frank theriault wrote:
> On Jan 28, 2008 4:51 PM, P. J. Alling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Yes fanatics. To reduce the "carbon footprint" to the extent required
>> to actually reverse the warming trend, (the much touted Kyoto Protocols
>> wouldn't even come close, and the estimated short term loss in GNP in
>> the US to implement those would probably bring on a Global Recession, if
>> we actually tried to conform to them), would impoverish even the United
>> States. China and India would face violent revolution, (stifled rising
>> expectations tend to cause such things), Worse yet, the required
>> surplus wealth needed for relief of those parts of world effected by
>> global warming if it's not caused by man, (and I happen to believe that
>> it's probably not, though I do admit I could be wrong) simply wouldn't
>> be there. Thats just for starters. Then theres the unfortunate truth
>> that the poorer a country is the less it's people care about the
>> environment. Just staying alive is much more important. A good example
>> is the loss of the rain forest in Brazil. A major cause of that loss is
>> relatively poor ranchers and farmers attempting to turn it into farms
>> and ranches. The fact that this a poor place to do that is not stopping
>> them, they have to eat. Every single time I hear someone talk about
>> sustainable energy sources I get the feeling they just haven't gotten a
>> handle on the magnitude of the problem, or they make it someone else's
>> problem. Solar isn't going fill the gap in any major way, not without
>> covering thousands of acres of land with solar power cells, (just look
>> at the energy flux available in sunlight to get your base of what's
>> available, then look at the typical conversion efficiencies in solar
>> power cells, you lose a lot of potential right there, but then
>> atmospheric conditions take a toll...) When you finally come up with a
>> reasonable estimate of watts per acer divide that into the amount of
>> electricity that Canada used before WWII and see if you can sustain even
>> that level of comfort with solar power, with Canada's entire land
>> area... Wind is even worse. Most places you have to have duplicate
>> capacity for electrical generation based on some other method, most
>> places that's natural gas. Then there's the wealthy well connected
>> people who don't want a modern windmill even on the horizon. It begins
>> to limit your options for placement, (the best place to generate power
>> is near to where it's used after all).
>>
>> So let's see, global warming fanatics want us to impoverish ourselves to
>> stop climate change from happening. Which we might not even be able to
>> do. If we do that and they are wrong, we will have many more deaths and
>> greater environmental degradation for no particular gain. If we do
>> impoverish ourselves and they are right, there will still be needless
>> deaths and dislocations, (an analysis I'd love to go into but heck, this
>> is already too long and with no footnotes you will refuse to even
>> consider this but hey you asked).
>>
>> Let's not forget that controlling your carbon footprint is becoming the
>> preferred way for most governments to get even more detailed control of
>> your life. California currently is trying to get a law that would allow
>> them to take remote control of the thermostats of every home and
>> business in that State, (starting with new construction but extending to
>> everything eventually). The incremental loss of freedom is astounding,
>> and it only gets worse from here...
>>
>
> I could be wrong, but I don't think that wind and solar power are the
> dead-ends that you paint them out to be. I don't think wind-farms are
> the answer, nor do I think that acres and acres of solar panels out in
> the desert are the answer either.
>
> Think small, think local.
>
Frank, small and local is fine. Except a wind turbine would have to be
nearly foolproof, (and no mechanical device is that foolproof), to be
that useful. You can see the rotting frames of a half a dozen small
wind turbines within a half hour drive of where I live. They were
installed just after the last energy crises and abandoned just after
they stopped working. Which still doesn't supply the backup electricity
when the wind doesn't blow, Then there's the problem of a city the size
of Toronto, there's no way to use local wind and solar power to supply
it's needs.
> How about a wind-generator on every roof? How about solar panels on
> every roof to heat our water and/or our houses? They don't have to
> provide every single watt necessary - we can still tap into our local
> electric grid, and on windy/sunny days, the excess power is actually
> sent into the grid, and the homeowner is credited for it, essentially
> getting free power on cloudy/calm days. The electricity savings are
> substantial.
>
I've looked into Solar panels, while there is no way you'll generate
enough electricity to run your refrigerator with them the break even
time on cost has come down considerably, (however at the cost of making
repair of individual panels much more difficult if not impossible).
Break even used to be close to thirty years, now it's more like twenty.
Unfortunately mean time to failure for a panel is more like 10-15
years. Don't look at photo-voltaic's to be much of a help in reducing
overall energy usage either. Producing the silicon wafers is quite
energy intensive...
> Expensive? Maybe, due to economies of scale. Once every new house
> being constructed has these things on them, the price will plummet.
> In Toronto the price of a new house averages something like $300,000.
> Why balk at spending another $10K for devices that will save more than
> that over the life of the home?
>
> Will that alone save the planet? Maybe yes, maybe no, but it makes a
> hell of a lot more sense than the "mega-projects" that we've used to
> power our dwellings and other buildings.
>
> Unsightly? Maybe. So are satellite dishes, and so were TV aerials in
> the 60's, but people still erected those, and didn't mind them because
> they were (and still are, WRT dishes) considered useful.
>
> We can keep saying it can't be done, or we can do something about it.
>
> BTW, please stop throwing Kyoto at us. It's so flawed, so useless,
> that I suspect the only reason it was ever ratified was so that global
> warming deniers could then say "Kyoto will never work, so the
> environmentalists are wrong - there's no solution." Kyoto's not the
> answer, never was, never will be.
>
>
Sadly no one seemed to think it was flawed at the time, oh yes some did,
but they were ignored.
I have to keep throwing Kyoto out there. It was a bad idea, most of its
successors haven't been any better. They don't take any costs into
account except to say that the "explosion" of research in "green"
technologies will offset their bad economuic effects. In my experience
with governmental solutions that's not the way to bet.
Finally you don't even address the loss of personal freedom that this
entails. Hell the war on terror won't limit what you can do as much as
this will. No less an authority on totalitarianism than Valclav Haval
declared that the modern environmental movement is the greatest threat
to personal freedom since the fall of the soviet Union. I think he
knows what he's talking about, based on what I've seen so far. It
won't, on the surface at least, be the jackbooted heavy handed style of
the Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, it will be genteeler and kinder,
with requirements much like keeping your lawn mowed in the suburbs,
backed by the force of law, like the IRS tells all Americans that paying
our taxes isn't mandatory, it's voluntary, just try not paying them..
> cheers,
> frank
>
>
>
>
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>
--
I am personally a member of the Cream of the Illuminati.
A union with the Bavarian Illuminati is contemplated.
When it is complete the Bavarian Cream Illuminati will rule the world
-- Anonymous
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