----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Swanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change
To: "globalchange" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 7:43 AM
Subject: [Global Change: 1848] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
>
>> >I see no hope, given the
>> >political situation. So, famine, pestilence and wars will be the
>> >ultimate limits to growth.
>>
>> Erik, why so hopeless? Haven't you noticed the population is indeed
>> stabilizing? Ever wonder why? If your curiosity should lead you to
>> investigate, you would find the reason is not "famine, pestilence and
>> wars".
>> Fight fear with knowledge.
>>
>> -dl
>
> It's been said that population in the developed nations is stabilizing
> and that claim is repeated here.
Look again - that's *global population* stabilizing - as noted by Chris
Rapley citing UN sources in the article that kicked off the thread.
> energy is my thing, so to speak. My bias, if you want to call it
> that, is solar energy and I've known how to use it for more than 30
> years. Yet, I've found almost no opportunity to do so, which I find
> very depressing. Your choice in the energy world is nuclear, as
> you've demonstrated many times.
The opportunity to use solar energy is all around you: biomass - like pizza
and beer, among other things. Perhaps availing yourself of the opportunity
to use pizza and beer would cheer you up? And I suppose if we push the
chain of cause and effect back far enough we would find wind and hydro to be
solar powered as well. Photovoltaic is getting cheaper all the time, and
of course solar thermal mustn't be overlooked. I am a huge fan of all of
these options, and also conservation. But I can also do arithmetic and I
appreciate the value of a dollar - when it comes to building a new
coal-fired power plant (and more are being built every day), what are the
alternatives, really?
> You want to be optimistic, so how many nukes would it take to power a
> fully developed India and China, not to mention the other nations that
> you apparently want to see brought up to Western levels of
> development. Where's the fuel to come from for all those nuclear
> power plants, without a recycling of fuel to recover the plutonium?
Again, I refer you to the IPCC stabilization scenarios for estimates of
*global* nuclear power development, which range from six to ten times higher
than today (approximately 2,500 to 4,500 1Gw plants world-wide, including
India and China). Expanding the use of fuel breeding and recycling beyond
current practice may be necessary, and why not? Proliferation concerns may
be addressed in various ways, such as "denatured plutonium" or integral fast
reactor facilities, and continued commitment to the non-proliferation
treaty.
Fight fear with knowledge: know nukes.
-dl
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated
venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of
global environmental change.
Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the
submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not
gratuitously rude.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
