ya cause nuclear reactors never went to hell...

just like nuclear weapons, no one on earth should touch them imo. isnt it somthing like 3 nukes go off in a certain time frame and the world goes into fallout?
the same can happen with a big enough natural disaster. radition is not something to toy with. look how fucked up japan was after just 2 atomic bombs. deformed babys for 2 generations, huge spike in cancer / tumors.... not worth it imo.

What is wrong with the first thing you quoted? Scientifically speaking, we should always be upgrading our systems for the most efficient, but money (which should be non-existant in the first place) holds everything back.
It's a thought experiment since oil is still thought to be plentiful and a reliable resource, and soon, that'll be proven wrong. and since we did nothing about we're going to have a hell of a time converting.
also, nuclear plants shouldn't even be touched. I am highly against these, and again, they require INPUT to put output.

and about the time? sure we don't have great solar power yet, and that is again, it is held back by the monetary system.
If we put more money into the research and development we would see great improvements

another example of misplaced money
terrorism kills less people in the united states than peanuts a year, yet we spend $5+ billion on it.
What about the leading death causes in the united states? Heart Disease. about $4 million.
The monetary system is flawed, and the sooner people realize this the better.

Are you serious? Okay, go through your house, write down every electrical thing you have in your home, from the refridgerator to your tvs to your toaster to your stove (if electric), oven, heater, computers, cell phone charger, lights, lamps, sockets, everything. Now, once that is done, contact an electrician and ask them to price out how much it would cost to replace the wiring in your home with a 100% DC compatible system. Now, total up all your items and what it'd cost to replace them with a DC version. Total your amount.

Now, do this for everyone in America.

I can't even seriously believe you don't see the ridiculousness in that. Maybe if you're a college student with absolutely no assets or belongings, it would make sense, but for a vast majority of homeowners, this would be an impossibility (especially with todays economy!)

Note: It may be possible to purchase DC->AC converters for each home, but these will be costly up front, and a huge burden on both homeowners and the power companies, which is why it's not practical at the moment.

DC power is also more dangerous for various reasons, especially at the voltages required to run modern electrical equipment.

I'm in complete agreement that our government wastes a lot of money, and should be greatly downsized, so you're preaching to the choir on that one. I am speaking logistics and showing you how impractical these pipe dreams are for our nation.

Solar is a pretty nice way to supplement your individual power supply, but it's definitely not a long-term full time solution. In a lot of cities, because of the Federal, State and Local credits to green energy you can actually make back the cost of installing solar panels on your house pretty quickly (I have a family member who made the money back on his in less than a year because about 75% of the cost was paid for by various government entities).

In terms of solving the bigger problem though, it's incredibly naive to think that we can just get off of fossil fuels now. Even if we were to grant the (ridiculous) claim that we have enough available landmass in the desert to supply all of the United States with power, how are you going to transport it? The main bottleneck to electricity production now isn't the ability to create the power, it is the ability to move and store it. This is the reason why we don't build nuclear power plants extremely far away from population centers (that would make sense, right?)--the amount of power lost transmitting the electricity from the power plant to the final destination would be so great that it isn't worth the time to build it. Solar has an additional problem: you don't get solar power when it's cloudy. That means that in order to provide constant electricity you don't just need more efficient transmission mechanisms, you need battery technology capable of storing enough power to run entire cities for days. Ask an electrical engineer some time whether that's a realistic goal. They'll tell you that at best there are some promising ideas right now and, more likely, will just laugh.

The solution to the energy crisis is going to have to come from some fundamental innovation in either the storage, transmission, or production of electricity, and likely will require advances in all three. Until that happens, I honestly don't even see the point in trying to solve the bigger problem. It's just not feasible.

As for the Federal Reserve, I'll ask what I always ask. What do you propose replace it? The gold standard? The historical judgment on the effectiveness of that system is not particularly favorable.

This post was edited by darkfire on Apr 27 2011 11:54am

As far as green energy is concerned, many of the proposed systems are flawed and only a few useful. Tidal power seems like one of the better options, aswell as biogas. Geothermal is failing hard, even in volcanic environments. Solar is dependent on the sun shining, wind is dependent on wind blowing, it's too situational.

And I still hope the ITER yields good results, for nuclear fusion is one of my future dream solutions for the energy problem.

about the wind turbines, they are built so tall because they will catch the high alitude winds that are virtually constent.

and i dont understand why everyone still pushes so hard on nuclear, when there have been obvious problems, and no set saftey regs.

This post was edited by DViolent on Apr 27 2011 12:13pm

Read up on fusion, and you will understand my hopes.

I don't understand why you're ignoring that fact that this would be in a RESOURCE BASED ECONOMY. NO MONEY.
My main arguement is that the monetary system is holding this back and you're just helping me prove that.

I'd love to read your thesis on how our society would merge towards a resource based economy. I'm intrigued to read the compelling arguments you will give to persuade everyone to throw down the shackles of their cash and credit cards, and work on an honor system for a community of one. I'm also curious how you will stop certain people from hoarding resources to become more wealthy and powerful than others, thus resulting in more of the same that we have through any type of economy.

I'm speaking in practical terms, in the here and now. I wasn't aware you were basing your entire argument on a fictional utopia (which I would consider far worse than what we have now, for reasons I already stated).

One, the problem -would- be to get the government to start such a transition, but hopefully peak oil would open their minds.
Two, it would be based off of Intelligent Resource Management.
Three, can you really say the monetary system isn't more corrupt than a RBE?
The monetary system is so corrupt it's ridiculous, a RBE with a IRM could not possible be more corrupt than that.
A very small part of the population hold most of the wealth -.-