[XCSSA] Man Made Global Warming Consensus A Farce?

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

>
> On Jan 5, 2009, at 5:54 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio
> wrote:
>
>> Well, not really. Wind power is unreliable, it can't meet the
>> spikes in demand that exist as people use electricity. The only
>> plants that can come online quick enough to supply those spikes are
>> natural gas plants. Those aren't terribly efficient. If we really
>> wanted to provide a substantial amount of cheap power, we'd build
>> nuclear plants. Nuclear plants are safe, terribly efficient, and
>> produce huge amounts of power.
>
> Micro-nukes could be a really good thing... small, sealed,
> maintenance-free power plants located near the consumers of power.
> Can you imagine running a large data center off of one of those --
> completely off the grid? It's the ultimate UPS. (Want redundancy? Get
> two of them and sell the power from the second when both are
> running.) The only problem in San Antonio would be that they are
> normally buried in a 30 foot deep hole, and much of the city has
> limestone just a foot or two down, which is why there are so many
> quarries. However, the plants themselves cost enough that digging
> that big of a hole in the rock might be only a minor expense.

I am personally not a big fan of ubiquitous nuclear power since the question of
where to put the waste still isn't answered well for high volumes. If that one
issue is thoroughly answered where nuclear waste can be safely disposed of
without burying it in lead-lined containers for thousands of years, it'd be an
excellent answer to providing energy. I may have missed some development,
though, that takes care of that - enlighten us if there is such.

Dismissing alternate energy by saying wind power isn't 100% is almost like
saying a firewall isn't 100% so we shouldn't have security at all. I believe
there are layers of answers - geo-thermal, wind, solar, ocean wave, and
alternatives to coal among others. Right now, this is mostly supplemental power,
granted, but packing on layers of alternatives is a better answer than churning
out a bunch of radioactive waste.

It was either Greenland or Iceland that is now 100% fossil-fuel free except for
vehicles, and running cars on hydrogen is fast becoming a reality because they
are able to produce electricity with enough surplus to separate water. However,
they are fortunate because they have plenty of geo-thermal plants that make
their independence from fossil fuel feasible. The U.S. doesn't have near that
density but we sure have plenty of sunlight. Spain or Italy uses molten salt to
store thermal energy in their solar plants so they can still spin steam turbines
overnight and when there isn't enough sun. I heard there used to be such a plant
in the U.S. but it shut down for some reason, probably built over budget and
never became economically viable.

Having said that, I get bothered when the overwhelming theme in some of the
Earth shows dealing with environmental issues begin to suggest human life is the
problem to all of woes of this planet, as if the answer would be to quit
developing and move back to the dark ages.

Anyway...enjoy!
Tom King