The Natural Philosopher wrote lengthily:

A. Lurker wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote hastily:

Its more fairy dust mate. Forget it.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
Lord Kelvin, ca. 1895

There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable.
Albert Einstein, 1932.

"By 20202 the whole country will be running off renewable energy"

A stupid Green

No one ever said that.

Kelvin should have known better: birds which are heavier then air flying
machines already existed.

Birds are not made-made machines, which is what we are considering here.

However if he didn't know about the internal combustion engine, he as in fact quite correct.

He said something which turned out to be wrong; people do it all the time
- not least here on Usenet.

Without the internal combustion engine heavier than air flight was impossible.

Not so, as the Wright brothers demonstrated in 1903.

There was in 1932 no indication that nuclear energy was ever obtainable
and a year or so later every reason as the world tipped towards war,
that anyone who thought otherwise be sworn to extreme secrecy.

What has that to do with regard to an erroneous pronouncement?

These were of course NEW technologies. Nothing about wave or tidal poer
is new.

Wave and tidal power technology is not new? How far back can you find it?

The record of the warmists and renewable energy aficionados is so
riddled with false claims that there isn't time to list them all.

To put it in simple terms, we know how much energy is in the waves and
tides, and we know how much of that we can reasonably extract and we
know how much area of sea is needed to get a given amount of energy, and
we can calculate a minimum cost for the structures and technologies
required to extract it.

All these give minimum costs several times greater than even solar
panels and windmills and no possibility without even further costs of
massive dimensions of solving the intermittency/dispatch problem.

Neither is there any new technology that might change this.

You sound like someone who'd have told the atom-splitters that their work
was all very well but leading nowhere, and have scoffed at the pioneers of
flight for their contraptions.

You can live on dreams if you like. I prefer a bacon sarnie.

Einstein was forbidden pork, but Kelvin hankered for ham.

The point is that renewable technology is not shiny and new, in fact its
centuries old and we abandoned most of it years ago.

Because it didn't work.

And still doesn't.

But maybe it will.