kaninja

MSim
The market should dictate what happens, not the government.

That doesn't work. Government needs to regulate. If not, the market will cannibalize itself.

Electric vehicles are really as clean as the power that is generated to charge them. If you are on a grid powered by coal......there is no net gain over a petroleum powered vehicle. If you are on a grid powered by Solar, wind, or hydro.....then it is much more eco friendly.

I disagree. "we" "let" the government regulate when it should be the people who regulate. I understand what I speak of will never happen, but like I just said, we "let" the government regulate it. There are more people than government after all.

 
Hopefully as tech improves the batteries will become more efficient and also near 100% recyclable.
 

kaninja
If you are on a grid powered by Solar, wind, or hydro.....then it is much more eco friendly.

 

 
That is a great misconception. The manufacturing process and the cost to maintain solar and wind is obscured out of sight, out of mind from the consumer. It's a bit like you like hotdogs or chicken nuggets. You don't want to know how what is in them but people sure like them. A lot of it is very harmful to the environment. The front end cost and the failure points within solar and wind are an engineering and maintenance nightmare. The government is propping up solar and wind through subsidies in an effort to displace fossil fuels damned the true cost involved. It's all a shell game where corporations want government favoritism to regulate the ability to put your money into "green" energy's pockets.
 
Wind farms are an environmental menace to birds. They are even so disruptive they affect weather and aviation radar. Ever see a weather radar loop where you see not a single storm anywhere within 500 miles yet you see areas on the loop that sit stationary as red angry dots? That's because these wind farms are so big they have an actual radar signature. They're an aviation navigational hazard and they mow down birds en masse.
 
I have a friend whose brother evaluates and designs the power-grid for a major electric company in the plains states. He told me that our power grid was never designed for the inconsistent variables that wind and solar power force on the power grid. The very integration of the systems into the existing power grid is a major problem. Never mind the nasty materials used in batteries that augment solar and the resins used to make the composite portions of solar cells and wind turbine blades. Hydro use dams that disrupt fish spawning and the free flow of water to farmers. No form of energy production is truly environmentally friendly. It reminds me of the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.
 
This is all a bunch of misdirection on the part of people who want to take the money you're giving to fossil fuel production and give it to solar and wind producers. You'll find plenty of fossil fuel materials in solar and wind. It's all a silly shell game and you are the pawn. As long as they can make you feel better about yourself through "green" marketing initiatives, they will get your piece of the pie for energy consumables. The worst kind of business is the kind that will take a notable % of money out of your pocket monthly and do it while attempting to make you feel good about it. It's disingenuous at a core level.

m0demb0y
So much superstition and misinformation in this thread. I am embarrassed technologically minded people can think this stuff. Go do some research.

I have a manufacturing engineering and composite engineering degree... I'm embarrassed that people don't handle cognitive dissonance that well.
 
Power-grid stability issues:

Wind farm bird issues:

Wind farm radar interferance:

Wind farm blade manufacturing:

Solar cell manufacturing:

Deep cycle battry manufacturing:

etc, etc, etc....
 
Green energy isn't truly ecologically friendly to begin with.

Saying green energy isn't green to begin with is a massive misconception. Green compared to what? Solar power using solar panels produced by one of the top 5 producers versus a coal fired power plant? It's about 10 times more ecologically friendly. Coal versus one of the massive cheap solar panel producers in China that toss the waste in the river or the field behind the factory?......yeah not so much.

Cost to maintain solar on a large scale I am not sure. I have had my system for 5 years now. Zero maintenance other than I clean them twice a year. My electric bill last year was $98......for the year. On top of that I got back a cheque for $140 for excess I put back in to the grid for the year. Granted it cost us a lot initially and we are still about 6 years away from the break even point. Loving it so far. How "green" are we really being? I can't really say 100%. However not relying on NG fired power plants and consuming about 40% less NG ourselves has to account for something.....maybe.

Brad_Hawthorne

m0demb0y
So much superstition and misinformation in this thread. I am embarrassed technologically minded people can think this stuff. Go do some research.

I have a manufacturing engineering and composite engineering degree... I'm embarrassed that people don't handle cognitive dissonance that well.
 
Power-grid stability issues:

Wind farm bird issues:

Wind farm radar interferance:

Wind farm blade manufacturing:

Solar cell manufacturing:

Deep cycle battry manufacturing:

etc, etc, etc....
 
Green energy isn't truly ecologically friendly to begin with.

This.

I am no authority with any of these "renewable" or "clean" energy technologies, but "shell game" is appropriate in some, if not most cases that I've read about.

Every time I read someone touting hydrogen as the answer to all of our energy needs, I wonder if people have taken the time to study how much energy it takes to produce hydrogen. Then, there is still the energy required to store it at very low temperatures. Or, it can be stored in special tanks which themselves require lots of energy and materials to produce.

And then there is the more recent and somewhat novel algal biodiesel, which promises to produce more biodiesel than any other known source on the planet.

Little mentioned by the algal biodiesel proponents is the immense amount of fresh water this method requires, nor is there any mention of the large amount of energy it will take to transport the water to the desert regions where some algal biodiesel ponds may be required.

Yes........SHELL GAME!