Keystone pipeline springs leak in South Dakota

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(11-22-2017, 11:11 AM)Yojimbo Wrote: Considering the govt gives subsidies and tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry, should be pretty simple to strip those and give them to clean energy industry. You can also pay for green energy r&d by taxing polluters. Kind of like what the government is doing with cigarettes. Raise taxes to make them less desirable, use the tax revenue on smoking cessation and healthcare.

As far as battery technology, I agree it's not currently there, but it is getting better every year. Some really exciting breakthroughs on materials, charge time and charge holding happening at universities all over the country. Recycling of battery material is going to be very important to reduce the waste and need to mine new materials.  
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air

The electric car revolution is coming and China is driving it. They are making electric cars tax-free and have upcoming laws that make gasoline/diesel powered vehicles illegal. China accounts for 1/3 of all car sales in the world (and is also the fastest growing), manufacturers will cater to that.

Saw an article related to this topic we were discussing a couple days ago, but then P&R went on that like 4-5 day break.

Tesla just finished building the world's largest lithium ion battery in South Australia as an effort to help with their blackout problems by creating more stability. It was a $50m station. The problem? Brand new, it can store enough energy to power 30,000 houses for 1 hour.

Think about that. $50m to be able to store the power to run 30,000 houses for 1 hour.... in an area of 1.7m people. Nevermind that in 5 years those batteries will likely only be able to store enough to run like 15,000 houses for 1 hour. Just a continuation of a massive waste of money.

And they still require diesel backups.


- - - - - - - - - - - -

Green energy just simply isn't efficient/affordable enough to be practical yet. What they should be focused on is how to make nuclear energy even more efficient and safe, and updating old plants. The US hasn't built a nuclear reactor since like '96, and it still produces almost 20% of the country's energy.