The effect of radiation is not a subject I blog on a great deal, although it is a subject I have studied a great deal. Indeed, my uncle, a former nuclear physics professor at MIT, started our family Radon testing business, which was sold off years ago.
I asserted that people should be worried about low doses of radiation, especially cumulatively over time. Charles Barton of The Nuclear Green Revolution commented, "Your low doses over time assertion has been repeatedly falsified by empirical studies." Quite the reverse is true. As the National Research Council's Committee to Assess Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (!) reported definitively three years ago:
A preponderance of scientific evidence shows that even low doses of ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays and X-rays, are likely to pose some risk of adverse health effects, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council ...
"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," said committee chair Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education and professor of epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. "The health risks -- particularly the development of solid cancers in organs -- rise proportionally with exposure. At low doses of radiation, the risk of inducing solid cancers is very small. As the overall lifetime exposure increases, so does the risk."
The research is in fact based on empirical data. You can read the whole NRC report, the seventh in a series on this subject dating back decades, here.
Now to be other interesting question: From a radiation perspective, is it worse to live near a coal plant or a nuclear?
I'm going to have to go with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on this and say "a coal plant." They actually have a very detailed online analysis, which is a must read for people who don't like coal:
Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" [PDF] in the December 8, 1978, issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation remains true today and is addressed in this article.
The fact that coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of radioactive materials released to the environment has several implications. It suggests that coal combustion is more hazardous to health than nuclear power and that it adds to the background radiation burden even more than does nuclear power. It also suggests that if radiation emissions from coal plants were regulated, their capital and operating costs would increase, making coal-fired power less economically competitive.
Don't hold your breath waiting for such regulations -- unless you live near a coal plant, in which case you should hold your breath.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
New nukes? A fair shot, not a free ride
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GRLCowan Posted 12:26 pm
02 Aug 2008
Don't have granite in your house or, I suppose, within range of the gamma ray from the 2.6-MeV excited state of lead-208 that some thorium daughter, think it's 208-Tl, decays to. Live as close to sea level as possible, or better yet, below it, in Death Valley. Don't get X-rayed. Etc etc.
No-one can plausibly claim to take this stuff seriously if he doesn't have his own Geiger counter.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
How solar power stations can work all winter
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amazingdrx Posted 12:32 pm
02 Aug 2008
This supports Helen Caldicott's (much maligned by the nuclear industry) claims that radiation from nuclear industry contamination concentrated in human fat cells near the reproductive organs are multiplying genetic diseases at an alarming rate.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Wolverine Posted 2:40 pm
02 Aug 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 3:23 pm
02 Aug 2008
That genetic disease increase from contamination theory is devestating to the nuker's cause.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 10:17 pm
02 Aug 2008
Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy
It's available as a free download.
Ped Shed Blog
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tpenn Posted 10:34 pm
02 Aug 2008
That being said, I am a supporter of nuclear power for the next few decades under the mantra of "it's better than coal". It should have to compete on an even playing field with wind and solar, and nuclear power will lose over time, but there is still a role for nuclear power in the foreseeable future.
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vakibs Posted 11:48 pm
02 Aug 2008
You should visit the Sunderbans. They are wet mangrove forests at the mouths of the Ganges, spread between India and Bangladesh.
Rapidly rising sea-level is inundating large swathes of farmland here. This is forcing the population to clear up more forests for cultivation. The population density of this region is insanely high, and most of these people live in abject poverty (pangs of hunger, contagious diseases, lack of electricity).
The Royal Bengal Tiger, one of the most handsome animals on the planet, is threatened by the encroachment of its habitat. Tiger attacks on villagers are getting more common. The numbers of tigers are dwindling so rapidly that many people fear they will go extinct in the wild within a couple of decades.
The tiger is the tip of the iceberg. Sunderbans are the world's treasure chest for biodiversity, supporting several millions of rare plant and animal species. All of these will disappear if we don't solve the problem RIGHT NOW.
I like your idea of living in harmony with nature. But the tentacles of the evil forces that are threatening the planet are far too deep than you imagine. Severe mistakes have already been committed by mankind - mindless population explosion, irresponsible agriculture, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.. Our planet is sick. This situation should be cured RIGHT NOW.
People should be brought into cities. Cities automatically check population growth. Villages should be vacated and reconverted to forests. Agricultural land should be reduced. This process is URGENT and requires a LOT of energy.
If you understand the urgency of this situation, you will think actively about real and comprehensive solutions, that have minimal land requirements.
Without nuclear power, we cannot adequately cure this problem. The marginal threats of radiation exposure etc, even if they are true, are TOTALLY INSIGNIFICANT next to the magnitude of the problem.
You can accuse me of being anti-environmental. But it is your narrow mindedness which is more of a danger to the environment than my opinions. In an ideal world where the world's population is 1/10th the current size, you can live like you want - eating organic food and using solar panels for energy. But this will not be possible until at least another 400 years.
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Karen Street Posted 2:08 am
03 Aug 2008
If you're worried about the amount of radioactivity from a coal power plant, or the amount of radioactivity the most exposed person will ever get from nuclear waste during the time it takes to decay, etc, why aren't you focusing on living in Denver? Living in areas with naturally high background radiation? Smoking? And, er, some of the larger problems like particulate and ozone pollution from coal, deaths and disease from coal mining, and even more important, climate change?
The Executive Summary of the report you cite says,
At doses less than 40 times the average yearly background exposure (100 mSv), statistical limitations make it difficult to evaluate cancer risk in humans.
So Charles Barton is right on that, you both are right.
However, the contribution of consumer products, like cigarettes, is significant compared to the nuclear fuel cycle. From Lawrence Berkeley Labs, the nuclear fuel cycle exposes us to 0.05 millirem (mrem), and as noted above this is less than the exposure due to coal.
From another LBL site, people living near a nuclear power plant have an exposure of 0.009 mrem per year. For each 1,000 miles we fly, the exposure is 1 mrem. A crew member is exposed to about 200 mrem/year. People in the space shuttle receive between 433 and 7,864 mrem, depending on how long they are there. Living in Denver adds 26 mrem/year, compared to living at sea level. Sleeping next to someone for 8 hours adds 2 mrem/year. Oh, and it turns out that inside the granite US Capitol building, radioactivity levels are more than are legally allowed in nuclear power plants.
Also from LBL, living near a coal power plant, 1 - 4 mrem/year. A 1 cigarette/day habit is 280 mrem/year. Cooking with natural gas, 6 - 9 mrem/year. Porcelain in false teeth, 60,000 mrem/?
A banana/day is 4 - 5 mrem/year.
World Health Organization (pdf) in The Global Burden of Disease due to climate change: quantifying the benefits of stabilization for human health estimates that 150,000 died from climate change between the mid-1970s and 2000. It estimates (pdf) the number of deaths in 2000 from climate change as 27.8/million people, or 170,000 in 2000.
The trend seems to be up.
Back to the NAS study. 42 people out of 100 are expected to get cancer from a variety of causes. A single exposure to 0.1 Sv (10,000 mrem) above background will cause one more cancer/hundred people. The linear no-threshold model says that a cumulative exposure of 0.1 Sv (above background) will as well. On the other hand, 25,000 or so Americans die yearly from coal pollution (not the radioactivity) and remember the climate change problem? So explain to me again why you are focusing on radioactivity.
On Caldicott: I gave a presentation in Santa Rosa in early 2000, where no one wanted discuss nuclear power. It turns out that 3 of those present had heard Caldicott warn in late 1999 that there would be a general meltdown of nuclear power plants from Y2k. Caldicott warned that the shuttle missions would destroy the ozone layer. Caldicott... well, suffice it to say, a fair percentage of the the anti-nuclear people I talk with don't like her.
Karen Street
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:49 am
03 Aug 2008
Is there really a role for nuclear? A role that nuclear has to play?
New nuclear is expensive. Very expensive.
New nuclear takes a long time to build. A long time to bring on line.
There is significant public resistance to nuclear, justified or not.
There is no acceptable solution for nuclear waste disposal.
(Even McCain who advocates storage at Yuca Mountain is opposed to waste being shipped through Arizona. Apparently even the pro-nuke people are only OK as long as it's not their back yard.)
We are at a point where new solar thermal can be built in a couple of years, cost less to construct, and produce power less expensive than nuclear. We can build storage to extend the flow of electricity long after the sun has set. (Up to a week with only ~10% loss?)
Wind is less expensive than new nuclear and can be installed very rapidly compared to nuclear. Dispersed wind farms provide base load power.
Solar PV prices are dropping rapidly and installation is quick. Solar PV provides peak power when it's most needed. And will take away the premium profit that would otherwise help pay for expensive nuclear.
Where is the role for a more expensive to construct, more expensive to maintain, and long to construct energy source?
Nuclear is going to need to demonstrate a significant role in order to overcome public resistance and to get people to ignore the lack of a viable waste storage system.
I just don't see nuclear having significant advantages. Seems to me that nuclear is a dead man walking.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:52 am
03 Aug 2008
The problem is Karen, smoking, living in Denver, flying, and many other sources of exposure are voluntary.
Exposure to nuclear contamination is involuntary. We have no choice once contamination is spread by leaks, accidents, or terrorist attacks on nuclear facilities.
Organisms in the food chain and humans concentrate nuclear contamination in fat cells, concentrating the radioactivity near reproductive organs.
In past evolutionary high genetic mutation rate periods, the radiation was from natural events. That devestated existing organisms, that sort of devestation that increases mutation and genetic disease is not a favorable situation for the human species.
If energy sources can be developed that do not produce radioactive contamination, we ought to curtail the use of those that do like coal and nuclear power. Those GHG free, contamination free energy systems are available.
Therefore nuclear power and coal ought to be shut down as soon as possible. It's a pretty simple argument really.
"why aren't you focusing ....some of the larger problems like particulate and ozone pollution from coal, deaths and disease from coal mining, and even more important, climate change?"
Well we are focusing on those too. Neither nuclear power or coal power are worth the risk involved.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:18 am
03 Aug 2008
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
A telling paragraph -
"...private capital market isn't investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren't buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power's total cost have failed to entice Wall Street."
And a bit more for those who are swayed by market behavior -
"Wall Street is ever more skeptical that nuclear power is as robustly competitive as claimed. Starting with Warren Buffet, who just abandoned a nuclear project because "it does not make economic sense," the smart money is heading for the exits."
This article is an excellent read.
There's no reason to worry about emissions from new nuclear plants if we don't build any. And apparently we are quite unlikely to do so.
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Wolverine Posted 4:17 am
03 Aug 2008
Sorry, but I don't allow anyone else to make my arguments for me, especially someone on the other side. As a nuke supporter, you are in no position to tell those of us opposed to nukes what our arguments are.
The environmental arguments against nuclear energy are: first and foremost I oppose any source of energy that requires mining for fuel, and uranium mines cause massive ecological and environmental destruction; second, nuclear power causes radioactivity to be emitted into our atmosphere that would not be emitted otherwise and, as has long been known and reiterated in Joseph's post, there is no safe level of radioactivity so that any addition has a negative effect, and; third, nuclear waste is an unsolvable problem that causes more contamination by radioactivity.
If you want to make a case to an environmentalist that nuclear power should be supported, you have to respond to the arguments I've laid out. If you can't, you have no environmental case for nukes.
Vakibs,
I agree with what you wrote until you get to the point of supporting nuclear energy. You will not save natural areas by destroying them with uranium mines. Local solar and wind power can supply all the energy that's needed. Keep in mind that electricity is not a necessity, but is a luxury that some humans have had for so long that they can't imagine living without it.
I think our differences on this issue come down to priorities, and mine is protection and restoration of the natural world. Humans began their massive ecological destruction 10-12,000 years ago when they discovered agriculture, which lead directly to gross overpopulation. Because it took millennia to create the ecological problems we now face, it will also take a very long time to fix them. But if we don't have fixing these problems as our goals and instead prioritize how we can supply massive amounts of electricity to grossly overpopulated masses of people, these problems will never be solved.
Joseph,
Good post until you got to the nukes v. coal issue. While I assume you oppose both coal and nuclear power, Oak Ridge is not a credible source for this information, as it is heavily invested in nukes, though probably more as weapons than as energy. Just as you would not use a "study" by the KKK to determine whether racism was worse in the U.S. or Africa, it's equally illegitimate to use the study you cited for the purpose you did.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:41 am
03 Aug 2008
The values change issue. Do you value the health of the planet over a very rare temporary inconvenience of going on low power battery backup for a few hours once every few months?
The values issue says let's sacrifice power grid baseload coal and nuclear eco-destruction for distributed renewable power, even if it needs backup once in awhile.
People have abided a lot of hardship before, in world wars and disasters. This is a small individual inconvenience in order to save the climate.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Russ Posted 5:25 am
03 Aug 2008
Keep in mind that electricity is not a necessity, but is a luxury that some humans have had for so long that they can't imagine living without it.
Every time I hear anyone (including most "environmentalists") take it for granted that the grotesque energy demand projected by the trends must somehow be met, I reach for my revolver.
(It's just like a few months ago when I got clobbered here and called a "monk" because I dared to suggest that flying is an illegitimate luxury which shouldn't exist at all.)
This technology-is-automatically-justified ideology is just part and parcel of the Tower of Babel of "growth" (also beloved by most "progressives").
As for what W said about nukes' being unnatural, this is indeed a core reason to reject them. This may be like poetry or jazz, either you get it or you don't, but there's something qualitatively different and ghoulish about using technology to synthesize something which does not exist in Gaia. Even fossil fuels and their refinements are "natural". It's like the difference between GMOs and the breeder's art. And those who want to deny the fundamental alienality of earth-bound fission or fusion are the same as those who want to conflate GMOs with carefully bred hybrids.
I'll add one more reason to reject nukes which I didn't see covered here:
Nuclear power is a centralized, heirachical structure which both derives from and helps intensify concentrated political and economic power. To want more of this is to head in exactly the wrong direction.
What is needful, especially as Peak Oil* and subsequent energy descent loom, is to seek decentralized, regional and local energy and political structures, since in the long run these are the only ones with any hope of endurance, while in the short run the danger of fascism is a function of how entrenched centralized power is.
*Anyway, Peak Oil pretty much rules out any massive nuclear expansion anyway (or for that matter any national renewables-based grid). To build any such large infrastructure can only be done on the foundation of plentiful fossil fuel. While on paper there may still be time and resources to do either of these, in practice they simply won't be done. I'm satisfied that America will never embark upon another large-scale infrastructure project. We're just going to hunker in the bunker and keep drilling and burning until the tanks are all empty.
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Russ Posted 5:40 am
03 Aug 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/19/11330/4192
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amazingdrx Posted 5:50 am
03 Aug 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/3/3 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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robspooner Posted 7:21 am
03 Aug 2008
And since most arable land on the planet is already being ared, generating an output that barely balances world demand with the ubiquitous use of diesel tractors, what alternative are you all proposing?
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caniscandida Posted 7:31 am
03 Aug 2008
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/07/26/2008-07-26 ....
Thanks to Amazing, Vakibs and Russ for appreciating Wolverine's important and precious fundamental principle.
And thanks, Vakibs, for your fascinating use of the Sunderbans, and the wonderful biodiversity of that region, as an illustration of how urbanization is the way to go.
Considering both Wolverine's fine observation, that "electricity is a luxury" that too many of us seem to be able no longer to do without, and Vakibs' reference to traditional lifestyles in the Indian Subcontinent, I was wondering: Did Mohandas Gandhi use electricity at all, when he adopted for himself a pure village lifestyle? Did he ever listen to the radio for news? Did he acknowledge that the manufacture of his eyeglasses, or the printing of his reading material, may have required electricity?
Also, Vakibs: Does that Gandhian ideal have much of a following in India today? If so, would you consider it "sustainable" for many people in the Subcontinent to adopt that kind of lifestyle -- so different from your recommendation of urbanization?
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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GRLCowan Posted 7:50 am
03 Aug 2008
And since most arable land on the planet is already being ared, generating an output that barely balances world demand with the ubiquitous use of diesel tractors, what alternative are you all proposing?
Focused sunlight could drive the sulphur-iodine process, which cycles S and I internally while taking water in and putting separated oxygen and hydrogen out. The hydrogen could be reacted with carbon dioxide, perhaps carbon dioxide captured from air, to make diesel fuel.
Nuclear is better, but solar could work. The very large sunlight collection areas needed to produce millions of barrels of synthetic liquid hydrocarbon per day would find opposition from the "deep greens" here.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
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Bob Wallace Posted 9:56 am
03 Aug 2008
The most effective opposition is likely to come from the people who have money to invest.
Why bother using electricity to create liquid fuel when we can simply pump it into batteries and use it, thus avoiding the conversion loss? Doesn't make economical sense.
--
As for "reverting to the Age of Sail", perhaps.
Recently a test run with a sail/kite assist produced a 20% reduction in fuel used for a Pacific crossing.
Fully sail powered freighters would move only half as fast as fuel powered freighters, but the fuel savings might be worthwhile for some shipping.
--
Interesting that you seem to think that being a "deep green" is a bad thing.
Does that mean that you value environmental destruction?
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GRLCowan Posted 11:14 am
03 Aug 2008
The most effective opposition is likely to come from the people who have money to invest.
Why bother using electricity ...
Electricity? The S-I process is not electrical.
... to create liquid fuel when we can simply pump it into batteries and use it, thus avoiding the conversion loss? Doesn't make economical sense.
If converting water and CO2 to fuel and oxygen did require electricity, these masses per unit motor output energy would be relevant:
96 kg · Gasoline
7,880 kg · GM EV1 NiMH battery pack
12,700 kg · GM EV1 lead-acid battery pack
2,100 kg · AC Propulsion T-zero Li-ion battery*
Saving electricity onshore by charging a NiMH battery that is 40 percent of a ship's mass rather than, on a similar but non-electrical ship, filling a fuel tank until its mass is 0.5 percent of the ship's mass might not be a good trade.
Interesting that you seem to think that being a "deep green" is a bad thing.
Does that mean that you value environmental destruction?
No.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
* http://www.acpropulsion.com/EAASV_101803.pdf , p. 17 of 42
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GRLCowan Posted 11:45 am
03 Aug 2008
But perhaps it secretly had troubles and was replaced with a duplicate. You'll notice they're not denying that!
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
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spaceshaper Posted 1:39 pm
03 Aug 2008
Protection is one thing we can certainly talk about and act on, once we are clear about what the "natural world" is. I'm inclined to think it's simply the one we're living in, and that protection is what this site is all about.
Restoration is something else again. The word indicates picking some previous state of the world and reestablishing those conditions. I'm not sure how we'd go about either of those tasks. Do we pick the Pleistocene and find some way to reinvent the woolly mammoth and its ilk- perhaps through fossil DNA? Why not the Eocene, and establish a project to push the continents back to where they were at the start of that era. Quite the geo-engineering challenge.
Gosh, did I write that? Sometimes I guess sarcasm is all that's left. Wolverine has stated numerous times that the rot of human civilization set in with the invention of agriculture, a point of view with which I am actually quite sympathetic, in spite of the fact that I personally would have made a very incompetent hunter/gatherer. Actually I would have almost certainly have died in childhood, so it wouldn't really have been a problem. One less puny mouth to feed. However that may be, UNinvention, especially of something as fundamental as agriculture, is something that we have never been very good at. Convincing large numbers of the human species that we should give up the technologies that have enabled us to thrive is going to be - hmm - something of an uphill struggle. Especially as blessed as we are with the enormous diversity of art, music and other cultural artefacts that have been the by-products of agriculture's bounty. W, I'm sorry that human culture has has such limited and unhappy resonance for you, and I'm glad that I do not share the miserable burden of your misanthropy.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:44 pm
03 Aug 2008
I think the more naturally extreme position of anti-technology is merging with the less stringent green technology position.
What can we all do to sacrifice for the cause of environmental restoration? Put up with a few power shortages once in awhile.
It's a small price to pay compared to the sacrifices those who have gone before us have made. Time to do our part, use less power, drive less, staycation more, eat local organic nearly meatless diets, that sort of thing.
Woverine's call for very wealthy techo-cultural humans to give a little to do our part is the key. Most of humanity has electricity a few hours a day, if they are lucky. Many have none at all.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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robspooner Posted 2:02 pm
03 Aug 2008
Regarding sailing freighters, there are plenty of devilish details but for starters, if the ships are half as fast, there will need to be twice as many of them. They're made out of steel, which requires a large amount of energy to produce.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:28 pm
03 Aug 2008
The enormous amount of energy in upper level winds tapped with kite sails, can also power ducted turbines mounted in the kite sail. Sending electric power down to charge batteries and run electric thrust motors.
The ships could cruise on stored battery power when winds are from a difficult direction or near ports.
Free fuel is a big costy savings, justifying more capital invested at the start. Fuel cost inflation is a real threat for investors in shipping. This eliminates that risk.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Paleocon Posted 3:23 pm
03 Aug 2008
Life spans continue to increase.
At least some of you are honest about your desire to crush the human spirit under the boot of collectivism.
Renewable and sustainable don't have to exclude affordable and abundant.
But that wouldn't accomplish the tearing down of the producers by the spiteful, would it?
"...a 90 percent chance that the US has contributed .2 degrees F of temperature increase in the last 50 years..." The IPCC Consensus in perspective
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Wolverine Posted 6:05 pm
03 Aug 2008
Re human culture, I actually enjoy it quite a bit, especially music, and think it's one of the very few things good about the human species. However, hunter-gatherers had culture, too, so agriculture is not necessary for that. Agriculture did produce beer, which is the only good thing I can say about it.
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vakibs Posted 7:33 pm
03 Aug 2008
@wolverine :
When all people were hunter gatherers, the world population was around 5 million.
When people discovered agriculture, the world population exploded to 300 million. (60 times)
When the world gets industrialized, the human population will be around 8 billion (25 times)
These are facts. Whether we like them or not, we have to swallow them down the throat. The hunting-gathering lifestyle is not sustainable for the current population.
We have two options - (a) condemn the population to starvation, disease and war and hope that natural selection will find its way of reducing numbers (b) look for a sustainable method of living for the human population in a way which protects our biodiversity.
It is inhuman to think like (a). But this is not my point. I will argue that (a) doesn't even work. Natural selection stopped working on our species. Even with disease, war and famine, humans still multiply in large numbers. And a hungry man is far more dangerous to biodiversity than a well-fed man.
It is clear that we have to think like (b). We restrict humans to cities and leave the rest of the planet for the other species. Our motivation should be to use the minimum amount of resources possible (land, water ..) for a sustainable living. If we follow the strategy (b), human population will be reduced automatically. People beget fewer children in cities. And nobody will have to suffer.
When you accept the philosophy of (b) which is the minimalistic approach for human interference in the planet, you will quickly realize why you need nuclear energy.
Nuclear energy has minimum land, water and mining requirements. The energy concentration of nuclear is enormous (e = mc^2). Compared to this, solar technologies are 1000 times more diffuse. So they will use 1000 times more resources for generating the same amount of power.
People who argue against nuclear power shy away from providing a sustainable energy blueprint for the world in total. They usually talk of just USA, and even there, they limit the comforts of modern life. In short, they are resorting to strategy (a) without explicitly specifying so. But in doing that, they are blind to the laws of economics. Excluding nuclear from the mixture forces us to use fossil fuels which are a million times more dangerous. Condemning the rest of the humans (Africa, India, countries of the south) to poverty automatically puts biodiversity at risk where already it is at the gravest danger.
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Russ Posted 8:53 pm
03 Aug 2008
These are facts. Whether we like them or not, we have to swallow them down the throat. The hunting-gathering lifestyle is not sustainable for the current population.
I think you need to educate yourself about Peak Fossil Fuel. Oil is peaking, natural gas will soon follow. Since the industrial growth economy is predicated on cheap, plentiful, ever-increasing supplies of fossil fuel, the world will never completely industrialize, and population will never reach 9 billion (the UN's projection for 2050). We're at or near the apex of industrialization and aggregate energy use, while per capita energy use already peaked back in the late 70s (cf. the Olduvai theory).
We have two options - (a) condemn the population to starvation, disease and war and hope that natural selection will find its way of reducing numbers (b) look for a sustainable method of living for the human population in a way which protects our biodiversity.
It is inhuman to think like (a). But this is not my point. I will argue that (a) doesn't even work. Natural selection stopped working on our species. Even with disease, war and famine, humans still multiply in large numbers.
Yes, during the brief historical blip spanning the hegemony of fossil fuels and the nightmare of "growth", natural selection stopped working and man proliferated beyond all bounds, completely out of control, and has been able to overcome all of nature's attempts - disease, war, famine - to impose a correction.
But now the fossil fuel debauchery is coming to an end, and there is no "sustainable" way for an artificially inflated population to exist once the artifice is removed and nature can finally resume her proper functioning.
It's estimated that the natural carrying capacity of the Earth is perhaps 2 billion people, with the surplus being sustained only by natural gas-derived fertilizers.
So I'm afraid any level of humanity or inhumanity is largely irrelevant. We're dealing with simple geology and biology here.
People who argue against nuclear power shy away from providing a sustainable energy blueprint for the world in total.
This morally goes back to that other question about the alleged "right" of people to be energy gluttons. I completely reject any such allegation. What's my sustainable blueprint? Thoreau said it once and for all: Simplify, simplify.
Conservation, greater efficiency, more conservation, even greater efficiency, and then more conservation after that.
If that's still not enough, we can try conserving some more.
At that point, we should be in a position to sustain ourselves with decentralized renewables.
Anyway, like I said, there's no need for a "blueprint for the world in total", if that means how is the whole world going to consume at America's current sodomite level.
Peak Oil militates - it's not possible.
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vakibs Posted 9:17 pm
03 Aug 2008
There is a flaw in your thinking; it is black, ugly and comes in big lumps. It is called coal.
We are nowhere near peak coal. As long as coal exists (for another 200 years) it can be converted to gasolene or natural gas. Ofcourse, this won't be cheap, but it will be cheaper than 4$ per gallon of gas.
So peak oil won't save our ass. You want proof ? Look at China and how it is burning coal.
Human population will inevitably industrialize. The question we have to ask is "will we murder our biodiversity in the process of doing so".
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David Bradish Posted 9:27 pm
03 Aug 2008
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vakibs Posted 9:36 pm
03 Aug 2008
Gandhi has once said famously, "India lives in villages". With all the due respect to the great man, I say this is bunkum.
India had been living in cities for atleast 5000 years, going back to the majestic cities of the Indus valley civilization. India has some of the most ancient cities which still survive, Varanasi is atleast 3000 years old.
Gandhi looked upon the freedom struggle as a struggle between two civilizations : the "industrial" west and the "spiritual" east. This is bunkum again. He was plainly borrowing ideas from British colonial-speak. The west began to industrialize 300 years ago. Before that, the whole world was alike. India and China have produced as many mathematicians and engineers as Rome or Greece.
I think Gandhi was a very principled man and India was fortunate to have him lead the freedom struggle. But his outlook of life is impractical for 1 billion people.
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spaceshaper Posted 11:28 pm
03 Aug 2008
Actually not, unless you feel that the current volume of unnecessary objects continuously shipped around the globe is a necessity for human wellbeing and prosperity. I do not. Reducing that volume by half or more would be no sacrifice for most of us. I am no fan of banning international trade a la Wolverine, but the only reason for its current massive and unnecessary volume is the availability of cheap fossil-fueled energy, which seems likely to cease.
Wolverine: of course hunter-gatherers had culture. Just not a lot of it, especially as for any of them outside the tropics the lifestyle required picking up and moving camp every few weeks to follow the game and the ripening berries. No place for books and guitars in that always-hungry world. So quite apart from the blindingly obvious fact that no voluntary act will return us to that way of life - nothing short of of a cataclysm will do that trick - if it ever happens it will be short-lived. No books, no cultural continuity. Sooner or later some bright young spark will say, how about we corral those animals instead of chasing them all the time. And let's clear some space where we can get berries and grains to grow all in one place so we can set some aside for the winter. And the rest of the band will say, we are so ready for that. Why did no-one think of this before? Because they won't know someone did, and it led to problems, except maybe through some ancient tales told by the old fuddy-duddies in the band and they're a liability anyway because they can't hunt and gather any more so why listen to them and in fact let's just leave 'em behind next time we move so we don't have to listen them whine on about the good old days any more. So the whole damn cycle recommences and we have to go through the Inquisition and Vlad the Impaler and goddess knows what nasty nonsense before we approach something like a civil society again.
Vakibs: I think Ghandhi was intending no slight to Indian history and civilization but simply stating a fact. He was preoccupied with the well-being of the common people of India, nearly all of whom did live in villages at his time and despite the rapid growth of megacities worldwide in the last few decades to which India is no exception most I believe still do.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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spaceshaper Posted 11:42 pm
03 Aug 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 12:23 am
04 Aug 2008
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:27 am
04 Aug 2008
Some do want to revert to horses and fire wood energy. I think Wolverine has got onboard the rooftop solar and small wind power and small biogas bandwagon anyway.
Maybe even a smart power grid that carries wireless broadband iinternet?
The specifics he personally endorses are less important than the concept of sacrifice he keeps bringing up. I think we green techno advocates ought to accept that.
Ditch the baseload grid, coal, nukes, huge desert solar systems, and chemical ag and fuel farming. Especially tree farming for fuel, or any purpose. We can put up with ocasional inconvenience.
A lot of people whined about shortage and rationing during WW2, so what, some are going to whine anyway. They whine about the cost of gas for their gas guzzlers now.
I still like large scale wind on the prairie and offshore, which I think he still opposes. But even that would only be needed for a few decades. Then it could be dismantled and recycled.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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spaceshaper Posted 1:33 am
04 Aug 2008
"The specifics he personally endorses are less important than the concept of sacrifice he keeps bringing up. I think we green techno advocates ought to accept that."
Not I, either one. Along with many others (DR has posted eloquently on this) I question the notion of sacrifice as a necessary component of getting where we need to be as a sustainable civil society. Unless you think that no longer spending several hours a day sitting in a personal pod on the freeway is a sacrifice. And I would assert that the specifics of this discussion are very important indeed.
Canis, I mean no disrespect to oral traditions. I simply believe they have their limitations, just as our culture of literacy has its limitations, in preventing the repetition of earlier mistakes. If this were not so, how wise we would be by now....
Whatever its faults (and I'm certainly not unaware of them) agrarianism makes possible the settled life and solid record of cultural development that enables us to build on what our ancestors have bequeathed us. I'm not ready to toss out Bach, Beethoven and Big Bill Broonzy right yet. Are you?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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John former Marine Posted 2:18 am
04 Aug 2008
Spaceshaper, I disagree with your comment that hunter/gatherers did indeed have culture, just not much of it. Before missionaries invaded the furthest reaches of the jungles, there were thousands of languages across the globe (languages being, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful aspects of culture). Take Papua New Guinea, where over 1,000 languages may have existed just a couple hundred years ago. Today, the vast majority of languages among the smallest hunter/gatherer tribes of the world have only a few very senior survivors who still speak their own language. The english language is as invasive as autumn olive. Agriculture has killed a lot of culture, in my opinion.
Il faut cultiver notre jardin.
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spaceshaper Posted 5:05 am
04 Aug 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Russ Posted 5:59 am
04 Aug 2008
Estimated reserves have steadily been modified downward from the original pie-in-the-sky projections, and just as with oil, the easier-to-extract, higher quality coal is mostly used up.
So just as with oil, it'll take more and more energy and $ to extract the same amount of coal, which will be of lower quality and take more and more energy and $ to render usable. The EROEI and EROI get worse and worse and must reach a breaking point, and there you'll have the Peak.
So while a more reasonable estimate of how much coal is left at current consumption rates on paper is around 100 years, this doesn't take into account the production difficulty dynamic I just described.
And, if people think we're also going to keep this whole automobile fleet (and the burgeoning fleets of China, India, etc.) going on liquid fuel from coal, or if they think we're going to switch the whole shebang over to plug-ins or electric cars, or even if they just think that as natural gas peaks and rapidly descends that we're going to be able to continue to generate the current level of electricity, let alone have demand continue to "grow", by substituting coal, this would require a radical increase in production, just as the current level of production became more and more difficult and expensive to sustain.
So here too just as with oil, the growth machine requires ever-increasing production, which will not be sustainable for long. It won't be physically or economically possible.
Most sober estimates place the Peak sometime in the 2020s. This is what will be possible as remaining reserves become more inaccessible and lower quality, while demand continues to surge.
That's why we also believe that neither CTL nor electricity can sustain motoring as it exists today. There too the gluttonous West will have to go on a crash diet, while the developing world will never get there in the first place.
If you want alot more technical detail on Peak Coal, go to (sorry I don't have time to go fetch all these links, but they can be found easily enough) sites like The Oil Drum, Energy Bulletin, Richard Heinberg's Museletter (just today there's a new piece from him on coal, posted on Energy Bulletin), Charles Hugh Smith, just to name some places I've educated myself.
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Wolverine Posted 6:21 am
04 Aug 2008
First, a minor disagreement. My research shows that when people were hunter-gatherers there were 10 million globally. Not significant considering today's numbers, but it's twice what you said.
We agree on the ultimate goal of leaving vast natural areas for the other animals and plants without human interference. However, your dream of having massive human populations limited to cities and living materialistic lifestyles while leaving large natural areas for everything else is not physically possible. Aside from the fact that real happiness can be achieved without material goods beyond the basic necessities and that material goods beyond necessities will never make anyone really happy, the laws of physics and biology simply don't allow your scenario.
Your basic premises are false: It is not true that 1) human population will always be at ecologically destructive levels, 2) the only way to reduce population is by killing people, or 3) there is a way to live sustainably with anywhere near the current level of human population.
The current level of human population is not at all sustainable and will not last. The only issue is whether humans voluntarily lower their population or wait till nature does it. I guarantee you that the latter choice will cause far more suffering than humane methods of the former.
Killing people, aside from moral problems, has never worked for lowering populations. Even where genocide was committed, as in the U.S. against the native people, the invaders quickly overpopulated the places where the natives lived. The only ways that have been effective in reducing human population are empowerment of women and a strong one-child-family policy. The countries that have those things have birthrates lower than two per couple; the ones that don't have populations that are still growing. Both of these tools should include absolutely free and unrestricted access to birth control and abortion, as well as adequate sex education in school at an appropriately early age.
Claiming that humans can live sustainably with anywhere near the current population is as ludicrous as claiming that we can do so with the current level of overconsumption by the globally rich (basically, white people). If you refuse to solve a fundamental cause of a problem, no amount of solving symptoms will solve it. There have been many mitigations suggested for overpopulation, such as yours of moving people into cities from rural areas. However, no one who advocates your idea ever discusses how to solve the immense ecological and environmental problems that concentrating so many people in one place will cause. While I agree that removing people from non-urban areas instead of allowing them to sprawl all over is not as bad as the status quo, doing so will not solve the problems caused by overpopulation. Eventually, the problems caused by huge concentrations of people in one place will spill into the wilderness areas that you're trying to save for the rest of the world. For example, where will all the waste, including natural human waste, go? Where will all the food and water come from? Etc.
What people usually mean when they say you "can't" do something is that they don't want to do it. If you don't want humans to lower the population, please just say so. But if you realize that doing so would provide a much better world, don't be defeatist. This problem might be difficult, but it is not unsolvable.
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Wolverine Posted 6:54 am
04 Aug 2008
As I asked Vakibs, do you not want to return to the far less ecologically harmful hunter-gatherer way of living, or do you not think it's possible? If the former, we have no basis for discussion on this issue, because refusing to consider going back to a clearly less harmful way of living means that you prioritize humans over all else, while I believe that they're just one of millions of species.
However, if your scenario of eventually returning to hunting and gathering and then back to agriculture no matter what is meant to say that it's not possible to go back to hunting and gathering and stay there, you forgot a very important factor: what if people evolve mentally and spiritually so that they refuse to live as agriculturalists because they now properly respect other forms of life and the natural world? Or what if they just realize that agriculture is so ecologically harmful and eventually unsustainable that they won't go back to it?
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amazingdrx Posted 7:09 am
04 Aug 2008
You would have whined and complained about WW2 rationing? You would have wailed, oh lord why me?
Hehehey, ok. I get where you are coming from, no problem.
I just think most people wouldn't mind giving up some convenience to save the climate. Maybe I'm wrong.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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spaceshaper Posted 9:43 am
04 Aug 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 5:31 pm
04 Aug 2008
remember Kenneth Clark, the plummy British art historian who did that popular survey of post-classical Western art history, "Civilisation," on PBS back in 1969? (No, of course you don't, you bambino you!)
In the accompanying book, he writes:
<<
The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals, mystery religions, that destroyed self-confidence. And then exhaustion, the feeling of hopelessness which can overtake people even with a high degree of material prosperity. There is a poem by the modern Greek poet, Cavafy, in wich he imagines the people of an antique town like Alexandria waiting every day for the barbarians to come and sack the city. Finally the barbarians move off somewhere else and the city is saved; but the people are disappointed -- it would have been better than nothing. Of course, civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity -- enough to provide a little leisure. But, far more, it requires confidence -- confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one's own mental powers.
...
[Following the Muslim imperialist expansion through the eastern and southern Mediterranean lands in the 7th and 8th centuries,] the old source of civilisation was sealed off, and if a new civilisation was to be born it would have to face the Atlantic. What a hope! People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater. Quite apart from discomforts and privations, there was no escape from it. Very restricted company, no books, no light after dark, no hope. On one side the sea battering away, on the other infinite stretches of bog and forest. ...
>>
Three remarks:
The issue of "confidence," as a way of defining civilization, is rather deeper than referring merely to the passive enjoyment of the cultural achievements of other people. I do not see much "confidence" anywhere in the world today, certainly not in the US or the EU, and not even among the Chinese, who seem to be anxiously, childishly, placing too much stock in baubles and trappings.
KClark's description of life as a barbarian is unfair. I prefer the direction that John-former-Marine was going in. There is ample evidence that members of traditional "primitive" societies can have very rich, satisfying lives. We should not commit the modernist fallacy of assuming that just because their material, intellectual and artistic products are few, their minds are not fully engaged.
With regard to Wolverine's recommendation, the problem comes when "civilized" folks such as you and I, who love Bach, Beethoven and the Backstreet Boys, are asked to build a yurt on a shingle, between the crashing waves and the buggy bog, and live there happily ever after. If that is the sort of thing that Wolverine has in mind, then he is quite impractical. Plus, he may be reckoning the ethical implications too simply.
Mind you, though, that while I agree with you and DR that a gospel of painful renunciation is not going to get very far, I am not at all sure that that is what Amazing meant. (He is trying very hard, you may have noticed, in his own way, to be a consensus-building diplomat, and for that he deserves applause.) I entirely agree with Amazing (as I understand him), that when people understand what the Big Common Cause is, they will be prepared to give up a great deal, by way of simplification, even as our ancestors did during WWII.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Russ Posted 7:29 pm
04 Aug 2008
Mind you, though, that while I agree with you and DR that a gospel of painful renunciation is not going to get very far, I am not at all sure that that is what Amazing meant. (He is trying very hard, you may have noticed, in his own way, to be a consensus-building diplomat, and for that he deserves applause.) I entirely agree with Amazing (as I understand him), that when people understand what the Big Common Cause is, they will be prepared to give up a great deal, by way of simplification, even as our ancestors did during WWII.
I just want to reiterate that, contrary to what many seem to think, man does not have a choice here. Fossil fuels are going to run out whether the people at large decide to politically endorse it or not, and there will indeed be a tremendous renunciation, whether the people politically embrace it or not.
As for how "painful" this renunciation will be, that is a function of the policy choices people make right now. Energy descent will happen. Whether it's an organized, relatively gradual descent, or plummetting from a cliff, is what "politics" will decide. So far, across the board, society and government are choosing the cliff. That's why I've concluded there's no hope for "society", and am instead focusing on the ark-building movement.
To repeat what I've said elsewhere - the choices are orderly retreat or total rout.
But any kind of "reform" which still maintains the machine (let alone business as usual) is not among the choices.
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vakibs Posted 7:50 pm
04 Aug 2008
Coal is a finite resource and it will peak. What all you peak guys won't acknowledge is that your peak estimates tend to be more on the conservative side. They get postponed further and further for a 20 more years, as it has happened with oil. Why this ? Because first, people don't factor in technology which exploits deeper reserves. And second, the world gross economic product is growing which makes deeper reserves profitable to extract.
I don't like this. I want oil to peak quickly. I want coal to peak as well. But this won't happen as early as you would like.
If we don't do anything about it, coal will continue to get used in an ever increasing scale for atleast another 50 years. There will still be enormous amount of coal left even then. What can happen in 50 years ? 50 years is the amount of time an agricultural society takes to transition into an industrial society. Japan, South Korea have already demonstrated this. China and India will soon follow.
This pattern of development is dangerous, not because of peak coal but more because of global warming. I hope the world will stop using coal by atleast 2020. The amount of coal which didn't get converted to CO2 will make crucial difference in the global warming question.
India is already building coal liquification plants. These are profitable due to the current high price of oil. Before liquifying coal, we will extract oil from tar sands. Canada has started to do that and the Canadian dollar is rapidly improving parity against US dollar. You will soon see 1 Canadian $ = 2.5 US$
In short, your projections of peak oil and peak coal are little more than wet dreams. The growth in alternative energies will further push these peaks forward. The world will inevitably industrialize. Be prepared for this.
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vakibs Posted 9:15 pm
04 Aug 2008
What is the best way to reduce population ? Distributing birth control ? Educating girls ? These are very necessary issues but they are not sufficient.
If you look around the world and see where the birth rates are falling the most rapidly, you will quickly isolate Europe and Japan - both very urban societies. In fact, the population here is decreasing ! Why so ? Because when you live in a city, children cost a lot of money. One cannot just afford them. Further, with all the opportunities of life available, one likes to have more time for oneself.
How rapidly can we reduce the population ? Imagine that each person has 1 offspring; the population will be halved by each generation. But since the life expectancy is getting higher, each person will be living longer. So it is likely that the halving time for world population is around 125 years. If this is done 3 times (3*125 = 375 years), the world population will be reduced to 1/8th the current size. In reality, several people will have 2 kids and the process will take longer, maybe 600 years.
But with urbanization, the populations will inevitably fall. There are downsides to it - a rapidly aging workforce. This requires better social security and more automation of the workforce. Ultimately, all menial work will be performed by robots, and humans will be left to pursue the finer things in life, like art, science and philosophy.
Urbanization is an inevitable necessity for safeguarding the rest of the planet. The longer we delay it, more animal and plant species will go extinct from this planet.
You have two questions about cities.
waste: Sanitation systems have evolved enormously. In fact, everything that we use can be recycled. Biodegradable waste can be converted to manure or fuels. All that is required is planning
agriculture : Future farms will be multistoreyed buildings where every drop of water and sunlight is captured and utlized. They will occupy far lesser space. Cities can grow their food within themselves.
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Russ Posted 11:21 pm
04 Aug 2008
It's true that Hubbert forecast the world Peak for around 2000. But this didn't take into account the oil shocks of the 70s, which induced enough improved efficiency that the Peak was set back some years.
All the modern projections among Peakers have had the Peak occurring sometime between now and the next several years. Production has been plateauing since 2005, which is the earliest (speculative) prediction I ever heard of. The main trend of projections has fallen in the 2007-10 range, and we're certainly within that range now. (Of course the Peak isn't something where horns blare and banners roll out on a particular day. History will likely see it as something smeared out over a few years, just like America's peak is smeared out over 1970-1.)
So I can't imagine what "postponements" you're talking about.
And second, the world gross economic product is growing which makes deeper reserves profitable to extract.
Hmm. Then why have the majors been investing out of their gargantuan profits only pennies for exploration? Why instead have they been plowing everything into mergers and stock buybacks and dividend payments? It seems these executives (with their vast stock options) disagree with you. They're acting very much like a bunch of guys who don't expect the gravy train to last much longer.
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vakibs Posted 11:36 pm
04 Aug 2008
Significantly, there still remain a lot of oil reserves that didn't peak yet. Most of the world's oil is concentrated in Saudi Arabia and Canada. They will not peak for quite some time. (Canada has just started pumping out oil).
If you average all this out, and calculate a global peak for oil, it will come somewhere around 2020. It might be delayed even further due to growth in alternative transport.
The same thing will happen with coal, but only that we have lot more coal than oil in earth. So it will take longer to peak.
The guys who own fossil fuels would like to see the last drop of oil/coal converted to CO2. Their strategy would be to maximize the profits that can be milked. Drop/raise in the price of oil is just a business strategy.
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spaceshaper Posted 12:28 am
05 Aug 2008
Personally I'd prefer not. I believe that except in a very few very fortunate parts of the world such a way of life is going to be exceptionally hard on the very old, the sick, the weak and the very young. For that reason alone I'd also say it's not very likely that the species as a whole will voluntarily choose such a path. No other animal would make that choice.
"If the former, we have no basis for discussion on this issue, because refusing to consider going back to a clearly less harmful way of living means that you prioritize humans over all else, while I believe that they're just one of millions of species."
I do understand, accept and embrace the fact we are one of millions of species. I really really like that about the setup here. I also understand that each of those species is ultimately responsible for its own continuance and wellbeing. The fox does not take care of the wolverine or the bat, the wolverine and the bat do not look after the fox. Similarly we are responsible primarily for our own species and I have no embarrassment about that. The more far-seeing amongst us see that careless destruction of other creatures puts our own species at risk and take care to mitigate that damage. These people are called environmentalists. The fact that we are acting in our own self-interest does not lessen the importance of the protection we can offer to the rest of the natural world from the depredations of the more foolish and destructive among us. On that basis I sincerely hope that we can continue the discussion.
"what if people evolve mentally and spiritually so that they refuse to live as agriculturalists because they now properly respect other forms of life and the natural world?"
Interesting point, though I'm not convinced that agrarianism and peaceful coexistence with other species are mutually exclusive. Personally I'd prefer that we evolve and learn to live AS agriculturalists who ALSO properly respect other forms of life and (the rest of) the natural world. Evolution is a slow process though and while we're waiting and working for that to happen let's try and make sure we don't screw everything up for ourselves on this accommodating but finite planet.
To Vakibs: "Future farms will be multistoreyed buildings where every drop of water and sunlight is captured and utlized."
I can't imagine anything more soul-destroying and dreadful. Nor for that matter anything more unnecessary and inefficient.
To Canis: Course I remember Ken Clark. I'm probably older than you, kiddo. I too have noticed Amazin's forays into diplomacy, a new twist for him which is a most welcome addition to his range of contributions. Props also to Jon Rynn who has inhabited that role a great deal in recent times, to all our benefit. I still consider that 'Giving up a great deal', to gain so very much, is hardly a sacrifice. The WW11 reference is a cheap shot. I suspect that I've had closer direct experience of that level of rationing and food shortage than he. Such deprivation will only be necessary in our spoilt western societies if we really mess up and fail to take any of the actions which are now clearly needed.
The poet sang: God said to Abraham, kill me a son. Abe said, God you must be puttin' me on. God said, No. Abe said, what? God said you can do anything that you want to, but, the next time you see me comin' you better run! Abe said where you want this killin' done? Out there, on Highway 61.
Now THAT's a sacrifice. Do we put our children and grandchildren on the killing block out on that carbon-fuelled highway? or do we accept a little inconvenience right now?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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gzuckier Posted 12:31 am
05 Aug 2008
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vakibs Posted 12:54 am
05 Aug 2008
Using less land is inefficient ? Using less water is inefficient ? Having less need for transport is inefficient ? Having a careful environment with less need for pesticides is inefficient ?
The picture I have painted is a faraway milestone in the evolution of farm practices. We are in a continuous process of increasing yield, reducing the amount of water, and minimizing the side-effects of agriculture.
I don't understand how being frugal can destroy one's soul, or be dreadful. I am kind of amused to see this argument on grist. Should I be a glutton to go to heaven ? :)
BTW, I appreciated your discussion with caniscandida on culture etc.. It is very interesting.
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spaceshaper Posted 1:36 am
05 Aug 2008
Using large amounts of concrete and steel to hoist field crops into the air is an extremely inefficient use of total resources and completely unnecessary for a good deployment of urban agriculture. The water and transportation savings on high value vegetable and fruit crops can take place perfectly well with ground-level and roof-level urban gardens. The space taken by these plantings does double duty as essential amenity space for humans.
Plants need sunlight and lots of it - photosynthesis is what they do. Putting 'em in parking garages with gro-lights and suntubes is just .... (froths at mouth).
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:47 am
05 Aug 2008
Glad you agree. We can put up with some power outage going on battery backup once in awhile to cure the climate. that is all the transition from central power grid coal and nuclear to distributed solar, wind, and biogas would take.
Less "vroom" in the cars too. More biking, walking, bus and train riding, more carpooling. Less meat, more veggies, more oocal organic food. Less calories, less obesity. No problem.
Fewer glorious oil wars? Less military contractor theft? Actual national security based on a healthy ecoonomy and environment.
Yeah, big bad sacrifices, hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 1:51 am
05 Aug 2008
I am asking you to visualize a future where cities grow their entire food within themselves. This is my main point. The multistoreyed buildings that I mentioned will probably be already existing buildings which people use for other purposes.
Or in the future, you could discover new construction materials which might make construction of such multistoreyed farms profitable in an economic and environmental sense. It is all about innovation.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:54 am
05 Aug 2008
A job in every town, for everyone. Better than a chicken in every pot.
Less driving.
Ocasional power shortage.
Local food (instead of carbon intentive transported food) that needs freezing or other preservation to use off season.
And so forth...
What would each sacrifice do in terms of a carbon saving "wedge"?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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spaceshaper Posted 4:47 am
05 Aug 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Russ Posted 5:25 am
05 Aug 2008
Significantly, there still remain a lot of oil reserves that didn't peak yet. Most of the world's oil is concentrated in Saudi Arabia and Canada. They will not peak for quite some time. (Canada has just started pumping out oil).
I'm afraid this is as wrong as can be. Canada has already peaked. It imports oil. As for the tar sands, the most optimistic projection is that they may peak at around 4 mpd in 2020, which is assuming alot given the horrible EROEI (around 1.5:1), and the assumption that the copious quantities of natural gas and water inputs, both already strained, will continue to be available.
As for Saudi Arabia, I guess you've swallowed the kool-aid regarding the 262bb reserve figure so beloved of the MSM.
This is just a high-flying fiction the Saudis pulled out of thin air in the 80s in order to increase their OPEC production quota. It has magically remained the same ever since.
Saudi production has been stagnant since 2005, and in spite of their sanguinary rhetoric about how much they could pump if they chose, they've refused to increase output until a few months ago, so far by just 200,000bpd.
More and more observers have been thinking that Matthew Simmons was right 3 years ago when he said Saudi production is peaking now.
Now the Saudis claim they'll be at 12mpd by the end of 2009. So now they're going to try to put their money where their mouth is. Now is the test of Saudi strength.
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Millstone Posted 6:40 am
05 Aug 2008
So far I am being reminded of watching Soylent Green the other week, and not in a good way :) Which by the way made me curious about what kind of impact installing one of those electricity generating exercise bikes in every home/apartment would have.
I appreciate the impact that conservation and sacrifice could have as tools to fight climate change but my belief is that they are not really going to be available until the stakes are much higher. Asking people to "turn back the clock" is difficult unless they feel that the wolf is at the door (eg WWII) or they are over a barrel (eg 70s OPEC).
I think we are certainly approaching (if not there already) to having a general feeling of being over a barrel in regards to oil. So we're already seeing some people to turn to #1 in the sacrifice list. I think where you would run into trouble is getting the people who can afford to drive as much as they want to stop.
With electricity I feel like we have a much longer time frame before, for example power outages, would really be acceptable to people in the U.S. I honestly feel if that was tried right now there would be riots in the streets. But we'll get there, hopefully not to power outages, but to sensible and responsible use.
Now as far as the danger motivation goes, that to me is much farther off. But once the world has a taste of what the more severe consequences of climate change are going to be like, we'll likely see a lot of "climate gardens".
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amazingdrx Posted 12:45 pm
05 Aug 2008
I have in mind emergency backup battery systems for storm outage and to offset power use. They pay ther own way in lower power bills. How?
You buy the system for about 500 dollars and your savings would pay for it in a year or so. Then add solar panels to charge the batteries. More savings a few years payback.
the way it works is you go on the budget plan that charges less at off peak times amd more on peak. 6 cents per kwh in off peak. Up to 42 cents per kwh on peak.
Your batteries charge up offpeak at 6 cents per kwh, you use them to power your low power needs when it would cost you 42 cents per kwh. You time your high power uses, furnaces, water heaters, washers, etc. for offpeak times.
This would be the start of a renewable energy home. And it would bridge power outages on the grid, because of storms or a transition to a reneweable smart grid.
You would sacrifice 500 dollars at first. Then maybe 800 for solar panels. Then another step ... maybe a 2000 dollar plugin hybrid rear axle for your car. The savings paying back your investment.
Or victory/climate gardens too, definitly. In the form of local organic CSAs.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 1:52 pm
05 Aug 2008
People who work in radiation areas spend a lot of time wearing protective clothing and a respirator. It may turn out that the gear releases some carcinogenic molecule not yet identified.
In some cases low level radiation may be beneficial.
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/179/5/1137
Mining coal is demanding labor. Coal miners are very healthy when they start their first day at work, yet their life expectancy is well short of the national average. The risks of coal mining overwehelm the healthy worker syndrome by a wide margin.
Close a coal mine freeing up a thousand coal miners, convert 10 to uranium mining which is much safer, to make it energy neutral, and free up the rest for low risk jobs.
http://www.me.utexas.edu/~ans/Pro/lle.html
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
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advancednano Posted 2:26 pm
05 Aug 2008
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/news.html
April 16, 2008 - Altira Group LLC - the pioneer and leader in venture capital and private equity funding for energy technology companies - announced today an investment in Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. (HPG), of Santa Fe, New Mexico. HPG is developing a new type of small, self-contained, transportable nuclear power reactor to produce heat, steam and electricity for a variety of commercial applications that require reliable power independent of the common grid.
Altira's investment in HPG was made out of the recently closed Altira Technology Fund V -- a $176 Million fund focused on venture capital for energy technologies.
Hyperion Power Generation (http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com) has licensed technology from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Under the Technology Transfer Program, HPG has the commercialization rights to introduce, license, manufacture, market and distribute the reactor invented at LANL.
About 4,000 units of the initial design will be manufactured at a new U.S. site yet to be determined. The initial rector will be a compact, self-regulating, self-contained design with no moving parts and about the size of a hot tub. Sealed at the factory, the module is not opened until it is time for the unit to be refueled -- at the factory -- approximately every five years or so. This helps guard against tampering.
Since it is portable, the reactor can be deployed virtually anywhere power is needed -- remote industrial operations such as the Alberta oil sands, military installations or communities looking to supplement grid-supplied power. Once deployed, the Hyperion module delivers approximately 70 megawatts (MW) of heat (thermal energy) and 25 megawatts (MW) of electrical power via steam turbine
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advancednano Posted 2:46 pm
05 Aug 2008
Currently about 480 Quad BTU in use in the world.
The US uses 100 Quad BTU.
OECD countries (including the USA) will be adding 25% of the world new power build. Will there be an actual programs to shift the already installed power mix in the OECD ? (ie will existing coal plants be retired ?) I will believe it when they start to get shut down.
China is forecast to add 33.3 Quad BTU. 110GW of hydroelectric being added by China 2010-2020. 50+GW of nuclear power is being added by 2020. So about 6 Quad from hydro and 4+ quad from nuclear.
As noted, China is talking about 100 AP1000 (1.25 GW-1.7GW) instead of 40 built or being built by 2020. China completed a 71000 square meter factory to mass produce assembled sections of the AP1000. The factory was made in 11 months and can make two AP1000's per year. More AP1000 factories will likely be added in China for the goal of having 100 AP1000 built or under construction by 2020.
China has committed to the mass production of high temperature reactors.
Russia is adding 40GW of nuclear and India and other countries have firm nuclear power plans. So it looks like 10+ quads based on current plans from nuclear.
The US has some new nuclear power plants with license applications. But the US will be following China, Russia and other countries with more aggressive build. Russia already has a working breeder (600MW since 1980s). They are completing an 800MW version and are in talks with Japan, S Korea and China for resale of breeder reactors and breeder tech.
At the end of 2006 the US had 11.6GW of wind. This had generated 0.258 quads of energy in 2006. So almost one hundred times that amount to displace coal usage. 1TW of wind power. Also, coal used for industrial processes probably could not be displaced by wind. High temperature nuclear reactors could supply the right thermal energy for those industrial processes.
Even McCain's plans for 45 new nuclear reactors and then 100 is a fraction of the nuclear reactor build that China is definitely going to make.
75% of the contribution that nuclear energy will definitely make is in countries where there is no doubt that it will be built.
Btw: here is technology for rendering nuclear bombs over 10 times less deadly.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/simple-and-affordable-de ...
Included are new anti-radiation drugs that are 5000 times more effective than current drugs. They are just completing a 9 month human study.
The drug is based on single-walled carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders of pure carbon that are about as wide as a strand of DNA. To form NTH, Rice scientists coat nanotubes with two common food preservatives -- the antioxidant compounds butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) -- and derivatives of those compounds.
"The same properties that make BHA and BHT good food preservatives, namely their ability to scavenge free radicals, also make them good candidates for mitigating the biological affects that are induced through the initial ionizing radiation event," James Tour (Rice University) said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080128084415 ...
Assuming success, wide distribution of that drug or other new anti-radiation drugs and gene therapy would render worst case nuclear plant accidents harmless.
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advancednano Posted 2:57 pm
05 Aug 2008
5% of power by 2020 (70GW)
16% of power by 2030 (about 1400 TWh, 200+GW)
A projected total generation of 8472 TWh and an installed capacity of 1775 GW by 2030 means that China will equal the current levels of production and capacity in the USA and the European Union combined.
http://pepei.pennnet.com/display_article/320910/17/ARTCL/ ...
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enochthered Posted 6:06 pm
05 Aug 2008
The webpage cited is filled with conclusions derived from transparently explained, quantitative, physical science, backed up by a peer reviewed paper in Science (the journal, that is) and other credible primary reference materials.
Of course it's credible information - if you want to argue with the scientific information provided, of course, you must feel free, but you'll need to put forward science yourself to respond to the science, without what is essentially argumentum ad hominem.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is "heavily invested in nukes"? I really don't think the National Laboratories of the United States are for-profit commercial enterprises.
ORNL does not do any nuclear weapons work, although they are one of the main national labs focussed on research and development in energy generation, which does include but is not at all limited to nuclear power.
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