They myth that is man made global warming.

[elprincipe]

Avinash_Tyagi said:

HappySqurriel said:

Avinash_Tyagi said:

HappySqurriel said:

Avinash_Tyagi said:

So its more expennsvie at the moment, so what? It's cleaner and it'll get cheaper with more advances in tech, plus we can couple it with the other options I mentioned

Wind isn't much more cost effective, and hydro-electric dams are about as popular as nuclear powerplants and are much more limited in the number of places that they can be installed ...

 

Ok, but you still haven't disputed the point, these methods are cleaner than fossil fuels and nuclear power and will be able to cover our energy needs, and costs can be addressed through technological innovations.

"Cleaner" is debateable because of the massive environmental footprints of all of those technologies (which is why most of these powerplants have a similar fight to nuclear and coal powerplants); and (as it has already been pointed out) until Solar gets to being about 10% of its current price, and wind gets to being about 20% of its current price, the cost of the energy used in the average home is far beyond what the typical household can afford.

Actually increasing prices on energy isn't always a bad thing, see by increasing prices you force people to conserve, only use power on the very essentials.  It becomes a kind of excise tax and forces people to change their habits.

As for footprints, offshore wind farms create a much smaller footrpint, and since they can be taller in the open seas, they can be more efficient than the onshore ones

Why not save the hundreds of billions of dollars by using coal/oil/nuclear, and use the extra funds for research, rather than use all the money to pour into inefficient poor technology?

Because the coal oil and nuclear produce a lot more pollution, and if the climate change supporters are right, it'll just screw over the future.

At least you are honest about wanting to increase taxes on energy.  I totally disagree and think it will absolutely devastate the poor among us, but at least you're honest about your goals.  I like that.

Do you know solar/wind/geothermal account for less than 1% of U.S. energy production?  How do you think we can get these technologies up to producing even a majority of the energy demanded to keep our economy running anytime soon?  And don't forget to note that for every solar or wind power installation you have to back it up 100% with conventional power, since at any given time the wind might stop blowing or it might be overcast.  There are many problems with these technologies, from them being cost prohibitive to extremely low efficiency, the aforementioned lack of reliability and the problem of storing energy generated for times when the wind is not blowing or the sun not shining.  These technologies need a lot more development before they are efficient and cheap enough to generate most of our energy.