Just got back from a lecture at CWRU given by visiting lecturer David Goodstein, vice provost and professor of physics and applied physics at California Institute of Technology, entitled Out of Gas-The End of the Age of Oil(link). His closing prediction was that civilization as we know it will come to end in this century. His lecture detailed the fast dwindling supplies of fossil fuels, the global dependence on energy produced with these fuels, and the negative effects this dependence has perpetrated on the environment.
While he is hoping that his dire assessment will spur research on alternatives- both nuclear and solar(under which heading he placed wind, biomass, pv, etc)- he only mentioned these alternatives briefly and was not particularly encouraging- e.g. according to Dr. Goodstein, “wind turbines are noisy and ugly”. Clearly Dr. Goodstein is not the man to send out to proselytize for wind energy ( Apparently he hasn’t visited the windfarm in Fenner NY, where the 20 1.5MW GE Wind Energy turbines are virtually silent. check out), but his facts regarding the gravity of the current situation with regard to fossil fuels could be useful.
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