Ending The Recession Ot

Q: How big is a barn? How big is a log? Arfe you saying that we should phase out coal? A nuclear war would be the worst of both worlds: Dangerous amounts of radioactivity spread out over the entire world! But what about the fish? I mean what about the fish being blocked by the dams?

A: There's a downside to every form of electrical production. Some are just more obvious than others. Solar and Wind are seen by Greenies as "better" for some reason... even though massive chunks of land have to be altered in order to prove the same amount of power as a relatively tiny chunk of land used by a coal or natural gas plant. So you have the tradeoff of more carbon emissions or more land disruption. Hydroelectric plants, of course, destroy entire river ecosystems by disrupting spawning paths, and turning warm(ish) water rivers into cold water lakes, dislocating thousands of species from land that was formerly available for foraging and dens. No objection whatsoever to them... I hope they become efficient someday, though. Right now, solar panels are woefully inefficient, and your average family (TV, computers, video games, heat/air conditioning, washing machines, etc) wouldn't have enough roof space to produce enough energy to power all these devices during the day, much less the battery storage necessary to allow you to go to bed after sunset. :) They make a nice gesture though, and would save you a few bucks as a supplemental power source to The Grid. Geothermal heating and cooling systems would probably do more to reduce reliance on The Grid... at least at the currently available technology levels. I think you may be a tiny bit behind the times, here in Australia there are homes with large collections of solar panelling on their roof, they have all the mod-cons and yet they actually *return* power to the grid in net terms, they are even paid by the electricity boards in their particular states for the power they add to the grid. Solar panelling has increased its efficiency enormously in the last 10 - 15 years. Can it still be improved, absolutely, but it is not as inefficient as you are suggesting in the paragraph above. Okay... did some quick research, and I stand partially corrected. Yes, it seems to be possible to supply ALL your power needs from rooftop solar panels... however, its unclear how much rooftop space you need to do this. However, it seems cost prohibitive for the average household to be able to build a house with or convert their house to 100% solar power (with all the mod cons)... $20K - $40K is a LOT of money.

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