Friday, October 23, 2009

September.. we will remember

As the Simon and Garfunkel song goes, this will be a September to remember.

There are many changes going on in the world, some good and some not so good. In Canada we are fortunate to have "Peace, Order and Good Government" while my American friends are faced with change that many did not want and an economy that continues to stall.

I was just reading Small Dead Animals and came across a post that I want to share with you. It referenced an article by William Tucker published in the Energy Tribune and explains the physics of why it is so very difficult if not impossible to replace chemical or nuclear based energy with renewables no matter how much some people might wish it to be so.

"How is this manifested in everyday life? Most of what we are calling “renewable energy” is actually the kinetic flows of matter in nature. Wind and water are matter in motion that we harness to produce energy. Therefore they are measured by the formula for kinetic energy."

Read the entire article here.

The point here is that there are orders of magnitude difference between types of energy and therefore in order to maintain our prosperous society we will always need to use chemical or nuclear energy sources.

This article is a must read. Caution; contains equations.