I don't think the transportation of the workforce is the issue. Truly sustainable windmills or solar panels will have to be manufactured, installed and maintained using the power from those same windmills and solar panels. As now, we get what is left.

Neil1947: Thanks for carefully presenting this account. Just it appears to be bypassed into irrelevance by Rockman's proposed apology by Gail once someone starts spending the 10's of billions required to make it actually happen. Point is that technological feasibility counts for nothing if funding is not going to forthcome.
The project of my 2004 book www.lulu.com/content/140930 was designed to address the problem that "so many sound ideas....continue to be ignored...".

And on that basis, pending Gail having to send in that apology, my point appears to remain standing that:

there is little prospect of the huge ready capacity to harvest it, in which case it means diddly-squat.

It would be hard to think of what genuinely renewable would have to be if wind power doesn't quality

Hydroelectric is even better. And the USA has enough hydroelectric for "essential demand" in large areas of the USA.

Alan

These posts are really nice, but some comments are so naive that they actually reflect that naive American mentality that the author described so well... Many American are indeed naive (but not only Americans as this is a global issue). I think that the main contribution of this work is, in fact, to push the Americans (and not only) to think by using strong language and pictures. The author did a good job in this sense!

You don't need big numbers and equations (I am a mathematician btw) here to see the extent of the problem. You are speaking about building a network of wind power generators able to sustain the current lifestyle in the US. This is amazingly naive.

Have you any clue of how many different materials you need to put up even just one of these generators? First of all steel, do you know the temperature needed to bake steel? And you want to reach that temperature with wind power? Assuming that you are going to use the last remaining oil for baking the steel and care about manufacturing/maintenance of your fabulous network. Do you know that in order to transmit electricity over large distances you have to put the hell of a current in the cables otherwise it's all dissipated on the way after a few KMs? Are you going to put a wind generator every 5 KM^2? And when there is no wind? How are you going to power machinery for mineral extraction (assuming that some mineral is left), how are you going to guarantee basic services such as air transport? Do you realize to which extent our society relies on air transport? Do you know how long it takes to bring a letter for NY to LA without a plane? Or are you going to keep internet up? How? How do you dig and lie the cables? With DC powered excavators? Batteries today can barely keep up my pc for 3 hours and can push a plastic car at 70km/h!!! Is that enough? How do you manufacture the cables? How do you harvest mineral resources from all around the world? Hu yeah, with the US army, well you will need a big deal of oil as well, cause fighters and tanks are not working on DC. Furthermore, how do you deliver food? Have you any idea of how much oil the world food logistic network requires? I do research on this topic and two words must suffice to you: "A LOT".

This is not to be pessimistic and to speak like if I write the "Book of Revelation". But here we have a clear and well defined problem. Resources are running out and the impact of this depletion is clearly visible worldwide (otherwise we wouldn't be here to discuss). According to many respectable research articles, resources will become scarce within our lifetime. Up to now noone came up with a feasible solution. Feasible is not, we put up a solar/wind/whatever network. Feasible means that we achieve the same EROEI as OIL and we have got the same transportability, flexibility (think about the fact that oil is also used for making fertilizers, pesticides, and thousands of other essential things you need to sustain 5 BILLION people on this tiny Earth) and AVAILABILITY.
The problem is indeed "can we make it without oil?". The likely scenario is that we won't make it. Occam's razor is clear, the simplest answer is always the correct explanation. If you come up with a complex, tricky, and most of all vague and simplicistic explanation of how you are going to sustain our society without oil, well that's not the answer, the answer is that our society will collapse.

The fact is that, indeed, we are going to collapse if we carry on like we are doing now... the point is to prove that we have a workaround! When you are ill, it's pointless to point the finger against the doctor, you have to get a cure as soon as possible, before it's too late!