[DGthe3]

internet was down last night, but here is the post that I promised

Originally Posted by Skyman 08

Is alternative energy as we know it today a good Idea?

As we know it today? No

The politicians and enviromentalists have so many people believing that alternative energy is going to save the planet. But will be doing more harm than good???

Potentially but I doubt it. If its replacing gasoline and fossil fuels it would be hard to make matters worse than they already are

Here are my opinions why it may work on a small scale but more study is needed before we go to a large scale change.

1. IF today they came out with a Electric car/hydrogen car/CNG car/Solar car etc that would perform and have the range of a Gasoline engined car it would take aproximately 16 years to replace all the cars in the USA alone.
This is based on that last year there were 250 million cars in the USA, and dividing that by the number of cars sold last year. also assuming that nobody that bought one would buy another one before every car was replaced, and each car traded in would be destroyed and the materials recycled never to be used again.

Yes, and? The general belief is that it would take at least 20 years for gasoline to be seriously rivaled. Thankfully there is at least 100 years worth of oil out there. The market for vehicles in North America has been on a slow growth for decades, there is the ocasional bad year. I've heard that it is something like for every 20 cars sold, 19 get scraped. Keep in mind that in addtion to trade ins, there are also write offs from the hundreds of thousands of accidents per year.

2. Even If we invented a new Battery and solar cells that would equal the range of a gas powered car, What are other natural resources that would probably be used in their manufacture. also what polution would the disposal of these batteries with their exotic materials cause?

The majority of exotic materials are valuable enough to be recycled. Plus any pollution that is caused is concentrated rather than dispersed, limiting the impact. As far as resources go for powering electric cars, solar cells are made primarily from sand (solar isn't powerful enough to power cars though). Lithium is mined as a salt and electrolysis is used to separate the metal from the chlorine.

3. How many people will be electrocuted or burned to death by one of these new Electric Cars? With high currents and voltages in the cars, they would have to be able to withstand an high speed accident without causing a short circuit that may electrocute passengers, safety workers, or even cause a fire

Existing car batteries already carry enough power to kill people yet there are no concerns about them. Also, there isn't as much fuel for fires in an electric car. There isn't any gasoline and the amount of lubrication oil is grealy reduced. The batteries themselves would be designed so that they don't catch fire either. Remember, the alternative is gasoline which will leak out of a ruptured gas tank and pool around the car, waiting to be ignited.

4. Hydrogen power.. now they say Hydrogen is the most abundent naturally occuring fuel we have. This is true, but what if we start extracting it from our oceans and atmosphere at such a great rate needed to fuel our economy. What kind of environmental impact will that cause? They say burning Hydrogen only expells Water vapor from the tailpipe, introduction of that much water vapor into the atmosphere from millions of cars could effect our weather!!!

Water is also an exhaust gas from the burning of fossil fuels. hydrogen fuel cells could result in less water vapour being released into the atmosphere than conventional cars create. But either way, it will not be anything compared to the amount that evaporates from the pacific ocean every day.

5. Wind Power, They are saying we could put millions of wind turbines out in the midwest to make electricity. But if we did could all those large spinning blades going through the air possibly change the airflow patterns and change the weather patterns across the country? And what would happen when a tornado came through and ripped out many of them, would oure electric rates jump just as they do now when a hurricane threatens the oil production in the gulf?

wind turbines can't change the direction of the wind. I don't know for sure, but I think that they are fairly resilient to high wind loads. The turbine itself will turn with the wind, and the tower itself is very aerodynamic. The turbine blades adjust to prevent damage to the generator

These are just a few of the questions I have, I have not ever seen anyone asking things like this, I have many more questions that concern me.

Ask away

There will not be any quick fix for our problem, but we do need to produce more of every form of energy we have available to us now and push forward the development of new energy technologies, but not until we know what problems our kids and grandkids may be facing because of any quick rash changes we make today.

Feel free to post any questions that concern you about alternative energy.

Agreed. Now to include my views on alternative energy.

Most alternatives will not be able to make any serious dent in usage. More can be done by reducing consumption rather than adding energy. This goes for cars as well as the electrical grid. 1% fewer cars on the road results in 1% less gasoline consumed. Better driving habits can result in even more fuel savings, say 5%. Then replace some gasoline with ethanol, later with hydrogen, and add in some electric cars and you have made a serious impact.

On the electrical side of things it is much the same story. 1% of people and businesses could probably take themselves off the grid by installing solar panels or turbines. More can be saved by replacing light bulbs with compact florescent, or simply turning lights off when your out of the room. Run things the dishwasher at night to reduce peak demand. Then build some wind and nuclear power plants to replace coal and your are all set