Does it seem that people focusing on alternate energy don’t look at a cost-benefit comparison?
There is a lot of talk about getting off of dependence on oil. Though gas prices are going up, it is still not as expensive as what is payed in Europe. But, alternate energies come at a cost, too. Electric cars would save all sorts of gas, great. But we aren’t building any more power plants – no one wants one by them. So, limited amount of electricity means more outages and higher bills. How much will the increased electric bill be vs the higher gas bills?
Ethanol…less CO2 emissions, yeah (of course nitrogen based emissions are higher..and worse for the environment). As people are just discovering, there is only so much farmland. Every acre of farmland used for ethanol is one less for food (can we say food shortages or higher prices). Not to mention, how much energy is used creating the ethanol?
I am not saying that we shouldn’t try to have alternatives. I am saying people need to take off the rose-colored glasses and make a realistic comparison.
Thoughts?
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 8th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
My thoughts – it shouldnt be about the money.
We should all take the responsibility to reduce our use of energy. And produce our own as much as possible. Including growing food instead of lawns and concrete and decking.
If people are happy to have satellite dishes on the fronts of their homes why not put a small wind turbine?
Walk more, cycle more, use public transport more.
Slow down our pace of life, give other people more thought and want less material and so called luxuries.