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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (193818)	7/14/2012 9:59:44 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542597

The global economy consumes approximately 30 billion barrels of oil (1.2 trillion U.S. gallons or 4.8×109 m3) each year. [5] Numbers of this magnitude are difficult to conceive by most educated people. [4] [6] The volume occupied by one trillion U.S. gallons is about one cubic mile. Crane felt that a cubic mile would be an easier concept for the general public than a trillion gallons. en.wikipedia.org

To: KyrosL who wrote (193818)	7/14/2012 12:16:41 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542597

Renewable Energy’s Incurable Scale Problem I'm not sure why that author decided to calculate the number of solar panels necessary to meet the entire world's increasing electricity needs, then how many wind turbines it would require, as if the two energy sources are mutually exclusive. It would be just as unrealistic to expect to use nuclear energy alone to do the job. And I'm also not sure why he says that the goofy environmentalists think that replacing our entire electrical generation system would be easy. I don't think anyone believes that. We don't have to replace the entire electrical generation system of the world overnight, and these arguments don't provide a reason not to think of ways to use solar and wind (both) to do any part of the job at all. Solar generation systems do not have to be located in vast fields. Rooftops provide excellent locations for them. Wind turbines can be installed on top of buildings, too, particularly if vertical designed are used. There go two of his arguments about the massive acreage required by both technologies, right out the window. Apple's proposed new HQ building has been designed to generate all the electrical power it consumes. Other buildings have been designed using the same concept. If most buildings were designed and built that way in the future, we might still also need nuclear power plants, but we would surely need fewer of them. Sometimes one needs to look up from one's calculator, and out at the real world.