The Glade 4.0

And here you present another false dilemma. We can do things about heat islands, so let's do them. The global policies do not require that the items you mention are ignored. We can do more than one task at a time.

With this, I largely agree (though I'm not even sure what all the current policies are, so who knows on that one). However, what I disagree with, is the assertion that moving to alternative energy will cause any more local environmental damage than current policies. It won't.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Anyone know how big either of those need to be in acreage to match the power generation of a typical low e coal plant?

We can, but we aren't. That's the point you seem to be missing. We have a list of IPCC Recommendations. We have a list of Kyoto Recommendations. We have no list, no media coverage, no political interest in actual conservation. The political interests are all that matter when it comes to our government. I'm not presenting a false dilemma, because current action is not providing funding or money toward solvable man-made problems.

Because policies are not being pursued that phase out existing energy infrastructure. We still have to meet increasing demand. And, ultimately, economics is the fundamental issue with the situation: politics. We can't remove what's already here or replace it with solar/wind farms, because those sources alone as insufficient to meet the increases in demand, much less supplant the already existing demand.

UF, out of curiosity, what exactly is the argument being made in that article? What is it you find persuasive or convincing, and what is it persuading/convincing you of?

And instead, large plants have transmission loss issues. How significant they are in comparison isn't my expertise, but let's be fair and fully disclose.

Monte -- so you don't have an issue with keeping coal plants open, then? That's an interesting departure from people I associate you with, if so.

Okay Mus, not saying I disagree with you, just tell me what the answer is and why aren't you investing in it and telling us about it now.

In the industry, some suspect that G.M. and the Obama administration decided against selling the Volt at a loss because they want the company to appear profitable before its long-awaited initial stock offering, which is likely to take place next month. For taxpayers, that approach might have made sense if the government planned on selling its entire 61 percent stake in G.M. But the administration has said it will sell only enough equity in the public offering to relinquish its controlling stake in G.M. Thus the government will remain exposed to the company’s (and the Volt’s) long-term fate.

So the future of General Motors (and the $50 billion taxpayer investment in it) now depends on a vehicle that costs $41,000 but offers the performance and interior space of a $15,000 economy car. The company is moving forward on a second generation of Volts aimed at eliminating the initial model’s considerable shortcomings. (In truth, the first-generation Volt was as good as written off inside G.M., which decided to cut its 2011 production volume to a mere 10,000 units rather than the initial plan for 60,000.) Yet G.M. seemingly has no plan for turning its low-volume “eco-flagship” into a mass-market icon like the Prius.

Ahhh, the ever important "some suspect" or "some say".

Harry Reid has decided that Senate Democrats will put off their cap-and-tax energy ambitions for now, focusing on smaller-scale subsidies and mandates. Anyone who thinks this counts as a "compromise" might visit Arizona, where the green campaign for renewable energy is forcing the state to confront the limits of a nonrenewable resource—water.

With more than 10 months of sun a year and vast tracts of desert, Arizona is seemingly ideal for solar power, aside from the fact that solar isn't cost-competitive with conventional fuels. So, in a preview of the "renewable portfolio standard" that Democrats want to impose nationwide, the state mandated that utilities produce 15% of their electricity from green sources by 2025. Scores of solar projects are thus under review by federal and state regulators, with some of the applications fast-tracked so developers can qualify for tax credits in the stimulus.

One hitch: The hot, arid regions best suited for solar also tend to be short on fresh water, and Arizona is no exception. Utility-scale solar power works by generating steam that spins turbines. Cooling the system at the end of the process consumes almost twice as much water per megawatt hour as coal-fired power plants that use the same cooling technology, according to a 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service. The study, which examined the consequences of a solar expansion in the southwest, adds that it could consume as much as 1% of the state's finite water resources within a few years.

Environmentalists say other solar methods require less water, but these aren't as efficient for generating power and they raise costs even more than the usual solar process. At any rate, Arizona is already an electricity exporter, mostly to California, so it isn't as if energy is in short supply. The state's green regulations are effectively a mandate to export water, which is in short supply.

The greens also claim that advanced photovoltaic solar farms (which convert sunlight directly into electricity with de minimis water) are just around the corner. But photovoltaic technology is no closer to commercial scale than cellulosic ethanol, plug-in vehicles and the other "second generation" science projects that environmentalists claim are just five years off to excuse the shortcomings of technologies as they exist today. They're always just five years off no matter what year it is, in order to justify continued subsidies.

Jon Jarvis, now Mr. Obama's National Park Service director, warned in a memo last year that a green boom in the southwest could "strain limited water resources already under development pressure from urbanization, irrigation expansion, commercial interests and mining." At least when endangered species regulations recently caused water shortages in California's San Joaquin Valley, it was on behalf of a living creature, rather than a speculative and immature technology that costs far more than ordinary power.

Green energy has been sold as a great free lunch, promising millions of new jobs and cheap electricity, but somehow it never turns out that way when you look under the hood.