🚀 go-pugleaf

In ne.general HawkCW4 <HawkCW4@cox.net> wrote:
> EskWIRED@spamblock.panix.com wrote:
> > In ne.general HawkCW4 <HawkCW4@cox.net> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>I'll bite.  What would you suggest a reasonable source would be? 
> > 
> > 
> > I don't think that the concept of "a" reasonable source is the right 
> > mindset.  Given the relatively low output of most of the alternatives, I 
> > think that a combination approach makes sense.  Personally, I'm 
> > interested in small hydro, but solar and wind are interesting too.

> Hydro, very unacceptable to millions of folks because it interfers with 
> the natural flow of our water.  Pisses off some fish, and the resulting 
> body of water it creates, buries a few trees or plants that MAY be or 
> MAY become endangered.

Every energy source has both good points and bad points.  But here in the 
Northeast, there are literally hundreds of abandoned hydro sites attached 
to abandoned mills.  These have existing dams.  I'm not so much in favor 
of building new dams.

> Solar, very expensive and usually only usable to residential type 
> applications.  How do you get your AC from a DC source without even more 
> expence?  Seems to me it works ok for anything witch will operate on DC 
> but beyond that, too little and too expensive.

"expensive" has to be evaluated along with the alternatives.  IMO, the 
externalities of fossill fuels make tham much more expensive than their 
purchase price.  Eventually, the current expensive alternatives may turn 
out to be competative.

> Wind, When I left Palm Springs, Ca, there was a move to remove some of 
> the existing wind generators and replace them with new ones which would 
> generate 3 or 4 times as much per unit.  Can you believe there was an 
> uproar from many there claiming the NOISE pollution from those machines 
> was too unbearable?  I actually drove up there and parked under some to 
> see what the hell they were talking about.  Yep, you could actually hear 
> them if you listened very carefully and were standing right under one.

> I guess it means that you can never please everyone all the time.

Of course.


> In a world where our population is increasing by the minuet, that is no 
> answer.  It sounds good, but would work only if we reverted to 1920s 

Hybrid cars are hardly 1920's technology.  

> where there are no monster TVs, DVDs, Computers, Pools in every desert 
> back yard, and well you see the problem in conservation.  In fact, if 
> there is a willing market, they better come up with the goods.  I say 
> Nuke power is the only way.

I say that there is not only one way.  Black and white thinking rarely 
accomplishes much.  A combination approach makes sense to me.  Right now, 
conserving fossil fuels and exploiting alternatives makes a lot of 
sense.  As time goes by, it is likely that such an approach will make 
increasing amounts of sense.

Technology is marching along, oil is getting harder to find, and people's 
attitudes change over time.

-- 
In the councils of government, we must guard against the 
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, 
by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the 
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 
				-- Dwight David Eisenhower