No, there's no "ideal" answer, but there are certainly better and worse answers and solar is the best answer we have available if we look at single-source options, although a mix of renewable power is better still. If nothing else, wind and solar have different downtimes. Natural gas IS a fossil fuel, although a cleaner one than coal or oil. Again, the reason we are building natural gas in preference to solar or wind (although we're also building a lot more solar and wind these days) is pure short-term economics, and has nothing to do with availability of energy. There is a LOT more solar power available than there is natural gas, but at this point it still costs more per kwh.

Originally Posted by Deb C

There are exceptions to every rule - but "a literal death ray?" I wonder if that was what Flash Gordan used as a weapon?

Actual Martian Ray gun prop used in the Flash Gordan series:





Sorry, I couldn't resist.

A parabolic concentrator of solar radiation focuses solar radiation into a narrow ray that then heats something else up. Diffuse solar radiation can give one a nasty sunburn even if the air temperature is about 65F, and some of the worst sunburns that I have ever gotten I received while a slight chill in the air masked any discomfort, as at beaches in northern California. Contrast summer in Phoenix or even Dallas, where "it's a dry heat"; you might feel nausea from the heat before you are out in it long enough to get a sunburn. Now just imagine how hot a concentrated beam of sunlight is. 1000F? It would kill you.

All concentrated energy is potentially dangerous, whatever the source.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

When I was a kid and you a young adult they were saying the same thing. I'll believe it when I see it.

and, we'll all have flying cars!

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

A parabolic concentrator of solar radiation focuses solar radiation into a narrow ray that then heats something else up. Diffuse solar radiation can give one a nasty sunburn even if the air temperature is about 65F, and some of the worst sunburns that I have ever gotten I received while a slight chill in the air masked any discomfort, as at beaches in northern California. Contrast summer in Phoenix or even Dallas, where "it's a dry heat"; you might feel nausea from the heat before you are out in it long enough to get a sunburn. Now just imagine how hot a concentrated beam of sunlight is. 1000F? It would kill you.

All concentrated energy is potentially dangerous, whatever the source.

FLASH! Ahhh-Ahhh!

Two more disturbances forming in the Atlantic. One looks like a nasty Cape Verde storm.

If we ever start generating solar power from orbiting arrays and laser-beaming the energy to the Earth's surface, then the potential for a solar catastrophe will become real. Probably a good reason not to do that even if it would improve efficiency. (Not sure it would. The generation would be more efficient but it would lose some in the transmission.)

Originally Posted by radind

Solar alone is a problem. Some form of energy storage would also be required. There is no reason that energy storage cannot be developed with commitment of resources over time.

The limitation is pretty damning. Even ideal storage is limited by basic physics, and no one has a solid answer that is also feasible. The best storage medium we have is plant life, and that isn't even viable ... unless we decide to have electricity in lieu of food.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Maybe the point is that at least there are strides being taken in Germany toward a viable alternative energy.

You ignored his main point: Germany reduced nuclear power, with its excellent record of safety and zero emissions, by adding coal-fired plants, not known for either. Do you honestly consider that as progress?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

When I was a kid and you a young adult they were saying the same thing. I'll believe it when I see it.

Managing plasma is hard, but the ITER project is getting very close. That's the last hurdle in the science realm; after that, it's all engineering. I'm very optimistic, but 40 years is still a long time.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Despite any statements of what is or is not equivalent to what else, here is an unequivocal statement. Enough solar energy falls on the Earth to provide thousands of times the current global energy consumption. It is certainly possible to meet all of humanity's energy needs this way for the foreseeable future, provided we manage to stabilize our population (and if we don't, we have bigger problems). The only thing that has kept us from doing so up to now is economics, not energy availability. That is, solar power could not compete in terms of price with fossil fuels. Increasingly, it can. This is due partly to reduction in the cost of solar power and partly to rising costs of fossil fuels. At some point in the quite-near future, those lines will cross and then we WILL replace fossil fuels with solar (and wind) power, because it will make economic sense -- short-term, immediate economic sense -- to do so. It already makes long-term economic sense. It already makes environmental sense. And it has always been possible.

I agree 100%. Still, intermittant sources are inherently intermittant. Our demand is also intermittant, but the two do not correlate. It's the major hurdle that may be impossible to leap. Knowing that, we should still move agressivley with both technologies, understanding that they are not adequate for out total needs and likley to never be.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

You ignored his main point: Germany reduced nuclear power, with its excellent record of safety and zero emissions, by adding coal-fired plants, not known for either. Do you honestly consider that as progress?

Considering Germany is on track to totally get rid of nuclear energy by 2022, I'd say they're far ahead of us in making the world environment a safer place to live. Meanwhile, Americans are being fed a line about *clean* coal. Germany is at least telling the truth about nuclear energy and making giant strides toward better resources of energy. Plus, to make up for the phased out nuclear electricity, Germany plans intensive expansions of energy efficiency, as well as renewable alternative sources, like wind and solar, for which it is already a world leader.

Germany to phase out nuclear power by 2022!


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/wo...many.html?_r=0

This is what can happen when the citizens get behind the idea of renewable energy and take part in the transformation.

Germany's energy revolution in the hands of ordinary citizensOCTOBER 15, 2012
51% of the renewable energy on the German grid is put there by individuals (like us) and farmers. Individuals and private investors are contributing the equivalent generation capacity in renewables of 20 nuclear power plants. None of it is state owned. More than one million Germans are involved as energy producers or investors in renewable energy production. According to Germany's environment ministry, "New ownership models such as citizens’ wind parks and energy cooperatives show that the Energiewende cannot only bring about environmental protection and economic growth, but also decentralized production structures in the hands of local initiatives.

The Cape Verde Storm is now named Erin.

There is no global warming:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/extre...ays-6C10919395

Environmental changes do not have consequences:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/downf...ght-6C10921795

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

There is no global warming:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/extre...ays-6C10919395

Sobering facts from the article:

"If we look at the near-term, up to 2040, we see that this increase will continue and that by 2040 we will see about 20 percent of the land area affected, so about another fourfold increase compared to today," Coumou said.

If levels of carbon dioxide continue to increase in the atmosphere as they are today, the researchers find heat extremes might cover 85 percent of the planet's land area by 2100.

What's more, even hotter — so called five-sigma events, which are virtually non-existent today — would affect 60 percent of the global land area, according to the research.

"Possibly even a more important message from this study is that a further increase during the second half of the 21st century can be stopped if we reduce CO2 emissions fairly soon," Coumou said.

However, the impact of such reductions will not be felt for several decades given an inherent time lag in the climate system "and this is, of course, something that we have to deal with," he said.

Heat waves will change the ways in which we play. Americans in hot places may do what some people do in hot places -- they become almost nocturnal, at least in the hot season. Of course "hot places" could include such cities as Chicago and New York City... excuse me, Scranton, which will not be inundated. Just imagine baseball games with starting times of 1:00... am.

Alligators in the Potomac, the Ohio, and the lower Missouri? How wonderful!

The New York Times questions Timing a Rise in Sea Level.

It is relatively easy to find old beaches significantly inland, and pair the sea level rise at a given time and place with a temperature rise. It is harder to say how quick the transition was. Do such sea level changes take centuries or millennia? While there are suggestions that Greenland or Antarctica might melt very quickly, it just isn't known how quickly.

The Times article references a number of recent papers exploring the subject.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I agree 100%. Still, intermittant sources are inherently intermittant.

Not a problem, if all we are measuring is the amount of power available. Even with inefficient storage, there remains a super-abundance. Now, that said, I personally favor a mix of technologies rather than reliance on solar alone. Wind and solar are both intermittent but their peaks don't coincide, so they balance each other rather well. What I was really saying, though, was simply that the argument "we can't do this because there isn't enough capacity" is bollox. In the past, it hasn't been economically feasible to switch to solar given the existing pro-fossil fuel political climate plus the inherent relative costs, but that's increasingly changing, and that argument shouldn't be confused with a claim that there just ISN'T enough solar power available. The latter is sheer nonsense.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Not a problem, if all we are measuring is the amount of power available. Even with inefficient storage, there remains a super-abundance. Now, that said, I personally favor a mix of technologies rather than reliance on solar alone. Wind and solar are both intermittent but their peaks don't coincide, so they balance each other rather well. What I was really saying, though, was simply that the argument "we can't do this because there isn't enough capacity" is bollox. In the past, it hasn't been economically feasible to switch to solar given the existing pro-fossil fuel political climate plus the inherent relative costs, but that's increasingly changing, and that argument shouldn't be confused with a claim that there just ISN'T enough solar power available. The latter is sheer nonsense.

I myself favor a mix of technologies, and I also favor having a lot of them adopted on the smallest scale possible for several reasons. The first is that it takes local conditions into account. The second is that it's more resilient.

The third is that with distances what they are out here in the Wild West, the ranch with a windmill or three (not to even get started on Old Man Yazzie's hogan way out on Lost Mesa) is better off than the ranch with a long power line hooked up to a wind farm a thousand miles away. Cheaper, for one thing. More reliable, for another.

OTH, some solutions people propose, especially about gasoline use, work very, very well in places with a great population density, but not out here. And then the proposers get all self-righteous about the American Addiction to Oil, and why can't we conserve like Europeans do? Because, silly wabbits ....

And every region demands a different mix of technologies for greatest effectiveness! In fact, in some places, every neighborhood is different!

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I myself favor a mix of technologies, and I also favor having a lot of them adopted on the smallest scale possible for several reasons. The first is that it takes local conditions into account. The second is that it's more resilient.

The third is that with distances what they are out here in the Wild West, the ranch with a windmill or three (not to even get started on Old Man Yazzie's hogan way out on Lost Mesa) is better off than the ranch with a long power line hooked up to a wind farm a thousand miles away. Cheaper, for one thing. More reliable, for another.

OTH, some solutions people propose, especially about gasoline use, work very, very well in places with a great population density, but not out here. And then the proposers get all self-righteous about the American Addiction to Oil, and why can't we conserve like Europeans do? Because, silly wabbits ....

And every region demands a different mix of technologies for greatest effectiveness! In fact, in some places, every neighborhood is different!

Indeed. A mix of technology is the smart way to move forward. I also like Germany's idea of a strident campaign to encourage efficiency and conserving energy. Americans may need to cut back on their huge homes, SUVs, and endless consumption of stuff. It takes tons of energy to make and maintain all of the things in which our culture says we need. Maybe we will even need to learn to make home made soup grown from a community garden and knit warm hats for those exceptionally cold evenings.

You would be a good teacher of living simply.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

I myself favor a mix of technologies, and I also favor having a lot of them adopted on the smallest scale possible for several reasons. The first is that it takes local conditions into account. The second is that it's more resilient.

The third is that with distances what they are out here in the Wild West, the ranch with a windmill or three (not to even get started on Old Man Yazzie's hogan way out on Lost Mesa) is better off than the ranch with a long power line hooked up to a wind farm a thousand miles away. Cheaper, for one thing. More reliable, for another.

OTH, some solutions people propose, especially about gasoline use, work very, very well in places with a great population density, but not out here. And then the proposers get all self-righteous about the American Addiction to Oil, and why can't we conserve like Europeans do? Because, silly wabbits ....

And every region demands a different mix of technologies for greatest effectiveness! In fact, in some places, every neighborhood is different!

Yes, every region needs to pursue different strategies to end its addiction to oil. We wabbits all need to be cured though. I like the idea of every home having solar panels and windmills. It will take a while, but putting them all up will create a lot of jobs. I like big solar energy plants too, although your point is good about reliability of local sources. Imagine a windmill at your house generating electricity for your electric plug-in car. It may need to be a hybrid now, in case there's no outlet to plug into where you drive, way out in the sticks. I imagine you carry some gasoline with you in a portable gas can. But eventually, nobody will be using gasoline at all. We'll be carrying on-board generators instead for emergencies. We might as well begin the shift.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes, every region needs to pursue different strategies to end its addiction to oil. We wabbits all need to be cured though. I like the idea of every home having solar panels and windmills. It will take a while, but putting them all up will create a lot of jobs. I like big solar energy plants too, although your point is good about reliability of local sources. Imagine a windmill at your house generating electricity for your electric plug-in car. It may need to be a hybrid now, in case there's no outlet to plug into where you drive, way out in the sticks. I imagine you carry some gasoline with you in a portable gas can. But eventually, nobody will be using gasoline at all. We'll be carrying on-board generators instead for emergencies. We might as well begin the shift.

But, Eric, when you do all that for your own house, if you haven't already, don't forget - ***Weatherize before you solarize!*** Amazing the gains in both comfort and efficiency you'll get.

Pat, whose California daughter and Denver niece-in-law both have electric cars.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

But, Eric, when you do all that for your own house, if you haven't already, don't forget - ***Weatherize before you solarize!*** Amazing the gains in both comfort and efficiency you'll get.

Yes, I have. I haven't solarized yet because I need to fix my roof first. All in good time, my pretty. All in good time.