Domestic Energy: A Viable Plan?

Here is another one.

How about we use old technology like steam powered cars.

Use natural gas and water. The only oil products we would need will be the grease.

Let the truckers and airplane use the oil. Steam Technology could be made sage enough for passenager cars I belive with all the new braking system and controlers.

Steam is very powerful.

You are crazy

Before investing wildly in alternative solutions (usually involving sources of low average energy density compared to conventional fuels), one needs to consider the amount of real estate required to produce significant quantities of energy, and to transport same to market. Alternative energy schemes of any significant capacity generally require significant real estate, and the real estate can be rendered useless for other valuable applications.

not if existing structures are utilized, cover all roofs with solar panels, smithsonian had a solar display a few years ago that utilized solar 'cloth' , solar 'windows' ( how about polarizing windows using solar cell strips ) double duty, reduce heat and generate electricity at same time. these same structures are already connected to the grid using dc to ac converters

You are also hilarious

The Picken's Plan is to replace 10% (I believe it's 10% or so) of the electricity produced by natural gas fired power plants with wind and then shift the demand for the natural gas to transportation.

I would like to know who is going to pay to convert all of the existing vehicles from gas to CNG. I would like to know who is going to develop the infrastructor for CNG transportation. Other than Utah it does not exist. Whoever develops the CNG infrastructure is going to want a cut. The price for natural gas may be low now, but I would bet that it would amount to increased demand, not a shift in demand - hence higher prices.

Also, we hear the tearm "replace" power generated by coal and natural gas fired power plants. We also hear people say, "they can develop wind and then shut down the coal plants." I beg to differ. These power plants are privately owned. Why would the owner of a power plant just shut down his plant to allow it to be replaced by a wind farm? That isn't logical.

Also, the existing power grid will not be able to handle extra power being added by the wind farms. The power you consume may be supplied by the nearest power plant, but during peak times power can be suplimented by another power plant 3 states away when the wheel through the additional power to meet peak demands.

The owner of the power plant is not going to cut back his output to allow the power from the wind farm to add to it, and if he does not cut back, in most instances the grid can't handle the extra capacity.

So, I sit back and watch and chuckle. We are not going to "get off of oil" any time soon (if ever - think plastics, pharmacuticals, asphault, paint, resins...). When people think "oil" the first think transportation, then their rational thoughts end there.

Remember, petroleum replaced oil from whales. Would the anti oil crowd prefer we go back to whale oil?

Travis

Remove the fuel subsidies a little at a time and re-direct to subsidize alternative fuels. New homes should have provisions for low voltage and DC lighting, washers, dryers connected to deep cell batteries charged by fuel cell, PV's and wind power or some combination that meet the geographics. Smarter use of energy coupled with these ideas (paradigm shift) would yield more than Mr. Pickens is predicting. It won't be easy...is anything worth doing easy?

How much do you need to write!!!!

i thought these forums were ment to be funny

Combination of wind, and solar, super insulate house, rain water collection, use only energy efficient appliances, what about people power, excercise equipment generates electricity. The problem is energy storage, but with solar, best power generated when needed most, ( hot sunny days in summer )

Start building houses that are partially underground, hard to do in some places due to rock close to surface. Talking about things 'we cannot or will not do' weeellll probably heard the same argument about cars, roads, highway system, distributed electricity, plumbing , sewer systems... it is not a matter of 'want' , is a matter of need. We cannot keep going like this, throwing away our resources ( landfills ) wasting energy, lights, fans, sinks, automated, come on when needed, go off when not ( if good for public restrooms, parks, etc. , why not households? ) Why have all our public lighting on the grid? Why not led's w/ solar chargers. that only come on when movement detected? reduce light 'pollution' . I get a kick out of the people that complain about windmills off the coast, an eye sore? so, they look worse than OIL DRILLING PLATFORMS? I also get a kick out of people saying that cost of solar is more than cost of oil, uh duh, they conveniently forget about the cost of pollution and medical problems associated w/ the petro chemical industry. Also have seen 'shortage of silicon" ... What? we are short of SAND? ( think they mean doped silicon but that is only due to this being used for ic chips for the computer market, but that is another source of pollution, instead of recyling/ reusing, we throw them away? Every argument against responsible use of our resources is just an excuse, need answers not nay sayers.... Thanks for the soap box ! :)