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June 08, 2019, 07:25:18 AM |
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Solar energy conversion has its place, but we are becoming obsessive about it. Clearing a field of all its greenery and turning it into a solar farm may not be the most productive use of a scarce resource ( fertile land). It wold be far better to site the solar farm on desert land close to the sea, and use the solar energy to create hydrogen to transport to energy hungry cities. Hydrogen is a clean and efficent power source.
So many people seem to think they are saving the world by installing a couple of solar panels, and buying an electric car. They don't look at the total picture, and cut down trees and hedges in their gardens, pump themselves full of antibiotics and other drugs, and spray weedkiller over the barren parking lots they have created where their gardens used to be. They then use petrol leaf blowers to drive surface detritus out into the road to be washed down the public drains. They throw their litter onto the streets and into the environment, where much of it finds its way into the rivers and seas.
The governments don't help either. They introduce taxes and restrictions to suck money from consumers, and to force them to replace good efficient products with fashionable alternatives. This seems to benefit the bankers who own the manufacturing units and the resource mines, rather than the environment. For example there are massive restrictions on emissions from personal transport, but no restrictions on civil or military aviation. The burnt and unburnt fuel from air transport is pumped directly into the upper atmosphere, and there is no attempt to reduce any of the pollutants in the emissions. In fact some fuel still contains lead, which is banned in most transport fuels.
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