This is what happens when the Government runs the show. When are they going to realize if you want to advance alternative energy technology, let the private sector handle it.

http://www.funnyordie.com/vide.....ris-henchy

We should fund solar and wind. It makes a lot of sense to do so, and we need to increase or solar and wind generation capabilities.

But we also need to simultaneously continue to build coal and nuclear power plants. Those electric cars that are promoted so heavily by the President have to have reliable electric power to charge, and that’s not wind nor solar.

Certainly to rely on solar and wind to the exclusion of coal and nuclear is insane.

Further, while researching improvements in batteries we also need to drill. Wean from oil sure, but neither our economy nor consumers can go cold turkey.

But rhapsodizing about alternative technologies ignores the reason they are alternatives – they just aren’t financially feasible yet. Couple that with environmental wackos (no wind – chops up birdies, no solar, takes up wildlife migration paths, no hydro – hurts the fishies) and you go nowhere.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers when hydroelectric was going to solve all of our energy woes “just like in the Pacific Northwest” because it was the cleanest of clean energy – harvesting gravity! Hoover Dam was the ultimate in Green!

Now those dams need to be blown up to “restore” the river basins they sit in.

I have no doubt that the plot of 12 Monkeys will eventually come to pass – Mankind will eventually be wiped out by some bioweapon released not by Islamists but my animal rights activists who want to see the “virus” known as humanity wiped out so that nature can “restore its proper balance.”

Fires came to mind because you can start a fire with a maginifying glass and the sun, and something dry that will burn. And I think what goes up comes down. As someone who worked outside as a kid, you always checked the weather in the newspaper, or call up temperature on those phones that you had to dial and wait for this ring to go back around each number. Anyways, it always got in the 100’s in the summer. For the last ten years, it’s stayed in the 90’s but, no ones has noticed. People just say it’s hot and it’s global warming. I was watering with hand held hose to save water, Someone drove by and stopped a second and asked me if I heard that Gore said we have one year or something.

I think man-made things have side-affects. And nothing is perfectI

And technology has it’s side-affects too, and really affecting alot of children and teenagers. So many going on Attention Deficit Disorder medication. All the games and text-messaging, and IM’s 5 friends at a time on the internet, I can see the effects. And I think alot of them don’t need to be put on medicine, they just need help in limiting their i-brains. The adreniline and panic of the games, drains their minds, and then they are kind of vegative. In a daze. My greenie neighbor’s son has been addicted for years. And at 13 decides her son needs medication. I begged her not to without limiting his game playing first. I believe it has alot to do with children’s brains. Adreniline and on the edge, then they are drained and dazed afterwards. Their brain crashes. And here’s the deal. Children that have ADD are suppose to have games and texting limited anyways. So, his addiction is worse, because the computer has been added on top of the games. So, she changes his medication, but doesn’t want him to know, so he doesn’t look for changes as they might be in his head or imagination. Just tells him they are different pill form now. So, he’s extra crouchy and few days later becomes a bit violent and scared her. And he said I’m so sorry, mom, I just have felt so agitated and not myself. So, she called the doctor to change it.

And, I think that text-messaging is not good on under-developed children’s brains. They can text in school without looking at the keys. Most average 10,000 incoming and outcoming a month. Do the math. When my son got textmessaging, he couldn’t talk normal. Ask these kids any question, and they all give the same answer. “uh, yeah, uh no, uh maybe, okay, uh hm. yep.”. So, this summer I let my son have texting again. Already, a drastic change. Take his phone away, and he keeps rubbing his pocket he’s in such a habit. And it took him 1 hour to vacume his little bedroom, before I realised what was taking so long. And then when they talk to you, they have to be doing something with their fingers. Anytime words with sound come out of the mouthes, their fingers are moving. And their school papers get marked off for putting “U” instead of you.’
I hope our children don’t end uup needing teleprompters someday, but I’m sure

Obama’s got some agency working on tiny ones. He’ll some little chip implanted in his eyeball, and someone will tell him what to say 24/7.

Like it or not, affordable energy is the foundation of our economy. It is what creates the standard of living we enjoy and produces the wealth we rely on to help protect our freedom.

Once we begin relying upon inefficient and intermittent sources of energy, our nation will be relegated to third world status.

Words spewing from the mouth of a marxist community agitator can not change the laws of economics, physics, and thermodynamics.

I think you’ve got a bunch of multi-processors in there, firing away concurrently. First this one gains control and out comes something interesting. Then that one gains control and out comes something more or less related, also interesting. And so forth. At the end, they all go to sleep at once.

There is no doubt that the technology works. However, as has been said, it has to be commercially viable and having the government dictate what you can and cannot use to power your home, or car you drive, is not the way to do it. The Concorde was a marvelous piece of technology but it was also not commercially viable. It was funded entirely by the people of France and Great Britain and didn’t turn a profit until the last few years of its service life.

In order for all to benefit, then all must be able to afford it.

To say it’s in its infancy is an understatement. The one thing the liberals seem to think (judging by their actions) is that teh technology is ready now when it’s not. Perhaps too many watchings of Star Trek where all things are possible given an hour time-frame and not-too-challenging the plot complication.

The technology just hasn’t evolved enough yet to make it practical. And only time will allow us the opportunity to make new discoveries, learn and then apply it. In other words, “you can’t push a string”. Unless you’re the government which, it would seem, would have us driving cars powered by bird-poop or some such when instead, what we SHOULD see is a gradual shift over time to the new technology as more and more people can afford it, as the price of that technology comes down and the technology itself becomes more efficient.

Unfortunately, Algore’s “sky-is-falling” rhetoric is just that. He is the consummate example of the guy on the street corner with the sign that says “The Earth Will End In 5 Days” and yet…a month later, he’s still there.

But because of a willing media and scientists who drink from the teat of federal funding, they legitimize his hollow argument and get everybody thinking “we need to save the planet…and NOW”. Meanwhile, India Russia and China don’t have the time to entertain such enlightened viewpoints as they are busy building the infrastructures their citizens will need in this century.

Indeed, we have, in this nation, perhaps educated ourselves so wrongly that too many people are inebriated with soft science and loose-logic theory driven by the heart instead of the head.

I formed my opinion on alternative energy after reading a National Geographic (a mag that advances the theory of man-made global warming) article that affirmed that wind and solar are not yet efficient enough to provide our energy needs. So why would anyone with two brain cells to rub together think that a big investment in such technology in its current state in our infrastructure is wise?
If you want to spend your money on these things, fine. It sounds like you were a smart shopper and got a good deal on something that taxpayer money already paid for (from the Forest Service.) You didn’t even pay cost for them. But people who do pay top dollar to have brand new ones installed find that they don’t pay for themselves. That’s why in our fair city, the commission (all democrat) decided to pass a plan to pay solar panel owners for the energy they don’t use. That just means the rest of us schlubs subsidize them. Why should I be penalized for not investing in technology that I cannot afford and isn’t worth it even if I could? My energy bill has increased by at least 40% in the last 6 years already.
Foreign oil sucks for security reasons, but that’s just more reason to burn the coal that we already have, drill our oil, etc. and keep the money in our pockets and look for other good things to invest in. And we ought to be wary of the government trying to pick energy winners and losers, energy independence from foreign sources would be super, energy independence from the government is an even nobler goal for those who value freedom and individualism.

Yup and it is plentiful in the USA. We can’t do without oil. Think of all of the products made with oil.

you know there’s a world of difference between prototypes and commercial grade.

You like technology. Good for you. It’s certainly interesting and fun. Enjoy it.

But technologies with commercial potential are always leveraged quickly. Lasers were toys in the 1970’s. The first PC’s came out in the late 70’s. Micro-chips. Cellphones. Wireless technologies. MRI’s. And going back over the last 200 years, the list is endless.

Yet, alternative energy technologies haven’t been able to get off the ground in 50 years, sometimes longer. They have niche markets, because they work. They just are not commercially viable.

Maybe it’s just enemies of Al Toad conspiring against his quest to be the greatest prophet of all time.

Or maybe it’s conservatives who refuse to change.

No belief in advancing technology. Poo poo-ing changes.”

Are you serious or just trying to stir the puddin’? (as Neal Boortz puts it) That’s the most untrue statement that I have ever heard. I have been surrounded my whole life by people that have invented things and are hell bent on advancing technology. Where do you think most of the alternative energy inventions have come from? NOT Liberals. They have been down here in Texas/Redstates trying to steal everyone’s inventions/technology.

There are a lot of alternative energy ideas that look good on paper but, to take to level of being operational is another story. It doesn’t happen overnight. By all means why not embrace of of the energy resources available including oil, gas and coal.

Okay your hydrogen house sounds cool, just don’t blow up. :-)

Progress has been made, as evidenced by the Prius and other vehicles, and improvements in Notebook battery life. But the improvements are incremental, not transformational, at least so far.

To store the kind of energy necessary for Solar or Wind to be viable when the source is off will take a revolution.

It may happen at some point, but I haven’t heard anything yet that makes me think a breakthrough of that magnitude is about to happen.

On the other hand, unlike the Moron, I’m not an expert in the matter….just going on general knowledge and history.

And besides, nature provided a battery that is just laying around. It’s cheap, it’s abundant, it’s transportable, it’s powerful, we know how to get to it, we know how to control it, we know the benefits and the costs. And it has hundreds of important uses besides portable energy. It’s a miracle. Other than grace, it’s one of the greatest blessing mankind has, because it has enabled humanity in 2009 to live like emperors lived in 1899.

They call it oil.

I’m all for alternate sources of energy, heck some of the farmers here in Vermont and New Hampshire have a co-op where they process manure into liquid fertilizer and capture the methane. Some of the farms use the methane to run generators to run the lights and equipment in their barns and outbuildings. That seems like a lot more practical source of energy than the sun which doesn’t shine here that often. We’ll always have cows in Vermont. The power company want to put up some windmills a few years back but that got blocked by the yuppies who didn’t want their view disturbed.

Oblah-blah just wants us to go to the dark ages like RB says. I’m sure he’d like to bring back the feudal system with us as the serfs.

Take it back!