energy question: is it possible, i mean, IS THERE ENOUGH sun/wind, that if..

[Ichinisan]

We seem to be replenishing trees more than fast enough for the paper industry. Of course, those are hybrid pines grown in the southeast, so terrible for burning. But while trees do take up to a decade to grow large enough to harvest, it can and is done for some industries.

BTW...there are more trees growing in GA, for instance, than there were when the major tree/paper industries moved out and to the Northwest.....which is one reason they're considering a major move back to the SE US.

It still doesn't make sense to get energy from trees that get it from the sunlight. Wouldn't it make more sense to just get the energy from the sun in the first place?

...and if there's not enough energy from the sunlight striking a fixed area to actually heat that area in cold weather, then you're going to need to gather more energy from elsewhere. So, it may take 5 acres to heat 1, it might take 100...but I don't think sunlight from 1 acre can adequately heat 1 acre...not to mention the other things we use energy for.

 

[Gibsons]

It still doesn't make sense to get energy from trees that get it from the sunlight. Wouldn't it make more sense to just get the energy from the sun in the first place?

...and if there's not enough energy from the sunlight striking a fixed area to actually heat that area in cold weather, then you're going to need to gather more energy from elsewhere. So, it may take 5 acres to heat 1, it might take 100...but I don't think sunlight from 1 acre can adequately heat 1 acre...not to mention the other things we use energy for.

Think of wood as a way to store solar energy. Think of chorophyll as a very cheap, environmentally harmless solar cell. It doesn't require cleaning, you don't need some way to tilt the cell towards the sun, you don't have to run wires to it.

 

[Minjin]

DC cuts out the losses of conversion at the consumer level but would drastically increase losses during transmission. This is because the higher the voltage in the transmission lines, the less loss there is. It's extremely easy and efficient to step voltage up or down for AC power so they can easily transmit power at very high and efficient voltages then step it down when it gets near your home. On DC it's much harder. If you're using power very close to where it's being generated (like if you're making use of power from your own roof mounted solar panels) the transmission losses would be minimal. If you're like most people though the power is generated far away from your home. Switching to DC in that case would end up being more difficult and would end up being less efficient due to difficulties switching between voltages.

While you can do better with DC if its generated close to where its used you'd have a more difficultly with designing devices. Different devices need different voltages (your oven or vacuum needs different voltages than your ipod charger) so you'd run into the difficulty of changing voltages using DC.

If you're wondering more about this go look up "War of Currents". This was a battle fought a long time ago between Edison and Westinghouse ( who was working with Tesla). AC won, DC lost, and we still haven't found any technology that would make it worthwhile for us to change that.

You don't seem to be aware of the existence of HVDC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

 

[coloumb]

money wasn't an issue, could we put in place, enough solar/wind power facilities that we could produce the amount of power we need to run this country? and if not, can we improve these technologies so that they could?


and if they can, WHY THE HELL ARENT WE DOING THIS.. i mean we know this now, oil WILL RUN OUT, maybe not in 50 years, maybe not 100, but it will.. i just heard on cspan that the last year we discovered more oil, than was produced, was 1984, so since then we've been refining more oil a year, than we've found.. so we're def. running out...

i mean seriously this is the kinda crap that will RUIN US. developing renewable resource energy, this should be TOP PRIORITY. why is it not? is it just money/power stopping it?

Alternative "green" energy is still in it's infancy and like our school system - the government would rather budget for oil addiction and the war machine.

- Oil companies controlling the market/government [Did BP reimburse everyone for the damage they caused? Noticed how once the hole was sealed - the issue mysteriously vanished from the news reports?]
- Coal burning having the reputation of being bad for the environment.
- Nuclear power plants are actually very safe - but the few accidents that have happened over the years provide the fear mongers with ammunition to prevent them from being built.

The energy conversion will happen in small steps rather than huge steps. Local companies are already building "electric recharge stations" [powered by solar panels] - the local Intel fab just installed a huge array in the parking lot. If it was affordable [for me] and I could get the same performance - I'd sell my WRX in a heartbeat. However, it's cheaper for me to keep it.

If GM didn't kill off the EV1, we'd probably be driving more electric cars today. Every year more cars are converted to "hybrids" and 100% electric.

This looks very interesting - roof shingles powered by solar energy:

http://www.oksolar.com/roof/

We do have a limited supply of oil - but it's enough to feed our addiction until alternative energy can be implemented and profitable.

What we really need are home based power generators that can provide enough electricity for the average home consumer - a mixture of solar power/storage and a fail-safe nuclear power plant.

 

[JimmiG]

Non-renewable energy sources are essentially energy that was created over a long period of time (millions of years) and stored in various forms such as crude oil. We're simply extracting that energy again, but at a much, much higher rate than that at which it was created. No matter how you look at it, it's not sustainable. The question is just when we will deplete all forms of non-renewable energy available on this planet.

Without oil, nuclear fuel etc., there's no such reserve of energy to take from. We'll have to consume energy at the same rate it's being made available.

 

[MoMeanMugs]

Why does nobody ever talk about engineering studies done to see how a big solar /wind farm affects the environment? If you take energy that would normally go somewhere else and use it for something else, there's going to be some effect. I've never read any of these studies? Anyone know the conclusions drawn?