I am German actually

So I lived it. We also have strict recycling laws. I had 5 different trash cans each for specific things we had to put into them. If we didn't do it we get a money fine.

I am also happy that Germany is a big exporter on organic foods and drinks to many countries.

So no complaints on my side concerning innovative ideas for green solutions in Europe. They are in good shape and working on it. I wish the US, India, and China would also work harder on this since they extract the most pollution in the world.

I'm like 1/4 German, if that counts for anything! On a less flippant note, were there other incentives to recycle there besides getting a fine? If I'm not mistaken, I believe that China has just pass some sort of action to spend so many trillions of dollars (or yuan) on environmental cleanup, the three countries you mentioned still ahve far to go in repairing the damage, but at least its a start, right?

Power plants account for over half the pollution in the US....

Why build electric cars???? they contribute as well...

nuclear baby!!!

Scarcity of fresh water is the biggest threat, right now!

I hesitate to post to this thread because the problem is so big, it makes the answer very long.

All things in life usually require a balance. If there is too many people wanting fossil fuel, compared to the supply, the laws of supply and demand take over and cause shortages and outrageous prices for items that just don't cost that much to produce. We, in the US, have an abundance of fossil fuel on hand, except for petroleum, which we are rapidly running out of and are not buying mass amounts from other countries. As a nation, this not only doesn't make any sense, it is just plain stupid. Trillions of dollars over decades go to enrich other countries while lowering the value of our currency. Our government should have taken steps, as we ran out of oil, to make sure something else took it's place.

Carbon dioxide is being loaded into our atmosphere much faster than the Earth can get rid of it. Primarily, the problem is fossil fuels, and primarily the fossil fuels to blame are coal fired electric plants and gas powered cars. Progress in just those two areas would make such a tremendous impact, the trends would change.

If the primary source of power for an automobile was electricity, most of the demand for oil would disappear and the price would stabilize at a lower level. Little co2 would be made at the car level.

The best current technology for cleaning coal is to bubble the exhaust gas through sea water. The co2 in the exhaust reacts with the minerals in the sea water to make cement, which is then used to build roads, homes, buildings, and stuff. The co2 is locked up forever. A pilot plant is being built now. This fossil fuel (coal) would then replace oil.

Coal is a temporary measure for power production. The real answer lies in nuclear power. It is safe, clean, and does the job well. There is another process where nuclear power can be used to condense co2 out of the atmosphere and convert the carbon dioxide to standard hydrocarbon fuel of any type. In this process, whatever fuel is used to put co2 into the atmosphere is countered by the process of taking it back out.

The nuclear power option also produces a large amount of waste heat which is no big problem in itself, but could be used to strip oil from the mass quantities of oil sand and oil shale existing in North America. These fossil fuels would then replace oil.

There are still large deposits of natural gas in America but the use of natural gas to produce electricity has outstripped the supply. Natural gas should never be used to make electricity which would make the supply available for use in compressed natural gas cars (CNG). A standard engine vehicle or a car that basically ran on electricity but had a small generator engine for extra "juice" would extend the range of the vehicle to current amounts.

Small auxiliary engines of several types including hydrogen augmented, diesel, or whatever was available could be used to augment electric cars. The key factor here is that the use of oil would no longer be necessary.

As oil continued to disappear, we could make syngas from coal in the same way the Germans did in World War II. These products replace petroleum in every way.

With a little more research, batteries will be replaced with super capacitors which will have many times the life and storage capacity of batteries making the electric car even more viable.

Thin film amorous silicon solar cells can be made into solar panels including roofing shingles and supply even more of a home's energy needs and charge the car at the same time.

I could go on and on but I gotta eat.

All right, another one! Go atoms go!

All right , metalwing! You mentioned the waste heat in the nuclear process, and you are correct, this can damage rivers and ocean sites where the reactor is situated, but at least it is just heat....we have by way of the atmosphere an almost infinite heat sink. I'd rather dump waste heat into the air than all the gases and metals and acids that are released in the coal process. And I also agrre about the solar power...many more people are "going off the grid" these days.

The waste heat from a power plant can be used to soften and "melt" tar sands, oil shale and the like. Getting the oil from the sand and shale is currently cost prohibitive. Using the free energy of waste heat serves a dual purpose and further reduces our dependence on foreign oil. Even the residual heat can be used to heat greenhouses and fish ponds which greatly increases production.

150 feet from my door is 10% of all the fresh water in the world. I just went swimming in it...lake Superior

crystal clear water!! beautiful lake...it is very protected...

The Great Lakes combined comprise about 20-25% of all the fresh water in the world. They are very protected...

People from all over the world want access to this water...

See, more good reasons!

Hey there, I used to live in Michigan! Lake Michigan was always my favorite to swim in

If you dump waste heat into the air... Water will bond in the atmosphere at a higher rate as the tempreture increases.

Water IS the GREATEST of the greenhouse gases.

You might start a cycle you don't want.

Eventually the surface tempreture will go up faster than you can find a way to get it under control.

Life like ours needs a certain tempreture to survive.

are you implying that the burning fossil fuels does not add heat to the atmosphere

Do you know how much waste heat is produced by a reactor?

Ask the russians... They lost control of the heat system on a reactor and ended up paving an entire town under concrete. (and sending out a radioactive cloud that is STILL in our atmosphere)

ok...let's stick with your scenario....I don't want to do the thermodynamics behind it , but the value of the energy needed to initiate the cycle that you speak of is far,far greater than what we add to the atmosphere as waste heat now, or even if the entire worlds electricity supply came from nuclear plants. Seems a little alarming.

Really... Why do you think the cooling towers are the largest part of a nuclear reactor?

The value of the energy needed will shrink as that energy is applied. It might be so small a change as to be noticed only by sensitive insterments for the first few years. Time would snowball it. So then you want energy now... and let our grandchildren deal with the collateral damage.

As an aside - What do you do with the other waste products?

Heat is not waste in a steam turbine nuclear reactor, and it was not heat that caused the problem at Chernobyl it was the lead rods not properly engaging to stifle the reaction which of course led to run away reaction, which of course generates TONS of heat which was what was the destructive element in this disaster, but not the cause of the disaster.

Heat in a steam turbine nuclear reaction IS the source of power. The heat generates steam which we use in turbine engines to generate electricity.

A properly functioning steam turbine nuclear reactor does its very best it can to loose no heat. The heat is what powers the turbine, the less lost, the more power.


Ignorance is not a good reason to not use our safest cleanest energy source. Nuclear waste has many applications including medical, engineering, and many times can be fuel for other processes. The main problem is that we are not funding research the way we should due to half baked arguments like these.

Scarcity of brains and morality in congress is the biggest threat.

+1!

I need to figure out how to convert the dog crap in my yard into an energy source for my car....I would have an endless supply of energy!