Jeroen wrote:
> At 23:55 12-7-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > > 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.
>
> What, you lived in The Netherlands back then? By sheer coincidence, so did
I...
> > >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.
>
> Maybe not in the US. Note however that I said "our population" -- since
> it's well known that I live in The Netherlands, it should be quite obvious
> that the phrase "our population" referred to the Dutch population, not the
> Americans. Back then, proclaiming you were an environmentalist was enough
> to be considered a lunatic.
Your post seemed to me to pretty clearly indicate a general statement about
the overall political climate and Western views towards environmentalism.
With your clarification, though, it's pretty clear that, based on Dan's
statements and my own recollections, that the US was on the "Green" wagon
long before The Netherlands. Kudos for us, I suppose.
> > >Politicians didn't care about the environment, so nothing
pro-environment
> >was done.
> >
> >That is a false statement, at least in the US.
>
> Again, I was referring to the Dutch situation.
See my statement above.
> > > 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?
>
> Of course not; I never made that claim. What is sad, is the reason why
> politicians suddenly developed a pro-environment stance: not because of
> "yes, we must clean up our act" but because of "hey, this is popular, so
if
> I claim to support it I will get re-elected". IOW, they didn't do it for
> the environment but for their careers... :(
Personally, I don't give a rat's patootie if a politician takes what I
consider the right stance based on his personal moral code or because it
gets him reelected. To draw a parallel, at work, as long as your results
match the target set by the company, no one really cares if you *really*
believe all the corporate culture hype. In a representative democracy, the
feedback loop is pretty friggin' tight - choice A gets votes/campaign
donations while choice B doesn't. If I want to keep my job, I'll make
choice A.
> > > 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?
>
> More like forces that want to protect current economic interests.
Please detail these forces that seem to be able to bend the laws of physics
to their will. I wonder - is this something taught at Community College, or
do you have to spend years in a Tibetan Monastary to learn? ;-)
> > > 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.
>
> But Dan, engineering programs *do* work. If they didn't work, we wouldn't
> have solar panels, windmills producing energy, and other sources of
> renewable energy. Sure, it still requires a lot of development to make it
> cheaper and more efficient, but that's no reason to claim that those
> programs don't work.
Dan has never claimed that wind or solar power systems don't work, just that
they're grossly inefficient and some have a pretty bad secondary effect on
the environment. More development is needed, but as long as it's more
efficient and produces less damage to the environment to use, say, nuclear
power, that's what will be used.
> Further, I don't blame the oil companies for "engineering programs that
> don't work". I do suspect however that they can and will do everything
they
> can to protect their current interests -- interests to which green power
is
> a potential threat.
Please detail what steps Big Oil is taking to prevent green power from
succeeding.
> >As I stated in a previous post, big oil isn't
> >all that big, as corporations go.
>
> Every quarter, a table is published here in newspapers, listing the 10
> Netherlands-based companies with the highest profits. The numbers 2-10
> vary, but 1st place is typically taken by Shell, with huge profits.
> Typically, you'll first get Shell's profits, than a wide gap, and then the
> profits of the other nine companies. It's not uncommon for Shell to have
> made just as much or even a bigger profit than the other nine companies
> combined.
>
> I'd say that makes oil companies qualify as "big" -- that, and the fact
> that the oil business measures profits in billions of dollars.
No, that makes Shell the biggest corporation in The Netherlands. In the US,
it's a different story. Dan's provided the numbers which clearly indicate
that "Big Oil" in the US is easily outspent and outsized by any number of
other corporations that would *love* to grab the opportunity to do an end
run around coal and oil fired power plants and use the 300 MPG carbeurator
that Big Oil bought the patent to and buried.
> >What I find very frustrating is that you seem to be sure that the
> >engineering problems are ficticious.
>
> I never made that claim.
You've dismissed almost every post Dan has made detailing the inefficiencies
of current "green" power sources, despite his rigorous efforts to provide
detailed documentation, in some cases drawing upon his personal experience
in the oil industry and in nuclear physics.
> >Nuclear is green, but if you could argue that it wasn't,
>
> Say WHAT??? No what in the world gave you that absolutely wrong idea? In
my
> 34 years in this life, I've watched countless programs and read numerous
> newspaper and magazine articles about it, visited websites of various
> environmentalist organisations, and talked to many environmentalists (and
> became one myself). But NOT A SINGLE ONE of these sources ever claimed
that
> nuclear energy is green -- they all claimed exactly the opposite.
>
> Then you come along and claim nuclear energy is green. Now who do you
think
> will be more credible: the entire collection of programs, articles,
> environmentalist groups and individual environmentalists, or a single
> individual who, of all places, works in the oil business -- the one
> business that has a lot to lose?
Can you tell me why someone working for "Big Oil" would press the claim that
nuclear power is green? You've claimed that employees of Big Oil will lie,
cheat and steal to protect Big Oil's interests. Dan's support of nuclear
power clearly disproves your claim. Additionally, his detailed analyses
complete with facts and figures are worth 1000 times their weight in
hysterical screeds without a single documented fact.
Furthermore, if you look at the DIRECT and INDIRECT damage to the
environment from nuclear power, then compare them to the damage done by
strip mining for coal, oil spills, etc, nuclear fission looks like a darn
sweet deal.
> Really, Dan, nuclear energy is *not* green.
I'd say yes, it is.
> >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.
>
> Which would also give you an opportunity to control the speed of
> developments (read: slow them down) and keep the price artificially
high...
Or you could get a leg up on your competition in the oil industry, make
yourself look better in the public eye, and make a killing when you're in
the business of providing cost-efficient green power and your competitors
are struggling to keep up.
Adam C. Lipscomb
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ# 32384792
