Then you sir, are a fool.

If solar was/is so wonderful how is it that 90% + of our energy resources are fossil based.

In case you haven't worked it out yet, its because of CAPITAL EXPENDITURE.

dollar for dollar capex you will net a much higher flow of energy from a coal mine/oil field etc, than you will from a concentrating solar array/biofuels venture.

And that is why, for the last 250 years the human race has used fossil fuels, despite their (long list of) shortcomnings.

Environmentallists seem completely blind to things like capex, profit/loss, risk etc etc. It never ceases to amaze me that they have such a poor grasp of business practices. I have my suspicions its because so many of them moved over from the CND/hippy/communist type of political thinking. I could be wrong though.

Andy

So environmentalists are "fools" who know nothing about economics?

The capital costs in solar and wind are not higher due to a law written in the stars. They relate to the current state of the technology and the infrastructure. These are cheap for fossil fuels today because large quantities of money and labor (and capital) have been committed to this purpose over centuries, and, today, a large pool of investors exist to keep investing profits back into that technology (e.g., this story).

Once sufficient investment has been made in wind, wave and solar technology, the capital costs will decline, and the operating costs will almost certainly be vastly lower than fossil fuels, as there will be no need to return to the mines to obtain more fuel, or to truck and barge and compress and decompress that heavy fuel all around the world.

There are also costs in burning fossil fuels that are not getting on the books now, because they are external to the party that's burning them, i.e, the climate change, environmental and health consequences of pollution. Wind, wave and solar do not have those costs. Once a decent carbon tax or trading scheme is in place, the relative cost of operating fossil fuel systems will become less attractive to investors, while the basic free capital market will remain intact underneath it all.

Just because we've been using fossil fuels for a long time doesn't mean they're the only way an investor can make money in energy. It may and in many cases does mean that the alternative is simply less profitable. That's why we're seeing lots of investors who already have lots of money from other industries, from Bill Gates, to the Google guys, to Vinod Khosla and Elon Musk and George Soros and Warren Buffett and T. Boone Pickens, and Richard Branson, investing in various alternative energy projects, because these folks' primary motivations now is not about making "the most" money to get rich, they are aiming to make some money, while putting sufficient investment into these technologies so that the capital costs will fall and these industries will become self-sufficient. They are putting large volumes of capital in. Don't assume that at the end all these folks expect all of these ventures to go belly up and lose them money.

Jim G.
Your writing is appreciated, yes, the renewable like Wind & Sun are growing at 20% / year while Oil Consumption is growing at < 1 %

Interesting stats on wind.
http://home.wxs.nl/~windsh/stats.html

But LNG is also a new fast growing technology and natgas is much cleaner than oil. This is needed to reduce US dependence on Foreign Oil.

While Oil will lose its share, the cleaner sources like nuclear, natgas, wind, solar, geo will increase.

@Andy:
Thank you for the complement and I appreciate your passion, Others who have difficulty dealing with facts in a changing world have called me worse. But, perhaps name calling has a better forum for expression. I suggest a grammar school play yard.

In any case, I hope you read the excellent post here by Jim G. who has taken the time to explain the changes much better than I. And, I must tell you that my comments were meant to bate and arouse concern as our economy move from being fossil fuel reliant to solar dependent.

I myself like to look at Iceland as somewhat of a model of what can be achieved in a relatively short time when the government and the citizens all work toward a common clearly defined goal. We don't have that in our country presently and the county is actually divided along many political and economic interest lines. I look forward to new leadership in the white house next year. Leadership that can unite our people and move them to solve our energy problems for the good of the people.

And lastly, let me offer an apology for bating you to the point of frustration.

"The kind of Fool who cares for his country,"

Time to fess up.

I'm an engineer. So I can read the numbers pretty quick. I don't care much for people's beliefs until they can show me the numbers. 250 years or so of industrialisation kind of proves me right about energy density/flows from sunk capital. Jim G seems to believe that its status quo thats keeping us from solar etc.

Well I've got news for you. The free market cares not whether something is good or bad for the environment (thats what legislation is for) all it cares about is the bottom line.

Currently solar isn't anywhere near as competitive as NG or coal. Not unless the environmental movement can artificially add costs (carbon tax) or geological supply constraints raise prices.

In the 1980s/90s in the UK the power generation mix turned rapidly from coal dominated to gas dominated. This was not because the govenment or environmental movement decreed that it should happen, it was because nat gas combined cycle power stations were cheap to build and run. And profitable.

The same would have happened with solar in the American south west by now if it was at all practical and profitable. The fact that it hasn't suggests that the technology isn't quite ready for prime time yet. The same large status quo energy companies will pounce on it the minute its profitable.

As it is, LNG (and other fossil sources) will be needed for some time yet.

Oh, and Jim G, there is a law written in the stars about capital costs of renewable energy systems. Its called the laws of physics and engineers worked out long that diffuse energy needs a disproportionately larger amount of equipment to capture it than concentrated forms. Hence the fossil fuel economy. Thats why its taken until the latter part of the 20th century to develop efficient enough equipment to gather it.

And Lad, Iceland is a terrible model for the US. Do you have any idea the size of the per capita (person) hydro/geothermal resource Iceland has? Its HUGE. The US doesn't even have 100th the per capita geo/hydro that Iceland does so I wouldn't try and convince an engineer that Icelands model is great. Sure it works for them, but as they say "its site specific".

I tire of environmentalists bleating on about "perfect" solutions whilst actively put the boot into anything that they don't approve of. I guess I was just pushed over the edge today. Going forward we're going to need all forms of power/energy. It would help if the technically illiterate stayed out of the media (and government but thats too much to hope). That last comment is not directed at anyone here.

Not long ago on the news here the enviro's were bleating on about a nuke life extension, complaining that we should be building more wind turbines. Quite apart from the fact that Scotland is busy building one of the largest onshore wind turbine parks anywhere in Europe. The point is we need a wide and diverse power grid, and I fear that the politicos may start to believe in some the more absurd hype that is beginning to fly around. But I digress.

Oh, and on the subject of LNG, have you seen this:

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3283#more

Let He Who Pays The Most Receive The Gas.

Andy

Lad & Andy
Engineers like Andy and myself are often left holding the bag when a corporate officer or a politician orders us to do something that is technically impossible or financially unwise. I often reffered to the saying of that great Chinese philosopher, Confusius, who said that " everything is simple, but only to the simple minded".
It is a rainy dark day where I live and there is very little wind so your utopian solar and wind power would be resting comfortably with little or no output requiring a backup system of equal capacity.
We would all like to live in an America that produced virtually no pollutants and where all the electrical power was produced by solar, wind or controlled nuclear fusion and all the vehicles had Lithium Ion batteries that provided 300 mile range between charges. But that utopian world is still sometime away.
While it is OK to be passionate about environmentalism one must not treat it as a religeon where proof is not required and only your faith is your guide.
I want what is best for my country just as my ancestors did when they served at Valley Forge, the Battle of Monmouth and chased the indians away after the Wyoming Massacre. They fought for an ideal but they did not suffer fools. General Washington ultimately disposed of fools like Generals Lee and Gates.
General Washington carefully listened to his staff and considered all sides often leaving his own prejudices behind. That was a source of his greatness.

That's right, rca.
There will be a need for synthetic fuels like H2 and CH4(methane) produced from surplus solar and wind energy to put away for use in "rainy days" literally, like you are talking about. So, this cryo-LNG storage is still a very relevant investment for the renewable energy future.