Re: Great post jimw
Posted by
Tim_NC on 3/23/2011, 3:31 pm
The U.S. electrical grid is so old and obsolete...it runs at a pathetic 30% efficiency (vs. the 90% efficiency of the European grid.)
Short news item from two and a half years ago:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=worlds-largest-machine--the-electri-2008-08-28
Between our power grid, our highways and bridges, our levees, and our urban water and sewage pipes...oh crimany, do we have a lot of work to do or what? And where will the money come from?
If we copied the Euro health care system we'd save one trillion dollars a year. If we copied the Euro power grid we'd massively reduce our oil imports. If we copied the Euro levee/water control systems we'd have less flooding. But we can't....because a large segment of our society would rather die than admit the Europeans can do anything better than us.
We can drill til we're blue in the face - but what's the point when most of our electrical generation ends up as wasted heat instead of useful power?
Eisenhower built the interstate system and Kennedy built the space program...but what have we done since? It's been half a century since we had decent national leadership...and boy does it show!
For the first half of this century we have two choices; burn coal (cheap and plentiful) or suffer an endless drop in living standards due to the cost of energy. It's a rotten choice...but we did it to ourselves.
Tim in NC
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