- Joined
- Jul 19, 2012
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
A video that appeared on YouTube had one of the best assessments of renewable energy I've seen. The speaker claimed that he wanted to have a grown up conversation about the subject that included solid numbers. He went on to show that if we switched to renewables it would required dedicating about 30% of our land area to them in some form -- wind, solar, biomass, or what have you.
It was a nice contribution to the discussion, but he left out a couple of important points. One was the issue of reliability. How did he propose to solve the issue of how to get past days when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow? The other was the cost of renewable energy, which remains about 10 times that of carbon fuel sourced energy if you count the government subsidy.
Think of the implications of energy that expensive. It's one thing to pay $1500 a month rather than $150 a month for electricity for your home, but when you start talking about powering industries and manufacturing with energy that costs that much then it becomes clear that this would represent a huge change in our lifestyle and overall prosperity. A lot of industries would simply no longer exist. Many of the goods and services that we take for granted would become too expensive.
It will, I think, be like going back to living like people did in the 1800s. Electronic devices like smart phones would be too expensive for most people to own. Transportation would be too expensive for any but the most pressing and special situations. Air conditioning would be a rare luxury. Personal transportation likewise, not even counting the cost of fuel. Food would become a much bigger part of our budgets. I imagine that anyone fortunate to own a plot of land will be tilling it themselves to grow as much of their own food as they can. It wouldn't hurt to have a few chickens and a cow, if possible.
The kinds of server farms used by companies like Facebook for social media would, I think, become unsustainable. Google and similar outfits would become a thing of the past. If the internet continues to exist at all it will be only for certain special purposes, like the old teletype machines and lines used to be used by financial institutions, newspapers, and few others.
It will be a much simpler life with less potential. It's pretty clear to me that people will not accept this change if they have any other options.
It was a nice contribution to the discussion, but he left out a couple of important points. One was the issue of reliability. How did he propose to solve the issue of how to get past days when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow? The other was the cost of renewable energy, which remains about 10 times that of carbon fuel sourced energy if you count the government subsidy.
Think of the implications of energy that expensive. It's one thing to pay $1500 a month rather than $150 a month for electricity for your home, but when you start talking about powering industries and manufacturing with energy that costs that much then it becomes clear that this would represent a huge change in our lifestyle and overall prosperity. A lot of industries would simply no longer exist. Many of the goods and services that we take for granted would become too expensive.
It will, I think, be like going back to living like people did in the 1800s. Electronic devices like smart phones would be too expensive for most people to own. Transportation would be too expensive for any but the most pressing and special situations. Air conditioning would be a rare luxury. Personal transportation likewise, not even counting the cost of fuel. Food would become a much bigger part of our budgets. I imagine that anyone fortunate to own a plot of land will be tilling it themselves to grow as much of their own food as they can. It wouldn't hurt to have a few chickens and a cow, if possible.
The kinds of server farms used by companies like Facebook for social media would, I think, become unsustainable. Google and similar outfits would become a thing of the past. If the internet continues to exist at all it will be only for certain special purposes, like the old teletype machines and lines used to be used by financial institutions, newspapers, and few others.
It will be a much simpler life with less potential. It's pretty clear to me that people will not accept this change if they have any other options.
