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Alternative Energy Sources


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#261 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 03:32 AM

^ ^ oh I agree. but it’s hard to believe the enviro crowd is into tree cutting in any form. but you are right there’s Sierra club right up there.

#262 exc911ence

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 09:33 AM

Lots of humans dying every day... since we're not producing Soylent Green yet, perhaps corpses would make a great biomass for burning for energy.

 

Anyone else having nightmares after watching those animals going into the grinder? Absolutely brutal.  :(



#263 rjag

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 11:09 AM

https://fee.org/arti.../#disqus_thread

 

I posted this before but in light of the Doc the data here makes more sense...heres the first 3...but read the rest, its shocking

 

 
Realities About the Scale of Energy Demand

1. Hydrocarbons supply over 80 percent of world energy: If all that were in the form of oil, the barrels would line up from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, and that entire line would grow by the height of the Washington Monument every week.

2. The small two-percentage-point decline in the hydrocarbon share of world energy use entailed over $2 trillion in cumulative global spending on alternatives over that period; solar and wind today supply less than two percent of the global energy.

3. When the world’s four billion poor people increase energy use to just one-third of Europe’s per capita level, global demand rises by an amount equal to twice America’s total consumption.

 



#264 Mike K.

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 11:53 AM

It all started with creating the fear that we would hit peak oil (or had already! Dun dun dunnnnn...) by the late 90s or early 2000s, but by 2020 for certain (cross your heart hope to die).

I remember the videos teachers would bombard us with, showing how terrible the world would become as we used up oil to power our cars, heat our homes, manufacture our goods, and how the human condition would be forced back to pre-industrial living. Food shortages, rampant crime, production reserved solely for the wealthy... but wait! These videos would inevitably end with “...but if we recycle, we just might save the world, and wind turbines and solar panels just might, they just might work, too! But we’ll need your help, kids! We need you to convince your parents this is the only way.”

It’s the year 2020 and the world has so much oil we can’t use it up fast enough.

So if you want an example of manipulation, lies and societal conditioning there’s just one. And it began in the 90s, only to collapse 25 years later.

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#265 rjag

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 12:20 PM

Small scale nuclear and hydro would more than be enough for our standard energy needs for buildings and linked transport ie trains and trams. There just isnt enough mining capacity to convert the global fleet to EV

 

The enviros heads are exploding in damage control on twitter...its kind of funny if it wasnt for the realization of the hundreds of billions of $ diverted from critical infrastructure


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#266 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 01:21 PM

Climate Activists Want Michael Moore’s Doc Panning Green Energy Banned, Say It’s Chock Full Of Misinformation

https://dailycaller....green-new-deal/

 

 

 

GOLDSTEIN: Michael Moore's new film skewers green energy

https://torontosun.c...rs-green-energy

 

 

 

Michael Moore’s new film is a bullshit look at clean energy. Why?

https://redgreenandb...k-clean-energy/

 

 

 

 

Michael Moore's Right Hook Bashes Environmental Left

https://www.newsmax....4/27/id/964774/

 

 

 

 

 

The left wants to cancel documentary darling Michael Moore

https://thepostmille...g-michael-moore

 

 

 

here's a short critical version of the best clips:  https://youtu.be/IzQxaUVtmUA


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 27 April 2020 - 01:25 PM.


#267 Kapten Kapsell

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 03:39 PM

It all started with creating the fear that we would hit peak oil (or had already! Dun dun dunnnnn...) by the late 90s or early 2000s, but by 2020 for certain (cross your heart hope to die).

I remember the videos teachers would bombard us with, showing how terrible the world would become as we used up oil to power our cars, heat our homes, manufacture our goods, and how the human condition would be forced back to pre-industrial living. Food shortages, rampant crime, production reserved solely for the wealthy... but wait! These videos would inevitably end with “...but if we recycle, we just might save the world, and wind turbines and solar panels just might, they just might work, too! But we’ll need your help, kids! We need you to convince your parents this is the only way.”

It’s the year 2020 and the world has so much oil we can’t use it up fast enough.

So if you want an example of manipulation, lies and societal conditioning there’s just one. And it began in the 90s, only to collapse 25 years later.

To be fair, most of the peak oil predictions were based on *conventional oil* peaking, i.e. the stuff that's relatively easy to get out of the ground.  This wasn't just a view of environmentalists; it was also the view of Jeff Rubin, the former CIBC economist, as well as others (including some governments of oil-producing nations and people in the oil industry itself).  Conventional oil production is past its peak in Canada, and it peaked in the US by the early 1970s; on a global basis, conventional oil production peaked over a decade ago.  

 

I don't think that there was purposeful manipulation going on; had it not been for technological improvements- especially on the fracking front- we probably would be in a state of overall production decline.  Several big conventional fields like those in the North Sea probably have less than a decade left in them.  A lot of the early predictions on peak oil simply didn't take the fracking boom into account.  Texas (the American state where I grew up) was actually in a state of production decline until improved fracking technology arrived in the 2000s; now, the Permian basin produces more oil (nearly all of it shale oil) than Canada's entire output.  But the Permian fields had been in decline until they figured out how to extract oil out of the rocks there; production hit a low point in 2006/2007 and then started to increase to where, by 2018, they were producing over 3 times more oil than a decade earlier (see https://www.rrc.stat...nts-since-1935/ ).

 

So, in conclusion, I don't think that those predicting peak oil production were trying to deceive anyone; I just think that they (and many others) didn't foresee the consequences of the fracking boom, which ended over four decades of the US being a net oil importer and transformed it into a net exporter ...


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#268 Mike K.

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 07:44 PM

Fracking has been around since the 1800s, so more or less from the dawn of the oil age.

It didn’t become popularized until oil prices rose high enough to make it a viable form of mass extraction, and that didn’t occur until after 9/11.

The peak oil prophets knew full well about fracking, and they also knew that rising oil prices would lead to extraction innovation, hence the fear campaign.

The history of fracking is actually quite interesting and the more you read up on it the more you realize how disingenuous the peak oil fearmongers were.

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#269 Kapten Kapsell

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 09:05 PM

There was a major innovation, though, in the early 1990s with horizontal drilling: that was when computerized monitoring became advanced enough that you could monitor what was happening in the rock in real time. Furthermore, steerable motors also improved substantially in this time. Then, in 1997, Mitchell Energy came up with a an effective, low cost fracking fluid mix that produced more results at a lower cost.

So although fracking was known since the late 19th century, and horizontal drilling dates to the 1940s, there were definite technical shifts in the late 20th century that helped make the whole enterprise financially viable in the 21st. Furthermore, these innovations later increased the recovery rate at fields like Permian.

Accurate forecasts of recoverable barrels weren’t even available for some major production sites in the US (like Eagle Ford in TX) until the early 2010s. Thus, in hindsight I can see how people could have made mistakes in estimating recoverable oil; even PhDs working for various national governments got it wrong.
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#270 Mike K.

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Posted 28 April 2020 - 06:22 AM

Oh yeah, “got it wrong” seems to be just about the only truth when it comes to energy mystics and their claims. I tell ya, if I was a scientist of the 90s pumping out peak oil rhetoric and I wasn’t keeping tabs on what the fracking industry was doing (especially since the 70s when the Ford government said it expects fracking to begin decreasing America’s oil imports) I’d be questioning whether my work was as honest as it ought to be.

And don’t get me started on abiotic oil theory! I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years from now we learn oil isn’t made of dinosaurs but is actually a by-product of processes occurring below the mantle. :)

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#271 rjag

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Posted 28 April 2020 - 07:05 AM

I wouldn't expect the Govt or even experts in the field to get it right. I'm sure they all run multiple scenarios for many things and conclude with wide ranges of options. 

 

Heck look at Covid19 only a handful of Govts got it even close to right. 

 

Few acquaintances are ADM's and DM's and they were always having to prepare 3 likely scenario briefing positions for Ministers. Action in 1 direction, Do nothing and Action in a different direction. This is no different.

 

Rubin tried to cash in personally on his fearmongering and I think it backfired...after his book he faded away into obscurity and is only trotted ouut now and again


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#272 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 May 2020 - 04:49 AM

Solar Cities investigates the solar potential of cities in three dimensions, below and beyond the rooftop.

 

http://senseable.mit.edu/solar-cities/



#273 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 May 2020 - 04:50 AM

If anyone was foolish enough to actually think that human technology had the planet's natural forces safely under our control, the disruptive effect of COVID-19 has been only the latest reminder that it doesn't.

 

A main message of the new environmental documentary Planet of the Humans is that despite our powerful economic grip on the world — or more likely because of it — we have started a planetary tire fire that even our greenest leaders seem unable to cool.

 

To say the movie, backed by rabble-rousing filmmaker Michael Moore and made by his longtime associate Jeff Gibbs, is controversial is an understatement.

 

Offering it free on the internet during the COVID-19 lockdown has helped attract more than 4.6 million views since the film's Earth Day release last week.

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...omics-1.5549693


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 May 2020 - 04:51 AM.


#274 rjag

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Posted 03 May 2020 - 06:45 PM

https://reneweconomy...projects-82078/

 

 

Greek-based international contracting group and renewable energy developer Ellaktor is quitting the Australian solar market after posting huge losses from its construction portfolio that is spread across half a dozen projects in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

 

 

Waiting for Elizabeth May to blame Michael Moore


Edited by rjag, 03 May 2020 - 06:45 PM.


#275 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 10 July 2020 - 03:52 AM

The other technique, axis tracking, is essentially following the sun. Using motors (or even simpler, non-electronic methods), panels will tilt for maximum sun exposure. 

 

"Single-axis trackers are commonly used to rotate the module from east to west," said Rodríguez Gallegos, "Dual-axis trackers have two axes of rotation and therefore, in principle, have the potential to rotate to any desired angle." 

 

Dual-axis trackers come in handy during times of the year when the sun is in a different position. With that added complexity, they are more expensive than single-axis trackers.

 

Rodríguez Gallegos's analysis suggested one particular combo was the most cost-effective. 

 

"We found that bifacial solar panels combined with [single] axis trackers produce, on average, close to 35 per cent more energy [than standard fixed panels] and reduce the cost of electricity, on average, by 16 per cent."

 

This is a huge shift, considering these are tweaks to a system rather than a massive leap in material efficiency, which would undoubtedly raise the overall price.

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...-axis-1.5643798


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 10 July 2020 - 03:52 AM.


#276 spanky123

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Posted 10 July 2020 - 07:44 AM

I would love to see an alternative energy solution that made economic sense for the individual. I have been waiting 30 years though and there still isn't one. The ROI on solar has been 8 years for as long as I can remember yet everyone who goes that route never seems to be able to realize it.



#277 Mike K.

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Posted 10 July 2020 - 07:49 AM

Everyone who goes that route quietly stops talking about their ROI.
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#278 North Shore

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Posted 10 July 2020 - 10:26 AM

One wonders what the ROI is on, say, the transmountain project?


Say, what's that mountain goat doing up here in the mist?

#279 Mike K.

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Posted 10 July 2020 - 10:27 AM

Billions in annual revenues for Canada, to start.

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#280 Tom Braybrook

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Posted 23 July 2020 - 10:19 PM

Everyone who goes that route quietly stops talking about their ROI.

if a system costs $13,000 to install, and i am saving $600 a year by getting no Hydro bill AND they cut me a cheque for $150 each year for surplus power they buy back from me...what is my ROI?



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