Have you ever researched what these do to the environment? You claim to care about the planet, but then you want to build huge dams which destroy the natural ecosystems that depend upon the normal flood cycles of the rivers, and even worse in some cases (humans), farmlands/farmers that depend upon it. You really think throwing up huge wind farms and solar panels taking the heat away from the earth itself won't have an effect at some certain threshold? Even large cities (buildings) alter weather/wind patterns.

Being "worse off" is subjective. Right now, there are no feasible alternatives that people are willing to support (eg, nuclear). The second there is an alternative that will pay for itself, energy companies will move to it in droves. You seriously think businesses will ignore sustainable, "free" energy that they can charge you for? Think again.

There are many reasons oil production is dropping, such as bans on offshore drilling (including a recent ban in Alaska, that will cut 27B barrels/year of oil out of our supply). This has little to do with actual supply, however.

about the dams i should have been more clear, from what i've read, you could put bout 5-6 more dams on rivers in the US with out affecting to much wildlife.

your defense against wind is it will mess with the wind patterns? ....

and i think ppl for got about BP spill a little to early. and i seriously herd a senitor say " the oil has all disapeared from the gulf" are you fucking kidding me? scientist are still finding small "binds" of oil on the sea floor thats messing up that eco system, but hey its oil, who cares what gets hurt for oil!

all i'm gettin at is oil is not goin to last forever, and yes, i do believe there are better ways out there and i do believe alot of rich ppl are holding the ideas back to make a profit. then once they can make a bigger profit of the new idea, they will start it but probably goin to be to late.

fact is if we started now, we will finish earlier. if we wait now, it will take longer to get the renewable resources going, thus putting our grandkids' kids'kids' kids in a hell of a lot worse place then they need to be.

About BP and the oil spill, did you know that salt water naturally breaks down oil? No cleanup required. Check into it.

I agree it is not feasible at today's efficiency but 2020 isn't very far away.

2. Wait for more efficiency to improve. Green is getting a lot more popular than it has been in the past 20 years and it just needs to improve. Tidal, wind, and geothermal is also getting a lot cheaper as more research is done so even if it isn't by 2020 it's going to happen soon.

3. Even if it only works at 50% efficiency that is still only about 400k miles. A far cry from the 3.7 million square miles you posted. I agree that it will take a lot to power the united states without coal or oil but simply stating that it isn't feasible because of that doesn't work. At one point we didn't have any coal power plants but they were built. It will just take an initial investment.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Apr 27 2011 08:30am

deluting* isnt the same has cleaning tho is it?

And that's the entire point here. Business is ignoring it, because it is not yet beneficial. To make it beneficial, governments subsidize it, but not everyone agrees on these subsidies. Which is a shame, because at some time the other sources of energy will be depleted.

A lot more time and money has to be put into the research of these 'green' methods to produce energy. I do not think that this is the US has to do this on it's own and I even believe (call me a euro*** if you like) that Europe is ahead in this. Perhaps it would be beneficial for the US to look into the methods that will be used there.

Windfarms can be built in the ocean (shoreline, is that what it's called?) as well. France, the Netherlands and Belgium have plans for that already. Just giving my two cents here, but I believe that you shouldn't oppose these ideas too much, because within 'reasonable time' (read: 50 years) probably a lot will be changed.

Change is not necessarily a bad thing, but many people are reluctant to change. If you want to have a 'healthier place to live' and to have 'energy for your offspring', you should really think outside of the box.

(Even though I quoted you njaguar, it's a reply in general)

Even before the BP spill the Gulf of Mexico was a toxic sewer garnering a rating of only 71 /100 for purity .

One year after the spill the rating is back in the high 60's .

This argument is for today. It makes no sense to pay for todays technology. It is not efficient.

3) Wrong, do the math, and 50% is also unrealistic.

92 Square Miles of Solar Panels Could Power the USA - thats from 07

http://digg.com/news/science/92_Square_Miles_of_Solar_Panels_Could_Power_the_USA

i know this is a re-post and sry but i feel like the numbers are jumping around ... so why is this 92 square miles wrong?

From the article:
"Despite the optimistic results of their calculations, they warn that a plan like this requires a complete revamping of the current electric infrastructure. The country's AC grid would have to be converted to High Voltage DC in order to decrease transmission loss from 50% to around 3% while moving the power from the sunny Southwest to the power-hungry North East. Miles says this would be a huge undertaking that would help move the country from "capital-intensive fossil fuel plants that need to run 24/7" to "electricity created by people's and the economy's daily rhythm," which solar and wind energy follows closely.

In the meantime, Ausra plans to develop a 175-megawatt solar power plant with their solar storage technology, hitting the market mid-2009. We're inclined to think that the proposal is more of a thought experiment, and while it's an exciting one, we don't see the US grid switching to DC....ever. But while the South West's abundant sunshine is certainly a resource to be tapped, I'm pretty sure a more distributed system will be best in the end anyhow,"

You are aware that our entire electrical infrastructure is built on AC power, right? Yes, there are converters, but all the equipment in your house runs on AC, from your computer to your refrigerator to your tv. I also am not seeing any numbers to support his calculations, whereas I provided mine, with resources and formulas. In other words, you're comparing apples to oranges.

In order to do this TODAY with current technology, it would require arrays larger than the USA in size. See my calculations. If you don't like the results, do the math yourself, and post results with the formulas and documented numbers, and how you arrived at your conclusion. Please also include not only sheer size involved, but the amount of materials involved (panels), and if possible, an estimated cost (as I also provided).

Good intentions don't override reality, sorry, try again.

An interesting aside is the history (and some say conspiracy) regarding AC vs. DC electricity.

edit:
If we went to nuclear power, we could do it by building about 400-450 more reactors: (probably less if you consider more modern higher efficiency facilities)
"As of 2008, nuclear power in the United States is provided by 104 commercial reactors (69 pressurized water reactors and 35 boiling water reactors) licensed to operate at 65 nuclear power plants, producing a total of 806.2 TWh of electricity, which was 19.6% of the nation's total electric energy generation in 2008.[1] The United States is the world's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States