Just cuz I like his rant
ThatsItImout on Sunday October 29, 2006 at 4:02 AM EST
joule said,
"This further reinforces my belief that solar and wind power are complimentary and can be beneficially integrated into a combined system."
golly damm, now we are startin' to GET IT! It's the confluence, folks, that will overcome most of these little grumbles you keep hearing ("gee, what if the wind don't blow....gee, what if the sun don't shine...", golly gee shiit, what a bunch of whiners...they never ask, gee, what if Saudi buffoons go nuts and blow up the oil production facilities...compare that to the likelyhood of the sun not shinin'...idiots).
Now, let's talk a bit of a really pretty confluence here...take the solar map, take the windmap, take the brownbelt areas around every formerly industrial city large and small, take the sewer gas and the landfills and the agricultural factory farms and processsing plants...mix 1/3 wind, 1/3 sun, and 1/3 renewable methane from waste product and sewer gas...gee, does that start to fill in the "variability" problem a bit....huh, does, it huh, huh?
O.K., fine, your still a bit nervous...o.k.....go down the Ohio and Mississippi River and spot out some good valleys....now, about 12 to 24 manmade lakes, with pumped hydro storage using the wind and solar....and of course, we still have the remaining nukes throughout the region, so instead of building any new ones, we modernize and add units to the ones where they are, since, well, no one exactly seems running scared of the ones already there, but they sure as hell don't want a new one in a suburb full of folks that has NEVER even seen one up close...is it startin' to sound like a plan, huh, is it?
So... up to our azz in renewable, storable energy, and methods to have the single most stable grid and comfortable old farts on the planet...did I miss anything....oh yeah, the small scale distributed generation that will stabalize the grid and make it almost terrorist, storm, natural disaster, and supply interruption proof (with some large propane and methane tanks well scattered throughout the system, all built over that great stable base....distributed power, stability, diversity, and price and market leverage....a case hardened energy system to last the next century...just what I have been pushing from my first days forking this line on TOD and lovin' every minute of it, and now, folks are starting to GET IT! :-)
OPPS, something has to be lacking, it cannot be this good, this easy, where is the fly in the ointment?
Well, there is one problem, sadly. It's not that it won't work technically, or that it is financially undoable (helll, we could have done the whole thing for half the cost of the Gulf War or the Ray Gun defense buildup, and gotten far more in return, and been more powerful than the above would have made us), no, the problem is this: since about 1970 to 1980, we decided that them there egghead intellectuals and technicians were gay weirdos and sure didn't want our brats to be one of them lefty leaning enviro book readin' types....so we didn't bother with the ole' edukashoon system much...in fact, we perty much decided them book learnins is what caused that whole campus radical thing, and that peacenik bug and that global warming crap....and now they talk about peek oil or something like that, and them peekers, who did seem to understand the problem, got so down they decided it was a waste to send juinor to college, better to teach him how to plow with a mule, or harvest turnip greens, or develop a taste for grasshoppers, or some such shiit....so, here's the problem...
WE DIDN'T FREAKIN' TRAIN ANYBODY TO DESIGN, ENGINEER AND BUILD THE BEST FRICKIN' ENERGY SYSTEM IN THE WORLD, EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE ALL THE NEEDED CONDITIONS FOR IT!! WE HAVE NO GENERATION OF YOUNG BUILDERS AND TECHNICIANS, WHO COULD BY THE WAY, GET RICH ON THIS, AFFORD THE PLUG HYBRID CAR, THE EARTH BERMED LUXURY HOUSE WITH GROUND COUPLED HEAT PUMP AND SOLAR POWER, AND MAYBE EVEN AN ENERGY EFFICIENT APARTMENT FOR HIS MISTRESS, AND A SAILBOAT WITH A AUXILERY METHANE STIRLING ENGINE FOR ONBOARD POWER....
Noooo, we decided to teach him to live off the land, like Hank Juinor or something, instead of being a dammed bidness man.....
SO NOW TO BUILD THE ENERGY SYSTEM THAT ONLY AMERICAN CONDITIONS CAN PROVIDE, AND DOES NEED, WE WILL HAVE TO GIVE THE MONEY TO A BUNCH OF IMPORT CHINESE AND INDIAN TECHNICIANS....who by the way, will be livin' large in the best neighborhoods and shackin' the upmarket girls....while your boomer doomer son is doing what....smokin' dope in a log cabin by a wood stove, chuckin down beans and turnip greens, waitin' for the crash...
yeah, well, for him the crash is already here...
AMURRICAN IDIOTS.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
(p.s. I have had a very hard week....you will never know how much fun writing that was for me! :-)
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