Firmage EdGOOD GOD! NO! I DIDN’T MEAN IT! I DEMAND A RECOUNT!
Today the rest of this nation knows what some of us have known for seven years and counting. We have the most unpopular boob in American history running the country in the most frightening period of national history. His incompetence is legend. Let me name the ways:
First, of course, this war of choice, Bush’s war. With John McCain and Hillary Clinton and a majority of their colleagues, we went to war with a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, Iraq. And we will be in that quagmire for at least John McCain’s century, no matter which candidate wins. (Our only solace–we will be far better led by any of the three or, for that matter, by lot–throw darts at any phone book and annoint the sucker.) Our losses are already staggering. Megadeath unending, the sword, blood and fire for decades. In that century nuclear weapons will be had by many other states, by their own development and the fire-sales that surely will come. People are now starving, and anyone who thinks this can be stopped from full famine are either stupid or lying. Nuclear states will sell the store just to avoid, for a time, famine-induced panic and pandemic and, for so many poorly-led states, revolution.
Second, we’re rapidly out-sourcing our real energy producers, solar and wind power. See Thomas Friedmann’s prophetic piece in today’s Tribune. He has been wrong on the Iraq war since day one. But today’s article is right on. Solar power and wind power, though demanding heavy front-end cost, will give us the power to live without destroying the earth. Coal will continue to be used, hopefully much cleaner coal. But it will come at a huge cost to our environment. Nuclear power is in reality a dinosaur. It will tank, if we are lucky. If ever there was a prostituted word’s incarnation, it’s Energy/Solutions. Solutions it isn’t. The once - proud palace, the Salt Palace, has been had. We’re losing our position in inventing and producing wind and solar power to Asia and Europe. Never mind our sad loss in producing, once, the world’s greatest automobiles. Or our iron and steel industry. Sadly, much of this is long gone. But what should have been our future has been lost in these eight years of the worst presidency in our nation’s history, the production of solar and wind power.
Third, our nation’s economy is tanking. Mortage forclosures, unemployment, lack of affordable health care, the costs of oil and gas, cost of homes and sale of homes, all the home and hearth realities of middle America, are being lost due in large part to stupid in the pesidency. Almost a decade of a combination of no leadership and worse, leadership in the wrong direction, is truly terrrifying. Talk of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s “chickens coming home to roost”. You better believe it. Why would any sane person run for president?
My solution. Hilary, Bush-McCain, or Barak, when you win, demand a recount.
ed firmage
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ed, I love it - Demanding a recount. Besides providing some sort of audit and acceptability of the count, it would also allow the citizenry to see that things wouldn’t fall apart while said recount took place. (And for me, the longer the better). I do not see any absolute necessity in have any particular ‘occupant’ in the Whitehouse, especially if it is simply the scum rising to the top. And what courage it would take! Then imagine if the ‘winner’ simply refused to take up the position! What then? Liberty for all?
Now that I think, demanding a recount may be the very loophole that the previous president might use to put forth his bid for an extension.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 am
Well Ed you have at least adopted the reality that we won’t be leaving Iraq, no matter who is “erected” as executive.
Review nuclear power, the French have it down, using plants Americans engineered with modifications of course. The plants are all generally the same. 80% of their power comes this way. They already run their grid and trains and all other electric transport, and are poised to expand the gain into the compressed air transportation realm.
Solar cannot do this. We have yet the will to cover our own roofs with panels, let alone power an infrastructure with it.
Coal we have plenty of, and carbon sequestration can be done, if you believe in human induced carbon based global warming. Make the wrong decisions, and the consequence is that millions will starve on planet Earth.
Bottom line, with the amount of people currently here, there is no “conserving” our way into the future. We simply need more power, or millions will die of poverty, or war, over usable energy resources. We are already seeing it. We, the US alone will require 100 nuclear plants of 4000 megawatt, to provide for near term increased consumption, and to shut down coal burners. Solar and wind are at this time only adjuncts, they do not produce power in the most critical way, ON DEMAND. They are passive systems and cannot currently, or in a reasonable future, do what coal, nuclear, and oil can.
We move into a future of risk, spend our resources on the wrong choice, and there will not be time to make changes from errors to not see masses of people living substandard lives.
Solar isn’t it, if it was, everyone in Utah would have it incorporated into their house by now.
Do you yet Ed? We are near a day late and a a dollar short. Are we waiting for the government to intervene? I don’t care what party you support, it just won’t matter for the better part of humanity. If you cannot do it yourself, no one can.
Please Ed, as much as it satisfies, stop blaming one man for our predicament. Nobody stopped him. The rest of our representation was holding the leash, and chose to follow the dog through the mud. Blame the dog, maybe beat him, but in the end, WE HELD THE LEASH…and did NOTHING!!
The failure of our leadership has been total. We get to live what that means now.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:35 am
Remember what the “don’t taze me bro” guy asked Kerry?
“Didn’t you WANT to be president?” That was a great question Kerry still hasn’t answered. It’s almost as if the whole thing was staged just so we would all know we’re never going to get an answer. It makes me wonder if the Clinton blow job was staged, just to show us Democrats are never going to get justice. The stolen election just solidified the concept. The next stolen election took us even further down the road.
Bush gets right out there in public and admits he was lying to us about the torture. He was aware of the torture demonstrations in the White House and gave approval.
At this point, it doesn’t matter what they do. The news organizations should just go ahead and report all of the crimes. It only helps the administration. The frog is near to boiling.
2008 is the last stop and they know we know it. This is dangerous territory, folks! Are we brave and proud, or are we cooked?
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Once a person realizes that elites are all on the same team ultimately, then you can see through the entire charade.
Do you think these elites from algore to cheney flying around in their jets and living in their mansions really are concerned if your life is compromised? Sure, they talk a good game but have only talked, and have accomplished little tangible. The proof is the state we are in now. The best I have heard is “I feel your pain”, from a considerable distance of course
For many of the elites, they would be happy if 1/2 the worlds population disappeared, sure would loosen up this battle for resources.
All you need to remember peasants, is that you aren’t on their team.
In relation to another thread here,that some people would opt to disarm the populous after the elite leadership has sold us high and dry, acted completely out of bounds, and clearly will violate the Bill of Rights for any reason they see fit, is insensible, and indicative of a mind that wishes for a reality that isn’t in existence.
Wonder how Iraq would be right now if their people were disarmed? Everything would be all better right? They wouldn’t be their own people, they would be co-opted into corporate plantation, may happen anyway, but clearly, not without a fight. If they aren’t sucked up, they get to be sovereign, the best thing for any peoples with similar concerns. They get to be a nation, make their own decisions, not part of some globally orchestrated plantation clusterf*** run by a rampaging elite class.
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Glenn,
Re: “There is no conserving our way into the future.†Yes and no. In the long run, we will need to develop cleaner coal, safer nuclear, and more cost-effective solar/wind/wave/geothermal, etc. We will need a multi-pronged technological attack on the problem of peak oil, and we won’t know immediately which replacement energy mix is optimal for the future, given the balance of economic forces and environmental concerns. But we have to get serious about doing this. In the short run, however, nothing is faster, cheaper, or cleaner than conservation to reduce our dependence on expensive foreign oil. As for myself, I drive a hybrid and often walk to work. I also live in coastal California (sorry Utahns), so I don’t need an air conditioner and need comparatively little heating. When I lived in Chicago, we insulated our house extensively to cut our energy bills. Except for flying commercially, my carbon footprint is now fairly small. I would prefer high-speed trains to travel, but that is not currently an option in this country. There is no viable way into the future without a big conservation and energy efficiency component to a national energy plan. This is actually something we can do if we summon the political will. Alternatively, situations that can’t sustain themselves ultimately don’t.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Leo; Conservation is a stop gap measure, at increased populations that are emerging and different technologies using more energy coming online constantly, there will never be another year where we require less energy than the year before. We will burn more fuel next year as a species, as last year, in an almost geometric curve until the stuff is gone.
Toxic waste mitigation, any sequestration of carbon all takes more energy to accomplish. Where we are able, we will conserve, but that future is one of deprivation, and worse possible starvation for many peoples.
My statement there is no conserving our way into the future is a statement that I’ll qualify, with progress towards clean energy and mitigating existing messes. At the rate we are going, the reality is here, 4 dollar gas is the beginning, unless peak oil is a sham. We are already experiencing lower quality of life through the narrowing of disposal income to provide basics, fuel and food. Conservation will allow us to survive, but not thrive. As increased populations desire access to what is left of energy resources, wars will be fought.
I often wonder what it would be like if we just burned up oil as quickly as possible, and moved to the next technology. Well, in retrospect this is what we have, and are doing.
We need a new, clean, unlimited power source, creating electricity, with which hydrogen can be made, toxic waste purified, air compressed, food grown, anything can be done to aid in our civilisation with excess power. If we do not move forward finding it, the future is here. Energy war, famine, and insecurity.
I agree, conserve what you can, however, as we can see in oil demand, you not using yours just frees up some more for an emerging economy and their people to use. There is no way out of this. He who has the energy will be free to advance, those who do not, will be subject. The amount of calories it takes to run this world, transportation, farming, infrastructure, medical care, lighting, is definable, and as oil production provides near all of these calories currently, it has its obvious limits and the environmental cost to boot.
We need more power. Period. If it was clean and had no environmental impact, what point would conservation serve, but to satisfy an asceticism that is unnecessary?
To make hydrogen fuel you have to put more energy in than you get out via the most common pure method, water electrolysis. That is irrelevant if we can get electricity in a clean unlimited form. This will be the limiting factor, and has always been the limiting factor in humanities progress. With each increase in control of energy by humanity, from fire, oil , to nuclear, there have been quantum leaps in quality of life. Finding this is the only way forward, without it, the only option in a diminishing energy paradigm…is depopulation.
Note: Watch the elites promote that first before trying to figure out a new power source. They can barely promote successful conservation. War makes dough, and a lot of the elites like it, and don’t much care for the common person, 1st world, or otherwise. Actually they like the 3rd worlders better, they make better wage slaves.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Glenn,
I agree with much of what you say. Globally, the world demand for power will be growing. There is not much we can do about that in the short run. We in America have to decide if we are going to go to war to secure energy resources, trade economically for those resources, or become energy independent. The first choice is unacceptable to me and I hope to everyone reading this. We will need a combination of the second two solutions. The world will eventually need to reach a steady state, however. Given the finite size of the planet, there are limits to growth. Those limits may be a way off, but we can’t suppose there are no limits. There are no magic wands in sight to provide cheap, clean energy or to reach a steady state. This will take a lot of serious effort on both the supply and consumption side. I recommend the book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond for a series of cautionary tales on resource exhaustion and some more optimistic ones as well.
I am concerned about how the term “elites†is thrown around as a demonizing term. What or whom do you mean by “elites?†I have a son who is a geophysicist for ConocoPhillips. He is highly educated and works in Norway trying to find oil. Is he an “elite?†He also approves of Norway’s high gas taxes which successfully serve to decrease demand, and which are supported by the voters of Norway. See. http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2005/05/02/2/ Does that make him an “elite?â€
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
No, elites as I reference them are those entrenched people of wealth that behind the scenes that have beyond money, and wield power to alter outcomes for humanity that might make more sense.
Your son, and this has no personal element or judgment to it, is an elite in his field, but in the context I would see him as a functionary of an elite group that is maintaining their grip on our energy future. Taxing fuel to decrease demand serves elites, as the wealthy it certainly has no impact on their daily lives whatever fuel costs.
He has a job to do, and applies it. I often wonder how many great minded people are focused into the existing economy and energy paradigm, when they could busy moving us to a better energy future. Our best minds are often counting marbles for an elite that would control our outcomes, as they see fit. Think tanks, and Universities promote agendas of left and right, often with the intent of sowing the intellectual chaos that makes the control of populations so much easier.
Often when moving in the circles of the educated the mentality of doing what is for the “good” of society is often not applied to themselves. This group does as it pleases and forces the peasants to conform. This is visible from AL Gore to any number of those that wish to control the masses, while themselves not being included in the agenda. These are the elites. They often, right or left, are simply opposite ends of the spectrum of this controlling group. Confused peasants usually attach themselves to one political mantra or the other, while in fact there are really no differences between the two. The differences are simply there for appearance sake, and to give icons to the division of the peoples they rule. The herd is much more easily managed in this way.
When all is said and done, Al Gore and Dick Cheney will be flying around in the same kinds of jet aircraft, exempt from any stricture, and for all intents, on the public dime. These are the elites, though only the more visible.
Back to the problem. There are too many people with desires and no real way to control their activities. If for example the US can barely keep a lid on Iraq a country of 25 million, the prospect for some larger control through cooperation is rather moot. Instead, the elites I reference would as well throw up their hands, create wars to limit supply and therein growth, and simply let the populations of the world wallow to decrease.
It is my opinion that this faction is in control of our future right now. My evidence is that despite the obvious wall ahead, practically nothing is being done in any scale that will matter. The disaster will have to appear, and then plans will be implemented, and many common people will suffer.
Where there is a lack of vision, the People, perish. Sometimes to elites, that is the vision.
In my study of history, the actual litany of mans’ approach to problems, it is rarely otherwise.
In reference to Norways’ success. It is rich from oil revenue, in the manner of a Dubai, or Oman. It is not afflicted by war, and it is a country of 6-7 million that has an infrastructure that is small and a country that has fairly concentrated populations. In short, it is no way America, and if such were implemented here, the collapse would be upon us by now. Our evolution as a nation has lead us to be spread out. As broke as the nation is, re-orienting this reality will be terrible to be sure. Tradition has its virtues, and we have none, and make policy up as we go along. Totally different story.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Hi Caveat,
Florida times three and counting the chads. The anti-Darwinian survival of the least fit, the Senator Buttars’ Chair in human devolution is at work. Survival of the least fit. What could be worse than a third term for Bush? Why, a Cheney presidency. But I repeat myself. ef xoxo
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Hi Glenn,
You’re right, Glenn. We voted this fool in. And no, he’s not responsible for all the world’s ills, just more than anyone I know personally, and perhaps historically. I’ll take some exceptions: Hitler, Stalin, and other megamonsters. Bush is genuinely a nice guy. But his choice of friends and advisors will leave us with tragic choices. Bush didn’t invent “stupid.” But he has pushed it beyond any meaning I’ve seen before. History, being just one damned thing after another, proceeds. But we are obliged, I think, existentially to think, assess, do our best, and participate fairly in a wonderful political structure that the founding mothers and fathers left us. Very few political leaders of Enlightenment stature in politics. Obama may be one. We’ll see. Your views on energy supply side I disagree with; but whatever steps we take may be our last unless we’re very very careful. And not wait another eight years in reverse gear. History is itself speeding up, as I told Bill Moyers years ago in an interview on the war power clause of the American Constitution. From a complete technological revolution approximately every world-like war: 1850’s to 1914; to World War Two…..1932 (Japan and Manchuria), 1937 (Spain and other European states) 1939 (Europe and Asia) 1941 (America joins)… More or less a fifty to seventy year stretch between complsete technological revolutions, we’ve in my lifetime gone from five years to today’s 2 to three years between total paradigmatic technological change. How possibly can any political leader, or leaders, manage this? Just who are they leading? Where? Jesus in Matthew chapter 24 or 25 speaks of time itself speeding up. I don’t know what Einstein would say about this. Your friend, ed firmage
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Glenn and Leo, I’m proud just to know you guys. Your conversations have taken this old man into depths that my 5′7” can’t quite reach. I hope my son, Ed jr., can join this dialogue. He says hi to you, Leo. Anonymous, “elites” indeed. My only hope in the short run, is to vote for the least prostituted figure running. For my money, and my vote, that’s Barak Obama and John Edwards. And their brilliant spouses. As John Maynard Keynes said, in the long run, we”re all dead. Just not too soon. And not globally, at more or less the same time, give a century or two. ed firmage
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Right on, Larry. Our heritage in law, government, politics, ethics and morality and all that it has meant, in the past, to be an American is on the line. will we stain in any other way, our heritage and threaten world ecology, and any hope we have for a world at peace? We shall see. The murderers and torturers, and their leaders in the White House should by all that is holy be tried in more than the court of world opinion. We may not have another Lincoln, Jefferson, and the Adams family. We may or may not elect someone who can throw the stick into the air and catch it, as the twirlers do at the head of any good parade. But we needn’t again elect the little guy with the broom and bucket who follows the elephants. And I use the metaphorical elephant with all my democratic heart. ed firmage
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Glenn,
At Ed Sr.’s request, I add a couple of thoughts here in response to yours. (Leo, it’s good to hear your name again!)
1-”There is no conserving our way into the future.” Wrong. Numerous studies have shown that about half of the energy produced in this country is wasted. If we were to get serious about conservation, we could support a large percentage of our growing need without building a single new power plant of any kind. Conservation also gives us the biggest economic payback for dollar invested. Our present leading methods of electricity generation, coal and nuclear, are about seven times more expensive than conservation.
Conservation, serious conservation, is a way of life without which there is no future. If we don’t get serious about living conservatively, our future as a society, if not as a species, is in doubt. We Americans simply can’t go on consuming four or five earths worth of resources. Without conservation there is no sustainability. Without an ethic of conservation–conservation of power, of water, of other resources, of biodiversity, of habitat–we are destined for the biological waste bin into which natural selection dumps her less successful experiments.
2-”Solar can’t do this” (referring to its disadvantage relative to nuclear). Wrong again. In our country, it’s true, solar has yet to emerge as a serious source of power generation, but that’s due largely to our shortsighted policy making and our even more shortsighted way of externalizing the true costs of the way we live. But the advantages of solar grow daily. While the cost of coal soars–last year the cost of coal rose between 40 and 100% due to increased global demand–and nuclear is even more expensive, the cost of solar has declined each year by about 15% and promises to decline even more rapidly as it becomes commoditized. One of the most exciting developments in solar is the advent of dramatically less expensive and much more rapid ways of creating PV material. This year, for example, a Silicon Valley company, Nanosolar, went into production with a next-generation process that creates solar panels 100x faster and 100x thinner than anything we’ve seen to date, and at the amazing price of $0.99 per watt. That compares with, say, the $2.50 per watt for the “clean” coal plants proposed for eastern Nevada.
The use of solar power on a large scale will require a lot of new thinking about how to generate electricity on demand. But this kind of thinking–and now prototypes–are being done. Here at the University of Utah, for example, the mechanical engineering dept. is preparing to do a test of a kind of natural battery to store energy generated by solar power during the day for release on demand. The “battery” in question is the thousands of miles of abandoned mining tunnels that crisscross our state. The scheme uses solar energy to compress air in the tunnels and then uses the compressed air to generate electricity with turbines on demand. It turns out to be a powerful and cost-effective means of generating power.
A lot of thinking has gone into the feasibility of going “carbon-free and nuclear-free.” I recommend you take a look at the book by that title by the noted nuclear engineer Arjun Makhijani. A free copy is available online at http://www.ieer.org.
3-Let me make one final, general remark. The crises we are now facing in energy costs (gas and coal alike), food production, and the economy are not going away. I pity the poor truckers who gathered in Washington to demand “reasonable” gas prices. We will never again see “reasonable,” that is relatively low and relatively stable gas prices. Why? Because world demand is outstripping supply, and that gap between supply and demand will only grow as the world reaches “peak oil” and then begins the decline toward the end of oil. For over a century, the U.S. has enjoyed a free ride provided first by our own unprecedented storehouse of seemingly inexhaustible natural resources on a continental scale and second by the availability of cheap fossil fuels. As a result of these temporary endowments, we’ve been able to enjoy an artificially high lifestyle without much global competition. This state of affairs has now come to an end. Our own resources are stretched thin and the developing world is now demanding its share of what’s left of the fossil fuel kingdom.
What we’ve begun to experience this year in increased food and energy costs is indicative of what the future holds. This future promises to challenge us to the very core. The solutions to the problems that we now face and others that will arise as a result of our profligate use of resources (e.g., global warming) demand ideas, technology, and behavior that are radically different from what we’ve grown accustomed to. To continue on our present trajectory, building even more coal and nuclear power plants, is a dead end. It is “more of the same,” which is exactly the opposite of what we need. What we need, first and foremost, is to recognize the incompatibility of our present mode of life with what the earth, and human justice, can bear. So far, our nation has resolutely refused to look reality in the eye. The Bush administration is exemplary of this failure. Utah society is exemplary of this as well. It remains to be seen (I personally am deeply skeptical) whether we can muster the kind of courage and determination that will be required to get through the coming several decades. What we need is an all-hands-on-deck effort of the sort that got us through WWII. But at present, NO ONE in the leadership of this country (saint Barack Obama included) is talking in such terms. This, not technology, is our greatest challenge. I am absolutely confident that we can solve, and relatively easily and for far less money than is generally supposed, the technical challenges of truly clean energy. What we need now, however, is passionate, visionary leadership. And I don’t see it. This is what keeps me awake at night. By comparison, the problems of solar power seem inconsequential.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Sadly Ed, the two things I fear many people do not want to accept, is that the “elites” I described have provided us with the choices for leadership. As I mentioned, the choices will be in diametric opposition to the populations they are presented to. In this way the division is permanent. In the end though, despite anyones hope in their candidate, the masters who run the game call in their chits and the elected come to heel. Or else.
This reminds of the latter stages of the Roman empire, where the legions leaders put up emperors that had to kowtow to their wishes, lest they wish themselves marched upon. The death of the Republic as it is better known.
Too many people are hoping that an individual will be able to break this fist that has so compromised what our founders desired, a Nation ruled by and for the People, with inalienable rights.
This to me is a memory, and in relation to time, it is now 5 years since I swore my Oath of Citizenship, and to wit, time is flying and the acceleration of the degradation is truly astounding. Yet that is the nature, of well, nature, the old and rotten must be removed before new healthy growth can emerge. Or an alien species can be unleashed on the indigenous environment, and what once was, will be no more, and for those in love with what they had, not for the better.
To energy, I have solar, and know its limitations. Expanded to its greatest extent there is no doubt of its value, but calories are calories, and the law of entropy and our lives in its maelstrom cannot avoid the realities of what our needs have become. There will always be a need for massive, small location, on demand power plants. The sooner we figure out fusion, the better, it is after all, solar power of the first degree, and not 92 million miles away. A Manhattan style project to forward this is essential, but for the forseeable future our power centers and arteries are clogged with the plaque of lobbyists that promote the path to our own destruction, and the leaders we “elected” listen to them.
I am of the mind that it is going to take a civilisational myocardial infarction to get the attention of people to dispose of this political dis-ease. Don’t expect the Masters of the Universe to give it up without a fight, even if it means causing horror for the powerless people of the planet. They have done it before, they will do it again.
I agree with Leo about conservation and have applied it long before it became popular, but for the most part for economic reasons, and because it is enjoyable to me to make things more efficient. For me to look forward though far into the future of man, we have to get off this rock, it has wiped out everything here at one time or another, though I’m sure elites have deep bunkers, full of supplies and infrastructure that citizens paid for to secure mankind in this eventuality. For this to come to pass, a new energy source must be found, and for our mobility whatever it is will have to be transformed into portability so as to keep mankind moving, our seemingly perpetual state.
In closing, we are now victims of our own success, and that success has been entirely dependent on the Earth warming. 7 billion of us here 20,000 years ago would have been very unlikely, much of where we now live as humans inhospitable and fobidding. Our challenge now is see if we can with our ingenuity, keep the Earth intact, while growing our numbers in an ever increasing quality of life. For this to happen, we must have ENERGY. There will be no substitute, or the suffering we are beginning to see, will arrive upon its obvious conclusion, and much sooner than it will take to warm up the Earth in way that will ruin us. It is already here, in fact, Americans are just the last group of folks, to know.
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Thanks, Ed, and good to hear from Ed, Jr,
Glenn,
True enough that Norway is sitting on a lot of oil. However, what I find interesting is that Norwegians still favor conservation and high gas taxes, and they drive fuel efficient cars accordingly. Europeans are betting on diesel technology rather than hybrids. Their recycling effort is much more thorough than ours, as I found out when I visited my son. In America we consider cheap gas a national birthright. In the fifties the U.S. was an oil exporting country. If we were sitting on Norway’s oil, we would insist on cheap gas. They don’t. They have a conservation mind set. They know their oil will eventually run out.
All the Western European countries, whether they have a lot of oil or none, have a mindset that favors conservation and accordingly high gas taxes and good public transit. Switzerland doesn’t have oil, but they do have hydropower, which they export. One might think, therefore, that they wouldn’t care about conserving a resource that they had enough of to export. Not so. When I lived there, hot water was limited because the tank was on a timer to heat only overnight. This resulted in greater efficiencies for their electrical grid and incidentally in shorter showers and fewer baths. Personally, lots of hot water is one luxury I am willing to pay for, a small indulgence. I didn’t have a car in Switzerland though because I didn’t need one. The efficient Swiss trains, trams, and postal buses took me everywhere I needed to go. That saved a lot of money and energy. Most Americans don’t have the option of living without a car. We think of Switzerland as a rich country, and it is, but the Swiss mentality is that they are a poor country with few resources, and they have to work hard to make of those resources what they can.
The challenge for America will be changing the mindset towards conservation. In that regard, the rising generation is our best hope. Young kids get it. There was a science fiction story I recall where a time traveler is nearly lynched by a future generation that hated the way his generation used up all their resources.
After 9-11 President Bush could have rallied the country to energy independence. Instead, he rallied the country to war. If only a fraction of what we have spent on the war had been spent on investing in energy independence instead, we would be reaping the economic benefits for decades instead of paying for a failed occupation for goodness knows how long.
For what it’s worth, an informal and unscientific poll of my son’s American colleagues in geophysics showed widespread opposition to the war.
May 4th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Too bad Ken Schreiner doesn’t hang around here lately. He would have some great things to add to the conversation.
I don’t care how many times glenn says Al Gore is just the same as all politicians. He would have made a MUCH better president and leader. He would have put smart people in positions to do something about our energy problems instead of cronies who are paid to make sure we “stay the course.” I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.
May 4th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Sorry Ed Jr., I agree we are wasting a great deal of power but the growth of use in population will bear me out. It will be open competition for the resources until they run out. Sure conservation will serve a purpose, and that purpose will allow other groups in the world to use up that difference, that will increase the load on resources in general. No matter the choices we will need more power, no matter how much conservation is done. I conserve more than most, but then I was raised by Europeans that lived privation. The American attitude is that conserving is for losers, that can and will change. Remember, the American way of life is not negotiable, and we have an enormous weapons industry to prove it.
One way or another Ed, non renewable resources are just as burned up if you use them efficiently or not. It is just a matter of time. Our paradigm is near its end, conservation will extend it, but isn’t the answer to the needs of everyone. People in their billions currently living in slums, without running water, electricity will need these resources if we are to bear up humanity, conservation will not provide for them, it is for nations on the cusps of their disasters, that have a bit more vision than the people of the US. We will need more power.
As oil declines, things will have to take its place. The Chinese are showing the way, they are going to put online 500, 500 megawatt coal plants, in the next 5 years. Talk to me about conservation Ed. So are we on the coal train. If solar was viable in American economics, it would be here now. By economics you must accept the politics, and the entrenched elites that currently own our grid and production means. They do not wish to be replaced, our troubles, are their cash cow. At this point if you have not made the personal investment into some kind of alternative, then this conversation is so much wind. Taking the bus, riding a bike, carpooling qualifies.
I’ve done the math on current technology for solar, you will need a tremendous amount of real estate to accomplish what single plants of any variety do now, and whatever you calculate at the base, double it, as the sun shines only half the time. My point Ed is countries are adopting solar and wind as adjuncts, the systems however are not meeting their demand needs. I know it is possible Ed, the question is, will it happen in time before the melt down occurs. I believe that we are currently seeing the answer to that.
Leo, that Europe has a different attitude towards energy comes with what I mentioned as tradition. One that we do not possess much anymore, used to be called “Yankee thrift” and its dominance made this country great. Whatever built your state came out of that mentality. As in most things it will come again to this country through economics when they become restrictive enough. Europe learned to conserve because it has to. WW2 left the US in charge of oil, and via the Anglo-American alliance the Middle East. Most of Europes’ energy has since that time been purchased, and that with value added dollars. They must trade for energy. We to our fortune have just taken it.
The Swiss are tightwads Leo, not many want to live under their concepts, My German Dad has wealthy friends, and when they desire, they tank up the Mercedes, and rip down the highway at 145mph, since I was a kid, 14 mpg at 5 dollars a gallon, the rich don’t conserve, life is short, do what you want if you can. The attitude exists in some people everywhere.
If nuclear doesn’t work, tell me about France Ed. In addition, I can just see the nimbys come out when we would cover areas with panels at a scale that most people cannot imagine. The rancor is great in Vermont where I grew up, not many want to cover the ridges with windmills. To date we cannot even get them to cover their roofs with solar, let alone set aside hundreds of square miles for solar production. I might be willing, but we know how this goes in America, bring a lawyer.
Back to the elites. No matter the energy choices we make, I frankly look at elites and get the picture that it would all be a whole lot easier if most of the peasants were gone.Think about our Indians, it has been done before. Right now the elite focus is in eliminating the “useless eaters” through whatever means, passive(food), and directly through war.
Leo, that we would be better off spending on energy alternatives than war is obvious. What should be obvious to all is who is running the show. No one wants it this way, but here it is, in a “democracy” yet. Consider the possibility that elites choose war over improving our choices because to do so would lead to their loss of control of the world. Better to rule a crappy world, than no world at all. I think this more than anything is what has to be pounded through progressives heads. If they do not appreciate the ruthlessness with which the elites will subvert the will and well being of the rest of us, then I believe that we are in for a long series of defeats before we can overturn this. Subterfuge and disinformation of all varieties are currently being promoted. Past, and recent history bear me out. Tyranny of that variety is not voted out of power, it must be threatened with loss of itself, by the People. It was once what this Country was all about. The current incarnation is frankly rather gutless with regard to those that tread upon us.
Long story, old history, I can only think of Cromwell when he confronted Parliament, with his for God sakes get out of the way speech. He was armed mind you. If they had not, he was willing to physically remove them. Sometimes that is what it takes.
No matter what Larry, would have made? Losers always say they would have been better. Pure speculation, and wasted time at that. Al is an elite, his family made their money in coal and tobacco, and too many find him to be a personality that is so loathsome to a large part of our population, that this polarization makes him rather useless. Plus he and cheney all fly around on our dime. He talks the talk but doesn’t live it, so he is a phony.
Ed, are you familiar with Nortel networks genius Ted Sargent? He has developed “spray on” solar, that could be applied to anything that holds paint. Using nano crystals he invented, and a process that allows them to all align as the medium drys after spraying.
PS: We can’t drag the ski boat, toys, and all the fixins’ to Powell with a solar panel Ed. (laugh).
May 4th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Hello Ed and everybody,
Conservation, sanity, being it touch with the planet, suggesting enough is enough is for luzers.
Over the top wealth is for winners. The rich in las Vegas no longer feel that 12″ X 12″ bahtroom tiles say ‘I’m rich enough’ like 18″ X 18″ tiles say it anymore. That’s the reason they’re dumping thier houses.
Despite all thier $, thier detachment from any real meaning and connection to how life really operates on this planet, despite the fact that thier gates and walls grow higher every year, they will not do so well when finding a grub or a root will be the difference between life and death.
I’ve been envisioning paint-on Solar for 15 years. “I coulda been a contender”. Instead, I’ll be persuing Paint-on flat-screen television! Pick a surface…virtual unreality, here we come!
May 4th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Friends all,
I fear we are being too pessimistic. As Thornton Wilder’s play put it, we can make it, if only sometimes “by the skin of our teeth.†His play by that name opened in 1942.
I actually believe that properly organized, there is enough and to spare.
My worry is that “a bunch of pudgy, pasty-faced kids in bow-ties and blue blazers who spent their youths playing Risk in gothic dormitories, while sipping port and smoking their father’s stolen cigars†will control our foreign policy and purse an oil and resource policy more worthy of Tojo than of our founding fathers. (See http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/why_i_publish_this_magazine/)
I think we can put an end to that. The President is term-limited, the Vice President isn’t running, and neither of them could win if they tried.
It will take us a while to dig out from the Bush years, and some lost opportunities are truly lost, but there is yet hope if more people read blogs like this.
May 4th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
“False optimism is true pessimism”. That is my own. Leo your attitude cannot be clearly reconciled to person or family that has had a 2000 pounder mistakenly dropped on their domicile due to a miscalculation in our energy war. For many, the hope to their future is that our country fall down.
Get ready, as I mentioned the risk playing cigar smoking assholes are not going to be voted out of office. Money rules, and this crowd can get anyone elected they like. I don’t think you take them anywhere near seriously enough. The president, nor the vice president run the country, as if our current imbecile did the damage all on his own. He does as he is told by the elites that run him. Plain and simple. If we could have voted out this scourge, it would have happened.
Prepare for mccain, as for me that is the direction the wind is blowing. If that happens Leo, will you be interested in having a more in depth conversation that representative democracy is something well fixed in the imaginations of progressives today, and it doesn’t truly exist.
Not knowing that we must do things another way, or on our own, leads the movement to defeat. Every move is telegraphed by electoral believing people, allowing elites to properly gauge them, and counter them when necessary. The people that are keeping their own council fighting this are the ones to watch. They have a good shot of undermining the elites I speak of. Do it on your own is the message, if you want change, it isn’t a pajama party, it is all too real for billions of people.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics was described by Einstein as the most immutable law that governs human existence. The law of Entropy as it is better known. If you cannot come up with the calories, you are not going to go anywhere, your house will be cold, your infrastructure won’t work. In order to rectify what is the horror of 3rd world life, and end the exploitation of its peoples, there is no pie in the sky, we will have to actually defeat those inhibiting change, and provide the CALORIES to make the world go.
I would like to start a discussion on the decided difference between the mantra of solar and wind, which I well believe in, towards the direction of what fuel is we are going to use made by said power to haul a 80,000 lbs. semi over the Rockies, or move a 50,000 pound tractor over a piece of Earth with a plow to provide the means to keep people who are here, alive at a decent quality of life. How will you transfer those calories from the solar array to mobile equipment, keeping in mind the entropy loss at each stage of transfer in creating fuel. We have to be realistic, right now, there is nothing but diesel that will do this at the scale required. It is simple math.
If this cannot be figured out, and we run out oil, look towards buying an Ox, as the caloric farming equation in terms of inputs of calories vs. what we get back in food calories, points to the most energy efficient farming method ever devised, is a man with ox and a plow(Rifkin). Our own abundance has been created via terrible inefficiencies, that have only been possible due to hydrocarbon burning.
Without a different fuel, it will not happen, the physics are not changeable, and a replacement will simply have to be found or else.
We need more power, as Scotty used to say. Have any ideas on this Leo?
May 4th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Leo:
Thanks for that! I now have this wonderful image in my brain of somebody getting close to Karl Rove while he’s on C-span and giving him a wedgie just so I could see him with a if-I-could-kill-you-right-now-I-would look on his face instead of this gleeful cheer he’s always projecting. Michael Moore got that look from Newt Gingrich in his old “TV Nation” series and It was unforgettable. Newt is always writing books about the civil war and fancies himself as some kind of societal architect.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Glenn,
Before our nation began its fateful love affair with the automobile (and semi), we used trains. I think trains–high-speed, electric trains–will be a big part of a sustainable future, as they are of Europe’s and Japan’s more rational present, both for transportation and for recreational travel. Long distance transportation based on heavy trucks is just crazy. For short haul, local transportation, trucks powered by electricity will be possible.
Our sustainable future is going to look in many ways like our past–more use of trains (long-distance and local), wind-powered ships, windmills of all kinds, and a lot more human and animal power. In a sustainable future, for example, people walk and ride bikes around town rather than jumping into vehicles, even if they are electric. For longer distance travel around town, people use subsidized, electric public transportation. Fuel as we know it will be extremely expensive and reserved for uses where literally NOTHING else works.
Looking at land transportation, I’m relatively sanguine about the possibility of finding substitutes for powering our mobility. Ditto on the seas. Computer-designed, ultra-fast sailing ships will keep international shipping viable in a sustainable future. What I’m very pessimistic about is the viability of air travel, for here there don’t appear to be substitutes for fuel. This may be one of those areas where fuels derived either from crops or from coal will be used. Air travel will be correspondingly more expensive, and will likely be used more for priority overseas shipping than, as it is today, for casual travel, at least among all but the wealthiest. Recreational travel within the country will likely be taken back by trains, which are in any event a much more civilized form of travel than our present flying cattle cars. I see a significant drop in international recreational travel in our sustainable future, again mirroring what we saw in our past, where a trip to Europe was a big deal, something most people did, if they did it at all, maybe once in a lifetime–unless they were extremely wealthy. Even without the issue of fuel and time that will complicate foreign travel, there will be economic issues, for it seems to me equally obvious that in a sustainable future we’ll all be making less money and making do with less. Hopefully doing MORE with less in terms of spiritually rich living, but LESS conspicuous and debt-based consumption, which is what drives our present economy (and our spirituality).
It’s back to the future, boys and girls, with one big difference: the future is powered by the sun rather than coal. It is our relationship with the sun that will determine literally everything about our sustainable future, for good (clean power) and ill (the climatic effects of having not respected the sun for the first two hundred years of the industrial revolution).
The subject of how a sustainable future will resemble the past is worthy of a book-length discussion. I’ll just add one more thought here, though. I got a call this morning from a friend of mine who lives in a small town in southern Utah. He related the strange and wonderful events of yesterday’s LDS priesthood meeting, at which the subject was not the usual doctrinal lesson but a discussion of how they could work together in practical ways to deal with the agricultural and fuel crisis. The topics included setting up shared transportation for grocery shopping (which for them involves significant amounts of travel), and turning to organic gardening methods to alleviate the need for now unaffordable fertilizer, etc. In many contexts, such a discussion would be entirely unnoteworthy. For an ultraconservative Mormon ward, where organic gardening and shared anything is anathema, it’s a small revolution. Ironically, it’s really just a return to practices that their Mormon ancestors would have taken for granted–ancestors who regarded America’s capitalist economy as the enemy of their own communitarian polity. The point I wanted to stress here is that in a sustainable future, our present worship of privately owned automobiles and other capital-intensive equipment will also likely give way to communitarian programs. One small example of this is the program offered by Wasatch Community Gardens for borrowing mechanized equipment. When my wife and I put in our first garden a few weeks ago, we needed a tiller. Instead of renting one at Diamond, we borrowed one for a weekend from Wasatch, for free. I think this is the form of many things to come. Certainly one of the ways that we can do more with less is to share the burden of things that are costly. We can also share expertise in more living ways, as the conservative residents of my friend’s town will do as they begin talking to organic gardeners, most of whom are on the other end of the political spectrum.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Far be from me to mention it, the high speed trains of Germany, France, are run on electricity, a large bulk of which is generated with carbon free nuclear power. France especially uses this carbon free method to the extreme, and in the incarnation of the aircar, by MDI technologies, will transfer that electricity into compressed air that will run personal vehicles with zero emissions.
Trains are efficient and make sense, but recalling that France is the size of Texas with 5o million people, makes the system sensible. We are broke as nation in monetary terms, and owe vast sums to foreign debt holders. We never kept up on our rail infrastructure, and what is working is hauling coal and commodities. I don’t know when the last time you went by Amwreck, Amtrak, the feats that will have to accomplished to restore a rail system will require foreign capital. Then we don’t own it.
We must do what 3rd world countries have done, repudiate debt, set up tariffs on goods we don’t really need and can make here.
My prediction Ed Jr. Given the elites that control us, and their penchants, there will be one hell of a war before any of what you are saying will happen. Remember the elites that feed and live off the publics consumption have made it clear that the American way of life is non-negotiable.
Sailing ships will not suffice at sea. In my job oilbooming tankers for environmental reasons, a delay of one hour, costs the the shipper tens of thousands of dollars. You cannot willy nilly make schedules for products supplying billions of people, and then not have them maintained. What you are suggesting will happen, is that we will decline. The elites would just as soon eliminate a large number of the human population by indirect means. If you mean living with less, and having people accept this, fine, but as I mentioned, there will be, IS, war first.
We have to discover another way to power this reality in the manner it is now being done, anything less at this stage means masses of people will live like peasants, with quality of life issues resembling the 18th century. We have already seen the declines in longevity in countries that have had their economies compromised. Russia is a primary example, where a male lifespan went from 70, to 55 in the space of 15 years. That trend due to their oil wealth is sure to reverse. Control of resources and great caloric power means longer, better quality of life.
What fuel do you mean to create from solar power Ed, that can be used as we currently use oil today? Having worked ships, I can assure you the scale of what is being done to uphold the world cannot be removed without disaster for billions of people. I know, as I have been at the scene as a tanker is “fueled” some hold millions of gallons of bunker fuel, just to move around. Collapse will come first, then a much smaller human population borne on the values you have mentioned.
I have done the math, using current technology, 25 square miles of solar panels will be required to produce 4000 MW of power that is currently provided by a large nuclear plant. In many places such things are not viable due to climate, cloud cover, and variability of Latitude, and daily hours needed to get the Wattage. These things cannot be cheated. The most obvious fuel for cars now is compressed air. This will not likely fly a plane of power a ship. However a small nuclear reactor will power massive ships for years on a single tank of fuel, and our better paradigm remains. To be sure, nuclear will be revisited, as solar has little variability. My plan involves covering the entire state of Utah in the low use desert areas, what pray tell would environmentalists say to this? If you believe in solar, Utah is the place.
We need 100 nuclear plants to replace coal burners in the US alone, at 25 sq. miles of solar to provide what 1 nuke can do, we will require 2500 sq. miles of panels at current technology. That is one third the size of Vermont.
Think people are going to bite Ed?
To use solar to make hydrogen is a great idea, but where do you store it? The atom of hydrogen so small it diffuses through even the best tanks, it must be used quickly from the point of creation. This is why transportation will head into the compressed air direction, it makes much more sense. Solar and wind for infrastructure, I agree absolutely as an adjunct. For the rest of our needs it is problematic. Bottom line a solar array can only put out as many amps and watts as it given by the sun within the constraints of its size. A nuclear plant can ramp up and down at will, and provide for the variability of well…life.
It is nice to say that the Sun is the answer, but I see absolutely no direction here from you how the Sun is going to provide us fuel for many of the needs we are going to undertake now, and in the future.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Glenn,
Replacing one deadly fuel, coal, with another, nuclear, is no answer. As long as our fuels are toxic, replacing one with another is just a shell game, justify it how you will. The half-life of the worst nuclear toxins is greater than the time that humans have had civilization. To think of piling up more of this shit, which we don’t have a clue how to handle on the time scale of aeons, is unthinkable.
Elites, too, are governed by physical reality, and we’re about to get a good-sized dose. Perhaps that medicine will bring enlightenment to elites and ordinary schmucks alike.
On the matter of real estate for solar, just consider how much of it we have in the form of building tops and parking lots. Arjun Makhijani only half in jest says that the solution to our energy problems is parking lots. Here at last is an upside from our obsession with cars!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
No it isn’t, the French have managed it, reprocess waste, and use the reactors themselves to create fuel. They are triple redundant, and in the case of Germany they store all of their waste within their own borders. Funniest part is, our engineers designed them initially, we just failed to move forward for political reasons.
Currently we are releasing more radiation from our unregulated burning of coal than any nuclear power has expelled into our environment. It is a far better choice than burning coal, especially if you are obsessed with human induced global warming from CO2.
You have in no way addressed with what fuel you will transfer solar power to to make it practical for transportation, though you could use the electricity generated to compress air. The Scandinavian and the French already store compressed air in sealed abandoned mine shafts for use later at peak demand. Pure solar cannot do this as currently configured.
Right now solar is by far the most expensive way to generate electricity, and panel life is still but 25 years. Imagine cycling over every 25 years. Hopefully we can improve efficiencies beyond the current 15%. For anyone wishing to know, the average energy measured in wattage that falls on a square meter of the Earth is 660 watts. This is the problem, that is the average for all latitudes, seasons, climates, and none of that is consistent.
The other idea I had to to build all arrays in the arid sunny climes along an irregular longitudinal line (dictated by where the sun shines), so as the Earth rotated, there would never be an area that would not be in production. Then the power could be diverted to where it is dark. A vast undertaking, requiring international cooperation. Once you realistically do the math Ed, you will understand why it is not being done. My money is on the depopulation dynamic that the elites have in mind, far less troublesome, and leads to far less impact on the planet.
Elites do not suffer in this day and age the physical infirmities of poverty Ed. That is what the peasants are for.
We have parking lots Ed, the 3rd world does not. Just solving our problem will not change what they will need. Up until their is an efficiency breakthrough solar will remain an infrastructure adjunct in my opinion, and I have a good deal of familiarity in systems. Then there is cost, it would have to be subsidized, and with what money?
As a side note, I have mentioned before that global warming could well be exacerbated by covering vast areas of the Earth with black tarmac and concrete, which radiate and do not mitigate heating. We all know about frying an egg on the side walk. The science of this is an altered albedo, that absorbs rather than reflecting the Suns energy.
Do you have a solar system Ed?
May 5th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
PS one more note Ed, we have respected the Sun, all the energy we have used since the beginning of lighting a fire…has come from it, all our energy we currently use, is stored solar power.
For consideration of math when considering options for the future, keep in mind that one gallon of diesel, contains 32,000 calories, or 130,000 BTUs. That is enough calories if you could eat it, to keep 10 people going for 1 day. It is pretty powerful stuff. If used in a fuel cell it could be 80-90% efficient for electricity production, as it is used in an ICE(internal combustion engine) it is about 35% efficient at best, regardless of the application.
This is an excellent guide
One common type of solar panel produces 120 watts at 7 amps DC, continuously when direct sunlight at the right angle hits it. Mine is 36″ by 40″. It is not continuous as anyone can tell you that uses them. This is about enough energy in a 12 hour sunny day to fully charge a dead deep cycle battery. Try going somewhere in your 3000 lbs car with that. If your car were electric. You might get a couple of miles. Still it is something.
Point is, we will need a lot of them to do what we do now.
This is what is running our world today.
Energy Content of Fuels
Coal 25 million BTU/ton
Crude Oil 5.6 million BTU/barrel
Oil 5.78 million BTU/barrel = 1700 kWh / barrel
Gasoline 5.6 million BTU/barrel (a barrel is 42 gallons) = 1.33 therms / gallon
Natural gas liquids 4.2 million BTU/barrel
Natural gas 1030 BTU/cubic foot
Wood 20 million BTU/cord
The proposed 2300 foot “solar chimneys” that do work, can make real power, that sized one could make 200 megawatts, the water bladders under the “apron” keep it going st night, but not as vigorously. As I mentioned earlier, a good sized nuclear plant currently makes 4000 megawatts. They work at this rate constantly if desired, until maintenance is required, but that is the case for any man made fabrication. Giant solar arrays would require a virtually army of squeegee men, keeping the panels clean for optimal efficiency. We all know how dusty it gets in the desert.
I hope this gives people some idea what we are up against. Not impossible, just improbable in the current paradigm.
Feel like the 100th monkey yet?
May 6th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I am the ‘Hundredth Monkey’ and we are at the’ tipping point’! Hold onto your hats…bask in it!
May 7th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Great dialogue, folks. This old man learns much from the lot of you. Anonymous, Glenn, Leo, Ed, all the elites are on the same team. Why? Dantean greed unites them with money-fueled belly-button multi-members, linked together with gas and oil hoses, without regard to national boundaries. An apocalyptic story right out of the book of Revelation.
Hillary gets money from the sources that fueled Bill Clinton. Just like the essentially identical band of brothers, multi-nationals all, who fueled and are now fueling the Bush father-and-son tag team, with John McCain as the current recipient.
The same lobbyists grease the wheels of American Congressional relations and now, tragically, this corruption not only controls the presidency, but obviously reaches into the federal judiciary, right up to the tip top, the Supremes. Iraq and Iran, both with huge oil deposits, are the targets of choice. Iraq is being pulverized into the stone age. And Iran, now, is threated by “massive retaliation” by Hillary Clinton. To say “has she no shame?” seems stupid. Obviously she crossed that path years ago. I didn’t think I would hear the words of Dr. Strangelove in the Democratic primaries. But hundreds of millions of dollars, trillions really, are being spent in only one war. Think of the greed Hillary feeds upon with Iran in her sights? She’s not nuts. But her greed –for money but even more, for the glory of achieving the American Presidency, the world’s Bully Pulpit–conjoins pride and greed in Dantean apocalyptic frenzy.
These people centered around the American presidency, the Congress, and the federal courts, make the Mafia look like the Congregation of Men and Women Religioous, before whom I spoke for several months some years ago. Truly, as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright prophetically said, America is the Roman Empire squared and multiplied again. Tallk about the geometry of polygamy. Everyone’s sucking. ed firmage
May 7th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Glenn,
You say, “The French have managed it.” Well, yes for 50 years. But we’re talking about “managing” the waste for tens of thousands of years. The pyramids are only five thousand years old, Glenn, and look at them. Humans simply don’t know enough, and even if we did, don’t presently care enough to do anything on a timescale such as the one involved with nuclear waste. The French haven’t “managed” anything other than putting themselves in a box that their great grandchildren will curse them for.
Nuclear proponents in the U.S. point to the French as some sort of success story. The rest of Europe doesn’t seem to think so, and is busily trying to figure out a way to get of the nuclear business. That, incidentally, is why Utah is now having to fight the storage of Italian nuclear waste here. After Chernobyl, the Europeans, who suffered greatly as a result of that disaster, realized that even with the best of technology, safeguards and training, nuclear accidents will happen. Put enough reactors up, and disasters like Chernobyl will occur again. It is, as nuclear engineers such as Arjun Makhijani will tell you, a CERTAINTY. From such disasters, there is no recovery in any kind of human timeframe for those who live near the plants. And by “near” I mean within a large surrounding region. If, for example, there were a comparable disaster on the Green River in Utah, all of eastern Utah would be devastated for generations. But the consequences could be even more grim. If a large amount of nuclear material polluted the Green or Colorado River, the entire downstream human population would be affected. Enough material could render Lake Powell and Lake Mead unusable. What will Las Vegas and southern California do without Colorado River water?
But you don’t have to take my word. Read Arjun’s book. Arjun is one of our country’s foremost nuclear experts. He initially was also a skeptic about the feasibility of going both carbon-free and nuclear-free. But after he did the math, as you say, Glenn, he became an ardent supporter of the nuclear-free option. This is not an overnight turning off of nuclear plants but a phased closing down as plants reach retirement age. This will give the renewable industry time to ramp up without power shortages. Ditto for coal plants. With aggressive conservation and aggressive investments in renewables, America, according to Makhijani, can be carbon- and nuclear-free by mid-century. Arjun is not alone in thinking this. The January issue of Scientific American was devoted to the issue, and presented similar, if somewhat less aggressive plans, for greatly reducing U.S. dependence on coal and nuclear power.
As for my own family, we’ve come to awareness about the present perilous state of our planet embarrassingly late in life. But now that we are aware, we have begun a several-year program to remake our life on as sustainable basis as possible. Last year, we set about an aggressive conservation program. This year, we’re focusing on growing more of our own food. Hopefully within the next two years, we will have been able to install both solar power and geothermal HVAC. We are passionately committed to making our life sustainable. It’s a huge challenge, especially on an artist’s salary, because so much of the infrastructure that we depend on is designed to make sustainability difficult. Our society has been built on the false foundation of cheap fossil fuels, and literally EVERYTHING has to be rethought to bring our life into line with what the earth can bear long term. My wife and I are now in the process of documenting what we’ve been doing and what we plan on doing. We’re going to make this story available online and invite others who are trying to transform their life to join with us in the effort to make Salt Lake City an exemplary community in this regard.
For us, sustainability isn’t simply a concern. It is THE concern. It is THE technological problem, THE policy problem, and THE moral problem of our time. While I can’t say yet whether our society will respond appropriately, if Americans at large can be brought to a point where they are as committed as we are to the goal of sustainability, we WILL solve these problems. And nuclear energy will not be part of the solution.
One last note about the CFNF option. According to Makhijani, not least of the benefits of going carbon-free and nuclear-free would be substantial growth in the U.S. economy, like that we experienced in the 60s as a result of the space race and the arms race. In fact, if I remember the numbers correctly, Makhijani speaks of a doubling of our economy as a result of the transformation to CFNF. What we will find–what we’re already learning–is that what is good for the earth is also good economics. The silver lining in the present economic and environmental mess that two decades of neglect have given us is that the real economics of being green are starting to become evident. Farmers, for example, are realizing that the fossil-fuel-based agriculture that Monsanto wants to foist on us is as economically unsustainable as it is unhealthy. With fuel prices finally high enough, we are realizing the true costs of our present, unsustainable lifestyle, costs that we have assiduously “externalized” to exaggerate short-term profits. Those chickens, to use Jeremiah Wright’s dead-on language, are coming home to roost. The result will either be the transformation of American society into something with a dramatically lower ecological footprint, or a crash the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the fall of Rome.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Ed Firmage, Jr. is one of the smart people I wish were in charge of things today. That last comment made more sense then a hundred posts that usually show up here, including mine.
I guess what we should REALLY be concerned about is whether France is going to send THEIR nuclear waste to Utah.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:33 am
For certain there are risks, you can ask yourself the same questions about the coal we currently burn that is radiation we can in no way store as it is diffused into the environment in a way that can never be cleaned up.
Towards storage, the responsibility of storing waste is being undertaken, I am sorry that the political will in Utah is to oppose it, but it could be its lot in life.
Life has been perilous since we arrived on the scene Ed. It is good to know you have jumped on the bandwagon, for myself I have been at where you are headed for over 10 years.
This should put it in perspective, welcome to the Party Ed.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/36248.html
Despite this, the power will be required, no matter the choices we make.
Meanwhile, others have made the choices, have moved forward, and in what you have written, you have addressed none of the questions I asked concerning fuel replacement.
There are 58 reactors in France Ed, no incidents, I suppose you are saying that America just can’t do these kinds of things anymore. Too bad, as the rest of the world is moving forward. Waste reprocessing is a science, and advancing all the time, unlike here where the waste is still sitting in the pools at the plants themselves. I know why we are nowhere, we have not the will to clean up, let alone move forward. I expect the rest of the world to be taking on the challenges, while we languish.
PS, Rome never really fell Ed, it moved to Byzantium, a cautionary tale for the parts of the Empire that were unable to get a grip on what must be done to survive.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Glenn,
I’m glad to hear you’re committed to many of the same things I am, and that you have been for some time. If we as a society haven’t made much progress in that same direction in the 10 years you’ve been “at where [I'm] headed” it’s because we’ve been able to continue to play the fantasy that life as we’ve known it since WWII can go on this way. Artificially cheap fossil fuels have made this possible. But that era is fast drawing to a close. Gas isn’t yet quite expensive enough to start forcing the kinds of societal changes that will bring everyone else up to the level of awareness that you have today. But once that happens, change will start to occur rapidly.
On the subject of nuclear reprocessing, I think, once again, that you see things through rosy glasses. First, as I understand it (I seem to recall hearing this recently in a lecture that Makhijani gave here in SLC) reprocessing only works once or twice. It’s not an open-ended loop. So, it’s not the case that nuclear waste can be endlessly recycled and thereby limited.
The safety issue will not go away, even if there have been no “major” accidents in France. Nuclear scientists such as Makhijani can give you reasonably accurate failure rates (and, despite the fact that no “major” accidents have occurred in France, there have been accidents, and one day a major accident will occur). You take that number, extrapolate from that some reasonable number about the percentage of accidents that will turn from manageable to deadly, multiply that over the total number of plants and the total number of years each plant will operate, and the result is a virtual certainty that a Three Mile Island type event or worse will occur. That fact, given the consequences, is unacceptable to me, especially when a truly clean alternative (solar) is now economically and logistically feasible.
Safety concerns are not limited to accidents. What about proliferation? If nuclear is the answer, it must be the answer for the poor nations of the world too, not just rich Americans and Frenchmen. Do you want to see nuclear material in the hands of states such as Somalia or the Sudan? If you give them nuclear power plants, as the French would love to do to make their own investments actually pay off, then you open the door to nuclear weapons. These need not be nuclear bombs. A conventional bomb packed with nuclear waste would be quite sufficient to make NYC or San Francisco uninhabitable. The fact is that nuclear energy and nuclear weapons are inseparably connected. They have been here in the U.S. They will be everywhere else.
Nuclear energy is a no-go on so many other counts, though, that I’ve haven’t even raised yet. Let’s take, for example, the economics. Nuclear power in every country that uses it heavily is able to compete ONLY because of massive government subsidy, subsidy that make investment in other, cleaner forms of energy more difficult. France’s nuclear energy program would collapse instantly without the constant financial support of the French government. Ditto here. This kind of subsidy is ultimately not sustainable. It’s one thing for a government to give a nascent industry a boost through import protections or handouts or tax credits. If that industry cannot ultimately sustain itself in a competitive marketplace, it is by definition unsustainable. It therefore does not belong in our sustainable future.
On the subject of fuel replacement, I have answered you in two ways. First, as I said earlier, most of our transportation in a sustainable future will not be based on fuel. It must be based on electricity or some other renewable form of energy. Hence my remarks about trains, sail power, etc. in an earlier posting. Those modes of transportation that cannot be powered by renewable sources such as solar-derived electricity or wind will have to be powered by fuel. But because such fuel will be increasingly expensive, these forms of transportation must inevitably be limited to ESSENTIAL as opposed to merely desirable purposes. For example, there will continue to be a need for some overnight shipping. But there will be less of it because the economics will simply be prohibitive. So, this leaves a small subset of ESSENTIAL transportation that will have to be powered by fuel. I imagine this fuel will be derived from fossil fuel sources (coal or oil shale) or crops (biofuel) for the foreseeable future. At some point, when renewable energy sources are able to power more of our industrial infrastructure, the manufacturing of truly clean hydrogen fuel cells may also become possible.
Finally, as for the fall of Rome, it is indeed a cautionary tale. But it is more than a simple shift. Byzantium did indeed pick up Rome’s mantle to some extent (though only to some extent). Small comfort for the Romans, however. In its heyday, Rome was unlike any city on earth until the birth of the modern era. At 1,000,000 or so souls, it was not only bigger by a couple orders of magnitude than most other cities on the planet, it was also a cultural, economic, and political force the likes of which the world would not see again, Byzantium included, until the rise of modern Europe. I’m not speaking here of the Empire, but of the city and the civilization that that city spawned. Rome’s fall was not an overnight affair. If you believe Henri Pirenne (Muhammad and Charlemagne), the Roman light didn’t really sputter out until the rise of Islam and the destruction of Roman North Africa (or at least its cutting off from Europe). (North Africa was Rome’s breadbasket). The truly cautionary tale here is not so much Rome’s failure to adapt or its failure in other ways. Rome was presented with problems that no contemporary society could have successfully dealt with, problems such as the movements of whole societies on a continental scale. Look at today’s Africa for the closest modern parallels. Some scholars believe that Rome was also crippled by non-human catastrophes, which even today’s most advanced societies would be hard-pressed to cope with (see David Keys’ fascinating book Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization). We may well face both human and non-human catastrophes on a similar scale. And, like Rome, we may face them on top of one another. Imagine, for example, a global epidemic of bird flu combined with food shortages like those we’re starting to see, combined with a global financial meltdown created by the collapse of the U.S. economy, combined with the loss of major rivers such as the Ganges or the Yellow River as a result of global warming. I can think of some pretty scary stuff without exercising my imagination very much.
Against such disasters, the only response is sustainable living. Systems of food production that are scientifically sound but low-tech, environmentally friendly, diverse, and decentralized. Economic systems that create and spread wealth much more equitably, that discourage rather encourage debt and consumption. Energy systems, that, like a sustainable food system, are environmentally friendly and decentralized, and relatively low-tech (as compared with a nuclear power plant). Medical care that focuses on simple, low-cost prevention rather than pricey after-the-fact interventions. Medical care that is much more low-tech and decentralized. Medical care that is therefore available to everyone. Etc. Etc.
In many ways, the kind of society that I’m describing is the antithesis of today’s U.S.
In light of what I’ve just said, it seems to me as clear as daylight that nuclear power is the energy equivalent of our present health care system and agribusiness. It’s top-heavy, over-engineered (necessarily), highly centralized if not downright monopolistic, outrageously expensive, and environmentally destructive (even if you discount the possibility of accidents). It is in every way, the mate of our other increasingly unwieldy pillars of industry. What we need is a less not a more industrial energy infrastructure, a less not more industrial agriculture, a less not more industry-oriented economy. In a lot of ways, the Internet is a model for the kind of society we need. It is a diffuse network of autonomous entities that have no central control. Although it has high-tech elements, these share the relatively low-cost, low-tech quality of the network as a whole. It’s powered, for example, by inexpensive PCs rather than supercomputers. It’s run by millions of web masters rather than a handful of corporate decision makers. It’s cheap. It’s easy. Publishing on the web, as this blog demonstrates, is a step down in complexity even from the already simplified levels of complexity that the PC brought to publishing. It’s available to almost everyone. It’s environmentally friendly, as compared, say, with print publishing. What we need are similar networks for energy production, where every home is a net energy producer. Food networks, like Wasatch Community Gardens or the early Mormon experiment of the United Order and the Bishop’s Storehouse. Health networks like the low-tech clinics that have sprung up around Cuba, replacing crowded, centralized, inefficient hospitals. Despite having a tiny fraction of our medical infrastructure, Cubans enjoy a life expectancy that is comparable to ours. What we need is an economy of interconnected, empowered individuals. More people self-employed, but interconnected through networks of mutual aid, shared resources, and shared intelligence. More self-reliance. More resiliency at the foundational level of society.
What I’m describing is in fact a kind of secular Zion. And the strange thing is that I actually believe it’s possible. I can imagine, for example, a Salt Lake City that takes a page from contemporary Havana’s book, and in five years is, like Havana, able to grow half of its food within city limits. I see a Salt Lake City where every suburban home has a garden. Impossible? During WWII, Americans planted “Liberty Gardens” of just such a sort, and through them produced 40% of our produce in backyards. Why can’t that be part of everyday life, everywhere, all the time, even today? I see a Salt Lake City in which the LDS Church assumes it proper role as leader and makes each of its buildings a model of self-sufficiency by turning parking lots into ward gardens, by turning rooftops into solar energy plants, but reinventing mutual aid, shared resources, and a commitment to changing the world in deed and not just word. I see a Salt Lake City that finally acknowledges that it is situated in a desert. Every home is not just an energy producer. It is its own water plant. Taking a page from Brisbane, Australia, Salt Lake City, led by its courageous city and country mayors, mandates rain harvesting. Every home is required to collect rain water for both indoor and outdoor use. As a result, Salt Lake City has abundant water for its population without expensive, high-tech, and centralized water engineering projects. I could go on, but you get the idea. My point is that every single one of the things I can see in SLC’s future is already present somewhere in the world. What we need now is for one city to put it all together and create a truly sustainable, healthy, pleasant place in which to live. I’m sorry, Glenn, but in that nirvana nuclear power just doesn’t have a place.
May 11th, 2008 at 2:09 am
I heard a rumor somewhere that Philo Farnsworth thought he could invent a grapefruit sized nuclear power source that could indefinitely power each residence. Too bad he didn’t figure that out before he died. Television still amazes me and would seem impossible if it wasn’t already here.
Didn’t Joseph Smith envision lots of empty space between houses for gardens? What happened to that idea? Oh yeah, not enough profit. Money is the basis for all endeavor today. We need great leadership that can convince people to work towards a better future without necessarily making a fortune. That’s almost treason today.
You try to start a Liberty Garden today and Monsanto will be lawyered up and breathing down your back. Bring up using Havana as a model for anything, and the media will destroy you.
Philo never even got credit for his invention until recently and died a bitter man after years of battles just to get a share of the goodies he deserved. It’s an amazing story. Why hasn’t there been a major movie made about his triumphs and struggles? Are the corporations that stifled his profits and fame still worried about being exposed?
May 11th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Where to begin? What you write sounds good, yet here we are. We already subsidize our current energy paradigm, or are you not noticing the military infrastructure in the ME? The comparison is not viable, all power creation at the level of what we have now requires subsidy. Nuclear is carbon free. Where are you building the first mass array in Utah? To equal 2 large nuclear plants, 50 sq miles of panel will be needed.
Who is paying? Solar upon your house takes care of your homes needs, what then of the rest? You will require solar farms to 1) replace generation methods for current demand, 2) produce extra electricity to be catalysed into hydrogen from water, to replace oil we are using in our vehicles.
Our railways are substandard, and cannot be used for high speed rail. That system will have to built from scratch. Again, who is paying?
A large undertaking, and very expensive up front. With what money shall we begin? Exxons’ 10 billion dollar quarterly profit? How will we “buy out” those that have vested interests in the status quo? The technology is less worrisome than this in my opinion. We could abandon war, but despite that being what people want, it does not end. This more than the technology concerns me, and until the machinery of empire is retired, there is no money for these dreams of yours Ed.
Nuclear waste or global warming. Solar is a great idea, so why is the like of Utah, where it may be viable, waiting? By my measure we should at least cover the Sevier Desert with solar panels, that way we can keep California going. Maybe they will buy it or weasel a deal for space, like they did water.
All you mention should be possible concerning food independence, just do it, and while you are at it you dispose of covenants within cities and such that disallow it.
Collecting rain water interferes with the aquifer, which you don’t own, and violates federal law. Work from there.
Solar will have to be buffered to enable systems you speak of (infrastructure), you really should do the math, and see the yield. To date solar is very costly, and is only a contributor to the grid, and not the main means of power generation.
Neat ideas you have for SLC, none of them in reality. 2 million people working on their local problem, only billions of people more, that do not have the climate and water resource the area has. Those that need power for water projects, medicine, transportation, will need far more power than you are estimating in your ramped down reality. Those with means are not going that route, they will evolve what is currently working to their best advantage.
Right now Ed, if the coal plants shut down it would be mostly lights out for Utah, the rest of infrastructure would limp along, and people would fire up the plants in a minute. Do what you can, but the coal plants are here to stay, spreading their nuclear contamination over a wide swath of America, with no prospect of cleanup.
“In many ways, the kind of society that I’m describing is the antithesis of today’s U.S.”
Do you own a solar system Ed?
May 11th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Byzantium was the vessel that the better part of Rome preserved itself in. During the times of the dark ages it was the hope and modern part of Christendom, as the western empire fell to its degraded ways.
Rome was based on slavery, which was by and large why it fell. A person was either in the Legions, part of the aristocracy, a freeman(rare) or a slave. Any system based so will in the long run fail. More virtue and culture was kept and cultivated in Byzantium by the time it was said and done than Rome.
May 11th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Glenn, maybe this’ll help. Factor out the percentage of oil resources the combined U.S. Militaries utilize, and a fat chunck of all the other costs of conducting war for oil. Then for every roof-top solar-voltaic or water-heating installation, reduce the damand some more. Then the demand is quite a bit smaller!
We headed in the right direction?
May 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
You aren’t getting what I’m after. Oil represents extremely rich stored energy, no matter what we do, the world will burn more oil every year until it is gone. Our weaning will simply allow other developing nations have their turn at the energy.
I would factor those in, if them going away were not a fantasy. The synergyism between oil, and modern military is age old. Basically in this age, you cannot have a military without it. Geo politics of keeping hegemony militarily trumps many a good intention. Oil it is. For now.
What you propose is happening in no time frame to meet the massive demand. What we won’t burn, someone else will. The commodity wouldn’t be 120 bucks a barrel if this were not true. I like to dream, I have suggested all the methods listed by Ed, long ago, even invested in fuel cells, only to see all this generally bypassed in favor of the ease of oil.
I have reduced about as much as anyone can, and still the reliance on oil remains. I don’t live in a city, and even if I take the bus, it is still all borne on an oil reality. No solar in the rain forest you see, though trees grow like mad, and store their energy as wood, that I am burning for heat as I write this. My solar is really only effective up here when the days lengthen, and during winter, it is little more than roofing. Wood and wind is what we have up here, and water.
The technology as it stands doesn’t cut it for powering my car, as market driven economics go, people will still rely on fuel.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
The answers to our problems in energy production lie with the ideas of Tesla, and a re-visiting of what he knew, that no one else understood, about energy being part of the firmament.
Ask this simple question, in the generation of electricity currently, powered by whatever means, ICE, water, etc. ever consider WHERE the flow of electrons that make up the electricity come from? They come from the ether claimed Tesla, and in generation, we are simply channeling them. He apparently had methods to channel this energy, that did not require above or equal inputs.
Or so it is said. Maybe some of our best geniuses have been born, and now we wait for the next, and hope those that desire control or are fixated on material gain, don’t destroy the next one to grace our smokin, puffin, reality. JP Morgan did in Tesla, but as it stands, our entire electrical reality is owed to him, as it was he, in Edisons’ time, who invented AC power. Teslas’ AC plant on the Niagara still works. Edisons’ plan for community along a man made canal with a series of DC generating dams, became…Love Canal.
Back to the future. Tesla theorized that as the Earth is a giant armature, that rotates through an electromagnetic field, the simple static electricity generated from static charging between layers of the atmosphere is staggering. The Earth as electric generator, we just don’t know how to use the plug in yet. It doesn’t help that the physics he attempted to explain are repressed, and simply not understood by mainstream modern science, yet.
The extent to which he was ahead of his time, is truly amazing. He is one of the reasons I question the consensus of mainstream science, it is often, despite its concurrence of scientific opinion, wrong.
So we play with matches so to speak with the burning of oil, until someone makes sense of Tesla.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
…till someone makes sense of Tesla AND finds a way around those who would profit by knocking that person down, as J. P. did to Nickolai
May 11th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Meanwhile we are going to use DC production based photovoltaics, that we must transform to AC, and then at that we will require masses of them? As I said, as an adjunct.
We already know what China is going to do. 500, 500 MW coal burners in 5 years, and most of that devoted to industry.
Manhattan Project on what Tesla knew, or fusion.
The overunity engine is something to look into.