Are nuclear, solar, and wind alternatives to oil?

Question

The majority of the world's scientists think so. So does T. Boone Pickens, who knows a little about oil. He's spending over 2 billion of his own money to construct the world's largest wind farm.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/pickens.plan/

The world's largest solar plants are being planned:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/2a4bb5f844d9414e01f2038c6078d1b3.htm

Nuclear will follow. We can get off our insane dependence on imported oil, a dependence that, among other things, is making countries that don't like us VERY rich.

Answer 1

I think the only real answer is fusion.  It is time for more investement into this area of research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_powe...

Answer 2

Nuclear has been reliable in the past, although eventually, decades later, you'll have to deal with radioactive waste.

Solar is nice too, its very promising..but solar panels are expensive, mainly due to the polysilica cost.

Wind, that's a bit more risky. First of all, you have to have wind, 2nd you have to have alot of real estate devoted to it. Then there's the restricted speeds so that they do'nt become expensive bird choppers. Then there's the fact that alot of people don't like seeing windmills.

Next you have to deal with maintenance costs, oil products to lubricate not to mention you can't use wind power to provide energy for cars, boats, ships, planes, emergency equipment that demands reliability, etc.

Recently there's been complaints by people regarding illness's from the windmills and transmission lines...which shouldn't surprise anyone. They've done studies for decades regarding electromagnetic waves from high power lines regarding cancer causes and other sicknesses.

Props to T Boone Pickens for trying, but I can't say I support the man on his windmill idea. There are other ways that are more reliable to go. When the poor stop getting the reactors in their back yards while the rich play class warfare and have things out of their sight because they "don't want to see it".....paraphrased from Ted Kennedy's comments. Then i'll support a viable effort.

By the way, did you know Nancy Peloski is bought in on the T. Boone Pickens windmills ? meanwhile she's at the head of the democrat parties opposition to drill for our own oil. Sounds like a major conflict of interest to me.

Answer 3

T Boone Pickens has an ulterior motive, he is using global warming alarmism to mask the power of eminent domain so he can steal peoples land and build a water pipeline, for his water company, a more lucrative consumable than electricity.

"Water Pipeline Not Wind Power, Real Reason Pickens Can Build Transmission Lines"

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/...

Answer 4

There are many alternatives, and they should be used.  Wind is part of the issue, however we need to keep in mind that one good hurricane or Kansas size F3 or so tornado can wipe out an entire wind farm that can take years to rebuild.  Nuclear I think is one of our best options, if some would just get their heads on straight.  As far as solar, dead in the water.  Pointless and useless.

Answer 5

That's 20%wind energy+30%US energy, wheres the other 50%. How about China an India, that's a long way from Texas. There's always the military, construction, raw materials, manufacturing,..etc.

Answer 6

I agree completely, all kinds of clean energy should be used and looked at.  Which is why we have our community of like minded people.

Answer 7

They are very good alternatives to oil, more so than biofuels ie., ethanol.

The problem lays in the technology is behind in most of the fields, and the costs of converting residential homes, cars, businesses.

Answer 8

Nuclear should be but i'm not sure about wind and solar.  Aside from the question of hefty taxpayer subsidies (Much greater than oil), I have concerns regarding the carbon footprint involved for manufacturing, installing, and maintaining wind and solar.  I also have concerns regarding the 'downwind' impact on local climates where large wind-farms are located.  I haven't been able to find any 'impact' numbers out there.

Answer 9

With enough low cost electricity almost any alternative are feasible even hydrogen. But I am still angry about the Carter edicts that still need to be overturned before any real progress can be made. As long as the set of nuclear edicts remain we will never be able to build or fuel plants economically in this country. As long as the space edicts remain in place we will never be able to do what is needed for continued future prosperity out there. The anti technology edicts of president Carter made the pogrom of Limits to growth a reality and continued progress for the betterment of the United States and humanity will never happen as long as those edicts remain in place. They are the first things that need to be done and as long as democrats supported by oil money control things in congress it never will happen.

Answer 10

They are not direct alternatives because we do not burn oil for electricity, but T. Boone Pickens plan makes sense.  His idea is to get us off of using natural gas for electricity generation and start using it as an alternative to gasoline. Nat gas is plentiful in the US, cheaper than gasoline (though far less efficient) and burns much cleaner than gasoline.  

I don't think that solar is a viable alternative right now: it is by far the most inefficient and expensive method of electricity generation.  Nuclear is a fantastic option - very friendly to the environment (excepting mining and storage), it is comparable to the cost of coal, and we have a supply that will last for a very long time, particularly if we use breeder plants.

Wind is awesome with the exception of the birds and bats that get killed in the blades.  It is relatively cheap, produces no pollution (other than manufacturing, transportation, and installation) and can provide a fairly steady amount of energy.

I am completely for getting off of foreign oil for national security reasons - I agree with you completely Bob.

Answer 11

Nucklear, yes. The other two are "feel good" talking points. Coal and Oil will be the major suppliers of energy for a long time to come.

As for oil, what exactly is the problem with it? It is a natural resource which has greatly enriched all our lives. Imagine life without it. People need to realize oil is a naturla resource which improves our lives imensly. Of course, that also means we need to use it wisely also.

Answer 12

In some places, yes.   Alaska villages use diesel to produce electricity  and many buildings in the northeast use #2 heating oil for heat.    Then there's the volt coming out again.   Any form of power that's cheaper than oil will catch on eventually.

I'm assuming TBP knows a little about wind also and placed his windmills in areas where the wind is more reliable than a coal fired generation plant.

Answer 13

Yes-of course they are alternatives to oil. In fact they are so much more desirable that there is really no contest. The debate over global warming is so complex with more and more viewpoints and information being added to the stew it seems daily. However I remember reading in the New Scientist years ago-before really all the debate about global warming had got into its stride-that "Ice Ages" (which is what we are all worried about) started very suddenly-not a gradual process from warm to cold. Rather like a see saw sticking up in the air with a weight on the down side and you gradually load up the end in the air with weights and then suddenly-woosh-the see saw reverses itself.  If my memory serves me correctly the article suggested that ice ages which could last for very long periods could actually be initiated in as little as a hundred years-the "tip-over effect". Of course undersea eruptions and increases in solar radiation will inevitably load up the see saw but anything that reduces heat production must in the end help. All civilisations produce heat as a waste product-both in the production of energy and in its use. If we can limit the heat produced just to the use of the energy (as opposed to the production of the energy) then it must be a good thing.

Answer 14

In terms of our greatest oil consumption - gasoline for transportation - absolutely.  Plug-in hybrids and electric cars are advancing rapidly, and obviously are (primarily, in the case of plug-ins) powered by electricity which can be produced by nuclear, solar, wind, etc.  See the link below for examples.

That's where we should be putting our money and focusing our efforts - on developing alternative fuel and energy sources and weening ourselves from oil, not on drilling for more just to feed our unhealthy addiction.

Answer 15

Not at the moment (we don't have an alternative to oil at present, and the Picken's plan is just plain stupid anyway (building more wind turbines to replace coal power, but which are also so unreliable that you've got to have natural gas power plants to back them up is somehow meant to make more natural gas available for cars, if it actuality gets implemented there'll be less natural gas available for cars)).

Nuclear can replace coal and natural gas for electricity generation (though coal should be the first one replaced, both for environmental and economic reasons due to load following with nuclear power being less than ideal from an economic point of view.  Wind and ground based solar are at the moment just diverting attention away from nuclear power (since they can't actually provide reliable power which is what we need, the diversion of attention away from more promising technologies is a much greater evil than the limited good they do of reducing the output of a fossil fuelled power plant) although improvements in energy storage technologies might be able to make them usable when you factor in the cost of any energy storage system (which is admittedly unknown since we don't have one that's good enough) it'd be very unlikely for them to come out cheaper than nuclear.

Now replacing coal and natural gas for electricity would deal with the biggest source of CO2 but unless we also switch transportation to electricity it isn't going to help us with that part.  Making coal and natural gas available for CTL and GTL could create an alternative to oil but it'd be a worse alternative than fuels manufactured from water or CO2 from the atmosphere.

Running a synthetic fuels plant (hydrogen or synthetic hydrocarbons, although if you can do the later you can also probably do the former) will require energy and to be eco-friendly you need that energy source to be clean, nuclear will do the job although Gen IV reactors may be needed for better efficiency.  Wind and ground based solar show more promise for splitting water than producing electricity because of the fact that hydrogen can be stored (and that might be viable for utility scale energy storage but we shouldn't be counting on it).

thor:

"I'm assuming TBP knows a little about wind also and placed his windmills in areas where the wind is more reliable than a coal fired generation plant."

The best wind sites are up around 30% capacity factor which is a lot lower than typical coal power plant capacity factors.

Those best wind sites usually already have wind turbines on them meaning that Pickens would probably end up using sites that barely even offer 20% capacity factors.

Wind power just isn't reliable enough to do without backup and the cost and environmental effects of that backup power must be taken account of along with any overcapacity needed if the backup is energy storage.

Answer 16

Yes-- Bob you are exactly right -- nuclear could serve as a clean continuous power supply for both wind and solar.

EDIT-- yes I agree with Bob. Wind power can be a major contributor to our electric power grid. Texas just funded 5 billion dollars for the transmission towers and right of way for the wind farms in West Texas.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/21...

Edit-- Dana and I only disagree on the no drilling part-- I believe we should be drilling wherever the oil happens to be (exclusive of our National Parks)-- oil is a major component of just about everything we use or make-- it heats homes-- makes car tires (about 2 gallons of oil in every car tire)-- and that plastic computer you are using is made from petroleum products. I would rather buy this oil from Merit Petroleum located in Dallas, TX-- or EXXON rather than the despots we are currently funding with our oil imports.

Answer 17

Anything that lessens our dependance on foreign oil, especially from the Middle East, is worth pursuing in my opinion.  I know some people with solar panels and they work very well, but are extremely expensive to purchase and set up.  Hopefully a way will be found to reduce the costs so more people can use it.

Answer 18

No, they aren't.  

We've been paying billions for incentives to find these alternatives for over 60 years, but to date no one has come up with any way to make a car or airplane run on nuclear, solar or wind power.  Electric cars are still far from a viable solution, and hybrids still use oil, so they're not an alternative.

We currently use wind power for 1% of our electrical needs.  Nuclear is much better for power production, but nothing can replace oil.  We use it in everything !

Maybe in 50 years we'll have some solutions, but none in the near future.

Since Pelosi is heavily invested in the "Pickens Plan" it tells us a lot about why she won't allow drilling in the US, even though it would be more environmentally safe for us to drill than to rely on other countries for our oil needs.

And ironically Pickens isn't against drilling, but Pelosi is.

So "saving the planet" isn't the reason the democrats won't let us drill.  If they cared about the planet they'd let us drill instead of forcing it to be done in countries that don't have as stringent environmental regulations.

We have trillions of barrels of oil available and we drill with the safest methods on earth, so the only reason Pelosi and the other democrats won't let us drill is for political and monitary gains.

It's a shame democrats put political power in the way of progress. They care nothing for the average people who must pay high prices because these politicians stand in the way of lowering prices.

Thank goodness the market has caused the price to come down some, but we need these politicians to get out of the way of progress.

We can "get off our insane dependence on imported oil" by drilling here at home.  There's no reason we shouldn't be doing that and 90% of the people want it done immediately.  

Unfortunately the democrats are in charge and they won't let us.  These socialists know that when they're in power they no longer have to do what the people want. At least we've had a taste of how bad things can get when democrats are in charge.

One thing we know for sure is that we can never get off of oil usage.  Oil is like water.  We need it for everything we do.  If we quit using cars completely we'd still have to import millions of barrels a day just to make all the products we use, like clothing, shoes, plastics, cosmetics, not to mention our asphalt roads.  

It's actually impossible to look around your house and not see a product that is made from oil.

So oil is a necessity and getting it locally is imperative to our safety and security, as well as our growing economy.  And there are no alternatives in the foreseeable future.

Answer 19

Yes they are alternatives, but they are expensive.  They are usually only commercially viable when they are subsidised and fossile fuels are taxed.

Answer 20

First of all, anything that lessens our dependence on oil, particularly imported oil from countries that hate the U.S. and other democratic countries, is desirable.  Second, if it is economically viable-meaning that if the energy produced via alternative means is competitively priced compared to oil, and benefits the home economy, it is very desirable.  Third, if the alternative energy source is also more environmentally friendly than burning fossil fuels-even marginally-it becomes a no brainer.

Since alternative energy sources all meet the above criteria at present-admittedly with some risks and downsides-it makes a lot of sense to develop each.  Dividing our energy use into two categories-transportation and other energy consumption, helps look more closely at the issues of infrastructure.

The most difficult infrastructure issue to resolve is transportation, since existing fleets of vehicles worldwide are nearly all dependent on fossil fuels and converting that fleet along with the infrastructure to deliver the alternative fuels is something that will take decades.  Therefore, ethanol and biodiesel are very important shorter term, albeit with some downsides and unintended consequences.  Many of the arguments about corn based ethanol conveniently overlook the fact that a few years ago we were heavily subsidizing corn and had huge supluses each and every year.  It was being produced and sold below cost, and for every bushel grown the government was contributing our tax dollars in addition to paying for land to be put in set asides.  Now for every barrel of ethanol that is used, at least one less barrel of oil is consumed and the revenue from that stays in the local economy.  So ethanol does meet the first two criteria.  In addition, it goes directly into the fuel tanks of the transportation fleet, therebye being more immediate in its effect on our dependence on foreign oil.  While infrastructure has to be built to produce and deliver ethanol, it is more direct and quicker than converting the transportation fleet to other sources of fuel.  The downside is how environmentally beneficial it is and how it affects our food supply-neither is fully understood, but the negatives are certainly emphasized, but there are mitigating circumstances and corn is not the only source of biomass that can be used once the ethanol production infrastructure is built and technology advances further-I won't go into that in my comments here.

Nuclear is indeed another option to revisit, with some caution.  Some people seem to have conveniently fogotten Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and want to blame 'tree huggers' for halting further development, but the severe environmental impact of (Chernobyl, at least) had a huge influence on the future of nuke power in most developed countries, as did the disposal of nuclear waste.  At this point, as we look at the lesser of evils, nuclear power becomes more appealing, as does ethanol; weighing the risks both economic and environmental vs. continuing dependence on imported oil makes nuclear power look better, and there has been more learned as far as safety measures go.  

Solar, wind and geothermal are obviously the best long-term sources of energy.  While ethanol and other biofuels are immediate, there are issues and consequences as long-term alternatives, although not nearly as severe as some postulate; nuclear can be brought on line relatively quickly and plugged into the power grid, but there are a lot of hurdles that have to be overcome to do so, most significant may be the 'not in my back yard' mindset when it comes to locating them and storing the spent fuel.  Wind power is viable and coming on line rapidly-many of the issues claimed, such as 'the wind doesn't always blow' are more than dubious.  One of the biggest issues with wind is shared with nuclear and that is the 'not in my back yard' mindset, but as the T.Boone Pickens project illustrates, there are places where wind energy can and is being brought on line-and I happen to be in the middle of a less-publicized development project that I believe will ultimately bring 1,200 megawatts of energy on line.  Finally, solar and geothermal are getting more cost-effective as those technologies are developed for the mass market.

The scenario I envision-and forgive me for very casually putting things on a 'calendar' that is purely speculative-is that ethanol/biofuels will be a primary alternative source for the transportation fleet for the next 30 years or so and will become more desirable as other biomass sources are developed and the efficiency improves; nuclear and wind will address a significant portion of our other energy needs, lessening our dependence on fossil fuels such as coal, and as the transportation fleet gradually shifts to more hybrid, electic-and perhaps other fuels such as hydrogen-the power produced by those sources will result in continuing use for at least another 50-60 years.

Finally, solar and geothermal will be adopted for both mass production of energy and individual home use, and I see both sources as viable for single family dwellings within five years and as significant factors in energy consumption within thirty-about the time we have transitioned most of our transportation fleet to alternative energy sources.  At that time, perhaps our own oil reserves will be sufficient to meet our remaining needs and we will be able to pick and choose the supplier of whatever limited imported oil we will require from producers friendly to the west.  If we do pull it off, I bet there will be a lot more friendlies than there are now.

Sorry...that was more than a little long-winded and my little scenario is just a little neater than the way things will really fall, but I think it is important to put our fossil fuel use in a political, economic and evironmental context rather than just focusing on a single issue such as environment.  Plus I believe it is important to look at how things may play out long term rather than looking at any single source of energy and picking it apart solely in the here and now.  I'm not 100% opposed to additional drilling here at home right now but that is another issue.