What will be used until battery/fuel cell technology catches up:
Reserve generators run on coal or natural gas, more likely the latter.
Also another possibility:
Geothermal.
Click here for basic explanation.
Click here for the wiki bit that is a bit more balanced and includes some of the drawbacks.
We can make great strides towards energy independence with a good balanced approach to renewables. At the very least it will free us from much of the price swings of fuels like coal, natural gas, and oil.
All you have to do is to see your electric bill over the last two years to know what kind of impact such price increases can have.
That would be an excellent way to go.
Oddly enough, west texas is also pretty sunny from what I understand.
It would be interesting if Texas produced enough electricity to actually export to neighboring states.
If we got the price of electricity down enough, that would make desalinisation on the coast feasible to alleviate water shortages.
I think that an investment in such forms of power would have the same economic synergy that our investment in our highways did in the 50's and 60's.
...because a sparrow flying into a window or being eaten by a cat is exactly the same as raptors and other large species being killed by wind turbines.
This would have been a hilarious sight to see...
Rare bird last seen in Britain 22 years ago reappears - only to be killed by wind turbine in front of a horrified crowd of birdwatchers
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz30G17OMis
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebookthose poor greenie brits
A bird that lives in Australia and Asia killed in Britain? Oh no. Those damn turbines. Also, its a huge raptor. Huge. ing condor right there.
For discussion's sake, let's add the 67 eagle deaths a year at Altamont Pass to the 85 the study confirmed. Over a 15-and-a-half-year period, that would amount to 1,124 dead eagles. That sounds like a lot. But how does that compare with overall non-natural eagle deaths?When an eagle is killed and people find a carcass, FWS asks them to send it to the National Wildlife Property Repository near Denver. About 2,500 show up every year, according to FWS, although certainly more go unreported. Using that number as a benchmark, the number of dead eagles annually from 1997 through June 2012 would amount to approximately 38,750 birds. Based on these admittedly crude estimations, at least 97 percent of the eagle deaths were attributable to causes other than commercial, land-based wind turbines. Often FWS can't determine the exact cause of death, but apparently poachers, transmission lines, pesticides and lead poisoning from bullet-ridden carrion killed significantly more than turbines.
http://www.livescience.com/41644-win...overblown.html
Now I'll just sit back and wait for Snakeboy to tell us all he was just trolling and how he got me to reply again. I'm just his puppet.
Nah, I won't troll you until next winter when you pretend you're a professional climate scientist that spends his time on an internet forum debunking cold weather in winter.
Maybe you can use your scientific skills to compare the number of eagles killed by wind turbines to the number of eagles killed by kitty cats. Or better yet tell us how it is scientific to compare "bird" deaths without regard to species.
Didn't say it was...just said it was funny story.
I know you're stupid, but this is sad even for you. Reread the paragraph I quoted. Its only eagle deaths and it shows how small of a percentage turbine deaths are when compared to all unnatural deaths. I'm pretty sure comparing eagle deaths to eagle deaths is apples to apples but I'm just here pretending to know how to read.
lol I don't care about the article you quoted. I commented on the article WH posted. Typical response from Manny the scientist, he has an angry pavlovian response to something that he perceives as an attack on his global warming dogma and then when he can't back up his response he calls people stupid and tries to change the subject. lol professional scientist
I'm not going to argue how much the concern with birds and insects is or is not since I haven't acquired enough information for a valid opinion. All I can say is I don't like it the extra deaths.
My concern with wind mills is not only the cost for construction and maintenance, but something I said some time back that Random immortalized in his signature:
This is based on some intensive reading I did some time back. The only studies that quantified the warming caused by windmills claimed approximately 1/6th the warming of the CO2 they replace from fossil fuel burning. Well of course, to make windmills sound like the better alternative, they use the higher of the alarmists CO2 warming numbers. This sounds good, right? Well, what if I am right, and CO2 warming isn't a fraction of what the alarmists claim? What if windmills are not only warming the atmosphere more than CO2 like I believe, but they actually act as a resistance to the wind, make it make minor path changes from altering the barometric pressure ever so slightly, and will undeniable cause some climate change.
What if...
I'm not arguing that either...I just pointed out that is not a valid argument to say because kitty cats & windows killed a bunch of sparrows we shouldn't care about the effects of wind farms on other more sensitive species. Manny the professional scientist disagrees apparently.
You don't know what your argument is because you don't know what the data is. Professional scientific opinion right there. Keep posting about how "sensitive species" are affected when the data shows its a minor influence.
Sincerely,
Manny the professional scientist (allegedly).
SB so touchy feely about the birdies? same empathy for Ms of tons of fauna, flora killed by BigOil's century-long degradation of the Gulf of MX?
BigOil can do whatever the it wants, but put a few wind turbines? no, too environmentally destructive.
If you say so Larry:
The only "what if" you never seem to consider is the one that ends in "... I am wrong?"
I would be interested to see the "study" you cite though. Feel free to post a link to it.
You copied my quote but didn't read the study? I'm pretty sure I linked it in that thread. Apparently, you thought my words had no basis and never read the link. Well, I'm not going to search for it again. That was what? Already more than two years ago?
So I'm not sure why my comment about adding the noise making technology to these things is being mocked. I'm very much in favor of wind energy, I just think if we're going to do something to make the world a better place, we ought to make this change as positive as possible, with the least numbe of negative affects as possible.
we need to put noise generators on our windows and cats too
I'm pretty sure you didn't link them in that thread, because until you can show me, I have to assume they don't exist. Your claim, your burden of proof. I can't know exactly what the you read years ago that made you think any given stupid you seem to buy into.
It is your job to explain yourself clearly and substantiate your claims.
But, since I am not a lazy I went looking for data.
The data, per par, doesn't say what WC thinks it does.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ear...new-study.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02...limate_change/
The quote I was attempting to find some support for:
What I found was:it is possible that warming for windmills vs. CO2 is about equal, and that the windmills will change the wind/climate in ways worse than CO2 ever could."
However Prof Zhou pointed out the most extreme changes were just at night and the overall changes may be smaller.
Also, it is much smaller than the estimated change caused by other factors such as man made global warming.
“Overall, the warming effect reported in this study is local and is small compared to the strong background year-to-year land surface temperature changes,” he added.The localised weather effects of wind-farms are just that – localised weather effects rather than climate-change engines in their own right, according to new research from Europe.
I guess if your metric for "possible" were low enough, sure it is "possible", simply because we can't fully exclude the possiblity. Nothing in science is, or should be fully 100% certain.
By the same token it is "possilble" that the moon landings were faked in a studio.
The bright line there though, is that there is no data that supports the either thesis to anybody who takes a reasonably objective look at the evidence.
Well, I don't care if you believe me or not and I'm not going to search for the study again. My integrity is OK for the people I know personally. Over the years, do you have cause to call me a liar?
There was an alarmist study that was saying how good wind power was, and said the effects of changes in turbulence, evaporation, etc, only amounted to 1/6th the warming that CO2 causes. Now I didn't look up the study they referred to for CO2 warming, but I assume they used the IPCC levels which I am certain gives CO2 greater warming than it really does.
Now my contention is that the IPCC and others give a greater warming than is real, and the comment you have in your signature reflects that.
Seriously. What is I'm right about CO2 warming not being as high as claimed?
have you ever followed the studies that quantify CO2 sensitivity? They all refer to past studies that uses correlation = causation. there is no new work on CO2 sensitivity.
Fine. Different studies will say different things.
Do you at least agree that wind mills cause a small degree of climate change in their own way?
No, because that isn't what the data supports globally.
To claim otherwise is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest.
Locally, not globally.
Agreed or disagree.
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