[quote]angry chicken wrote:
I was a principle in a renewable energy company a few years back. We sold solar and solar thermal products to upper class people in the DC area. My partners (against my better judgement) based much of their business model on the availability of gov’t subsidies (solar tax credits, grants, etc…). Well, the state and local governments “ran out of funding” after a few months (surprise surprise, right? LOL). With out the subsidies, the savings “math” went right out the window. The ROI for anyone who was actually trying to save money (as opposed to paying for the privilege of saying "look at meeee! I’m GREEEEEEN!) simply wasn’t there.
The second issue that we started facing after a few months was the data coming back from our customers. The products we were selling simply were NOT performing as well as we were told they would by the manufacturer. Even including factors such as controlling for latitude and season, the projections were WAY off.
So the gov’t tried to push a technology that wasn’t ready and people got screwed… Imagine that.
FTR, I sold my stake in that company to my partners (who were trying to buy me out anyway) for a nice profit and I got out just in time as the company eventually stalled. It was a good experience, though. I learned a lot about renewable energy and even more about how HARD it is going to be to get the American people on board with the idea. Frankly, selling “green” and “savings” was like pulling fucking teeth. People just weren’t ready to put their money where their “lofty ideals” are.
Ironically, I now work in the oil and gas industry. LOL
My perspective on domestic oil supply is optimistic. Companies like Mcmoran and Energy XXI are currently exploring ultra-deep, sub-salt wells that are 30,000+ feet down. That’s WAAAAAAY lower than the current wells that are running out in the shallower sections of the GOM. Here’s a link to some pretty cool projections: http://www.mcmoran.com/pdf/2012/013112.pdf
By coincidence, one of the very first jobs I did when I came down here was work on the Methanol Pump skid for the Davy Jones, serial number 1 - It had to pump methanol at a pressure of something like 25,000psi to get down to the necessary depth. It was pretty cool being involved with something like that. So basically, in the next couple of months, we’ll know if it really is feasible to go after the ultra-deep reserves with our current level of technology. From what I understand, and I’m no geologist, just from what I’m hearing others in the industry whisper about, is that there’s A LOT of good quality stuff down there at the 30,000+ level… So stay tuned to how that could impact things.
As for my opinion on nuclear energy, I’m pretty ignorant on the subject, so I’ll keep my mouth shut. I just know that when things go bad with that, they go VERY BAD.
Oh, and I agree with everything that Thunderbolt said - that’s a smart dude.
To elaborate on my position about energy security, I think that the way politicians are bending down and sucking the environmentalist cock is just shameful. IMHO, our involvement in the Middle East is so that we can “influence” and have a “presence in” countries that affect our oil supply. This, understandably, pisses them off. So now many of them want to kill us (and have succeeded at hitting us at home, causing a chain reaction of war and policies that have forever altered America, but I digress).
We have enough oil and gas reserves to support ourselves, but the environmental greenie weenies wont let us drill because it “MAY” damage the habitat of the yellow spotted rainbow pigeon. I guess PEOPLE dying in war in the Middle East and TSA making us take our shoes off at the airport after waiting three hours and frisking little kids is better than risking a few trees. Here’s a newsflash: Americans WILL NOT stop consuming. That energy HAS to come from somewhere. We have it at home, but lack the testicular fortitude to get it. So we’ll continue to fuck with those crazy muther fucker’s countries, continue to accidentally bomb their pet goats with our drone aircraft, and another generation of them will grow up hating us and trying to blow our asses up. WAY TO THINK IT THROUGH, you environmental greenie weenie FUCKS!!!
Fuck the yellow spotted rainbow pigeon, over time it will either evolve or become extinct anyway. Life is ALWAYS changing like that - you can’t save EVERY single wittle thing in the whole wide world.
That being said, I’m all for fuel efficiency and figuring out smarter ways to deal with emissions, but I think we are on deadly ground with our energy policy and our putting our national security and the lives of Americans in jeopardy to cater to the emotional and oftentimes uninformed whims of liberals.
DRILL BABY DRILL!!![/quote]
Are you referring to high volume hydrolytic fracking? This type of mining not only hurts the three toed purple poka-dotted tree frog but can have a negative impact on entire communities. Some of the fracking chemicals stay down in the rock which as far as is known doesn’t do much harm since it’s so deep and about 75% comes back up, but that natural gas can contaminate and pollute drinking water. There’s been reports of water facets catching on fire near fracking wells. Not to mention, there hasn’t been a whole lot of research on this type of drilling. And the estimates on how much gas there is in shale are widely variable. It’s because it’s a relatively new technique.
Even in conventional mining, the well casing can become damaged or just not be implemented correctly and contamination at layers closer to the surface that include groundwater used by communities can be contaminated.
I’m not saying the technique should never ever be used, but I do find it reasonable to do more research on the method and then decide where the best places and conditions and ways to mitigate environmental damage will be.
And on an unrelated note, I’m big time pro nuclear. The plant in Japan was based off of 70s technology and the most modern American nuclear plants are more advanced and a lot safer. I don’t remember what exactly went wrong, but when I looked at the info before, I felt there were not enough systems of reduduncy at that plant.
Now people were hurt by that nuclear incident, but think of how many people get hurt my oil and coal. You have the miners who are risk. Not to mention, riskier to large communities are the refineries and chemicals needed for that. More people have been hurt by coal and oil since nuclear energy’s introduction to power grids than by nuclear energy.
A strong example of a country that has taken full advantage of nuclear energy is France. 80% of their grid is run by nuclear.
Keep in mind that wind power has it’s environmental disadvantages. Of coure, you need a lot of wind. It can harm migrating birds. It takes vast tracts of land to add any appreciable energy. Not to say it shouldn’t be used, but the limitations should be kept in mind.
Solar is expensive as it is, but it’s also improving and even now there are good places to use it.
We’ve pretty much done all the major hydroelectric projects that we can do so we can’t do a whole lot more there.
As far as vehicles go. I’m not a fan of hydrogen fuel cells until our grid is based off of cleaner sources. It takes power to get the hydrogen and that power comes from the grid and as long as that grid is mostly from dirty energy, that hydrogen is going to be ‘dirty’ too.
As far as a long time strategy, I think the best we can do is allow more mines and drilling in the mean time to build revenue and energy for development of cleaner energy. I think for now, that we should look at all options and continue to research and implement greener sources of energy.