: Hyperbolic Plague

Hyperbolic Plague — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:18:59 +0000

Here’s what I’ve noticed. In their minds, “alternative energy sources” is the same thing as “offshore drilling.”

While, to liberals, “alternative energy sources” means developing new ways of providing things like heat and electricity, ways that don’t depend on oil at all, conservatives think it means finding new places to drill for more oil.

No wonder we get nowhere in Congress. There is a very basic inability to communicate between the parties.
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