Fact check - McCain/Obama's support for offshore drilling

[rocketpig]

Soleron said:

rocketpig said:

Soleron said:
The best thing for oil prices to do are go up, drastically, until research into alternative energy is not just an option but necessary. This would be more efficient solar panels as a stopgap and then nuclear fusion as a long term solution. This would be supplemented by hydrogen as a portable fuel for cars, with the energy for that coming from the two mentioned. Drilling is just prolonging the problem.

You managed to list two technologies (fusion & hydrogen) that are years away from being an effective solution and one that is not effective in several parts of the country (solar)... What do you suggest we do in the meantime?

 

Solar isn't currently effective. If we actually managed to capture the energy of every photon (of every part of the spectrum) that hits the detector, it would be plenty. It is possible, and withe enough economic incentive with very high oil prices it would be done in only a few years.

Even under the mightiest of solar generation schemes, powering a vertical city like New York will be nearly impossible once you add in weather. That's a lot of people. Between 5-10% of the country lives in that one area.

Again, your ideas sound great in 2040 (as do many others), but what should we do now? Even if someone develops a super-solar generator tomorrow (which is far from a given no matter how much money is thrown at the problem), it will be well over ten years before it's widely implemented.

That's the problem with some of these theories... They take too long to implement and/or they rely entirely on magical technology that doesn't exist yet. Instead of hoping for a cure-all technology that hasn't been invented, why don't we try to use some of the things available to us currently (nuclear fission, domestic drilling, geothermal, solar, etc.)?