Harry, thanks, but we mustn't
minimize the problems around nuclear power generation. A few years ago I
did some work on the problems of disposing of nuclear waste and they presented enormous
challenges. Because of the long half lives involved, and the
possibilities of massive social change over long periods of time, making sure
that people understood the nature of a waste disposal site like Yucca Mountain
is a major issue. How do you communicate with people of the far distant
future? Will they understand our iconography? The Canadian
government was considering deep burial in the Canadian Shield, but there was no
guarantee that the stuff wouldn't leach out over the centuries involved.
No part of the Earth, no matter how solid it appears, is permanently in
place. And I don't think the Pacific Trench is an option. Deep space
perhaps?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Lumps of unskilled labour
>
> I fear that one of Keith's few blind spots is his denial of nuclear
> energy. So he brings up Chernobyl and Three Mile Island as if these are
> convincing antinuclear arguments.
>
> Chernobyl was a pretty awful disaster -- but it was a Russian disaster and
> cannot be compared with Western nuclear operations.
>
> Three-Mile Island didn't hurt anybody except indirectly. They closed the
> second reactor for a very long time. During this time we replaced nuclear
> electricity with coal produced electricity. Coal kills a lot of people
> every year. So the closure of the second reactor led to additional mining
> deaths.
>
> Yet no one was killed, or hurt, in the accident. This was the original
> technology. there have been many improvements over the years. This is led
> to much more production of electricity from the same reactors than was
> possible when they were first built.
>
> Now the technology is 40 years old. There is no doubt that modern nuclear
> reactors would be improved in every way. They would be safer (though
> they've been remarkably safe over the last 40 years). They will be much
> more efficient. Their fuel is abundant and pollution is nonexistent.
>
> So, why aren't we building more in the US?
>
> The answer is, of course, politics. Such non-problems as waste can be
> settled simply. We drop it in the deepest part of the Pacific trench.
>
> So-called alternative energy sources have been just as well subsidized as
> nuclear ever was, but are unable to produce the power that is
> needed. Perhaps they will be able at sometime in the future but future
> power doesn't help us now.
>
> Keith has eloquently pointed out how the world was changed by the discovery
> of oil. The reason for the changes was that suddenly we seemed to enjoy
> unlimited power. Nuclear offers the same great prospect. Solar , wind,
> and the rest, do not offer us any possibility of power without limit.
> Maybe, one day -- but we need power for next winter.
>
> Harry
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Ed wrote:
>
> >A few comments in blue.
> >
> >Ed Weick
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Keith Hudson
> >To: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 2:43 PM
> >Subject: [Futurework] Lumps of unskilled labour
> >
> >It is good to read America's premier left-of-centre economist, Paul
> >Krugman, writing in today's New York Times about the "lump of labour"
> >fallacy and trying once again to put it to rest. This is the delusion that
> >re-emerges periodically when trade unions, or even white-collar groups,
> >start to panic at what seems to be a surge in the number of jobs leaving
> >their own country and going abroad where labour is cheaper. At the present
> >time, this mainly concerns manufacturing jobs leaving for China and some
> >sorts of middle-skill white collar jobs leaving for India.
> >
> >If you believe that there is a fixed number of jobs in a country then it
> >is logical to deduce that if some of them are out-sourced to other
> >countries then unemployment at home is bound to rise. However, the premise
> >is wrong because it implies that no new jobs ever get created. Presumably,
> >the number of jobs was divinely created once and for all, and must
> >therefore be protected. The problem with this is that, without
> >competition, the protected businesses inevitably become more inefficient
> >as time goes by and the goods they produce become more costly than they
> >needed to have been if they had been made abroad. A country that protects
> >its jobs and begins to cut itself off from the rest of the world
> >inevitably spirals downwards, with an increasingly lower standard of
> >living. This something that happened for decades in the Soviet Union
> >before the system finally gave way under the strain in1992 despite
> >Gorbachev's valiant attempts to forestall it.
> >
> >I think one has to figure time into this. In the short-run, declines in
> >particular industrial sectors or the outsourcing of jobs will leave people
> >stranded. In the medium to long run, the economy and the labour force may
> >adjust, but it should not be taken for granted that it will. During the
> >past century or so, Canada has seen a large scale movement from primary
> >industries to secondary manufacturing to services. This movement has left
> >many communities and many workers stranded.
> >
> >To remain in the game, each country must be continuously creating new
> >products and new jobs. However, there are two problems with this scenario.
> >The first has been considered by only a few economists; the second, to my
> >knowledge, has never been considered by any economist at all so far .
> >
> >The first is problem was first raised by the Prof Fred Hirsch, an
> >economics professor at Warwick University in his book, The Social Limits
> >to Growth (1976) that was published not long before he died while in his
> >30s. He was mainly thinking of goods, services and facilities that would
> >be so much in demand by consumers that their very supply would cause
> >congestion and a deterioration in the environment for all. My own
> >elaboration of this is a slightly narrower one but, with the beneift of
> >hindsight, a more powerful one, I think. This is that the main congestion
> >that will strangle economic growth is that of lack of time and attention
> >by the prime consumer group -- the middle-class -- the class with enough
> >disposable income that always initiates new consumer items that are
> >profitable enough to drive the whole system. Increasingly, this class --
> >what I call the initiatory class -- are now so time-starved and stressed
> >in normal daily and weekly life that they can barely cope with the
> >consumer goods that they already use in their limited spare time, never
> >mind buying more.
> >
> >Or maybe they are just tired of the glut of stuff and don't want any more?
> >
> >The second problem is that there must be natural limits to the abilities
> >of a population to respond to higher job-skill requirements. In the
> >prevalent political philosophy of the last 30 or 40 years or so, the
> >supply of skills was never seen to be a problem because a government could
> >simply pour more resources into education. However, today, we need a
> >growing proportion of very high-skill people to keep the system going.
> >Unlike 'New Age' thinkers who believe that there are no limits to the
> >abilities of the brain, those who are more practically involved with this
> >problem -- educationalists and neuroscientists -- know that our brains are
> >as finite in their processing abilities as they are in size.
> >
> >What you may have is something one might call a "betrayal factor". A few
> >years ago, high tech was in full flight in the Ottawa area, then known as
> >"Silicon Vally North". Ever so many bright young people bought into the
> >industry, learned the necessary skills, got high paying jobs, etc. Then
> >the whole thing began to crash. People got very badly burned. They had
> >skills but little to transfer them to. The next wave of young people
> >would likely be more cautious in what they committed themselves to
> >learn. They would likely opt for a broader, more universally transferable
> >set of skills.
> >
> >The first problem above is already being recognised as such and is usually
> >termed the 'work-life balance' problem -- and it is growing. We are not
> >entering the life of leisure and abundance that many futurologists
> >foretold a generation ago despite the fact that we have more energy,
> >technology and automation than ever before. Life is becoming more
> >stressful, particularly for those with professional responibilities. The
> >second problem doesn't register at all in the public consciousness yet.
> >However, in events such as the Chernobyl and Half Mile Island nuclear
> >accidents, the increasing number of electricity grid blackouts, the rapid
> >spread of antibiotic-resistant staphylococci and new varieties of
> >influenza, and so on, we have the first hints that we are beginning to
> >live right on the edge of our expertise.
> >
> >Ah, yes, but I do think we learn from our experience. If new nuclear
> >plants are built, they will be less prone to failure. I guess what I'm
> >saying is that it is not really the capacity of the brain that is
> >important here. It is the accumulation of knowledge that the collective
> >brain has to work with. We now know, or should know, far more than we did
> >in the fifties, sixties and seventies when the nuclear plants and power
> >grids that we still work with were put in place. There is good reason to
> >believe that it would be done better now and will probably be done even
> >better thirty years from now.
> >
> >Ed
> >
> >
> >
> >---
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> ****************************************************
> Harry Pollard
> Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles
> Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
> Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242
> http://home.comcast.net/~haledward
> ****************************************************
>
>
>
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