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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6080)	3/13/2009 8:39:14 AM
From: Road Walker	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Its the wholesale adoption of todays technology to replace what we're using today that I was talking about. Invest in R&D sure, but don't replace the power industry we have till that those new technological innovations you say are coming actually arrive. Two things are obvious: 1. If we don't implement newer technology now, then we won't get better technology in the future. You need an active marketplace for capitol to flow to the sector and for incremental improvement and scale price reductions to occur. First Solar is a good example... every year they build new plants and their COGS decreases and their efficiency increases. If I and all others hadn't bought a 286 microprocessor computer from Intel then they never would have gotten to the Pentium and beyond. 2. 'Wholesale adoption' isn't going to happen; it's a straw man. It will be incremental over, my best guess, the next 40-50 years. We couldn't afford to do it over night. So yes the wind farms we are installing today will be less efficient than the wind farms we install in 10 years... same with solor panels. We can't wait for the 'perfect technology' or we will never get to the perfect technology. As they say "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good".

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6080)	3/13/2009 12:33:40 PM
From: RetiredNow	Respond to of 86355

I don't think anyone is proposing an immediate shut down of oil and coal and a replacement with renewables. Rather, most of us are advocating for a shift in the balance of government help towards renewables and away from oil and coal. That will have the longer term effect of chipping away at oil and coal dominance and giving renewables a fighting chance to become competitive. If it succeeds, our country will benefit for generations with new wealth and new jobs. If it fails, then we'll continue as is. Very little risk relative to the systemic risk of business as usual considering we spend trillions on oil related fiascos like Iraq.