Global Warming?

[SPYDERLK]

Originally Posted by EddieWalker
Who has the hidden agenda? The oil company that is selling you fuel for a profit and having to get it half way across the planet in locations that hate the US?

Or a government that relies on tax money raised from selling that fuel, but even more from voters who donate to them so they will fight the oil company with an empty promise to force somebody to invent something better. In the mean time, to keep their supporters happy and giving them more money, they use tax dollars to promote industy that doesn't work and requires more energy to operate then it produces. Have you heard of ethynol? What about solar companies like Sylendra? Or the Chevy Volt?Eddie

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Far from empty promises in many cases. ... Regardless of failures, do you realize that sunlight delivers 1100 watts per square meter on earths surface ... ~1.5 MegaWatts per acre? We can electrically harvest about 10% of that with current tech -- 150KW. Thats 600KW-Hrs just from the 4hrs of high sun on a single sunny day. My entire farm uses about 150 KW-Hrs per day in peak season. ... So, regardless of failures, the conservative [efficiencies are rising due technology] potential is huge, and the benefit awaits application of credible known science. Change is almost always initially expensive. Even so, proactive change will ultimately turn out to be cheap in comparison to reactive change. Well directed subsidies are the best bet to get this going. The bad ones will fall out. Solar isnt one of them.
...The problem is not that it wont work - its that our system is not set up to use it. And that is a tremendous hurdle. Subsidies in selected areas are needed to catalyze the advance in infrastucture and technology. No single company can afford it. Both research and grunt work is needed. The engines of research have lost funding. Research is what got us from the $400+ HewlettPackard twenty something calculator of the '60s, to todays more capable $20 calculator that runs on ambient light. ... Solar is expensive now. -- Trouble is , ignoring it will keep it that way.
...larry

 

[houstonscott]

Funny that all those who characterize talk radio as conservative never characterize the main stream media as liberal. I think the main reason that talk radio gains traction is that they discuss all the angles of an issue and present the actual facts, like (reading the bill on radio to you) so you make your own decision on what it says, not what Katie Couric tells you it says. Only those who don't listen bash talk radio because they are unaware of what is going on there. The main stream media would no more present the actual documents on the TV for you to evaluate in issue than the man in the moon, precisely because they do have an agenda. If you listen to ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, you couldn't possibly know what's going on with an issue. To tell you the truth most of what gets to those so called news outlets is sometimes as much as three year old stories for listeners of talk radio.

HS

 

[Tollster]

If you listen to ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, you couldn't possibly know what's going on with an issue. HS

Strange you leave the FOX news out of the mix, but then again, perhaps not

 

[Egon]

Talk shows = actual information

:confused2:

 

[Short Game]

I listen to a little AM talk. I usually fall asleep and miss most of it. I like some of the stuff I get from Coast To Coast AM in the middle of the night. It's interesting and not usually overly political. That said, twice per hour, I get sound-bite spots for their daytime menagerie. It will be Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or that Savage butt-head, doing the most vile attacks against just what you might imagine. Free ads repeated, ad nauseum, for what Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Bros. want us to believe. Ain't it great? The Ministry of Propaganda has been privatized.

 

[mostly_gas]

Does it matter what talk show hosts or politicians say?
To me it matters what the scientists say or DON'T say shapes my opinion.
Think about it, If the polar regions have been near tropical in nature, doesn't it mean The climate has changed before? So if the climate has changed before and this is hardly new ground climately speaking, how does one prove now that man is the cause? Some have said it CO2 that the culprit. OK where is/are the paper(s) that show X change in CO2 results in Y change in temperature. I have looked found papers that discuss CO2 but none with the detail that prove their point.
You are free believe what you want. Just understand climate science has lots to learn, and I am waiting for the real scientists to deal with what they have not dealt with.

 

[EddieWalker]

...Far from empty promises in many cases. ... Regardless of failures, do you realize that sunlight delivers 1100 watts per square meter on earths surface ...

This is where I get confused. Nobody is saying that you shouldn't look for other sources of power. That is both misleading and dishonest. I'm all for solar, wind and alge. But I'm not for giving away hundreds of millions of tax payer money to companies to see if they can make it work. I'm especially not for giving them money when they already have a history of failure and a product that does not work and is available from other sources for less money.

At what point do you say it's time to stop throwing away money at something that isn't even a problem. There is no oil shortage. The energy crisis is self created by our governments refusal to allow big oil to do what they do best. Why do you want to blame the company that is supplying you with oil for creating the shortage when their only purpose in existing is to make a profit by selling oil and oil products?

Who is making it harder to get oil? Why are they making it more difficult to get oil? And the biggest mystery is why do you defend Obama when he has done so much to cause the energy crisis and absolutely nothing to fix it?

We are in debt so far that our lifestyle is now being affected by goverenment spending. Super Inflation is the next step. The answer Obama has is to spend more and raise taxes. Next year, Jan 1st, all our taxes are going up big time. It's designed to happen after the election and it's going to hurt. What will happen with the additional income? Will they just spend more money or will we find more ways to not pay taxes? Loop Holes or just not working as much?

If Solar is a good thing, then let those selling it put their money into it. Let them develop it and make it happen. Give them tax breaks and tax insentives, but do not give them CASH!!!!!

Government is not here to gamble with tax dollars on pet projects.

Eddie

 

[mostly_gas]

Far from empty promises in many cases. ... Regardless of failures, do you realize that sunlight delivers 1100 watts per square meter on earths surface ... ~1.5 MegaWatts per acre? We can electrically harvest about 10% of that with current tech -- 150KW. Thats 600KW-Hrs just from the 4hrs of high sun on a single sunny day. My entire farm uses about 150 KW-Hrs per day in peak season. ... So, regardless of failures, the conservative [efficiencies are rising due technology] potential is huge, and the benefit awaits application of credible known science. Change is almost always initially expensive. Even so, proactive change will ultimately turn out to be cheap in comparison to reactive change. Well directed subsidies are the best bet to get this going. The bad ones will fall out. Solar isnt one of them.
...The problem is not that it wont work - its that our system is not set up to use it. And that is a tremendous hurdle. Subsidies in selected areas are needed to catalyze the advance in infrastucture and technology. No single company can afford it. Both research and grunt work is needed. The engines of research have lost funding. Research is what got us from the $400+ HewlettPackard twenty something calculator of the '60s, to todays more capable $20 calculator that runs on ambient light. ... Solar is expensive now. -- Trouble is , ignoring it will keep it that way.
...larry

Larry you are free to invest all you want. I have a problem with government getting involved because of the cronnie capitalism that has been there for years. Waste and fraud abound everyone promises to fix it and no one does. If we task the government with more we just invite it to be bigger with more waste and fraud.
If you really want to see more investment in Solar organize a group so you can more money to invest as the group sees fit. No doubt you will get far more result than Uncle Sam:thumbsup:

 

[Short Game]

Good thing the government with the oil industry are above all that crony capitalism stuff. We don't want any alternative types sullying such a clean record.

 

[hosspuller]

Here's another thought to discuss. How does the amount of energy we need to sustain our current life style affect the politics?

I submit that most people have no idea or can't visualize the vast amounts of product we consume. A person goes to the gas pump fills up their car and never sees the 20 gallons that went in.

Our local county is paying big bucks to convert a few school buses to run on waste cooking oil. There aren't enough resturants in the whole state to supply used oil if the entire fleet of one county converted. Forget all the school buses in the state. The waste oil to fuel program is just wasted tax money to make a few people "FEEL" good.


Or ... A person turns on their central air conditioner to cool their 3000 square foot house in July. How many watt hours of power are needed to run that unit for a day?

I participate on a horse trailer forum... many are the people that think an air conditioner can be run from a 12 volt battery. or a toaster oven.

Solar conversion to electricity is just another big bluff. It makes sense if the power user is far from the utility like some mountain top. BUT compete and surpass conventional sources to run industry and homes ??? Not likely. Yes the sun pours mega watts of power onto our land. But the energy is like gold in the sea. There are tons of gold dissolved in seawater. Too bad it's so diluted as to be unusable. Technologically it can be done, it's just not worth the effort.
So too is solar energy to electricity via photovoltaic panels.