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POPSWill Wind & Solar Become Competitive Soon? The government sponsored campaign for these energies are nothing new: In 1983, Booz, Allen & Hamilton did a study for the Solar Energy Industries Association, American Wind Energy Association, and Renewable Energy Institute. It stated: “The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D.” In 1990, two energy analysts at the Worldwatch Institute predicted an almost complete displacement of fossil fuels in the electric generation market within a couple decades
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POPSEnergy Nonsense In an April 4 Newsweek guest editorial, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu also proved that -- his Nobel Prize notwithstanding -- common sense and rudimentary knowledge are lacking. First he did not offer one sentence on securing the 87 percent of energy supplies that the US needs other than to discuss “advanced biofuels.” Not to be outdone in slogan-style exaggeration, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar chimed in...Salazar, the Wall Street Journal reported, “raised eyebrows when he said offshore wind farms could replace 3,000 coal-fired plants.” Never mind that the US only has 600 of them. He also claimed that offshore wind in the Atlantic could deliver 1,000 gigawatts of capacity – approximately equal to the entire electric generation capacity of the US...Salazar’s statement should raise a lot more than eyebrows.
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POPSHow Anti-Matter Propulsion Works It's not rocket science...at least rockets as we know them. :) So, why haven't we built a matter-antimatter reaction engine? The problem with developing antimatter propulsion is that there is a lack of antimatter existing in the universe. For now, we will have to create our own antimatter. Luckily, there is technology available to create antimatter through the use of high-energy particle colliders, also called "atom smashers." But these high-energy particle accelerators only produce one or two picograms of antiprotons each year. A picogram is a trillionth of a gram. It states that anti-matter propulsion is the most energy efficient propulsion. I suspect that will be true as long as the process of making the anti-matter is itself efficient enough to make it feasible.
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POPSMandates for Change New homes, automobiles, and appliances will have to meet design standards set by government. Specific technologies, such as compact fluorescent bulbs, will be required. These regulations will tend to raise prices to consumers. Politicians will want to avoid blame for this, so they will look for ways to force companies to subsidize low- and middle-income consumers. Thus, during the next administration's second term we can expect to see price control mechanisms enacted for many energy-related products and services. Many Americans will welcome the regulatory state. Many others will accommodate it. Only a minority of us will oppose it. Somewhere down the road, as people see the indignity of the many intrusions and the adversity of the consequences, I hope that there will be a backlash. Otherwise, if the era of mandates emerges as I fear it will, then the engine of capitalism in America may run out of the fuel of competition.
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POPSCarbon Copies - Emissions Taxes Based upon a widely accepted formula originated at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, if the entire United States adopted the original Kansas legislation, it would prevent a total of 0.11 degrees F of global warming per century. Read that again, because it's not a typo: Eleven one-hundredths of a degree in 100 years. Instead, let's apply the original Kansas legislation to every nation on the planet that agreed to limit its emissions under the infamous 1997 Kyoto Protocol...The new law would prevent 0.27 degrees F of warming per century. That's an amount too small to measure, because global temperatures vary by more than that from year-to-year -- global warming or not.
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POPSRisks of Energy Saving Bulbs There are serious environmental concerns with these bulbs, which in turn affect our health. God forbid you accidentally break one! The UK Environment Agency recommends you vacate the room for 15 minutes, don't use a vacuum to clean debris (toxic dust), and must always be disposed of at proper recycling facilities to prevent landfill contamination.
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