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19 Comments
- L0NER, on 10/10/2009, -0/+9So I just got a letter in the mail that I can buy all my power from a wind farm for 11 cents per kilowatt hour.
Right now I pay 6 cents per kilowatt hour.
during peak usage my rates go to 10 cents per kilowatt hour...
Want to save the earth.
Also don't want to be broker than I currently am. - stephhicks68, on 10/10/2009, -2/+7Great news about solar!
- oli4uk, on 10/10/2009, -0/+4Yep planet has been getting consistently colder, and overall ice coverage has been growing the world over, for the past ten years, of course this is steadfastly ignored by many green groups.
While I have hopes for a cleaner greener future, this has nothing to global warming, and more to do with things such as the pollution killing the great barrier reef, (Increasing because of high tech chemical pollutants, created by construction of items such as, erm, solar panels.), The current world food crisis being overlooked by governments, who gave subsidies on ethanol fuel (At last count over 20% of the worlds food based farms have converted to ethanol creation, many of those in the areas which are at most in need of food) and an economic crisis, which lets face it, has not been helped by an ever increasing number of 'green' taxes, rebates and other red tape. - bcronos, on 10/10/2009, -0/+4Nuclear works at night too.
- hereticoftruth, on 10/10/2009, -0/+3Solar energy absorption in the atmosphere is mainly in the high energy ultraviolet portion of the spectrum. CO2 absorbs most efficiently in two narrow low energy infrared portions of the spectrum, contributing very little to total atmospheric solar energy absorption. Water vapor alone absorbs 20 times more total solar energy than CO2. The main factor affecting total solar energy absorption in the atmosphere is solar activity. Solar minimums like we are in now don't heat up the atmosphere as much as it does in normal times because there is less ultraviolet light produced to be absorbed by the atmosphere. However, the total energy absorption of land and water surfaces has increased dramatically. That is the main cause of global warming and unless that problem is addressed first, all other efforts are just a drop in the bucket. Worrying about CO2 gives the appearance of doing something while accomplishing nothing. Far more would be accomplished by planting more forests and grasslands than than all the cost ineffective carbon sequestering technologies combined. Another suggestion concerning solar panels: make them reflective in the frequencies not used to absorb solar energy.
- lexpattison, on 10/10/2009, -0/+3The infrastructure for natural gas/petroleum and electricity was built through tax payer loans and subsidies to companies in exactly the same way. And your logic for material expense is a sunk cost included in the aforementioned subsidies... just like natural gas. I certainly am glad people like yourself didn't present the same type of fallacious opposition back when the previous infrastructure was being built - otherwise we'd all be burning wood in stoves still.
- inactive, on 10/10/2009, -1/+4".........a growing concern about the gases heating up the planet....."
Hellooooooo.....the planet hasn't been warming for 10 years! - Purplekat, on 10/10/2009, -1/+4I like how they put almost no emphasis at all on jobs created researching improved solar power, making solar panels, and installing them, doing maintenance, etc.
Part of the reason unemployment is so bad in this country is that people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new jobs that are taking shape in this economy. There was an article recently on Digg about how there are a lot of jobs that pay $60k a month and up that nobody can fill, and there's a chronic nursing shortage.
Barack Obama can create all of the green jobs that he wants, but it won't do any good if nobody's there to fill them. - Rasperin, on 10/10/2009, -0/+2Take a look at that research again, the hottest year we have had was 10 years ago, the hottest 10 years have been the last 10 years. Difference is, that particular date is cherry picked, while overall we do continue to heat up. Next time read a science article not what a newspaper puts out.
- inactive, on 10/10/2009, -2/+4solar is the way to go!
- Sexercise, on 10/10/2009, -0/+1Yes, and the more sun that gets through our degrading ozone, the more that will reflect off the surface as heat.
- partrow, on 10/10/2009, -3/+4So how again is it "outshining" natural gas?
The only way it is worthwhile currently is through the government (you) subsidizing it, just like wind power.
We all look forward to the day when solar, wind and any other renewable is cost effective, but it just is not there yet. Period.
It might feel good, or sound good, but it is not efficient enough yet to be cost effective.
Be sure to figure in the energy it costs to mine the raw materials to make the cells, collectors, windmills, wires, the cost of installation, etc.- all it takes to install, produce, collect and distribute, as well. - Ferretman, on 10/10/2009, -0/+1Couple of inaccurate statements here:
- The article on the $60K jobs did NOT blame people who had to be "dragged kicking and screaming" for the jobs going unfilled--the way you say it implies that people are refusing to look at "new jobs" out of spite or something. The jobs are unfilled because it's an issue of *training* and *skill*. A guy who's worked for 20-odd years in an auto parts factory might be able to install solar panels, and then again he might not--just don't know.
- There is indeed a chronic nursing shortage. Most folks I know in those programs are slow-rolling until they find out what happens with this supposed healthcare reform--if it passes they're bailing out to do something else.
Totally agree that creating jobs is different than filling them. - boyhowdy, on 10/10/2009, -0/+1The gas industry's line about how "Tougher state environmental regulations" have caused fewer drilling permits to be filed is (a) crap and (b) wouldn't affect current production if it were true.
A story about how renewable power sources are gaining comparative advantage: fine. Fabricating what that comparative advantage is: not fine.
Note to yahoo:
next time you run a story featuring the onerous burden of regulation, talk to someone whose financial interest isn't to distort the truth of the matter. - epSosDE, on 10/11/2009, -0/+1That is Awesome !
Also, I first read: "Solar power outshining Colorado's GAY industry"
WTF !?
I blame the racist, gay-phobic media propaganda for ucking with my innocent brain, because I had no visible problems to read the word GAS a year before.
Or maybe, the Gas is the new Gay. (gay as an adjective not a subject) - taylen24, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1solar ftw!!
- Purplekat, on 10/12/2009, -0/+1I -do- think that a lot of people are capable of re-training for new jobs but are refusing to do so, although obviously not out of spite. Most people don't like change. They've been doing the same thing for years, and making a drastic change is scary. There is no reason that someone who's been building cars for 20 years can't learn to do something new. Old people, last time I checked, aren't idiots.
My point is that we as a country are so focused on making things go back to the way they were that we're sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to accept that -the world has changed-. It's only just recently that some politicians in really hard-hit areas like Michigan are getting up the courage to say that the jobs are gone, and they're not coming back -- and they're taking heat for it.
We can't figure out where to take this country to make it thrive in the changing world if we don't let go of what it was 100 years ago. - marc123, on 10/10/2009, -1/+1thats quite some claim to make. can you elaborate on that. got a feeling there's a lot of assumptions inherent to it.
- hereticoftruth, on 10/10/2009, -4/+3I am glad that they are advancing in solar but actually solar energy absorption on land contributes far more than what CO2 alone contributes to global warming. Understand the real energy path in global warming so you will KNOW what to do about it.
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