Will Alternative Energy Ever Go Mainstream?
April 30, 2012 | By Mike Gonet | Filed under: Articles, Education, Green News, Solar Energy, Wind Energy
The problem in evaluating various forms of power is that two critical elements of the debate — and the efficiency of the energy source — are often ignored, or wind up buried beneath “statistics” designed to sway the heart instead of the brain. In many cases, an ignorant public and a highly divided political system simply demonize what they barely understand. Let’s try to ignore the talking heads for a while and look at the numbers at ground level.
A pressing need
Renewable energy’s support is often based on hope and hype, promising freedom from polluting hydrocarbons and the nasty terrorist-harboring petrostates that control them. But that hope ignores the reality, which is that we need to power our many devices quickly, cheaply, and consistently, and we need to do it right now. Alternative energy is not yet up to the task, and so hydrocarbon alternatives remain (for now) on the fringes, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s data show …
