How T. Boone Pickens' Energy Plan Just Got Killed

[medicineman]

Just pay us and we'll accept it, it's like 90 Miles from Vegas. The main opposition is transport through Vegas. If every man, woman, and child got a few hundred bucks for storing it, They could drive it down the strip, i'm pretty sure. There are routes through Henderson and out through Parumph that avoid the main population centers, especially after they finish the new bridge accross the black canyon gorge.

 

[Seamaiden]

I figure it could also light up the strip, too.

 

[TheBrutalTruth]

Natural gas will just end up running out someday as well. How about we get more wind/solar hybrid energy going on. At least that doesn't pollute and I really don't see us running out of wind or solar.

Tidal is better, and if we must go Solar, Solar Power Satellites are a better alternative than the waste of land that land based Solar is.

There's also Fusion, which is a much better alternative than any of the above.

 

[misshestermoffitt]

I want to go with a solar/wind hybrid for my home. It's what I'm looking into anyway. It's not likely that there will be a day with no sun and no wind. That would make an electric car more worth being bought.

Electric isn't a good option right now, our electric company and our gas company (they're the same people but it's 2 different bills to pay) just raised everyones rates last year by half, citing that their executives only make 7 million a year.

It is my goal to become independant of these things. I don't feel it is my responsability to make sure Ameren execs can afford a new yacht.

 

[TheBrutalTruth]

I want to go with a solar/wind hybrid for my home. It's what I'm looking into anyway. It's not likely that there will be a day with no sun and no wind. That would make an electric car more worth being bought.

Electric isn't a good option right now, our electric company and our gas company (they're the same people but it's 2 different bills to pay) just raised everyones rates last year by half, citing that their executives only make 7 million a year.

It is my goal to become independant of these things. I don't feel it is my responsability to make sure Ameren execs can afford a new yacht.

Let me know how that goes for you, when you are buying those solar panels (made by a corporation) and the wiring (made by another corporation) and all the other equipment (made by other corporations) and then paying for maintenance (either to some one working for a corporation, or to purchase materials manufactured by other corporations).

Sorry, couldn't resist a little jab at your statement you are going solar/wind because you don't want to help some execs afford a new yacht.

Personally, I hope that all works out for you. Personally, I'd probably be doing the same thing if all this "affordable" housing that's floating around wasn't so unaffordable.

 

[Bongulator]

I'd love to put in a 5kw wind turbine, or even two, but they violate my city's ordinances. Grr. Solar panels don't work for me very well either, just because of the positioning of the house. And the house is 100 years old, and not very efficient. Technology doesn't seem capable of doing much to make me any greener, so I did what I could by surrounding my house with food-bearing shrubs and trees.

If I outlive my significant other, I'm probably going to liquidate everything, sell this house, and move out to the sticks where I can more or less do whatever I want. Or I'll buy an RV and turn into a nomad. If I can afford it, I'll do both, and use the house in the sticks as my nomadic base camp. I want to see more of our country, appreciate it before we've completely turned it into a pile of plastic and garbage, even document it all, so people in the future can get a glimpse of what we had before we fucked it all up.

 

[TheBrutalTruth]

I'd love to put in a 5kw wind turbine, or even two, but they violate my city's ordinances. Grr. Solar panels don't work for me very well either, just because of the positioning of the house. And the house is 100 years old, and not very efficient. Technology doesn't seem capable of doing much to make me any greener, so I did what I could by surrounding my house with food-bearing shrubs and trees.

If I outlive my significant other, I'm probably going to liquidate everything, sell this house, and move out to the sticks where I can more or less do whatever I want. Or I'll buy an RV and turn into a nomad. If I can afford it, I'll do both, and use the house in the sticks as my nomadic base camp. I want to see more of our country, appreciate it before we've completely turned it into a pile of plastic and garbage, even document it all, so people in the future can get a glimpse of what we had before we fucked it all up.

Why don't you go and do that right now, it'll be great to hear from you in twenty years amazed at how much greener everything is, instead of hearing you continuing your ranting 20 years from now before embarking on that adventure.

 

[misshestermoffitt]

The thing is that I can pick who I want to purchase these items from. With the power and gas company they are the only choice, it's them or none.

Let me know how that goes for you, when you are buying those solar panels (made by a corporation) and the wiring (made by another corporation) and all the other equipment (made by other corporations) and then paying for maintenance (either to some one working for a corporation, or to purchase materials manufactured by other corporations).

Sorry, couldn't resist a little jab at your statement you are going solar/wind because you don't want to help some execs afford a new yacht.

Personally, I hope that all works out for you. Personally, I'd probably be doing the same thing if all this "affordable" housing that's floating around wasn't so unaffordable.

 

[******]

Well, Pickens himself, in his commercials, points out that the natural gas thing is to buy us time, while we work on other ways to reduce our reliance on enemy oil. (I don't want to say 'foreign oil', because I've got no real probs buying oil from Mexico, Canada, and Britain, at least in the short term.)

We should build about 500 new nuclear plants, and store our nuclear waste in Alaska, and convert our cars to primarily electric, and upgrade our electrical grid. If we hadn't just blown three or four trillion dollars racking up debt over Bush's two terms, we'd probably be able to afford to do all that. Alas, bad voter choices in the last two elections has probably doomed us to oil addiction for the foreseeable future, simply because we're now too broke to do much to help our situation.

5 trill ******

 

[******]

Wind and solar are unreliable. Wind only works when it's windy, and sun only works when it's sunny. Plus solar is 5x the cost of coal and wind is 2x the cost of coal. Hybrid cars are simply more efficient gasoline-powered cars.

Nuclear energy has the most potential though. We just need to convince people that living in the same state as a nuclear waste repository isn't dangerous.

5xs the corp welfare

 

[******]

Indeed. We also need to work on bringing down the cost of breeder reactors, which could turn nuclear waste into nuclear fuel, and then commercialize nuclear pyroprocessing. Pyroprocessing is an advanced nuclear waste reprocessing technology that has been demonstrated to work a lot better than the current ones they use. One of the main problems with current nuclear waste processing technology is the fact that it produces pure plutonium, which can be used by terrorists for nuclear warheads. Thus, the security costs are enormous. Pyroprocessing just spits out a bunch of mixed actinides, which are absolutely worthless for warhead use. Of course, I doubt there's a politician out there who even knows what pyroprocessing is, so I don't expect the government to take notice.

can we drive that stuff across arizona

 

[Doctor Pot]

5xs the corp welfare

For nuclear? Not really. It's paid for with all these surcharges on the power that it outputs. Keep in mind, the cost of fuel for a nuclear plant is practically nothing, so all the expenses are devoted to building, operating, and decommissioning the plants.

can we drive that stuff across arizona

Pyroprocessing is nice because it can be done in a much smaller facility. The idea is that each power plant would do its own pyroprocessing so the waste wouldn't have to be driven anywhere.