Quote Originally Posted by Helz View Post
That was something my professor covered in my college course "Green building." A big part of his focus was helping students to understand that the majority of 'green' solutions pushed are not actually very green at all and to identify which solutions actually had a positive impact on the environment.
I am not sure where he got that figure but he hammered pretty hard on 'basic' solar energy and recycled metal studs. He did mention some new tower design that used mirrors to basically focus solar energy into a laser as being promising specifically because it cut out solar panels. I just spent some time poking around looking for the thing he covered but I couldn't find it.
He was also excited about wind energy that was attached to blimps which could change their altitude to catch the wind and tidal energy. Although because tidal energy used hydraulics it has a positive carbon footprint but a very very negative economic one. Anything hydraulic is very costly..
I get you, and I agree that green energy isn't a bandaid fix for overconsumption which is the vast majority of the issue leading to global warming. I remember reading an analysis somewhere that even if we go to full 100% green energy and everyone drives electric cars and shit we're still fucked because the amount of food and commodity production we need for our population is high enough alone to fuck us over.

But I still don't buy your statement that solar energy is more CO2 releasing than fossil fuels. I can't find a single source that backs that statement up. I do agree with the tidal energy though, from what I've seen it isn't feasible.

Quote Originally Posted by Oberon View Post
depends what you mean by less polluting methods. i do agree that the more efficient energy collection mechanisms played a (large) role in it, but probably not in the way you're saying.
coal itself has gotten much, much cleaner in the last ~50 years or so, to give you an example.
the transition to natural gas also helped considerably because natural gas does not pollute as much coal (even clean coal is 'dirtier' than natural gas)
theres also the idea that energy usage has become more efficient simply because technologies become more efficient as time passes by. you wont generate as much sulphur in a chemical plant today as you would've in 1960.
I mean you can actually read the article I linked and find out what I mean by less polluting methods. I'm not gonna summarize it for you, because you can read it and I think you glossed over some of the points yourself.

I'm wondering what your conclusion from pointing this out is meant to be.