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[Jboy2000000]

Since my last discussion seems to have caught fire, with such grace I might add, I thought Id bring something up thats almost always on my mind, but usually seemed a bit controversial to bring up. The use of alternative, cleaner power sources. My main problem is not only that oil and other fossil fuels not only produce harmful green house gasses, but they are also running scarce, last I checked its been estimated the worlds oil supply will dry up in 52 years, and as far as I know its not a huge research directive to find ways replacing the oil we're so dependent upon. My favourite alternative power source is solar, and I even have an image for later. Solar and wind are clean, renewable power sources, that people often undermine it because it "ineffective." That is just propaganda, and Ill show you why.
It would seem for whatever reason the image doesn't want to work, so heres a link.
The smallest one is all the land it would require the power Germany alone, the next biggest is all of Europe, and the biggest is the measly amount it would take to power the entire world. Wind power is also an option, but I don't have any compelling facts or images about it.
So, thoughts, comments, compelling arguments?

[Redzephyr01]

How would they get all that power all the way from Africa to everywhere else?

[alway]

Relevant: http://monetaryrealism.com/china-asks-how-much-will-it-cost-us-to-make-solar-cheaper-than-coal/

The real problem isn't scarcity of fossil fuels. We can pretty much power ourselves as long as we need for them. The problems are environmental:
1. Smog/pollution. This is super-bad for pretty much everyone, to an extent which most people don't grasp. In the US alone, pollution from coal power plants costs us an estimated 100-300 billion dollars. Yes, billion with a b. Each year. Worldwide, it's estimated to be the cause of 7 million premature deaths a year. Then you have places like China or some areas of India, where pollution is bad to the point of being a crisis. At the moment, the fastest growing form of unrest in China is environmental issues, in large part due to coal power plants producing masses of highly visible smog.
2. Global warming from greenhouse gasses, which is already causing problems and will only get worse.

[Ghills]

Wind power is ineffective.  There are very few places where windmills generate enough power to be viable, and even then it's highly unpredictable.  Solar has the same problem, just to a lesser degree.

Harvard was researching algae-created petroleum.  I think that, or some other near-clone replacement, is inevitable.  Petroleum isn't just energy and transportation, it's in practically everything.  Your furniture, clothes, toys, food and tools are all highly dependent on petroleum. 

Seriously. We don't need to lose the ability to generate electricity to have an apocalypse.  Just think about what would happen if plastic stopped being cost-effective for food storage and use in fabrics.  Half of the items in the grocery story would shoot up in price and lose shelf life. People already go hungry enough.  Clothes would be vastly more expensive, fit much worse and not last as long.  Without a replacement for all the plastic we use, we'll have a civilization-wide catastrophe.

[Jboy2000000]

How would they get all that power all the way from Africa to everywhere else?

Africa is just there for size comparison, we could obviously build the plants elsewhere.

[Jboy2000000]

Seriously. We don't need to lose the ability to generate electricity to have an apocalypse.  Just think about what would happen if plastic stopped being cost-effective for food storage and use in fabrics.  Half of the items in the grocery story would shoot up in price and lose shelf life. People already go hungry enough.  Clothes would be vastly more expensive, fit much worse and not last as long.  Without a replacement for all the plastic we use, we'll have a civilization-wide catastrophe.

All the more reason to find alternative power sources, so we could put whats left of the natural supply to more practical, cleaner uses.

[Eagle_eye]

Personally, I think fusion is really our only option. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are all only effective in certain areas, and are insufficient for powering the entire world. Fossil fuels are obviously not an option. Fission is better, but it's just a temporary fix- we'd run out of naturally occurring fissile materials in a few centuries, at best. Now if only we had a viable fusion reactor.

[mainiac]

Seriously. We don't need to lose the ability to generate electricity to have an apocalypse.  Just think about what would happen if plastic stopped being cost-effective for food storage and use in fabrics.  Half of the items in the grocery story would shoot up in price and lose shelf life. People already go hungry enough.  Clothes would be vastly more expensive, fit much worse and not last as long.  Without a replacement for all the plastic we use, we'll have a civilization-wide catastrophe.

Plastic is not going anywhere anytime soon.  Even if Petroleum extraction is too expensive to burn the stuff, it will still be cheap and abundant for plastic purposes.  Remember Peak Oil isn't when every drop of oil on earth is used up, it's when the cost of extracting oil is high enough that the cost reduces demand year after year.

In 20101, about 191 million barrels of LPG and NGL were used in the United States to make plastic products in the plastic materials and resins industry, which was equal to about 2.7% of total U.S. petroleum consumption. Of those 191 million barrels, 190 million barrels were used as feedstock and 1 million barrels were consumed as fuel to manufacture these products.

Solar is obviously the way to go right now.  It's the cheapest large scale way to reduce natural gas consumption at the moment.  That's all an green energy source needs to do, create electricity that means we burn a little less natural gas.

If we built solar power like gangbusters (way faster then now) for 15-20 years we'd hit the point where we need to worry about steady supply.  But at that point we are talking about solar electricity being way cheaper then gas and coal so we can afford to figure out a storage method.  Would that we could be so lucky that our only problem is figuring which one of the abundant ways of storing energy to use.

Personally, I think fusion is really our only option. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are all only effective in certain areas, and are insufficient for powering the entire world.

Certain areas like the surface of the earth?  They'll be sufficient when there is more of them.  The rate at which they are being installed keeps increasing.

[Eagle_eye]

Ok, sure, if you want to start clearcutting tropical forests to build solar panels, you could get enough output, but that has some other side effects.

[smjjames]

Yeah, there is only so much surface area that can be used and you can't stack them. Researchers are also working on making the solar panels more efficient.

[alway]

Ok, sure, if you want to start clearcutting tropical forests to build solar panels, you could get enough output, but that has some other side effects.

I think we should build them in wheat fields. It's pretty obvious we've got a surplus of strawmen around here anyway.

[Jboy2000000]

Ok, sure, if you want to start clearcutting tropical forests to build solar panels, you could get enough output, but that has some other side effects.

You say that like every single inch of the world that isn't a forest in being used. You think the deserts of the worlds are filled with housing complexes? Or salt lakes are filled with casinos? Theres plenty of land that could used for power purposes. Hell, we could probably build enough solar power to power the entire world in wasted space in America alone. Hell, we could probably build enough solar to do that several times over in the Americas period.

[Playergamer]

Personally, I think fusion is really our only option. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are all only effective in certain areas, and are insufficient for powering the entire world. Fossil fuels are obviously not an option. Fission is better, but it's just a temporary fix- we'd run out of naturally occurring fissile materials in a few centuries, at best. Now if only we had a viable fusion reactor.

But, Jboy, how much would that cost? How would we get that much labor, that many solar cells? Who would pay for it?

Solar power is inefficient, that map doesn't prove it isn't. Size is not the main problem here.

[GavJ]

Seriously. We don't need to lose the ability to generate electricity to have an apocalypse.  Just think about what would happen if plastic stopped being cost-effective for food storage and use in fabrics.  Half of the items in the grocery story would shoot up in price and lose shelf life. People already go hungry enough.  Clothes would be vastly more expensive, fit much worse and not last as long.  Without a replacement for all the plastic we use, we'll have a civilization-wide catastrophe.

What would happen?  We'd grow and eat local foods (the market for long range fuel-hungry transported, plastic packed goods disappears for farms near you, so they shift to something that does have a market - human consumable local demand), shift to a greater % of vegetables to more efficiently use biomass for human calories, and be a lot healthier, is probably what would happen. Price of food would probably remain about like it is, since
1) shipping costs are removed and
2) yield per acre shoots up (yield is always much higher for local organic farms and gardens per acre!), and
3) Less meat = more efficient land usage, VERSUS
4) More expensive labor
#1-3 are likely to balance out #4, or exceed it.
Storage is a non-issue for local produce most of the year, as you eat as you grow. Over winter, you can easily survive on canned goods (can yourself, or local specialist if preferred), and root vegetables without any plastics.

Yes on the clothes being more expensive. No on the fit or quality - handmade clothes are mechanically always stronger due to stitching physics (even if only on a minority of key seams), and can fit much better due to the maker having access to your body and measurements, unlike Chinese factory workers.

The vast majority of our petroleum needs are for luxury convenience, NOT "need" of any sort.
You WANT to eat Tostidos carne asada taco rolls or whatever, with plastic packaging, refrigeration, and ingedients from 17 states.
You do NOT NEED to eat Tostidos carne asada taco rolls. You could eat garden-grown turnip and kale soup instead from 50 feet outside of your kitchen.

[mainiac]

Ok, sure, if you want to start clearcutting tropical forests to build solar panels, you could get enough output, but that has some other side effects.

I think we should build them in wheat fields. It's pretty obvious we've got a surplus of strawmen around here anyway.

Heyo!