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UK to "get serious" About Renewable Energy
Bob Dobbs writes "Tomorrow the UK government will
announce (observer.co.uk) it's going to "get serious" about renewable energy; in the bleakest look at global warming so far Tony Blair will warn that extreme weather will wreak £150 billion worth of damage across Europe within a decade and the current situation is "unsustainable". On the bright side, it's mentioned that sustainable energy sources are less susceptible to terrorist attack."
I'm telling you... it would work.
Looks like were getting hand-cranked energy. But to keep the gears lubed, wont we have to rely on foreign oil?!
The current situation is "unsustainable"? Tony, you're shattering my view of the world! I always thought oil supplies etc. would last forever...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Blair actually disagrees with Dubya on something.
Next up, he's going to be accused of supporting Al Qaeda's scheme to cripple American industry with this 'global warming' nonsense.
Yeah cause all we care about are those terrorists attacking our energy
Are you trying to tell us that you're into Asian girls?
On the bright side, it's mentioned that sustainable energy sources are less susceptible to terrorist attack.
:/
Yeah let's see them terrorists blow up the sun. The jokes on them though even if they do, they'll just kill themselves too. HA!
Oh, kamikazes. yeah
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
See also last Friday's op-ed by Nicholas Kristoff (no link, sorry -- I read it in print and won't register) in the New York Times -- he talks about fuel-cell cars and it's an interesting and somewhat on-topic article.
It means you'll never have to depend upon a foreign country for energy or fuel.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
This is a classic politicians trick. Are you on awkward territory with the liberals? Throw them an environmental policy they'll like. But the trick is make it so far fetched that nothing will happen for 20 years by which time you'll be conveniently out of office. Remember the Hydrogen Care initiative at El Presidente's State of The Union? Next up - a space elevator!
It's depressing that the primary reason for action, quoted, is expressed in monetary terms, and not human ones. This happens time and again, and is a reflection of the values of the times we live in. When we speak of damage to the environment, the future of the human race itself is at stake, but our primary reason for wanting to do something about it is how much it might cost? PLEASE WAKE UP.
Watch for this, watch for how often things are expressed in monetary terms, as though that was all that mattered.
It may cost that much for the first 3-4 years, but then the price will decrease. Why? Because noone will bother fixing what was broken anymore. Those who live in disaster-prone areas will quickly become uninsurable, and noone will risk living in those places any longer.
--sex is a renewable resource
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
i amglad to see something getting out there about renuable energy, now if only the canadian goverment whould get off its ass about this too
Now if someone could convince the American goverment to do the same , iam sure the people (and insurance companies) in "tornado alley" would like to see some action too, or is the price of a few peoples lives and properties (and whole nations droughts,floods etc) worth it so people in LA or NYC can drive SUV's to pick up their children from school ?
of course iam talking out my ass and global warming is just a myth
right ?
2:09 PM, Feb 23, 2003
Shortly after receiving a telephone call from US President Bush, Tony Blair announced that he was wrong about alternative energy, that it is actually part of an "Axis of Evilnessity". Blair also said he recently read in some college essays on the internet that alternative energy would help fund terrorism. It was also revealed that the UK will be joining a "league of allies" in the US-led "War on Liberals". "I believe, and I think the people of the UK stand behind me on this, that we should do whatever Bush says, if it helps kill terrorists."
Sounds like another arguement for my hydrogen powered Jeep. GWB mentioned it in his State of the Union Address too.
No telling what the British are thinking though, with all of that renewable energy sitting right there under the North Sea.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
It's nice to see one industrialized nation start looking at renewable energy. (I've heard that Germany has already started a similar program--would someone more knowledgeable care to comment?) It would certainly be nice if the US started getting serious about reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. And started promoting more environmentally friendly lifestyles, rather than give tax-breaks for SUVs.
:Peter
I don't know WTF I'm talking about.
Check out the URL.
this white paper, a few weeks ago,about the governemnt setting targets
for CO2 and renewable energy levels, instead they've set aspirations
(see the BBC , The Sunday Herald
and The Telegraph).
Most people seem to share the view that New Labour 'aspirations'
mean absolutely nothing, and we'll probally end up in 2050 with
more coal/gas/nuclear (best option in my opinion) powerstations than
ever before.
Oh, I'm a Republican
I got a small schling
I like to bomb niggahs
and make a lot o' bling
I got a bunch o' friends
in high up places
They helps me get dem
government graces.
You think I'm smart
I just know who's who
I couldn't run a fruit stand
without the red white & blue
I'll drop some crap
about Jesus the Christ
You'll buy it all
and vote for me twice
'Fact, Jesus is comin'!
Real soon, now!
So we gotta prop up Israel
That ol' sacred cow
Don't need no history
Don't need no schoolin'
I got my ideology
To keep me a shootin'
Liberals! Faggots!
Commies and queers!
Socialist hippies
Full o' pussy tears
Propaganda's m'friend
But I calls it "fact"
Even though I don't read
'Cept for Chick tracts
Facts? No! Don't need em here!
We're conservatives! We work on FEAR!
Don't like what we say?
Well FUCK YOU, bud!
We'll shove it down yer throat
and tell ya it's good!
No problem, just do as everyone does...... only use 100% recycled dinosaurs and decayed plant matter.... ;)
Renewable energy plants are also a lot less susceptible to terrorist attack.
Presumably this is just because renewable sources produce less energy individually; rather than blow up a single power station they'd have to take down hundreds of wind turbines.
Is this really such a good thing to boast about? "They're less susceptible to terrorist attack because there are going to be thousands of the damn things scattered all over the countryside"...
Phil
"Cattle Prods solve most of life's little problems."
The crucial assumption that the earth will become 6 degress warmer within the next century probably stems from a IPCC study. But the IPCC study is being disputed - mainly for grossly overestimating the 3rd world growth. And with a more reasonable estimate of the economic growth, the resulting CO2 emission and therefore also the resulting global warming will be substantially lower.
4
See for instance here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2003/2/17/15110/519
On the bright side, it's mentioned that sustainable energy sources are less susceptible to terrorist attack.
:)
Here in Norway, we use mainly water power. Blow a reservoar, and you got one helluva flood. Of course that's a lot of concrete, but there's also damn many tons of water pushing from behind. So it's not automatic that sustainable = safe... but since I haven't bothered to read the article, this is probably about some other kind of sustainable energy
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
There is already some controversy about this as any concept of targets (e.g. significant, measurable improvements by 2020) were removed from the white paper at the last minute (by the govt) - this is regarded as something of a let down by the sustainable energy people. No measurables in this proposoal will make apportioning of funding for any potential scheme much more difficult - it is a definite watering down of the whole concept.
Renewable or sustainable? Nuclear fission is not renewable, but is sustainable in the long run (possibly with breeder reactors) and looks like the only way to reduce CO2 emission levels while keeping the energy production comparable to the current levels.
(Solar/photovoltaic consumes almost as much energy to make solar cells as they produce over their entire lifetime and yield toxic waste, solar/thermal has a poor ration of conversion to electricity, windmills and dams need to be spread over very large areas -- think whole countries -- to produce the same quantities...)
And nuclear reactors would still be vulnerable to terrorism. But they are not PC anyway.
While it sounds great in theory, don't volcanoes put far more pollution into the air than mankind does? How much of a difference would it make if everybody suddenly went over to something like solar power?
Foreign oil funds dictators and terrorism.
:)
Renewable energy (wind, hydro, solar) creates local industries and reduces reliance on foreign energy sources.
It makes political, economic, and ecological sense
Before such measures have any effect on global warming, the following will have to take place:
As we are not even approaching the first step, we have to face the fact that these changes are coming. Not that we shouldn't try to change things - we'll have to have other forms of power when fossil fuels start to run out anyway. But these changes are coming and it is now out of our power to stop them.
The real question is, how is the world's food production going to be affected by the climate changes? From the current predictions, it seems that most intensive farming areas of the world are going to have less water, which is an extremely bad sign. I hope people start planning for this soon.
The most ironic part of the article is the continued push against nuclear power, which is currently the only technology which could produce a significant amount of Britain's power without CO2 emission. We have truly dug a deep hole for ourselves.
(Sorry if this is a bit bleak, it's monday morning here.)
so I say the government should give deep tax cuts to companies that build the ethanol production infrastructure so that we can replace Gas with Ethanol in 10 years rather than 20.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
and wave machines, please tell me something I dont know.
moo
As a statistician, can somebody show me PROOF of global warming? That is proof over more then the last 70 years? Given that reliable accurate records are found over an statistically INSIGNIFICANT period of the earth's history, all other "evidence" through rock, plant and ice layers are speculation. Does anybody else think claims of human effects on temperature to be anything other than speculation. I'm not saying I couldn't be convinced, but claims of comparison of current and past temperatures is pure bunk as there is no hard data to compare it to!
>Tony Blair will warn that extreme weather
>will wreak £150 billion worth of damage
>across Europe within a decade
Funny, Blair doesn't give sh*t about europe as such, apart from the occasions where he can take
advantage of it.
Yet this demagogic lad wants to warn Europe about
global warning.
Go home coward. If you really want to warn
somebody: Tell Bush about global warming. You
faggy bitchsucker.
Nor is he an Emperor, nor a King, nor does he have any titlage of nobility at all.
I see constant ranting about how Bush wants to destroy the world and won't consider alternate energy sources as opposed to fossil fuels.
Hello? Did any of you actually watch the State of the Union Address?
Yeah, I thought not.
The sad part is, Bush'll continue to take the blame when Congress shoots down everything related to hybrid cars and such. The Democrats will blame the Republicans, and the Republicans will blame the Democrats, and when they get nowhere with that, they'll blame the man in the Oval Office.
Democrats will whine continually about how the Republicans are stalling new measures, while they'll be just as much to blame. Same with the Republicans. Perhaps the Green Party and other fringe parties will support change, but no one listens to them anyhow.
When the partisan playground finally empties, the only person who will take full blame will, of course, be Bush. Why? Because plenty of whackjobs in this country seem to think he's a dictator and can do whatever he pleases, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Economy sucks? Must be Bush! Dependance on oil? Must be Bush! Rain this weekend? Oh, damn that bastard, he cheated and won an election! We wouldn't have rain this weekend with Gore in office!
You want change, get off your asses and write your congresspeople, instead of blaming a person who's power is limited to good ideas.
I dont remeber where this came from.. but imagine a rat running in its wheel with "intel" tattoed on its forhead... inside your box.. that would sooo make my day. ;)
moo
Somehow I don't picture solar energy working very well in the UK. I would think their high degree of cloud cover and rainy days would put a damper on such a project. Are there any existing (and reasonably efficient) solar plants in the UK?
Given their island nature, wind power might be reasonably useful. Current windmills in the UK seem to be bringing in 2MW per turbine. Of course, this is small in comparison to the 38GW that's currently being consumed by the UK. (Wh / hours_per_year)
Divide it out and they need only build 19,000 wind power turbines to power the country's electricity needs.
There is certainly value in installing as many affordable renewable energy sources as possible. However, for general purpose usage in all countries, the world's energy needs won't be solved before commercial fusion is available.
In the 70's "scientists" predicted a new ice age.
We don't know for sure what the climate will do but we do know that we are exiting an ice age so common sense would suggest that temperatures get warmer when this occurs.
To say that temperatures are getting warmer due to human intervention is simply conjecture.
The worst thing is to monopolize entire industries by allowing the government and their "scientists" to create the standards for any improvements upon fuels, energy sources etc.
This is like allowing Microsoft to set the standards for the entire computer industry.
People do care about becoming self-sufficient and weaning themselves off of oil but if you allow the government to tell us how this is going to be accomplished you can bet that somebody who is friends with some Senator or Parlimentary leader will get rich and those with truly good ideas will be prevented from bringing their ideas to market.
If the airline industry had been allowed to be completely responsible for its own security, you can bet that at least one airline would be letting you carry your loaded sidearm with you. That airline would more than likely not have suffered on 9/11 (boxcutters do beat seat cushions as offensive weapons) and perhaps garnered a loyal following among law abiding gun owners.
Government is about controlling the market however and so good ideas will always be shoved aside to accomodate those who have political influence. In the wake of 9/11 government decided that the best way to secure airline travel was to ban plastic knives and subject your grandma to an anal probe. If you have any confidence that they can solve global warming then you probably haven't looked into the various problems they've attempted to solve and how their "solutions" have worked out.
You cant get much out of them but if you overclock them then Im sure the results will improve.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
I refer you to this article by Steven Den Beste talking about amounts of energy produced by various technologies. (He starts with biodiesel but moves on from there.)
Personally, I think nuclear energy is the only realistic way to go, but like Den Beste, I admit that nuclear power is politically dead. On average, nuclear waste is by far the most containable pollution compared to anything releasing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. IMHO, being an 'environmentalist' and being anti-nuclear power is nonsensical.
- Necron69
Sadly some of us do consider human life cheap (It's very easy to make, and will be around a long long time). I believe in quality of life over quantity of life, and economics is a reflection of quality of life. When the shuttle broke up, I didn't think twice about the people on board, I wondered what it was going to do to the US financially.
We are all going to die, I promise you that. Spending an extra 2 months out of the year working to fund federal disaster programs affects me directly, and I am not ashamed to say that I care about that. Counting costs and counting lives are equally important, and intimately connected.
I'm not actually saying you are wrong, just that money and life aren't so seperate.
More people should look at wood burning these days. The technology has come a long since the days of an old rusty pot belly stove in the basement. There is a good site about burning wood
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Most renewable enery sources don't work continuously. Solar energy isn't much use during the night or a cloudy day. The wind doesn't blow continuously. There will be a need for as much conventional powerplants as without renewable energy for days with little sunshine and wind.
As an Apple user and Volkswagen driver, I know when someone is gay. I am an authority in determining if someone is homosexual. Tony Blair is definitely a fag. There is no doubt in my mind that Tony Blair not only sucks penises, he is also the bitch in an anal love relationship with George W. Bush. Tony Blair is so gay, that even my juices get flowing. Someday, I would hope to have my dick sucked by Tony Blair. That is what I think of this. Tony Blair's sucking could be a renewable energy source.
Your assertion about solar energy is incorrect. Most solar panels are net energy producers after 5 years of their 30 year lifespan.
w ww.nrel.gov/wind/wind_potential.html
Your assertion about wind energy is also incorrect. The time for most wind turbines to be net positive in energy is a few months. The area required for energy production for wind is much smaller than you say. If 6% of the total land in the US were cultivated for wind power (which doesn't exclude other uses, like ranching), the total energy production would be 1.5 times the total produced in the US today.
The key to energy independance is not just switching sources, but using substantailly less energy. Using less energy is possible without making huge sacrifices, it just requires developing and building smarter.
See:
http://www.awea.org/faq/bal.html
http://
how much difference will it make now that dubya has pulled the US out of the kyoto agreement?
That man tried to kill mah Daddy
Tony Blair will warn that extreme weather will wreak £150 billion worth of damage
I don't know, with the right promotions, pay-per-view tie-ins, etc. Xtreme Weather could be the next big thing. Get Tony Hawk(TM) to claim boarding in Xtreme Weather is amazing and you're halfway there. They could recoup their losses and then some.
Or save the environment. Either way.
Problem with that is that it seems that Bush was all talk as well. I'm not suggesting Blair won't be all talk though.
Hmmm... Pie...
> Did any of you actually watch the State of the Union Address?
Do you actually _believe_ everything Bush said in his State of the Union address?
I'm not sure why peolpe haven't looked to alcohol for fuel. Some Petrol-burining engines would need minor modifications, others would need none at all.
It's not only ready to go right now, but could be incredibly cheap, and renewable. All you really need is sugar and yeast, and the sugar could easilly come from excess produce, such as corn, so this would also financially benefit the farming industry a great deal.
Sure, it's not solar, it's something that would be feasable right now, and would have 99% of the benefits of solar (burns very clean, does not pollute, would be incredibly inexpensive, would be compact and effecient power, and would put an end to OPEC and all their !@#$%^&* ).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hmm.
The British goverment has already raised all the taxes it can get away without people noticing too much, and then it's raised taxes that people will notice as much as it thinks it can get away with.
"Global warming" seems to be something that goverments like to exagerate out of all proportion so that they can put vast extra taxes on energy that they wouldn't be able to get away with otherwise.
This is nothing but an excuse to further raise taxes. Bah.
Sig is taking a break!
Yes indeed, it does always come back to nuclear fission. There it is.
Here are the options: fossil fuels, nukes, some Star Trek / hippie rubbish that will definitely earn someone a Nobel Prize for BUILDING AND DEMONSTRATING THAT IT WORKS, or donkeys and candlelight. Those are the choices.
Yes, the two realistic ones both cause pollution and involve big business making big money and big messes. The Black Mesa Institute have two teams working feverishly, one to overturn the laws of physics and the other to fundamentally reform human nature. The odds are 3:2 and pick 'em.
Wow. You must have done some serious regression analysis concerning industrial output of C02 and temperature over the last 3 billion years. Care to post your findings?
I live in Norfolk which has some cool wind turbines going. Like this bad boy in Swaffham. They're going to build another even bigger one there soon. They are building the UK's biggest wind farm on the sand bank just off the coast here. They are even talking about converting some of the old wind mills/pumps that used to drain the marshes here to generate electricity which I think would be really good if it means more of them are preserved and serving a useful purpose.
Weetabix - generating energy for everyone!
How about a bicycle home trainer with a generator? It should provide enough energy for a laptop to read slashdot!
as it means all countries in the world can stop fighting over energy and work together.
Fossil fuels are causing many problems (environmental, foreign policy in the middle east), nuclear is politically incorrect and subject to NIMBYs and not enough investment is being made into renewable/alternative sources of energy. Duh. Does anyone see the problem with this picture?
--
How about the idea of solar chimneys.. ..they cost alot to build but could be the answer.
A once working prototype
And another link
/. AC "Concrete lifejackets could get certified under ISO2002"
I'm not sure why peolpe haven't looked to alcohol for fuel.
:-)
Isn't that the stuff that stinks like french fries? But of course this is a moot point as long as fossil fuels are cheaper. The key word here is incentives.
and would put an end to OPEC and all their [... ASCII code?]
Well, no. Crude oil contains many many different hydrocarbons. After refinement, you have petrol and a lot of other chemicals that are presently irreplaceable in industry. Again, alternatives are conceivable for most applications, but... fossil is cheaper.
Maybe we really do need a Bush dynasty in the White House? They keep stirring up the Middle East with unfinished wars, thus keeping oil prices up, and protecting the environment against their own intentions. The "invisible hand" of global ecologics?
Poo-Choo Train!
Have you ever seen ice buildup slough off of the blades of a large wind generator in bad weather? It's deadly. The area around wind farms can be used for other functions, but there are times of the year where it's advisable to stay very far away from them.
Even wind farms have their dangers.
this is such a bunch of tripe!
First of all.. if we were to take the encylopeadia Britannica and stack all the books up.. then the thickness of each page would represent more than 100,000 years of the earth's history. This means that the last ice age which ended about 10,000 years ago and was at peak 18,000 years ago would be within 1/5 of the thickness of the last page.
There were 8 ice ages in the last 2 million years and that is within the last 20 pages.
Within the last 2,000 years (2% of the thichness of the last page) there have been several warming and cooling periods denoted by such names as the little ice age and the medieval warm period . Crocs were in the themes during Roman times... (little warmer).
look here to see a chart showing global temperature over the last billion or so years. This is the paleomap project an they have done increadible work.
Check out the university of Carleton, Tim Patterson has an excellent course on climate change and this is being broadcast on TLC as well.
On Chris Scotese's web site you will see that for 90% of the history of the planet for the last 650 million years or so, the earth was about 20 degrees warmer than now. If you look at the miocene maps you will see that 14 Million years ago the planet was warmer.. and a lot wetter..
BTW... the time scale on Chris's chart is not linear. If the chart is re-scaled it tells the same story but is even more dramatic. (We leave the re-scalling to the student as an excersize).
Look here if you want to know why Britian is so keen on renewable energy and specifically look at these charts which show the decline rate of North Sea oil production. Britain will become an oil importer within 2 years. The decline rate of North Sea oil production is more than 15% per year. The chart shows how feilds deplete. You can see how the big plays are drilled first and last the longest... and thereafter smaller and smaller fields are brought online until they give up and stop drilling. This is where Britian is now. One of the stats is that Britian has about 250 barrels of oil per capita. That is it! On to renewable because the oil resource is gone.
The real issue of climate change is this. Water in the atmosphere is far more significant than CO2. Firstly H2O is at a far greater level so the question becomes... how would we express the level of H2O in the atmosphere? Secondly there is uncertainty in the measurements. Thirdly, irrigation and agriculture increase the H2O levels. Most of that water pumped onto the fields will evaporate and plants do transpire!
CO2 levels are in the range of 0.036% and this of course is a plant nutrient.
So we are left with adding 2 numbers for instance.
H2O = 0%-4.0% +/- what? a percent?
CO2 = 0.036% +/- 0.0005
You can see these numbers here in table 7a-1.
Since the warming response is most likely due to the weighted "sum" of the CO2 and H2O and all the other green house gasses of course, then we need to "add" the H2O levels to the CO2 levels. Well - the numbers are in the preceeding paragraph and I don't know how to add them. We don't even have a good handle on the uncertainty of the H2O levels... but, My guess is that irrigation and agriculture have increased the H2O substancially.
So - we end up with the anaolgy to the encyclopeadia. Almost all of the data for climate modeling has been collected in the last 100 years and this represents 1/1000'th of the thickenss of the last page of the stack of books. Meanwhile all the other pages are basically ignored. The geological history of the planet shows that the planet is usually (90% of the time) about 20 degrees warmer than now. So most likely the planet will warm back up. But we don't know when and we might get another ice age or several before this happens. Anyone for 10,000 feet of ice over Toronto? Who votes for palm trees in the artic circle?
I thought it has been proven years ago that perpeteum mobiles wouldn't work? I suppose it boils down to using solar energy (of which wind and water presumably are just derivatives)? But even oil is solar energy, if I remember correctly it's just plants that are thousands of years old and have been pressed together to become oil. I suppose the key is not using solar energy, but reducing the amount of energy used to the amount that is presently being provided by the sun in a usable form. I suppose plastering the whole planets with solar cells or windmills would have quite an impact on the climate, too.
It's a proven fact: the oceans are rising. We must act now and I am afraid that reducing our usage of fossil fuel isn't the long term solution. What we really must do is to address the masturbation epidemic among young boys. I am telling you p0rn on the net is the demise of humanity.
Problem is that although wood burning is a clean, renewable source of energy, it takes too much space, especially for the UK. I think offshore power is what is basically being focussed on at the moment, Blair is annoyed because Holland got ahead of us and now owns the wind farm industry basically.
Not only is sustainable energy good for the environment, but it's good for politics. The key question is: why do Middle Eastern terrorists, and many Middle Eastern non-terrorists, hate the West? The easy, overly simplistic, and thus popular, answer is because they're insane fundementalists who have a huge amount of pent up anger and will go after anything. This is no doubt partially true. Insane fundementalism is unfortunately a bane of human existance. However, the current level of animosity between two large segments of the world's population is too large to attribute soley to insanity. After all, the same level of conflict doesn't exist between the western countries and Asia, or them and Africa. A more encompassing answer is that terrorists have immense hatred because they're fundementalists, and the our continual meddling in the business of the Middle East just fuels their fire and gives them an excuse to take it out on us. Now, why do we continually meddle in the business of the Middle East? The answer is very clear. It's all about the oil. If it were not for oil, we would have absolutely no reason to be involved. It might very well be that without the stabilizing influence of western countries, the Middle East would degenerate into a mass of feuding, warring countries, but that was precisely the state of Europe for several centuries, and it would be supremely sanctimonious to believe that it would be in their best interest to be stabilized. It can be argued that such a state of existence is a natural phase in a region's progression, and that without such a phase, the real benifets of regional peace cannot be appreciated. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to base our decisions on philosophical ideals about the progression of civilizations. We need the oil, and we are pushed into a certain course of action in order to secure that oil. Rampant terrorism is the unfortunate consequence of a combination of impugned racial, regional, and national pride, and the latent hostility and fundementalism present in all human societies. Thus, Mr. Blair is more correct than it seems at first. Not only are sustainable energy sources less susceptible to terrorist attack, but moving to such sources greatly lessens the chances of such attack to begin with.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
More people should look at wood burning these days.
No. Not on a global scale, because then it becomes non-sustainable.
Excessive wood burning is one of the major reasons for desertification in developing countries. They experience a population explosion while many people retain their agricultural/nomadic lifestyle. Too many eaten, trampled and burnt plants means rapid erosion.
If you plant one tree for every one you burn, it's OK, but this makes little economic sense, as the energy density of wood is too low and the costs (time, space) too high to warrant the effort in a developed society.
Gasoline at $5/gallon would get rid of the SUV craze, and good riddance.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
From: Australia Rules and regulations
Vehicles up to 30 years old including Forward Control Vehicles:
15% Duty + 10% Gst
4WD 'Off Road' Vehicles & Commercial Vehicles:
5% Duty + 10% Gst
Just like in the apparetnly approaching Iraq War:
when the UK acts... Australia mimics...
We need renewable energy but - unlike Holland,
Denmark, et al. - we've been way too slow to
do much with it on large scales.
But - this time - I look forward to an
Australian act of mimicry of the UK...
While it is true that Bush suggested moving from a gasoline economy to a hydrogen economy, this does not mean that we are going to turn away from fossil fuels. Most likely, getting pure hydrogen from water would be too energy intensive, and pulling hydrogen from hydrocarbons will be the source of our fuel (at least in the beginning). Switching to a hydrogen economy will not free us from mideast dependence. Energy is a nonsatiable good, and only our actions, not our technology, will affect its use.
You mean like: let's go get us some oil-reserves in the middle east _again_?
Make that Denmark.
-- Spelling and grammar errors tend to be a sign of erroneous thinking.
Back in the days when the UK energy market was nationalized, one provider took out a full page advert describing how they were going to solve the energy problem with solar power. The Earth's axis of rotation would be moved so that Britain was in the tropics, thus making solar power efficient. The ad went on to explain the effects on some other countries of the world, and how this was an entirely desirable and justifiable state of affairs: it was our turn to have some nice warm weather for a change.
Considering the published date, it's no surprise that the final line of the ad was "April Fuel!"
IIRC they were slapped on the wrist for wasting 50k of taxpayers money.
Ian.
A physicist is an atom's way of thinking about atoms
But they aren't quite in the same "Monster Truck" league as a lot of SUVs.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
To get right answers to the energy question, we must start understanding that
a technology's efficiency rating must subtract the true energy cost of production of all hardware involved and extraction of all resources including the energy and resources consumed by the people involved and
an assessment of the environmental impact of technology must include the environmental impact of the factories producing the energy production devices, the raw materials consumed, the wastes produced, the land covered, and the environmental energy transferred (many transform environmental energy of some type to electricity and transfer that electricity to other locations where it almost always becomes heat).
Almost every "solution" I've seen come from the friends of the environment has huge environmental impacts and many consume more energy than they produce. Let's talk about a few.
Hydrogen - its an energy transportation mechanism, not a source. Its impact is little different than electrical wires with the exception that it allows you to "wire" a vehicle to a hydrogen generation plant that will likely be oil fueled. To date, it is cheaper to mass produce hydrogen from oil than any other substance.
Solar cells (cost) - once again, solar cells are an energy transport mechanism. Because the energy investment in lifecycle support (mining, production, distribution, maintenance, recycling) is greater than the lifetime energy output. Efficiencies would have to be far higher to offset this. Don't forget that you have to produce all the energy that we currently consume + all of the energy consumed to produce the energy. Another big weight on the efficiency rating is that you have to back this with other technologies for storing the energy to supply energy at night and when cloudy, these reduce the overall energy efficiency ratings of the system too, both directly and indirectly through the energy cost of production of the backup systems. On top of that, you have to plan for worse case scenarios because you'd likely supplant much of the other energy production technology. What effect would the fires a couple of years ago in Indonesia have had on regional and even worldwide solar energy production? And they lasted for how long?
Solar cells (environment) - solar cell energy consumption might be environmentally friendly, but the energy production will alter the landscape of an order of magnitude more land than oil. To get the capacities we need we will have to significantly change the reflectivity of large areas of our planet. What will that do to weather patterns?
Various underground organic energy sources - none are sustainable. We should stop just burning these up because they are also our cheapest stores for many other raw materials needed to sustain modern technology, though I'm figuring they will eventually make a bug to turn coal into oil/gas and leave behind an equivalent volume tubular matrix made from non-organic substances in the coal. This will allow for easier, more environmentally friendly extraction (it really ticks me off when they cut the tops off of the mountains). Anyway, suffice it to say that there will still be a massive need for oil even when none of it is used for energy production.
Wind - oh come on. Those things are a noisy, ugly blight on the landscape. Someone is making big bucks selling the Brooklyn Bridge here (and most of them are coming from tax dollars because it isn't a very good business yet except in very special circumstances). Has anybody even bothered to figure out the total energy cost of manufacturing and raw materials on these monstrosities? Not to mention maintenance, recycling, etc. And, once again, you need an entire backup infrastructure. It can't be another infrastructure needing a backup unless you can prove that their needs will never significantly overlap. No energy is free and wind seems far from it.
Inland hydroelectric - already more exploited than I like. So many beautiful rivers lost. So much history submerged. Very sad.
Oceanic water movement - This would include wave, current, and many other oceanic energy production methodologies. How come the environmentalists scream when a nuclear plant puts out heat but don't scream at the combined impact of all of this on the oceanic environment. No reason really. So they will. And rightly so. I can't wait for all the studies about what kinds of weather extremes are being caused by the minuscule reduction of energy transfers from one part of the ocean to another that all of these technologies cause.
????? combination maybe - just an easy way to trick yourself by distributing the impacts. The combination of all the smaller impacts is still as big or greater than the whole impact of other technologies.
So what's the answer. Nuclear of course. Its the only answer. Its environmental effects especially are far more containable than the other sources. Fission at first, preferrably with breeder technology, then fusion. Either way, it should be combined with a hydrogen and electrical distribution system. Perhaps mostly hydrogen at some point. I suspect hydrogen may prove to have a lesser loss in long distance transport than electric.
Even with fusion, we'll eventually need to find a way to radiate more of the energy into space because the heat produced by our consumption will eventually reach levels able to influence climates. Probably about the time we start moving society underground so that we can restore our environment and increase food production.
The interesting thing is that this is exactly the answer Bush has proposed. Hmmm. Maybe not so dumb after all. Its a wise man who seeks wise instead of radical counsel.
Like others have said, Blair's move is just a fig leaf thrown to the lions for political purposes. Unless he means "nuclear power" when he says "sustainable energy", it will have no real impact, not only because it won't last, but because its based on sensationalism and fear, not science.
yea, especially since it was a reply to someone with a UID from that place
So they're going to use wind, sun, and tidal energy, eh? How many thousands of square kilometers of land/sea do they plan to deote to this? Try telling the enviros that you want to erect solar/wind/tide collectors on vast swatches of the planet and see what happens. They don't want to see a quarter-of-a-square mile of land dedicated to a gas-fired power plant here in the U.S., so how are they going to feel about 100 times that for the equivalent renewable source? Not to mention some form of storage for the days when the sun don't shine or the wind don't blow.
The Brits have made a total bolix of the electricity market for the past several years trying market deregulation. They have just bailed out their neuclear utility (British Energy) through a series of potentially illegal (by EU standrards at least) loans and subsidies at the reprocessing level so it would not go into bankruptcy. They have managed to bankrupt TXU Europe and are getting close with a couple more like AES Drax (a large coal fired facility in Yorkshire). If AES Drax had to shut down totally, it would seriously destabalize the entire British Energy grid. Nobody in their right, wrong or drunken mind is investing in building new plant.
The Brits have been luck recently. They have had a couple of warm winters. The sensitivity of generation to temperature is 500 MW of generation needed per degree C drop in temperature (if I remember correctly). If the "Big Chill" happens, you will have a lot of Brits sitting "cold in the dark" while they thank the British beaurocracy. California east here we come...
Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick! This is a troll?
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."
Problem solved. That will be $100 please.
Clickety Click
Are new nuclear powerstations the only problem? You point out some of the problems.
Perhaps lobbying the relevant organisations is in order. Putting "radioactive waste uk" into Google finds the website for Nirex, who seem to have some responsibility for the problem - lots of stuff about public consultation and a piece by a certain Robin Grove-White headed 'Nuclear waste ?' 'No thanks !'. More Google identifies him as a (tree hugging?) professor who also campaigns against GM foods. Odd!
Obviously if you think all conservatives think this way, then be prepared to be judged by your socialist policies. Isn't that why unemployment is 4-5% higher in Europe? But hey, socialism does plenty for European economies to get better, right?
Yeah right...stick your head in the sand and pretend the rest of the world isn't out to destroy the USA.
Has anyone looked at the costs of switching to solar towers vs the cost of war, and how much area would be required? I think that the answers actually look both economically and practically viable.
First the facts
from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/262
Sorry about the formatting - I can't figure out how to get the 2nd col to line up right.
So a TOTAL area of about 51x51 km of desert would be needed to provide all the households in the US with all their power. Since the household power usage figures are for Australia, you'd probably have to double or trebble this figure for US households (higher per capita consumption etc) but even so, you could practically pay for them ALL for the cost of 7 year's war on terror, or about 2/3 of a single year's annual defence budget, assuming you didn't get more efficient at building them - with practive, the costs of putting one up should drop.
You can extrapolate for the world & see that you could provide power for every man woman & child on earth at the Australian rate of consumption for about 20 times this amount.
Best of all, since it's relatively low-tech, ie. not sensitive military capable technologies - just a bloody big tower & turbines, there should be no issues regarding technology transfer. I would imagine it would be a nicely profitable business to be experts at building these things for other countries.
Isn't it time to start building these things all over Texas or something? How much does it cost to set up a new oil drilling site anyway?
Should read: the most efficient of all possible allocation schemes.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Could we revise it to include mention of terrorists, as well as nazis?
You can heat things with the sun too, like air and water. This one uses air: http://www.enviromission.com.au/
Yah, it's tall, it's been tested, and it's pretty simple. It's made out of almost all glass, concrete, and some steel. Stick these puppies out in the desert where nobody is anyway. Like in Australia and the southwestern US (*cough* california power problems).
Yes, you're going to have some problems with cloudy days, so accept that there are going to be some days when you're not going to get much power out. So make sure you use the extra electric on good days to make lots of hydrogen. That way we can move a source of energy around the country to places that may have trouble with this type of power (new england for example). You could also fire up some fuel cells to make electric out of said stored up hydrogen when the days are nasty.
So umm... why not?
When you've got a decent-size property with eucalypts on it, a fair number of of large branches and entire trees end up on the ground, and chopping them up and turning them into firewood is pretty much a no-brainer. On our property, we plant far more trees than are being removed, by the way (as it was overcleared in the past).
I agree entirely that it's not a mainstream solution, but it has its place in less densely-populated areas.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I hate all this talk about how alternative energy is not "cost effective". Sure, the direct costs may seem more, but what about indirect costs? Let's say ohhh sending our military out to the Middle East to protect our oil suppliers, or perhaps a war that will end in a lot of innocent lives being killed. How much is a human life worth? $1.49/gallon?
Renewable energy sources will never be seriously considered in the United States because businessmen here are smart. They know people will no longer have a permanent dependence on their products. Just look at Microsoft, they wouldn't survive if they made a product that didn't crash and was full of bugs.
I really don't buy the claim that the use of solar cells does more to modify the reflectivity of our planet than any other building construction. In fact, A major problem in building design is getting rid of solar energy (usually by piping it out of the building with air conditioners.)
Mandating fleet fuel efficiency standards, in contrast, results in car manufacturers charging less for fuel efficient cars and charging more for gas guzzlers. That allows low-income families to both buy inexpensive fuel-efficient cars and save money on gas, while being subsidized by people who voluntarily choose to buy gas guzzlers. It seems like a very elegant free market solution to me. And it seems like a much better solution than raising the price of gasoline.
It is Tony Blair's power trip which is unsustainable, for exactly the same reason the Soviet Union collapsed of its own bureaucratic weight.
Get out of the way.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
"Is this really such a good thing to boast about? "They're less susceptible to terrorist attack because there are going to be thousands of the damn things scattered all over the countryside"..."
Why not? The "distributed resource" idea works for the internet. Imagine fuel cell plants (buried of course) at the end of your neighbourhood, all running off natural gas, which is also widely distributed.
IMHO the US needs to have as widely varied an energy supply. Solar in those parts were that option works best. The same for all the others, wind, biomass, sea power, nuclear, alternative fuels (alcohol, hydrogen, etc) and yes the old standbys, oil, gas, and coal. With all the above backed up with a good conservation program. There's no magic bullet to this problem, but a multipronged approach would work much better, than waiting for some savior (fusion?) to save us.
#
You still get fresh plastic bags when you bring home your groceries do you? Well what the fuck are you complaining about you arrogant piece of shit. Clean up your own lifestyle first!
You can crack H2 out of natural gas. I figure at Slashdot we have enough for a few hundred years. It takes lots of energy to extract, though. A great deal of research happens in Canada and other regions with abundant hydro power sources. Hydrogen storage has always been a problem, it doesn't have the same "bang for the buck" as gasoline.
Liquid hydrogen manufacture, storage and distribution is a pretty cool subject and is fascinating.
Talk to local tech reps from Air Liquide, Air Products and Praxair to find out more.
Maybe a lot of inventions related to our own survival could not see the light because of the actual state of the patenting system.
There are more on this here
" Sadly, it's not. It takes energy to produce hydrogen, and, thanks to the laws of thermodynamics, even more than the burnt hydrogen will return later on (if you make it from water). Hydrogen is a way of storing energy, not an energy source."
It also has taken energy to produce fossil fuels[1], and due to the same laws, we get less out to run our machines. Doesn't that make fossil fuels a way of storing energy, and not an energy source?
[1] Photosynthesis isn't a 100% conversion.
But what a total waste of energy. Apartment I recently occupied had a washer/dryer unit inside. The dryer was electric and vented into the apartment. I didn't use it except during winter. Most dryers vent to the outdoors and the heat is almost completely wasted. This is a feature of highly individualistic Western societies-- people aren't in the habit of thinking how things could work together.
Hanging the shirts up in the closet (leave the door open, of course) isn't as good as outside in the fresh air, but it works and avoids trouble with people (specifically, apt. management) who think hanging laundry up in plain sight is offensively "low-rent". Got some wire shelving for the other clothes. Those who have a "McMansion" can surely find some space for drying clothes the old fashioned way. I'd like to see a room especially designed for this. Maybe long and narrow with screen doors at both ends to let the air blow thru.
Buy a few more clothes to make up for the longer drying time. Not using the dryer saves energy, and saves wear on the clothes. Tumble dry isn't exactly gentle.
The clothes are an easy place to begin. Next, how about thinking about how to put all that energy in that hot shower to work? Currently, the water and heat go straight to the sewers. Why not run it around in some piping in the floor (when the weather is cold) before sending it to the municipal sewage treatment plant? How about using a heat exchanger on that water and the water entering the water heater?
The US states with the lowest per capita energy usage are Florida and California. It's obvious why: climate. Reducing the energy used to control indoor climate would really pay. And it is so easy to do, from a technical point of view. It's the social angle that's the problem.
This is the thinking that is needed. A little more awareness is all. People don't have to mind this stuff all the time, that's very tedious. Get the environment set up right by yelling at homebuilders to include these kinds of features and then let the home and carefully practiced good habits take care of these matters. Lose that stupid home builder special fireplace that sends 90% of the heat up the chimney and put in a real fireplace-- if there must be a fireplace at all. I think most people have no idea how bad most of those fireplaces are. And if they do know, they don't care that much.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
If you develop your own sustainable energy system you'll be able to sell that later and recoup all your costs. not to mention every penny you do invest is invested directly into your country
i guess the united states will still be dependent later on down the road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
You make many other assertions, and toss off known cost effective energy producers such as wind with "[...]noisy, ugly blight on the landscape[...]" and "Someone is making big bucks selling the Brooklyn Bridge here[...]". I hope British Petroleum and Texaco aren't making a dire mistake with their wind investments. Or it might be that your rant is more political than factual?
Cheers,
--Maynard
About the only thing science has reliably proven is that global temperatures fluctuate dramatically and did so long before mankind crawled out of the swamps.
Whether you blame volcanos, perturbations in the earth's axis of rotation, or volcanoes, it is clear that all anthropogenic climate disturbances since man discovered fire are mere blips of statistical noise compared to natural background variations.
I think all the fuss is driven by the same old crowd of leftist busybodies who live their lives for the chance to tell other people what to do. Go to hell, all of you.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
They should make all overweight Americans spend an hour a day making electricity on a bycicle at the gym which would be connected to the power grid :)
So maybe they could raise diesel too by $10/gallon. That way, shipping trucks would have to charge a lot more and everything we buy would get more expensive. That way, we could slow down the U.S. economy by a huge factor and give other countries a chance.
Or we could just make SUV's illegal because certain political parties think they are bad and evil.
As for energy policy, I'm less than impressed. Nuclear plays second fiddle, what a shame. The UK will pay a high price in than high electric costs when it uglifies it's landscapes with windmills and it's shores with tideal generators. Reprocessing and the rest of the renewable nuclear power generating scheme was dropped a generation ago by people who feared "nuclear proliferation". The idea was to keep nuclear technology and materials from the rest of the world so that the rest of the world could be dominated and terrorist would not have weapons. That policy has failed because you can't keep nature a secret. We have simply lost the benifits of cheaper and more reliable power generation. The bombs are being made but there is no corresonding peaceful benifit. Here is another paper trying to put the future off two years more. Oh well, at least they are not trying to close plants down and mention nuclear in positve terms.
I like how they predicted a 6 C increase in temperature for this centruy when there was a 0.6 C increase in the whole last polute till you drop, make even Dikens sick, centry.. There has been a radical departure since 1940, others will tell you. Now, three years into this century, someone got out a pen and drew the curve out 97 years, HA! Some reputable scientists might tell you that missing neutrinos from the sun indicate a solar minimum and that temperatures will drop.
What to do? Nothing at all say the Greens, bottle yourself up, stop having children and use as little as possible till there's nothing left in our closed system. No, thank you. Build, make, exploit the rest of the solar system and the universe. Do not go quietly, the system is not closed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Wind does not require a "backup". It cannot be a sole source of power for a grid, but it can produce about 20% of the power necessary for a geographically diverse country like the US. Currently we generate about 0.3% of our power from sources like wind, so we can build many more turbines before this becomes an issue.
Given some of the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in your spiel, it's clear that you have very little actual knowledge of the technologies you condemn. I couldn't imagine what your agenda might be until I got to the little paen to Nuclear power at the end (did I mention, by kw/h the most expensive power source mankind has broadly deployed?)
There seems to be a vocal minority in this country and on this board who will disparage just about any power source if it's not nuclear. We could invent a perfect power source, and there would be a spate of Slashdot posts ripping it apart because, well, it just wasn't nuclear.
The power grid of the future may-- nay, probably will-- include nuclear. It will also include non-constant (and vastly cheaper and less dangerous) power sources like wind up to the absolute limit that the grid can handle. But we don't need to start building nuclear plants yet (and in fact, most power companies don't want to), because it can't compete with wind, let alone coal or gas.
You don't understand... if we pass a law requiring that they raise the price of all fuels, then we're pumping more money into the economy! See, all the money goes to the gas companies, and then it trickles down to the consumer. Right? Same effect as with the Reagan trickle-down economic theory. Of course, if we were talking about taxing fuel, I agree that it would be evil and terrible to actually tax fuel to the extent that it would actually pay for all of the infastructure that it requires, let alone the horrible environmental costs to it. But no, we're talking about giving more money to the oil companies, and how can that be bad?
But there's a better way. If you require all new cars to have a gas milage no better than 10 mpg, then you just consume lots more gas instead! That would mean that shipping wouldn't be affected, so prices would stay the same, but everyone of middle-class income and below would be forced to pay dramatically more money for gas, thus transferring yet more money to the rich. (And, of course, all the money given to the rich immediately trickles down again, right?) You could probably even do this without an actual LAW... just make sure that all the car companies and the fuel companies conspire together, and with enough advertising you could sell the American public all the 10-mile-per-gallon cars you want!
Oh, wait... silly me. Seems I haven't been paying attention.
Sorry, I'll try to come up with an idea that hasn't already been implemented next time.
-Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
So even the range of "between 1.5 and 6 degrees" is disputed. And this is based solely on the methodology of the economic/statistical calculations. Please note that I am not discussing the point, that there is also some scientifically based doubt about the causality between CO2 emission and global warning - on this point the jury is still out IMHO, and any conclusions will be premature (and therefore based more on belief).
Castle and Hendersons objections is described in this article in the Economist.
IPCC is the "Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change" and describes it self as:
WMO is the "World Meteorological Organization" a "United Nations Specialized Agency" (see here ).
UNEP is the "United Nations Environment Programme" (se here ).
> What fool thinks they can have a modern economy
> without supplies from around the world?
Actually, nobody said that. You are setting up a straw man so you can knock it down. Sadly, since this particular rhetorical device is novel to nobody but you, it's not a terribly effective one.
What they said was, wow, here's a good way to reduce dependance on foreign energy sources. And how awful that must be, to make you so desparate to find any reason to argue against it.
>
That's got to be one of the funniest arguments I've ever heard from an anti-environmentalist head-in-the-sand libertarian. (Well, or he could be a Republican, too, but they're pretty thin on the ground around here.) As for nuclear, well, it's a puzzle, isn't it? I mean, those people who are delighted to use the power from a nuclear station don't seem to want to sit on the waste. As long as it's someone ELSE near the storage dumps, though, that's fine. After all, they don't have as much money, so they aren't as important as he is.
> I like how they predicted a 6 C increase in temperature for this centruy
I love how, when we get to the issue of global warming, every libertarian becomes a scientist. In fact, pretty much every credible (as in 'actually endowed with a doctorate and some sort of research or teaching position') scientist now agrees that global warming is a serious, if not THE serious, threat to civilization for the next century, but the head-in-the-sand lobby keeps using data from 20 years ago, when not everyone was so sure. Want new data? Take the old data from 20 years ago, issue a press release by someone without any knowledge of science but with a good name, and bingo... nothing to worry about!
As for comparing today's pollution with that of 75 years ago, it is to laugh. If you assume that carbon dioxide has no effect on the atmosphere, then you can almost sort of pretend to believe that. In the US, that's the blinders we have on our government... CO2 isn't regulated as a pollutant, and so people can point to the pollution figures and prattle on about how they're not really actually getting much worse.
> Now, three years into this century, someone got
> out a pen and drew the curve out 97 years, HA!
Mmhmm. After all, there's really only ONE scientist who actually thinks this way, huh? And obviously you know, far more than any lousy scientist, that anything that messes with your worldview must just be wrong.
> Some reputable scientists might tell you that
> missing neutrinos from the sun indicate a solar
> minimum and that temperatures will drop.
Now, that's about the first rational thing you've said. Of course, this is a hypothesis, supported by only the most tenuous of real evidence. And even then, I don't think I ever heard anything about temperatures on Earth actually dropping... because one of the statements I heard on this was, 'Well, I don't think we really have to worry about this, because the current rate of global greenhouse gas emissions will more than compensate for this effect.' And Bush wants to limit the GROWTH of the amount of CO2 put out per year... so if 100k metric tons were put out this year, he only wants 110k metric tons to be put out next year. But, of course, it's a voluntary program...
> What to do? Nothing at all say the Greens...
Look, another straw man.
But here, I'll try to set up one for you:
Use all you can, destroy what you will. Always be unwilling to admit the possibility that someone else might be right, that you might be doing irreparable damage to the planet, and that, in a few decades, you could actually feasibly wipe mankind completely from the earth. After all, even if they're right, you'll have had a hell of a good time, and you probably won't live long enough to be forced to believe them when they say 'I told you so'.
Oh, wait, that's not a straw man... that's exactly what you said.
-Fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
> Solar/photovoltaic consumes almost as much energy
> to make solar cells as they produce over their
> entire lifetime...
Depends on the process they're made by. There are a couple of pretty good ways to make solar cells out there that are wholly owned by by oil companies, patent-wise. Expect these never to see the light of day.
But the new polymer solar cells are a dramatic reversal of this equation. (And it was never true universally either... it was only true in low-sunlight areas of the country). Even the ceramic ones would have been a lot cheaper to make if they'd been made in any reasonable quantity, just as LCD prices have plummeted as the number of people buying them has gone up.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
I suspect that any self-respecting forest of decent size sucks that much energy out of the air anyway.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Funny or Insightful!!!
Nice. You do realize that what you're actually asking for is a state run solely by a power elite that control big corporations, and are answerable to nobody.
No, no, you don't. But boy, do I wish you could live in a place like that.
And let the rest of us rational people try to find a proper balance between too much government control and too little.
Not that it's not too late. You're getting your wish in the US. I hope you're proud of what you see in 50 years. But of course, that's part of what makes it so much fun to be a zealot like you: you can always claim that things would be worse any other way.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
> A jet can fly perfectly well with one or all of its windows shot out.
True enough, although people, especially the elderly, can certainly die from sudden depressurization.
> Of course, terrorists could knock a window out today, with a fire
> extinguisher or sturdy metal briefcase, if they were so inclined.
Well, no, not actually. You'd have to be uninterrupted for a while, and then, with most of the windows onboard, it's basically impossible to get a good angle and a good backswing. And plexiglass is hard stuff. Basically, a bodybuilder might have a chance at it, if nobody was trying to stop him.
> As for shooting out fuel tanks or control wires, it is to laugh.
Sudden depressurization is one of the risks from bullets, but not the only one. There is a fair amount of pure O2 carried on planes. There are a number of places that planes are vulnerable, though you're right that someone shooting randomly would be unlikely to hit one, with one exception... the cockpit crew.
> Obviously the government and aeronautical industry know better
> than you, or we wouldn't have armed sky marshals and pilots.
Funny how many of them actually lobbied NOT to allow this.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
On the other hand the North Sea is windy and relatively shallow, and the basic technology for building platforms in it and running cables from it has been long established by the oil industry. Building wind farms in the North Sea actually looks like quite an exciting technical challenge with a real payoff. If the space program kickstarted the 60s high tech economy in the US, perhaps a serious wind farm program would do the same for the moribund, dismal UK economy.
As North Sea oil dries up the UK is predicted to become a net oil importer within 3 years - the stock market is far deader than the Dow Jones - if Blair doesn't do something soon there will be no money to pay the wages.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Hydrogen - its an energy transportation mechanism, not a source. Its impact is little different than electrical wires with the exception that it allows you to "wire" a vehicle to a hydrogen generation plant that will likely be oil fueled. To date, it is cheaper to mass produce hydrogen from oil than any other substance.
The point is that you can generate it in so many ways. Using oil, solar powered hydro-electrolysis, on-the-fly in a methanol powered fuel-cell, etc. The point is that when oil runs out, there will be many other ways of powering the infrastructure that has been put in place.
Wind - oh come on. Those things are a noisy, ugly blight on the landscape.
Have you actually visited a modern wind-turbine?
Has anybody even bothered to figure out the total energy cost of manufacturing and raw materials on these monstrosities?
Er, it's just a big dynamo. It's simple to contruct.
So what's the answer. Nuclear of course. Its the only answer.
There's your big mistake. Assuming there is *one* single solution. Maybe we need to move to a distributed environment where energy comes from multiple sources? Solar panels on the roof, a small turbine in the back yard, the ability to export energy into the neighbourhood to help smooth load spikes. To make up the shortfall each region can use tech most suited to their environment. Solar in sunnier climes, wind power in windy areas, tidal power where appropriate.
Plenty of stories about new technologies and think you can do to help can be found here.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
> Because the energy investment in lifecycle support (mining, production, distribution, maintenance,
> recycling) is greater than the lifetime energy output.
So many people have debunked this so many times. Why does anyone bother saying it?
> solar cell energy consumption might be environmentally friendly, but the energy
> production will alter the landscape of an order of magnitude more land than oil.
I've heard this one before, but it never fails to amuse me. Why? Well, because a clearcut, and there are plenty of those, is just as big a change in the reflectivity of large portions of our planet. But nobody ever seems terribly concerned with that aspect of them.
> Wind: Has anybody even bothered to figure out the total energy cost of manufacturing and raw
> materials on these monstrosities?
Can you seriously, honestly say that you think nobody has bothered to do this. Do you seriously, honestly think that you're *that* much smarter than everyone else out there?
Wait, this is Slashdot... of course you do.
> Oceanic water movement
The arguments here are just as silly as the 'but don't forget, wind-power will cause the wind to slow down'. Believe it or not, a forest of trees slows down the wind dramatically more. Perhaps we should be thinking about that before we cut down all the trees? (Oops, too late!)
> Nuclear
Yes, its waste products are more containable than other types, at least currently. But they're also impossible to neutralize. They are toxic forever, and in novel and entertaining ways. But, since you're rich, relatively speaking, you can pay someone else to play Russian roulette FOR you.
> Fusion
Someday, maybe. But no time soon.
And man, am I having trouble with the fact that you used the name Bush and the words 'wise counsel' in the same paragraph.
I love your claim that all of this silliness is based on science. It's based on your personal opinions, which clearly haven't even been fact-checked by the other three brain cells in there.
But it's a beautiful piece of evidence that humans in general will do almost anything rather than venture out of their own skulls.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
some of this is from an earlier post
How then do you explain these graphs. They show four ice-ages in the past 400k years. Taken from ice core studies, for each dip of the CO2 graph there is a similar dip in the temperature graph [ornl.gov]. The extended CO2 graph shows CO2 is well outside the range of the past 400k years. The rise is almost a vertical jump.
This really shows we are doing something serious. Last week Michal Meecher, the Envirionment Minister, had an article in The Independent mentioning the Methane Hydrate danger. This is where some of the billion tons of methane stored in "methane ice" comes out and really changes the atmosphere.
I don't know what the odds of this are but some of the experts think it's possibly mass extinction stuff. To me it's much more likely than an asteroid extinction - nothing we are doing now attracts asteroids. On the other hand our bit in global warming could let this time bomb off.
But in the meantime we are willing to let our activities drown and starve the poor of the world.
No. Not on a global scale, because then it becomes non-sustainable.
Yeah, but depending on where you live it can be locally sustainable. Say in Sibiria, parts of Canada and in notherna Scandinavia.
Not a magic bullet, but part of a solution to a difficult problem.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
see "Myth!! Then explain this." above
After posting that, I wondered if I had risen to flamebait. Now I'm beginning to think these global warming denials may actually be genuine.
For a start, why not look at the CO2 and 500,000 year temperature graphs linked to above. They show
Can you explain this away?.
Last century we had about a 0.6 deg C rise. This century 6.0 dec C is predicted with some very serious consequences. But there is a danger of methane hydrate making it much, much worse.
Translation of parent post:
No current technology is a perfect magic bullet to totally replace fossil fuel on all levels with a zero impact on the environment.
This means we shouldn't even try doing anything at all about the status quo!
What an amazingly backwards attitude.
With that kind of reasoning we would still live in caves and hunt with pointy sticks.
No, make that teeth and nails, the pointy stick was an invention.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
The UK will pay a high price in than high electric costs when it uglifies it's landscapes with windmills and it's shores with tideal generators.
Much of the proposed wind energy will come from large offshore sites in terratorial water, (Rockall is not only useful for cod fishing;-) which will be only barely visable from the shore. The UK (and ireland) are well endowed with wind an wave energy and consiquenlty are in an almost unique possition to be able to take good adavantage of the excess power while the technology is still young and inefficient. As this Government Consultation [pdf] points out.
Wave power schemes are idealy suited for incorperation with the offshore wind, as the infrastructure is there, and they would also provide some protection for the turbines in such a harsh environment.
As for tidal generators, such as the Severn barrage, the visual impact of the scheme would be minimal when compared to a bridge (which these projects usually incorporate). Though they have some environmental issues they are easily comparable to those of hydro schemes e.g..
Besides I would much rather look out on a wind farm than a gas platform or coal power plant, knowing that I was breathing clean fresh air.
My spelling isn't bad, I'm evolving the language
All those rare earths in nuclear power station parts are, of course, rare - and this leads to the plants being incredibly expensive ways to produce steam. Nuclear power went from being the "great white hope" of the 1950's to a white elephant, and fifty years later the results speak for themselves. I have never worked in a nuclear power plant, and have only worked with two people who have (one turbine engineer from a russian plant, and a guy from a plant in Indonesia that is more a military set-up than a power generating plant), but I do know a bit about them.
The US plants apparently make money on paper - but after the British experience (and others) it points towards some serious creative accounting.
Has a much much higher efficiency for electricity production than photovoltaics. If you also combine heat and electricity production you have very some efficient systems. They are far more also viable in the UK where the current crop of photovoltaics are less so.
The solar thermal technologies are also significantly cheaper.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
No it does not. Ephedrine is readily available in several plants and nothing is forcing you to use the most popular method, Reduction With Hydroiodic Acid and Red Phosphorus (from ephedrine), besides that it is the most simplest method and the ingredients are more easily available than for other methods.
And after all.. 100% natural, plant source for stimulants of this genre is also available
Better Code Through Chemistry
another jack-booted liberal thug attempting to beat his vision of the future on to the unwitting public.
Or do the Brits typically use American units in their international press statements?
Another jack-booted liberal thug. As a father of 3 small children, ages 6 months to 3 years, what kind of transportation would you propose for my family in the US? Remember, we need 3 child saftey seats for the kids. How would I possible fit 3 child safety seats into a Honda Prius or ANY compact car that gets 35 MPG. Oh great liberal genius from the future I implore you to impart some of that obvious wealth of knowledge on the ignorant masses.
Don't forget all of the oh-so-big houses that the criminal oil guzzling republicans build out in the country. You jack-booted progressivist thugs. How soon before you thugs start sending greenpeace into wealthy neighborhoods to picket the construction of houses over 2500 sq. ft. ?
Most scientific findings of the last couple of centuries did NOT rely on variables spanning millions of years. idiot.
As for the information that the phenom of global warming is based on, well. lets just say that 180,000 years of ice core samples from Vostok just don't cut the mustard. Fact is we have no idea what causes ice ages or the subsequent global warmings that have been occurring throughout the 4 BILLION year history of this planet.
The longest transmission line in the world is the "Inga-Shaba", a 1700kM 500kV single-phase transmission line in western Africa. That's 1056 miles, roughly the distance from New York City to Chicago. However, its max capacity is 560 MW because of reactive line losses, equivalent to the output of one medium sized fossil fuel plant. This past summer, the mid-Atlantic states alone hit just over 60,000 MW for an instananeous peak. In 1999, the United States consumed 3.45 x 10^9 MW-hours of energy.
... a quick Google search could have answered your construction question (numbers for off-shore Alabama):
That is the problem with solar power, any type of generation really, you cannot concentrate it. Energy is lost as heat, proportional to the resistance of the wire, which is proportional to the distance of the line. So #1, even if you can generate it, you can't transport it that distance. #2, the more you concentrate, one cloudy day would wipe out the majority of your generation... remember, this is not a 365-day guaranteed capacity source. Not to mention #3 that a common sand storm in the desert would crack and scratch your glass, driving up repair costs.
What you would need is a 100% distributed system, maybe one station per square mile across every population center in the US, minimizing the path between generation and consumption. Now, try to get local approval from the municipalities to install it (and junk up their landscapes). Then, calculate the maintainence costs to visit each one of these locations... astronomical.
Finally, your whole "war on terror" argument is, for lack of a better word, crap. Every statement you've made is an approximation, and your solutions assume the ideal. It's a thinly masked anti-war rhetoric pretending to pass as fact. If the war were really about oil, we'd drill it ourself on our homeland, and be done with those dictators in the middle east. Then you finish it off with a snide remark against the President's home state
Q. How long does it take to drill these wells? A. Miocene: 1 to 2 weeks; Norphlet: 6 to 12 months
Q. How much does it cost to drill these wells? A. Miocene: $750,000 to $2 million; Norphlet: $15 million to $40 million
Q. What is the average daily drilling rig cost? A. $100,000 to $120,000
Q. How much and long does each well produce? A. Miocene: 2 million to 15 million cubic feet per day for 1 to 10 years, Norphlet: 10 million to 126 million cubic feet per day for 10 to 20 years
From StudyWorks Online: "For example, the consumption of oil in the United States reached a peak in 1978, then decreased by almost 20 percent by 1983 as more fuel-efficient cars were introduced and less oil was used for electricity. However, gasoline consumption increased again in the '90s as gas-guzzling SUV's and small trucks became more popular. Nonetheless, oil consumption is currently increasing by only 1 percent per year, and consumption in 1999 was only 3.5 percent higher than it was in 1978." Get those SUVs on a normal fuel usage plan. Improve gas-electric hybrids. Encourage more efficient fossil fuel generators. What we really need is efficiency, not alternative generation.
Another kid with the perspective of a mayfly. Just wonderful. Renewable energy sources are the way to go, but it will not happen like some kind of poorly planned revolution. Anyone stupid enough to think that use of petroleum can be turned on and off like a light switch needs to start taking some history and economics classes.
Hemp. Biodiesel from hemp.
One acre of hemp can produce 100 gallons of biodiesel, and you can get 3 crops per year from that acre. So 300 gallons per year from one acre of hemp.
Here's some more info: http://www.mohemp.org/hempcar.html
and more info on biodiesel can be found at: www.biodiesel.org
Place sig here.
Last time I checked countries like Norway, Mexico, Russia and Venezuela were democracies (some of them shaky arguably, and most shamefullly, the Venezuelan was undermined by the US recently)....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Lowest unemployment ever, low inflation, reponsible handling of the economy, strong financial industry. $th economy in the world.
What is the mythical country that has it better right now?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Battery.
Please, don't thank me, I did it from the goodness of my heart.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Are you suggesting that an US company may be using creative accounting in order to keep benefitting from rightist goverment favours (note to USians: all their goverments are rightist).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Come now, moderators. This is a fair if sharp rebuttal.
The main reason ethanol is not a primary fuel in the US (outside the midwest, where it is politically expedient to subsidize) it that the free market cost of ethanol is about $2/gallon of gas energy equivalent. Note that gas is selling for $1.79/gal in my town today. We're getting close folks. Ethanol provides 23% superior power at stoichiometric combustion, which is why it is used by racers. The downside is that it's low energy density means larger gas tanks (or shorter range).
Promoting a bankrup, expensive, inefficient option (nuclear)?
Or one dirty, unsustainable, non renewable one? (fossil energy).
On top of renewables better design and decreas on consumption are the keys.
Whining at the proposed solutions while offering no credible alternatives is a sure path to damnation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In the UK only until you are close to the national average you begin to pay 40% for part of your income.
Capital gains tax is even lower (i.e. corps pay little tax). Heck, USian and other foreign companies do not pay VAT.
Try something more inventive please.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If moderators had took the time to read the linked text, this would be modded as FUNNY
Just so that nobody takes it to seriously...
I'd rather be sailing...
Ahh... When rational arguments just won't do, use the tried and true method of namecalling.
I think this discussion is over.
It looks like the cycle is getting ready to repeat itself over the next couple of millenia. And it looks like those bastard cows must have been belching out BILLIONS of cubic meters of methane to produce the periods of global warming of the past. Kind of scary how quickly the climate actually changed (in geologic era terms ).
The cycle of global warming is getting ready to REPEAT itself. And we have nothing to do with it.
Oh, wait, that's not a straw man... that's exactly what you said.
I'm sorry you did not understand. Nuclear does what windmills and what not does but cheaper and better. Oil is better used for plastics than burning. You still need it but you don't have to smog up the sky with it. That is all.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What about building a giant stirling engine on top of volcanos?
I'd rather be sailing...
--I would point to this issue as well for a tremendous amount of the "reason" for this war. Not the sole reason, but a major one. I'd say it's well past the "theory" phase, as all the data is right there to look at, absolutely nothing there is hidden or secret.
Any world switch for the generally accepted rserve currency from using the petrodollar to the euro or muslim gold dinar would result in an economic loss to the US that would literally be unrecoverable for at least an entire generation, if not permanently unrecoverable. It would make the bankrupting of the soviet union seem like a lemonade stand stickup in comparison.
It is rather simple, we can (and have been for years and years)print up dollars that through inertia over many decades, especially since the end of WW2, eventually got accepted around the world as a reserve currency. This was due mostly to the fact that we had manufactured goods to export, so that exported dollars that went to oil got reintroduced back into our own economy. that's exactly where the term petrodollar came frombecause it is the most accurate way to describe this representation of wealth that we call money and in specific, "US" money. And oil being of such importance and so universally recognized as "tangible wealth" that the easily to trade representations of such-the since named petrodollar-became just "understood" as how "business" was done around the world, what currency was used extrensively.
This is a GREAT deal for the US. It can't be overestimated really, the figures are huge. It amounted to a massive planetary subsidy for us, and has definetly resulted in a much higher standard of living, along with our productivity, and the use of other nation's and people's productivity. All of the above. to prove this, you can see especially in the past decade of what "labor" is actually worth on a global scale, what most americans think they are "worth" can be shown to be highly inflated, one job at a time as someone else takes it once given the opportunity to do so. As this has now been proven over and over again by literally millions of US jobs that paid x and now pay x-minus a lot, I don't think this can be disputed.
Some extreme political thinkers have labeled this world reliance on pterodollars as "economic imperialism", and although I disagree with some of the tenets proposed in those theories, the basic argument I can find little fault with, and I would be hard pressed to argue against that point.
This is changing, and a lot of outside nations no longer need to purchase US goods, and we are gradually eliminating any goods of note beyond aircraft and war materials TO export. We also are gradually losing agricultural exports as well, for a variety of reasons. Uhh, then you have to ask, what's left to sell? We export "entertainments" and "warstuffs". Virtual intellectual property andsuch "assets" can be reproduced cheaply,both from copying and from direct implementation anywhere locally, so true long term worth of those "products" is not a viable statistical tangible model that can be sustained for more than the short term, and I think we are seeing the beginnings of the time frame involved, it appears to be around 30 years ort so since the great IT boom started, but now those economic realities are shifting. Virtual products are just not all that valuable when they can be easily replicated. Once the tech advanced to that point and the labor potential in those fields reached a universl threshold, the buble has been pricked. It's leaking now and will continue to leak. Just as hardware drops in price and worth (I still have several older computers that would retail for like 10 dollars now that costed thousands when new), so will 'soft' tangibles drop in worth, and my best guess it will accelerate even faster than hardware worth has dropped. I think anyone who reads slashdot for more than two days can see that point clearly.
So that leaves us back on true "tangible" wealth, back to oil, manufactured goods, and grown from the ground goods. That's it, that's where wealth comes from, it's grown or made. If ya ain't got them for sale cheaper than the other guy, you won't last long, and middle-man skimming "trading" only lasts as long as the real buyers and sellers cannot contact each other and do their business without your "assistance", and once they can, well, they won't use you any more, nothing in it for them except lost wealth. And if you are too poor to buy anything, well, you won't get much. the US can NOT sustain itself as a consumer nation when we don't make anything, being the worlds middlemen won't last long. short term, sure, but the above point stands, once you aren't needed for the trade, you get cut out, and tough times make people look harder at where to cut costs, and I'd call the middlemen a good place to look first. And this is happening. A "cheap" dollar allows our exporters to sell goods, but a "strong" dollar allows us to purchase things cheaply, but the point is *moot* if the return will not support your current status quo! It is a NET LOSS in terms of real economy once you switch from a producer to a consumer.. Massive catch 22, it's a no win situation. Who is wealthier, the guy who has the warehouse of goods, or you with your purchase, if the owner of the goods has a choice of customers? That's the exact point we are at now in the US. We are called the consumer of last resort, but we cannot consume for much longer without expanding credit in the terms of printed petrodollars, and other nations know this and are slowly coming to the realization they don't have to subsidise us. Well, the fatcats know this, joe in the street really doesn't yet.
This is why now there's so much interest in maintaining the petrodollar (for those who profit from of it of course), when the actual need for them from other nation's points of view has been "exported" elsewheres. I would call any efforts theorized to maintain the petrodollar even in terms of warfare to have a high credibility factor once you get past the world as being any sort of altrusitic place and realise EVERYTHING on a planetary scale is played hardball, and outright obfuscation and lying are the most minimal of national crimes committed by organizations of human beings going well back into the dawn of time. The least, not the most.
It is QUITE probable that unless the shift to the euro stops, and unless the muslim gold dinar is squashed completely(that one is an example of a choas theory event that has established old world bankers and us bankers wetting their pants) by the US/anglo bankers, that it will have cascading economic and social consequences to the negative for millions of people in the US and the UK and to our immediate trading partner Canada in particular. It would literally topple governments, cause massive shifts in social consequences, and could quite easily lead to civil wars in a few nations, and all sorts of other "not nice things" to happen.
I don't think it would be fair intellectually to negate or to underestimate the importance of this in this "war". Iraq got the ball rolling, first entire nation to completely shift from petrodollar to the euro. What all his reasons were do not matter, that the event happened does matter, and that the other oil producing nations are looking HARD at this now, and that nations like japan that are holding huge quantities of us paper are rethinking this, as their nation is tied even more to imported oil than the US is.
With a world shift in currencies, take that as an academic postulate, we are quite literally talking about an economic decline in the US that would surpass the "great" depression in statistical form, and would greatly surpass it in terms of the social consequences. Greatly.
As to the war itself, and the public reasons, aww shoot, I mean really, of course saddam has WMD, the US and various europaen nations sold or gave them to him, all such transfers being illegal by international so called treaties we all signed in great hypocritical pompous diplomatic ritual, and equally embarrasing to all in their gross violations. Back then we didn't care one how many iraqis and iranians bumped themselves off. This is elementary school level stuff now. And it's as far as you will see in the mass market opinion manipulating "news", they don't use psychologists in the advertising field because those studies are useless, and the "news" and "public politics" is "advertising".
The europaens (current EU members), and some other nations of importance, notably Japan (waffling but close to making the switch) want to expand the use of the euro obviously, it's of too much economic worth to them to do so, plus, and this is a big one to me, they don't want the americans to have the sole restricted and unfettered access to all the hidden records that exist in iraq, because they know that our government employees will hide or destroy any and all evidence of US involvement in WMD transfers that turn up, while "revealing" europaen's involvement, or such records will be kept in reserve until such a time in the future as their revelations prove to be politically expedient and warranted, blackmail in other words, very high stakes blackmail that no single europaen political party or it's particular industrial supporters could avoid. Of course they are against the war. Of course russia is and china. Of course saddam hussein is a tinpot dictator who is a mass murderer and etc, so are dozens of others around the world you never heard of. Saddam is a "threat" to the dominance of the US dollar, to maintaining the status quo of our economy to keep all the voters voting as they should, to keep a variety iof international fatcats in power, and has a tangent into the existence of israel, but that's another side issue for another thread.
Please ecuse remaining typos, I have some chores to do now. Thanks for the opportunity to expound on one of my favorite subjects.
This is a chicken and egg problem. Alternative energies are innefficient right now because almost no money gets spent on R&D when compared with current coal, oil, gas sources. Someone is making a lot of money on non renewable resources and thinks its better to keep the status quo than to retool to benefit mankind.
In the next 10 years we'll watched half the problems you mentioned disappear. And nuclear fission is not the answer. Nuclear fusion might be, one day, but it is still a very dangerous technology compared with hydrogen or solar cells.
You think so two dimensionally. We are a big hunk of rock floating around the Sun. Just drop some large solar panel arrays in our orbit and collect the energy as we fly by them. Put them to orbit around the moon or even the Earth where they won't cast a shadow. When there's a will there's a way. It seems to me like you haven't given this much thought. None of us have. I say let's give it a chance, eh?
This is no different. There are a lot of hidden costs to carbon-based fuels in general and oil in particular, and one of the costs peculiar to oil is that it helps to finance some of the most religiously regressive, socially repressive and western-hostile forces on the face of this earth. The USA consumes roughly 100 billion gallons of motor gasoline a year, but we spend about USD 200 billion (roughly half the defense budget) to defend access to Persian Gulf oil. That's worth another $2/gallon at the pump right there, so that the free market can make the choice about what energy source to use rather than having government policy determine it for us.
I figure $5/gallon would be enough to get people to buy the PNGV technology that Detroit accepted a billion dollars to create, but can't turn into marketable product. It would also get people to retire their old, inefficient vehicles - which should make Detroit happy. I don't give it a snowball's chance in hell of happening, but it would give the market a lot more of a chance to work than failed "no pain" programs like CAFE standards.
That's a pretty pathetic straw-man you got there... mind if I have a go at him? Man, he goes down easy, don't he?Hybrids save a lot of petroleum, and electrics, bio-diesel and other technologies can wind up using almost none. They'll all get you to work and the library just fine.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
IANAclimatologist, just a studious layman. However, I do not make the mistake of trying to reduce everything to economics, as some economists like to pretend they can do. ;)
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
You also have an issue with regard to understanding of short-term versus long-term market forces, but you should ask duffbeer to teach you about that.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid.
Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together.
Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating?
Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
If we ever want to make renewable energy really work, the government has to step in. If a coorporation tried to do it, they would lose a ton of money and go out of business. The government is the only entity that can survive under those circumstances...
Very popular slashdot journal for adul