Alternative Energy Versus Math.

In a break from his ammusing comentary on anime Steven Den Beste, he pulls out the greatest weakness to Alternative Energy: Math.

In order for "alternate energy" to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:

1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).

...

My rule of thumb is that I'm not interested in any "alternate energy" until someone shows me how to scale it to produce at least 1% of our current energy usage. America right now uses about 3.6 terawatts average, so 1% of that is about 36 gigawatts average.

....

The way you can tell that a fan of "alternate energy" is a religious cultist is to ask them this question: If your preferred alternate source of energy is practical, why isn't it already in use?

These are very important questions and one should have them in mind.

Energy should be an Engineering problem not a religious one.

Better technology does allow for new energy methods. See Nuclear as an example, but one must look at Alternative Energy with a clear head and a basic idea of math.