🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 07 Jun 2000 02:10:05 GMT, kinsler@frognet.net (Mark Kinsler)
wrote:

>Greig Ebeling <greige@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>>I compare this to the price I pay for my electricity and natural gas
>>purchased from a utility, and I scoff at people who think that solar
>>power is going to be a big thing in the future.  It isn't, it is way
>>too expensive.
>>
>>BTW, notice how this would still be really expensive if solar panels
>>were much cheaper.
>
>School science texts still push solar energy, and with great vigor.  I've
>asked science classes in schools located along the Ohio River, center of
>electric power production in the USA, how electricity is produced.  Every
>kid thinks it's by solar energy.
>
>M Kinsler

It is not just the kids who are being brainwashed with this nonsense,
ask any lay-person on an Australian street about energy issues, and
they will tell you that solar energy is the answer to all our woes.

There is a TV advertising campaign, declaring that fossil fuels are
causing damage to the environment, then showing a giant wind turbine
(neatly hidden behind a hill, silently spinning) with the caption -
"The answer is blowing in the wind".  Yet wind power schemes are
theoretically able to produce no more than a few percent of our power
before becoming uneconomical.

There is a billboard advertising campaign in Sydney, using frightening
images of tornadoes, and deserts, declaring that impending climate
change can only be remedied by the use of Green Power.  "Visit
http://www.greenpower.com.au " where you are told that by paying a
little extra each quarter, that you will being buying renewable
energy.  If only people realised that this campaign optimistically
hopes to be producing only 2% of Australia's electricity from
non-hydro renewable sources by 2008, and they will probably fail to
achieve that.  More than 90% will still be coming from fossil fuels.

The energy companies are attempting to purvey an image of
environmental responsibility, making a show of a few renewable
sources, whilst quietly continuing to build coal-fired power stations
where they make there real money.  But they are deliberately
misleading the public.

People need to know that the answer is not simple, that solar and wind
are for quite obvious reasons, very small players in our energy
future, and fossil fuels and nuclear power are the only real answers
to providing the bulk of our electricity.  Only then can we make
balanced political decisions about energy issues.

If anyone wants to argue that renewable power is the way ahead, then I
want them to include in their response a rough design for their
intended renewable energy scheme, rough costs, and a rough idea of how
the capital is to be raised to build the infrastructure.  No more weak
platitudes and PC nonsense.  Put a real solution on the table, or
shutup.


...Greig