Don't Need Sunglasses
Soldier 1:We starve, look at one another
Short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
--Let the Sunshine In (Hair)
Constantly talking isn't
necessarily communicating
--Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind (2004)
______________________
Short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
--Let the Sunshine In (Hair)
Constantly talking isn't
necessarily communicating
--Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind (2004)
______________________
Since 1975, every politician passing through his government tit-sucking phase has mouthed platitudes about gaining independence from foreign oil.
Thirty-six years on, the dance continues -- the only new twist being the unshakable conviction of the ultra-Right that oil shall flow copiously from the land upon which God has shed his grace. Forgetting, of course, the fact that mountaintops may have to be removed and hydraulic fractioning (fracking) may irrevocably damage the environment; certain shibboleths are inviolate. The U.S.A.-by-Gawd has a right to petroleum is one of these.
Thirty-six years on, the dance continues -- the only new twist being the unshakable conviction of the ultra-Right that oil shall flow copiously from the land upon which God has shed his grace. Forgetting, of course, the fact that mountaintops may have to be removed and hydraulic fractioning (fracking) may irrevocably damage the environment; certain shibboleths are inviolate. The U.S.A.-by-Gawd has a right to petroleum is one of these.
Some incongruities in the face of limited resources like petroleum are glaring. Here in the Sunbelt, solar power is pretty much non-existent. Sunlight is plentiful and free as love in 1968 Haight-Ashbury (and less dirty), but few are embracing it. Those innovating solar cell technology will most likely have to take their patents abroad for production, such is the lack of conviction in the States for alternative energy sources.
Tallahassee has only one apartment complex which is solar-assisted; there are no laws mandating solar use in new construction. Our approach to energy is helter-skelter, while our commitment to sink trillions of dollars into foreign adventures which guarantee us naught in the way of a secured lifestyle continues unabated. While we fight as unpaid mercenaries, the rest of the world invests resources into innovation and implementation of energy conservation initiatives which will provide them a sustainable future. They do this while weakly cheering on the U.S. in its depletion of its coffers a world away, closer to them than to us.
The U.S. has plentiful coastline offering hydro and wind capability, but we do not seem to be exploiting these cleaner resources in any meaningful way. Instead, we accept our serfdom to the oil kings , and feel compelled to mouth pious platitudes about supporting the troops, like lemmings off of cliffs.
But who will support the civilians when the lights go out?
Labels: alternative energy, fracking, fractioning, solar energy
posted by rangeragainstwar at 2:20 PM
12 Comments:
Do you like your lights to come on whenever you want, or only when the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining?
There are some strong economic and technical reasons why wind and solar power haven't taken off.
Not that I support the corporatist government structure we currently have, where the bankers and the oil barons get to stay rich at my expense.
Grant,
The sun always shines on infantry men so what's your problem?
jim
Grant,
Surely there are synergistic systems which would prevent power outages.
Lisa,
Grant was Infantry and he doesn't understand batteries and storage/backup energy systems.
We gotta teach the boy.
jim
Hi Jim, Lisa, and Grant,
The larger Stirling(sp?) Solar Generators focus the sun's rays to heat a salt into a liquid which is stored in an insulated tank. The stored heat fires a steam turbine which generates power 24/7. Not bad, eh? They're building one of these plants right now on the Nevada/California border.
Tidal energy might be used in a similar manner for round-the-clock power.
Jim, maybe we could mount solar panels on the backpacks of infantry men. And the ill winds constantly blowing from the District of Criminals would light up a lot of houses.
Dave
You're right, I'm just a poor dumb infantryman, so I don't understand a lot of things that go on in this world. I'd list them all, but I don't suppose you have the bandwidth on this site for that. Yesterday, I saw a woman in my neighborhood walking a cat on a leash down the street. That would be #1348 on my list of things I don't understand, were I to write one.
:)
However... I went and used my GI Bill to stumble through an engineering degree and go to work in the power industry... and my company is feverishly trying to bring renewable technology into the mainstream. So I do understand something about electricity.
You can't count on renewables. The wind doesn't blow 24/7, nor does the sun shine (except as noted on the infantry, who don't have much demand for electricity).
What this means is, if I want to replace a 1000 MW power plant with wind turbines, I have to install 3000 MW of wind turbine capacity (since they don't operate at full capacity, ever). That's 1000 3 MW wind turbines spread across God knows how many square miles to replace one coal or nuke plant.
But that's not all. Power plants don't start up instantly. It takes time, sometimes 6 or 12 hours for a big base load unit. Also, the inductive/reactive load portion of the power factor is not supported by wind turbines or solar panels. This means motors won't work hooked up to the grid if there is no traditional generation to support that inductive load.
So that 1000 MW unit you shut down because you installed 3000 MW of wind capacity to replace it?
You have to keep it up and running first of all to push vars, and second of all for when the wind dies down and 1000 MW comes off the grid instantly at 1500 hours. You can try to tackle that with load-following gas turbines or combined cycle plants, but that has its own issues and you're still going to burn fossil fuels.
So you're actually worse off. You still are burning coal or natural gas to keep the electricity flowing, only now you spent 100 million dollars on essentially useless wind turbines that the state mandated, when you could have spent that part of your capital budget on efficiency or environmental upgrades to your fleet.
Solar panels to help you go off the grid? Fine, not a bad idea at all, just expensive. But large scale applications of renewables are limited by constraints that probably will not get solved any time soon.
ps - I got rained on a lot more than anything else. Perhaps I simply needed more motivation to keep the clouds away.
Ouch! We regret to inform you this is a 'hot' LZ
Grant,
Of course this stuff is expensive , but so were the elective wars.
My position is that alternate sources should be used to REDUCE the need for coal/nuc.
I know all the arguments, but believe each newly built home should be req'd to have ability to use solar power to produce at least 25% of their useage.At least in places occupied by use old ,used up infy types. This means the sun belt.
What about hydro?
BTW when i get elected i'm appointing you as alternate energy czar.
I think we should walk old infy types on a chain.
jim
Well, if you frame it like that, "We did one stupid expensive thing, might as well have done a stupid expensive thing that doesn't murder children" then yeah, I guess I would be on board, lol. But that's a logical fallacy when speaking just to the efficacy of renewable generation.
I take the stance that we should do neither and let the people who know what they are doing (ie not politicians) tackle these technical challenges.
There is a lot of research being done on solar cells, and I definitely think that they have a place in at the source generation. I don't have a problem with nuclear at all, in fact, my ideal situation would be to develop superconducting technology to the point line losses become zero, transition to large base load nuclear units, and use the excess generation capacity to create hydrogen through electrolysis.
Boom, transition to a nuclear driven electric and hydrogen based energy ecosystem.
Hydro is fine, but dams cause immediate, direct, quantifiable damage to ecosystems.
The problem is we live in a corporatocracy where those who get rich are not those with the most merit but those with the most political power, which, as you know, flows essentially from the barrel of a gun.
Not good at all. What used to be good about America, I'm afraid, has long since faded.
grant makes some really valid comments here, hard to argue with him, you also make some good issues and I especially like the quote at the top, I love that movie
block hornet,
Yes Grant is well educated and knowledgeable on this topic, but he thinks institutionally imo.
I feel wind generation and solar can make huge reductions of coal and oil being needed for electric generation. We need to reemphasize hydro also.
I was just in Ashville NC and stayed at a new Holiday inn. The Inn did not have solar or wing generation - this is criminal, and only putting this requirement in building codes will lead to solving this over sight.
We only do things when we are panicked.
jim
rangeragainstwar I could not agree more, quite often people do not act until they panic! I have seen this time and time again, it's quite an odd thing for myself when I am under pressure I usually perform better (let's say in sports for example).
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