Eliminate the Oil Industry?

by Anony Mous 18 Replies latest social current

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  Simon

  Hydroelectric energy is very cheap

  Maybe, if you don't factor in the future costs of the damn when it becomes end-of-life ... and the consequences.

  There was something I read about hydro-electric that suggested it wasn't the panacea people imagine, probably todo with pumping the water back up and it therefore only really acting as a store of energy (like a huge battery) but no system is 100% efficient so there is a lot of wasted energy so the net gains are not as great as people imagine and they have a huge environmental footprint.
  
  
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  joey jojo

  if we are talking about co2 emissions, I think I remember reading that the manufacture, transport and installation of concrete may account for up to 25% of all co2 emissions. Maybe we should start there.

  A state in Australia, South Australia, recently ran for an hour on solar power alone. Doesnt sound that impressive but I think its the first time anywhere in the world it has happened.
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  Anony Mous

  We rely on hydroelectric (Niagara Falls) which has been operating since Nikolai Tesla convinced Westinghouse to build it. Natural hydro is cheap, nuclear is cheap. We pay 2c/kWh where I live (4c in the winter), from hydro + nuclear in the north-east which is cheaper than the natural gas which is 6c/kWh (not account for inefficiencies converting BTU into kWh).
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  LoveUniHateExams

  We can lower CO2 emissions and go greener in all manner of ways, but we can't 'eliminate the oil industry'.

  Oil is used for so many products.

  Humankind, particularly in the West, has made so much progress, although we certainly need to lower emissions and pollution levels.

  The only way to eliminate the oil industry entirely and 'live in harmony with nature' would be to abandon all the progress we've made and go back to being hunter-gatherers.

  Billions of people would die, but there'd be 'balance', lol.
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  smiddy3

  I don`t think the average Joe or Jane appreciates how much they are reliant on the oil industry and it`s by-products to keep them in the luxury they enjoy in this modern world we live in.

  Ignorance is bliss I guess.
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  Simon

  It's not to keep people in luxury, it is to keep people alive. Without oil we couldn't support the number of people alive today, so pick who should die.
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  MeanMrMustard

  The market should be making these calculations. I know, the left wants to "force" certain development - for whatever reason. They might think it is more noble, moral, whatever. They haven't learned the lesson from every planned economy that has ever existed - it doesn't work. There are reasons why it doesn't work.

  If these green technologies were ready to be used, if they were not a drain on resources, they would be profitable, and you wouldn't need force anything.
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  RickJones

  In support of what been said so far on this thread, one has to reflect upon how much fossil fuel burning we actually use in consideration of air flights, shipping , train transportation, trucking and automobiles around the world.

  I sure would like to see the day when massive airliners run wholly on electricity.
  

  Nevertheless I think humanity is on the right path toward slowing down air pollution in light of the continuing human population growth.
  
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  Rivergang

  In one way or another, I have been involved with hydro-electric power for practically all of my life (a story for another time!)

  Hydro is a very economical method of generating electricity, particularly in a “run of the river” type situation, where no dam is required. Also, a hydro plant can last for centuries . For example, No.4 turbine in New Zealand’s Lake Coleridge hydro electric station was commissioned in October 1914, and is still spinning now (good old British Thompson-Houston, they made things to last!)

  Hydros are not as damaging to the environment as your friends the Greenies would have us believe, either. In fact, there are instances in which hydro electric development has actually enhanced the environment. (For example, the Upper Waitaki project in New Zealand’s South Island, in which over three quarters of a million trees were planted in what was formerly a treeless, semi-arid part of the world.