Alternative Energy thesis?

Question

I need help coming up with a thesis statement regarding alternative energy being implemented as our dominate sources of energy rather than nuclear and fossil fuels. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

windmills kill birds and are eyesores to Ted Kennedy, so they are out.

Solar panels only work in sunny locales, so they can not be used as a "dominate" source of energy.  So solar is out.

Hydro-electric power can only be build on dammed rivers.  Envoronmentalists would have a cow if we dared to dam another river.  So hydro-power is out.

Ocean Wave-motion generation is only workablel near the coasts, so that couuld never be dominate either.  So that option is out.

Cold fusion is a myth, so that option is out.

The environmentalist whackos would have a cow over any source of energy. Their real desire is for us all to live like cavemen and for 90% of humanity to just die off.

Answer 2

Go here:

From Scientific American magazine Jan 2008

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

A proposal to convert U.S. electric grid to 65% solar by 2050 and almost 100% by 2100

Using concentrating photovoltaic and concentrating  solar thermal  power plants in the U.S. southwest.

Solar panels work almost anywhere.  They just need photons, even diffuse photons on cloudy days is enough.  Sure sunnier is better but they are practical over a fairly wide range.

The efficiency is up to 20% now at the best, and there are new thin film solar cells and panels that are cheaper to make.  The power plants, I mentioned, work much better in a really sunny climate, like our southwest.  

Green Wombat

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

has a bunch of articles about the companies involved and the plants in California already running, being built, and under study.  Pilot plants were built in the 80s and 90s and are putting out 350 megawatts.  All the proposed and okayed plants in California add up to 2.6 gigawatts.

From 175 megawatts at a plant to be built near San Luis Obispo and a couple of 400 and 500 megawatt ones in the Mojave and two proposed plants of up to 800 and 900 megawatts each

They will be much bigger than the pilot plants.   More should follow.  Two of the companies are already building factories to mass produce the parts for the plants.  For comparison;  San Francisco could be powered by 1 gigawatt. Hoover Dam 2 gigawatt

medium size nuclear plant  2 gigawatt.

to see what oil really cost. http://www.setamericafree.org/saf_hidden...

benefits of solar vs oil would be a good topic.

Answer 3

Your best bet is to go with the Danes, with Vestas Corporation Windmill project in Denmark. They are the leaders at 20% production. No other country is near this. Texas leads the U.S. right now, but not by much.

Vestas has a 20 MW windmill, which for the industry is huge. They are talking like they might be able to deliver a 33 MW windmill in the near future. One 20 MW would supply around 2,000 homes with 100% green power.

Most are really going with the solar idea for the future, but most renewables are variable power, so getting them up and running is half the battle. Energy storage to leverage the varying amounts of power is the crucial second step to making renewables baseline loads, which they are not. So long as they are not, Nuclear, Coal and Natural Gas will remain the dominate market players to keep a constant flow of electricity to an ever growing global market.

PS dude below reminded me of something. There are no silver bullet for all locations. Some places are better than others for certain forms of power. Perhaps the most important step we need to make in the near term, is getting out of the status quo expectation that there is only one or few ways to do it. That's why there is so much opportunity right now to come up with new and exciting solutions that's open to more than just the engineers of the practice.

Also, conservation and AMI Smart meters are going to be future, where everyone gets billed for time of use, sending price signals when to use and not use grid power. That evolution will get more would-be homeowners on-board with either real power saving appliances and lighting, or adding green power such as solar panels and small windmills to their property.

One such event is all ready happening with a boy named William Kamkwamba from Malawi Africa. He has built five makeshift windmills out of spare parts for his community, and promises to make more. http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/07/11/mala...