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Expanding on the points above, that we never switched from coal ...
United States, 2007 statistics for power generation ...
65,739 megawatts from petroleum (oil)
105,238 megawatts from "other renewables"
247,510 megawatts from conventional hydroelectric (not pump/storage)
806,425 megawatts from nuclear
896,590 megawatts from natural gas
2,016,456 megawatts from COAL
Coal fired generators make 1/2 of the power used by the United States, and petroleum only creates 1.58% of our power, and most of that is created using oil that is resident on the property where the power plant is, it's pumped straight out of the ground and used to generate power - nobody would ship oil from the middle east and use it to generate electrical power, it's too expensive.
We use oil for manufacturing, driving automobiles, agriculture, and shipping products.
So much for using solar, wind, etc, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. At best it'll reduce our dependence on DOMESTIC COAL, unless you think we're going to have wind or solar powered cars.
I ask my question again, what EXACTLY are we going to be spending this "alternative energy" money on ?
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What are you pretending not to know ?
Last edited by wind_magic; 02-28-2009 at 07:01 PM.
Reason: sp
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