Challenges of Renewables: Limitations and Second Thoughts

Coal. It’s energy that’s ready to go. Gas. It’s the same. Renewables are made by things that come from many different areas. All require traditional energy sources to make them renewable.

My math isn’t good, but more stages uses more energy than one. The renewable future has a glitch.

I understand why we want to change the world, but I don’t understand this? Save the planet? How do we save ourselves from stupidity?

It doesn’t require a super-scientist to figure out a deficit exists. Unless those renewables last hundreds of years at a time, we’re behind the eight ball, haven’t solved the original problem, and created a new one. Coal and gas are still required because renewables don’t make themselves. Renewables don’t last forever and there’s a new waste.

Battery contents are more toxic to the environment than nuclear waste. If their compounds reach the water and food sources, we’re definitely doomed.

Here’s a simple formula.

Solar panels can’t power a solar panel factory. Wind turbines can’t power  a turbine factory, and batteries can’t power a battery factory. To be affective energy alternates, each must be able to generate power to make their own line AND then service the community, domestic and commerce included, AND then do it for sixty plus years without stopping or upgrading. If they can’t do this, then there’s no future changing an entire economy to pursue it. We’ve not gained. We’ve lost… even more.

Carbon dioxide is the gas we are afraid of.

The last time I looked, humans produced that gas. The last time I looked, humans were also removing plants, the natural CO2 scrubbers of this world. Plants process the air and cool the planet. The basic formula for solving the problem is there to fix. We either stop breathing or cover the planet in native greenery.

We blame big business for climate-associated problems, but it comes down to everyday people—you and me. For each child we make, we add another lifelong CO2 generator to the mix. That child grows to occupy a home of its own that uses space where plants and animals once lived. We say corporations aren’t doing enough, but corporations aren’t making babies.

If we halved our population and doubled our green canopy, we’d turn things around. Instead, we believe plugging a car into an energy socket will fix it.

With luck, we’ll stop that nonsense soon. Perhaps we’ll come to set an existence standard for our species and the link in the chain of life for which we are responsible. It’s about time we found our proper place, and learned to stay within some boundaries. I’d hate to think we started yet another brilliant idea loaded with good intentions and great virtues only to create a new problem for future generations to deal with.

We’ve done that before, many times

-Michael

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