[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]An idiot would be an upgrade for you.In terms of the rest of your followup rant.A) You are correct about exchanging petro with coal.. somewhat. Power also comes from Hydo-dams, nuclear, wind and solar.B) More and more counties (including Saudi Arabia) are building went and solar farms. Since most of the country is DIRT - they have the space and the money. The infrastructure is still coming. Back about 100 years ago, there wasn't much in the way of paved roads. The horse and carriage was replaced by the car because it didn't smell of horse ***... well, stepping out side - horses pooped everywhere. Germany is big time into going solar... this year; German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour - equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity.C) AVG miles driving each day by an American is 40. When they start building Solar parking spots (which also double as a sun-shade) - you drive to work, charge your car - drive home - charge your car. And if you have a solar collector at your home... that helps too.D) Wind and solar power are improving... gas combustion engines are not doing so much. E) Oil isn't infinite. We've past our peak. Here is the PROOF about crude oil...OFF-SHORE DRILLING. It costs about $10,000 a day to drill on land and $200,000+ a day for off-shore drilling. Why WOULD they drill off-shore if there is SOOOO much of it on land? And not just that, they are drilling in deeper and deeper waters, which are even harder and harder cap blow-outs.Gas prices will always be going up... so wait until gas is $10~20 a gallon before "Lets try out this electric thing?"...[/citation]
Lord this is going to start a huge forum debate, but I can't let this much misinformation stand.
A) Coal is 40% of the US power supply, the rest is Nuke, Gas and Hydro, very small amounts of Solar / Wind and even smaller in oil. Electricity loses anywhere from 20 to 40% power from resistance in the lines going from the plant to your home.
B) Your info on solar is incorrect, that number is the maximum plate value not the actual produced value. There is something known as capacity factor (CF) which represents the percentage of plate value you can expect to get from any power plant. CF should take into account refueling and routine maintenance and is one of the biggest determiners for how much power capacity you need installed at a site. Winds CF is 20~40% depending on site, Solar is 12~19% (19 being Arizona) Nuclear is 71~90% depending (newer reactors are 90%). Hydro is 10~99 (average is 44% world wide), coal is ~60% and gas is anywhere from 20 to 80% (you tend to run gas as load following or peek so its rarely running at full burn). You should always use CF when comparing power sources as a Nuke plant generating 1GW of power would generate an average of 900MW, to get the same average generation you'd need 4730GW of installed solar capacity in Arizona and 6750GW of capacity in Massachusetts.
1000MW * .90 = 900MW
1000MW * .19 = 190MW, 1000MW * .12 = 120MW
900MW/190MW = 4.73 (the ratio difference between the two), 900MW/120MW = 7.5
Wind is a bit better but its extremely limited in location, once you start putting them "everywhere" you run into the same problem as Solar and start getting those 12~15% CF plants.
C) Small solar panels have even worse CF's then large power plants, those "covered parking spots" are not going to generate anywhere near the electricity needed for a charge, much less when you take weather into account.
D) Wind and solar are at the limits of physics, solar in particular. Due to atmospheric diffusion it's impossible to convert more then 20~30% of light directly into electricity, to go higher you need a thermal cycle and then you run into Carnot. Wind's advancements are more concerned with getting cost and maintenance down.
E) Oil, or rather Hydrocarbon based fuel is infinite or nearly so. You can convert any chain of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon into fuel, you simply need enough energy to do so. The planet has already provided the power to convert biomass into what we drill for now. "Peak oil" is a very badly understood idea. It's not the peak amount on the planet, not even close. It's the concept of being at 50% of known reserves, it doesn't include new reserves. Depending on the year someone chooses to use we've already blown past "peak" and are now using make believe non-existent fuel. Here's something to think about, right now the US is sitting on the worlds largest known oil reserve, it's bigger then all the middle east combined. And while we've always had the technology to drill for it, middle east oil was far cheaper (the cut off was $140 USD a barrel). Recent technology means we can now get it for $60 USD a barrel. The USA also happens to be a natural gas exporter now. The concept of peak oil has to do with economics of using different hydrocarbons, not some idea of "running out".
Gas prices in the USA are stupid cheap, anyone who thinks otherwise needs to have the sh!t slapped out of them. I'm an ex-pat engineer working in SK and current prices are about 2000 KRW per liter or about $6.75 ~ $8 USD per gallon. It gets higher in some UK countries. Gasoline is rarely used for generating electricity, it's primary use is for generating the small explosions inside an ICE. It's chosen for this because of energy density, small amounts of gasoline contain large amounts of energy, and thus a relatively small quantity can power an automotive vehicle long distanced. EV designers are now grappling with this issue as no battery will be able to provide both the deep discharge and the raw energy density required for our transportation needs. You need a super capacitor for that and they have yet to build one smaller then a small building, though there is some real promise from materials science on this.
Now I know it sounds as though I'm against Wind / Solar but I'm not. I'm just very realistic about things, blame the engineer in me. Wind / Solar make sense when you can get them for essentially zero opportunity cost (you mentioned roofs of homes). Solar is still rather expensive but materials science is getting the price down, expect cheap ones made in the next ten years or so. The only long term energy source that makes any sense is nuclear. Preferably Fusion, baring that then Gen III+ / IV Fission plants are up to the task. Look for geothermal in the next twenty years, engineering advancements (the same ones used for shale gas / oil) have made it easier to build two fluid plants at deeper depths then previously possible.
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