solar

National Economics Editorial Staff: Renewable energy advocates have claimed for decades that solar and wind power are the future. Some boldly state that the world could be powered by renewable energy sources as early as 2030, given the exponential growth of solar and wind electrical capacity. And of course, the mainstream media plays up the importance of solar and wind energy in defeating the scarecrow that is climate change. While 13.6% of world energy comes from renewable sources, the vast majority—72.8%—is just people in developing countries burning wood, charcoal, and dung for energy. That’s right: feces is a more important energy source than wind power.

John Shanahan, Civil Engineer, Editor of allaboutenergy.net: A lot of the public in North America and Europe have been led to believe that wind and solar energy are better than fossil fuels and nuclear. Other countries are determined to stay strong with fossil fuels and nuclear. It is so sad to see the downfall of Western Civilization coming from extreme environmentalists claiming catastrophic man-made global warming and sea-level rise. The nations with stronger energy programs will control the world.

Paul Driessen, senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow: The IPCC says it’s still possible to limit planetary warming to an additional 0.5 degrees C (0.9 F) “above pre-industrial levels” – but only if global CO2 emissions are halved by 2030 and zeroed out by 2050. So climate alarmists intend to carbon-tax, legislate and regulate our energy, factories, livelihoods, living standards, liberties and lives to the max. We went to war with King George over far less serious abuses and usurpations.

Dax Contreras, digital Director, Editor and contributor for The New Mexico Politico. Safe, reliable, and affordable power is a crucial part of a strong and growing economy. The dependability and general affordability of electricity here in U.S. is a significant component of our historically robust economy. But recently, a vocal and active few here in New Mexico are part of a coordinated, nationwide effort to severely restrict our ability to produce economical and reliable power.

The company, Energy Vault, has commercialized the ultimate energy storage technology that will build the foundation of a clean energy future – brick by brick.

The Energy Vault stores excess electrical energy by efficiently transforming it into gravitational potential energy using 35-ton bricks that can be raised and lowered at will, and that can sit still storing the energy for any amount of time, before transforming the energy back to electrical energy when needed.

This idea has applications for storing excess energy from the grid from any energy source if it proves economically competitive. The idea is beautiful in its simplicity and generalization of pumped water storage in the mountains.

Rob Jeffrey, Independent Economic Risk Consultant: It is claimed that wind and solar are the cheapest sources of electricity and these sources should dominate the future electricity supply. This paper focuses on known additional costs and subsidies which are not taken into account by their advocates. Advocates of wind and solar claim a cost of 62cents/kWh. This is, however, the price at the gate of the supplier. It does not include all the costs of supply necessary to convert this electricity from non-dispatchable electricity supply to dispatchable electricity supply at the point of supply to the customer. These are in effect direct subsidies to solar and wind suppliers, whereas they should be added as a cost to the renewable energy suppliers

Charles Battig, MD, electrical engineer, member: CO2 Coalition, The Heartland Institute, TRCS: This presentation shows that carbon dioxide is an essential molecule for life on Earth and not a pollutant like environmental extremists and their politicians claim. People in the free world must come to their senses regarding the importance of fossil fuels for freedom, strong economies, peace, prosperity, healthy environment, preservation of wildlife habitat and biodiversity. An easy to understand document like this is essential for the public. The nuclear power industry should stop making claims that nuclear power can save the world and polar bears from catastrophic man-made global warming. Nuclear power is not able to control Earth's climate. This presentation and many like it clearly explain what controls climate change. Nuclear power is essential to providing strong economies around the world for thousands of years and helping poorer, less prosperous people. It should rely on that strength to get new nuclear power plants going worldwide.

Eric Jelinski, past president of Environmentalists for Nuclear - Canada, farmer, environmentalist, university lecturer with degrees in mechanical and chemical nuclear engineering: There is no such thing as renewable energy. Could you build a renewable energy system without any support from coal, oil or natural gas? I’d like to see the renewable energy advocates mine, manufacture and transport everything that is needed for wind and solar farms and electrical distribution networks using wind and solar alone. Jim Conca, geologist, science and energy writer for Forbes predicts the 2100 mix will be natural gas and wind. John Shanahan, civil engineer says that natural gas and nuclear is better.

Neil Alexander, Ph.D. radiation damage in steels, business strategist, consultant and advocate for nuclear energy: In this world, when we finally admit the renewables experiment was a failure, we will look around and find we have few other options available to us. New nuclear if we need it will take decades to research, develop, test, license and deploy.

Paul Driessen, senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow: On the global stage, despite Herculean efforts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and activist groups to redefine ‘climate change’ and conjure up scary hobgoblins, the obsession over global warming, ‘green’ energy and the Paris climate treaty has hit the rocky shoals of reality. Despite well over $150 million spent by billionaires Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and multiple environmentalist groups, hard-green voter propositions were resoundingly defeated in the 2018 US elections.

Don Bogard, radio-geochemistry, nuclear geochemistry, planetary science: This article is another scientist's opinion on use of fossil fuels and what will be required for a transition when fossil fuels eventually run out or if governments decide to force abandonment of these energy resources that have created the modern world. He makes a very important conclusion: "Any significant change to the US power infrastructure MUST be a measured and long-term endeavor." There are several reasons for the long transition time: a) We don't have the technical ability to build nuclear plants that fast. b) We must establish used nuclear fuel reprocessing, mainly to save the unused 99% of nuclear energy from the ore. Don't put it back in the ground "forever." c) We must establish standard ways of storing the remaining radioactive waste. d) Nuclear power should only be used in countries with stable governments, strong economies, good education systems, well developed industries to perform some of the maintenance operations. e) We must develop additional nuclear power technologies besides the very large Light Water Reactors of the past. Don Bogard understands these needs. Too many outside the nuclear power profession wrongfully claim that the whole world can be owning and operating nuclear plants in fifty or one hundred years. In reality, it will be several centuries, maybe longer. We must have wise energy planning for the whole world NOW. That must include fossil fuels for generating electricity, not abandoning them for wind and solar.

Michael Fox, Emeritus Professor in Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences - Nuclear power may just be the most important solution to our search for clean, sustainable energy sources. Although wind and solar can contribute to our energy mix, we need a reliable source to meet large-scale energy demands. However, most people are wary, if not downright afraid, of nuclear power. It's time to clear up misconceptions and examine the science behind nuclear power, in order to determine what role it could and should play in our future. NOTE: There are supporters of nuclear energy on both sides of the Anthropogenic Global Warming, AGW, topic. The position of this website is that nuclear power is important to deal with climate change from all causes. See articles about AGW under the tab, ENVIRONMENT.

The 20th Century brought horrendous suffering and death. The covid pandemic of 2019 - 2021 caused several million deaths but much less than other pandemics and acts of man. Politicians triggered a global economic downturn that led to a reduction in man-made carbon dioxide emissions. But this did not change the increasing atmospheric CO2 trajectory. The increase in atmospheric CO2 must be from another source, like release of CO2 from the oceans from a naturally warming world. Leaders of the free world are forcing very questionable energy policies (abandon fossil fuels and nuclear power - go with wind and solar). That is unjustified and scientifically baseless. The decisions of alarmist politicians and their backers will cause tremendous suffering and death. Our worst enemies are among us.

When the crowd settled down, a scholarly-looking man walked out and put his hand on the shiny block, “Good evening,” he said, “I am here to introduce NMC532-X.” “We call him NM for short.” “NM is a typical electric vehicle (EV) car battery in every way except one; we programmed him to send signals of the internal movements of his electrons when charging, discharging, and in several other conditions. We wanted to know what it feels like to be a battery. We don’t know how it happened, but NM began to talk after we downloaded the program.

This fictional story includes a three minute video that will amaze you about how electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind turbines are made.

Calvin Beisner, Cornwall Energy Alliance: One of the greatest concerns is that the demand to reduce allegedly dangerous, man-made global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions would trap the world’s poorest 2.9 billion people—about 1.3 billion of whom still use wood, coal, charcoal, and dung on open fires as their primary cooking and heating fuels and about 1.9 billion of whom lack all access to electricity—in extreme poverty and high rates of disease and premature death.