Comments on: Easy, Cheap ‘Green’ Energy? Just the Reverse!

By: Cooler Heads Digest 26 February 2010 | GlobalWarming.org

Cooler Heads Digest 26 February 2010 | GlobalWarming.org — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:36:58 +0000

[...] Easy, Cheap Green Energy? Just the Reverse! Kenneth Green, MasterResource.org, 26 February 2010 [...]

By: Robert R. Reynolds

Robert R. Reynolds — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:33:38 +0000

There is no sense in kidding ourselves with sloppy math. The real question is whether there is a need to lower our carbon footprint for the good of the planet. It appears to me that a lot of hocus-pocus has occured in a fanatical desire to preserve AGW when the evidence from voluminous research shows no significant advantage. I remain committed to the use of conventional fuels until such time as their exhaustion is predictable and use that time and money toward a much more thorough understanding of the limitations of renewable energy and its most efficient technology. We can study climates until hell freezes over without eliminating fundamental geological knowledge that the lessons of paleoclimates are immutable. We are dealing with geological and cosmic processes beyond the puny ability of man to control. The life on Earth today are survivors of an ever changing climate dictated by an ever changing natural environment and position in the cosmos. Over 98% of all the species that have ever lived are extinct. The survivors had the ability to adapt or evolve to cope with the changes in their environment. Plants and animals did not come out of the sea until around 450 million years ago. Whales were once land animals and to survive had to return to the sea. (Their skeletons show vestigial legs). Eventually the Earth will lose its interior heat. Continents will stop movement. Mountain building will cease and continental uplift will stop and erosion from rain and wave action will erode all land masses to the limit of wave action (around 600 ft depth.) All surviving land life will have returned to the sea long before all land is gone. (This is only one of 10 possible endings that have been proposed for the Earth.) The Earth is such an infinitesimal part of the cosmos that it demise could occur much sooner.

By: Ben Gitlow

Ben Gitlow — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:04:13 +0000

Electricity has to be generated by something. A significant increase in electric heating and electric vehicles would require a large increase in generating capacity and transmission lines. THere are substantial electric power transmission losses that I hoope were included. Battery charge/discharge energy efficiency also needs to be included for electric vehicles.

By: Steve C.

Steve C. — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:02:27 +0000

Why do we need models when we already have years of empirical results?
It does not take a doctorate to see that higher energy prices lead to broad adverse impacts in the economy. Increasing input costs raise the price of goods and services. Increasing consumer fuel costs (gas, oil, electricity) crowd out consumer spending and savings.
Assuming these negative effects will be remediated by undefined improvements in technology is magical thinking.
Economic growth is directly correlated to increases in productivity. If we devote all of the improvement in productivity to ameliorating the effects of rising fuel costs, at best we will run in place.
Any scientist who refuses to acknowledge these simple facts is a dunderhead.