Gore on Renewable Energy

[wiarumas]

Al Gore lays down green challenge to America

While I don't always agree with him, I think its a valiant attempt of trying to sway people away from our oil dependency. Seriously, we need to think of something else. I'm sure a lot of you would agree.

And I know its a bit of a stretch, but how nice would it be to have our entire country powered by nuclear and renewable energy.

[Cajun JungleBoy]

al gore sucks left nut..../thread

[fast64]

Quote: Originally Posted by wiarumas And I know its a bit of a stretch, but how nice would it be to have our entire country powered by nuclear and renewable energy.

We can't rely on one type of fuel and I doubt we could fuel America on wind and sun, since its barely affective in some areas. The average amount of sun hours per day in Georgia is only 4.07 and little to no usable wind. Diversity keeps cost down and reliability up. I say nukes, clean coal, and renewables where its feasible.

[MarkuzLS1]

Straight nukes. That's all we need. Coal fired plants are the worst idea ever.

[at7311]

^+1

[Thomas91169]

there is nothing wrong with oil dependancy, as long as that dependancy is coming from our own operations, IE getting off of foreign oil and onto our own.

Bottom line is we need to drill more and refine enough to meet our consumption amount. And its not that terribly difficult of a task. We have ANWR and trillion something under the Dakotas ready to be tapped.

besides, if its cost people are worried about, anything is going to cost. If we all go to electric cars then guess what, price per kilowatt/hr will skyrocket. If we had cars that run off of water, price per gallon of water will skyrocket. If its not one fuel cost, its another. I laugh at people who think electric cars are the answer, "ZOMG i plug my car into the wall every night and i dont have to ever buy gas again!" but then their electric bill goes from $200 to $600 a month cause they are trickle charging every night. That $400 a month increase is probably $100 more than what they were paying for gas every month. Not to mention our power grid isnt capable of the demands even if a mere 10% of the population had 1 electric car, not to mention if half the population had 2 or more.

[fast64]

Quote: Originally Posted by MarkuzLS1 Coal fired plants are the worst idea ever.

Why? Aside from nukes its the cheapest "conventonal" energy source out there. Most of the US is powered by coal right now. All coal plants are performing government required billion dollar emission upgrades right now. Scrubbers are being installed onto units to remove 90% of SO2 from emissions and catalytic reduction sytems to remove 60% of NOx from emissions. Total emissions reduction is 80% over "old" coal plants, more when coupled with low-sulfur coal. The clean coal plants now in design throughout the world claim anywhere from 90-98% emissions reduction over "old" coal plants. Its irresponsible to write off the country's largest energy supplier as the worst idea ever. The jobs lost would be enormous and the negative impact on electricity prices would be even worse. It probably takes 15 years from starting design, to getting it through the NRC, to seeing the first kWh out of a nuke plant. Bad idea to build a coal plant right now? Heck yes. Bad idea to update old plants to cleaner standards? Heck no, especially if the plan is to slowly build newer, cleaner base load plants behind them to pick up the load when a coal plant gets phased out.