Comments on: Gore calls for 100% renewable power in 10 years

By: Global Warming Causes

Global Warming Causes — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:05:05 +0000

In 10 years is impossible but we’re can hope.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:21:04 +0000

Few people yet know that there is a website set up to promote a 100% green energy plan for Australia.

The website is: http://www.DearKevinRudd.com.au/

It has been in place for over a year and the proposal is being seriously being considered by the Australian Federal Government.

It is a masterpiece of engineering and much of what is shown on the site could be incorporated into the plans put forward by pickens and Gore.

In any event it would be a great idea to lend some help to the website and proposal contained therein in the fight against Global warming.

By: John Hollenberg

John Hollenberg — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:22:30 +0000

> Wind energy is a joke (but not as big of a joke as ethanol). It really isn’t practical for windmills to be attached to the grid because they produce so little electricity.

Debunked here:

http://climateprogress.org/ 2008/ 05/ 17/ wind-power-a-core-climate-solution/

and here:

http://climateprogress.org/ 2008/ 05/ 12/ must-read-bush-doe-says-wind-can-be-20-of-us-power-by-2030-with-no-breakthroughs/

By: Helmut

Helmut — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:43:05 +0000

Wind energy is a joke (but not as big of a joke as ethanol). It really isn’t practical for windmills to be attached to the grid because they produce so little electricity. In order to do anything meaningful, they would have to be built all over the place and suck up just about every gust of wind that crosses our country. The only real application that I see for windmills is to power individual firms (see: New Belgium Brewery) as a means of free energy for a single operation.
Solar energy on the other hand has vast gridded energy potential. If just a small fraction of our countries desert wastelands were covered with state-of-the-art solar cells, we could achieve energy independence. I believe the government should fund a Manhattan Project style initiative for solar technology in order to step up solar cell efficiency. This would provide huge dividends… The sun can provide essentially infinite energy and is 100% renewable (within 5 billion years, that is!).
And those who are concerned about the variations in cloud cover and such: When the sun shines and excess energy is being produced, a solar plant uses that energy to charge an “energy reservoir” for use at a later time. This can be something as simple as a lake with a hydroelectric dam, and the excess energy is used to pump water above the turbines. Then when the clouds come, the potential energy of the water is turned into usable electricity…

By: Randall Jacobson

Randall Jacobson — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:02:01 +0000

I like Al Gore’s call to action and I’d suggest that even a ten trillion dollar investment to build a complete infrastructure using concentrating solar would be money well spent.
Consider that we are now spending one trillion dollars to satisfy our energy needs and spending up to 60% of these dollars on imports. Assuming a modest inflation rate of 3% these costs will inflate to $19.1 trillion dollars by the year 2108. Now let us assume we have completed our solar infrastructure over the next 20 years and we are now getting one trillion dollars in revenue at the time they are completed in the year 2038. At the constant inflation rate will see yearly revenue of $1.8 trillion by the year 2058. After 50 years our solar farms are producing revenue of $4.38 trillion dollars a year and the total revenue over the 100 year period from years 2038 to 2138 is $625 trillion dollars on an investment of ten trillion dollars. On the down side a cup of coffee will cost $25 dollars in the year 2138 but the cost of renewable energy could be cheap.
One of the lowest cost sources of electricity today is from Hoover Dam. If we built this infrastructure today it would be an expensive option but we are taking the benefit on the infrastructure completed over 80 years ago. If we build a concentrating solar infrastructure today we would enjoy the benefits for the next 100 years provided we build the infrastructure to endure.
We need greater emphasis to show that renewable energy is the low cost option for future generations. We also need to look at the cost to our economy and our national security to spend $500 billion a year on foreign oil. We will quickly go broke attempting to buy foreign oil and we can’t move fast enough to become self reliant.

By: Matthew Wright

Matthew Wright — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 12:16:25 +0000

Jonas, that is rubbish, biomass , algae making char (carbon negative biofuels) are a part of the solution but there is not the capacity of areas under cultivation to replace the gross energy requirements of our stationary energy and transport sectors.

however to range extend vehicles for people living in out of the way places their is a spot.

solar wind geothermal can play a HUGE role.. not a small one. biomass a small one. We must really only leverage algae and biomass residuals or we’re going to compete with food production and habitat which is what is happening now — if we do algae then water supply is an issue.

SO Electrification of transport is where it is at. and direct solar is 10,000 times more energy than photosynthesis for biomass.. so direct solar concentrated to boil water, converted to wind which runs through a wind turbine and direct solar photovoltaic.. with a little biomass to range extend vehicles and offer backup for electricity supply security.

By: Jonas

Jonas — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:41:15 +0000

This can obviously done but only with biomass, the single biggest potential source of clean energy.

However, Gore’s call is only a first weak step. We must begin to go carbon-negative, now. Sticking to carbon-neutral renewables is a bit too simplistic.

The technology for negative emissions energy is here. There’s no reason to wait.

Of course, solar, wind, geothermal, etc… can play a (small) role too.

By: SALVADOR J. GAMBLE

SALVADOR J. GAMBLE — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:12:20 +0000

There are myriad ideas that are presently being espoused for the salvation of THE PLANET and it’s inhabitants. I say GREAT! However many of these ideas are not NEW. Many of them have been around for centuries waiting for some AWE-INSPIRING ground-breaking ceremony to be applauded by those who relish living by COMMON SENSE, which of course is not so common. HENRY FORD whom many would like to score as being the FATHER OF SMOG (sarcastically), actually gave us part of the answer to part of the problem, seeing that his Dearborn, Michigan mansion had it’s own self-contained power plant! GENIOUS! What else is new? Thus the financially strapped banking industry, with backs to the wall, and nowhere to turn, can take a queue from the OLD MAN. Solicit Congress along with other resourceful regulators and benefactors to generate a BOOST to the housing market by up-grading foreclosed housing to the latest GREEN TECHNOLOGY, providing tax and/or market incentives to those whose participate in the renovation and/or purchase of such homes. WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE CAN BE A WAY! If AMERICA wants to WORK, provide a means for it to go back to work! Carbon dioxide removal is considered an emergency. It has been utillized to produce dry-ice. I wonder what megatons of dry-ice could be used to cool down if the collection of C02 was converted to it’s production on a massive scale? Also we need to re-visit the “old” Chrysler gas-turbine engine for automobiles that was discarted years ago for various reasons. Lets take an up-dated look-see, no telling what may be discovered. WE NEED TO GET ON THE BALL! BOOYAH!

By: SALVADOR J. GAMBLE

SALVADOR J. GAMBLE — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:36:20 +0000

There are myriad ideas that are presently being espoused for the salvation of THE PLANET and it’s inhabitants. I say GREAT!

By: Matthew Wright

Matthew Wright — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:51:05 +0000

Further to the above

The drive train of a Toyota Prius running in electric only mode (ie with a 40km battery installed) is 160watt hour per km which is less than 1/10th of the power of an average Australian motor car when looking at fuel tank to wheels analysis.

A shared Tram/train system with a 30% average loading uses 1/40th of the average Australian car energy to propel along.

This is extraordinary and means we only need to grow our power production about 10% on what it is at the moment if we switch our power / drive train system to electricity. (80% Rail / 20% PHEV in cities)

We could easily reduce electricity consumption with insulation / heat pumps and moving steam for industry to concentrating solar thermal and refrigeration to solar absorber chillers. (or hybrids of these with electricity backup) by 40-70% meaning we can spend a lot less on the renewable infrastructure to 100% replace our polluting coal / nuclear.

Regards,

Matthew Wright
Beyond Zero Emissions