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

To: Joe NYC who wrote (398457)	7/13/2008 11:14:17 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576290

Storage is a problem There is no reason to store wind driven electricity. Wind power will never be all of the electricity needs, so the solution is to cut back on whatever residual gas or water powered generation is also being used. It's the power in the whole grid that needs to be matched to demand, not each source one by one. TP

To: Joe NYC who wrote (398457)	7/13/2008 11:30:28 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576290

So the market does work This is what the Left (and much of the Right) is missing. The market works, and works reasonably well. We've had comparably low fuel prices all these years and that, NOT the action or inaction of our government (or any administration) is responsible for the current crisis. The idea that government is needed to "stimulate" development of this technology or that is silly. I have no objection to McCain's $300 Million offer, as it may entice some excellent minds to focus on the problem that otherwise wouldn't. k++; But overall, the real progress will come as a result of the markets being adequately motivated by $4 or $5 or $8 gasoline. If people quit buying 30 mpg cars, it is evident that Detroit will quit building them (as is happening at this moment in time). There are good things happening on the consumption front. My cousin has a new Yukon with a 5L engine that cuts back to four cylinders while cruising. He's getting over 20 mpg out of what would be considered a large SUV. My new car is 300 hp, but I am easily averaging 23.5 mpg hwy/city and I probably drive 80 most of the time on the highway. If I really tried I'm sure I could get it to 24.5 mpg. It isn't all bad news.

To: Joe NYC who wrote (398457)	7/13/2008 11:56:28 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576290

With the exception of the NE and the PNC, NG provides residential heating for most areas of the country. Here in the PNW its probably 50/50. Conversions to natural gas have been going on for a while, and I am sure the pace may be picking up now, at the current prices. So the market does work, it just takes time. Hopefully, in the near future, we will figure out how to make electricity cheap enough, so that the the home-owners will have an incentive to switch to electric heat. I was going to convert to NG but I've decided I'll go solar when I put on an addition to my house. He is "plunging in" as you put it.....he's building a huge wind farm in TX: That's an impressive project. 4,000 megawatts of electricity. I hope it goes through. Storage is a problem, and so is the need for back up power sources, which raises the overall cost. But any contribution helps and as long as money goes into research and commercialization of the different sources, market will pick the winners, and more investment capital will flow into the winning technologies. I don't understand why power generators can't alternate between the two......much like a hybrid car. Obviously, there would have to be some costly retrofitting but it seems to be the way to go.