If there was any place that solar power could work, it's in Southern California, where sunshine is the rule rather than the exception. Yet, solar power failed here in spite of government subsidy and complete relief from property taxes.
That eventually it may become less expensive, or non-renewables might become more expensive may change things, but that's not now.
Even if one forgets the cost, there is still the environmental impact. Both solar and wind take up enormous areas to produce the same energy as a modern power station. Wind makes lots of noise and people a mile or more away are bothered by the continuous onslaught on their ears.
There seem to be only two probabilities - coal and nuclear. The US has coal that could last us for several thousand years. It can be sent through a pipeline too, if necessary. Nuclear is a best bet. The technology we are using is 3-4 decades old. New nuclear furnaces apparently don't require coolant or containment shells.
Fuel cells are the biggie at the moment even though they produce no power. (Haven't these people learned anything at school?)
If important people are beginning to discover the uselessness of Kyoto, could we say they are following a prescient George W. Bush?
Harry
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Keith wrote:
I haven't read the book, but Hermann Scheer is saying something similar to what I've been writing on FW. The only difference is that Scheer appears to be talking about solar energy as an energy technology per se whereas I have been writing about solar energy being the basis of a biogenetic production technology as well.<<<< The Solar Economy by Herman Scheer, Earthscan, ISBN 1853838357 Reviewed by Fred Pierce (New Scientist 14 December 2002) George Bush and Hermann Scheer, the guru of the solar-energy revolution.agree on one thing. The Kyoto Protocol is bunkum: a tiresome diplomatic distraction to the real business of enterprise and innovation. From there, they take different paths. Bush is an oil man, whereas Scheer says the costs to society of oil now hugely outweight the benefits. Harnessing solar energy is not just the technological future, he says, but also the door to a new freer, more egalitarian future. With no more Bushes. "It does not take a global treaty to unlock the benefits of renewable energy," says Scheer. The Kyoto Protocol is "fantasy politics", with greens and the energy industry locked in a deadly embrace to protect their futures. What we need, he says, are risk-taking entrepreneurs with a vision of a solar future. This is bold talk, especially for a German parliamentarian whose party, the SPD, is wedded to protocol politics. But Scheer, a solar advocate for more than a decade, is impatient. "Leveraging the Sun" is the future, he says. Its energy is cheap, clean and available everywhere. And this omnipresence will undermine the corrosive geopolitics of oil. Some of "The Solar Economy" is technical -- a bit dull, even. But much of it is inspirational. Scheer analyses how our addiction to fossil fuels, and the long supply lines needed to deliver it, has created a hierarchical, political, economic and cultural superstructure that dominates the world. Solar energy will not only head off global warming, banish smogs and keep the power turned on, it will tear down this oil-fuelled superstructure and replace it with a more egalitarian, democratic society. Not only that, universally accessible solar energy will open the floodgates to unconstrained innovation and individual entrepreneurial activity. In a solar world, we will "revitalise the rich diversity of global culture". Scheer's is a heady, Utopian vision. Here comes the Sun.
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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