I am a HUGE advocate of alternative energy because...

In my opinion, there is nothing preventing the US Postal Service, for example, from going electric with most of its box fleet of gas powered vehicles and implementing a recovery and recycling program, at the same time.

 

Actually, you'd be surprised at how much of that $300 dollars is in mindless paper work. The first time I quoted a job for a military contractor my boss made me multiply it by 4. We pretty much broke even on the job.

 

When the civilized world is bankrupted by alarmist restrictions on energy use, anarchy will rule. Kill or be killed. Loot, burn, and destroy. So we do have an interest in crushing Greenhead liars.

 

promoting the general welfare may eventually lead to discoveries in generating power from a vacuum or deep pressure such as on the ocean floor.

 

Alternative is a complete failure.

Its the same thing as using ten Cadillac Sedans to go the market, each on goes a 1/10th of a mile, you get out, use the next, go a 1/10th. Sure you used solar, but look at the CO2 created using ten cars when you could of used one car powered by nuclear to drive forever.

Use more natural resources faster, use more in less time, creating less with the few resources left. That is not renewable.

Solar panels do not last forever, they do not even last ten years, as soon as sun hits them the deteriorate. So we build the worlds largest electrical plant in physical size that produces a fraction of energy, and that is considered renewable.

Same for Wind, Turbine blades thrown away every ten years, again worlds largest electric plants in physical size, using more natural resources for construction, providing a fraction of our electrical needs, and that is sustainable.

Geothermal, each unique to the physical characteristics of the heat source, so each custom designed for the site, extreme cost, uses an extreme amount of natural resources providing little energy although better than wind and solar, but extremely dirty. Polluting.

All three require massive amounts of oil and gas to construct, use oil and gas faster to make energy plants that do not last ten years.

Another example of propaganda fed to the masses.

 

I recently saw a video on youtube that claims hemp is a much better energy source than some current sources of alternative energy. And, it is also beneficial for the construction industry and the paper industry since we would need to cut down less forests to make paper and structural products.

 

That would give the Californians something to do with all those Stems they throw out. Not very familiar with Hemp for energy but I have read it is a great fiber. Used to be rope.

 

You may want to look into newer uses, such as hempcrete.

 

Free energy has already been invented.
http://wbsinccd.tripod.com/ahec/
It's just that the government is too short-sighted to invest just a little money to bring it into full production.


A Large-Scale Hydro Renewable Energy Start-up with an Innovative Patent-Pending Process that does not require a River, Lake or Dam. AHEC is currently seeking funding to construct a 7 foot model to test and validate the process.

We estimated the cost of 180 Million Dollars from Venture Capital or a federal, state or city private / public partnership to construct and operate each 70-Story Generating Facility.

That's not much money at all.
Why can't we give him a fair go?

 

There is no alternative energy source that does not use great amounts of oil.

Wind, Solar, and Geothermal cost more simply because they consume more oil in the production of the said infrastructure.

 

That may only be true due to our current lack of more perfect knowledge.

 

Yes but http://wbsinccd.tripod.com/ahec/ is built entirely from cattle dung.

 

Alternative energy is always a beneficial goal for any nation.

 

We have solar, water, geothermal, wind, wave, etc. to convert to almost limitless energy. Other than the need for greed regarding money, why would we instead prefer to create energy from coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, etc.?

I don't blame the coal miners, or oil workers, and their unions, for opposing alternative energies because it's not clear how each worker can find a new career in new industries which don't yet exist across the country. We can't ask all of these workers to take one for the country! Precisely what is government doing to encourage and help facilitate the conversion from fossil fuels to alternative fuels...IMO almost nothing. Sure over long periods of time the private sector will work it out, but in the process there will be lots of American workers and families just tossed aside.

Then there's the cost to the consumer to make the conversion. In many cases consumers don't have access to anything but solar energy and even in this case there are covenants in our neighborhoods preventing solar panels. Sometimes we don't have willing energy companies who will work with consumers on solar energy and buy back unused energy. And, solar energy can't provide 24/7 energy without a method of storing energy.

Alternative energy IMO falls into what I call the 5% rule which I have stated many times on this forum and elsewhere. In other words, about 5% of the public will support and implement alternative energy...the other 95% are the ones we must reach...

 

Interesting that you mentioned microbes creating energy since the mapping the genome of microbes, all of the oil companies invested big bucks in this project hoping they can be the new energy source.

 

Why not advance fusion; an energy with a future.

 

small scale wind and water power applications can be useful and entertaining.

 

scalable energy storage requires alternative solutions to current problems.