Talk:Renewable energy

Renewable energy

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Archive 1

Renewable energy development was merged into this Renewable energy article on May 27, 2010

The merged Talk page is now stored in Talk:Renewable energy/Archive 1 so that the Talk page for the merged article can start clean. The main article content will now be revised to rationalize the merged article.

The reason for the merger was that the two article overlapped each other a great deal. Milton Beychok 03:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Finished cleanup of the merged main article and its references. Could probably still use a detailed review by others. Milton Beychok 05:30, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Politics of energy

Actually, I'm not sure if this comment is as a politics, military, history or engineering editor, but do look at battleship#propulsion for a bit of history on how the Middle East and oil became critical to the British Empire. I don't think one can really address the rationale for renewable energy without addressing the impact of Middle East oil, and that renewable energy offers an alternative. Remember that Europe and Japan are even more dependent on Mideast oil than the U.S. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Howard, thanks for writing the section on "Political contributions". Milton Beychok 21:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Cogeneration, North American grid weaknesses, finances vs. reliability

I've alluded to cogeneration and power sales on a deregulated grid, but perhaps these should be introduced earlier. The idea that a number of renewable sources can, in an environmentally friendly way, generate power in a distributed and localized way also should be mentioned. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Idea of renewable energy -- superset, subset, disjoint?

Perhaps in the early part of the article, we might discuss self-power (e.g., photovoltaics on a satellite or traffic light), local power (biomass for a factory) and cogeneration/grid electrical feed.

Thinking about some examples, I'm not sure they are "renewable energy" or not.

• Plutonium breeder reactors -- I think they are, although the proliferation risks make them infeasible
• Hydrogen fuel generator using water as feedstock, but perhaps a Very High Temperature Reactor to thermally or electrolytically crack the water. The water is renewable, the heat source might or might not be.

Howard C. Berkowitz 01:55, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I think those ideas are definitely a disjoint ... and not what most people think of as renewable energy.Milton Beychok 02:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Then I think we need to be clear, since many people would regard water feedstock as renewable and ignore the energy required to produce the feedback. Let's face it -- "energy" is often a buzzword. Remember the people that ran around saying "ecology now!" When had ecology stopped?

Is the proper title, giving scope here, non-fossil fuels? Fuels from closed loops? I honestly don't know. Lots of people seem to think of hydrogen-fueled vehicles as using renewable fuel. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)