H. Payne at the Detroit News.
I know that Evita Guevara Castro wants us to "invent technology that's never been invented yet", but getting rid of all your petroleum and nuclear power plants expecting the replacement that nobody has ever thought of to be invented and ready when you shut off the existing plants is a rather idiotic plan.
Let me give a concrete example: high efficiency solar cells. Because some influential "futurist" (cough) publicly said that Moore's law applies to solar cells so that they'll get better every generation, an idea has emerged that says, "the solar panels to power your house will be the size of a postage stamp in the mid '20s". You might have heard this. That violates the laws of thermodynamics at the very least. The solar energy influx, called the "solar constant" is a bit over 1300 Watts per square meter. Since square meters are bigger than square yards, and I like to have Nice Round Numbers to do mental calculations, I usually say 1000 Watts/sq yard, instead of the more realistic 1100 W/sq yard.
A typical house is budgeted to have a 20 kW service. That instantly tells you need 20 sq yards of solar cells; 25 kW service would require 25 sq yards, and so on. Except that would only work if they're 100% efficient, which nothing ever is. Assume they're 20% efficient, a conservative number to make up for times when the panels are dirty, or covered with bird crap and you find you need five times that area, 100 sq yards of solar cells. It is physically impossible for a cell to put out more energy than it gets from the sun, so that means the smallest imaginable solar cell array to power a house would be 20 sq yards at 100% efficiency. I stress that the 100 sq yard "budget" is the only realistic answer now. Solar cells the size of a postage stamp delivering 20 kW - or even 1 kW - just aren't possible.
I have no doubt that another company like a Solyndra would say they can do it to get grafted onto the Fed's infinite checkbook, but at least what the real Solyndra was selling didn't violate the laws of physics.
I've talked about fuel cell cars and I've talked about battery electric cars. Fuel cell cars carry the threat of hydrogen explosion from their 10,000 PSI hydrogen tanks. Both types have inadequate range and difficult charging problems. The best batteries available for cars deliver about 5% of the specific energy (in Watt*hours per kilogram) of gasoline. Or less. Neither technology is within 20 years of being competitive. Could someone "invent technology that's never been invented yet"? Of course. With every major university and every major car maker, along with a ton of startups working on the problem for years, why would anyone think it's just around the corner?
Do you want to jump out of an airplane hoping someone invents a parachute before you hit the ground? That's the essence of what they're asking for us to do.
The Amish milk (and eat) cows and they use horses for basic transportation. Under the Green Amish deal, the cows and horses would be the first casualties of socialism.
ReplyDeleteTrains, have we seen any battery powered trains? Where did the idea that trains where some how "greener" come from?
ReplyDeleteRick
I think that the dems want to use electric trollies to link the nation. Everywhere there is a road, there will be train tracks. And they will be powered by solar and wind energy. No, there aren't any electric trollies that are powered solely by solar and wind energy. However, once we're all put afoot, they hope to find an answer...
DeleteI want to know why they love trains so much. I mean, I think the real reason has to do with wanting to have the infrastructure to fill the boxcars headed for New Auschwitz, but every leftist talks about trains and "high speed rail".
DeleteTraffic engineers will tell you those systems only make sense in a very small number of places. But they wouldn't want to rely on Science, after all.
The Green New Deal isn't about inventing internal improvements that have never been invented yet, it's about a Trail of Tears.
ReplyDeleteI would not "want to jump out of an airplane hoping someone invents a parachute before you hit the ground". But there are plenty of people that I would want to have do so. Including every Democrat and every Rove Republican. In fact, I am at the point where I would be glad to HELP them do so.
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget that China owns 90%+ of the rare earth mines. You know, the minerals required to make things like computer chips and solar panels. And they have no problem at all with shutting off the flow to competitors and enemies.
ReplyDeleteI should add that we used to mine those in California before the greenies took over. They're distributed around the world, we just buy them from China because the greenies have artificially inflated the price so much we're not competitive. The jobs mining those metals left California like so many other jobs.
DeleteIdaho also has proven reserves of rare earth deposits as well as intermingled Thorium.
DeleteDan Kurt
Let us not forget that livestock are required for sustainable primitive agriculture. You need all that manure to fertilize the fields.
ReplyDeleteIrony is watching shameless, clueless technocrats turn out to be shameless, clueless Luddites.
ReplyDeleteIf you never learned physics (like the Noted Leftard Soopergenius [D- Retardia] never has), then reality isn't a problem.
ReplyDelete"Of course we can pay for it; we'll just print more money." - Evita Guevara-Castro
She needs to be put in a padded cell, before she hurts herself.
It's a wonder she survived into majority; she still hasn't reached adulthood.
The Left never wants to look at the impacts their fancy battery technology has. Like kids mining Cobalt in the Congo, or the environmental disasters associated with them in China. Because they don't see it.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 1970s or early 80s, Fairchild Semiconductor had a spill in San Jose, California. The EPA swept in, and in about 5 years virtually all of the semiconductor-manufacturing had moved off-shore. They made it really clear that if you made chips in the US and had any problem (I haven't seen a perfect system yet) you would be put out of business. So they left. R&D stayed, and there may be some manufacturing around, but I had friends who were out of work because of it.
That is pretty much the same reason that mining rare-earth elements stopped. The EPA made it impossible to do in this country
DeleteI think your timeframe is off. I was working in SilVal at a company that manufactured a unique chip-making machine from '82-'86. Quite a sight to see an entire Intel Fab floor filled with our machines. I think it was CA that pushed out semiconductor Fabs, or at least denied permits to build new ones.
DeleteIntel has Fabs in several other states currently, some fairly new. I was recently told that Intel uses those old fabs in Santa Clara for storage now. Apparently they are falling apart, since they shuttered them in '85, IIRC. Market collapsed for chips, and Intel just threw bags over the machines and locked the doors. Expensive to tear down, or renovate. The Stepper company had 550 employees, and we were producing ~30 machines/month. Everything stopped. 6 months later we had 150 people left and no machine sales.
Another local company I worked at from '96-'98 had a small Fab that was "grandfathered". They used it to make a patented item that their big screen projector was designed around. Idiots lost control of the process and the company folded. They would have liked to relocate, but they couldn't replace the Fab. Their HQ was in FL, and I near hurt myself laughing when someone asked why we didn't just move it there. They tried to sub-let half the building, but it was hard to find renters that would put up with sharing space with lethal gases in-house.
Speaking of Fairchild Semi, I had a roommate in the early 80's that was a chip designer there. Guy escaped from Red China during the Cultural Revolution. Most of his college classmates were sent to farms near the Russian border, but he was sent to one near the south coast. Took him a week moving at night to reach the Hong Kong peninsula, and then ~week swimming along there to reach the city. Eventually made it to SF, and went back to school. He had told me that all the ones sent to the Russian area were still there. The communists threw away a generation of high level students. Socialism/Communism at it's typical performance.
To add to you discussion on solar power, one of the things that irks me no end, is when the solar nazis say they have installed xKW of solar power therefore we can replace an xKW capacity nuclear or coal plant. They totally ignore any discussion of capacity factor, i.e. the ratio of the total actual energy produced over a definite period, to the energy that would have been produced if the plant had operated continuously at the maximum rating. On average Solar power has a maximum capacity factor of 50% even with the mythical 100% efficiency cells. That doesn't address the loss of capacity factor in northern latitudes due to lower solar radiation angle, or weather related effects. so in reality you would need to double your area estimate as well as add storage batteries to power your house through the night.
ReplyDeleteNuke Road Warrior
Complaining about the food in the concentration camp isn't enough; you actually have to escape the camp, too.
ReplyDeleteTrains are great because they track where you go at the turnstile, like on the subway in DC.
Florida power company Clay Electric is installing electric meters that report centrally. How often they report I don't know. Will they let little brother discover which TV commercial made you open the fridge?
Hold my beer..
DeleteHere in California, they have installed reporting type meters on the gas lines. They can monitor how much gas you are using.
My electric co sends me emails on how over budget my energy bill is, with suggestions on how to save. Like plant shade trees. I live on the second floor of a condo.
Rick
Clueless leftists burble on about solar powered trains and such; technically inclined leftists understand why we cannot support the population of Earth on "green" energy and have instead resolved to eliminate enough of said population to reach sustainable energy levels.
ReplyDeleteLefties are dumb, or murderous, or both.
Naturally, the murderous collectivists expect to be among the 10% of the world's population to survive their massive culling.
DeleteAs best I can tell, they forget that they are more likely to be cast in the role of Trotsky than in their intended role of Stalin.
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ReplyDelete