Putin: global warming is a fraud

[RoyleRedlegs]

(11-30-2015, 06:09 PM)Benton Wrote: I don't know on a large scale. On small scale, it can be. Businesses utilizing solar and wind power can cut their energy costs by a significant amount (how much that amount is varies as electric rates nationally are far from uniform).

The problem is the up front costs. For hydroelectric you've got tens of millions in a dam. It's higher for wind. According to the link below, we've subsidized $30 billion in wind energy research the last 35 years... and it still only produces about 4% of what we consume. That's a horrible ROI. Solar has a pretty decent return, but I have no idea what kind of investment it would take for significant industrial production.

http://www.newsweek.com/whats-true-cost-wind-power-321480



We should keep exploring clean energy, but we also need to do better than throwing money at everything and hoping one works out.

So it would basically be useless for countries trying to go through their own industrial revolutions like India, to realistically put significant resources into this as the backbone of their economy?

It seems like the small scale is key. Companies may choose to use these to reduce costs but it seems unlikely in the near future that it would be ideal for countries (especially ones as large as the US) to go to a green energy dominated economy.