Re: At 9:34 AM -0500 5/13/06, Barbara Whitney wrote:
Aren't we going to need more power lines as we move away from oil to
electricity? I understand we'll be importing a lot of wind energy
from Iowa.
Well, that's the PR that they are feeding us. Of course, once they
get their groovey-green windmills put in, and all approvals for more
transmission (based on the promises of groovey-green power) to get
that power out, they then put mega-coal plants conveniently right
along/near those lines....Witness the newly-proposed Cassville
generating sta. That will probably be able to tap into the Montfort
transmission grid, thanks to the wasteful way paved by the windmills.
And guess who lives right down-wind from the proposed Cassville plant? Yup. Us.
The transition should not be from oil to electricity (an inherently
wasteful form of power), it should be from oil to using a hell of a
lot less power *of all types*, and thus a life much better lived.
I can't go into it all here, but if you want more on how it can be
done, I say again, read Natural Capital (skip the 1st 3 chapters, cuz
it is stuff that has already come to pass). With current technology,
we could be using 1/10 the power we currently are, and live just as
well if not better. Easily. With the innovations on the near horizon,
probably even half that.
A lot of it comes down to pricing. If energy were priced according to
the damage it inflicts (most especially on electricity), we would
then see a market spring up that would make it profitable to devise
stuff and design where we live to use less, all while making our
inhabited places better, more sociable and more breathable... And
just as nice, we get to save more of nature itself. It is no
coinkeydink that Europe has extremely high energy taxes *and* the
most livable cities in the world; and that their engineering is world
renowned for its emphasis on efficiency.
And don't anyone tell me about how they were lucky to have thousand
year-old horse-cart cities. Many of those cities were flattened in
Dubya-Dubya Two. They had essentially a blank slate and could have
gone all car if they'd wanted to. Luckily they were far-sighted
enough to keep some level of humanity designed in.
It is my understanding that a whole passel of city leaders is going
to Sweden this summer to learn how this stuff has been implemented in
those fabled Eco-municipalities. I expect that the biggest
revelation that comes to them is that none of this stuff is rocket
science. That most of it sits on the shelf with our local
hvac/insulation/window contractors, the minds of freshly minted Urban
& Regional Planning students, bike wack-os, etc.
But you know, an expert is someone who lives more than 150 miles away.....
-Mike
At 9:34 AM -0500 5/13/06, Barbara Whitney wrote:
Aren't we going to need more power lines as we move away from oil to
electricity? I understand we'll be importing a lot of wind energy
from Iowa.
-barb
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