On Mar 15, 8:37 pm, "Dan Luke" wrote:
"Dan" wrote:
There are enough coal and oil shale reserves in the US alone to
provide internal demand needs for 150-500 years

But they have serious environmental downsides, both in extraction and burning.

Solar energy may be harvested in several wayshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower. Wind power harvest is
experiencing rapid growth in the U. S., showing potential to be a serious
contributor to the national grid, increasinig ten-fold in ten years:

=================
In recent years, the United States has added more wind energy to its grid than
any other country; U.S. wind power capacity grew by 45% to 16.8 gigawatts in
2007.[34] Texas has become the largest wind energy producing state, surpassing
California. In 2007, the state expects to add 2 gigawatts to its existing
capacity of approximately 4.5 gigawatts. Iowa and Minnesota are expected to
each produce 1 gigawatt by late-2007.[35] Wind power generation in the U.S.
was up 31.8% in February, 2007 from February, 2006.[36] The average output of
one megawatt of wind power is equivalent to the average electricity
consumption of about 250 American households. According to the American Wind
Energy Association, wind will generate enough electricity in 2008 to power
just over 1% (4.5 million households) of total electricity in U.S., up from
less than 0.1% in 1999. U.S. Department of Energy studies have concluded wind
harvested in just three of the fifty U.S. states could provide enough
electricity to power the entire nation, and that offshore wind farms could do
the same job.[37]

-Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power

=================

These technologies need not be expected to replace fossil fuel power suddenly.
They can make incremental contributions, being integrated into the power
infrastructure as they come on line. That is happening now.

Additionally, they can be used to power desalination plants and even plants to
manufacture fuel directly from CO2 or hydrogen from water, thus removing their
chief drawbacks as power grid suppliers, their variable output.

http://www.technologyreview.com/read...ecialsections&...

http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/arti..._hydrogen.html

Alternative energy technologies are still being sorted out, but expensive oil
is giving them momentum that wasn't there ten years ago. This stuff will
work if we commit to it.

We don't have to keep taking all the **** we have over oil, throwing our
economy down a rathole in the process. All it takes is some leadership and
guts to stop it.

I think the market is the best incentive ever devised.

As the price per barrel increases, the incentive to replace increases
proportionally.

Government mandates only stifle and stagnate this process.

Thus we achieve two ends with the only downside felt by the Saudis,
Hugo Chavez, and a few other nasties.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Dan Mc