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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Yes and no. Suburban rooftop implies solar power, and specifically photovoltaic conversion. Solar power for things like heating and cooling has been around for a while. It most sensible for hot water heating, as that's up to 20% of the average energy bill, and there is a relatively fast payback on the investment.
Photovoltaics are quite another matter. They've seen limited deployment because of cost.
And even if you can get all of your energy requirements that way, that doesn't end the requirement for fossil fuel. The last I looked, electricity was about 25% of the total national energy budget. (The rest went to residential and light commercial heating and cooling, industrial usage, and transportation -- all things that likely aren't feasible to use electricity instead.)
Ultimately, economics will prevail. We won't run out of oil. It will simply become more expensive than other alternatives, and we'll switch to something cheaper. Alternative energy has had only niche penetration thus far because it usually is more expensive than using oil, coal, or gas.
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Dennis
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I'm not sure if this is in every state, but many states allow the energy companies to buy back electricity if you have photovoltaics that exceed your usage, so you can actually run a negative bill if you have enough capacity. That takes quite a load of photovoltaics, but those thingies that Ralph showed us might end up being just the thing.
And T Boone has a great idea, as well. Wind energy to replace natgas generation and use natgas to cut improt dependence.
There are lots of things that are coming along or waiting in the wings that will eventually be cheaper than oil.
Oil was one of the drivers of the tech boom that makes it possible to go back to renewable without going back to the dark ages. We just have to have the sense to go for it.
Here's where I'm a hybrid: Let's develop stuff and see what happens and make new things. We should agree to change what we're doing because it's leading to a bad place. But ferghodsake, let's open up the gates and let things go forward. Hold back becasue there might be an environmental problem? How about just keeping an eye out for environmental problems as we're froging ahead. We've learned a lot about monitoring in the past century. Let's use it and progress, rather than holding back.