can America remain economically strong with renewable energy sources?
Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at
7:28 pm
I understand that at present if our economy were to suddenly adjust to a green economy, there would be a serious crisis. For one, renewable energy sources are not very reliable, and may need to be subsidized similar to how ethanol is subsidized. But with sufficient research and development, could the US economy remain strong or become even stronger runnng almost exclusively on renewable sources?
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clearly, the economy would be stronger.
we’d not ship $700 billion overseas.
we’d have a trillion to use for other purposes.
most renewable (wind and solar) is not consistent.
but averaged out over the country, it’s much more so.
however, with something like 3% of the market currently, we’ve quite a way to go before there’s significant progress. in fact, before the increase in renewable can keep up with the increase of coal and oil, never mind begin to reduce it.
America is short of fossil fuel, short of water and worst of all short sighted as to the chaos it has caused in the world.
The belief in everlasting abundance is as viable as the belief that God (if he exists) is on America’s side.
No – not in its current form.
In the winter months, much of the USA gets only about 2kWh per square meter a day from sunlight. Solar is woefully inadequate to replace the kind of energy that we squander on a daily basis. Wind energy is better than solar in windy areas, but it is not practical to transport electricity from windy states to say, Southern California because of transmission line losses. For both wind and sun, there are storage issues — and there are no practical storage mechanism. Lead acid batteries for example only last several years and are an environmental hazard, don’t do well when completely discharged etc. Renewable energy might have a chance if we didn’t consume such vast quantities of energy.
The only possible way to remain strong would be a radical change in our society and government, with city planning, small homes, less commuting and drastically cutting back on our use of all forms of energy. A sustainable lifestyle would likely result in a shift to a rural lifestyle where we could be much more self sufficient.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. North America is huge, is one of the nicest pieces of temperate geography on the planet and has huge freshwater reserves in the great lakes. We will do fine economically no matter what happens compared with the rest of the world. However, never again will the USA tower over the rest of the world economically the way it has since world war II.
Geothermal electricity is renewable, safe, reliable, profitable for workers and power co .
Binary-Cycle Power Plants
Hot geothermal fluid and a secondary (hence, "binary") fluid with a much lower boiling point than water pass through a heat exchanger. Heat from the geothermal fluid causes the secondary fluid to flash to vapor, which then drives the turbines. Because this is a closed-loop system, virtually nothing is emitted to the atmosphere.
Dry Steam Power Plants
Steam plants use hydrothermal fluids that are primarily steam. The steam goes directly to a turbine, which drives a generator that produces electricity. This is the oldest type of geothermal power plant. It was first used at Lardarello in Italy in 1904, and is still very effective.
Flash Steam Power Plants
Fluid is sprayed into a tank held at a much lower pressure than the fluid, causing some of the fluid to rapidly vaporize, or "flash." The vapor then drives a turbine, which drives a generator.
Yes. Stronger, in fact because America has relatively few oil and gas resources, but some of the best renewables in the world, especially wind, so instead of continuing to import most of our energy (meanwhile supporting repressive and anti-American regimes) we can spend the money locally, create new jobs, and reclaim our status as the world’s great innovator.
Check out the Apollo Alliance for more info: http://apolloalliance.org/