[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Dec-16-00 AT 01:48PM (GMT)[p]Why, when I get into debates over the crappy state of the world as I tend to do, do people always throw solar power in my face as a viable alternative to the energy sources that are currently most widely employed?
True, creating power with nuclear fission or by burning fossil fuels wastes resources and produces pollutants, but there's something that the new-age grease sponges I'm so used to dealing with don't seem to have figured out:
So does solar.
Sure, most people (at least most that I talk to) look at is as solar pannels creating energy without polluting, and doing it from a resource in infinite supply (or finite, but it'll hold out for another few billion years)
This is the way it really is:
The process is wasteless, but those solar pannels have to come from somewhere. They are comprised of materials, some rare, that must be mined. Now, that process alone, while a necessary evil in today's society, can be pollutant and can seriously fuck with nature. Then, they have to be made. In factories. Great, polluting factories.
Now, that may not seem like much, but consider that there needs to be enough nature-gouging mining and polluting factories to make enough solar pannels to power the entire world, or at least a percentage of it significant enough to make a difference. Now, if a pannel wears out, or if power demand increases (two things that weather, accidents, and a growing and technologically advancing society are sure to take care of), more pannels must be made. That's a whole lotta manufacturing.
Now, while I am by far not an advocate of current systems (Chernobyl, anyone?), I really don't think that solar is any more workable a solution than the others.
Well, sorry, had to rant about something
True, creating power with nuclear fission or by burning fossil fuels wastes resources and produces pollutants, but there's something that the new-age grease sponges I'm so used to dealing with don't seem to have figured out:
So does solar.
Sure, most people (at least most that I talk to) look at is as solar pannels creating energy without polluting, and doing it from a resource in infinite supply (or finite, but it'll hold out for another few billion years)
This is the way it really is:
The process is wasteless, but those solar pannels have to come from somewhere. They are comprised of materials, some rare, that must be mined. Now, that process alone, while a necessary evil in today's society, can be pollutant and can seriously fuck with nature. Then, they have to be made. In factories. Great, polluting factories.
Now, that may not seem like much, but consider that there needs to be enough nature-gouging mining and polluting factories to make enough solar pannels to power the entire world, or at least a percentage of it significant enough to make a difference. Now, if a pannel wears out, or if power demand increases (two things that weather, accidents, and a growing and technologically advancing society are sure to take care of), more pannels must be made. That's a whole lotta manufacturing.
Now, while I am by far not an advocate of current systems (Chernobyl, anyone?), I really don't think that solar is any more workable a solution than the others.
Well, sorry, had to rant about something
