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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (183210)	2/20/2004 8:33:27 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576336

RE:"Right now, folks will send their kids to war before they will give up their SUV's." Ain't that the truth...

To: Road Walker who wrote (183210)	2/20/2004 8:44:03 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576336

JF, It's finally on the cusp of being economically efficient (cost less than benefit). Got a link? I'm really interested in seeing this crossover happen, and not just through rising prices of fossil fuels ... Tenchusatsu

To: Road Walker who wrote (183210)	2/21/2004 10:13:29 AM
From: hmaly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576336

John Re...One is solar. It's finally on the cusp of being economically efficient (cost less than benefit). Right now solar is only a niche player, and will likely stay a niche player. Your economically efficient studies, were done on panels done in Ariz. where the sun shines twice as often as it does in Wi. or most places in the US. Secondly, do you have an idea how big of an area you would have to devote to panels, to supply a city the size of Chicago, even if you put the panels in the Ariz. desert. Thirdly, the costs of solar, only are for the panels, and don't factor in other costs, such as infrastructure to transport said electricity, from the panels, to places of demand, plus storage costs, for when the sun don't shine. I don't think anyone envisions solar ever supplying more than 10% of our electricity needs in the near future. Wind power shows more promise than solar. You have electric and hybrid autos that consume less than 1/2 the energy than the typical family car. Why not encourage usage with significant tax breaks, and social pressure? If you can get these into volume production, then you have a winning economic and energy benefit. Absolutely, no doubt about it. However, electric plants don't rely on gas very often, so your saving in gas don't necessarily free up energy for electric plants. Secondly, fuel cells probably will be the future in cars, as I see the hybrids being a stop gap solution until cells get here. And it likely will take electricity to recharge the cells. And with the shortages of clean water, desalination could be big business in the future. Lets not kid ourselves. It will take all kinds of savings, and new resources to meet even current energy demands; much less future energy needs driven by technology; technology which more and more depends upon electricity. It's obvious the oil guys in the White House are NOT going to be the guys to lead us to a solution. They think more, and more, and more oil is the future, regardless of the (economic and human) cost. That isn't true at all. Bush doubled or better, money for alternate fuel programs, and Cheney has argued for more nuclear power. In the near term, more oil is the quickest solution. Or do you yearn for the good old days of Cal. in 99 -2000.