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You know what ginds my gears???
May. 4th, 2010 01:55 pmEvery time I hear some politician, or media personality, or activist, or anyone at all talk about wind power, solar panels, or any form of electric power generation, and then spout some buzzline about "reducing our dependency on foreign oil" in the same sentence, I get mad. Renewable sources of electricity have Little to Nothing to do with crude oil.
"Lies!" they say; "America is so wasteful with oil, we must have wind farms to stop global warming and reduce oil usage!" they say.
Well I say THEY ARE WRONG.
Wind turbines, solar panels, and nuclear plants are replacements for coal. The amount of electric power generated in this country by burning crude oil (probably the most inefficient use of the stuff, btw) is miniscule in comparison to that generated by coal. Even natural gas comes up pitifully short next to coal.
Oil goes mostly into cars. Not your ceiling lights. Not your air conditioner. Not your electric stove. Cars. The gas that runs them and the plastic they are made of and the vinyl or whatever synthetic you are sitting on in the seats.
What is it about this that is so hard to understand? Why must everyone get it wrong? If we built 50,000 wind turbines tomorrow, and had them running by next week, we would be using the same amount of oil because nothing was done about the cars.
Why is this so hard to get across???
"Lies!" they say; "America is so wasteful with oil, we must have wind farms to stop global warming and reduce oil usage!" they say.
Well I say THEY ARE WRONG.
Wind turbines, solar panels, and nuclear plants are replacements for coal. The amount of electric power generated in this country by burning crude oil (probably the most inefficient use of the stuff, btw) is miniscule in comparison to that generated by coal. Even natural gas comes up pitifully short next to coal.
Oil goes mostly into cars. Not your ceiling lights. Not your air conditioner. Not your electric stove. Cars. The gas that runs them and the plastic they are made of and the vinyl or whatever synthetic you are sitting on in the seats.
What is it about this that is so hard to understand? Why must everyone get it wrong? If we built 50,000 wind turbines tomorrow, and had them running by next week, we would be using the same amount of oil because nothing was done about the cars.
Why is this so hard to get across???
