🚀 go-pugleaf

John Richardson wrote:
> 
> Hyperion Systems wrote:
> 
> >
> > If we had spent as much money devloping solar and wind power as we have
> > spent to get oil out of the ground and trying to decide what to do with
> > nuclear waste, we would all be probably paying next to nothing for
> > non-polluting energy by now.  THOSE are clean energy.  It's amazing, you
> > walk outside on a sunny day, and you can literally FEEL the energy raining
> > down from the sun, yet we use very little of it in that form.
> >
> > How stupid are we?
> >
> > - John
> 
> Not stupid enough to think we can replace all or most of our current
> generating capacity by solar or wind power.  Have you given any
> thought to the amount of land required to replace just one power plant?
> 
> I doubt the alternatives you propose will ever become efficient enough
> to be more than a supplement to our convential generation methods.
> 
> John

These will be effective alternatives once the conventional generation
methods become so costly that the new technologies become cost
effective. It is still cheaper to burn coal/oil etc. than do the R&D on
good solar, wind, tidal power generation. This will change when the
economics change.

In BC, there was another factor preventing other generation methods and
that was the monopoly held by BC Hydro. The technology to produce power
for sawmills from waste product has been around for some time and could
have been used on a small level (to power the sawmill) except BC Hydro
blocked the moved. In Williams Lake, what has happened is BC Hydro has
taken the technology and is now taking the waste from the sawmills,
burning it and selling the power back to the sawmills (and the town in
general). My point is that there has been some political resistance to
change as well as the economic.
-- 
Gord, Sue & Countess McKenzie

To reply, send mail to gordmck@direct.ca