clifp
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2006
- Messages
- 7,733
For a variety of reasons, I've gotten very interested in renewable energy recently. Unfortunately as by knowledge has grown so has frustrated with the hype/hot air generated by all sides of the discussion, which reached a breaking point yesterday.
I went to see premier of a movie called Fuel. They film makers booked the largest venue in the state and I'm sure got a couple thousand folks to attend. I knew there was a risk that would be an Michael Moore style documentary, but since I knew several of the sponsors I thought it would be reasonable. The movie was all over the place, the evil oil companies, evil car companies, evil Republicans, Katrina (the guy grew up in Louisiana so somewhat understandable), and in between his journey around the country with his bio-diesel powered vehicles. There were few interesting factoids and a couple of funny scenes. But all in it was like watching a Michael Moore/Ann Coulter performance without their cleverness or humor for two long hours. I was completely disgusted when 3/4 of the audience rose and gave the director and his film a standing ovation. So I fled without listening to the Q&A.
What is obvious to me , and I am sure 95%+ on the forum would agree, is this simple proposition. "The US and the world would be better off if the consumption of oil was dramatically reduced." It doesn't really matter what your position is on greenhouse gas, drilling in ANWAR, Nuclear, solar, conservation, Carbon cap or trade etc etc. I have yet to meet a person that is happy that US consume 20 million barrels of oil a day, and spends >$1 billion/day purchasing imported oil mostly from folks who don't like us much. I felt like Rodney King can we all just get along and instead of name calling try to find solutions?
So last night, I went looking for article that was posted on the forum a few months ago, and found it and than stumbled across this fabulous free book.
David MacKay: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Contents.
After spending much of last night and today reading the book and finishing all but the technical chapters, I feel better.
The author is a British physics professor and he does a fabulous job replacing adjectives like huge, (as in Nebraska has huge potential for wind farms), or gigantic (as in the US is gigantic consumer of energy) with actually quantifiable numbers. He does this both on the consumption side how much energy, your car, a flight, your house, you, and even your cat consumes, and also the supply side, how much energy could England generate from Wind, Biomass, solar etc. How much resource mostly land, but also steel would be consumed making this windmills etc. Most of the calculations are involved with the UK but he often makes estimates for the US also.
Best of all he simplifies everything into a single easily understandable unit. A Kilowatt hour, or how much energy is consumed by 40 watt bulb over 24 hours. By translating all measurements into the number of KWH per person per day, he makes it real easy to compare alternative energy ideas.
I know that most of the forum are numerically literate, but even if you don't like numbers, he uses graphs, charts, cartoons, and classic British humor to keep you entertained.
You can buy the book via Amazon, or you can download it here for free or a 10 page synopsis
Reading it is the best 2KWH I've spent in a long time.
I went to see premier of a movie called Fuel. They film makers booked the largest venue in the state and I'm sure got a couple thousand folks to attend. I knew there was a risk that would be an Michael Moore style documentary, but since I knew several of the sponsors I thought it would be reasonable. The movie was all over the place, the evil oil companies, evil car companies, evil Republicans, Katrina (the guy grew up in Louisiana so somewhat understandable), and in between his journey around the country with his bio-diesel powered vehicles. There were few interesting factoids and a couple of funny scenes. But all in it was like watching a Michael Moore/Ann Coulter performance without their cleverness or humor for two long hours. I was completely disgusted when 3/4 of the audience rose and gave the director and his film a standing ovation. So I fled without listening to the Q&A.
What is obvious to me , and I am sure 95%+ on the forum would agree, is this simple proposition. "The US and the world would be better off if the consumption of oil was dramatically reduced." It doesn't really matter what your position is on greenhouse gas, drilling in ANWAR, Nuclear, solar, conservation, Carbon cap or trade etc etc. I have yet to meet a person that is happy that US consume 20 million barrels of oil a day, and spends >$1 billion/day purchasing imported oil mostly from folks who don't like us much. I felt like Rodney King can we all just get along and instead of name calling try to find solutions?
So last night, I went looking for article that was posted on the forum a few months ago, and found it and than stumbled across this fabulous free book.
David MacKay: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Contents.
After spending much of last night and today reading the book and finishing all but the technical chapters, I feel better.
The author is a British physics professor and he does a fabulous job replacing adjectives like huge, (as in Nebraska has huge potential for wind farms), or gigantic (as in the US is gigantic consumer of energy) with actually quantifiable numbers. He does this both on the consumption side how much energy, your car, a flight, your house, you, and even your cat consumes, and also the supply side, how much energy could England generate from Wind, Biomass, solar etc. How much resource mostly land, but also steel would be consumed making this windmills etc. Most of the calculations are involved with the UK but he often makes estimates for the US also.
Best of all he simplifies everything into a single easily understandable unit. A Kilowatt hour, or how much energy is consumed by 40 watt bulb over 24 hours. By translating all measurements into the number of KWH per person per day, he makes it real easy to compare alternative energy ideas.
I know that most of the forum are numerically literate, but even if you don't like numbers, he uses graphs, charts, cartoons, and classic British humor to keep you entertained.
You can buy the book via Amazon, or you can download it here for free or a 10 page synopsis
Reading it is the best 2KWH I've spent in a long time.