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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 5032815" data-attributes="member: 4720">This I agree with.  A lot of the rest of your post is a bit out of date.Paper is an ecological blight upon developing nations rivaled only by textiles, and it isn't doing us any favors, either.  Chesapeake Bay isn't exactly enjoying the effect of the toxic waste generated by paper milling and recycling.Electricity is, potentially, the greenest tech there is since you can produce it from tides, wind, running water, sunlight, bacteria and algae, nuclear reactions, and several other methods.  There are plans for a massive solar farm in the Sahara which will generate enough power for meet, at last estimate I saw, 130% of Europe's current electricity needs.  And that's using solar tech that is only sort of new-ish.  We're discovering new ways to make solar more efficient constantly.  We also have dozens of ways around the variability in output.  For example, peak production will far exceed usage, and the excess electricity can be used to hydrolyze water to charge hydrogen fuel cells, which then is consumed during the night to meet energy demands when the sun isn't out.Or look up the tidal power generation going on in the Orkneys.Using 1991 tech, we could have powered the entire U.S. using wind farms just in Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota.  Using modern tech, there's enough usable wind power in Texas alone to meet 100% of the U.S. electricity need.  That would require a massive infrastructure change, so I'm not advocating that as a silver bullet solution, but it does suggest that if we start mixing methods better we could generate a LOT of electricity with renewables.Electricity is potentially 100% renewable, without even getting into elaborate ideas like orbital solar farms.  Paper on the other hand...  Look up "paper mill pollution" and prepare to get ill.Also, tree farms are completely ineffective as carbon sinks.  If I fly home for the holidays, I can technically offset that carbon by planting a tree.  But here's the kicker.  It took me 4 hours in the air to release that carbon.  It takes the tree almost 100 years to actually offset it.  This is a losing proposition, especially if someone cuts it down and makes it into paper in less than 100 years.If you want a plant that will actually offset carbon, we need to look into algaetecture or algae farming, which are both expensive at this time.Sorry... this is one of my hot button issues.  Energy policy gets my back up.  I'll settle down now.</blockquote>

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