In article , Frank
wrote:

On 7/19/2011 7:20 PM, Malcom "Mal" Reynolds wrote:
In ,
wrote:

Nice, clean windmill sound nice but energy consumed in building them and
the need for back-up diesel generators are not considered.

do you think that the energy consumed in building any power plant is
considered?

It's just a guess, but if we actually did that I would imagine the balance
point would shift considerably towards all renewables

Of course. You have to do complete studies of all of the factors involved.

The green energy projects all depend on subsidies.

As do nukes and to some extent coal


Lot of them are
being sucked into Delaware and I strongly suspect when subsidies dry up, so
will the companies. The government is being snookered by them.

There is a new one with direct conversion of natural gas to electricity with
fuel cells. Opponents have pointed out that there are gas burning turbines
with the same efficiency that put out the same amount of carbon dioxide but
cost far less.

Probably the same argument was used on gas burning turbines when they were first
being used.

FWIW and I'm not suggesting this is practical in all cases, but when the price
comes down I could put a fuel cell in my back yard to generate my electrical
needs with less hoopla than I could with even a very efficient ICE/genset




Who do you trust more, engineers or politicians?

I certainly don't trust engineers with a vested interest in the outcome