E. Benoît:
3) And finally, thermodynamics is the law. You must obey the law.

Oh those laws…

1. You can’t win; you can only break even.
2. You can only break even at absolute zero.
3. You can’t reach absolute zero.

Now, whenever you produce electricity, you remove energy from somewhere, and in that case it’s from the atmosphere, ground, etc. We just have no clue what using such energy sources en masse will do.

The light energy normally excites electrons which go up an energy band gap, and then back down, emitting light of a specific wavelength (colour) dependent on that energy gap. Solar panels harness the energy of the electrons jumping across said gap. Which means, the energy is not reflected back in the form of light. Using this energy source en masse will only cause less reflected light, and it’s a very specific wavelength (equal to the energy in the band gap) used, so heat and all that is still left untouched.

The Bulletin raises some good points when it says that renewable energy is a myth.

A few additional arguments in that direction:

1) He mentions hydropower and how sediments accumulate. What he does not mention is what these sediment contain: usually, a few cars, and quite a lot of mercury, lead, etc. There’s a dam near the town I’m from which has 40m of such sediments (out of a ~80m wall) which cannot be removed because it would kill just about everything in the water in the valley after the dam.

2) For both solar and wind power – the sun’s energy will indeed be “renewable” for the next 4B years. The amount of said energy that arrives in the atmosphere is more limited. Now, whenever you produce electricity, you remove energy from somewhere, and in that case it’s from the atmosphere, ground, etc. We just have no clue what using such energy sources en masse will do.

3) And finally, thermodynamics is the law. You must obey the law.

In England, water no longer keeps you hydrated.

IIRC that’s not just in England – it’s valid for the whole EU.

The log-in/registration parts of n.net are only available through HTTPS on IPv6 with a self-signed certificate.

This probably explains why I’m not getting any of it (comment spam surged yesterday tho, but Akismet blocked it all).