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To: Don Lloyd who wrote (17199)	3/21/2002 11:09:07 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 74559

Don, that's a good article by Sallie Baliunas, but she's got one part wrong: <"...Over the same period, renewable energy sources like wind and solar power have been discussed to the point of distraction. But these are boutique energy sources: they produce relatively minute amounts of energy and do so intermittently. While they may be cost-effective in limited locales, they are unreliable for large-scale electricity generation. (As a side note, often overlooked is the enormous environmental footprint that wind and solar farms would require. For example, to replace a conventional 1000 megawatt coal plant that spans tens of acres would require an isolated, uninhabited area with correct meteorological conditions of roughly 400 square miles on which to place over 2,000 wind turbines, not to mention the associated imprint of high-power transmission lines, roads, etc. Solar panel farms would produce environmental blight and degradation over a similarly sized landscape.) ..." > BP Oil is now taking a guess that solar power [meaning photovoltaic] might supply half the world's energy in 50 years. <...BP has invested heavily in solar technology over the past two decades, and has a commitment to increasing the use of solar energy by businesses and homes in an attempt to increase demand and lower costs per unit. Currently solar energy supplies about 0.001% of the worlds energy needs. But BP projects that to grow to 5% by 2020 and 50% by 2050. > bp.co.nz I doubt that photovoltaics will get anywhere near that much by then. That's because oil and gas [and coal] will remain by far the cheapest way of supplying energy [nuclear would be okay too but the management costs are excessively high still, apparently]. Oil and gas have the added merit of increasing atmospheric CO2, which is plant food - it's what plants eat to grow [I know you know that - I just mention it in case readers don't know that]. Burning carbon fuels should get a tax concession not a tax penalty. Certainly, there should be no attempt whatsoever to limit CO2 production. Algae, trees and other plants are the foundation for life on earth. They are the bottom of the food chain. It amazes me that people who claim to be ecologically aware and environmentally sensitive wish to suffocate and starve plants as has happened for hundreds of millions of years as marine life has died and carried carbon to a permanent submarine grave and swamps have swallowed vast tracts of carbon in coal. The atmosphere has been stripped of carbon over those eons. Plants now have to struggle to breathe/eat [same thing for them] from an atmosphere depleted of carbon dioxide. Oil and gas remain in huge supply and will not run low for another century at least, especially if Orinoco and other heavy crudes and coal are taken into account. So on price, it'll be a tough deal for photovoltaics to beat them. But costs are coming down for photovoltaics - there's no shortage of silicon! Sallie is wrong here: <...Solar panel farms would produce environmental blight and degradation over a similarly sized landscape.)... > Solar panel farms would not produce environmental blight and degradation. On the contrary, they would dramatically enhance the environment where they are used. Huge tracts of Australia are suitable and so are large parts of the USA, the Sahara and other barren hot-spots around the world. With 2 metre diameter photovoltaic panels on two metre high poles, spaced at 3 metre centres, there would be a great crop-growing environment underneath. Sunlight intensity would be reduced, temperatures lowered, rainfall might even increase if a large enough area could be covered. Imagine thousands of square miles of these panels. There would be vast amounts of electricity available. Electric-powered tractors could zoom around underneath, tending the crops. Water could be shipped in supertankers from Antarctica or from fiords in New Zealand or from rivers around the world if groundwater is too low to be pumped up for the crops and if rain is too intermittent, even with the changed microclimate. Huge rows of trees could be grown for timber, as shelter belts, to avoid storm damage to the photovoltaics [as we grow shelter belts in NZ to protect kiwifruit farms]. The electricity could be used to produce aluminium [there's plenty of bauxite in Australia] for electronically-controlled cars which could travel at 150 km an hour 1 metre apart. Electricity in huge supply and cheap can split water to supply hydrogen as feedstock for heavy crude processors [which need more hydrogen to make clean fuels with good burning characteristics for transport; methanol, synthetic gasoline, fuel cell fuel]. The electricity could pump water from the supertankers uphill to the photovoltaic-protected farms and trees. Water could be pumped back uphill to go through the Hoover Dam again and again and again [that's a way of storing surplus electricity from the photovoltaics rather than having it go to waste though timing of smelting activities might be a better way of balancing demand]. There's lots of fun and profit to be had! The environment will benefit - hordes of beasties will love living under the canopy and in the forests. Mqurice