In Reply to Energy Equates to Wealth
You are more correct than you know. The green revolution is powered by oil. Oil to make diesel fuel for the giant tractors and combines that plant and harvest the crops. Oil to make energy to make the fertilizers that turn marginal soils into high yield soils.
Without petroleum we would be poorer, hungrier and there would be fewer of us. Millions would have starved to death over the last 100 years that, instead, thrived due to petroleum.
If you want carbon free energy you have to look at nuclear. The greens may not like it, but its the only real solution if carbon is the problem. The newly designed modular reactors are incredibly safe and the Thorium cycle reactors are not only safe but do not use nor do they produce material that can be weaponized.
Ah, but: Nuclear bad! (Insert image of Frankenstein’s monster near a torch.) Its dangerous right? Deadly even! More Americans were killed when Biden abandoned Afghanistan than have died due to Nuclear power accidents in the US since the first reactor. That’s a pretty damned good safety record.
Solar? Its a boondoggle. Here is something they don’t talk about a lot wrt solar panels: They only last about 20 years. And the output drops every year. So if you are getting 5KW your first year you are getting about half that a decade later.
Oh, and its damned near impossible to recycle a solar panel.
Its been a lot of years since I did the math (College undergrad research project) but the last time I ran the numbers, it took more energy to make a solar panel that it ever generated in it’s lifetime. It turns out that it takes a crap ton of energy to make, purify and melt silicon. Who knew?
Wind? Another boondoggle. Look into disposing of damaged or end of life turbine blades. There’s a nightmare for you. And the vibrations from the turbine destroy the land they are mounted on to the degree that you can never put another turbine there. If you love nature, don’t look at the number of birds and bats killed by these things.
Geothermal? Maybe. I don’t know how many locations are suitable for it though.
If we could get past the fear of nuclear power, we could build a golden age with cheap, plentiful power and yes, make long chain molecules from water and CO2.
Wind turbines also generate an infra-sound pulse that can adversly affect the human nervous system. This can be felt at distances up to five milesfrom the towers. It also drives away game and wildlife. The Georgia Mountain windfarm in Milton, VT has four 450-foot towers, built in 2009, and local residents complain that not just small game, but even bears and cougars have fled the area.
It is truly remarkable just how inept the sustainable energy cabal has been. They have been gifted hundreds of billions of federal dollars to build their dream systems. They have benefited from state and federal legislation that incentivizes use of their crappy intermittent power sources. And yet they can’t provide this magical renewable power consistently or economically. They truly are useless. No, worse than useless. Making believe we can depend on these phantom power sources ends up with what you have in California.
You don’t need to be all that intelligent to realize that the entire green movement is built on extremely shaky engineering underpinnings. And I’m pretty sure those at the top fully realize sheer unreality of the movement. But, I think it’s a decoy and that the base impulse behind the entire thing (at the top levels anyway) is Malthusian in nature. There are just too many people, increasing at an exponential rate and that trend will not end well. I have sorta had those leanings myself for a good portion of my live. Decades ago, I remember watching some documentary… Read more »