A cleaner future!

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Private industry survives just fine... untill the federal goverment starts to intervene.

In the long run this bill will be a job killer not a job creator.

A bill that is weak as hell gives over a decade to implement (Which would be easy even without algae tech) And is already full of amendment to protect the status of big energy.

Ya a big yawn from me on that one. You see tech is moving on and if anyone cant reduce by 20 percent by a whopping 10 years they are just lazy.

Ya all that child labor was keeping private industry alive until that darn fed gov came in and stopped that eh?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

Ya all that child labor was keeping private industry alive until that darn fed gov came in and stopped that eh?

Hey, industry can be a fine shepherd of the environment without pesky government involvement. Here's a picture of the beautiful Cuyahoga River as proof:

[AVGWarhawk]

Mookie and Zach are correct here. Industry needs to be watched. Let's start with Love Canal and go from there:

http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/lovecanal/01.htm

[NeonSamurai]

The love canal event is nothing compared to whats going on in a lot of third and second world countries at this moment in time (or what went on in the past). Industry needs to be closely watched and regulated globally, and hit hard over the head when it's bad.


As for the topic, we shall see. I am reluctant to blindly accept new technology as being a miracle cure all. It has in the past often claimed that, and proven not to be so (or worse the exact opposite). I can see plenty of possibilities for disaster with the algae mentioned if its bio-engineered and gets loose. Our 'genius' is often greatly out done by our foolishness and arrogance.

[CaptainHaplo]

Zachstar.... I want you to make sure your sitting down.

For once, we actually agree on something. At least, in the "big picture". Your absolutely right in that a catastrophic collapse would cause unimaginable damage to the ecology. A return to "simple living" would be anything but, because between that section of humanity that COULDN'T survive in such a situation, and the mass of "consumers" that nature would be forced to support in a MUCH less "ecological friendly" way that it does now, would devastate the environment as we know it.

I also agree that we, as a country, should be leading the way in finding responsible ways to meet our needs while moving away from petroleum.

The problem isn't your party, or any of the other parties. The problem is the POWER PEOPLE in the parties. Almost all of them are, in one way or the other, more inclined to keep the status quo, because that protects their personal power.

Our electrical needs could be met easily with nuke power alone. In addition, a nuke plant is ideally suited to provide the power (and heat) necessary to produce hydrogen. One study indicated a modern nuke plant dedicated to hydrogen production would have an output equal to 400,000 gallons of gasoline - PER DAY! That's ONE plant.Move to hydrogen fuel cells for POV's and you have cut a huge amount of pollution out of our economy.

Now, nuclear plants emit NO carbon - thats right, we are talking ZERO emissions here. However, they do have one drawback - the "waste".

But there is an answer. Right now, when the fuel is "spent", its hauled to Yucca and buried - but the bugger is that the fuel still has 95% of its energy UNUSED! This is bad for the environment because your storing this crud in the earth, not to mention you are creating waste when you should be using as much of that stored energy as you can! Dr. Claudio Filippone has already developed and demonstrated how his project - called CAESAR (or Clean And Environmentally Safe Advanced Reactor) can create "ultra-spent" remnants from regular (non-enriched) Uranium while creating electricity. This solves the problem of "breeder" reactors which create weapons grade waste and thus are huge problems. Existing reactors need ENRICHED uranium - which then creates proliferation problems. CAESAR uses non-enriched fuel (once started) so its resultant "leftovers" are tremendously less harmful.

Proliferation concerns resolved, waste concerns resolved, ecological concerns resolved, and it moves us further toward being able to actually ACCESS other clean fuel sources that will continue to wean us off petroleum.

Its not pie in the sky wind farms, its not a Biomass farm that would have to be the size of Iowa 10 times over to meet our current energy needs. Its here, workable, safe and clean.

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

The love canal event is nothing compared to whats going on in a lot of third and second world countries at this moment in time (or what went on in the past). Industry needs to be closely watched and regulated globally, and hit hard over the head when it's bad.


As for the topic, we shall see. I am reluctant to blindly accept new technology as being a miracle cure all. It has in the past often claimed that, and proven not to be so (or worse the exact opposite). I can see plenty of possibilities for disaster with the algae mentioned if its bio-engineered and gets loose. Our 'genius' is often greatly out done by our foolishness and arrogance.

Its not a miracle cure all. Fuel prices for transportation will still be at or near today's levels but it is OUR fuel for once. Not some countries that will use proceeds to fund terrorism.

Very few algae companies dare to touch genetic modification. It gets your company blacklisted in a bunch of nations and ruins your PR. Most just test boatloads of wild algae and find types that fit needs. No need for expensive modification. There are gazillions of breeds of algae.

[Zachstar]

CH I support the theory of fission power and how its safe operation provides boatloads of clean energy. However the political games both sides of the issue play make it impossible for mass deployment ala france.

Things are not suddenly going to change for fission politics. NIMBY is EVERYWHERE. Requests for land will be at once attacked with multiple lawsuits and demands of extremely lengthy environmental studies that are disputed time and again. And even if they get the land for some reason costs keep rising unexpectedly. To the point where investigations are being started...

All and all its a nogo in my opinion. Fusion stands a much better chance but for now I am focusing on fuel and waste level issues.

[baggygreen]

Zach,

I reckon I'm in what you'd class as the 'denier' category, though I'd like to clarify I don't deny the climate is changing - I just have doubts on our influence on that, and especially the proposed fixes, like your Cap and Trade scheme, or our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme

You've made mention of CO2 in your wall of text.

How does Gore's admission this week to Newsweek that CO2 is not actually the driving force behind alleged AGW impact on your argument?

FWIW, I agree with you completely on fusion and on the need to find greener tech. I'm just very cranky that down under, our baseload will be provided by wind and solar, with a few "clean coal" plants thrown in. 2 power sources providing baseload power to our country, completely at the whim of the weather. how irresponsible is that!