Quote:
Originally Posted by Phanuthier
Few issues there, SGW. First off, I disagree about alternative fuels, solar cells made its big push because of the dot com crash and silicon suppliers were dumping Si for cheap. I heard an interesting concept coming out of a company in Isreal about using organic photosynthesis rather then silicon semiconductors to harvest energy from sunlight as well. What solar cells need is a small push for an avalanche effect to make them cheap IMO as they are using pretty standard CMOS process fabrication techniques now. Solar panals are still pretty pricey, but something like an Obama plan could drop prices and the ball gets rolling there. I've seen alot of wind farms around Canada as well as the USA, and then the contraversal biofuels. Heck, even plasma fusion, although thats definately long term. What does all this science mean in economic terms? I guess thats anyone's guess.
Nevertheless, I don't see Oil rising as fast as when it went from $100-150 if Obama is serious about pushing this idea of going green.
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Interesting perspective!
But I stand by my point that major change in the short term will have heavy reliance on government support (an Obama plan).
Private investment will not occur until the returns are attractive enough, which means that a final product must be able to compete with the incumbent (oil).
If oil is super cheap (and it is, for how damn useful it is), only early adopters will buy an alternative that is more expensive. Even then, it is not certain that the oil alternative will ever become a widely adopted product - thus major private investments in those technologies will be delayed until oil prices become high enough to push a majority of people into utilizing the alternative. Of course one thing that will ensure such a product gets widely adopted is government mandates (i.e. everyone Must use solar on new houses). Also, government subsidization will bring down the average cost to produce an alternative, making the investment threshold lower for the R&D companies that are developing them (i.e. the $2B green tech fund established by the Alberta gov't this year).
Another significant hurdle that renewables have to overcome is the pure utility of oil. Its energy density is very high, it is relatively stable in a wide range of conditions, it is easily transported and stored... and there is a lot of technology out there that is set up to use it, and use it very well.
I have a feeling that renewables will need to be applied on an 'as available' basis - meaning, solar will only be popular in sunny areas, wind will only be popular in windy areas, and so on. This might seem obvious, but the discussion to date has generally been that there is going to be "one" renewable technology that will replace oil - and I just don't think that will be the case.
The "silver bullet" in this case will not be one technology, but a variety of technologies applied on a regional basis, coupled with a significant change in lifestyle that makes it possible to take advantage of the new wave, so to speak.
Populations will need to shift to where food, water, and a number of renewable energy sources are readily available.
Hence why it has been such an uphill battle to overcome oil... it fuels a way of life that industrialized nations are not going to be able to let go of easily.
Then there is the simple fact that oil isn't used just for electricity generation - it is also used for heating, chemical production, transport fuel, fertilizer production, etc. Solar and wind do not offer these "byproducts", thus they just don't offer enough to knock oil off of it's pedestal.
What humanity is going to need to do to truly break our "reliance" on oil is to either find an alternative for each of oil's multiple uses, or to find a way to make oil a renewable resource itself... and there are groups making headways in that respect as well! I just don't know if that is the best idea from an environmental perspective.
I like the sound of that isreali technology... do you have any links? The best technology immitates nature.