commissioner.org  


"unsolvable" problem with renewables
Source Tom Walker
Date 13/01/15/20:42

Tom Walker lumpoflabor@gmail.com wrote:
ALTHOUGH I CAN'T eliminate uncertainty and won't try, I suspect there is
indeed a "fundamental and unsolvable" problem with so-called renewable
energy sources that arises from the nature of "embodied energy."

Currently, the cost of wind and solar infrastructure depends on cheap inputs
of fossil fuels in their manufacture and construction. Wind and solar built
by wind and solar would be much more expensive than wind and solar built by
coal and petroleum. However, if that problem was solved it would give rise
to yet another problem: the low cost of renewable energy inputs would then
be available to subsidize unconventional fossil fuel extraction just as
today the availability of cheap natural gas makes tar sands oil economically
feasible.

[View the list]


InternetBoard v1.0
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho