ENERGY FROM HOT LAVA--

--is completely unfeasible for almost anywhere but Hawaii, Iceland, and possibly Yellowstone National Park, but Yellowstone is somewhat smelly. Really, the sulfur kinda get to you. However, solar energy is a lot easier to use, just get somewhere where there's lots of sun. LIKE OREGON!! So, what will follow is the continuation of our group's green energy business pitch, because we couldn't hack into Steven's H-drive and finish it from there.

Southeastern Oregon actually has a lot more potential for solar energy generation than is commonly realized. According to some government thingy that Steven has (it is actually a legitimate government source), most of the area in the Southeastern quarter in Oregon gets enough sun to make generating power through solar panels possible and efficient. So, for our green energy company, we propose to put a large solar installation in an area of land in Oregon in the Southeast of the state (maybe a couple of square miles, depending on cost of the land). Apparently, since no one wants to compete with the great hydroelectric power generation that is littered throughout Oregon (from now on OR), this potential solar site has gone mostly unnoticed. Also, because of the amazing power grid (their infrastructure really is GREAT), it will be easy to make the power we produce available to most of the states on the west coast. So, even should there be an excess of power in OR, it would be easily possible to just export our energy elsewhere as well.

Our Consumption

Before our good teachers get onto me for reporting everyone's names, nowhere in this document is a second name, so, for all intents and purposes, this is anonymous. Well, here is the excel sheet with classwide consumption of fossil fuels, primarily in the form of petroleum based combustion-based propulsion liquids (gas).

Energy is local

Really, that's what I think. Were that all that a blog post necessitates, I'd be a very happy (albeit lazy) young man. However, that's not the case, so I'll explicate. I think the technology for most "clean" or "green" energy is fairly viable. That is, this sort of technology is readily available and it works well. However, much of this energy is only viable for certain areas of the world. For example, though the technology for wind-driven power is very good, only places that are windy can actually use this as a useful power source. Although wind turbines give a lot of energy when they run, the amount of time that they could actually be running in the southeast would put the startup costs far out of line of the potential profits from generated energy, making wind a bad option for renewable power in the Southeast. However, because of the abundance of rivers in the Southeast, hydroelectric becomes a much more viable clean power source there, where in the dry Great Plains it isn't at all. So really, it all boils down to this, do what you can with what you've got. Here's a link to the great Southeastern hydroelectric dam system, the TVA.