The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Share your energy/resource saving tips
starboardlight:
--- Quote from: Giancarlo on July 23, 2006, 03:18:01 am ---Renewable energy is inadequate. I really hate to say that. It is a wonderful idea, no question about it... but it is nowhere close to what is needed. But you are dismissing an energy source that people know very little about. Nuclear fusion is possible, and it has the most research and development being put towards it. Sometimes people hear "NUCLEAR fusion" they get frightened... not knowing what it really is about. It is better then solar. In fact it produces basically unlimited amounts of energy. Solar cells are inadequate.
Europe, particularly France rely mostly on nuclear power. Nuclear power like it or not is not EVIL, nor is it bad. It is very efficient, and can be very clean when all guidelines are followed. It also produces FAR MORE POWER then any other energy source out there. In Los Angeles we need nuclear fusion. Solar power though a nice idea... simply isn't enough.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/NuclFus
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Fusion/Fusion1.shtml
"Nuclear energy can also be released by fusion of two light elements (elements with low atomic numbers). The power that fuels the sun and the stars is nuclear fusion. In a hydrogen bomb, two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium are fused to form a nucleus of helium and a neutron. This fusion releases 17.6 MeV of energy. Unlike nuclear fission, there is no limit on the amount of the fusion that can occur."
They have done this. They need better technology and more research to contain such energy.
--- End quote ---
i'm sure in the future, it'll be a combination of the many sources of energy. You're right; nuclear energy will be viable in the future. but don't dismiss solar energy either. it's efficiency and cost has improved quite a bit in the past few years and will continue to do so. Currently solar cell will produce more than enough energy for an average house hold consumption, especially here in SoCal. it also offers a decentralized source. Nuclear enregy is great, but if any happens to the energy grid, millions of house holds will be cut of. Solar energy can ensure that that doesn't happen. The thing is, nuclear fusion is ways off in the future, while solar is here and now and is just getting better. Like I said, it'll take a combination of sources, not any one single method is going to win out.
nakymaton:
I just finished reading an excellent book dealing with global warming and so forth: Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert. Wonderful writing, very accessibly, mixture of anecdotes and theory put together in a way that's a pleasure to read (well, the underlying story is not a pleasure to read, but the writing is). The first part of the book deals with what's happening in nature; the second part deals with what people are thinking about doing about it. It covers much of the same ground as An Inconvenient Truth, but with different anecdotes. (The chapter about the Netherlands is particularly interesting; so is the discussion of all the different things that could be done to try to slow or reverse the build-up of CO2. Also, there are references to the sources of some of the graphs that Gore used.)
I'm really glad to hear that California is allowing people to sell electricity back to the power companies. I don't think that solar power is the entire answer to the problem, but I think it's got to be part of the solution. And a lot of the problems with solar have to do with the amount of space that it would take up, and with the changing amounts of sunshine and clouds in any place. It seems as though those problems are minimized if we could put solar panels on every roof possible -- just think of all those flat roofs on big box stores everywhere in the country! All that space absorbing sunlight anyway... might as well put it to use. (And if we covered every Wal-mart parking lot with a roof made of solar panels! The space is wasted for anything else anyway...)
I hope that the rural electric co-ops move in that direction, as well. Windmills could provide some extra income for farmers across the plains, from Montana to Texas. The wind might not blow everywhere all the time, but widely dispersed windmills wouldn't rely on local weather in the same way that a centralized wind farm would.
As for my house: shades, shades, shades. Close the shades in the summer during the day, and the winter at night. I've got south-facing windows and live in a sunny climate (with hot days and cool nights), so I can manage a lot of my heating and cooling by opening or closing shades at various times of the day. That only works in the right house and the right climate, though. (My biggest concern is water use: we've got a community well that goes dry every now and then. If the house didn't have a fairly new washing machine, I would replace it with one of the front-loading ones that uses a lot less water. I've got lots of little tricks, but appliances that are designed to save water would make a huge difference.)
I would love to do a serious re-model and put in solar panels and LED lights. (Has anybody here used an on-demand hot water heater? I saw them in Japanese homes when I visited Japan sixteen years ago, and they seemed like a good way to avoid wasting water when heating it. But I don't know what the drawbacks might be, or whether it would be hard to retrofit an American house to use them.)
Giancarlo:
--- Quote from: starboardlight on July 23, 2006, 12:10:26 pm ---i'm sure in the future, it'll be a combination of the many sources of energy. You're right; nuclear energy will be viable in the future. but don't dismiss solar energy either. it's efficiency and cost has improved quite a bit in the past few years and will continue to do so. Currently solar cell will produce more than enough energy for an average house hold consumption, especially here in SoCal. it also offers a decentralized source. Nuclear enregy is great, but if any happens to the energy grid, millions of house holds will be cut of. Solar energy can ensure that that doesn't happen. The thing is, nuclear fusion is ways off in the future, while solar is here and now and is just getting better. Like I said, it'll take a combination of sources, not any one single method is going to win out.
--- End quote ---
If anything happens in any power grid people will lose power. Nuclear fusion is not dangerous once it is perfected. It is safer then nuclear fission (which we currently use). Solar Cells are just simply not enough, and it would be better to rely on nuclear fusion technology. We also have businesses and factories that need to be powered up (and these often take up far more energy then any household). Solar energy just simply isn't adequate.
David:
I also keep my shades drawn in the summer to help keep the house cooler.
Water conservation? Not that much of a problem here in Connecticut. I have city water, so there is no well to go dry. A Water company spokesperson once told us in School that there really is no such worry that we'll ever run out of water. Everydrop we use goes back into the environment one way or another. More water is just a rain cloud away. The only problem is that the water is often at the wrong place at the wrong time!
I'll be dammed if I'm going to skip flushing my toilet just so golf courses around the world have lush green fairways! LOL.
starboardlight:
electric cars are dorky. oh yeah?
http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1
btw, has any one seen "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
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