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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Noel de Leon who wrote (127950)	3/31/2004 4:12:45 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

Take Denmark, 25% of it's energy is based on renewable sources and more is to be installed. And look at the size of Denmark compared to the US. Look at the distances that people and goods have to normally travel between major population centers. There's a darn good reason the US is so dependent on oil. Distances in this country are far more than many more compact and crowded countries (where mass transit is more attractive and convenient). I well remember traveling between college in Arizona to visit the folks in Idaho. It would take me well over 20 hours worth of driving. 20 hours of driving in Europe would take me from Paris to Prague (minus any stops at the borders). And I think it's fine for Denmark to put up windmills. But wait until they have to replace them in 10-20 years, as well as the normal maintenance that is incumbent for any rotary machine). And eventually people are going to get sick of having their pristine water views disrupted by these emmense devices. A pebble bed nuclear reactor has a far smaller footprint, and probably a service life of 40 years (or greater). And it's able to produce clean energy at around .02 to .03 per kilowatt hour (if I recall the stats properly). That's a lot of Hydrogen that can be produced during off-peak hours. As for oil running out, eventually that will be the case. But if I understand correctly, we have more proven or suspected reserves now than we've had in decades. The problem is that they are located in very tumultuous places on the planet where governments are corrupt and the people are deprived of the benefits of the national resources. I would rather have developing nations sell us oil instead of just giving them foreign aid. Either way we're going to have to give them money. So they might as well obtain it by selling us a valuable commodity. Hawk