TomH’s Recent Comments

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  when is a plant not a plant?

  When it's an installation.

  What the US needs now is real photovoltaic plants: plants that make photovoltaic cells and panels.  This is called "manufacturing," just to reimnd all those among us who have forgotten what that is.  I wonder where the real manufacturing plants for those installed panels are--Japan?  Germany?

  If a PV plant (not installation) costs $20 million (which could be a high estimate), and the war in Iraq has cost--well, let's say $200 billion--then (do the math!) we could have built 10,000 PV manufacturing plants in this country.  That's 200 per state.  Or, if we spent half on the plants and half on the associated jobs, that's 100 plants per state and $100B for jobs, which is--a billion dollars per state.

  PV is not only too cheap to meter--it makes the meters run backward.  It's very clean (using little in doping materials), and doesn't pollute in its use (though it currently does, some, in its manufacture).  Actually making it makes jobs.  All the same as wind, which it complements (when it's cloudy, it's usually windy).  Win, win, win, win, win.

  What will it take for this country to reverse its energy path?  Let's first not confuse installations with manufacturing--please.On What's Produced Here Stays Here posted 2 years, 6 months ago 2 Responses

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  critiquing sustainable development

  Three points:

  There's a reason the adjective is "sustainable" and the noun is "development."  Let's consider developing sustainability instead; the further development of ecological economics and renewable technologies will follow.

  The precursor of Brundtland's "sustainable development" was UNEP's "ecodevelopment."  When UNEP stepped on UNDP's toes (e.g., as several countries, including El Salvador, wrote ecodevelopment into their national development plans), UNDP objected and the two organizations' approaches were mediated by the WCED.

  The three-circle paradigm is fundamentally flawed.  Society rests either entirely within the environment or, if you are spiritually or religiously inclined, includes an additional metaphysical aspect.  Economic activity should be portrayed as the abstract description of the interaction between society and our environment; labor and technology are the concrete reality of that interaction.  Both economics and technology are entirely within the intersection of society and our environment, our human ecology.On How far has the movement come in the last 20 years? posted 2 years, 8 months ago 7 Responses