Eco - windmills ... (bit OT)

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in news:iijk25$8sa$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

Yes,as it usually DOES provide solutions. It's certain austerity programs and "redistribution" schemes don't. They just make things worse.

What's this "we" nonsense? "We" use what resources we have until better ones prove practical and are accepted by the free market,not by forcing "solutions" on people,that turn out to be regressive and counterproductive. (like MBTE,ethanol)

you must be a socialist/communist. there's always some folks who think they know better how everybody else should live.

BECAUSE of gov't restictions,manipulation of the free market forces.

But it remains that nuclear,solar,wind,geothermal electric sources are STILL no practical replacement for petroleum powered autos and small trucks.

Ridiculous? Fewer people --> less demand for everything --> less need to produce things

Wacky? There's nothing wacky about common sense. You need to do some thinking...

Uh, huh. The free-market forces you praise -- which work very well in the short term -- will almost always produce long-term results that benefit only business.

Uh, William, that's how it's SUPPOSED to work.

Jeff

Where does that leave the consumer?

I'm not in this world to make someone else rich.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in news:iik6d5$cg6$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

US GNP is higher than other nations because we produce so much,which is why we use so much energy.

YOU need to do some learning.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in news:iik8kf$l79$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

As if "business" is some enemy of the people.. they provide goods and services that the people want and consume. Businesses are owned either by private citizens or stockholders(IOW,citizens)Businesses are -US-,not some enemy.That's your socialism poking it's ugly head again. Otherwise,they'd be OUT of business. (unless propped up by socialism;then they become antiquated and wasteful)

I doubt YOU are making anyone "rich".

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in news:iik6i0$d48$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

Which benefits everybody;jobs,higher standard of living,higher tax revenues for gov't to spend/waste. When business suffers,people suffer.

It often is. You know little about history.

You just don't understand, do you?

That sounds like a high priest of MMGW's invention to make the facts fit the model ... :-)

Arfa

You too, appear to miss the point of what I was saying ...

Arfa

Well, when there's no wind, other uses for the device can be found;

...

You know, all oil companies are publicly owned, which means if you want to be heard by them you need to only buy stock in the company. All companies are required to make a profit - but oil (or any company) can be directed by the shareholders on how that profit is generated.

Note that I do not hold any shares in any oil companies that I am aware of - no prospectus is mailed to me each year from my mutual fund management company - but I am thinking of buying a few shares so I have a voice there...you only need one share after all!

John :-#)#

I wish it were a joke. I've seen assignment of the blame take precedence over a suitable solution enough times to make me suspect that it's some component of human nature or element of bureaucracy. Global warming is one of the best examples. The ratio of publications dedicated to assigning the blame, versus investigating a solution, is rather high. I recall watching a panel on TV, that was allegedly looking into solutions for global warming. A few minutes were devoted to several grandiose schemes, but the majority of the show was again an attempt to fix the blame on everything from bovine flatulence to industrialization. This was packaged as an attempt to "explain" how global warming works, but was really a poorly disguised blame game.

You expect the government, which is driven more by establishing and growing a power base, than doing anything useful for its constituents, to provide a useful solution?

Ok, answering a question with a question is not really an answer, but I couldn't resist. Lacking any better alternatives, I do think the market will save our collective posteriors once again as it has countless times in the past. I'll spare you the standard lecture on greed and need. Suffice to say that if we run out of fossil fuels, numerous enterprising entrepreneurs will provide a variety of alternatives. The winners will be what the consumer buys, not what the government mandates. I have a wild enough imagination to suggest many alternatives, none of them ideal, but all of them better than not having any sources of usable energy. And yes, they will be dirty, have numerous side effects, probably pollute the hell out of some corner of the planet, and possibly even kill a few early adopters, but it will work and sell.

Austerity programs are those that offer either a penalty for over-use, or an incentive or subsidy for switching to alternatives. Neither method will survive for long. Subsidizing solar installations is fine for the short term, but cannot be supported for maybe a few more years as solar adoption grows. All incentives seem to do is accelerate the process of adoption. If you want real accelerated conversion, just watch what happens when you run out of oil or turn off the electricity.

Genocide has been mentioned in this thread. It's more politically correct packaged as "population reduction" or "birth control". Judging by the increasing world population, neither is working. Eventually, someone is going to implement a short cut, and that's genocide.

Redistribution of wealth is simply taxes. At this time, taxes are a big chunk of the cost of gasoline. In California, it's about $0.40/gallon, which sells for about $3.20/gallon. There are "conservation" solutions advocated that would provide a counter incentive to consumption by taxing the hell out of gasoline, while using the revenue to fund "research" into alternatives. This might actually work, if the "research" offered any worthwhile solutions to investigate.

I don't really know much about selling carbon credits. My premature conclusion is that it's a great way for high consumption countries and industries to continue belching greenhouse gasses.

There's no connection. I've already covered austerity and genocide. Which low carbon sources are you suggesting? None of the major alternatives offered (except nuclear) will scale to the current consumption levels. Hydrogen is a bad joke. Compare costs. If we don't change consumption, and simply replace coal fired generation with solar, the resultant electricity will optimistically cost 5 times as much. Can you say "redistribution of wealth"?

Some relative costs of generation:

That is what the people (consumers) also want. Nobody is going to adopt a more expensive or inconvenient solution until they're force to do so. Price and profit drives the market, not a fiat decision by the oil cartels. To be fair, they're trying to stretch the supply as long as possible, and delay the inevitable oil wars, where the consuming countries do battle over what's left. Need a really great incentive? Just start another war over oil.

Comments? It's a perfect example of running out of an energy producing resource and substituting a not so convenient and more dirty alternative. We've done it once before and will do it again.

Incidentally, the English crown did a land grab of most of the forests in England in order to insure that there would be enough big trees needed for ship building. Meanwhile, the peasants froze during the worst part of the little ice age. We're going to have more of the same when we run out of oil.

Yep. I like pebble bed reactors. Obviously, I have had no experience with one, but from what I read, they seem a good solution. The rest is politics and perception. Perception is the big problem. Like dirty coal in 17th century England, nuclear is perceived as being inherently dangerous and polluting. The perception will need to change before there's going to be any wide spread conversion. My guess is that the 3rd world countries will lead the conversion, leaving the major powers behind.

Yep, because there's little (financial) incentive to do anything different at this time. I got a good hint in 1974, when I decided that the energy crisis of 73-74 would produce a market for a better electric vehicle. So, I designed and partially built what I considered to be a better machine. There was considerable interest until the day the Arabs turned the oil back on, when all interest evaporated. Lesson learned... nobody wants a solution to a non-existent problem.

Invest in business. Why remain a victim when you can join the exploiters?

I got the clue in 73-74 when the Arabs turned off the oil and we had an energy crisis. The press was full of conspiracy theories suggesting that the evil oil companies were conspiring to raise prices and soak the public. So, I investigated the owners of the major oil companies and found (for example) that the largest stockholder in Standard Oil was the Chicago school teachers retirement fund. Somehow, I had a difficult time believing that they would force Standard Oil management to precipitate an energy crisis in order to increase their profits.

The problem was that the very consumers that were complaining about the availability, and later the price, of gasoline would not allow Standard Oil to sell gas for less than its cost. They were stockholders and they needed to make a profit on the stock. So, Standard Oil was effectively forced by its stockholders to soak the public and make obscene profits. It doesn't matter as long as someone else pays. The various oil companies had so much cash on hand after the energy crisis that they went on a major buying spree of energy related and mineral companies. Only threat of a government monopoly investigation slowed them down.

No, you're not in this world to make someone else rich. But, in a capitalist economy, some transactions are simply not going to be equally beneficial to all concerned. Sometimes, radically unequal. In the case of oil, the supply and demand price curve is extremely steep. Very small changes in supply produce huge changes in price. This is something that commodity market investors simply cannot resist. You can make or lose a fortune overnight. If you think you have a handle on the energy market, then try your luck. (I did and lost most of my investment). It's like riding a bucking horse. One mistake and you get trampled. Good luck.

I erred. Total gas taxes in Calif are about $0.60/gallon or about 19% of the cost.

You have that backwards -- make the model fit the facts.

The models we have are almost certainly not complete, nor fully understood. So there's certainly a degree of "hand waving", and even giving in to making tautological explanations.

The problem of renewable energy is one that government and industry should have been working on since after WWII. They've made only fitful and half-hearted efforts, most because the energy industry won't be interested in renewable energy until the non-renewable sources become so horribly expense it can gouge.

Oh, I got your point... That people accept certain belief systems with a near-religious fervor. But that has nothing to do with whether those beliefs are true or not, or how we should live our lives.

Yes... and the effect of any vote will be drowned out by the majority that only cares about the company's profits.

By the way... Businesses do not generally put their projects up to vote by the stock holders. If you want to change the way a company does business, you hve to get it on the agenda. It's not easy.

Long before I was a bleeding-heart liberal, I held stock in one of the world's largest companies, given to me by my father. The company sometimes asked its stockholders to vote on various issues. Even though I wasn't even a teenager, I felt that most of them benefitted the company, not its employees or the public, and I voted against them.