pendennis

Wow! You attempt to defend the indefensible by attacking one who's challenging oxymoronic logic?

TriX subverted his own arguments by reverting to phraseology that doesn't mean anything. "Unfettered laissez faire capitalism"? Really?

And my input was constructive. I pointed out that there were any number of economists, philosophers, etc., whom TriX should read.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yes, there is lots of promise there.

It's going to take a blend of many sources (solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear...) to replace coal, gas, and other fossil fuels. And because of the economic inertia involved, it probably won't be the hydrocarbon producers who make the transition happen. Like Kodak, Polaroid, and so many other old tech companies, they'll wither away, rather than decide to kill their own products and adopt new paradigms. Companies like that tend to invent new technologies, then patent them and sit on the patents until someone licenses them.

One of the biggest wasters of energy is transmission lines. Any time you have to transport an energy source, you have losses. It costs fuel to waste electricity as heat generated by the resistance of transmission lines. It costs diesel fuel to ship LNG overseas. So anything that can replace "shipping energy" with local production is a potential winner (rooftop solar and backyard geothermal are a couple of good examples).

It will probably take a combination of market advantages and GovCo policies to accelerate the transition to the point of intervention in climate change. Big gas-guzzling vehicles won't disappear quickly unless it can be shown that big electric powered vehicles can replace them safely and economically and with better performance.

We will still have some petrochemical industries around. Jets and rockets will be among the last transitions. Medicines, plastics, lubricants, and other chemicals will be with us for a long time. Asphalt is a big question mark. So many products we don't think of contain hydrocarbons, the refining of which yields many pollutants.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

If it's a choice between business and people, business always gets the advantage. Laws are passed to help and protect businesses and the wealthy people who run them. Regular people don't give millions to those who pass the laws, so they don't matter.

As for, "...you and everyone else would know it," we do know it.

Oligarchy: "Oligarchy is a form of government in which a small group of people hold most or all political power." Millionaires and billionaires constitute the small group that runs this country.

JBRIII

Why some things are done is not straight forward to determine. For example, the question of hydrogen. There are other ways besides electrolysis, but none are cheap to my knowledge. One thought has been to use solar or wind to make hydrogen when excess is available such as wind at night. Some things are experimental and only efforts now and in the future will tell if they can work at the scales needed. Other than nuclear in some form, it is hard to think of any form of energy available for collection in the amounts we use that does not require lots of space in some way. Oil, etc. is essentially concentrated sunlight collected eons ago, any other form, solar, wind, algae, hydro is driven by the sun today and requires collection, i.e., miles of solar cells of windmills, valleys of dams, etc.

Virtually everybody wants energy, but some group is against almost every one of them including those responding here.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

They may "shut off" the American Falls (periodically), but the hydro plant does not stop producing power when they do so. The water is simply diverted to Horseshoe Falls.

pendennis

Agreed. No energy source usage is without risk. Something as simple as a match, misused, can have catastrophic consequences.

My only concerns about hydrogen are its volatility, pressurized storage, the usual suspects.

JBRIII

I believe it is only under 10,000 psi at -400+ F, what could possibly go wrong?

My worry with buying any car using a new exotic fuel is what happens if the experiment fails? Electricity is electricity no matter how made, but if hydrogen fueled cars are a deadend, your stuck with a paper weight.

cytafex Loc: Clarksburg MA

The dams evaporate water and substantially alter rivers.

cytafex Loc: Clarksburg MA

Unfortunately pumped storage can create falling water where it doesn't exist. One problem with pumped storage is it uses more resources than produces and scheme to make money.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yea, that would be like expending 1,000 KWH (pumping water up) to generate 1,000 KWH (water falling down).

Ed48 Loc: Superior, Wisconsin

I totally agree with your suggestion of using hot air generated by all politicians would be able to take care of our energy problems forever. It is time for them to take the bull by the TAIL and FACE the situation.
Ed48

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

I was under the impression that the water for the hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls was drawn off from above the falls and diverted to the power plant and reservoir behind it. Water going or not going over the falls has nothing to do with power production. Used to when the plant at the base of the Horseshoe Falls was operational but not now.

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

There are a lots of reasons that different approaches are used to create power sources. The question boils down to what happens to them. If they are not economically feasible compared to existing sources, they don't survive. Hydrogen power is not economically viable and there are not a lot of hydrogen-powered vehicles and I don't think anyone is building more. The same thing applies to the renewables like wind and solar, they won't survive without being subsidized regardless of what environmentalist want. I also don't think climate change is going to survive in the long run for the same reasons. People will not choose to support it once they discover they are the ones providing the subsidy.

BigOldArt Loc: Seminole, FL

Tides are very dependable.

Tides in Northern latitudes are massive. For example, in Liverpool the tides are commonly 26 feet. Think of the energy to move enough water to raise the water level 26 feet.

https://www.pnnl.gov/explainer-articles/tidal-energy

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That is not the point. The point is that you might use 1100 KWh pumping water to a height during peak sunlight hours to get 1000 KWh back at night... It's to TIME SHIFT the energy usage.