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Stefan Claudiu
The Zeitgeist Movement - Orientation Guide
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into storage batteries for private use, to full scale solar
power
plants, new technology is constantly emerging which is improving this potential.39 Wind
power
, while often denounced as weak and impractical, is a lot more
power
ful than most people think. U.S. Department of Energy studies have concluded wind harvested in the Great Plains states of Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could provide enough electricity to
power
the entire nation.40 More impressively, a 2005 Stanford University study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research found that if only 20% of the wind potential on the planet was harnessed, it would cover the entire world's
energy
needs.41 And then there is Tidal and Wave Power. Tidal Power is derived from
tidal
shifts in the ocean. Installing turbines, which capture this movement, generates
energy
. Tapping the flow of the Gulf Stream, Icelandic current and other underwater currents can be harnessed. In the United Kingdom, 42 sites are currently noted as available, forecasting that 34% of all the UK's
energy
could come from Tidal Power alone.42 More effectively, Wave Power, which extracts
energy
from the surface motions of the ocean, is estimated to have a global potential of up to 80,000 TWH a year.43 This means 50% of the entire planet's
energy
usage could be produced from this single medium. 44 It is important to point out that
tidal
, wave, solar and wind
power
require virtually no preliminary
energy
to harness, unlike coal, oil coal, gas, biomass, hydrogen and all the others. The fact is,
energy
is nothing but abundant on this planet. The only reason people today think it is scarce, is because of the monetary/capitalist system and its strategic propensity to create scarcity. (2) The next question is what about industrial raw materials? Can the earth's supply of raw physical resources, such as wood, iron ore, aluminum and cotton support the world's population? Everything you see around you is made of tiny particles called atoms. There are many different types of atoms, each with a special combination of protons, neutrons and electrons. These different types of
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1637594/research_highlights_potential_for_improved_solar_cells/ "U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory". February 6th 2007 41 http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html 42 http://www.bwea.com/marine/resource.html 43 Future Energy Solutions / IEA report, 2003 44 World Consumption of Primary Energy by Energy Type and Selected Country Groups, 1980-2004, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
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