Energy Article on Ars

Ars has a write up that IMHO clearly outlines the challenges placed before the United States if we want to meet the goals outlined by Al Gore's suggested 10 year Renewable Energy Policy.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080...ul-failure.html

Agree or Disagree with Al Gore, this article actually digs deeper into the problems with implementing a Renewable Energy network in the next 10 years to phase out fossil fuels.

I don't want to hear any Al bashing, but please feel free to post your thoughts on the article itself. Read the article. It's worth it.

Personally, as much as I wish things would change, the article is on the money that the heart of the problem is the US is frozen by the current energy crysis and has yet to provide any direction that would mobilize the markets to create renewable alternatives to fossil fuel. I think this is the real crux of the matter. The beaucracy has become so convoluted that we can't even put a bandaid on a bleeding artery.

Interesting article. I think the trouble people are having is they are seeing this huge green infrastructure to replace the current energy infrastructure we have slowly built over 100 years. This doesn't have to be the case, this can be done at the personal and business level without the need for government involvement. As for the case of "Nimby-ism" I have seen plenty fo cases where people have moved to be close to windmills because they like the green idea. That is not to say that there aren't plenty of people who don't want to see windmills, but it isn't as cut and dried as people make it out to be.

Fossil fuel is just that it is an extinct relic. We may be able to rely on it for 10-50-100 years, but it will end. The purpose of a 10 year timeline is to make people move in that direction. Governmental timelines never work they just get people to work in that direction (think digital tv, the switch was originally what 2005? )

The one thing Ars Missed in this article is that the claim is photovoltaic energy will get cheaper per kilowatt as time goes one. Granted there might be some market driven inflation of the parts, but it will trend toward getting cheaper to produce per kilowatt. Since it's many of same same components, imagine if kilowatts produced started to rise under the guise of Moores Law.

They did mention photovoltaic energy. If I remember correctly, they said the problem was even if the price per kilowatt dropped, but demand increase would keep prices inflated.