[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: 500 Year Old Structure

[Chris Green]

Lawrence Lile wrote:
> <snip>
> Wind power is growing at 30% a year and can produce power at a capital
> cost of $1 a peak watt
>   
I'm curious as to where you got that figure from.
When I looked into it a few years ago, a then-new 5 Megawatt turbine 
--the biggest available at the time -- from GE cost something in the 
range of $28 Million US.. That works out to about $5.60 a peak watt. Not 
bad, really... Right now it is rumoured that a new hydro dam being 
discussed for northern B.C. will have a capital cost of at least $5 a 
peak watt, but B.C. Hydro is being pretty tight-lipped about the 
estimated cost of things. The recent news papers are saying that wind 
power would cost $5 as well, so, given  a choice and some real numbers, 
we should go for the turbines. At a $1 a peak watt the entire argument 
for hydro will disappear. (Same for nukes....)
> Need a job? Wind turbine installers are hiring like mad
> www.suzlon-usa.com
>   
Thanks for the link. That could be a "glory job," like working on the 
Confederation Bridge. There are some private companies looking at 
mountain tops near where I live to see which ones they will install 
turbines on. I believe work will start on one location in the next year 
or two.
> New solar cells are just coming available that can produce power at a
> capital cost of $1 a peak watt www.nanosolar.com
>   
A few years ago, while he was taking training to install pv panels, my 
electrician friend told me if solar fell below $3.50/ peak watt, people 
would be tripping over themselves to install pv roofs. Lets hope this 
happens.
> New technologies for carbon sequestration are being developed on a dozen
> fronts
>
> People like us are greening the planet as fast as we can go
>
> Human ingenuity will forestall global warming. 
Some of it: CO2 is not the only global warming culprit. Some other 
compounds are much worse.
>  I would hope that we
> have a few less people in 500 years, by choice and planning, but I doubt
> it. 
I'm not too confident at this time about that. I expect a large collapse 
in populations to happen because of the droughts, and especially because 
of the reduction in supplies of nitrogen fertilizers that will happen 
when oil production starts to decline precipitously.
>  But I am sure that a lot more of them will be walking to work, and
> living in buildings that use very little resources, with technology we
> are working out right here on this list.  
>   
Personally, I have seen a profound change in attitudes in the 4 years 
since I became committed to advocating sustainable building methods and 
things related to it. With the aid of the internet, I've witnessed this 
being discussed world-wide and among groups and in places that one 
wouldn't normally expect to see promoting these changes. There is an 
unprecedented amount of brain power tackling the many challenges we 
face, and still more intellectual effort uncovering new things, 
especially in the nanotechnology field, which in turn could provide even 
better solutions.
It occurs to me now that we may even be able to clean up things like 
that sea of crappy plastic floating in circles in the North 
Pacific...without catching the few remaining wild salmon and other 
fishes in the process...and find some way to recycle the crappy plastic 
profitably. Oh, my...

We face some mighty challenges. A positive attitude helps.

Cheers,

Chris Green.