Quote:
Originally Posted by Aliantha
yes well, we can trade all the proverbs you like, but if our civilization is to survive, alternative energy must be developed. Simply telling people to 'use less fossil fuels' is great, but it only prolongs the inevitable outcome because it's a non renewable resource.
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Show me the solar cells that will put BrainR's 60,000 pound truck up highway hills? Ideal numbers cannot even approach a solution. Show me the alternative energy source that can make airplanes fly. There is no theoretical technology that can store sufficient energy per pound. Nothing can happen pragmatically until it can first work theoretically. Even those many alternative fuels are actually reapplications of the same energy sources - coal, oil, etc. Just another example of doing more work from less energy.
Ethanol is alternative energy because it comes from corn and the sun? Bull. Massive amounts of petroleum are required to make and truck ethanol. Ethanol is the perfect example of alternative energy - that does not really exist.
Why is BrainR wasting 12 gallons every night to sleep? One way of not using that petroleum is to price it higher so that the same petroleum does more work. Then maybe one gallon does what is currently done by 12. Only with proper (higher) pricing do other (and trivial) energy sources become viable. Even your solar cell solution is not feasible until gasoline goes to $5 per gallon - or maybe higher. If we don't demand more work from the same energy, then those alternatives cannot happen. It's basic economics. Same was demonstrated in the 1970s.
You can speculate all you want. I put those speculations into perspective. A rain drop does not fill a bucket. Even a thunderstorm does not provide enough raindrops. Meanwhile, the problem involves barrels. And here we are discussing buckets. To save barrels, we first need proper energy prices (higher). Only then do we also get raindrops from alternative energy sources.