Comments on: Power To The People Not Easy

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:02:07 +0000

First of all global warming is a hoax!
The earth heats and cools all of the time,man is NOT the cause!
Until we find other alternatives, OIL is our friend, LIVE WITH IT! If oil gets to 10.00 a gal. you will be out of a job along with the rest of us!! Wake Up Now!!

By: Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:02:14 +0000

Anne has it right.

Big solutions create monopolies and huge profits for the fortunate few.

The best answer for the people of America is distributed generation, the best of which is solar panels. They are actually still coming down in price as all other forms, including wind power, go up.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:54:25 +0000

Guardian said … “Controversy and lobbying over electricity goes back to the days of Edison and Westinghouse as they vied for acceptance of “their” methods of generation and transmission. …”

Seems to me it was Edison and Tesla that battled it out over AC re DC, etc., no?

By: anne

anne — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:43:10 +0000

Darn — I still have a typo — I know, I know, it is ethanol.

By: anne

anne — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:33:43 +0000

“Corn is king and when it is fermented to make alcohol we all suffer.”
UH, doesn’t that depend some on if it’s for bourbon or ethoanol and on your opinion of each?

A small revolution could begin with everyone making a small amount of their own power — by solar, wind, etc. and not wait for the big guys to get the big transmission questions answered. As was noted earlier, every little bit helps — including continued conservation.

By: Tom Anderson

Tom Anderson — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:54:51 +0000

The worlds true energy experts are saying that we will implement all alternative and renewable energy sources. They will as a composite, however, never provide more than about 25% of our current energy useage.

Nuclear plants are not a panacea. It takes more energy to create and run the plant and mine the uranium than the plant will ever produce.

Oil shale is not economically viable and probably will never be.

There is only perhaps a 13 year supply of economically viable extractable coal left according to the most recent book, ‘Big Coal’.

To summarize the situation, fossil fuels are going to get much more expensive, and we will be very dissapointed with renewables and alternatives.

By: BRETT WINCHESTER

BRETT WINCHESTER — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:52:19 +0000

ONE THING WE ARE MISSING FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY GENERATION IN iDAHO IS NETMETERING. THIS WILL ALLOW SMALL GENERATORS TO SELL (OR GAIN CREDIT) THEIR EXCESS ENERGY BACK TO THE GRID PROVIDER (IDAHO POWER) FOR OTHER USE ON THE SYSTEM. i FEAR THAT I.P. IS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM BLOCKING THIS MOVE FORWARD. AS OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT CONSERVATION, i WOULD ECHO RE GENERATION, EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS.

By: jo

jo — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:49:10 +0000

Thanks for posting this review of the energy situation. I have to take issue with a few of your assertions. Re: nuclear power, you wrote, "Toss in the greenies who hate/fear nuke..." Here you are just perpetuating the old cliche that anti-nukers are hysterics who don't know when to quit, that their opposition to the nuke industry is based only on hate or fear....a journalistic chestnut that needs to be impounded and 'fixed'! You can find plenty of criticism of some of the nuke issues right on DOE websites. Aside from the fact that safe disposal of nuclear radioactive wastes continues to be an unsolved problem (which you recognise), another issue of importance (that tends to get laughed off by the constitutional sneerers) is the vulnerability to enemy attacks of nuclear power plant waste storage pools and also research stations, like the Livermore Nuke Lab in the Bay Area. This issue is graphically underlined by the results of a government-simulated attack on this facility, reported here in a TIME article from May of this year: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1739535,00.html You also support expanded R&D for wind, solar and geothermal, but you attack government subsidies. IMO, subsidies are necessary to get the ball rolling on new industries; therefore, they should be cut off from the mature oil and gas industries and instead moved to subsidising the renewables of wind, solar, and geothermal. California, which produces about 2/3ds of US geothermal energy as it is now, also subsidises geothermal R&D. [See, http://www.energy.ca.gov/geothermal/index.html] Cheers, Jo

By: paul

paul — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:47:56 +0000

Frankly, the quicker we get to $10/gallon for gasoline the sooner we will see viable alternatives at all levels of energy supply and useage.

All options need to be on the table. Including the requirement for the extraction industries to use their leases or lose them.

Here we are 35 years, give or take, since we got squeezed by the arabs during the Nixon years and still no National Energy Plan for energy independence. Even Brazil figured this one out a long long time ago.

I am going to vote for candidates that quit whining and actually do something about a National Energy Policy.

By: ericn1300

ericn1300 — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:46:16 +0000

Shed some light on it? If you are looking for a posting bonanza I think you got it. You’ve tossed enough slop into the trough that the piggies will be blocking out the sun to get a better position.

IMHO the cost of energy in Idaho is not excessive, at $4 a gallon for gas I only spend $260 a month in gas. Just got my electricity bill for A/C and all my TV’s and computers last month, $120. Heck, a night out with dinner and a concert for two is over $120 a night.