I desperately tried to find something worth watching on TV last night as I downloaded new stuff for my XBox whose video input dominates the tube. I landed on a PBS science show, Nova I think. Since my kids, going to Southern California public schools are inundated with environmental information some of which is actually useful, I do my part to give them some perspective. Incidently, I gave Sprite a copy of the latest Imprimis on nuclear energy and she sternly told me that she's not concerned with global warming, just air pollution. Excuse me.So I figure it would be worth watching.
Well it turns out that Germany has this deal in which they guarantee to fix the price of electricity generated from solar for twenty years. As a homeowner you buy electricity for .20/kWH and you can sell it back to the grid for .50/kWH. Not a bad scam.
I now recognize how vulnerable children are to the promises of science and environmentalism - it is because they have no concept of economies and the extent to which this small interesting tidbit of capability fits into the realms of possibility. And while this Nova program showed very reasonable soundbites about how renewables are never going to handle much more than peak demand (Duh solar power doesnt' work at night), it was fascinating how quickly they went over to Germany saying that one man is making a difference and got that country to get 20% of their power from renewables, 'and it could go as high as 30%'. Then after that breathless prose they explain the details of the 20 year deal with the government.
The first word out of his mouth was anti-nuclear. Anti-fossil I can understand, and actually have some sympathy for. But the politics of energy are pretty interesting. So now I have decided to forget about healthcare completely. It's all about the energy, baby. I'm the pro-nuke guy.
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