The Myth of Alternative Energy
January 15th, 2008 by Peter SudermanEnvironmental advocates regularly pontificate about the need to adopt alternative energy sources. But when you press them, they offer up such non-solutions as wind and solar power which is unlikely to provide for more than a small percentage of our current energy needs. (Solar power, for instance, currently accounts for a measly 0.04% of the world’s energy usage.)
Roy Spencer, principle research scientist at University of Alabama, explains why the alternative energy cure-all is just fantasy — and why oil will be around for a long time.
I am astounded by the naiveté of those folks who seem to think there is some magic, non-polluting energy source out there that “Big Oil” has been hiding from us until all of the petroleum runs out. As these reality deniers continue to drive cars and fly in airplanes, they deny the fact that mankind’s dependence on oil is not out of choice, but necessity.
…The only problem is, no matter how serious you think global warming will be, our current renewable-energy technologies and conservation will make virtually no difference to future global temperatures.
…The energy demand by humanity is simply too large — and it is growing rapidly in developing countries like India and China. Electricity in the United States is supplied by the equivalent of 1,000 one-gigawatt power plants. It would be a major feat, both politically and monetarily, to replace 50 of those 1,000 power plants with solar and wind generation facilities.
Moreover, most people seem to forget that we’ve already spent — and are continuing to spend — billions on alternative energy research. The idea that we could make an easy, pain-free switch and “solve” global warming just doesn’t hold up.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Ah yes, Roy Spencer. A Christian Evangelical who managed to cobble together a group of conservative evangelicals to attack the statements of other evangelicals concerning Global Warming. Ah, Roy Spencer, global warming denier and regular on Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh’s shows.
In other words, you found a highly partisan Christian evangelical scientist and decided he was the authority. How does this guy have time to be a “research scientist” with all the media appearances, op-eds, etc. he does?
Regardless, no one in the global warming community (which I am NOT a part) has ever suggested that we could make an “easy, pain-free” switch to alternative energy anyway.
I’m troubled that you have such a dim view of American ingenuity. We put a frickin’ man on the moon in ten years. Forty years ago.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
“Non-solutions”?? You’ve got to be kidding me. So, if we on the left that care about the future of our society stopped riding in cars and airplanes, then we could complain?! Oil companies have killed every attempt in the past to wean ourselves off their product. It’s just job security to them.
Wind could produce roughly 10% of the energy needs of this country on average (sometimes more when it’s really windy…sometimes less when it’s not so windy) right now. Some wind advocates claim that a large wind farm out along the eastern slopes of the Rockies could provide *all* of our country’s energy needs, but that seems a tad out of whack.
Solar is expensive now, but that technology is increasing in efficiency and lowering in price. Just because the U.S. hasn’t gotten up off it’s proverbial butt to do anything about alternative energy doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.
One of my former work colleagues built his own home up along the Canadian border in NY state. He insulated it well, added solar panels and a small wind turbine to his property, and he never paid a *dime* to NYSEG! Every home in the USA can operate independently like this…we just have to have the will to do it.
We’re past Peak Oil right now, nuclear leaves us with waste that’s radioactive for centuries, and natural gas and coal pollute too much. We have no other option in the future but to implement alternative energies (remember hydro-power?). The sooner we do…the more businesses can make money off of that. Start living in the real world please…you’re not fooling anyone anymore.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:07 am
“The energy demand by humanity is simply too large — and it is growing rapidly in developing countries like India and China.”
So because a few nations might not comply with a good idea that means no nations at all should?
“Electricity in the United States is supplied by the equivalent of 1,000 one-gigawatt power plants. It would be a major feat, both politically and monetarily, to replace 50 of those 1,000 power plants with solar and wind generation facilities.”
Because it will take time and will be hard to make a change, that’s a reason not to?