Geo thermal has lots of potential. Here in sunny Colorado, lots of people have solar. I have a friend who has solar panels on his property (in the foothills) and the power company pays him because he feeds into the grid. Way to go!!!
It may be in the very distant future, but for now it's drill baby, drill. We have enough oil and coal reserves in the US to last until some genius engineers (or invading space aliens) bring us the technology that drives the cost of "green" energy down and improves its performance.
we have a choice. we can have green energy or we can have no energy.
currently, we are running the world on fuels that took the earth millions of years to manufacture. we've passed the midway point on oil and what's left, from here on out, will be harder and harder to pump out of the ground or recover from shale or sands. we're nearing the halfway point on gas. the only one we haven't passed the midpoint on is coal and we're leveling mountains and polluting our rivers to get at it.
otoh, wind is generated every day. the sun pours its energy down on the planet daily. and the earth, itself, generates energy every day of the week. we have the technology to tap all of those. now, all we have to do is develop a grid to move that energy around. hello????? WE DID IT A CENTURY AGO FOR FOSSIL FUELS but we're too stupid to figure out how to do it with continuously generated fuels now? really?
Solar provides about 7% of electric in Denmark..and requires sun.Windmills are not safe for the birds,bats eagles etc. and take up a lot of land and the grid to carry to cities is not cost effective.In the mean time other countries are going to bury us economically while we green ourselves out of the competition.
I say yes I just do not know how far off it is. So far green energy still cost a lot more than conventional energy. We still need to do some research and to come up with better and cheaper methods. For now we are stuck with our conventional method of producing energy. At present it cost a little less than 2.5 times as much for green energy, but that is much improved over the 7.54 times it was a decade ago. For people who want to build solar panels for themselves, they can build them for about $250 to $400 dollars per a panel. Here in California you can buy the panels, but it is difficult to get them approved in some areas. There are people here that have had them for over a years and can not get them hookup until they installation is approved. Before you decide to have them installed make sure you can get them approved in your area quickly before you have them installed. Some installer are also licensed and are recognized in the area and have been approve too to do the whole hookup and do not require any one else from the electric company to check them out.
all the arguments you are making are very similar to the arguments against the horseless carriage and electric lights a century ago. and look at us now.
it will come because it must. we are currently depleting our finite resources at a very fast clip while infinite resources are there for the taking if we will simply do it. so - - - we will. history tells us that we will.
I do not know what the oil reserve are and neither does anyone else for sure. We have enough coal for they estimate 150 to 250 years. Just depends on which site you look at. Natural gas same thing we do not know how much we have as they are discovering more all the time. I think the oil reserves may not be as mush as they think because of how fast countries are developing. I am sure we will continue to improve on solar power and get the prices to where they are competitive. We have made some good process in the last decade. In the mean time we need cheap energy for out economy and solar nor wind will get that done at this time. With China producing a coal fired plant per a week it make no sense to shut down 33 of out plants this year. Especially with no plans to makeup the energy when we are already having blackout. Our energy policy is not much of a policy at all. Now we have given authority to the UN to tax our citizen with a carbon tax. That is insane. This tells me that our government does not have our best interest in mind and we need to change.
Since fossil fuel reserves are finite green energy is the future like it or not. As it is now most of the easily obtainable oil and coal reserves have already been used up. Wait and see as the global economy picks up energy prices will shoot up again and more money will be invested in green energy technology as we slowly wean ourselves of our dependency of dirty fossil fuels. Its just a matter of when and the only thing holding it back is politics and the economics of it competing with fossil fuels.
As some point we will discover a viable alternative to fossil fuels, and it will be in the future. Right now we have roughly 200 years of resources to some time between now and then, we will come up with something
Some of it. HEP, tidal, wave and geo-thermal energy will be used because they're energy efficient and cost efficient. Wind power will be improved upon but eventually abandoned, and solar power will be abandoned in favour of solar water heating. What will change is that nuclear power will become safer and very popular, and at some point we will get superconductors, which will make everything much easier... But green energy will still only be popular in places like Iceland where they have large amounts of geo-thermal energy and island nations for water power...
-Fossil fuels will disappear.
-You might even dispute global warming, but no one can deny the pollution levels those fuels cause. The diseases, like consuming cigars.
-Nuclear fuel, has to have a hardcore level of development it doesn't have right now, in order to be safe.
No choice in here. The transition might be soft, be it needs to start NOW!!!
How do you know? And just because it won't happen in your lifetime, does that mean that no alternative can or should be found? And I agree, that is a real problem. We should also aim to increase oil production in the US.
And I do know what I speak of.
I left the energy sector because of you "people", and it's my great hope to see you all, living in caves.
currently, we are running the world on fuels that took the earth millions of years to manufacture. we've passed the midway point on oil and what's left, from here on out, will be harder and harder to pump out of the ground or recover from shale or sands. we're nearing the halfway point on gas. the only one we haven't passed the midpoint on is coal and we're leveling mountains and polluting our rivers to get at it.
otoh, wind is generated every day. the sun pours its energy down on the planet daily. and the earth, itself, generates energy every day of the week. we have the technology to tap all of those. now, all we have to do is develop a grid to move that energy around. hello????? WE DID IT A CENTURY AGO FOR FOSSIL FUELS but we're too stupid to figure out how to do it with continuously generated fuels now? really?
it will come because it must. we are currently depleting our finite resources at a very fast clip while infinite resources are there for the taking if we will simply do it. so - - - we will. history tells us that we will.
I am sure we will continue to improve on solar power and get the prices to where they are competitive. We have made some good process in the last decade.
In the mean time we need cheap energy for out economy and solar nor wind will get that done at this time.
With China producing a coal fired plant per a week it make no sense to shut down 33 of out plants this year. Especially with no plans to makeup the energy when we are already having blackout. Our energy policy is not much of a policy at all. Now we have given authority to the UN to tax our citizen with a carbon tax. That is insane. This tells me that our government does not have our best interest in mind and we need to change.
-Fossil fuels will disappear.
-You might even dispute global warming, but no one can deny the pollution levels those fuels cause. The diseases, like consuming cigars.
-Nuclear fuel, has to have a hardcore level of development it doesn't have right now, in order to be safe.
No choice in here. The transition might be soft, be it needs to start NOW!!!
We can decide not to be green right now, but one day we won't have a choice.