Alternate Fuels?

[Shaun]

Do you think there is a viable way to get us off oil in the next ten years? What is your argument for alternate fuels?

Let's a get a good debate going on the merits of alternate fuel choices and what our future may be like!

[jordanisonfire]

Well, there's always wind, solar, hyrdo-electric, biomass and all that. But, unfortunately, solar is very unreliable in England, as we get barely any hot weather, even in Summer. But, they're going to build a solar tower in the deserts in Africa which will be the tallest man-made structure once it has been built and they're going to build more if that one is successful. Hopefully, that, coupled with people actually bothering to do a small finger motion and turn off lightswitch when they leave a room, will hopefully provide enough energy that is needed. I stress the word "needed", which, in most people's eyes, won't be enough, because they're all just greedy pigs. :glare:

[Shaun]

Shadow, first, the light switch deal. They actually did research on that to determine if the one and off motion actually saves electricity. You need to find that research because in most cases the on and off motion costs you more. It takes more electricity to turn on a lightbulb than it does to keep it sustained, so depending on how often you flick that switch you could be wasting energy :P
Solar power works even if it is cloudy, by the way, just not very well. England's problem is that there isn't really anywhere on the mainland to build large enough facilities to run the entire country. The U.S. has plenty of places to build large solar facilities.
Another solution for your country is maglev turbines, which have the potential to power 750,000 homes per unit and they are more efficient and last longer than traditional wind turbines. England gets a fair amount of wind, so a few hundred of those might actually do good.
Hydro-electric is unreliable, dangerous, and sort of going in the wrong direction, unless we can build facilities that use the ocean currents to produce electricity. But dams really are a bad idea because they destroy ecosystems and if they break they can cause a lot of damage.
Also, you know you can build large solar stations in space and beam down the energy right? The U.S. had a program for that in the 70s, but it was canned because of costs. But today we could build a lot of solar stations and beam constant power down to Earth. It would be pricey at first, but it would pay for itself in a few decades.
The saddest part about alternative energy is that the options are there, but nobody with the power to do something is doing something. We could be independent from nuclear energy, hydro-electric, coal, and other non-renewable sources in ten years. At least that's the case for the U.S. I think an international coalition involving England, Canada, and the U.S. to develop energy independence for home owners should be put together. Our three countries could make significant changes. Take the U.S. We have thousands of wind turbines in this country. If we replaced all of them with maglev turbines we could actually power half the country's homes.
Another thing is making it easier for people to put solar panels on their homes. In the U.S. is is notoriously difficult to do so. I know it's easier in the UK, but you guys have other big business bull crap that the U.S. thankfully doesn't have to deal with.
There's no reason why we can't develop the world enough so everyone has cheap energy. It actually annoys me that there is ever a point in time when we have to conserve energy because we have the technology and the means to make it so we could spend all the energy we want, whenever we want...

[jordanisonfire]

Ok, here's another Bush rant: In Bush's policies, he says that laws trying to help the environment should be relaxed. And Gordon Brown is basically his lapdog, so England is no better. Bastard. :glare: Well, this is at least what I hear.

[Shaun]

Well Bush also can't speak the English language correctly. Part of what he is implying is that environmental laws actually ruin innovation, which is true. A lot of the laws we have that we adopted to shut up environmentalists actually make it harder for people to be nicer to the environment. They're the same laws that make it hard to put solar panels on your house. Bush is mostly a moron though because he wants to drill in Alaska and is doing little to nothing to develop better fuel sources...but he's controlled by oil companies so you can't expect anything different