DIYbanter - View Single Post - Constitutionality of light bulb ban questioned - Environmental Protection Agency must be called for a broken bulb

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In alt.engineering.electrical HeyBub wrote:

| wrote:
| In alt.engineering.electrical Jeff Strickland
| wrote:
|
|
|
|
| There certainly will be environmentalists that will come up with
| something.
|
| As an environmentalists myself, I do object more to extending the
| drilling for oil. I'm in favor of building nuclear power plants
| (under certain conditions, such as stronger regulations and regular
| inspections, including by academic people, with public reports ...
| and they must also be built reasonably close to the areas of power
| demand, with consideration for risks like earthquakes, so the ones
| powering California might have to be built in Utah with some big DC
| feeders). I'm in favor of building solar farms (provided they are
| not built in such a way as to shadow natural needs for light ...
| desert spaces should be OK). I'm in favor of building wind farms.
|
| Wind farms and solar farms won't work and can't be made to work (except for
| limited applications). The amount of sunlight falling on the earth is about
| 700w/m^2. At the equator. At noon. With no clouds. Assuming 50% efficiency
| for solar conversion panels, and adjusting for latitude, weather, and
| nightfall, it would take a solar collector farm the size of the Los Angeles
| basin (~1200 sq miles) to supply power for California (peak 50gw). Not
| counting the cost to erect such a monster, consider the cost to maintain it.
| Plus, all of Los Angeles would be in the dark. Which, when one thinks on it,
| might not be such a bad idea...

I'm not expecting these energy sources to be the complete supply (at least
not for a few decades). But I do believe we need to build them, anyway,
to help supplement the carbon-extraction process we depend on now.

| My objection for oil and gas extraction in general (so my goal is to
| see less of it used, not more) is to avoid releasing more carbon that
| has been naturally sequestered. Also, known oil reserves won't last
| for too many more decades or centuries (pinning down the exact figure
| is hard, but it's definitely not going to last a thousand years at
| the rate we are growing in our use).
|
| What difference does it make if we release more carbon? At the current level
| of 0.003% of the atmosphere, a doubling would be virtually undetecable -
| except for plants who would say "Yum!"

You really think that?

| To the extent we can make the effort to reduce the need for oil/gas,
| then whatever else we do (drilling more reserves or not), it is that
| much less we end up depending on politically unstable or even
| criminal governments who
| are the current suppliers.
|
|
| It's like the Chicago cops and the gangsters: The cops need the gangster's
| payoffs and the gangsters need the cops to not make too many problems. We're
| at the mercy of the oil tyrants, but they need our money. It's a balance of
| terror.

Huh?

We don't want to depend on others for our oil. We do depend on them now and
it's a component of why we are at the mercy of their pricing. THEIR greatest
fear is that WE don't want their oil anymore.

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