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End Oil: We can put an end to oil, coal
and nuke power
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Fossil fuel is the stored solar energy of the aeons, a storehouse we
draw on reckless of the consequences.
So, really, if we are going to do away with oil, coal, natural gas and nukes, how can we replace all the energy
from fossil fuel with "this-year's" solar energy?
The total solar power falling on the Earth is 160,000 teraWatts, while our total demand is 18 teraWatts.
There's plenty of "this-year's" solar available, we just aren't using it. |
If you burn oil, you are going to need to get oil, one way or the
other: drilling out the last oil is not only expensive, but dangerous. Similarly, coal mining, while not only dangerous,
is also destroying entire states with "cut and fill" grading of blue-line streamlets. Nuke power is extremely
dangerous, not just to those in the reactor room; and very expensive, down through the ages. These three "evil"
activities have one thing in common: THEY ARE PROFITABLE TO
THE OWNERS OF THE WELLS, MINES and CONSTRUCTORS LIKE HALLIBURTON,
who don't care a fig about the waste and cost that they can shift to others.
Sure, they lie, "Chevron people do" care, they say; but Chevron bosses only care about Public Relations
and their own profit. That's why Chevron sequestered and suppressed the Nickel
Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries still running our existing
EVs, with the connivance of bribed regulators, pols, and captive auto companies. Chevron still squats on the rights
to these batteries, apparently, for "certain transportation applications". To date, no auto company can
use NiMH for plug-in cars, they are forced to use unproven Lithium.
The only way to make oil drilling, coal mining and nukes safe is...TO
GET RID OF THEM. Stop using oil entirely. Replace coal
and nuke electric with solar power.
The same workers being brutalized and mowed down by mineowners
and negligent oil companies could be retrained to build and install solar panels to make electric. Clean, happy
jobs with a future: sure, you can fall off a roof, but not into a lake of burning nuclear wormwood!
The unused rooftops of America - more than 10,000 square
miles -- would provide twice the ELECTRIC energy we currently use, even if all our cars were plug-in cars. |
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More ironically, the use of solar panels and plug-in cars would
actually LOWER our total use of energy: the oil extraction and refining industry, according to DOE figures, uses
12% of the energy in a barrel of oil to refine it (not counting potable water).
That same energy -- mostly electric and natural gas -- would
take ELECTRIC CARS farther than the rest of the barrel takes oil-fired cars.
The amount of space allocated to our largest coal mine in
America -- 28,000 acres -- would, if covered with solar panels, produce more electric than the coal that's mined
(coal generators are only 40% efficient) -- LEAVING THE COAL IN THE GROUND, where it belongs.
The only clean oil is NO OIL.
The only clean coal is NO COAL.
The only safe nukes are NO NUKES.
Imagine an entire industry, larger than mining and oil drilling
combined, producing and deploying solar panels and plug-in cars; recycling the cars and batteries, using the same
metals, after 100K or 200K miles; and "mining" the fleet of gas-guzzlers for metals to make new plug-in
cars and batteries.
It's a way to revitalize not only our environment, but also our economy; all it takes is the leadership and ability
to redirect our resources and efforts from futile attempts to find more oil and drill it out of increasingly difficult
places -- from that futile, mindless activity -- to safe and clean industries that actually produce more energy
than they use, and provide for the future.
Coal mining and oil extraction cost more than solar power: and, decades after the coal and oil is gone, the solar
panels would be producing for decades more. |