----- Original Message -----
From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2001 12:45 AM
Subject: Re: Times have changed, 'green' sells products
> At 09:00 11-7-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > > Dan's remarks about how come that ecological sane solutions didn't
> > > catch on until now (especially if you take into account that they have
> > > been around for some thirty odd years) has been bogging me for a while
> > > now.
> > >
> > > I think I have one of the more simple answers to this question: It
> > > wasn't fashionable until now. As far as I got it, the sentiment until
> > > just a few years ago was that ecologically sound techniques and green
> > > products were seen as something exclusively for eco nerds.
> >
> >Sorry. I remember it being very fashionable 25 years ago in Madison WI.
> >Indeed, there was a big push for wind power.
>
> Back then, only a small percentage of our population realized what we were
> doing to the environment, and realized the benefits of green power.
No hard feelings, but I was there at the time. I don't know what happened
in Europe, but in the US hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on
pollution control during the late 60s and 70s. The discussions were very
public and environmental protection was a popular movement.
But, it was not a movement without a price. My little neighborhood was a
great example of the tradeoff. There was an old steel mill that dumped
wastes into the river. The river was unswimmable at the time. They were
required by state law to significantly reduce their pollution.
Since the plant was only marginally economic, US steel decided to close it
instead of spend the money on pollution control equipment. As a result about
2000 high paying blue collar jobs were lost.
25 years later, the area still hasn't recovered. Sons and daughters of
people that were upper middle class struggle to make lower middle class.
You may rail against US steel, but IIRC, they were not doing too well at the
time: they were only marginally profitable and had some years with losses.
But, very little was said at the time against the pollution regulations
because they caused the steel plant to close. The damage to the river was
noticeable and the nation was considered well enough off to pay for
pollution controls. I'm guessing that wouldn't have been true in the '30s,
but by the late 60s, we decided that the environment was important enough to
spend hundreds of billions on.
During the 70s, oil was associated with mid-East sheiks. After the 1973
embargo, there was a presidential task force to make the US energy
independent by 1973. Oil was in strong political disfavor because of the
price hikes. It was associated with derogatory images of Arabs, such as
"rag-head" and "camel jockey."
Given that background do you think that practical green power would have
been ignored. President Carter made his energy policy, featuring
conservation, his single biggest focus. How in the world could that be a
political climate where green was marginalized.
>For many years they were ridiculed, and considered a fringe group,
treehuggers
> who didn't know what they were talking about.
That's certainly not true. What was true was that there was a radical
sub-set who insisted that the engineering troubles of green power were not
engineering but the results of sinister forces. Indeed, some of these ideas
were mainstream: the urban legend that big oil had bought the secret patent
rights to a carburetor that could turn a 20 mpg care into a 60 mpg car, just
so they would keep selling a lot of oil is a good example of this.
Arguments that secret patents were impossible or that such a carburetor was
also impossible were met with "that's what they want you to think."
>Politicians didn't care about the environment, so nothing pro-environment
was done.
That is a false statement, at least in the US.
> It's sad, really. Politicians turning pro-environment, not for the
> environment but to look good in the eyes of the public when it's election
> time...
Ah, I though you wanted democracy. Are you suggesting the politicians do
things that the public doesn't want them to do?
>
> >So, its not as though nothing has happened. But, except for nuclear,
green
> >power sources are just not practical, so all we get for those is
advertising
> >and high price pilot projects that are "the wave of the future" every few
> >years.
>
> These projects have been around for a few decades now, so obviously people
> have thought it to be a good idea for a few decades as well. (If nobody
> would like the idea, nobody would have poored money into R&D.)
>
If they worked, they would have been great. They have been politically
popular for years. So, even unfeasible programs get funding because they
make politicians look like they are supporting green energy. Indeed, you've
argued both ways. If R&D isn't funded, its proof that we haven't tried. If
it is, its evidence that things will work. Remember, as I think Heisenburg
said, "Research is what I do when I don't know what I am doing." Many times
research projects that look promising at the start turn out to be duds.
Fusion energy is a good example of this. That's just the nature of
research. You place your bets and you take your chances.
> Yet, despite that enthusiasm, green power still isn't as big as it could
> have been. Now why do I get the feeling that there are forces at work here
> that try to slow things down?
Like the laws of physics?
> Forces that would have a lot to lose, should
> green power get a large market share. Forces like, say, the oil business?
Jeroen, engineering programs don't work and you blame oil companies. As I
tried to explain to the leadership team at my old company, engineering
problems don't go away because we have plans that say they will. Some
problems are very very hard. As I stated in a previous post, big oil isn't
all that big, as corporations go. If solar cells were feasible, why
wouldn't one of the bigger electronics/chip companies invest in research,
development, and production; get patents, and make a killing. If you look
at fortune 500 companies, there are more companies in the top 50 that could
profit hugely from solar cells than there are oil companies that could lose
money. Why in the world would they be afraid of taking on oil?
What I find very frustrating is that you seem to be sure that the
engineering problems are ficticious. The conspiricy would have to be so
wide spread that solid state physicists would have to write false articles
for Physics Today on solar power's possibilities and difficulties. I've
read and understood those articles. I've discussed it with other
physicists. The problems are huge.
> The oil business measures its profits in billions of dollars -- profits
> that can go down bigtime if a large percentage of the world's needed
energy
> would come from green sources. So, how many reasons does the oil business
> have to slow down the development of green power? Billions of reasons...
>
>
Jeroen, you can believe any conspiricy theory you want to. But, I have a
much better one, the one I gave Doug earlier. If it were a game and I were
playing as "big oil" and hidden conspiracies were part of the game, I'd
invest in the green movement. If you look, coal prices are in the toilet
because coal is less environmentally friendly than natural gas (part of the
oil industry). Nuclear is green, but if you could argue that it wasn't,
you'd get rid of the other real big rival. You could even support green
power, as Shell does, because you know that the engineering difficulties
will keep it priced too high to be a real competition.
So, if the oil companies got together to control the market, funding
Greenpeace and the like would be a wonderful investment.
Seriously, I don't believe that has happened. What I believe is that the
green power based on today's science is not practical. Nature is not open
to persuasion (as I've told managers many times.) One isn't automatically
able to do something simply because one wants to do it.
Dan M.
