In HR, we have a saying...

[Tsyal Makto]

Hydro doesn't have to involve rerouting water. Ever heard of wave generation?

[Isard]

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

Hydro doesn't have to involve rerouting water. Ever heard of wave generation?

Not going to help the midwest.

[Tsyal Makto]

But high-altitude wind farms and organic (did you miss my posts about tobacco solar panels?) solar fields (or heliostat solar plants) would. Though you could lay some in the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River and it's estuaries.

Different solutions for different regions. Though, again, like I said before, it will take more than an energy change to turn humanity's destruction of the environment around, it will take a paradigm change, away from this overpopulating and overconsuming culture. No matter what energy powers the future, the current status quo is unsustainable. Energy is only half of the solution, the other half is reenvisioning humanity's relationship with the rest of the natural world (we're part of it, regardless of what some might say) and the web of life, and changing our way of life as such.

[Isard]

And did you miss my post on solar tech not reaching the point of viability yet?

Unless your bio panels are ready to deploy, they aren't fully developed.


And the great lakes don't generate near enough motion to generate any real power.

[Tsyal Makto]

Heliostats are, though.

There's also underwater current that one could generate power from.

[Fosus]

Algae. Could it be used in some way?

It grows fast and even cleans the water it's growing in. Via gasification it can be turned into electricity and fuel.

Just throwing out an idea. I really know nothing about it

[Isard]

Originally Posted by Fosus

Algae. Could it be used in some way?

It grows fast and even cleans the water it's growing in. Via gasification it can be turned into electricity and fuel.

Just throwing out an idea. I really know nothing about it

Afaik biodiesel is being researched.

[Sacred Tsahaylu]

Methane collectors on cow's arses and over land fills!

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Isard

Solar is ... expensive, and toxic to make. Now, since we know you dislike any solution that has ANYTHING to do with harming the earth, that's out till the technology is improved.
...
Simply put, the wind cannot be used for power generation everywhere. And where the wind does blow in high enough levels, its still not a sure deal. So wind works, sometimes. Not enough to be 100% dependable.
[...] So, instead of complaining, how about getting to work promoting the research and development of alternatives?

Ok, you know my personal stance on it and that is to agree to your refusal of "green energy" - actually you sort of made the points I usually take. No method of energy extraction is truely benign, nontoxic, and so on. None ever can be actually because it will always require harmful technologies. But as you take my suggestion to produce a lot less energy for human use not as a valid alternative, I provided you with some viable ones. Surely they are destructive as well, but hardly as destructive as mountain top removal, tar sands mining or hydrofracking for oil and gas. I deliberately left out the worst so called green solutions namely classic photovoltaics (toxicity), hydropower and biofuels from my list. But I doubt you have read the list at all, as a lot of the focus of it was NOT on energy production but on energy conservation. That was sort of the whole point and you seem to have missed that! Basically I say that it is very well possible to reduce energy consumption by 50-90% even while keeping up industrial civilization. Of course this does not adress all the plentyful other issues that go along with it, but the focus of this thread was as I got it on energy and alternatives to the current systems, so I'll play with it for now, as I have followed developments in that area for the past 2 decades.

As I said before also, you cannot take one of the items from the list and either use that one exclusively or try to apply this to everywhere. Of course not every place is suited for solar power or wind power or geothermal or wave energy or compost biogas,... also of course some of these things are not delivering as much energy as there is the demand at some time. But that is the key to the whole arguments of mine almost always: HUMANS NEED TO ADAPT TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT. Not the other way round. And that has to be local and specific. It has to be a "native" solution.
Examples: An area with a lot of sun but no wind or water - use solar power. Run machines that use most power during times of maximum production. Store energy in form of electric power, heat cold. Build the house in a way that it takes up not too much heat during day to avoid high temperatures. Collect water. Use the daytime solar power to charge your electric car or bike if you insist on that or your washing machine or dishwasher.
Another example: A windy coast in northern regions - here you can do with wind and waves. Charge your stupid EV and run your washing machine when the wind blows. You even get a free baseline supply without storage from wave energy or tidal energy.
In any case part of the concept (among all the others in the list) is to adapt to availability not the other way round. If there is no energy given by nature at some time, you cannot use it then. Maybe you will even not be able to wash your clothes for 3 days or so - you still have a whole cupboard full of them anyways.

But people are resistant to any change. They just want to keep on enforcing their own will and desires on the natural world - use energy when they like to use it and when it is convenient or just on a whim. This desire to take human consumption and desires as primary above all others is what drives the insanity. Of course, if you want to waste as much energy as you want anytime you want it and consume as much as you like from whatever place you want, then a full blown industrial capitalism with coal and oil and nuclear power is probably the only way to go right now - but this is neither sustainable not in the least sane or wise and it will hit the wall soon.

(Oh, but "teh corporashunz" are all immoral and evil right?)

Your level of discussion just dropped again into the anoxic zones of the gulf of mexico.

Originally Posted by Tsyal Makto

Different solutions for different regions. Though, again, like I said before, it will take more than an energy change to turn humanity's destruction of the environment around, it will take a paradigm change, away from this overpopulating and overconsuming culture. No matter what energy powers the future, the current status quo is unsustainable. Energy is only half of the solution, the other half is reenvisioning humanity's relationship with the rest of the natural world (we're part of it, regardless of what some might say) and the web of life, and changing our way of life as such.

Very true indeed. And this is why I do like to speak of "the planet" or "Earth" and not "the Environment", because we are part of it - "environment" means something that is seperate from us and this is just not the case. I do not want to "save the environment" as in some distant place, some far away national parks or nature reserves while on "our side" we wreck everything. The goal is to find a way of living in which there is not "the environment" vs "us"...

Originally Posted by Isard

And did you miss my post on solar tech not reaching the point of viability yet?

check out solar stirling motors. Seriously - they are not photovoltaic, they are basically engines run on solar power. They can be built using factories that now produce automobiles, they are modular and can be applied locally and they can be repaired and maintained by skilled automobile mechanics. It is a local and pretty clean solution. It is already applied and viable on a certain scale (solar parks in Spain), the conversion efficiency is at about 30% (experimental machines are claimed to have reached up to 60%). It certainly is not perfect, it requires land, it may change the albedo of the planet, it may need water to cool - but it is far from the destruction that the fossil (including nuclear) energy production does right now

I am pretty sure that with one of the smallscale versions in the range of 2000kW, it is well possible to supply a family - maybe two if they use less energy intensive applications.

Originally Posted by Fosus

Algae. Could it be used in some way?

There is plenty of research going on in that field. (I mentioned algae in my last long post). Several techniques aim to either grow them in ponds or in plastic sacs or even glass pipes. There are variants with high oil content, other could be composted to bioethanol. There are some major problems with it and one of them is that there is chatter about using GMOs for that, others are that it again takes a lot of space and also the pipes seem to clog a lot. The type of organisms used are single celled ones. They do photosynthesis and store oil droplets in their cells. They float in water.

[Isard]

We cannot be at the mercy of nature for our power generation. We can't wait for a sunny or windy day to use energy, it has to be available, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can't center our days on when we're going to run the dishwasher, that would be idiotic. (and that's just for homes, God forbid you tried running a hospital or large public building on finicky energy foundations)

The power-grid will always be here, and always be necessary.

[Fosus]

Originally Posted by Isard

We cannot be at the mercy of nature for our power generation.

How could one not be at the mercy of nature? (Being a part of it.)

[Isard]

Originally Posted by Fosus

How could one not be at the mercy of nature? (Being a part of it.)

We control our environment. Our environment does not control us.

[Tsyal Makto]

Austria's almost there. 63% there to be exact.

Oh, and...
http://www.popsci.com/technology/art...-energy-option

[Human No More]

Unlike the US, countries in europe have the option of buying energy from each other - no surprise that AFAIK, the biggest exporter of energy is France, which has a very good nuclear energy infrastructure and regularly exports large amounts of energy to nearby countries with less developed energy infrastructure. That makes higher use within a small country more feasible in theory, but it's still not a solution. in addition, not every country has the suitable geography for solar, wind or hydroelectric - and not everyone wants to have massive turbines making noise all night and killing birds either, or to carpet every available surface in photovoltaic cells.

That battery system looks interesting in theory, but there is no study as to whether it would work ion the required scale, and wind and solar energy are still extremely expensive per kWh, more so than just about any other form of energy, as well as completely ruining the landscape.

[Woodsprite]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Unlike the US, countries in europe have the option of buying energy from each other...

In the U.S., companies that use large amounts of power, but need more to operate more efficiently, buy energy credits from other companies that don't use theirs... so in a way, the U.S. is a little like Europe. In terms of businesses, at least.