That's pretty spot on, Gucumatz.
Fracking
- Thread starter Berzerker
- Start date
Narz
keeping it real
Exactly. Create stringent carbon taxes & see how fast things change.
Berzerker
Deity
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
I find it incomprehensible that conversion methane is not considered an objective of the environmental lobby. Also nuclear is very clean.
J
We would absolutely accept conversion methane if it was part of a program of tapering off fossil fuels use totals.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
That is a very large "if". Why not pursue it on its own merits? More to the point, why oppose it?
J
Climate change concerns, mainly.
But I'd trade it for coal mining for sure.
But I'd trade it for coal mining for sure.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Then the people vote out the government that brought them in, like we did here in Australia.
SheaferDaDawg
Intelligent Canine
Or better yet, the factories move to areas without taxes (again).
You can't very easily move a legacy plant.
But you can set up a regulatory regime that incentivizes non-carbon power sources.
The IEA just released a report that studied the effects of adding in additional time variant renewables like solar and wind. Basically it's close to cost neutral up to 40% of baseline capacity:
http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/february/name,47513,en.html
But you can set up a regulatory regime that incentivizes non-carbon power sources.
The IEA just released a report that studied the effects of adding in additional time variant renewables like solar and wind. Basically it's close to cost neutral up to 40% of baseline capacity:
http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/february/name,47513,en.html
Yeah, it's certainly not easy. Classical "Tragedy of the Commons" stuff ...
Wow you sound like some sort of pagan dirt worshiper
Here on planet Earth the best form of energy we have is carbon based fossil fuel. Maybe someday technology will come up with something better but for now it is king. better to use our own national sources instead of supporting regimes that do not like us.
Massive government subsides for alternative energy do not change the fact that they are just not as efficient or as inexpensive as fossil fuels. The technology just isn't there yet to support it. Maybe someday we will have Star trek energy but for now we don't.
If you really wanted to stop supporting regimes that don't like us, you'd be backing renewables. While they don't meet all our needs yet, the US could very easily get our electricity needs met by renewables with today's technology. And then we could export that tech and really have a major impact on the revenue of oil and gas exporters.
But as long as we only look for new sources of oil and gas, we do nothing in the long run to improve our situation in the world.
http://singularityhub.com/2014/03/0...asible-and-affordable-stanford-proposal-says/
ywhtptgtfo
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2010
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- 1,746
That part's obvious. The issue is that the leaders of North America do not work to the benefit of the country but to further the interests of their benefactors (and we know who they are
).
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
What climate change concerns? There is no reliable link between fossil fuels and climate activity.
BTW Conversion gas comes from mining coal or oil shale. It can also be done with oil, but the usual reference is to solid fuels. The old term is "coal gasification", which was too narrow.
Not really. Viable renewables are further away than fusion.
I would back nuclear and conversion gas, both of which are very clean air, and drilling on public lands.
J
Viable renewables exist right now, and the price is dropping every year. So how can you say they are further away that fusion?
Yeah, I don't think that coal gasification should be a real part of our toolkit. It'll have its time and place, but I don't think that scaling it up to meet our liquid fuel needs is all that wise. GHG concerns aside, coal is a pretty inefficient and ecologically risky fuel source
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
No they dont. We apply more fossil fuels, in the form of diesel and fertilizer, than we get out. Only taxpayer subsidies make them close to cost effective. Viable renewable energy sources are a LONG way off. Ethanol and bio-diesel are all show and no substance.
They are also quite "clean air" dirty. If they were not given exemptions, we could not use them for that reason. They are not making the problem better, they make it worse.
Why not? Methane is clean air clean and we have huge reserves of the raw materials. The technology is mature and easily adaptable to underdeveloped situations. The improvement in air quality for, say, Iran or China would be huge.
J
Read the article. Alternative energy is commercially viable now, and the price is continuously dropping. It's not a future thing, it is already been done. If we began the conversion now, you would spend less on energy over the course of the rest of your life.
I'm distinguishing between coal and methane. I'll not disagree that methane has great potential to be a reasonably clean source of energy, since it can be removed via drilling pipes; I'd pick it as a stepping stone anyday. Coal needs to be scooped out manually, and a tremendous amount of coal is only a simple thin layer under the crust, so scooping it out requires displacing surface materials.
KmDubya
King
Modern coal mining strips and stockpiles the top soil to use to reclaim an area that has already been mined. They then strip the next area and use that to reclaim the area they just left. Everything gets reclaimed and there is no damage. You can't hurt the top soil by picking it up and moving it to another place. The revegetation makes the area better than it was before. It has been more than a generation since unregulated strip mining was allowed and was the norm.
