> I'm sorry to say that Paul has advocated the economics of *play* and
> the economics system of the Buddhists of Burma. He's favoring
> sacrifice and cold showers and a cold home in the winter, he
> dismisses the ecological benefits of moving manufacturing to orbit,
> and only concedes that SPS could be beneficial after the
> environmental program of self-sufficiency has been implemented by
> changing the entire housing stock, raping the earth to get scarce
> platinum for fuel cells, banning SUVs and curtailing other
> consumption. No regard is given to economic concerns and employment
> other than it should be restricted to communities.

I don't think I'd agree this is an accurate characterization of my
position. Might be a nice time to sum up, as you have created a nice
strawman environmentalist position here, but it indirectly touches on
most of the key issues (except perhaps avoiding militarization of space,
which I'll also leave out here).

As for employment, local energy production solutions might create more
local job and of a type accessible based on non-PhD level training. But
I have not made a huge case for job creation of local solutions relative
to SSPS (not saying it can't be made, just that I haven't pursued it in
detail, such as others have), and one might rightfully try to work out
all the job impacts of both SSPS and local PV approaches in a study in
terms of both quantity and quality and distribution of jobs and related
incomes (for example, maintaining the grid does create some local jobs).
Still, the point is that local Earth based solutions can in theory be
installed or maintained (if not produced) in their entirety by the home
owner or mechanically inclined friends or relatives (sort of like the
average linux PC installation), and so require less dependence on remote
technical elites on a second by second basis (even if they do require
reliance on some distant manufactureres periodically, absent home
nanotech Star Trek replicators). When they fail, the fail in a sense
randomly and in isolated cases and people can then rely on their
neighbors or local emergency services who still have power for
assistance -- rather than have power fail for an entire neighborhood at
once, where no one can easily render neighborly assistance. With more
technical knowledge and technical capacity dispersed throughout the
community, it is my conjecture a technical society will be in some
senses more free. [This might still be an issue of debate with some.]
Also, the more general issue of economics I make is that most work in a
modern economy is essentially optional to the life support of society,
and so it can be a good idea to rethink work so as to make it of higher
quality for the worker (even if the work then is less productive in a
material sense). And in rethinking work, one may have to rethink the
productive infrastructure for energy and other things. So, I am
suggesting considering optimizing more simultaneous variables than just
material or energy output when looking at the economic equation. Aspects
of that include social justice and inherent security and liberty, all
aspects which any energy solution like SSPS will need to address to be
amenable to support by, say, most Greens.

As for cold showers, what I'm saying is that a decentralized energy
system which requires only supplemental "luxury" power in winter still
allows one in winter to continue to live in one's home (as opposed to
evacuate to somewhere warmer) by living in a colder (but not freezing)
house and by taking hot showers less often if the supplemental power is
not available. An example of this was the off-grid Toronto house. This
is an inherently more secure solution that one where everyone in, say,
the North East uses 100% electricity for everything (and has poorly
insulated homes) where, if the SSPS network or grid went down for any
length of time, in a day or two all homes in the North East during
winter would become unlivable -- requiring mass evacuations of millions
of people from their homes. Any solution to this problem of mass
evacuation probably then requires more local energy storage, which is
part of what I am arguing for in the first place. In general though,
despite attempts by some to label this as "Luddite", I am simply
advocating advanced technology of a specific sort (better insulation,
cheaper PV, more efficient motors, hybrid cars, fuel cells) to allow one
to do more with less, while also saying for some people maybe sometimes
doing less with less is also doing more (more free time for family and
social pursuits). I am not saying doing "more with more" is inherently
morally wrong -- it is just wrong if you don't pay for all the external
costs -- and one of those external costs is increased defense spending
to secure energy supply lines; another external cost is increased
internal security ("papers, please") to defend internal supply lines. So
I am advocating a decentralized approach I see as reducing some of those
security related external costs. One may legitimately point out that
decentralized solutions have their own problems (people falling off
roofs, local energy supplies exploding with toddlers burned, etc.).

I think everybody agrees reducing pollution (if there was no cost) would
be a good thing -- some experts suggest it is responsible for about 50%
of cancers, it incontrovertable it can and has damaged ground water
supplies (like with MTBE), it creates risks for future generations
(nuclear), it can damage the human genetic structure (resulting in
future human generations of problems from current consumption), and so
on. Other "deep ecology" thinkers go further and say it harms the human
spirit by making the world uglier and a less nice place to live, that
other non-human beings have some sort of right to existence, and so on.
The issue of dealing with pollution then in some sense revolves around
cost -- such as fairly attributing external costs and looking at how
much are what people willing and able to pay for what more expensive
industrial processes which produce how much less pollution (assuming
less pollution processes are more expensive, which is a hotly debated
topic, since creativity often allows one to produce more with less
pollution by using different manufacturing processes and there are many
examples of this, such as using moving to citrus based cleaners in PC
board manufacturing). Some forms of pollution, like landfills, by
themselves (ignoring related ground water pollution) may not be a long
term problem if creativity like in nanotech allows them to be turned
into treasure mines (what I think when I throw things out these days).

So, as for pollution and SSPS, my position is that SSPS only solves the
energy production part of the pollution problem -- which I assert
(without evidence, admittedly) is only somewhere between 1% to 10% of
the overall world pollution problem. Thus, SSPS is at best only a minor
contribution to solving environmental pollution overall. One may
legitimately dispute this percentage -- but no one here has yet. The
only long term solution is rethinking manufacturing and other productive
and distributive processes to produce less pollution -- ideally no
pollution through 100% recycling and various closed loop manufacturing
processes as well as using materials that safely biodegrade into
relatively harmless products. One can argue that greatly increased clean
power from SSPS will allow more recycling through new energy intensive
industrial processes, but I think that stops short of looking at the
whole issue.

What follows is a complex point and I wish I knew a way to make it
clearer. Since SSPS makes such a minor contribution IMHO to solving the
pollution problem directly, I do not think it is worth a trillion dollar
or whatever investment for SSPS on that ground alone considering
alternative investments of that money, especially because if we had
non-polluting manufacturing processes then the production of PV and
other alternative technology systems would be non polluting (and you
rightly point out alternative energy systems do at the very least create
pollution when they are made). If we don't have these nonpolluting
manufacturing processes, then reducing pollution by 1-10% annually in
the long term will make little difference to the health of future
generations or the biosphere. Note that in general, incremental steps
towards reducing pollution can be good, but in this case, by focusing
only on energy production, I am simply saying they are inadequate long
term, and once long term pollution free manufacturing cycles are in
place, then local energy production will be competitive on a pollution
basis with SSPS.

This is a complex statement on pollution and energy production, and your
rebuttals of it continue to be of a sort of "he doesn't acknowledge that
reducing 10% of world pollution is a good thing" kind. That isn't my
point. I'll grant you that manufacturing in space will long term be
feasible and not pollute the Earth's biosphere (which is one reason why
99.99% of the trillions of humans alive in 3000AD [if we survive current
crises and mature as a species] will be living in space in
self-replicating space habitats). My point is that we either solve the
manufacturing process pollution issues on Earth or we are up to our ears
in toxic waste on Earth in a thousand years -- with or without SSPS.
Materials or products imported from space will still leave us with being
buried in such goods in 1000 years. And if we solve those production and
recycling issues, than it makes little difference if we manufacture
energy collectors in space or on Earth.

Half of you arguments against local PV center around the economic cost
of PV and the toxic waste produced by PV, which improved manufacturing
technology would address. The other half revolves around a place to put
the panels, intermittent energy storage possibilities, and maintenance
costs and complexity -- which are all valid concerns, though we disagree
on the feasibility of resolving these now or in 20 years time (such as
with Hydrogen derived propane cogeneration or other power storage and
regeneration systems). On your side, there is also the (ignored) issue
with the pollution cost of maintaining an expanded grid as SSPS implies
-- although I have no hard facts on whether this will generate more
pollution than PV production with todays technology. I'm not saying you
don't have legitimate concerns, just that we disagree on whether and how
those concerns can be addressed on Earth and in what time frame and who
will pay for them.

As for SUVs, which are an example of a larger class of luxury goods,
while I'd say that current light truck based SUVs are a bad idea for
most drivers and for drivers of other non-SUV cars (for safety and
economic and cargo handling reasons) that is based mainly based on the
notion that SUV owners do not pay the full cost for the oil they use or
the safety risks they present others (among other issues). If SUV owners
(and everyone else) were paying $25/gallon for gas, and if SUV owners
had much higher insurance premiums on the order of $20K per year (which
still doesn't quite address real pain and suffering for accidents they
cause occupants or other drivers), then SUVs would not be such a big
issue, because most people would realize they were a foolish choice as
far as making a social statement in most situations. Another way to
address SUV safety issues might be, like in _2081_ to have the SUVs (RVs
in the book) drive themselves according to safe handling algorithms
using GPS. I will agree that for some applications a light truck like a
typical SUV is a good choice -- but those applications are rare in the
USA (like emergency service providers like EMTs for use in areas needing
high ground clearance like over unplowed snow). For the rare times when
a owner of a different type of vehicle needs light truck like
characteristics of an SUV (an off-road vacation?), they could even more
cheaply overall for themselves and society rent one. In short, SUVs are
a poor choice for commuting (how most of them are used). Producing lots
of cheap power for SUVs does address part of the SUV problem, but not
all of it (like remaining safety issues, but also extra manufacturing
cost of a larger light truck vehicle). The Car Talk guys go into this in
depth on their site.

While I'd agree many so called environmentalists may not be systems
thinkers and the solutions some propose are counterproductive, and you
are right in that many environmentalists are in a sense arguing for
both preserving the environment and also for achieving some form of
social justice (which causes confusion in their messages), in general
the case many can make is much more complex and nuanced then what you
typically outline, and if the SSPS idea (or space settlement in general)
is to engage environmentalists or those pushing for social justice, it
will to adapt to the sort of issues I have raised.

I have tried to try to reconcile the environmental and space settlement
positions by both stating self-replicating space habitats could be
designed and built in people's free time as an end in themselves and as
a way to promote a hopeful future for exponential human and ecosystem
population growth for another millenia and as a way to think about life
support technology for small systems wherever they are (land, sea,
space), and also suggesting that SSPS which generate the "luxury" 10-20%
of power not easily generated locally might be acceptable to people
arguing for decentralization, social justice and so on. (This still
ignores any potential safety issues with microwave transmission etc.
which is a whole other issue, and the one most environmentalists start
with because it is so obviously unfamiliar -- so I leave that debate for
others. :-)

I have appreciated the debate, as you've made me think a lot about my
position, and revisit numbers and justifications I haven't really looked
much at in a decade or so. (And thanks also to the people who say it
has been an interesting or informed debate. :-)

All the best.

--Paul Fernhout

P.S. I'll admit this is starting to get repetitive, so I think I may
have reached the law of diminishing returns of discussing most of these
issues.

--- In ssi_list@... "Paul D. Fernhout"

> I don't think I'd agree this is an accurate characterization of my
> position.

I apologize for the mischaracterization and having read your entire
post before starting my reply I think it's best that you've
characterized youself in your own words. To tell the truth, in terms
of succinct summary I think I did you justice. Of course you put
more nuance into your position with increased length.

> Might be a nice time to sum up, as you have created a nice
> strawman environmentalist position here,

I think not, but I'd welcome specific rebuttals of points I've
raised that characterize the general position of environmentalists.

> As for employment, local energy production solutions might create
> more local job . . .

I included this part of the critique because the post I made wasn't
supposed to be portraying you and the debate we had, for we never
did touch on this point. This specifically references a Green
economic policy of looking for local self-sustainable communities.
This runs counter to much of the work on efficiency within economics.

> Also, the more general issue of economics I make is that most work
> in a modern economy is essentially optional to the life support of
> society, and so it can be a good idea to rethink work so as to
> make it of higher quality for the worker (even if the work then is
> less productive in a material sense). And in rethinking work, one
> may have to rethink the productive infrastructure for energy and
> other things.

This actually supports my point that much of the Green platform is
anti-Capitalist and looking to institute a more Socialist/Communist
economic system, and quite plauasibly a Socialist, Communist,
Marxist, Trotskyite political system as well. I've read the Green
Party platform in its entirety. This is also what Dr. Moore, the
founder of Greenpeace, was referring to when he mentioned the influx
of Pro-Communist groups into the environmental movement post-Soviet
Union era.

> As for cold showers, what I'm saying is that a decentralized
> energy system which requires only supplemental "luxury" power in
> winter still allows one in winter to continue to live in one's
> home (as opposed to evacuate to somewhere warmer)

As others have pointed out - how often do you have to evacuate your
home because of power failure?

This comes down to the same type of question of how much is a life
worth? If you have to design a car, let's say, that absolutely
prevents every threat to life, then the expense of making that car
will be astronomical. Carmakers look at probability of risk and make
judgements accordingly. Of course, some judgements are negligent,
but that's a matter for the courts.

> by living in a colder (but not freezing) house and by taking hot
> showers less often if the supplemental power is not available.

Most people don't want to live this way over the course of an entire
Winter season. Just when they want to feel warmer in their homes,
they have to confront a major amount of rationing of energy and
heat. Again this mindset references the Green ideology that I wrote
about.

> like landfills, by themselves (ignoring related ground water
> pollution) may not be a long term problem if creativity like in
> nanotech allows them to be turned into treasure mines (what I
> think when I throw things out these days).

From my understanding, the Greens are opposed to nanotechnology even
more than they are to GM Foods.

> So, as for pollution and SSPS, my position is that SSPS only
> solves the energy production part of the pollution problem --
> which I assert (without evidence, admittedly) is only somewhere
> between 1% to 10% of the overall world pollution problem. Thus,
> SSPS is at best only a minor contribution to solving environmental
> pollution overall.

Your playing sleight of hand here. SPS solves 100% of the pollution
caused by energy production. If all that SPS energy had to be
provided by wind turbines or rooftop PV, the creation of all those
turbines and PVs would cause a lot of pollution. That's the issue.
All the other pollution would remain in place whether your home was
getting power via SPS or a backyard wind turbine.

Also, if as you write, SPS is only a minor contribution to solving
the environmental problem and therefore shouldn't be implemented,
would you be consistent and also advocate that the Kyoto Treaty
should be scrapped because it only slows down pollution levels by
six years? (x pollution in 2025 with Kyoto, x pollution in 2019
without Kyoto.) This is exactly the same logic you're employing.

> The only long term solution is rethinking manufacturing and other
> productive and distributive processes to produce less pollution --
> ideally no pollution through 100% recycling and various closed
> loop manufacturing processes as well as using materials that
> safely biodegrade into relatively harmless products.

You're invoking magic technology to institute the values of the
Green movement that I wrote about. Further, with SPS you could still
institute your magic. There is no reason to go the route of
wind/solar/hydrogen.

This is transformational and expensive and challenging to implement.
This speaks to the societal reordering of values and principles that
are at the heart of the Green movement.

> My point is that we either solve the manufacturing process
> pollution issues on Earth or we are up to our ears in toxic waste
> on Earth in a thousand years -- with or without SSPS.

This is the same type of midset exhibited by Paul Erhlich, the Club
of Rome, Malthus, etc. It's been disproven time and time again. It
has been shown that as societies get wealthier they do spend more on
environmental mitagation. The US is cleaner today than it was 40
years ago despite the fact of increased energy use. Do yourself a
favor and read Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmentalist" for he too was
a rabid environmentalist and the data forced him to reassess his
position. I'm sure you'll dismiss much of his argument but at least
you'll have data that is counter to your world view. Break out of
the same sources of incestuous amplification. Just take a wquick
peek.

> Half of you arguments against local PV center around the economic
> cost of PV and the toxic waste produced by PV, which improved
> manufacturing technology would address.

What improved technology? There is currently no such thing as cost-
neutral pollution-free manufacturing.

> The other half revolves around a place to put the panels,
> intermittent energy storage possibilities, and maintenance costs
> and complexity -- which are all valid concerns, though we disagree
> on the feasibility of resolving these now or in 20 years time
> (such as with Hydrogen derived propane cogeneration or other power
> storage and regeneration systems).

Yes, we disagree. I've analyzed a few of the *most* efficient
storage technologies available and shown you their limits. You just
wave them away and hold fast to your ideology. This is where the
author of the EcoNot.com site was quite right in his assessment that
one can't use science, reason, or economics to argue with an
environmentalist. I'd expect you to specifically refute my analysis
and point out errors in order to invalidate it. Otherwise I'd expect
you to look at your worldview and realize that it can't come to be
for very valid reasons. You do neither and I'm left to assume that
this is so because logic, science, and economics are thoroughly
trumped by ideology. There are many in the Green movement who share
this characteristic with you.

> As for SUVs, which are an example of a larger class of luxury
> goods, while I'd say that current light truck based SUVs are a bad
> idea for most drivers and for drivers of other non-SUV cars

As Valens pointed out, it is the consumer's choice to buy SUVs and
other luxury goods. What you're displaying is the Green tendency to
reorder society with their vision. This type of social enegineering
is exactly what the Soviets did.

> While I'd agree many so called environmentalists may not be
> systems thinkers and the solutions some propose are
> counterproductive, and you are right in that many
> environmentalists are in a sense arguing for both preserving the
> environment and also for achieving some form of social justice
> (which causes confusion in their messages), in general the case
> many can make is much more complex and nuanced then what you
> typically outline,

Thak you for the agreement.

In broad strokes I think I got it right, in that their primary
concern, when push comes to shove, isn't with the environment but
with social engineering.

Also, it's not for me to make their nuanced case, as long as I don't
mischaracterize it, which I haven't. I'm not going to write their
manifesto for them.

> and if the SSPS idea (or space settlement in general) is to engage
> environmentalists or those pushing for social justice, it will to
> adapt to the sort of issues I have raised.

How do fire and water reach a compromise? The Green movement has a
large core of anti-human and anti-technology followers. Read the
Greenpeace founder's website. SPS stands for everything to which
they are opposed.

Their criticism of SPS would be even more rabid because they would
view it as the precursor to the disposable Earth syndrome and they'd
be fighting us to abort the effort before it literally got off the
ground.

> I have tried to try to reconcile the environmental and space
> settlement positions by both stating self-replicating space
> habitats could be designed and built in people's free time as an
> end in themselves

Others more qualified than I have raised objections to this point of
yours, but here too you just dismiss their objections.

> (And thanks also to the people who say it has been an interesting
> or informed debate. :-)

Yes, it's good to read that other's are following the debate. Also
let me extend thanks to you for a good debate effort.

> P.S. I'll admit this is starting to get repetitive, so I think I
> may have reached the law of diminishing returns of discussing most
> of these issues.

Just starting? :) LOL

TangoMan

>>> by living in a colder (but not freezing) house and by taking hot
>>> showers less often if the supplemental power is not available.
>
> Most people don't want to live this way over the course of an entire
> Winter season. Just when they want to feel warmer in their homes,
> they have to confront a major amount of rationing of energy and
> heat. Again this mindset references the Green ideology that I wrote
> about.

Despite my best attempts to be clear, you sometimes continue to ignore
and misrepresent my points (hopefully not intentionally). I said "if the
supplemental power is not available" during winter. During normal winter
times, there can be plenty of hot showers (although the cost for extra
supplemental fuel might go up for energy use beyond some baseline). The
point is that in a natural disaster or terrorist strike at centralized
energy sources in winter, resulting in a long term power outage, in the
_Soft Energy Paths_ vision Amory Lovins suggests people with distributed
power generation just take less or shorter showers, whereas in the
vision you suggest with SSPS and reliance on the Grid millions of people
are in mortal danger when the centralized systems fail.

Will the grid go down for a long time? People are right in saying it has
been overall fairly reliable so far in the US. In general, networks of
peers are a good thing as far as reliability. Still, the grid did go
down and is still down in many places months later in Iraq. The more
dependent people are on centralized or monopolized systems, the more
attractive a target those systems are for terrorism or military action,
and in this sense, the more likely they are to fail catastrophically
long term in a potentially hostile world situation (whether from state
terror or religious terror or economic terror or just the impact of
unsettled weather from climate change).

Yes, the grid has proven fairly reliable in the past. The point is it is
now at near capacity in many areas (like CA), less well maintained, and
is at risk of systematic attack, as the book Brittle Power defines in
footnoted detail. (A reference source I continue to recommend.)

>>> Half of you arguments against local PV center around the economic
>>> cost of PV and the toxic waste produced by PV, which improved
>>> manufacturing technology would address.
>
> What improved technology? There is currently no such thing as cost-
> neutral pollution-free manufacturing.

As you point out below, many forms of technology have been getting
cleaner over time -- when people have the time to pay some attention to
them and consider different solutions. There is no reason in theory we
can not have cleaner production technology (say if it is mainly carbon
and ceramic based, like proposals for various space settlement options),
just like there is no reason in theory we can't have SSPS. Dealing with
specific practical issues (like unexpected space fungus causing
equipment failures on Mir) may be a different story.

>>> So, as for pollution and SSPS, my position is that SSPS only
>>> solves the energy production part of the pollution problem --
>>> which I assert (without evidence, admittedly) is only somewhere
>>> between 1% to 10% of the overall world pollution problem. Thus,
>>> SSPS is at best only a minor contribution to solving environmental
>>> pollution overall.
>
> Your playing sleight of hand here. SPS solves 100% of the pollution
> caused by energy production. If all that SPS energy had to be
> provided by wind turbines or rooftop PV, the creation of all those
> turbines and PVs would cause a lot of pollution. That's the issue.
> All the other pollution would remain in place whether your home was
> getting power via SPS or a backyard wind turbine.
>
> Also, if as you write, SPS is only a minor contribution to solving
> the environmental problem and therefore shouldn't be implemented,
> would you be consistent and also advocate that the Kyoto Treaty
> should be scrapped because it only slows down pollution levels by
> six years? (x pollution in 2025 with Kyoto, x pollution in 2019
> without Kyoto.) This is exactly the same logic you're employing.

It's not the same logic, and I said why in my earlier post. It's like
I'm banging my head against a wall here. :-)

First off, "SPS solves 100% of the pollution caused by energy
production" is a misleading statement because you ignore pollution
issues related to maintaining or expanding the grid on Earth, and also
ignore creating and maintaining rectenna farms, any launch costs to
support SSPS, etc. Maybe it is mostly true if by production you mean
energy capture in space -- but the implication is not true if production
includes all the environmental costs in getting power to the Earth bound
consumer (which includes using ground receivers and the grid). This is,
of course, why it makes sense for future trillions of people to live in
space and consume their power there (rather than on Earth), where such
environmental problems can be more easily dealt with. :-) And ultimately
also why local power production is the way to go on Earth.

As I said, either either we solve the recycling problem on Earth and
have (near) zero emissions manufacturing for everything or we don't. If
we do invent such technology, PV production will not pollute at all, so
your arguments agaisnt using it will be invalidated. If we don't invent
such technology, leaving 90% of the pollution around every year instead
of 100% just prolongs ecological and human health disaster a bit, so
SSPS doesn't really get us much considering the scope of the investment
which otherwise could be applied to improving manufacturing to pollute
less (10% gains should be easy to achieve for a trillion dollars).
[Unless you argue global warming/cooling or acid rain is the most
pressing issue above all other forms of pollution; but you don't seem to
be doing that.]

So on a dollar for dollar basis, I'm saying investment in less polluting
manufacturing and recycling technology is a better investment overall to
reduce pollution on Earth than SSPS -- if 90%+ of pollution come from
manufacturing, use, and disposal of goods as opposed to energy
production. Let's see how you refute this -- you'll need to claim a
trillion dollars spend on manufacturing R&D will produce less overall
pollution reduction than elimninating all energy related pollution.
Perhaps the case can be made; I'll be curious to see if you can make it.
Historically though, there are many clear examples of R&D investments on
manufacturing reducing pollution -- since ultimately pollution, be it
noise pollution (wasted energy), released chemicals (wasted solvents),
or a landfilled item (wasted materials) is all waste -- and there is
often a good profit to be made in reducing waste. And such investments
can be made incrementally, whereas SSPS investments need to be made all
at once and require a long time scale.

Also, the SSPS scenario calls for all the world to raise to the current
US manfacturing technology, and so an SSPS future without improved
manufacturing technology means annual pollution will still go up many
times worlwide. Yet, if you claim SSPS will be used in conjunction with
zero emissions manufacturing technology, then the same technology can
create pollution free PV systems. You refuse to either acknowledge or
see this point. You try to have it both ways, without looking at all the
energy production and consumption system issues. Investments in better
manufacturing technology can leverage across all of humanity as they
come up (or down :-) to the US standard of materialistic living, perhaps
then producing more total potential pollution reduction than an
investment in pollution free energy production.

You could argue we shoudl do both -- SSPS and zero emission
manufacturing, but then we get back to PV (and likely local storage
solutions) in that case being pollution free.

> I'd expect you to specifically refute my analysis and point out
> errors in order to invalidate it. Otherwise I'd expect you to look at
> your worldview and realize that it can't come to be for very valid
> reasons. You do neither and I'm left to assume that this is so
> because logic, science, and economics are thoroughly trumped by
> ideology. There are many in the Green movement who share this
> characteristic with you.

Writing something like this does not make it so. What am I supposed to
make of a claim like this?

As I have show (including above) when I refute your points, you often
ignore the refutations or just repeat your original point or change the
issue. For example, one of the strongest supports for my position is
that I cite an off grid house in Toronto built economically (which you
claimed was impossible).
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/popup/hhtoronto/works.htm
"What is truly amazing is that CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto provides
all the comforts of home - without using municipal services. It has been
designed to rely on sun and precipitation as the basis of its heating,
electrical, water and waste water management systems. And right from the
start, the way it is built and the materials used in construction mean
more comfort, less maintenance and lower operating costs. That goes for
the landscaping, too. CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto is located near
public transportation, and is designed to provide maximum usable space
on a minimum amount of land, to limit air and water pollution, and to
use locally available materials and durable renewable resources wherever
possible. It is an affordable solution to housing now that will keep on
working for many years to come."

That one example proves much of my case for the feasibility of
distributed power generation coupled with energy efficiency, and you
conveniently just continue to ignore it. There it is -- a home in a
Northern climate producing all its own power and pleasant and afforable
to live in. It is exactly what you say is impossible and uneconomical
and unsafe -- but it exists and is afforable and supposedly a nice place
to live. (I'll admit, retrofitting is typically a harder and more
expensive process than new construction, although it can be done
incrementally with each step in energy savings funding the next.)

How do you rebut that house? You can't. So you continue to ignore it.
Go ahead, tell me why that house doesn't really exist.

Admittedly, it probably has a propane tank, although that external fuel
supplement is probably 10% or so of what a "average" house uses.
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/popup/hhtoronto/elect.htm
" SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC PANELS Provides approx. 80% of electrical
requirements."
"CO-GENERATOR UNIT Provides heat (and electricity) when passive solar
heat or photovoltaic (PV) generated electricity is insufficient."
" BATTERIES Sufficient electrical energy storage for 4 days without
sunshine." And also admittedly, part of their cost equation seems to
involve a cheaper cost of land without utilities.

Still, this approach is economic now without even addressing the issue
of the external costs of fossil fuels which would greatly swing the
economic equation in the favor of such a home. This notion of having
some local liquid fuel storage for temporary shortages makes nonsense of
your arguments for vast storage tanks. Liquid fuels can be made locally
from bioregionally appropriate approaches, including biomass, hydro,
wind, or PV (using carbon sequestation from the air) -- or at the very
least it can be done with just 10% of the fossil fuel use average homes
use now, which is a big improvement and is a stop gap until even cheaper
PV and better storage solutions are available in the future.

This is exactly how homes may evolve over the next twenty years for
simple physical reasons -- with the right technology you can get almost
100% of the energy out of fuels by using it locally in a cogeneration
system, as opposed to getting power from an electric grid which now
loses almost 80-90% of the heat value of fuels between 33% conversion
efficiency and 50-66% transmission losses -- which is another reason
over the grid may become uneconomic before SSPS could start delivering
power. It is not prudent to hypothesize an economic case for SSPS
relying on projections which do not take in account this improvement in
home building technology (or related ones in automobiles or
manufacturing efficiency -- or even just voluntary simplicity). I'll
freely admit a limited use of SSPS to produce power in special
circumstances may be economical or sensible once we have habitats for
other reasons (ignoring microwave issues) and SSPS don't have to repay
habitat etc. costs -- but that is not the economic case made for
investing in SSPS.

I point out how maintaining the grid puts a bottom ceiling on the cost
of grid delivered electricity of at least $0.05 / kWh (perhaps more if
the grid is expanded if everyone uses it) and that when local power
production costs drop below that (and some already are, like wind at
some sites) any grid use (even for backup) will not make economic sense.
And I have shown announcements of forthcoming PV and thermionic
technology in that price range (even with today's current economic
landscape tilted in favor of fossil fuels and centralized nukes by a
preponderance of government subsidies and tax preferences and lack of
external cost accounting). Even if such announcements turn out to be
vaporware, there is no physical reason they cannot work -- same as the
approach for arguments you use to justify SPSs being possible and
economical.

This is just to show such homes are possible and economic. The other
issue is preferability from a national security civil defense and
defense of liberty standpoint.

Anyway, I'm waiting to see a rebuttal on the Toronto house. According to
the web site, it exists and it works and it is afforable. Even in the
USA does not adopt such housing systems, foreward thinking people around
the world where housing stock is more rapidly being created (India,
China?) may -- leaving only the USA with an obsolete housing stock
dependant on SSPS and thus vulnerable.

>> My point is that we either solve the manufacturing process
>> pollution issues on Earth or we are up to our ears in toxic waste
>> on Earth in a thousand years -- with or without SSPS.
>
> This is the same type of midset exhibited by Paul Erhlich, the Club
> of Rome, Malthus, etc. It's been disproven time and time again. It
> has been shown that as societies get wealthier they do spend more on
> environmental mitagation.

It is not quite the same mindset because I am assuming that such
problems can be solved through innovation (like improved PV production
that produces no or little pollution). We just disagree on how best to
solve them. How can you even write this when I've even previously cited
some of Julian Simon's work?

In any case, you here basically argue implicitly the production of PV
and wind power in a few decades will pose no environmental problem if we
go down that route because any pollution issues will be resolved because
people decide to be innovative. So, you just proved my point! And then,
any argument for SSPS on environmental grounds instead of local PV is
rendered moot.

> The US is cleaner today than it was 40 years ago despite the fact of
> increased energy use.

In some ways, not in others. For example there is MTBE from gasoline in
drinking water now.
http://www.epa.gov/mtbe/
Biodiversity is declining. Many surface waters are more polluted with
bacteria because of leaking septic systems (because people have not yet
adopted composting toilets etc and continue to discharge sewage into the
environment). But yes, we don't have as much horse manure in the streets
anymore.

> Do yourself a favor and read Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmentalist"
> for he too was a rabid environmentalist and the data forced him to
> reassess his position. I'm sure you'll dismiss much of his argument
> but at least you'll have data that is counter to your world view.
> Break out of the same sources of incestuous amplification. Just take
> a wquick peek.

Lomborg evidentally sounds a little he has taken a page from Rush
Limbaugh's playbook: find extreme examples and discredit them to try to
discredit an entire movement.

Perhaps you might want to read this from The Danish Committees on
Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) on Lomborg's work:
http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm
"Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration
is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. In view
of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross
negligence, however, Bjrn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the
bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed
clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice."

For example, here's the section from that page on energy:

"John P. Holdren: "Energy: Asking the Wrong Questions"
Bjrn Lomborg's chapter on energy covers a scant 19 pages and is devoted
almost entirely to attacking the belief that the world is running out of
energy, a belief that BL appears to regard as part of the "environmental
litany". But only a handful of environmental researchers, if any at all,
believe this today. Conversely, what they do say about this topic is
that we are not running out of energy, but out of environment, i.e. the
capacity of air, water, soil and biota to absorb, without intolerable
consequences for human well-being, the effects of energy extraction,
transport, energy transformation and energy use. [Note: these also apply
to the consequences of using SSPS to power conventional manufacturing.]
They also say that we are running out of the ability to manage other
risks of the energy supply, such as overdependence on Middle East oil
and the risk of nuclear energy systems leaking weapons materials and
expertise into the hands of proliferation-prone nations or terrorists.
This has been the position of the environmental researchers for decades
(e.g. from 1971, 74, 76 and 77).

So whom is BL so resoundingly refuting with his treatise on the
abundance of world energy resources? The professional analysts have not
been arguing that the world is running out of energy, only that the
world could run out of cheap oil. BL's dismissive rhetoric
notwithstanding, this is not a silly question, nor one with an easy answer.

Oil is currently the most valuable of the conventional fossil fuels that
have long provided the bulk of the world's energy, including almost all
energy for transport. The quantity of recoverable oil resources is
thought to be far less than coal and natural gas, and those reserves
are located in the politically volatile Middle East. Much of the rest is
located offshore and in other difficult and environmentally fragile
areas. There is, accordingly, a serious technical literature, produced
mainly by geologists and economists, exploring the questions of when
world oil production will peak and begin to decline, and what the price
might be in 2010, 2030 or 2050 - with considerable disagreement among
informed professionals.

BL seems not to recognize that the transition from oil to other sources
will not necessarily be a smooth one or occur at prices as low as the
price of oil today. BL shows no sign of understanding why there is real
debate about this among serious-minded people.

BL offers no explanation of the distinction between "proved reserves"
and "remaining ultimately recoverable resources", nor of the fact that
the majority of the latter category is located in the Middle East, but
placidly informs us that it is "imperative for our future energy supply
that this region remains reasonably peaceful" - as if that observation
does not undermine any basis for complacency.

BL is right in his basic proposition that the resources of oil, oil
shale, nuclear fuels and renewable energy are immense. But that is
disputed by only few environmental researchers-and no well-informed
ones. But his handling of the technical, economic and environmental
factors that will govern the circumstances and quantities in which these
resources might actually be used is superficial, muddled and often plain
wrong. His mistakes include apparent misreadings and misunderstandings
of statistical data, the very kinds of errors he claims are pervasive in
the writings of environmentalists. By the same token, there are other
elementary blunders of a type that should not be committed by any
self-respecting statistician. Thus, it is wrong that measures in the
developed countries have eliminated the vast majority of SO2 and NO2
from smoke from coal-burning facilities: it is only a minor proportion.
Other examples are given, and when it comes to nuclear energy, plutonium
is such a great security problem as regards the potential production of
nuclear weapons that it may preclude use of the "breeding" approach
unless a new technology is invented that is just as cheap.

BL uses precise figures, where there is no basis for such, and he
produces assertions based on single citations and without detailed
elaborations, which is far from representative of the literature.

Most of what is problematic about the global energy picture is not
covered by BL in the chapter on energy but in the chapters dealing with
air pollution, acid rain, water pollution and global warming. The latter
has been devastatingly critiqued by Schneider.

There is no space to deal with the other energy-related chapters, but
their level of superficiality, selectivity and misunderstandings is
roughly consistent with what has been reviewed here.

Lomborg is giving skepticism - and statisticians - a bad name."

Or just read some of the less than glowing Amazon reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521010683/102-0414217-4228910?v=glance
Like from Reviewer: Bill Dwyer:

"This book is a an excellent testament to the adage "a little knowledge
can be dangerous". Yes, it's true that some evironmental and social
activists have made some bold claims that turn out to be unsupported by
data. Lomborg does a fine job of showing us how baseless some of the
more outlandish of these claims are (e.g. we are headed for a world food
shortage - not true). However, the book's weakness is that Lomborg
himself ends up drawing equally erroneous conclusions to prove HIS point.

...

In conclusion, I will make a two-sided recommendation. If you really
believe the claims that the Worldwatch Institute makes when it says we
are headed for widespread famine, blackouts, and flooding (due to global
warming), you had better read this book! These things are just not true.
However, if you're reasonably savvy about the world and just want an
opinion on mainstream environmental stewardship, I think this book will
disappoint you."

>>> Also, the more general issue of economics I make is that most work
>>> in a modern economy is essentially optional to the life support of
>>> society, and so it can be a good idea to rethink work so as to
>>> make it of higher quality for the worker (even if the work then is
>>> less productive in a material sense). And in rethinking work, one
>>> may have to rethink the productive infrastructure for energy and
>>> other things.
>
> This actually supports my point that much of the Green platform is
> anti-Capitalist and looking to institute a more Socialist/Communist
> economic system, and quite plauasibly a Socialist, Communist,
> Marxist, Trotskyite political system as well. I've read the Green
> Party platform in its entirety. This is also what Dr. Moore, the
> founder of Greenpeace, was referring to when he mentioned the influx
> of Pro-Communist groups into the environmental movement post-Soviet
> Union era.

Paraphrasing somebody (?): "Capitalism is an interesting idea, too bad
it has never been tried." To learn why, see for example:
http://www.capitalism.org/
[No drug war, no taxes, no racism, no fractional reserve banking, etc.]
SPace habitats might give some peole the option to try something like
capitalism as a lifestyle -- be careful visiting there if you don't want
to breath someone else's external costs...

I think a really Green perspective (coupled with Schumacher's economic
ideas) is more about transcending conventional economic thinking to make
a world that works for more people and creatures (even many wealthy
people who, given the law of diminshing returns of ever more wealth,
might actually be happier overall if there was less wealth disparity but
they had less to fear from contagious pandemic disease, social collapse,
nuclear war, crime, personal depression, making poor investment choices,
etc. instead of living in one gold hut in a village of 99 mud huts.)

So how about reading stuff like:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/littleredhen.html
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/millionairewannabes.htm
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/rightresponds.html
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/mythologyofwealth.htm
to show how the economic and political system (intended to be further
propped up with a monopolizeable SSPS energy delivery system controlled
by a handful of people in part using SPS based armaments and centralized
investment and decision making assumptions) is fundamentally broken and
built on a lot of misdirection and self-serving propaganda. Why extend
this into space?

For example, the fractional reserve banking system that props up such
assumptions built into out current financial world view is problematical:
http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/socialcredit/socialcredit.htm
(Still learning about this myself...)

And building on that:
http://www.douglassocialcredit.com/socialcredit/articles_asses.htm
"It has all been said before. War is not caused by leaders of nations.
It is caused by ordinary people - you and me - who fail to monitor what
their leaders are up to until it is too late. War is caused by people
being content to 'earn a living' by waged and salaried work without
asking any serious questions as to what it is all about. War occurs
because thinking people do not even try to come up with an alternative.
There Is No Alternative: TINA rules OK. It has all been said before.
Long before Stupid White Men, the first Gulf War, global deterioration,
before Vietnam, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Dresden, the Holocaust and World
War II, Eimar O'Duffy wrote about 'asses in clover', people too
comfortable to bother to THINK about what was being said and what was
actually happening. In the days before carpet bombing of cities and the
ultimate horror of nuclear weapons, O'Duffy described in graphic detail
the effects on people of chemical weapons already developed and used in
World War I: Mustard Gas, Lewisite (Dew of Death), Chlorine, Phosgene
and Prussic acid. Writing in 1933, O'Duffy warns how people in a
'civilized' nation can be persuaded that the production and use of the
grotesque weapons he describes can be justified by the experts.
'Experts' are "people who know all about a subject, and can be relied on
to prove that nothing can be done about it". There Is No Alternative.
"Says one [expert] (page reference): 'Poisonous gases in the world war
proved to be one of the most powerful weapons, and for that reason alone
will never be abandoned.' In other words, man possesses no will, and
automatically does what is expedient, however wicked it may be. "

I am suggesting we take a deep look at how things are made in our
society and how energy is used and produced, to come up more quickly
with good local solutions whih everyone can use. You appear to be still
supporting a SSPS that is at best twenty years off and only solves at
best 10% of the pollution problem (and introduces a host of new problems
related to centralized politcal and financial power and the
militarization of space). I don't want to damper your enthusiasm for
space settlement or even the technical side of SSPS. As I've said, SSPS
may be quite useful in the future. I just want to consider SSPS in a
broader perspective, and not put all our energy eggs in that one basket
-- and in the SSI context, make sure that SSI factors these issues into
its research and conference planning, lest it spend a disporportionate
amount of time promoting obsolete approaches to developing the High
Frontier (which is what I fear from reading between the lines related to
the conference and talk about a big push).

>>> As for SUVs, which are an example of a larger class of luxury
>>> goods, while I'd say that current light truck based SUVs are a bad
>>> idea for most drivers and for drivers of other non-SUV cars
>
> As Valens pointed out, it is the consumer's choice to buy SUVs and
> other luxury goods. What you're displaying is the Green tendency to
> reorder society with their vision. This type of social enegineering
> is exactly what the Soviets did.
>

What I hope I am displaying is the tendecency for a community minded
person to abhor littering and to try to end it. Just like throwing away
tin cans on the side of the highway is littering, and punisheable by a
fine, driving an SUV when you don't have to involves littering (in terms
of excess manufacturing pollution and excess fossil fuel consumption and
related pollution) because the SUV owner is not paying those external
costs. Not paying all the external costs is also true for most of the
activities people do in the US today, but SUV driving is a particularly
egregious example. So, essentially, I am arguing driving an SUV is in a
sense littering. (And it's also unsafe to the occupants and to other
drivers -- so it is antisocial for those reasons too.) So, are you
saying the USA is like the Soviet Union because it has anti-littering or
anti-dumping laws? Is it "social engineering" to be against littering?
What do you mean by social engineering anyway? All economic systems
(capitalism included) are in one way or another some form of social
engineering. Everyone believes in something or other (it's part of being
human), and the shaping of those beliefs is what social engineering
sound like. Or in another word, acculturation?
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/acculturation

Your case would be stronger rhetorically if you left out more of the
comments about what you think may or may not be my intellectual
tendencies. They make your arguments look weak. You have some good
points when they stand on their own.

All the best.

--Paul Fernhout

--- In ssi_list@... "Paul D. Fernhout"

> Despite my best attempts to be clear, you sometimes continue to
> ignore and misrepresent my points (hopefully not intentionally). I
> said "if the supplemental power is not available" during winter.

I respect you too much to intentionally misrepresent your point and
I don't think I've done it inadvertently either. In a previous post
I detailed the infrastructure that would be required to carry a
house through the Winter season and you thought it was too extensive
and that it was overkill for the rest of the year so your conclusion
was that a family could conserve during the Winter. As for the issue
of supplementing with propane, that is a cop-out to the
decentralization schema for it once again makes you dependent on a
central authority.

If I'm still characterizing your reasoning accurately, you then
argued that the MTBF was greater with propane. I don't accept that
argument as being accurate, for the grid has a very good reliabilty
record.

This leaves me to discount the cop-out solution and go back to the
completely decentralized energy solution and either you're investing
in a lot of generation equipment, less generation equipment and
seasonal storage, or sub-optimal winter generation equipment that is
sufficient for the remainder of the year. Because you've rpeviously
rejected the first two choices, this leaves only the latter choice
and that means deprivation during the Winter.

> whereas in the vision you suggest with SSPS and reliance on the
> Grid millions of people are in mortal danger when the centralized
> systems fail.

As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, you are basing this
vision as a solution to a problem that has a very low chance of
occurance. In other words, this insurance policy has a bankrupting
premium.

> The more dependent people are on centralized or monopolized
> systems, the more attractive a target those systems are for
> terrorism or military action,

Unfortunately that is a factor of modern living. That is why we can
have the density of people and the sheer number of people alive on
the Earth. Water systems are also centralized. So is the food
distribution system. So is the pharmaceutical distribution system.
If you need insulin during a snowstorm or time of war, you may run
into trouble. Should we then advocate that to mitigate against this
risk, every diabetic should have an insulin producing facility in
their home? The probability doesn't warrant taking this course of
action.

Should each home have a water generating system and a hydroponic
facility?

> As I said, either either we solve the recycling problem on Earth
> and have (near) zero emissions manufacturing for everything or we
> don't. If we do invent such technology, PV production will not
> pollute at all, so your arguments agaisnt using it will be
> invalidated.

One of the reasons policians hate answering hypothetical questions
is because the situation is no-win. You're basing your rebuttal on
magic technology. That's not a good and solid basis for rebuttal.

> If we don't invent such technology, leaving 90% of the pollution
> around every year instead of 100% just prolongs ecological and
> human health disaster a bit, so SSPS doesn't really get us much
> considering the scope of the investment which otherwise could be
> applied to improving manufacturing to pollute less (10% gains
> should be easy to achieve for a trillion dollars).

I don't want to put words in your mouth but I have to reach some
type of conclusion on what you just wrote above and that conclusion
is that saving 10% on pollution is not worth the effort. Your
bandying about the dollars and research gains is akin to handwaving.

To address the central conclusion, if saving 10% on pollution by
building SPS is not worth the effort, then why is delaying
pollution by 6 years worth the same level of investment for Kyoto
implementation?

> So on a dollar for dollar basis, I'm saying investment in less
> polluting manufacturing and recycling technology is a better
> investment overall to reduce pollution on Earth than SSPS

Prove it!

> For example, one of the strongest supports for my position is
> that I cite an off grid house in Toronto built economically (which
> you claimed was impossible).

I never claimed it was impossible and I gave a very thorough
criticism of the increased energy costs required to build the home,
the very specific siting requirements, and the archetectural
restrictions such a home requires. You never wrote anything to
acknowledge these criticisms and I let them slide because there was
always so much else to write about, but if you claim I'm ignoring
your example, then please address the criticisms first. All in all,
this design philosophy is shoving limitations down people's throats
that they may not want, all in order for a philosophical agenda to
be met.

> That one example proves much of my case for the feasibility of
> distributed power generation coupled with energy efficiency, and
> you conveniently just continue to ignore it.

I haven't. I don't understand how ignoring my critique allows you to
claim that the example proves your case?

> How do you rebut that house? You can't. So you continue to ignore
> it.

I already have. I did. I haven't.

> And I have shown announcements of forthcoming PV and thermionic
> technology in that price range (even with today's current economic
> landscape tilted in favor of fossil fuels and centralized nukes by
> a preponderance of government subsidies and tax preferences and
> lack of external cost accounting). Even if such announcements
> turn out to be vaporware, there is no physical reason they cannot
> work -- same as the approach for arguments you use to justify SPSs
> being possible and economical.

Let's not forget the subsidies that go to renewable sources. How
wind farms turn a profit based on the subsidies and thereafter
underperform their design criteria. If they were truly free-market
they wouldn't be nearly as attractive. Also look to the
externalities of wind and solar that I detailed in an earlier post
before you claim that the tax-credits are just trying to level the
amount of external costs that are picked up for oil and nuclear.

Just a point of clarification - I've never argued that SPS is
economical. My issue with your argument is centered on massive
decentralization. SPS is a proxy for other forms of centralized
power, except when the pollution issue comes into the argument and
that is when I'm specifically referring to SPS.

> Anyway, I'm waiting to see a rebuttal on the Toronto house.

Considering that between us we've probably already written a book, I
can understand how you've forgotten that I already wrote the
rebuttal. :) Just go back and look for it.

> How can you even write this when I've even previously cited
> some of Julian Simon's work?

Well, I plead guilty to the oversight. I didn't remember that you
did.

> Lomborg evidentally sounds a little he has taken a page from Rush
> Limbaugh's playbook: find extreme examples and discredit them to
> try to discredit an entire movement.

I don't think that that's a fair characterization. The conservation
principles I currently hold would have been considered very
mainstream a couple of decades ago. The movement of today is too
radical and anti-science and therefore is doing a fine job of
discrediting itself.

From your analysis of Lomborg, I see that you make no mention of the
censorship I provided details of. You quote selectively from Amazon
reviewers, and you quote criticisms of Lomborg that he addressed in
his rebuttal, the very one that Scientific American threatened to
sue him over.

I think it is only fair that if one is to rely on the criticism of a
work, one should also look to the rebuttal offered by the author.

> Perhaps you might want to read this from The Danish Committees on
> Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) on Lomborg's work:
> http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm
> "Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under
> consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific
> dishonesty. In view of the subjective requirements made in terms
> of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjrn Lomborg's
> publication cannot fall within the bounds of this
> characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly
> contrary to the standards of good scientific practice."

Yes, I've been to the site, and I recall this whole incident when it
happened. I didn't care so much then because my eyes weren't as
opened to the nature of Greenpeace and other environmentalist
organizations as they are now from the result of all of the research
and reading I've done on the matter.

Even when this fracas was going on, I thought it odd that the vested
interests and orthodoxy would sit in judgement of the man. I never
for a moment thought that they would rule counter to their
interests. I'm sure Galileo never expected the Church to actually
look at his science and rule it in accordance with scripture. That
would be too much to expect.

Also, speaking only in reference to the Scientific American article,
I'm not so sure that one should expect a fair treatment for an
assessment from a specialist whose work is criticized in the book!

The rebuttals of Lomborg, and denying him the opportunity to respond
to his critics, have all the signs of a vendetta and a lynching.
Shut the heretic up before he spreads his vile message. I grant you
that there are people who want to hear his message for ideological
reasons, but there are also people who would be surprised to read
that not all environmental science is kosher. Thereafter they may
look to claims from environmentalists with a jaundiced perspective
rather than accept those claims on authority. This diminishment of
authority is a threat to Green movements and that's why they are
eager to hammer Lomborg into the ground.

You've spent a lot of effort on denying the validity of Lomborg's
analysis but have entirely missed the point I was making. I'm not
invoking Lomborg's analysis as a proxy for my own, rather I'm
pointing to the Lomborg debacle as indicative of environmental
vested interests trying to silence a critic. There is much bad
science in the environmental movement, and good science as well, but
the bad science should be acknowledged and disavowed just as readily
as the good is accepted and implemented. It's not happening, and
policies are being advocated based on quasi-science. That's what I
have a problem with.

> (even many wealthy people who, given the law of diminshing returns
> of ever more wealth, might actually be happier overall if there
> was less wealth disparity but they had less to fear from
> contagious pandemic disease, social collapse, nuclear war, crime,
> personal depression, making poor investment choices, etc. instead
> of living in one gold hut in a village of 99 mud huts.)

This is the societal redesign I'm talking about. This is pie in the
sky, and doesn't take account of human behavior. Your offering us
salvation on many fronts and all we have to do is adopt the Green
Economic System. Of course none of your assertions are provable, we
just have to march headlong into the Green future to find our
promised rewards.

> So how about reading stuff like:
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/littleredhen.html
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/millionairewannabes.htm
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/rightresponds.html
> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/mythologyofwealth.htm

I like to read a variety of viewpoints to challenge my thinking.
This site is pretty far-out and runs coutner to a lot of theory I
picked up in school and fails the reality test of my everyday life.
It definitely offers a nice vision of what could be if they had
their way.

Also this site is pretty keen on Dennis Kucinich. Look here for my
previous post on his efforts to introduce a Bill in Congress to Ban
Mind Control Weapons in Outer Space.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/01/011002.html

"Among the weapons that it would proscribe the new measure
includes "psychotronic" devices that are "directed at individual
persons or targeted populations for the purpose of ... mood
management, or mind control."

"The Kucinich bill was hailed by Citizens Against Human Rights
Abuse, one of a number of organizations of people who say they are
victims of government experimentation involving electromagnetic and
other psychotronic weapons."

> http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/socialcredit/socialcredit.htm
> (Still learning about this myself...)

As I've stated previously, I've studied from many of the schools of
economic thought, not just neoclassical. It took some doing on my
part to find the resources to do this because of the sheer scale of
the orthodoxy of neoclassical thought. As you would guess I fully
support the post-autistic economic reform movement but even with
that said, I fear that social credit theory doesn't have many
serious adherents. I too don't have a high opinion of it. If you
want to look at some economic thought that has a little more
substance and yet is not mainstream, you could look at the work of
Thorstein Veblen and the Institutional School.

http://de.geocities.com/veblenite/institutionalism.htm

Nevertheless, the Green agenda of changing the economic system is a
massive undertaking. Even getting economists to move away from a
math-centric approach is going to be a difficult task for it is a
career killer. Economists are famous for trying to get their work
looked upon as one that is as rigorous as science and not just a
fluffy social-science. By what means will the Greens achieve their
ends?

> I am suggesting we take a deep look at how things are made in our
> society and how energy is used and produced, to come up more
> quickly with good local solutions whih everyone can use.

Would I be overstating your position by characterizing it as a
revolution of society? Our philosophies, economics, motivations,
desires and goals must all change to achieve your end-state.

> You appear to be still supporting a SSPS that is at best twenty
> years off and only solves at best 10% of the pollution problem
> (and introduces a host of new problems related to centralized
> politcal and financial power and the militarization of space).

Don't get too caught up in your conjectures. You pulled the 10%
pollution savings out of thin air. I didn't object because actually
determining that number would be a daunting task. So it's not fair
to marginalize the achievement to "10% at best." For all we know it
could turn out to be 70%.

Further, I don't accept the characterization of centralized
political and financial power and the militarization of space as
being results of SPS implementation. Nor the characterization of the
first two as problems.

> Your case would be stronger rhetorically if you left out more of
> the comments about what you think may or may not be my
> intellectual tendencies. They make your arguments look weak. You
> have some good points when they stand on their own.
>
> All the best.
>
> --Paul Fernhout

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this last paragraph. I did draw
comparisons between your positions as you've argued them and
Greenpeace positions where they are similar. And in that light I
attemped to broaden by argument so as not to direct it at you
specifically, but to the frustration I have with the Green movement.
My intention was not to use a fallacious ad hominem argument. If
that is the way it is being read, then I shall in the future refrain
from mixing my arguments and argue against the Greenpeace method
without any reference to similarities in your arguments.

To summarize my postion, which is exactly what I stated at the
beginning of this whole process, wind/solar/hydrogen are not robust
enough to form the backbone of a national energy strategy. Wind and
solar farms can be implemented and serve a useful energy and
conservation purpose, but only up to 20%-40% of total generation
requirements because of issues dealing with intermittancy and energy
storage. The wholesale change of housing stock to the very specific
limitations required of solar passive design is not a workable
solution for a national energy strategy. The probability of attack
on a SPS does not warrant incurring the costs and inefficiencies
associated with implementing massive decentralization. Therefore,
central sources of energy delivered through the grid will continue
long into the future. Whether SPS can ever be made to be cost-
effective and thus play a part in this energy infrastructure, I
don't know. If it can, then there will be substantial further gains
from reduced pollution on Earth. The pollution caused by expanding
the grid for higher power levels will be many orders of magnitude
less than that required for manufacturing and deploying the millions
of wind turbines and solar arrays.

TangoMan

A related link on Healthy Houses which are mostly self sufficient or at
least use very little resources compared to the average -- a spinoff I
think from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC's) Healthy
House effforts:
http://www.economad.com/
http://www.oceta.on.ca/profiles/economad/economad_tech.html

I think this unit is supposed to be priced around $15K - $25K (from a
PDF file I saw elsewhere). Essentially it uses a diesel generator for
cogeneration of power and heat, and also includes a wind tubine, PV
panel, Solar hot water panel, and water treatment systems.

This is the kind of thing that SSPS has to compete with long term. Any
plan for SSPS development which does not take these building and
rennovation trends into account will be problematical.

"The Eco-Nomad provides combined utility services to off-grid buildings
used for a variety of residential, commercial, and industrial
applications. Examples include rural and remote residences / cottages,
co-housing / multi-unit developments, remote tourism / commercial
facilities, temporary mining and logging camps, army deployment,
disaster relief, remote airports, and weather stations. Designed for
extreme winter weather operation, the Eco-Nomad is well suited to
applications in circumpolar countries. Installation of the
pre-fabricated and factory tested Eco-Nomad is virtually non-intrusive,
making it ideal for developments on permafrost, bedrock surfaces, or in
environmentally sensitive areas. Developing countries can avoid the high
costs of new infrastructure with an Eco-Nomad designed for the local
environment. Figure 2 shows integration of the Eco-Nomad into a
single-family residential dwelling. Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation (CMHC) and the National Research Council (NRC-IRAP) are
providing support for the development, pre-commercialization, and
in-situ testing of the unit. CMHC is integrating the Eco-Nomad into the
development and construction of the Northern Healthy House in the Eagle
Lake First Nations community near Dryden, Ontario. Architectural &
Community Planning is also developing retrofit applications, where the
self-contained unit operates outside of the existing building structure.
Multi-residential, commercial, and industrial applications are under
development for capacities of both 6-8 and 20 users per day.

The Eco-Nomad can be put on line temporarily or permanently as it is
reliant upon neither a specific dwelling nor a specific site location.
In standard configuration, the utility container houses a minimum of
nine distinct mechanical systems that can operate independently, but
operate more efficiently when integrated. The core of the Eco-Nomad
concept is the efficient use and system integration of a micro
co-generation engine used to generate electricity and heat for use in
space heating and/or domestic hot water applications. The micro
co-generation engine provides the base load of electricity, while solar
PV panels and / or a wind generator are used in a supplemental manner. A
power centre and battery banks are additional components of the
electricity system. The heat produced by the internal combustion engine
is captured through a series of heat exchangers; supplemental heat is
generated by means of solar collectors. Heat is stored in the hot water
tanks, providing domestic hot water and space heating. A radiant, in
floor heating system is preferred but for retrofit applications, a
forced air heating system can be adapted. Water for potable uses can be
sourced site specifically from groundwater, lake water, rain water, or
trucked supplies. Stored in an insulated tank located in the Eco-Nomad
subfloor, it is treated using a sand filtration system and either
iodinated resin, UV, or membrane technology. A modified septic tank in
conjunction with the Waterloo Biofilter system provides primary and
secondary wastewater treatment respectively. Recycled, clear,
non-potable water is then re-circulated for use in the toilet and
washing machine, reducing net water consumption by up to 30% and
reducing effluent treatment accordingly. Table 1 summarizes the
mechanical sub-components used for single-family / multi-residential
housing structures and small commercial / industrial applications. For
optimized operation of the equipment the R2000 insulation standard is
preferred, especially in cold climate locations. Troubleshooting is
handled through the remote monitoring system. Standard, factory
construction of the container assures quality and uniformity, while the
design allows site specific upgrades and/or modifications. An
interactive CD ROM based Operation and Service Manual for the Eco-Nomad
is under development."

Granted, it still uses some diesel fuel. Although some of that can come
from biomass. (And maybe some from SSPS derived hydrogen. :-) Or
centralized PV carbon sequestering oil producing farms. It obviously
doesn't have quite the same level of energy independence as the Toronto
Healthy house -- but it does have the advantage of modularity and
retrofitability and adresses some maintenance issues. Less integrated
systems using just PV and generators are things like Sunwize's Power
Station:
http://www.sunwize.com/products/pwrsta.html

Other links on Canadian housing:
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/homadoin/excaprex/cahoex/cahoex_001.cfm
"In Canada, where the temperature can range from +35C in the summer to
-40C in the winter, Canadian builders have learned to build homes that
can withstand extreme weather conditions. That's why Canadian-built
homes are in demand around the globe. Cool in the summer, warm in the
winter, Canadian homes are comfortable and energy-efficient all year
round. In fact, the high quality of our housing is one of the reasons
the United Nations ranks Canada as the best place in the world in which
to live. Our national building code is one of the strictest in the world
and we've learned to build a wide range of housing to this
standard-everything from high rise apartments to single family homes.
We're experienced in a variety of building techniques, including wood
and steel frame, and masonry."

A Healthy House renovation planner:
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/burema/repi/hehorepl/hehorepl_002.cfm
(Two chapters online for free -- looks like a fee based booklet.)

So, looks like the US is falling behind in yet another area of
technology... Energy efficient buildings. (That Healthy House in Toronto
was built around 1996-1997.) Although there are US initiatives (The New
Alchemy Institute had some once upon a time when it was active) so that
may be too strong a statement. Some of these efforts are in the US:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/academic/faculties/architecture/la/sustainable/links.htm

Perhaps people in the US are simply afraid to talk about how obsolete US
building practices are in terms of precipitating another housing price
drop? Or is it just that (male) contractors think putting in proper
vapor barriers and insulation with attention to precise detail is
somehow not manly enough as much as just wackign 2X4s together? Is this
an area where other nations, without a huge investment in obsolete
infrastructure will leapfrog the USA, such as when a country like India
jumps directly to cell phones instead of land lines? Does the USA (or at
least its ruling Powers) have just too much invested in old technologies
and old ways of thinking to make a move forward to something better
anytime soon? Yet, it is true SSPS fits better into this older mental
paradigm (just pipe in more power collected far away and let it leak out
a drafty old house.)

In any case, this sort of technology is available now (although
sometimes upfront pricey, but sometimes not). People will shift to it,
in the US or elsewhere. Right now it is relatively quirky and expensive
and hard to understand -- like homebrew personal computers were twenty
five to thirty years ago. In twenty to thirty years from now, these
sorts of integrated local Healthy House energy systems may be the
dominant paradigm that SSPS needs to adapt to (if it can). This is the
same as like most people these days don't even notice there is a
powerful personal computer in a $199 PlayStation 2 way beyond what
homebrew PCs used. In thirty years, most people might not even notice
all the technology providing their local power from local PV etc. It
will just work. I'll admit there is some handwaving here when I refer to
the evolution of future technologies, but SSPS has its share too.

--Paul Fernhout

Somebody forwarded me the following link:

http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-11.3925

Michael Crichton's talk to the Commonwealth Club of California this past
September, on "Environmentalism as a Religion". There's a point where
there's no real use in arguing further; as he says, "One of the defining
features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts,
because they have nothing to do with facts." Can we actually leave the
realm of religion for science here? Crichton concludes:

"Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And
if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will
enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears
and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better.
That's not a good future for the human race. That's our past. So it's
time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the
science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly
on that."

Arthur

> Somebody forwarded me the following link:
>
> http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-11.3925
>
> Michael Crichton's talk to the Commonwealth Club of California this
> past
> September, on "Environmentalism as a Religion". There's a point where
> there's no real use in arguing further; as he says, "One of the
> defining
> features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts,
> because they have nothing to do with facts." Can we actually leave the
> realm of religion for science here? Crichton concludes:
>

I must admit to being a bit mystified by this list's view of
environmentalists as deranged fanatics. While there are deranged
fanatics that call themselves environmentalists, they are a tiny
minority -- probably a smaller fraction than deranged fanatical
Christians or Muslims. I consider myself an environmentalist, as was
Teddy Roosevelt and many others. I believe a large majority of
Americans consider themselves as such (although my data on that is
old).

A close examination of the data makes it clear that mankind is having a
major impact on the planet, some of it clearly negative (try breathing
in any third world city). Anyone familiar with the state of our
knowledge of the planet knows that we haven't a clue what the effect of
our actions is going to be. Since we really need this biosphere for
our second-to-second survival, perhaps a bit of conservatism makes
sense.

With regard to SPS, it clearly has potential to provide baseline power
at a minimal, operational environmental cost. Launch activities for
construction (not to mention space colonization in general) may have a
negative effect on the atmosphere and we should be gathering data and
building models of that now to understand the effect and mitigate it at
the design stage when fixes are cheap.

The International Space Station's (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was a terrific space
station, but by the time of Tito's trip it was also old, smelly,
crowded and probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shiny,
much more roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts
of how great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

>
> I must admit to being a bit mystified by this list's view of
> environmentalists as deranged fanatics. While there are deranged
> fanatics that call themselves environmentalists, they are a tiny
> minority -- probably a smaller fraction than deranged fanatical
> Christians or Muslims. I consider myself an environmentalist, as
was
> Teddy Roosevelt and many others. I believe a large majority of
> Americans consider themselves as such (although my data on that
is
> old).

I humbly suggest you need to go out and consort with the current
crop of environmentalists to see what passes for environmentalism
today. The prevalent mode is the watermelon, green on the outside
and red on the inside. The Marxist politics and ant-modernity of
this dominant group is quite open.

I'm surmising that you probably identified yourself as an
environmentalist years ago, I know that I did decades ago. The thing
of it is that the environmentalist ethos I held years ago, while
remaining unchanged in my beliefs, no longer qualifies me as an
environmentalist by the standards of today.

Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't be an environmentalist today. The best
categorization for Roosevelt, and for those who have a concern for
the environment but don't ascribe to the anti-science, anti-human,
anti-modernity, and anti-capitalist ethos of the environmentalist
movement, is conservationist.

I disagee with your assessment of the percentage of whackos in the
movement being less than that seen in other religious movements. The
die-hard environmentalists of today are fanatic. If your primary
interest is preservation of the environment and you don't have the
agenda of societal reordering, then you're a conservationist and not
an environmentalist. The terms are no longer synonomous.

TangoMan

> I respect you too much to intentionally misrepresent your point and
> I don't think I've done it inadvertently either. In a previous post
> I detailed the infrastructure that would be required to carry a
> house through the Winter season and you thought it was too extensive
> and that it was overkill for the rest of the year so your conclusion
> was that a family could conserve during the Winter. As for the issue
> of supplementing with propane, that is a cop-out to the
> decentralization schema for it once again makes you dependent on a
> central authority.

How is it a "cop-out"? I am suggesting that right now (especially using
micro-cogeneration) we can have cost-effective home energy systems that
produce locally 80-90% of their annual power needs and use the remaining
10-20% of their power (mainly in the winter) from liquid fuel
supplements delivered semi-annually. The total amount of fossil fuels
used by such a home (if the supplement is not derived renewably) may be
10% or less of the conventional house (assuming energy efficient
construction and appliances). That is a big improvement over what we
have now. I have pointed to a house which does this,
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/imquaf/hehosu/hehosu_001.cfm
and to companies that make related off-the-shelf equipment (see
especially PolarPower or the ECO-Nomad system).
http://www.polarpowerinc.com/products/generators/cogenset.htm
http://www.economad.com/
Essentially, if the US would update its housing stock to use such
approaches (and similar ones for transportation and manufacturing) this
would solves the need to import fossil fuels and then some. Plus it
could greatly (90%) reduces CO2 etc. production. And I am suggesting
that remaining 10% or less of current fossil fuel levels of liquid fuels
could then eventually be met with locally produced liquid fuels from
biomass or other local renewables which do carbon sequestration. That is
a complete solution as far as using renewable resources. Yes, there is
some dependency for luxury power on a neighborhood energy supplier --
but it is minimal and closer at hand for observation and understanding.
And in any case -- it is "luxury" not "necessity" if it is lost in time
of adversity (from war or bad weather). This is an example of a solution
that has elements of both "meshwork and hierarchy".
http://www.mediamatic.net/cwolk/view/8492
And, as PV and storage get more efficient, the level of supplementation
needed will go down over time. So it is an incremental solution people
can invest in right now, at much lower risk than SSPS. I'll give you
that the manufacturing processes for these systems (like PV) still
produce pollution, but with some handwaving :-) I'll agree with your
earlier point that, as history shows, as our society becomes wealthier
or smarter over the next few decades this amount of pollution will be
reduced by more innovative manufacturing techniques (and I have already
pointed to companies claiming a related breakthroughs). It's not a cop
out -- it is here, it is happening, it is economical to a better and
better extent every day -- even given unpaid external costs of present
day energy systems which tilt the playing field against such solutions.

> If I'm still characterizing your reasoning accurately, you then
> argued that the MTBF was greater with propane. I don't accept that
> argument as being accurate, for the grid has a very good reliabilty
> record.

I have to agree that based on past history the grid has been reliable in
general, but current trends in decreased investments (e.g. the recent
grid failure potentially due to less tree trimming), security issues,
and the economics of home power generation point to a precipitous
potential decrease in grid reliability. In general the issue is that
when the grid fails, everyone in an area is affected at once, whereas
when a home power system fails, the owner can relay on neighbors who
have power.

>>whereas in the vision you suggest with SSPS and reliance on the
>>Grid millions of people are in mortal danger when the centralized
>>systems fail.
>
> As I and others have repeatedly pointed out, you are basing this
> vision as a solution to a problem that has a very low chance of
> occurance. In other words, this insurance policy has a bankrupting
> premium.

We obviously disagree on the risk of this. But, as I have pointed out,
there is essentially no premium for decentralizing, because the
conversion ends up paying for itself by reducing energy cost payments.
I'll agree the payback could be faster, and that given the current state
of technology and people's skill levels this approach is more feasible
in some places than others, but long term, this sort of switchover will
be the trend. It would be an even faster trend if the government leveled
the playing field by ending subsidies for fossil fuels and centralized
nukes and started totaling up external costs and asking people to pay
for them. So, turning this around, in my perspective people are actually
now paying a bankrupting premium (defense spending plus energy spending
leading to massive debts which really will bankrupt the country and
individuals and also causing related ecological damage) for no real
security at all. Then why do people do such crazy things? Culture?
Propaganda? Corruption? It sounded like a good idea at the time? Lack of
investment capital? Political Power? Habit? Poor education? All of the
above?

>>The more dependent people are on centralized or monopolized
>>systems, the more attractive a target those systems are for
>>terrorism or military action,
>
> Unfortunately that is a factor of modern living.

Well, I guess then I'm interested in "post-modern" living with a higher
degree of energy security. :-) Either in space or on Earth. :-)

> That is why we can
> have the density of people and the sheer number of people alive on
> the Earth.

Well, it is true that many of the ills of the move to agriculture from
hunter and gather lifestyle may have been due to increased population
pressures (although it's hard to disentangle this factor completely from
the rise of militaristic bureaucracies and the nation-state, since
higher population density provided the substrate for the emergence of
such Powers). Still, it seems to me India and China have historically
had high populations without quite the level of centralization or
dependency in terms of energy supply the US has. There are other ways of
living which can support lots of people on Earth without such
vulnerabilities -- either voluntary simplicity or advanced technology
(or using both).

> Water systems are also centralized. So is the food
> distribution system. So is the pharmaceutical distribution system.

And as a matter of civil defense, the USA is woefully unprepared for the
next "Hunger Winter" from whatever cause. (Well, maybe the US
population's high level of obesity will prove good for something.)
Still, the degree of centralization and second-by-second dependency for
these systems is much lower than the electric grid. For example, water
systems are more bioregional than power systems. And water is often
stored and can function for hours without power. Many aspects of Green
initiatives have to do with decentralizing these systems as well. One is
getting people to eat better, exercise more, be better educated, relate
better to their community and environment, and thus be more healthy and
less stressed and less dependent on drugs. Another is helping people
grow more of their own food (one reason my wife and I wrote our free
educational garden simulator).
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/
And world food self sufficiency is one reason we support the Heifer project:
http://www.heiferfoundation.org/

> If you need insulin during a snowstorm or time of war, you may run
> into trouble. Should we then advocate that to mitigate against this
> risk, every diabetic should have an insulin producing facility in
> their home? The probability doesn't warrant taking this course of
> action.

Diabetics can typically have six months of insulin in the refrigerator.
(I know someone who is diabetic.) And frankly, most people do have
insulin producing apparatus close to home -- they are called pancreases.
And a major topic of medical research is how to get the diabetically
sick person (i.e. excessively dependent on external remote life support
infrastructure on an hour to hour basis) able to take care of themselves
again without such support. So again, you are making my point on
decentralization. Excessive dependency is a form of illness. (We are all
interdependent to some extent, and drawing the line between
interdependence and excessive dependence isn't always easy, admittedly.)
Essentially, most homes in the US could be thought of as diabetic in
terms of energy supply. They depend on regular large injections of the
insulin of oil or related fossil fuels. Amory Lovins and others are
attempting to cure this disease -- all the while well meaning people
(such as yourself) are in denial about the disease, or propose solutions
like SSPS (equivalent to an insulin pump?) which don't address root
causes related to obesity and lack of exercise and genetic
predisposition. And guess what -- most people when diagnosed with
diabetes also go into denial and don't want to acknowledge it -- because
no one wants daily shots if they can avoid them. Eventually the lack of
physical energy (or other health problems) gets many of them to confront
the problem and do something about it.

> Should each home have a water generating system and a hydroponic
> facility?

Yes! :-) And many people have wells and gardens. Hydroponics is catching
on big time in Canada.
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/publications/en/rh-pr/tech/01-141-e.html

The New Alchemy Institute created examples of this with their "Ark" home
idea. This group continues some of that work:
http://www.oceanarks.org/

>
>>As I said, either either we solve the recycling problem on Earth
>>and have (near) zero emissions manufacturing for everything or we
>>don't. If we do invent such technology, PV production will not
>>pollute at all, so your arguments agaisnt using it will be
>>invalidated.
>
> One of the reasons policians hate answering hypothetical questions
> is because the situation is no-win. You're basing your rebuttal on
> magic technology. That's not a good and solid basis for rebuttal.

The technology I cite is no more magic than SSPS, for which you can't
even point to a complete working SSPS system active in space with any
track record of production over years. The technologies I cite are in
many ways much less magic than SSPS, because examples of them are here
now, producing energy economically in many situations, over periods of
years, with pronouncements for more and cheaper PV, fuel cells,
micro-cogeneration, insulation, etc. to come made by legitimate
companies and government labs.

But in any case, I have confronted you with a logical contradiction in
your own analysis and you are trying to spin this now, rather than
accept it. I've show you how your environmental claims for an investment
in SSPS being a preferential one are flawed when looking at the whole
investment and industry world picture given alternative approaches and
long term consequences (admittedly, by assuming energy production causes
a small percentage of pollution overall, and not quite having the
analysis and numbers to completely back that up yet). It is true there
is some technological uncertainty in predicting the future possibilities
for technological change, but given that SSPS has its uncertainties as
well, I think this argument for a contradiction on a argument for SSPS
as a purely enviromental investment is fairly strong.

>
>>If we don't invent such technology, leaving 90% of the pollution
>>around every year instead of 100% just prolongs ecological and
>>human health disaster a bit, so SSPS doesn't really get us much
>>considering the scope of the investment which otherwise could be
>>applied to improving manufacturing to pollute less (10% gains
>>should be easy to achieve for a trillion dollars).
>
> I don't want to put words in your mouth but I have to reach some
> type of conclusion on what you just wrote above and that conclusion
> is that saving 10% on pollution is not worth the effort. Your
> bandying about the dollars and research gains is akin to handwaving.

What I have said is essentially that if we are talking about investing a
trillion (or whatever) dollars to reduce pollution, we need to consider
various alternatives and which ones reduce more pollution. So, I am
saying it is not worth investing X to reduce Y pollution if we can
invest X and reduce Y*2 pollution. I am suggesting that any amount of
money spent now on R&D for lower pollution manufacturing or on greater
energy efficiency will reduce more pollution than the same amount spent
on SSPS. Granted, there may be a law of diminishing returns at some
point, but I'd guess (more handwaving :-) we haven't got anywhere near
that overall yet. When we do, then we will be in a position to
reevaluate whether the improved PV manufacturing processes cause enough
pollution to warrant something like SSPS (ignoring other social issues
etc.). I'd suggest though that if we really tried we could get to a
point in twenty years or so through R&D where most production and
recycling could be done with far fewer emissions (but admittedly that is
more inspired guess backed by trends and science and imagination than
concrete engineering analysis for specific processes). Still, even in
the case of PV, now that demand for PV is so strong, and PV
manufacturers have outstripped the supply of excess or spoiled IC chip
wafers, they are finding they can use other substrates including silicon
which is of less purity than for ICs, thus reducing manufacturing costs
including the amount of energy needed. So more recent PV manufacturing
processes now have more like 1-2 year paybacks for embodied energy and
require less other materials and related pollution.

> To address the central conclusion, if saving 10% on pollution by
> building SPS is not worth the effort, then why is delaying
> pollution by 6 years worth the same level of investment for Kyoto
> implementation?

I'm arguing here more for continued R&D in energy efficiency and zero
emissions manufacturing and recycling, as well as actively retrofitting
existing homes and raising efficiency standards for automobiles (easily
met even for SUVs if they are hybrids). Whether these approaches meet
Kyoto levels might be a question, but I think they would pretty easily.
Turns out many people have found that the cost estimates of compliance
promoted by energy and industry trade groups resistant to change or not
wanting to commit to change out of fear are grossly inflated (same as
when car companies said it was physically impossible to get more than
like 10mpg (or whatever) for a car); in practice, saving on waste like
through energy efficiency often pays for itself or is profitable.

>
>>So on a dollar for dollar basis, I'm saying investment in less
>>polluting manufacturing and recycling technology is a better
>>investment overall to reduce pollution on Earth than SSPS
>
> Prove it!

What I am pointing out is some part of the status quo. People are
continually investing in improved R&D on manufacturing and pollution
control for various reasons. Efficiency is going up and pollution per
unit is going down (number of units may be a different story). In that
regard, I don't have to prove anything. The burden of proof should be on
the one arguing for a huge investment in SSPS which will take money away
from this part of the status quo of incremental improvements.

>
>>For example, one of the strongest supports for my position is
>>that I cite an off grid house in Toronto built economically (which
>>you claimed was impossible).
>
> I never claimed it was impossible and I gave a very thorough
> criticism of the increased energy costs required to build the home,
> the very specific siting requirements, and the archetectural
> restrictions such a home requires. You never wrote anything to
> acknowledge these criticisms and I let them slide because there was
> always so much else to write about, but if you claim I'm ignoring
> your example, then please address the criticisms first. All in all,
> this design philosophy is shoving limitations down people's throats
> that they may not want, all in order for a philosophical agenda to
> be met.

OK. In looking back at what you wrote in "Re: Fuel Cell Performance" on
12/05/03 23:11 I can see you did make some comments in the direction you
outline. So I will apologize for overstating that you completely ignored
this example (although you address it indirectly). I should have said
you *mostly* ignored it. The impossibility is more about your ignoring
the liquid fuel alternative with inflated estimates of fuel tank size.

Your argument there is essentially that concrete uses more embodied
energy then wood and implies that concrete homes are touted as the
greener solution. You wrote: "The difference in energy used between a
concrete and wood home is 164 GJ. This amounts to 45,555 kWh more
energy required to get the *Greener* solution."

But this isn't much of an argument, as far as I can see. For example,
the passive house I live in has a concrete slab, but is mainly wood
(post and beam construction for much of the passive solar add on, on a
more conventional older core). See for example:
http://www.aaepassivesolar.com/low-energy.html
The main extra thermal mass for day to day heat averaging is a sand pit
below one added-on room with metal airducts running through the sand.
(Although the concrete slab does provide some extra thermal mass.) The
insulation is (I think) primarily a cellulose derivative. How is your
point about concrete a rebuttal of the value of any greener house?

It is true that CMHC's Healthy House uses some concrete:
http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/popup/hhtoronto/suppl.htm
particularly: "Durisol wallforms for poured-in-place reinforced
concrete walls". So I'll give you that they probably do use more of it
than the house I live in. But note that concrete walls may last 100
years, and thus dividing ~45000 / 100 leaves about 450 kWh / year or
about 1kWh per day extra for concrete in your analysis over the lifetime
of the house. But note that extra thermal mass can be achieved with wood
or water or gravel or rock, so there are many options on this. It's not
clear to me how necessary concrete walls are to the design of that
house. Even if it was, note that energy embodied in concrete (presumably
from heat at some point) even if derived from fossil fuels is (given
50%-66% transmission losses for the grid and 66% loss of heat during
power generation) is going to be 10X as efficient than the energy
delivered by the electric grid. So, even though you are converting to
kWh, really the fossil fuel amount is more like 1/10 that in grid
delivered kWh. So the extra concrete embodied energy required the
equivalent of about 4555 kWh (grid delivered). This is about equal to
189 days of delivered energy (24 kWh / day) needed by the average
wasteful house (not including heating). So, there is more to this sort
of analysis than you include. Essentially, even a concrete Green house
is paying for itself in reduced fossil fuels for generating electricity
in half a year or so. So yes, wood plus sand like I have might be a
slightly better choice, but it really doesn't make much of a difference
in this context, does it? We are talking 100X energy decrease over the
life of the house. So a tiny bit more energy saved at the start isn't
the biggest issue.

You (or someone else?) also bring up the siting issue -- that not all
homes can be easily passive solar because they don't have a long
southern exposure. This is somewhat true, but almost all homes can be
superinsulated and have better windows. This means that some windows for
a poorly aligned house may let out more heat than they bring in, which
means those houses may require some more supplemental heat -- but
(handwaving) the total reduction from the average may still likely be
80% or so of energy use (instead of more like 90%).

Techniques for mold reduction are known:
http://www.builderonline.com/article-builder.asp?channelID=55§ionID=31&articleID917
http://www.builderonline.com/article-builder.asp?channelID=59§ionID=62&articletype=1&articleID00024063

Green Building is (pardon the pun) a growing industry.
http://www.energybuilder.com/greenbld.htm

Now, let's turn this around and look at the housing stock of the USA.
The average cost to build a typical US house in a reasonably expensive
labor area is around $100K - $150K (excluding the price of the lot etc.
which might cost several times that in an in demand neighborhood). That
means pretty much all houses in the US are worth less than that.
(Obviously maybe 10% of the housing stock is upscale and might not fit
this model.) We bought a previously owned and expanded house, but in
general right now people recommend new homes as better bargains than
older homes, all factors considered, because building techniques have
improved and there is less initial maintenance and near term renovation
required. New and old houses may go for more than that $100-$150K figure
(above land costs) for various reasons (including convenience of it
being right there and needing it right now), but just to back up this
figure, delivered modular housing is also in the lower end of this ball
park ($50K-$100K+). It costs something to demolish a house, but let's
assume assume a service that does it for free if they can preserve the
timber etc. of the old house for recycling. At what point does it make
sense for the average US citizen to demolish the house and replace it
entirely with a new house which is Green? Well, if the average home is
spending (guesstimating from my past experience) $2000 in the heating
months for heating oil (or airconditiioning if southern), and about
$1000 per year for electricity, and another $1000 per year for water and
sewer, this means the Green house can potentially save about $4000 in
annual costs (inlcudign appliance replacements). A risk free 3% dividend
on capital which tracks the housing market (upward trend expected) is a
pretty good deal for most long-term investors, especially if they get a
new house out of it and so personal value. So, just financially it would
be worth investing about $133000 to get this kind of return (ignoring
the positive value of a new home). So guess what -- ignoring demolition
costs, it's probably just about worth it right now for every homeowner
in the US to throw away their house and get a new Green one which is
energy and water self-reliant, based on the CMHC's healthy home concept.
And with continued innovation and cost reductions in new materials, this
equation will only get better. Demolishing and replacing a house with
superior modular construction should, if done expediently, might ideally
only take a week or so if this become routine, so no need to pay for
much for a hotel or storing possessions for a long time while the house
is replaced. Although this site:
http://www.modularhomes.net/save_time.phtml
suggests "Total construction time, from initial site development is
usually 10 to 12 weeks" so for now, there is a longer period of
inconvenience. As I said the US housing stock is obsolete. What is very
sad is that building codes in the US don't reflect this better Green
possibility as the standard (and people treat the minimum in the code as
if it were desireable). It is also a shame (and likely a financial
catastrophe) that mortgae comapniies on;t require Green construction,
One of the factors Bucky Fuller suggests caused the Great
Deperessioninthe 1930s is that banks wold lend to farmers thinking farms
were a sure investment, but it turns out the housing stock on farms was
obsolete (no indoor plumbing) and so it was a bad banking investment
(especially as people were moving to the city too). The same crisis
might happen for today's mortgage companies when most people realize old
houses are not Green enough to be good investments because of
maintenance costs and utility dependency risks. Home buyers are being
let down by a government that should be protecting them in this sense.
(Of course, current homeowners are benefiting, as long as no one
realizes their current investment (the house part, not the land) is
worthless...)

Part of the problem is that contractors usually build for a speculative
market. About fifteen years ago I attended a sustainable housing design
meeting (run by Karl Kehde)
http://www.landuse.org/
http://www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/00857.htm
which had builders, zoning board, neighbors, and some others collected
together to discuss designing a more sustainable and attractive
development concept (a little like "SeaSide" in ideals).
http://www.theseasideinstitute.org/
The big problem I saw (I liked most everything else) is that none of the
potential future residents were represented! It was all to be built on
spec. That's how most such developments go. That is one reason most
homes in America are so obsolete. The people who will live in them don't
get any participation in their design or construction (and even if they
did, frankly, they lack the specific education as citizens or consumers
from poor practical schooling to know what they should be asking for.)
Their future operatign costs are easily discounted. And of course, do
neighbors want to approve better developments nearby that make their
property values go down because the new facilities are so much cheaper
and pleasant to live in no one wants their houses or their communities?

>
>>That one example proves much of my case for the feasibility of
>>distributed power generation coupled with energy efficiency, and
>>you conveniently just continue to ignore it.
>
> I haven't. I don't understand how ignoring my critique allows you to
> claim that the example proves your case?
>
>>How do you rebut that house? You can't. So you continue to ignore
>>it.
>
> I already have. I did. I haven't.
>

Well, let's see you rebut the above now. :-)

>>And I have shown announcements of forthcoming PV and thermionic
>>technology in that price range (even with today's current economic
>>landscape tilted in favor of fossil fuels and centralized nukes by
>>a preponderance of government subsidies and tax preferences and
>>lack of external cost accounting). Even if such announcements
>>turn out to be vaporware, there is no physical reason they cannot
>>work -- same as the approach for arguments you use to justify SPSs
>>being possible and economical.
>
> Let's not forget the subsidies that go to renewable sources. How
> wind farms turn a profit based on the subsidies and thereafter
> underperform their design criteria. If they were truly free-market
> they wouldn't be nearly as attractive. Also look to the
> externalities of wind and solar that I detailed in an earlier post
> before you claim that the tax-credits are just trying to level the
> amount of external costs that are picked up for oil and nuclear.

Those subsidies are minimal compared to trillions over the years for
fossil fuels and centralized nukes.

> Just a point of clarification - I've never argued that SPS is
> economical. My issue with your argument is centered on massive
> decentralization. SPS is a proxy for other forms of centralized
> power, except when the pollution issue comes into the argument and
> that is when I'm specifically referring to SPS.

As I have tried to show, as an investment strictly to reduce pollution,
SSPS is likely not as good an investment as improved R&D on reducing
pollution in manufacturing and recycling.

So that leaves your argument on difficulty of storing fuel locally
(answered by liquid fuels and micro-cogeneration) and maintenance
(trickier, but answered by using service providers like Sears and
handwaving about more reliable equipment -- well not entirely handwaving
as the only maintenance on PV+Batteries is typically topping up the
water in the batteries once a year -- assuming snow on the panels is
dealt with somehow or otherwise not a problem).

>
>>Anyway, I'm waiting to see a rebuttal on the Toronto house.
>
> Considering that between us we've probably already written a book, I
> can understand how you've forgotten that I already wrote the
> rebuttal. :) Just go back and look for it.

Well, if it's a book, on my side it's mainly just a restatement of
Brittle Power and Soft Energy Paths, or other RMI publications, although
applied to SSPS issues. Probably not much of a market in that. :-)

Anyway, I found what I think you are referring to. Do you mean something
else?

You also reference PV energy payback there (and perhaps citing my
commetns perhaps when I earlier mentioned studies with longer payback
times for older types of cells). As I have pointed out above, newer PV
production processes currently in use are claimed to have closer to 1-2
year energy payback (depends on how you calculate... and what you
include, like promotional and sales costs). Note that life expectancy
of PV may be longer than 30 years -- they diminish in power output over
time and thirty years is the guarantee for near full power. After that
they still make power. Note that there is no real energy payback for a
coal plant (which is claimed in a month). Energy payback of a month for
a coal plant just means in a month the coal plant can burn enough coal
to produce enough energy for its construction. It still is burning
fossil fuels. Even energy payback for SSPS might be in the years per
unit (depends a lot on conversion efficiency issues, mining efficiency,
mass driver construction costs, etc.).

>>(even many wealthy people who, given the law of diminshing returns
>>of ever more wealth, might actually be happier overall if there
>>was less wealth disparity but they had less to fear from
>>contagious pandemic disease, social collapse, nuclear war, crime,
>>personal depression, making poor investment choices, etc. instead
>>of living in one gold hut in a village of 99 mud huts.)
>
> This is the societal redesign I'm talking about. This is pie in the
> sky, and doesn't take account of human behavior. Your offering us
> salvation on many fronts and all we have to do is adopt the Green
> Economic System. Of course none of your assertions are provable, we
> just have to march headlong into the Green future to find our
> promised rewards.

It does take in account human behavior. Societies such as in Europe (e.g
the Netherlands, the UK, France, Germany, etc.) have already made some
of these decisions. And for example if there was a sudden outbreak of
bioweapons-related plague it is much more likely a country with
universal public health supported by the government could deal with it,
whereas in the USA with 40+ million uninsured, the plague will likely be
much harder to stop. I have in the past known some well off people (in
the folly of my youth I went to Princeton :-), and frankly, many of them
are very unhappy. Depression is predicted to be the number one health
risk in the USA in the next decade or so. It is rapidly taking the USA's
young, and that depression is in part from looking around and seeing a
society that does not make much sense and appears heading for nuclear
etc. apocalypse (obviously there are other factors as well, including
diet and exercise and genetics). To see the truth of these assertions,
you can look at other countries with different systems and see they are
doing better than the US on many indicators. Canadians live longer. The
Dutch have less drug abuse. The UK has less people locked up in prison.
And so on. (Actually all those countries beat the US on all those
scores.) Yes, there are other issues affecting some of these scores, but
the bottom line has more to do with the overall US society and world
view -- essentially the US Mythology (put in perspective by people like
Howard Zinn and James Loewen).
http://www.geocities.com/howardzinnfans/
http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/
And yes, people in the US have bigger houses and more stuff on average
-- the point is,it is failing to bring happiness. Much of human behavior
is learned and comes from culture -- which includes extensive heavy
advertising by media conglomerates in the USA. If you look at the movie
"Bowling for Columbine" and those three Canadian kids standing around
being interviewed, you can just see the difference in culture when they
respond that access to free health care should be a basic human right
(in their opinion). But it is exactly this kind of thinking:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/millionairewannabes.htm
that keeps many in the US (even the poor) locked into a world view which
is heading for a crash with reality. SSPS as a vision is not going to
prevent that crash. In fact, it just feeds into more of the same mindset
-- more power, more consumption, more centralization, more monopolies,
more dependency, more Power, etc.

>
>>So how about reading stuff like:
>> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/littleredhen.html
>> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/millionairewannabes.htm
>> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/rightresponds.html
>> http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/mythologyofwealth.htm
>
> I like to read a variety of viewpoints to challenge my thinking.
> This site is pretty far-out and runs coutner to a lot of theory I
> picked up in school and fails the reality test of my everyday life.
> It definitely offers a nice vision of what could be if they had
> their way.

Gee, maybe there is something to it then :-) because our current system
sure isn't working yet for most of humanity in this reality like
billions of people in hunger or disease (and often not even in the US,
like for millions in prison or all those citizens who don't like their
jobs or live with a lot of anxiety about the future.) If the USA had
decentralized in energy production, food production, manufacturing,
leadership, and so on, then 911 wouldn't seem so frightening, because it
would be obvious those sorts of terrorist acts could not affect much of
the population in any significant way.

> Also this site is pretty keen on Dennis Kucinich. Look here for my
> previous post on his efforts to introduce a Bill in Congress to Ban
> Mind Control Weapons in Outer Space.
>
> http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/01/011002.html
>
> "Among the weapons that it would proscribe the new measure
> includes "psychotronic" devices that are "directed at individual
> persons or targeted populations for the purpose of ... mood
> management, or mind control."
>
> "The Kucinich bill was hailed by Citizens Against Human Rights
> Abuse, one of a number of organizations of people who say they are
> victims of government experimentation involving electromagnetic and
> other psychotronic weapons."

Aren't one of the arguments against SSPS microwaves that they can cause
irritability (a form of psychotronic mind control)? :-)

>
>>http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/socialcredit/socialcredit.htm
>>(Still learning about this myself...)
>
> As I've stated previously, I've studied from many of the schools of
> economic thought, not just neoclassical. It took some doing on my
> part to find the resources to do this because of the sheer scale of
> the orthodoxy of neoclassical thought. As you would guess I fully
> support the post-autistic economic reform movement but even with
> that said, I fear that social credit theory doesn't have many
> serious adherents. I too don't have a high opinion of it. If you
> want to look at some economic thought that has a little more
> substance and yet is not mainstream, you could look at the work of
> Thorstein Veblen and the Institutional School.
>
> http://de.geocities.com/veblenite/institutionalism.htm

Thanks for the link.

As Jane Jacobs says (maybe in _Cities and the Wealth of Nations_),
physicists get to play with billion dollar toys, whereas economists get
to play with trillion dollar toys (and a lot more peoples' lives).

Nice to see we both agree that:
http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/pae.html
"the subject of economics has lost touch with reality".

Now I am *really* concerned about the short term economy. :-)

> Nevertheless, the Green agenda of changing the economic system is a
> massive undertaking. Even getting economists to move away from a
> math-centric approach is going to be a difficult task for it is a
> career killer. Economists are famous for trying to get their work
> looked upon as one that is as rigorous as science and not just a
> fluffy social-science. By what means will the Greens achieve their
> ends?

As I am fond of pointing out, the academic PhD system is a pyramid
scheme which is collapsing (whether in economics or other disciplines),
so we can't hope for too much help from there:
http://www.house.gov/science/goodstein_04-01.htm
Essentially, academia is little different than llama breeding in that
respect (that scheme crashed in the late 1980s IIRC).
http://home.att.net/~lostcreekllamas/straightscoop.html

>
>>I am suggesting we take a deep look at how things are made in our
>>society and how energy is used and produced, to come up more
>>quickly with good local solutions whih everyone can use.
>
> Would I be overstating your position by characterizing it as a
> revolution of society? Our philosophies, economics, motivations,
> desires and goals must all change to achieve your end-state.

I'd characterize it more as I am trying to give people more options.
When people obviously have more options and know about them, a lot of
daily practice will seem a bad idea and will be revised (more bottom up
than top down).
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

>
>>You appear to be still supporting a SSPS that is at best twenty
>>years off and only solves at best 10% of the pollution problem
>>(and introduces a host of new problems related to centralized
>>politcal and financial power and the militarization of space).
>
> Don't get too caught up in your conjectures. You pulled the 10%
> pollution savings out of thin air. I didn't object because actually
> determining that number would be a daunting task. So it's not fair
> to marginalize the achievement to "10% at best." For all we know it
> could turn out to be 70%.

Yes, OK. So this remains an open question. It's a hard problem, because
we end up comparing apples and oranges (e.g. CO2 from fossil fuels vs.
mercury from paint).

> To summarize my postion, which is exactly what I stated at the
> beginning of this whole process, wind/solar/hydrogen are not robust
> enough to form the backbone of a national energy strategy.

Let's see why....

> Wind and
> solar farms can be implemented and serve a useful energy and
> conservation purpose, but only up to 20%-40% of total generation
> requirements because of issues dealing with intermittancy and energy
> storage.

So, if we can cut energy use by 50%-75% (which I've show can be done in
housing as in the Toronto house, and it can also by done with hypercars
http://www.hypercar.com/) then we can get enough power from these
sources. So, we agree: PV plus wind is enough power if used efficiently.
:-) The only issue we continue to disagree on is whether the energy can
be stored. I argue it is solvable with creating liquid fuels like
propane or sugar water or ethanol through carbon sequestration from
hydrogen as one approach.(I admit to some handwaving here on the actual
conversion process...) A hydrogen infrastructure is another alternative.
http://www.rmi.org/images/other/E-20HydrogenMyths.pdf
So is compressed air or batteries. So is just using some fossil fuels in
much smaller amounts (10% of present amounts) until other storage ideas
emerge. The economics of various storage approaches will improve as they
come into widespread use.

> The wholesale change of housing stock to the very specific
> limitations required of solar passive design is not a workable
> solution for a national energy strategy.

As I have shown above, demolishing your house and rebuilding it as
something Greener may even make economic sense right now (or as soon as
the mortgage companies get behind it). :-)

When I lived in Des Moines, I saw old buildings being knocked down to be
replaced. Look at the trend of people buying older homes for the lot and
rebuilding them with something else. (well usually bigger, but it could
be Greener too).

Clearly if you watch "this old house" it's usually much easier and
cheaper to build new than to renovate. (Although rennovation can be done
incrementally so each stage in energy conservation can help pay for the
next.)

> The probability of attack
> on a SPS does not warrant incurring the costs and inefficiencies
> associated with implementing massive decentralization.

Hard to say for sure. But it has also been said warnings about 911 were
ignored too..
http://democrats.com/elandslide/petition.cfm?campaign1

> Therefore,
> central sources of energy delivered through the grid will continue
> long into the future.

Green houses are a slow motion phenomena that may transform the world by
the time any SPS is operational....

> Whether SPS can ever be made to be cost-
> effective and thus play a part in this energy infrastructure, I
> don't know.

Ah, some economic uncertainty here. :-) So, I'll just keep my money in
my piggy bank or use it to go Green if it is a surer ROI.

So if you won't argue for its cost effectiveness, isn't it a dead issue,
and shouldn't SSI abandon promoting it?

> If it can, then there will be substantial further gains
> from reduced pollution on Earth.

But as compared to what alternate investments?

> The pollution caused by expanding
> the grid for higher power levels will be many orders of magnitude
> less than that required for manufacturing and deploying the millions
> of wind turbines and solar arrays.

Let's see some numbers on that. :-) Grids have a lot of poles, wires,
herbicides used on right of ways, cause visual pollution, increase soil
run off from lost ground cover, etc. It's not an easy comparison, maybe
it's been worked through before?

--Paul Fernhout

--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"

> Somebody forwarded me the following link:
>
> http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-11.3925

What can I say - this article sure hit the nail on the head. I
myself came to the conclusion that the environmentalist movement is
looking like a paganistic religion.

Crichton gets paid well for his gift of the written language. I
think he distilled the situation most succinctly when he wrote "We
are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation,
which is now called sustainability."

I feel that everything I've written in the past month could be used
as illustrative of everything he wrote.

Thank you Arthur for a most appropos article. The article goes into
my SAVE folder :)

TangoMan

> Somebody forwarded me the following link:
>
> http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-11.3925
>
> Michael Crichton's talk to the Commonwealth Club of California this
> past
> September, on "Environmentalism as a Religion". There's a point where
> there's no real use in arguing further; as he says, "One of the
> defining
> features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts,
> because they have nothing to do with facts." Can we actually leave the
> realm of religion for science here? Crichton concludes:

This is an interesting talk, but it's by an author of popular fiction,
not a scientist. It's telling that he dismisses global warming. The
overwhelming consensus within the scientific community is that
anthropogenic global warming is a reality. There is dispute over the
magnitude of human contribution, but not over the existence of warming
or the fact of a human contribution to that warming.

It's possible to debate the size of the human contribution, and to
argue that it's no big deal, but Crichton hurts his credibility by
claiming it isn't well supported. He also bolloxes his discussion of
DDT, which is dangerous because it's a persistent toxin in the
environment and overuse of it harms species which are high in the food
chain. DDT can probably be used in less harmful ways, but the
carcinogen argument has nothing to do with why many environmentalists
oppose the use of DDT.

> "Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics.
> And
> if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will
> enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears
> and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better.
> That's not a good future for the human race. That's our past. So it's
> time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the
> science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions
> firmly
> on that."

The suggestion that too much environmentalism is grounded in bad
science may have merit. Opposing environmentalism on the basis of bad
science is equally bad. The solution to bad science (and what Crichton
engages in, which is bad argumentation) is good science and good
argumentation. Bad logic and bad rhetoric are easy. Really thinking
through the possibilities, and admitting when your preferred outcome
isn't well supported is difficult. It requires both integrity and
courage. Crichton makes some good points, but he also plays rhetorical
games which undermine his main point.

The take home lesson is: just because you like the results doesn't mean
the science is good. This applies equally to the pro and anti side of
environmentalism.

......Andrew

> This is an interesting talk, but it's by an author of popular
> fiction, not a scientist.

Yes and no. He is indeed an author but also a Harvard Medical School
graduate as well. Some would consider physicians to be scientists of
sorts. He's defintely not *just* an author in terms of his training.

> It's telling that he dismisses global warming.

I think you're mischaracterizing what he wrote. He wrote "I can tell
you that the evidence for global warming is far weaker than its
proponents would ever admit."

From my examination of the literature I see two trends. The
proclamation of FACT from the Green movement and from within the
professional journals there is general acknowledgement but more
hedging than one would expect. Further, because careers are more
likely to be made from getting grants to study problems than getting
no grants by downplaying the problem, professional bias has to be
accounted for.

You're an academic and I'm sure you see that the business of
knowledge isn't sancrosanct. I saw it during my studies. There now
exists an environmental orthodoxy. This should in no way diminish
that there are environmental challenges that face us and that many
of those challenges are the result of poor human stewardship of the
environment. Also there is good science being conducted but the
vetting process leaves much to be desired.

> the overwhelming consensus within the scientific community is that
> anthropogenic global warming is a reality. There is dispute over
> the magnitude of human contribution, but not over the existence of
> warming or the fact of a human contribution to that warming.

Which is exactly what his statement characterizes. He's taken the
position, in the dispute you reference, that the *evidence,* rather
than the hyperbole, is weaker than what the public thinks they know.

> He also bolloxes his discussion of DDT, which is dangerous because
> it's a persistent toxin in the environment and overuse of it harms
> species which are high in the food chain. DDT can probably be
> used in less harmful ways, but the carcinogen argument has nothing
> to do with why many environmentalists oppose the use of DDT.

I don't know enough to comment credibly on this point. I do attach
some signifance to his training as a physician though.

As to your point about good science, I'm in agreement with you. I
think many people want environmental science to actually be a
*science* and that policy prescriptions should be based on solid
science adn evidence, and not on a favored philosophy or persuasive
rhetoric.

TangoMan

> The suggestion that too much environmentalism is grounded in bad
>
>science may have merit. Opposing environmentalism on the basis of bad
>science is equally bad. The solution to bad science (and what Crichton
>engages in, which is bad argumentation) is good science and good
>argumentation. Bad logic and bad rhetoric are easy. Really thinking
>through the possibilities, and admitting when your preferred outcome
>isn't well supported is difficult. It requires both integrity and
>courage. Crichton makes some good points, but he also plays rhetorical
>games which undermine his main point.
>
Yup. Now how do we get to that point? What are the ground rules for
discussion? Citing peer-reviewed scientific papers (which Crichton does
in a couple of places) is one important piece of it. References to
actual experience and numbers from reputable sources like the US Energy
Information Administration (and EPA) are another component - but
Crichton apparently doesn't trust the EPA any more... what are the
objective criteria that allow us to trust an information source? Many
conservatives accuse environmental scientists of pushing their own
agenda because they depend on government funding, and there's probably
some of that, so that science itself suffers - but scientists under the
current administration have to be politically careful to retain their
funding too... To me there don't seem to be many articulate review
papers on the energy/environment issues we've been discussing, and the
various books that keep coming out promoting one side or another seem to
be generally atrocious. But maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the
literature - probably time to look through some of those National
Academy Press books tango just mentioned.

Arthur

--- In ssi_list@... "Paul D. Fernhout"

> How is it a "cop-out"?

Because you're not decentralized if you have to rely on propane.

> And, as PV and storage get more efficient, the level of
> supplementation needed will go down over time.

Have you ever considered that there are physical limts to all sorts
of processes? PV and storage will run into a limit. The question is
whether they can ever reach sufficient effectiveness and also
whether cost effectiveness of squeezing more efficiency will return
a postive economic result. You're blindly assuming a very rosey
future on both fronts.

> I have to agree that based on past history the grid has been
> reliable in general, but current trends in decreased investments
> (e.g. the recent grid failure potentially due to less tree
> trimming), security issues, and the economics of home power
> generation point to a precipitous potential decrease in grid
> reliability.

You have no evidence on which to base your assumption that a gradual
decline will continue to the point that the reliability of the grid
reaches calamitous proportions. Instances abound of degradation
being reversed. In broad stokes, this is the Hegelian Dialetic at
work.

> But, as I have pointed out, there is essentially no premium for
> decentralizing, because the conversion ends up paying for itself
> by reducing energy cost payments.

That's terrific then. That probably explains why so many people are
looking to be self-sufficient in energy. Oops, I have no evidence to
back up this last statement. Oh well, I wonder why it's not
happening if it makes so much sense?

> Still, it seems to me India and China have historically
> had high populations without quite the level of centralization or
> dependency in terms of energy supply the US has. There are other
> ways of living which can support lots of people on Earth without
> such vulnerabilities -- either voluntary simplicity or advanced
> technology (or using both).

Does logical coherence mean anything to you? Do you seek to score a
counterpoint even if the argument you use as a whole isn't germaine?

Yes you win the point by pointing out that China has a higher
population than the US and had less centralization of energy.

You completely undermine the point though by failing to recongnize
the inherent differences of a highly urbanized and industrialized
America against the historically rural China.

Look to the statistics I posted on China's increasing aggregate
energy use, and the concurrent increases in per capita consumption.

Take a look at the increasing amount of urbanization in China for
the same period. Since 1978 the equivalent of the population of the
whole of the US, has moved from the Chinese countryside to the urban
centers. 286 million people.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200108/07/eng20010807_76712.html

> Diabetics can typically have six months of insulin in the
> refrigerator.

Again that's not the point. The advocacy of decentralization is to
insure that one is not dependent on a central authority. The
diabetic is dependent on the pharmceutical company. It doesn't
matter that he/she can store the insulin. They still have to get it
from a pharmaceutical company.

> Yes! :-) And many people have wells and gardens. Hydroponics is
> catching on big time in Canada.
> http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/publications/en/rh-pr/tech/01-141-
> e.html

Not so. The very link you provide concludes "However, the lack of
greywater and reuse guidelines in Canada is a barrier to the
widespread adoption of the SHWS."

Further you miss the point again. You look to score a point in order
to gain a rhtorical victory with a rebound but lose all substance to
your rebuttal.

The question is whether people should also seek to decentralize from
a central water system. You completely ignore the question and also
seem to not understand why central water systems were even
implemented in the first place. The religion of self-sustainability
has thoroughly colored your world view. Reason can't penetrate your
religious armor.

> > One of the reasons policians hate answering hypothetical
> > questions is because the situation is no-win. You're basing your
> > rebuttal on magic technology. That's not a good and solid basis
> > for rebuttal.
>
> The technology I cite is no more magic than SSPS, for which you
> can't even point to a complete working SSPS system active in space
> with any track record of production over years.

Non-polluting technology isn't magic? There are numerous studies
that detail all of the technologies involved in transmitting power
via microwaves.

Again you look for the rhetorical slam and neglect the substance of
my point.

Also, as I've stated on numerous occasions, my argument with you
concerns the schema of massive decentralization as a national energy
strategy. SPS is used as a proxy for centralized power and only
stands on its own with respect to the pollution sub-argument.

> The burden of proof should be on the one arguing for a huge
> investment in SSPS which will take money away from this part of
> the status quo of incremental improvements.

Go back to the beginning of the debate. I took the question of
investment in SPS off the table by conceding that it may not be
economical. I simply don't know and don't have enough information to
be credible in any assertion on that matter. There is too much room
for error based on the modeling assumptions, i.e. launch costs,
amortization, etc.

The whole point of my involvement in this debate is to debunk the
scheme of decentralization.

I have no burden of proof.

You're advocating the complete elimination of centralized power
distribution and further saying that given enough funding for
research that a non-polluting manufacturing process will be
developed that will further improve the environment when considered
against a possible SPS implementation (considered only in pollution
terms, not economic ones.)

Don't spin it otherwise. Go back and look at how this debate started.

> The impossibility is more about your ignoring the liquid fuel
> alternative with inflated estimates of fuel tank size.

You know, here's the difference between how you and I argue. I do
the calculations and I show everyone how I reached a conclusion,
i.e. the fuel storage tank.

You just state that it is inflated but provide no basis for your
opinion. This is religious fantasy and I'm running out of ways to
respond.

> For example, the passive house I live in has a concrete slab, but
> is mainly wood . .

For the purposes of this argument I don't really care about the
details of *your* house. You keep referencing the Toronto house. The
Toronto house uses concrete to achieve its thermal mass. What your
house is constructed of is immaterial. My analysis is based on the
facts of the case you presented. Your rebuttal is anecdotal and
shifts the frame of reference all so that you can score a point that
is absent any substance.

> It's not clear to me how necessary concrete walls are to the
> design of that house.

The concrete isn't necessary, but the thermal mass is. How you get
that thermal mass is immaterial. Concrete happens to be a dense
material. You could use styrofoam but would need an unworkable
amount to achieve the same performace.

> So guess what -- ignoring demolition costs, it's probably just
> about worth it right now for every homeowner in the US to throw
> away their house and get a new Green one which is energy and water
> self-reliant, based on the CMHC's healthy home concept.

There you go - you've just figured out how to make millions or
billions of dollars for yourself. Why don't you put your money where
your mouth is and go and build these homes and market them?

You completely ignore data I provide to you on *New Home*
characteristics and energy use. People want those homes I referenced
and there is a reason why people are *not* rushing en masse to small
solar passive energy stingy homes. But you go ahead and build them
for people and try and sell them. Your co-religionists will
defintely be into the self-sacrifice. Afterall fasting is a part of
many religious movements, so energy and lifestyle fasting can be the
Green equivalent.

> And for example if there was a sudden outbreak of
> bioweapons-related plague it is much more likely a country with
> universal public health supported by the government could deal
> with it, whereas in the USA with 40+ million uninsured, the plague
> will likely be much harder to stop.

Oh, you mean something like SARS? Gee, it seems that Toronto didn't
do too well with its public system compared to the US.

Look, this is pure conjecture on your part and you don't even offer
logical reasoning to support your conjecture, never mind actual
evidence. Am I just supposed to accept this argument because you
write it?

> If the USA had decentralized in energy production, food
> production, manufacturing, leadership, and so on, then 911
> wouldn't seem so frightening, because it would be obvious those
> sorts of terrorist acts could not affect much of the population in
> any significant way.

You should revisit and tighten this argument for 9/11 didn't impact
on any of the examples you quote. The proper argument you should be
making is that people shouldn't congregate in large buildings so we
should do away with cities and all live dispersed across the
countryside.

> Nice to see we both agree that:
> http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/pae.html
> "the subject of economics has lost touch with reality".

That's not the same thing as saying that the basics aren't well
understood nor is it saying that there isn't good research being
done. What it is saying is that there is a rigid orthodoxy being
enforced that is stifling new, or different, approaches being
studied and this is detrimental to the development of new knowledge
and careers are aborted if people try to buck the orthodoxy.

Much of economics is useless spinning of the wheels in that what's
important is that the reserach results are internally consistent
with the logic that is used and not that the results are able to be
externally validated.

> > Would I be overstating your position by characterizing it as a
> > revolution of society? Our philosophies, economics, motivations,
> > desires and goals must all change to achieve your end-state.

> I'd characterize it more as I am trying to give people more
> options.

Great, don't shove the religion down anyone's throat and let them
make their own choices. The danger is when you try to tell them that
you're going to change the world for their own good.

> So, if we can cut energy use by 50%-75% (which I've show can be
> done in housing as in the Toronto house, and it can also by done
> with hypercars http://www.hypercar.com/) then we can get enough
> power from these sources. So, we agree: PV plus wind is enough
> power if used efficiently.

You're rhetorically twisting again. You can't just assume willy-
nilly that everyone is going to massively change their lifestyle and
then conclude that windpower will be sufficient. This is bizarro
logic.

You need to design your national energy strategy for plausible
circumstances. The most plausible criteria to count on is that
people's lives are lived the same way as today. The further you move
from this model the more uncertainty you introduce into your scheme.

Your scenario is akin to fanstasy for it requires wholesale change
on too many fronts all in order to implement a religious dogma on
the nation.

> I argue it is solvable with creating liquid fuels like
> propane or sugar water or ethanol through carbon sequestration
> from hydrogen as one approach.(I admit to some handwaving here on
> the actual conversion process...)

There is a difference between arguing a case and just writing
something down and then presupposing away all objections.

TangoMan

Have a look at the United Nations Environment Programme:
http://www.unep.org/
Those are IMHO all very real issues, and dismiss them as a communist plot is
just an incredibly irresponsible and extremist position.
Sure, some so-called environmentalist group and individuals are deranged, as
there are extremists deranged positions in any aspect of human life, but
ignoring the environmental issue posed by industrialization and population
growth on global scale is just hiding the head under the sand. I very much
hope it will be possible to find technological solutions at least to some of
these issues, and indeed SPS IMHO would be a very good start, but let's not
forget that these solution must be imposed on a very reluctant profit-driven
economy that tries in every way to avoid to face expensive responsibilities.
As for Europe, having lived both in US and in Europe, I can assure you that
the quality of life in the old continent is much higher, and if that is a
result of a communist plot I'd suggest you to start one ASAP in the States
as well... :)
Unfortunately the environmental situation in Europe is much worse than in
the US, but that is only because the much higher relative population density
on the territory, if you do the proper proportions the US are devastating
the environment to an extent that makes European issues pale by comparison,
and can only afford to do so because the territory is so much larger
compared to the population it has to sustain. In other words, the current US
model of growth is not sustainable, and that is bad news unless you start to
worry about it and plan for the future, which is exactly what
environmentalism is about. Now I certainly agree that the solutions are much
more likely to be found in technology and research, and that returning to
middle age is not an option, but disagreeing with solutions doesn't make the
issues disappear unfortunately. The problems are real and ignoring them for
short term profit is not going to do any good to anyone, except to those who
make the short term profit that is. (timber lobbies anyone?)
Bottom line, I think environmentalists, or green movements if you prefer,
are a very good and positive force, and if someone is strumentalizing some
of them and generally preaching utopical "returns to nature" then the right
thing to do surely should be to propose viable acceptable alternatives (like
SPS) and not dismiss them all as socialists fanatics.
All IMHO of course, and FWIW.

Cheers,

Claudio

> Somebody forwarded me the following link:
>
> http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-11.3925
>
> Michael Crichton's talk to the Commonwealth Club of California this past
> September, on "Environmentalism as a Religion". There's a point where
> there's no real use in arguing further; as he says, "One of the defining
> features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts,
> because they have nothing to do with facts." Can we actually leave the
> realm of religion for science here? Crichton concludes:
>
> "Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And
> if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will
> enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears
> and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better.
> That's not a good future for the human race. That's our past. So it's
> time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the
> science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly
> on that."

The problem with a statement like "science offers us the only way out of
politics" is that science, like logic, can only help you work out the
implications of your political or other assumptions (including religious
ones) given the apparent laws of nature (as far as we currently
collectively understand the mystery of the universe and life itself).
Science or engineering or logic cannot directly help you choose those
moral assumptions (at least not at a most basic level).

I will admit that products of science and engineering and logic viewed
as forms of art may help illuminate the universe in an unexpected way
which may inspire us to develop further as moral beings or citizens,
like any work of art may do.
http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/fractal/Theorem.html
http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/fractal/Solids.html
http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/pgrim/pgrim.htm
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_22_5.html
But that is a far different issue than saying science and engineering
and logic alone can or should define our moral compass or our societal
aspirations. It is historically always been the province of art and
story to help us with moral and social and spiritual development.

If we as a group for example say that universal health care is a
fundamental human right, science and logic and engineering may help us
achieve that goal efficiently and effectively. But it can't help us
choose that fundamental goal. (Engineering management techniques can
help with choosing subgoals once the big goal is agreed on, of course.)

Similarly, if we decide a group of human beings should be exterminated
based on some shared property (genetic marker, race, creed, class, legal
status), science and engineering etc. can help us achieve that
efficiently and effectively such as by using detailed census data to
optimize secret police sweeps in minimal paths using the least
automobile fuel -- but that may seem to most people to be engaging in a
moral horror (unless of course these days they are labeled as
"terrorists" instead of, say, an ethnic minority).

Likewise if we decide to implement Solar Space Power Systems, science
etc. may help us do that expediently, but it can't let us resolve a
cost-benefit analysis of whether SSPS is worth doing if the people who
get the benefits and the people who pay the costs are different (which
is typical for most large projects). Nor can science or engineering help
us choose between alternative SSPS implementations or development paths
if again those choices benefit and cost different groups differently.

This is the fundamental fallacy of the oh-so-scientific sounding
"cost-benefit analysis" -- different people pay different costs and get
different benefits. Even the same objective benefit given to different
people may provide different subjective levels of personal benefits to
each.

For example, say you have a cake and ten friends at a party. How should
the cake be divided? Should everyone get the same size piece? What if
some people ate before they came over -- should they get less? What if
some people are allergic to chocolate -- should they get a different
part of the cake preferentially? What if some people prefer other food
at the party -- should they get the same size piece even if they will
throw it out? What if some people are fatter than others -- should they
get the same amount, even if they want less? Who then gets the extra?
What if some of your friends are diabetic and eating the cake would mess
up their sugar (but they want it anyway)? What if you start cutting the
cake having decided on one strategy and in the middle of distributing
the pieces another ten friends show up? Do they get some too? Does
everyone reapportion what they have already got and are eating, or do
you just divide what is left somehow? And what about the five people who
were in the first group and didn't get their share yet when the other
arrived -- do they get more or less or the same? How do you answer these
simple cake cutting problems with science and engineering alone? You
can't -- because ultimately subjective weights need to be assigned to
various subjective feelings and subjective socially related
interpretations of possible benefits. Granted, science and engineering
can help make software that helps a decision maker input the problem and
given weightings and a distribution algorithm make a choice, but even
the act of turning to the machine for help and deciding on a cutting
path program will disrupt the flow of the party and slow down the food
distribution process (plus it costs time to write and maintain software
-- does the programmer get paid for in cake too?). This cake example was
inspired by one in the book _The Policy Paradox: The Art of Political
Decision Making_ by Deborah A. Stone:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393976254?v=glance
""Policy Paradox" integrates case studies and theory with clear critical
analysis. Through a rich and complex model, this revised edition
continues to show how real-world policy grows out of differing ideals,
and even definitions, of such basic societal goals as security, equality
and liberty."

You are always a moral human being and a citizen before you are a
scientist or engineer. To be otherwise is fooling yourself -- from the
very second you wake up in the morning and decide to have a fun day in
the lab instead of call in sick and watch television or instead take
your kid out of school and go for a special day together. Let your
science and engineering talents serve your morality and your
citizenship. To put your morality in service of some seemingly
irrefutable scientific or logical principle is to court disaster. By
this I don't mean subscribe slavishly to every bit of dogma you were
brought up with; the mind often has an amazing ability for making some
sense of the mystery of the world and reconciling complex issues and
eventually seeing through intellectual parasites if you retain some
intellectual curiosity (sadly lacking in the White House right now,
despite otherwise great intelligence and persuasiveness).
http://www.buzzflash.com/southern/2002/09/06_southern.html

Classically, this problem of using science to justify something often
comes up when people cite some species as a model for ideal human
behavior using ecological and evolutionary pseudoexamples to prove some
point about how humans or human society should be. This is a fallacy
because biology shows diversity more than anything, including how weird
basic human concepts are (like males are larger than females in humans,
when 90% of species are the other way around) and it also ignores that
even if every species ever seen and all of human history showed some
common behavior pattern, humans can still make a different choice right
now on how to live as thinking moral beings.

Also remember, it is in the choice of subject to research in science and
the choice of technology to explore for further invention and refinement
where a scientist or engineer has their greatest control over shaping
the world. See Langdon Winner's writings on this:
http://www.rpi.edu/~winner/
Or Seymor Melman's:
http://www.aftercapitalism.com/index2.html
or E.F. Schumacher's:
http://www.schumachersociety.org/
Or Bucky Fuller's:
http://www.bfi.org/

Also, often people in power suggest turning to science or engineering or
logic for solutions to moral problems because they know what answers
such technicians will give because they pay the technicians salaries in
one way or another. Just look at the scandles around scientists quietly
taking money from companies to create favorable studies about their
products for examples of this.

So, politics and morality (religion) and other issues remain in play,
even when being a scientist or engineer doing what one is told or what
one is allowed to do or what one chooses to do, as does the very nature
of whether we are playing a finite (to win) or infinite (to play) game
with our decision making process. See _Finite and Infinite Games_ by
James P. Carse:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345341848?v=glance

All the best.

--Paul Fernhout

> Have a look at the United Nations Environment Programme:
> http://www.unep.org/
> Those are IMHO all very real issues, and dismiss them as a
> communist plot is just an incredibly irresponsible and extremist
> position.

If you want to dismiss them as a communist plot then that's up to
you. You confuse me when you yourself criticize your position as
irresponsible and extremist!

You seem very confused. On one hand you think environmental problems
are caused by the communists. On the other hand you recognize that
you're holding an irresponsible and extremist position.

I and many others would argue with you on these extreme positions
you hold. You cite no evidence to back your position that communists
are responsible for environmental degradation, although the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe were notorious for poor environmental
policy, but they weren't alone in bad stewardship policies.

For me to take your claim of a communist plot seriously you'll have
to provide evidence to back up your claim.

> but ignoring the environmental issue posed by industrialization
> and population growth on global scale is just hiding the head
> under the sand.

Who is ignoring these issues? Surely you're not referring to me. All
I'm saying is that the environmental movement of today cares more
about politics than the environment. That the environmental movement
is notorious for mis-using science.

All I seek are responsible people who can study the problems of the
environment and make solid pronoucements free of political slant.

> As for Europe, having lived both in US and in Europe, I can assure
> you that the quality of life in the old continent is much higher,
> and if that is a result of a communist plot I'd suggest you to
> start one ASAP in the States as well... :)

Ha-Ha. This is so subjective a statement. Well, let's see, how about
this, - A country can have a high standard of living at any given
time if it borrows money, shirks on defense commitments, and doesn't
plan fiscally for the future.

Let's take a look at Germany, France, Italy, and the United States.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
http://www.oecd.org/statsportal/0,2639,en_2825_293564_1_1_1_1_1,00.ht
ml
http://www01.imd.ch/documents/wcy/content/ranking.pdf
http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/publications/a/pdf/patents.pdf

FRANCE:
GDP Growth Rate: 1%
GDP Per Capita: $25,700
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Total Fertility Rate: 1.85/woman
Net Migration Rate: 0.66/1000
Military/GDP: 2.57%
Budget Expenditure/Revenues (capita): 1.1538
Budget Expenditures/GDP: 21.43%
World Competitiveness Score: 66.407
Patents/Resident (1,000,000): 183

GERMANY:
GDP Growth Rate: 0.4%
GDP Per Capita: $26,600
Unemployment Rate: 9.8%
Total Fertility Rate: 1.37/woman
Net Migration Rate: 2.18/1,000
Military/GDP: 1.38%
Budget Expenditure/Revenues (capita): 1.0287
Budget Expenditures/GDP: 37.77%
World Competitiveness Score: 69.768
Patents/Resident (1,000,000): 233

ITALY:
GDP Growth Rate: 0.4%
GDP Per Capita: $25,000
Unemployment Rate: 9.1%
Total Fertility Rate: 1.26/woman
Net Migration Rate: 2.07/1,000
Military/GDP: 1.64%
Budget Expenditure/Revenues (capita): 1.0259
Budget Expenditures/GDP: 35.05%
World Competitiveness Score: 44.310
Patents/Resident (1,000,000): 15

UNITED STATES:
GDP Growth Rate: 2.45%
GDP Per Capita: $37,600
Unemployment Rate: 5.8%
Total Fertility Rate: 2.07/woman
Net Migration Rate: 3.52/1,000
Military/GDP: 3.2%
Budget Expenditure/Revenues (capita): 1.0545
Budget Expenditures/GDP: 19.73%
World Competitiveness Score: 100
Patent/Resident (1,000,000): 302

What do these figures tell us? The US economy is growing faster than
that of Europe, it has greater per capita wealth, more people
working, the citizenry is replacing itself with its birthrate, the
population is growing faster through immigration than Europe's
population, it's a more competitive country and gets significantly
more patents per person than Europe.

While you may like your life in Europe the underlying fundamentals
don't paint a picture of a secure future. The Federal Budgets in
Italy and Germany are both around 35% of the GDP. How can the
benefits that make life so fine in Europe continue to be paid for
when Italy is ony having 126 children per 100 couples. That means
the taxes from each future worker will have to pay for the social
benefits of 1.58 elderly people. The poor worker of the future will
have to earn enough to support himself and 1.58 other people. What
if the worker has a family? Not likely because he won't be able to
afford to do so because he's paying for everyone else.

Yes, I'm sure that life is fine there. I liked it as well. But it
can't continue unless there is dramatic change. Think of it this
way. I can have a nice life too if I use my credit card to get all I
want and make my kids pay for it when they grow older. It may not be
so bad if I had a lot of kids to take on my debt, but that's not he
case with Italy where each couple has 1.26 children.

I could go on and on about this. I've got mountains of data that I
could use to build a case, but I don't have the time and quite
frankly it's tangential to space development. The data above should
throw some cold water on your utopian dreams about how wonderful
life can be when reality and the future are ignored.

> In other words, the current US model of growth is not sustainable,
> and that is bad news unless you start to worry about it and plan
> for the future, which is exactly what environmentalism is about.

No, it's what environmentalism *used* to be about. Look closely at
the current environmental movement - it has more to do with
poliitics than responsible stewardship of the environment.

> Now I certainly agree that the solutions are much more likely to
> be found in technology and research, and that returning to middle
> age is not an option,

I agree with what you wrote here. Unfortunately, the return to a
vision of the past, which even Michael Crichton wrote about in his
essay, is the end-state that many environmentalists seek.

> The problems are real and ignoring them for short term profit is
> not going to do any good to anyone, except to those who make the
> short term profit that is. (timber lobbies anyone?)

Well of course, any time you look at a vested interest they'll never
be keen on reducing their profits. The role of society as a whole
is to find the appropriate balance.

TangoMan

blah blah blah.
I tell you what those figures tell you, that figures means little. :P
Try to live in Europe for a couple of years and see how you like it.
Still not interested in your ideas about the green movemnet being in fact a
communist plot, and trying to make it pass for my position, means you are
either under the influence of some heavy medication, or you should be... :)

Cheers,

Claudio

> blah blah blah.
> I tell you what those figures tell you, that figures means
little. :P

OK, I just wanted to throw objective data into the discussion to
counter subjective opinions.

> Try to live in Europe for a couple of years and see how you like
it.

I've lived in 3 European countries. All together I lived in Europe
for over 10 years.

> Still not interested in your ideas about the green movemnet being
in fact a
> communist plot, and trying to make it pass for my position, means
you are
> either under the influence of some heavy medication, or you should
be... :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Claudio

You're the one that's writing about a communist plot. I don't think
the Green movement is part of a plot. I have no idea where you're
getting that idea so I assume it's your own idea :)

TangoMan

>
> > Somebody forwarded me the following link:
> >
> > http://www.lastsuperpower.net/docs/Document.2003-12-11.3925
> >
> > Michael Crichton's talk to the Commonwealth Club of California
this
> > past
> > September, on "Environmentalism as a Religion". There's a point
where
> > there's no real use in arguing further; as he says, "One of the
> > defining
> > features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by
facts,
> > because they have nothing to do with facts." Can we actually
leave the
> > realm of religion for science here? Crichton concludes:
> >
> I must admit to being a bit mystified by this list's view of
> environmentalists as deranged fanatics. While there are deranged
> fanatics that call themselves environmentalists, they are a tiny
> minority -- probably a smaller fraction than deranged fanatical
> Christians or Muslims. I consider myself an environmentalist, as
was
> Teddy Roosevelt and many others. I believe a large majority of
> Americans consider themselves as such (although my data on that
is
> old).

I'm sure that many Americans and people worldwide would consider
themselves conservationists or stewards of the land.
Environmentalism has come to mean something entirely different than
conservationism, although those heavily involved in groups like
Greenpeace and the Sierra Club treat them as synonymous when it
suits them.

A conservationist sees that willful, purposeless distruction is
wrong, and that there are responsibilites associated with our use of
resources. The environmentalist position has come to treat Man as
an intruder on the earth, one whose every action contributes to
the "rape" of the planet.

An examination of the philosophy behind environmentalism can be
found at:
http://www.econot.com/page4.html

>
> A close examination of the data makes it clear that mankind is
having a
> major impact on the planet, some of it clearly negative (try
breathing
> in any third world city). Anyone familiar with the state of our
> knowledge of the planet knows that we haven't a clue what the
effect of
> our actions is going to be. Since we really need this biosphere
for
> our second-to-second survival, perhaps a bit of conservatism
makes
> sense.

Agreed. Let's not start any nuclear wars anytime soon, shall we?

>
> With regard to SPS, it clearly has potential to provide baseline
power
> at a minimal, operational environmental cost. Launch activities
for
> construction (not to mention space colonization in general) may
have a
> negative effect on the atmosphere and we should be gathering data
and
> building models of that now to understand the effect and mitigate
it at
> the design stage when fixes are cheap.
>

Not even cheap, clean power from an SPS will satisfy the
environmentalist mob, the Kyoto crowd.

All the energy we use on the earth is derived in one way or another
from the sun, from the primordial nebula from which the earth formed
or some subsequent impact. The latter two account for the heavy
elements used in nuclear reactors, and the sun accounts for all the
rest.

For the last 4-5 billion years the earth has been bathed in sunlight
storing some of the energy, and radiating heat into space at night,
and it is currently in a balance (average global temperature stays
roughly the same).

When we burn fossil fuels, we release stored energy, and some of it
inevitably becomes heat. As long as the rate of heat release into
the system is kept pace with by the rate at which that heat is
radiated into space, no change is observed; if the heat cannot be
released into space then the temperature rises. Greenhouse gases
are a concern for conservationists because of the possible effects
on albedo.

Now, bring an SPS into the equation; although it does not contribute
to greenhouse gases, it does add extra energy to the system.
Hopefully most of that energy will be converted into Work, but some
of it will inevitably become heat, which must eventually be
reradiated back into space. Conservationists will have the idea of
moving most heavy industry to space, and enviromentalists will argue
against having an SPS at all.

Ed

> You're the one that's writing about a communist plot. I don't think
> the Green movement is part of a plot. I have no idea where you're
> getting that idea so I assume it's your own idea :)

Ha, ok, I thought you were the one who wrote: "Look closely at
the current environmental movement - it has more to do with
politics than responsible stewardship of the environment."

Sounds like a communist plot to me... :)

> How can the
> benefits that make life so fine in Europe continue to be paid for
> when Italy is ony having 126 children per 100 couples. That means
> the taxes from each future worker will have to pay for the social
> benefits of 1.58 elderly people. The poor worker of the future will
> have to earn enough to support himself and 1.58 other people. What
> if the worker has a family? Not likely because he won't be able to
> afford to do so because he's paying for everyone else.

ha no, that's a capitalist plot. Different thing. You see, your children
shouldn't have to pay for you when you'll be old, because you have already
paid for it during your entire life of work. They should only pay for
themselves, if the government use the taxes he collects and the national
insurance contributions for what they are meant, that is. Of course some bad
government likes to spend all that money buying weapons instead (usually
from family friends) or steal it and put it in his personal bank account,
but then the problem is not that the system can not support itself, but that
our governants are corrupted. This incidentally is the position of the
European left parties, which generally tend to be the one labelled as
"socialists" or "communists" by the corrupted govern ants... :)

US certainly has a "higher pro-capita wealth", as you say, but say something
like that which doesn't take into account how that wealth is distributed
serve only to prove that you can get figures to say whatever you want... The
average US citizen is poor compared to the average European citizen, and the
level of degrade and poverty I've seen in US doesn't exist anywhere in the
old continent, you need to go to the third world to find a match for that.
On top of large masses of emarginated and even larger middleclass families
that generally don't even own the house where they live (and even if they
did wouldn't be a big deal because is made of cardboard anyway) you have an
incredibly small group of people who are oozing so much money out of their
pores that they manage to pull the average higher than in Europe.
Unsurprisingly most of these people spend most of their time ruling the
country and making sure things remain this way, which is what is generally
referred to as "American Freedom". The "American Dream" instead is becoming
every day more a dream and less American, as profit laws alone, not
moderated by "socialists" concerns about human dignity and welfare can only
generate misery and exploitment.
Bottom line, ok with a pyramidal distribution of wealth, but in US it's more
like the shape a drop creates when falling in the water, the pyramid sides
are not straight lines, they're hyperboles. The European model is not flat,
as communist theories would want it (scary stuff!) but the pyramid is a bit
less steep, which is a lot better for all. Also for those on the top as they
sit on a much more stable base, even if they are not standing so high. But
having only 12 limo instead of 15 is not that much a sacrifice to pay to
avoid having people blowing themselves to pieces in your soup everyday, is
it?

Space development content: this are all political problems and can't be
resolved with technological development alone. Space habitats that could
guarantee a great level of wealth to every single citizen would be still
inhabited by a mostly miserable population run by a incredibly rich elite,
if the socio-political model remain the same.
Discussing about how to change that socio-political model and how it will
affect and will be affected by space colonisation is a purely political
debate that I personally found very marginal to the purpose of this list.
Discussing how to influence the socio-political model that we have now in
order to make space colonisation more likely is also a purely political
debate, but I found it extremely more interesting and stimulating than
bashing environmentalists.
Again, these are purely personal preferences, so feel free to keep arguing,
just excuse me if I won't reply... :)

Cheers,

Claudio

>
> Now, bring an SPS into the equation; although it does not contribute
> to greenhouse gases, it does add extra energy to the system.
> Hopefully most of that energy will be converted into Work, but some
> of it will inevitably become heat, which must eventually be
> reradiated back into space. Conservationists will have the idea of
> moving most heavy industry to space, and enviromentalists will argue
> against having an SPS at all.

Either way works for me. Heavy industry in space will sooner or later
lead to space colonies as will SPSs if only because the capability to
build in space becomes available. Another way to look at it is that the
most polluting industry that has an easy way to return its output to the
surface is power generation (i.e. SPS). Anything material object
returned to the earth will require a lot of justification. Previous
discussions haven't found anything worth returning.
Mitchell James

>
>> This is an interesting talk, but it's by an author of popular
>> fiction, not a scientist.
>
> Yes and no. He is indeed an author but also a Harvard Medical School
> graduate as well. Some would consider physicians to be scientists of
> sorts. He's defintely not *just* an author in terms of his training.
>

Physicians are very well trained to heal the sick, but they are not
trained as scientists. My father was a physician and then became a
neuroscientist. Because of his MD he did not need to get a PhD, and
his knowledge of the body was very helpful, but his real training as a
scientist was as a post-doc in various labs, not in med-school.

Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.

> Physicians are very well trained to heal the sick, but they are
> not trained as scientists.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I'm very close to a physician
and she picked up and internalized the scientific method during her
undergraduate studies in chemistry, biology, statistics.

Does being a scientist entail publishing and performing research or
is it how one approaches the world and arrives at conclusions and
understanding of knowledge?

TangoMan