Comments on: Alternate Energy a big bust?

By: Philipp

Philipp — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:09:59 +0000

Alternate energy is not a bust, it is still in its development phase. The demand for solar panels has been doubling every few years at a steady trend, which if it were to continue would satisfy world energy needs sometime in the 20′s. After complete dependance on fossil fuels since we started it all in the industrial revolution you can’t expect alternative fuels to replace fossil ones within a few years. Give it time and do your best to weaken fossil fuel lobbyists and we’ll be completely alternative some time mid-century. Things like fusion power haven’t even begun to take off, so let us just wait and see before we declare anything a bust.

By: jlc

jlc — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:09:59 +0000

it is a big bust. with the population growing more energy will be needed in the future. especially with so many countries developing the demand will be that much bigger. we will not be able to catch up with the demand since right now we are struggling to even start to satisfy the current demand

By: cosmo

cosmo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:09:59 +0000

It’s possible to supply all the world’s energy needs with "alternative" energy sources. It’s more expensive than fossil fuels, but fossil fuels have a good chance of ruining the planet.
So we should do it, even though it’s difficult.

P.S. The Tesla stuff doesn’t work.

By: evirustheslaye

evirustheslaye — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:09:59 +0000

i don’t really see a concise question here.

you have to remember that we have based our power generation on petrol for generations now, so obviously the motivation is on improving the efficiency of this power, that’s why everything else is behind essentially. but we have to start somewhere, and its better to start now and bare a small cost, than start late and bare enormous costs.

cold fusion has never been realized so i doubt that we will get anywhere with it, the only claimed technique to actually work has been discredited because nobody could replicate the results that the original person claimed to have achieved.

but we must not forget fission power(standard nuclear power) the united states nuclear plants are outdated in many ways, Europe on the other hand has safer plants and methods of reducing waste.

By: eelfins

eelfins — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:09:59 +0000

Brazil is using mostly alternative energy in the form of bio fuel derived from sugar cane crops. France is also getting 70% of its energy from nuclear plants, but most do not consider that alternative energy. However it’s clean and so far there is no shortage of uranium.

By: Bag of Hammers

Bag of Hammers — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:09:59 +0000

Depends what you mean by a bust.

A cousin of mine has just put a 1 kilowatt array of solar cells on his house. Since his kids are no longer at home, he’s at work and so is his wife, the cells are feeding power into the grid a lot of the time. Over the Australian winter just ended his three months electricity bill was a third of what it was for the previous winter. Over summer he expects to get a credit.

He’s in a tropical climate, gets a little cool winter nights, maybe down to 35F but I know of someone in Georgia, USA who installed a solar hot water system and that cut his electricity usage by 20% in the first billing period. He was raving about it on a Yahoo group I’m in. In warmer climates it can knock 33% off without any problem at all.

So these domestic arrangements can really do something. When more people get them on their homes then domestic demand is going to fall. There is going to be a lot more of it in the near future.

The problem is that they do not work very well for industrial applications where the big power users are.

I would not mention Tesla. He had about three really good idea but went off the rails. You can talk about broadcasting power like radio but who is going to pay for receiving it? Even if it worked and was safe, which I actually doubt, it would have been commercially impossible because someone had to generate it and you can’t do that for free.