Thread by @_centrists_

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly "Could, just not by 2034 or what ever."

Not seeing how. No matter how cleverly one designs a system, one can't extract energy that isn't there to be had. In the Midwest, all that seems to be present, other than topsoil and water, is a lot of absence.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly Geothermal? The crust is too thick.

Solar? One would have to take a lot of otherwise valuable soil out of use. The Midwest IS NOT sunny - during most of the year (that time when we need heat to live) the sunlight is so weak that to use 400 film in photography is to waste it.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly Wind? The air in Chicago is far more calm that bicoastal people imagine it to be.

Waves? The Great Lakes see little more than ripples compared to the seas.

Dams? Hydroelectric? The land is flat. There is little potential energy for water to drop and lose.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly What are we left with?

Biomass? Let stuff ferment, burn the gas that results? That's just indirect solar. What one gains in the form of electricity one must give up in food production, at the long term expense of the fertility of one's own soil.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly Want to raise more corn for gasohol? Then whether the year is 2019 or 9999, that which is fermented and turned into fuel is not going to be made into mulch. That which is taken out of the soil must be replaced, and the hauling for that takes energy.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly So, what sort of renewables do you propose to find in this limited environment, and how do you suggest that they be made sustainable?

If the topsoil ends up mineral depleted, and rapidly eroding due to the loss of cover, that hardly seems like a sustainable arrangement to me.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly If anything, Midwestern agriculture should probably be scaled back. The soil that goes into building the Mississippi delta is soil that is destined to be lost to the sea, as the waves lap away at the silt of Louisiana.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly If you want an energy intensive proposition, imagine going down into an oceanic abyss to collect the soil that drifted down river (and then ground-flowed or eroded into the Gulf), bringing it to the surface and then extracting the salt from the sea water mixed into it.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly If you're waiting for somebody to find a workaround to get you past the laws of Thermodynamics, you're going to be in for a bit of a wait.

Technology is not magic. It will not give us just whatever we want. If we forget that, posterity will curse us and with good reason.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly "Same for a good portion of the country"

The rest of the country is different, in differing ways. The Desert Southwest has far more sunlight, but far less water and far poorer soil.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly Vast fields of solar collectors there would make sense, far more so than unsustainable attempts to pump up water from aquifers and leaving one's heirs to worry about the depletion of water and compactification of the now drained aquifers.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly The waves striking the seacoasts are far more powerful than the gentle ripples seen along Lake Michigan. Try swimming in the sea along the shore of Long Island and you'll notice how much more powerful.

That's real, extractable energy.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly While we in the Midwest live on top of bedrock so thick, hard and cold that no volcano has erupted here since before the time of the evolution of the first primitive fishes, there is certainly geothermal energy to be had, elsewhere.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly Our largest city is located near an abundant source of wave energy (Long Island sound), and our second in an infamously sunny desert-like environment.

Ever get a sunburn in Southern California, before? Notice how quickly that happened? Far more watts / square meter there.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly "Plus nuclear has a lower footprint."

Here, yes. It's a practical choice.

Major earthquakes in our region seem to come about 400 years apart, and the last one was in the early 19th century.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly So plants built today should end up being decommissioned long before the next New Madrid quake happens. As for what Midwesterners will be doing for power in the 23rd century, who knows? It will probably have to be an import, but aside from that?

* shrug * Too early to know.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly Definitely a lot less carbon emitted, and a lot more benign than coal.

"Not to mention we have the ability to build nuclear that runs on nuclear waste. Could be useful, no?"

Indeed - and locally, unlike solar power, it's practical.

@chidiscourse23 @primalpoly unroll @threadreaderapp