A Million Green Ideas

Question by eric c: Is the notion of alternative energy being economically viable wishing thinking?


Skeptics have always maintained that if alternative energy was viable in a free market economy, they would already be in use. Proponents of global warming have always criticized skeptics as being stupid, uniformed and uneducated for maintaining this position and that alternative energy was indeed viable.

It turns out shell oil has backed out of the alternative energy investments saying it is economically a poor investment.

“Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today… The company said that many alternative technologies did not offer attractive investment opportunities. Linda Cook, Shell’s executive director of gas and power, said: “If there aren’t investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won’t put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewables [which made money] we would put money into it.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/17/royaldutchshell-energy

Best answer:

Answer by davem
Although alternative energy is here in various forms, it’s still too new to be of much use to us. In it’s current forms it is of little value when considering affordable energy that can fill all or most of our total needs.

We’ve shown that wind and solar power do work and even help now to provide energy in certain places but, overall they remain too expensive and unreliable to make large scale applications viable. Maybe someday that will change and we can lessen our dependence on oil, but til then it’s a pipe dream. We do know that the expense of even the smallest projects makes it unlikely using today’s technology.

Give your answer to this question below!

Like most individuals you most likely know that now more than ever we have to find different energy sources. Solar, nuclear and wind power are all viable.