How come solar energy and other safer power sources much less utilized to replace deadly fossil fuels?

Question

There must be a number of reasons why. Pollution of the earth's surface and atmosphere are critical today as never before.

Answer 1

The answer is in the lack of political will and a mountain of disinformation from those powerful forces who wish to silence any talk of alternatives.

  We are constantly told that alternatives like solar are too expensive with their tax credit subsidies.

What they don't tell you is the enormous hidden costs of oil and other fossil fuels.  The subsidies to the oil and gas industries are estimated at up to $80 billion a year.  The total hidden costs are estimated at up to $800 billion a year.  If you paid that at the pump, gasoline would now be approaching $12 a gallon.

http://www.setamericafree.org/saf_hidden...

http://www.progress.org/2003/energy22.ht...

http://www.monitor.net/monitor/10-9-95/o...

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ten_most_...

Subsidies to alternative energy are miniscule in comparison.

  An energy bill that passed in a watered down form in December, would have taken $21 billion in tax credits from oil companies, to apply to renewal of the alt energy tax credits, which expire this year.  40 Republican senators basically stripped this provision from the bill, which Bush would have vetoed, anyway.

The new proposal is to take $18 billion and apply it to renewing the alt energy tax credits.  There is still much opposition from Republicans.

Dis-information, like the talking head on FOX news who made the statement, which of course went unchallenged, that "solar couldn't power a small sailboat never mind contribute meaningfully to our nations energy needs."

  That's in contrast to this article from Scientific American which proposes converting the entire U.S. electric grid to solar at a cost in public money that is a small fraction of what we now give oil companies in subsidies.

Scientific American  A Solar Grand Plan

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



Green Wombat has a bunch of articles about what is already happening with solar thermal power plants in California and Arizona.

scroll down for stories:

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

And one solar thermal company has this to say.

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."



And from one of the articles at Green Wombat:

"In recent months, PG&E has signed deals for more than a gigawatt of electricity — enough to light more than 750,000 homes — with solar power plant developers."

"The solar thermal industry is in its infancy but utilities like PG&E (PCG), Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) have signed several contracts for solar power plants and negotiations for gigawatts more of solar electricity are ongoing."

    Wind also has huge potential and is cost effective.

Answer 2

frflyer has hit it on the nose. Arguments that compare cost of alternatives to cost of the heavily subsidized current systems are difficult to challenge when they are stated so authoritativley by so many and in scenerios where there is no rebuttal.

We need to really start investigating the options for ourselves. Do not rely on the old standby stories from people who never think for themselves. Study it, then write your congress and the president. Copy the data and present it to your PTA and any other place where change can begin. Our leaders need to know that we want them to really make changes that matter. Current fuels will never get cheaper. How does one compare the cost of something that will not ever get cheaper to a source that will continue to produce the same energy year after year and conclude that solar is the expensive fuel?

Yes, it will cost a lot. What will it cost for oil and natural 20 years from now? If we build nuclear plants all over the place, will there be wars to get the fuel and what will that cost? Storage costs for nuclear wastes ... and if they use breeder technology ... plutonium ... in who's hands? Given the history of the nuclear business, would you carry the insurance premium on a nuclear waste plant ... or the power plant? And they say solar is expensive!!!

So study it yourself and draw your own conclusions but give each option a fair appraisal.

Answer 3

There is only one real reason, cost.  All of these alternative power sources cost much more than conventional powered systems.

Answer 4

Cost, solar energy cost about 30 cents/kWh (over the life of the system) versus natural gas about $0.03 per kWh. Also don’t forget the big upfront cost, say 16,000 to 20,000 to produce 25% of your electric needs so if you went big enough to satisfy your entire electric needs you’d spend about $80,000 on top of the cost of the house.

A home could use up to 30KWH per day or about a $1.00 per day, with solar you’d pay about $9.00 per day. Then you need storage, the sun doesn’t shine at night so you need to store it and maintenance, etc. It’s not as convenient as turn on a switch and letting the power company worry about the lines, generators, etc.

But believe it or not the free market will fix this problem. As the price of electricity goes up along with the price of oil, and natural gas, the alternatives look better and better. Also the price of solar cells is dropping and with new manufacturing methods, and more efficient solar cells the cost per KWH is coming down. Some companies are already going solar power, but they have the funds for the large upfront cost, and they are also able to depreciate the system over time and recoup some of that cost.

But that is something most home owners can’t do right now. I don't know about you, but I don't have $80,000 laying around, so the cost of the system has to come way down for me to even think about it, or the cost of electricity has to go way up.

Answer 5

Simply put:

People don't like change.

Answer 6

One reason is the stuff you hear about pollution and warming is blown way out of proportion.  The other is the usefulness of the alternatives is also blown way out of proportion.

Things like wind and solar power generation can, where wind and sun are strong and steady enough, augment traditional power sources; but they are neither productive nor efficient enough to be large-scale primary sources and may never be so.  Wave power is even less likely to be useful in all but rare cases.

Alcohol takes too much energy to produce and gives back less than fossil fuels.  It is not practical as primary fuel except where biomass is plentiful and can be used as both the ingredient and the fuel for the distillation process.  The latter process, however, produces a lot of pollution.

There is some hope for hydrogen fuel.  One problem is bulk.  The other is producing it consumes a large amount of energy.  We must add energy to it in order to bring it up to a condition where it will return some.  That reduces, or eliminates, the net value of the return.  The only practical way today is to use great amounts of clean nuclear power generation to electrolyze hydrogen.  Oxygen is also produced and selling that can offset some cost.

There are also, I believe, some other byproducts.  I suspect the value of any bringing a return might be more than offset by other costs.  All in all, the whole process may be a net loss.

It's hard to beat fossil fuels for energy return because the energy is already stored in them.  We just refine them and start them burning to get it.

Nuclear fuel is similar.  We refine it and stick it together in a concentration appropriate for our purpose and it puts out energy accordingly.  It too already has the energy available.

Answer 7

Very good and valid question: Also many good answers, but i perhaps failed to see the most important reason, if i missed it please accept my apologies?

But  the main reason is the greedy oil corporations and the criminal Elites who own them.

You see my dear, I give you an Example: I live in

Los Angeles, and you may know in most of the southern Cal, there was a significant lack of public transportation just till few years ago, they finally started to develop the Metro-link and others to reduce the gridlock traffic jam on the freeways.

It hasn't work very well, coz they started too late?

But did you know that in 50's LA had one of the best Public transportation systems in the US. They had all this Metro stuff running very smoothly, then The Oil companies managed to destroy it all? by manipulating and corrupted politicians, they took all of it apart and started Running Buses, why? to sell gasoline and tires ( Made from Oil) ?! Now you can figure this out, we go spend  Trillions of Dollars on some illegal war for what? coz some big fat corp is getting fatter?

It's a tragedy , It's Horror, horror,,,,,,,,,?????????

My Best Regards.

I am in the field of science and Engineering, you give   a budget  in 12 zeroes figure, and I'll give you what you are looking for in less than 5 years!

Edit: frflyer , Good answer, sorry i just finished reading it, you practically  nailed it ! A Thumb Up for you.

Edit: Agua-Luna.com -I LIVE OFF GRID- ? Wow long Id,

hi: That's wonderful, you are so lucky, so is Pres. Bush ranch in Tex? Now for a guy in the Oil biz going off grid? little fishy?

BTW: Did your company work on his ranch?lol