Let's watch this test case

> After I write each rebuttal, I swear it'll be my last :) but you're
> so darn good at baiting me :)

Me too. :-) And sorry if this is a bit disjointed -- it was written over
the course of a few days and I still don't have enough time/energy to do
your thorough comments justice. Hopefully this is winding down through
exhaustion if no other reason...

> How about the issue of restrictive covenants attached to properties.
> My associate has these on his home. He must even use a specially
> designed lawn sign if he wants to sell his home - not the realtor
> supplied one. He'd be lynched if he put up a turbine, then'd they'd
> sue his estate :)

Perhaps we should feel sorry for him? Probably can't have a dog either.
I will agree wind power does have many more siting issues than PV.
Still, as social attitudes change, covenants along with various laws can
be adapted. Given that your associate lives in an area where people care
about their property deeply, perhaps that community as a whole might put
up one central wind turbine farm or one largish PV installation plus
hydrogen storage and turbine/fuelcell on common land to generate power
for the entire community? Or maybe just a natural gas congeneration
system where they might also use any excess heat for piping to homes or
keeping the streets clear of snow and ice or for a local greenhouse for
a community supported agriculture for fresh local veggies in the winter?
That might actually increase property values if done right, especially
if the US continues to experience blackouts or experiences terrorism
against the grid and central power plants and food distribution, etc.

In my own case, something like your associate's covenants also restrict
my windpower options. In the Adirondack Park, structures taller than 40
feet need special permission (rarely granted) from the Park authorities.
I spoke with someone who has after two years or so has still not gotten
permission for an 80 foot wind tower; I spoke with the Park person
involved with authorizing theses things and according to him the total
height even has to include the blades. Since optimum placement of wind
power systems is typically thirty feet above the tree line (30ft + ~50ft
= ~80ft) this sort of forecloses this wind option for me due to living
in a forested area -- even though I am likely otherwise in a good site
for wind power (hilly, near mountains) and might have a payback in seven
to ten years for a whole house size system. Savonius style rotors might
still work some in some clearings because they work despite turbulence,
but they do have lower power output and commercial ones would then have
much longer payback times. I could still try to get such a permit -- it
would require site surveys with balloons I think for the visibility of
such a tower from the road or neighbors, as well as arguments about how
it might have other conservation benefits (like not clear cutting for
wood burning or to put in a large PV installation); I might also have to
agree to keep the rest of the property wild or such. As a minus, I am a
few miles away from a small airport which has small planes and
ultralites fly near this property so perhaps an 80 ft tower would be
ruled a hazard for them (a 120 ft emergency services tower proposed for
closer to them was ruled as such) or might need a potentially annoying
light. So far, I've been too busy with other things to consider pursuing
all this also given other options like PV (plus I'm waiting to see how
the other guy's effort turns out. :-)

Several of my other renewable power options are also foreclosed for one
reason or another. I am in an excellent location overall for microhydro
(given a hilly terrain), but the best site is 1000ft or so from the
house (creating power line losses and extra costs and disruption to bury
a power line) and also has the best drop onto a neighboring property. We
have lots of wood, but we don't want to cut trees, and want to leave the
fallen logs alone for conservation reasons (for wildlife and fungi
etc.). [Our neighbor's property, given they have chosen to burn wood,
has had most of the fallen or dead trees removed.] We have trees close
to the house which restrict some PV potential; plus the design of the
house has much north-ish sloping roof surface so there is not much
southern exposed roof to work with (maybe only enough for eight or ten
120 watt panels). Even that might have some tree shadows across it, and
PV panels often work poorly if partially shadowed -- current technology
typically is not smart enough to just use what sunlight they have from
various technical issues when some cells produce and some don't. There
isn't otherwise a cleared area big enough on the property without trees
blocking the southern exposure in winter time. I could make such a
clearing, but I don't want to cut the trees. Another alternative is 39
foot poles to hold up the solar panels, but I have not yet evaluated the
cost for this (given bad winters, icing, etc.).

We are just a short distance away from an old hydroelectric plant. So on
that basis, bioregionally, there is plenty of relatively green
electricity available from a very local source related to the watershed
this property is part of. (Yes, I know hydroelectric projects have
various issues, so I said relatively green...) There are also a large
number of nearby areas which have been logged such as that they would
make good places for either PV or possible short wind towers (if someone
wanted to do such on those sites). So in terms of areas nearby, there is
plenty of greenish power or related potential relative to the population
even if one does not want to directly cut trees for these projects
(although this is a sparsely populated area, admittedly).

Note that if smarter and very much cheaper PV was available (an
augmented version of the european PV potential breakthrough announced
with more shade resistance) -- then I could probably easily cover enough
structures or ground surface (including otherwise not-cost effective
north facing sloping roofs) to make the project worthwhile economically
as an investment.

> As has already been pointed out to you, most of you wind/solar
> advocates seem to be property owners with sufficient space to
> implement your "million points of light" dream. Tell me this: once
> you completely do away with grid distribution, how will the Empire
> State Building get power? A huge wind turbine on its roof? Clad the
> whole building in solar shingles? What happens when there is a wind
> storm and the shingles fly off everywhere? How do the concrete
> canyon shadows affect the efficacy of the solar shingles? Will New
> York buildings be topped with 1,000 foot towers, with a turbine at
> every 50 feet, in order to generate power for the *density* of the
> users within the building?

I will acknowledge that cities may have nearby power plant for some of
their power, such as an offshore wind farm in the case of NYC or even
PV+Hydrogen plants floating in the Atlantic and using tankers to import
the energy (with the hydrogen stabilized somehow) or large undersea
power cables. But yes, perhaps the Empire State Building could generate
some of its own power using PV, wind turbines, vibration absorbing
systems, cogeneration, etc., and through energy efficiency (heat pumps?
insulation? better motors? better windows [think they did this]? low
flow water toilets? better lighting? systems to move heat from the warm
side of the building to the cold side? local thermostat controls?
elevators that regenerate some power? smart lights that know if someone
needs them?) probably reduce its power needs by 2/3 if it is a typical
building (admittedly some handwaving here as I don't know how efficient
that building is already, and it is also a special case as a historic
landmark :-). Local is somewhat relative to scale. Local for a house
might be on the property or in the nearby community. Local for a city
might be in the city or suburbs or closeby geographically or bioregionally.

> I gather from our past exchanges that appeals to economic issues
> carry little weight with you

I don't think that is quite accurate... We more likely disagree on the
economic and technical viability of some approaches light hudrogen
storage...

> but such are really the most cogent
> argument that can be made.

Again, because most "economic" calculations ignore external costs like
pollution, national security costs, and poltical (fascism) implications,
and also often factor in legalized bribery to change laws and taxes in a
large projects favor through lobbying, the most economic thing to do is
often the most insane in terms of collective survival and is also often
the least community friendly (despite the ability of good PR firms to
make it sound otherwise). (Glad to see some forces are resisting the
current US energy bill -- maybe there is some hope. :-)

> I concede your point that the process is
> possible, and the systemic design is conceptually valid,

Thanks! And I'll conceed that the most economic approaches right to now
to use the grid for backup power have scaling issues. :-)

> but for the
> ideal to become reality it must pass the litmus tests of economics,
> efficiency and practicality.

Perhaps let's assume national security interest may someday change the
economic equation through laws and taxes (i.e. ending nuclear's free
insurance by the government, making the fossil fuel industry pay for all
future and past military related costs, piercing corporate shields for
unethical acts to make major energy company shareholders pay for cleanup
costs such as for MTBE in drining water and thus removing the
"bankruptcy" subsidy corporations enjoy, etc.)

> The sheer volume of platinum required
> for your decentralized utopia is staggering. What will this do to
> the supply/demand curves? I'd like to see you wave away the process
> of supply and demand :)

Demand drives innovation which increases supply or creates various
cheaper substitutes...

> http://www.platinum.matthey.com/applications/fuelcells.html
>
> In the last 10 years, demand has exceeded supply in 7 of them. Where
> will the catalyst for the fuel cell come from? Magic technology?
>
> http://www.platinum.matthey.com/uploaded_files/market_data_charts/Pt%
> 2094%2003.pdf

People are already researching alternatives to platinum and ways to use
less of it:

One reduced platinum usage:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/page/dft_roads_024056-03.hcsp
http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID36#_Platinum:_Vital_Component

The fact is alternative exists but economics or technical issues need to
be resolved:
http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/technique/issues/summer2001/2001-06-01/16.html
"Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) operate at higher temperatures (~1000 C)
but can use a variety of fuels; electricity can be generated from
natural gas, diesel fuel, kerosene, gasoline, and even coal. They use
the same sort of proton and electron exchange as PEFCs, but since the
electrodes can be made from cheaper metals (like copper), the cost of
SOFC is low enough to make them applicable for larger megawatt-range
power plants. Moreover, waste heat from the reaction can be used to
generate even more electricity from a turbine, just like traditional
plants, which makes SOFCs insanely efficient alternatives to coal power."

A fuel cell on a chip that seems to use copper as the catalyst:
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2001/091201/Hydrogen_chip_to_fuel_handhelds_091201.html
"The Lehigh device uses tiny capillaries etched into a silicon chip to
act as fuel lines to mix and carry the raw materials of the reaction --
methanol and water -- to channels coated with a catalyst layer of
copper, said Kothare. The channels provide a closed path for flow of
fluids. The inside of the channels will be coated with a catalyst. The
reaction will take place on the surface of the catalyst. "

cell car that makes fuel using PV:
http://www.physlink.com/estore/cart/purchase_item.cfm?item_no=39&SID
"With this unique kit, you can build your own experimental reversible
fuel cell car to learn more about this energy source. With more than 30
experiments and demonstrations, provided either in the kit or on our web
site, users will learn how a reversible fuel cell works to perform
electrolysis as well as to create energy. The electricity required to
activate electrolysis is created with a large solar cell included with
the kit. During electrolysis, water is separated into hydrogen and
oxygen and the resulting energy is stored as a gas. When needed, the gas
is fed into the fuel cell, which then serves as the power source."

The magic is simply R&D and innovation -- as the late economist Julian
Simon suggests (in the area I agree with him) resource prices typically
go down over time because people develop better ways to create resources
and the technology that uses them. Thus, aluminum once cost more than
platinum and yet is now so cheap people typically throw it away.

And considering how automobile catalytic converters already often use
platinum, and such converters won't be needed with fuel cells, perhaps
the resource need won't change much for cars?

In any case, turbines similar to ones that turn natural gas to
electricity can also be used to convert hydrogen to electricity -- fuel
cells are just in theory more efficient and less upkeep.

>>(ICI in Britain has long stored very large amounts of hydrogen in
>>underground caverns at up to 50-bar pressure without difficulty;
> Great. Wrap your mind around this question - where does that
> hydrogen come from? Hint - think natural gas.

This reference is in response to your question about balancing out
energy production of wind turbines -- that could be the source in this
case. Or PV.

>
>>The experts you cite on grid issues with wind/solar also seem to
>>me to be trying to say renewables won't scale because the current
>>most profitable approach to using them (peak shaving for the grid)
>>has scaling issues. So, considering only grid issues you raise,
>>according to this expert, Denmark can run entirely off of wind if
>>they use intermediate Hydrogen storage.
>
> Sure they could. Denmark could also solve its energy problems with
> anti-matter power plants. Gee, this ignoring reality stuff is a
> great way to rebut arguments.

I don't see how citing an expert in the area who says Denmark can make
all their power from Wind energy if they use a few weeks of Hydrogen
storage to buffer production is ignoring reality...

> Forget about where all the platinum for the fuel cells will come
> from. Demand is already exceeding supply.

As I showed you, gas turbines can work as well, platinum requirements
per fuel cell are going down, and alternatives are beign researched and
developed...

> Neglect the issue of where
> the hydrogen will come from.

PV ultimately when the costs for it crashes soon.. But in various other
cases where it makes sense wind, hydro, tidal, etc.

> Natural gas will only exacerbate the
> environmental problems.

Even making hydrogen from natural gas and then using it in automotive
fuel cells will for various reasons related to inefficiency of internal
combustion engines use less natural gas overall (See Lovins' twenty
myths about Hydrogen for the details).

> Wish away the economic expense of
> implementing all of those fuel cells.

Done. :-) Just like you wish away the costs of upgrading the electric
grid (now at capacity) for when everyone uses SPS electricity to heat
their homes and the related home retrofit costs (see below.)

> Do away with the grid and let all of the city people move into the
> suburbs or country and live like the other wind/solar advocates.

No, cities can be more efficient than rural and surburban living. I see
nothing wrong with a city having a few larger local power plants using
PV, Hydro, Tidal, Wind, Biomass, etc. The point is such a system is
inherently more secure than what we have now or what SPS woudl supply.

> That'll work because there are recorded instances, although
> anecdotal, that every parent's child is above average in
> intelligence, beauty, and athletics. Hey, if every kid is above
> average, then every city dweller can live like the
> environmentalists, and nobody will complain about the overcrowding
> or any other resultant issues.

Yeah, I listen to Prarie Home Companion too sometimes. :-)

>
>>I think you are citing experts who are simply basing their
>>analysis on the wrong approach.
>
> You mean like reality?
>

I mean like PV plus intermediate Hydrogen storage.

>>But as you can see from the above expert, there are other
>>approaches involving storing energy temporarily which resolve this
>>issue.
>
> The huge difference in the comparison you've drawn is that O'Neill,
> Glaser, Criswell, et. al submit their work to refereed forums where
> it is debated and it withstands scrutiny. Your experts don't submit
> their claims to the same process - your expert ignores all the
> *reality* I detailed above with the implementation of fuel cell
> batteries.

Amory Lovins / RMI is highly respected in the energy field. So are
Williams, von Hippel etc. at Princeton. I think they all have peer
reviewed publications on these issues.
http://www.princeton.edu/~energy/
http://www.princeton.edu/~energy/publications/texts.html
[Isn't "Nature" peer-reviewed?]
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/00/q3/0719-volvo.htm
"Princeton scientist wins Volvo Environment Prize ... Their analyses
also show that the developing countries can avoid retracing the
polluting energy path of industrialized countries and "leap-frog"
directly to cleaner, safer technologies."

In any case, peer review is often overrated in the sense that new ideas
are rarely successful anytime soon in peer review. Peer review is tuned
to reviewing more of the same to assure it fits in the standard mold.
(I'm not sayign it is supposed to be that way, just that in practice it
often is...) Stuff like, for example, amorphous semiconductors was
rejected for a long time out of hand because "everyone knows" that only
regular crystals could be semiconductors... Same with grant requests --
really new ideas are routinely turned down (and then often resubmitted
years later by the rejecting reviewer who half-remembers it and often
misses the important aspects of the concepts). After all, wasn;t that
the reason SSI was created -- to fund such research because the
peer-review/grant system wasn't funding and/or publishing it? In
general, "Research University" is an oxymoron -- because universities as
extensions of the church monastic culture are designed to preserve and
transmit knowledge and to weed out the individuals who would question it
(so, university == filter). That cultural problem holds back many
creative people at universities. To make things worse, given the
continuing long term crisis of funding education and research, new
knowledge all gets patented and copyrighted etc. as opposed to being put
into the public domain to server the public which funded it, which also
slows down discussions and development in practice -- a process
accelerated since the Bayh-Dole act.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/text-only/issues/bayh-dole-act.html
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/bd/

And on top of all that, the PhD system is in crisis as the pyramid
scheme underpinnings of it started to collapse in the 1970s and still
has nott been fixed. Like stray cats, PhDs generally want to have
litters of about fifteen PhDs themselves during their career -- and such
exponential growth can only last so long in a finite university system.
See for example a comment by the Vice Provost of Caltech on the state of
science jobs as testimony to Congress:
http://www.house.gov/science/goodstein_04-01.htm
: We have in the United States today, on the one hand, a surplus of
: highly selected and trained Ph.Ds in science and engineering, and on
: the other hand a vast shortage of scientifically and technically
: educated people. For a hundred years we turned out Ph.D. scientists
: at an ever-increasing rate. That was not a problem as long as the
: absolute number remained small, but extrapolated forward, if the
: growth had continued, we would have more scientists than people some
: time in the next century. That seems a very unlikely result.
: Paradoxically, the same system of education and employment that was
: producing that ever-increasing number of scientists also produced in
: nearly everyone else, a depressing degree of scientific illiteracy.
: This painful dilemma is deeply rooted in our history.
: ...
: To solve this problem will take nothing less than a reform of both
: education and society. We must have as our goal a nation in which
: solid scientific education will form the basis of realistic career
: opportunities at all levels, in industry, government and in education
: itself, from kindergarten to graduate school. As long as we train a
: tiny scientific elite that cares not at all about anyone else, and
: everyone else wears ignorance of science and mathematics as a badge
: of honor, we are putting our future as a nation and as a culture in
: deep peril.

So, this both explains why advanced engineering for the public good is
being held back, as well as why it is dangerous to feed into this
mindset and problem by the development of energy systems like SPS
dependent on a small technical elite. Part of this problem stems from a
misunderstanding of cultural history by Western educators. While it is
true there has been some "progress" in living conditions during the past
few thousand years, it is widely now accepted by anthropologists that
the development of agriculture and related militaristic bureaucracies
was a great step backward for the average person in terms of health and
happiness. An examination of skeletons before and after the end of
hunter-gathering cultures generally shows stunting and malformation
caused by a shift from a diverse hunter-gatherer diet with lots of
leisure to a monoculture based diet from lots of work with periodic crop
failures.
http://www.deoxy.org/endwork.htm
[In part this shift is due to overpopulation relative to a lands
carrying capacity, although some of it may also be cultural and related
to the rise of Power centers...] While certainly the "noble savage" myth
may not be quite true (although there was much of value in older
cultures which has been lost IMHO), in general it is true that there are
many admiral aspects of hunter-gather societies, and it IMHO should be a
goal of any advanced technical system to return us to the better aspect
of such hunter-gatherer societies while reducing some of the worse
parts. Just one example in that direction would be an home-like RV like
Gerry O'Neill talks about in _2081_ -- but one equipped with solar
panels and a Star Trek-style nanotech replicator for increased
independence. I don't see such technology growing out of the ideals and
mindset that pushes things like the PhD system, exclusive peer review by
a tight old boy (still) network, or centralized monopolistic energy
production schemes like SPS represents. Call this philosophical if you
will -- but it is philosophy based on the best science and history has
to offer for the common person (based on what a tiny percentage of the
vast amount of stuff out there I have read, which still amounts to many
thousands of books and articles etc.). Perhaps that is why just about
every culture has its myth about the expulsion from a garden into a land
of work.

> The environmental movement has a *HUGE* credibility problem and they
> are more and more frequently preaching to themselves.

I think this may be true for some people who call themselves
environmentalists, but certainly not all, such as the Princeton or RMI ones.

>>Also, please note that SPSs could go offline for numerous reasons
>>(repairs, preventive maintainence, computer failure, etc.) and so
>>reserve capacity will need to be built into an SPS power delivery
>>system anyway.
>
> Have you ever heard of the computer concepts of parallel processing,
> RAIDS, back-up systems, etc? If a klystron blows out on a 10 GW SPS,
> I think that it can be replaced without shutting down the whole SPS.
> Just like you can hot-swap a drive on a computer, you can implement
> maintenance while the plant is operating. The SPS is not a
> monolithic generating system. It is composed of many parallel
> systems on a very large platform, be it a PV or solar thermal SPS
> design.

I pity the astronaut (or his or her family) who has to do EVA around a
working SPS beaming power.

>
>>>No matter how efficient you make a PV cell, it won't work if the
>>>sun doesn't shine. That is the limitation that no amount of
>>>money will fix. You can try to argue that away by implementing
>>>massive BATTERY schemes, but why bother when the sun shines 24
>>>hours a day in orbit, and there is no atmospheric attenuation,
>>>etc. Why continue to push for a energy policy that has inherent
>>>limitations that no amount of money can alleviate?
>
>>Again, see the expert comments above on Hydrogen storage.
>
> Didn't read like an *expert* commentary to me. More like a false
> prohet.
>
>>Also see previous comments on SPSs needing to turn off at various
>>times.
>
> Your criticism was based on fallacious premises and reasoning.
>
>>>Come on! You're conflating issues. The pollution caused by
>>>manufacturing PV cells is what I documented. That's real and it
>>>affects Earth's biosphere. SPS construction occurs outside of the
>>>Earth's bioshpere and causes no pollution. There's no way to
>>>mumbo-jumbo out of that fact! This is a complete system
>>>analysis, and what the energy is used for after it is created by
>>>PV/wind or SPS is immaterial to the analysis. PV/Wind is clearly
>>>inferior to SPS in this regard.
>
>>While I am willing to grant that PV production as done now may
>>cause pollution, I am suggesting (with handwaving :-) that if the
>>world relied entirely on just PV+Hydrogen the pollution involved
>>by making PV cells would only be 1-10% of the total industrial
>>pollution humans now produce (or would otherwise produce in the
>>course of using less or more PV energy).
>
> Look up the definition of the word "conflating." You're doing it
> again. My point is that the manufacture of PV or wind turbines takes
> energy from within the energy cycle of the Earth's biosphere. SPS is
> constructed outside of this *system* and therefore is friendlier to
> the Earth's biosphere.
>
> You're conflating the issue by bringing in issues dealing with the
> percentage of power used in PV manufacture compared to total world
> industrial energy usage and the resultant pollution, etc. Totally
> beside the point! Concede the point in favor of SPS and take your
> conflating rationale and make another argument on a different basis
> that can stand on its own internal logic.

I am simply pointing out that overall if energy production is 10% of the
cause of all pollution, SPS will at best reduce 10% of all pollution if
energy use stays the same and is no changes occur in manufacturing (and
may at worst be a step backwards if the gird needs to be expanded or
more enrgy is used to make more goods in polluting ways). If one assumes
cleaner manufacutring techniques to be used alongside SPS power to
reduce total pollution, then such techniques applied to PV will also
make it non-polluting. Either way it is mostly a wash... And by
eliminating or reducing the need for a grid the grid, PV + Hydrogen is
potentially cleaner and lower impact.

Just repeating myself at this point though... :-(

>
>>>Your whole argument on this point is complete nonsense from an
>>>economic perspective.
>
>>There are also many ways to look at economics, for example E.F.
>>Schumacher's Buddhist economics.
>>http://www.schumachersociety.org/buddhisteconomics.html
>
> I'll be the first to agree to that statement. I've studied Smith,
> the Neo-Ricardians, the Marxist and Neo-Marxists, the Monetarists,
> the Austrians, Veblen and the Institutionalists, Keynesian and the
> Neo-Keynesians, and themeatic subjects of Game Theory, Business
> Cycle Thoery, and Finance Theory, among other which don't come
> immediately to mind, yet in all my years I've never seen any journal
> articles on Buddhist Economic Theory. Can you provide more links on
> this school of thought? Where is it taught?

Start with the link above. And also:
http://www.deoxy.org/endwork.htm
In general the issue is that most "work" is unneccesary moving stuff
aroudn or decidign who gets it. Perhaps less than 10% of work involves
primary productivity in making things or energy. That work can further
be made more enjoyable by changing how it is done, and otherwise it can
be eliminated when desired by automation. (Note that housework and
childrearing work remains...)

See for example sci-fi stories like "The Skills of Xanadu" by Theodore
Sturgeon or the novel _Voyage from Yesteryear_ by James P. Hogan (one of
my favorite books and authors).

> Personally, I'm skeptical of holding Burma up as a role model of
> economic progressivity. Look at how well Burma is doing on any
> number of criteria other than the dreaded, and loaded, economic
> perspective you criticize.

Probably because I would assume Burma doesn't practice this kind of
policy because of listening to the IMF and World Bank. :-)

>>Simply maximizing short term profit at the expense of everything
>>else (society, workers, environment, children) by passing on as
>>many external costs as possible to others and tilting the playing
>>field in one's favor by manipulating the legal system and tax code
>>through legalized campaign financing bribery is itself a cultish
>>religion or addiction. See for example:
>> "Confessions of a Recovering Economist"
>> http://www.caw.ca/news/factsfromthefringe/issue65.asp
>
> Phew! Where to start? Considering that your source is appealing to
> the Canadian Auto Workers Union membership,

And what is wrong with unions? Who got us the 40 hour work week? The end
of child labor? Safer workign conditions and worker compensation laws?
Better wages? Retirement plans? Health care? etc?
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug20.html

So, SPSs aren't going to have unions? Probably not -- it sounds like you
want to keep costs down including by sending microwave-fried astronauts
back to their loved ones so no SPSs ever have to be shut down. :-)

> let me frame my response
> in terms of motivating labor. This fundamental issue was played out,
> and was ideally contrasted, between the Capitalist and Communist
> systems.
>
> For an excellent analysis of this issue and others see:
> "Reforming the Soviet Economy: Equality versus Efficiency." Ed. A
> Hewett, The Brookings Institution, Washington, 1988, ISBN 0-8157-
> 3603-7
>
> In a nutshell, by ignoring some *fundamental* economic truths, and
> substituting wishful thinking or ideology in its stead you develop
> an economic system that is built on a house of cards.
>
> Imagine that you are working on a factory floor and all of the
> workers are paid the same wage. You are deligent and show up on
> time, work productively and help meet the production goals of your
> State Enterprise. Your co-worker is consistently showing up to work
> intoxicated, his work habits are sloppy, he causes assembly line
> delays, and generally his presence is detrimental to the production
> goals of the State Enterprise. Will he be fired? NO, he won't
> because down at this fundamental level the goal of the economic
> system is the equality of all workers, not the efficiency of their
> participation in the State Enterprise. You as the productive worker
> cannot be rewarded for your productivity. What happens to your
> motivation for hard work after witnessing this system? If you
> guessed that it diminishes, then you guessed correctly, for that is
> exactly what happened in the Soviet Union.

Your analysis, which is a classic in conventional terms, ignores the
core of Buddhist economics as well as "the end of work" as linked above.

First off, you are assuming work that is not intrinsically enjoyable, so
people want to do it. An example of such work must be writing these
emails back and forth, otherwise we probably wouldn't be doing it. :-)

Another issue is the amount of work required relative to the output (or
efficiency). You assume efficiency so low that the number of people
doing the work matters relative to the output, and that is is important
for them to do as much as possible. Instead, consider the situation if
you are dilligent and produce enough food to feed ten million people a
day, and your coworker is a drunk who can only produce enough food to
feed one million people a day, and you think this is unfair and leave,
pretty soon if people get hungry the drunk coworker is going to get ten
drinking buddies in to help, and they will have a grand old time
producing slightly more food than the two of you did together. By then,
you might see what a good time they are having and might even go back to
help out and maybe loosen up a little. [Note, I'm not condoning
alcoholism here, just trying to use an extreme example. :-)] Yes, it is
more people doing the work, but they are having a good time everyday and
be very productive suign advanced technology, so all the work will still
get done that needs to get done. And almost ten million people would
still don't have to work at all... So one big difference here is
productivity! You asume low productivity in your economics example, I
assume high productivity in mine.

See, that's part of the problem with promoting the SPS vision to produce
power for Earth as being built as part of the economic status quo and
using all the same conventional mainstream economic logic. You are just
projecting scarcity assumptions into space and the future. That is IMHO
not a good thing to do. Instead, we can look to the future and space for
[relatively] infinite power and resources.

By the way, a fun book for you: _Finite and Infinite Games_
by James P. Carse
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345341848?v=glance
"Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life, the games we
play in business and politics, in the bedroom and on the battlefied --
games with winners and losers, a beginning and an end. Infinite games
are more mysterious -- and ultimately more rewarding. They are
unscripted and unpredictable; they are the source of true freedom.
In this elegant and compelling work, James Carse explores what these
games mean, and what they can mean to you. He offers stunning new
insights into the nature of property and power, of culture and
community, of sexuality and self-discovery, opening the door to a world
of infinite delight and possibility."

And, we are sort of playing an infinite game here, discussing whether
SPS or PV+Hydrogen is a better choice for creating freedom for humanity.
:-)

>>From such a fundamental level, build the economic system into higher
> and higher abstractions, such as central planning, command pricing,
> etc and you'll have a system that develops towards rewarding
> equality rather than efficiency. These two concepts are dichotomous.

You can have both meshworks and hierarchies. See for example Manuel De
Landa:
http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
He writes:
"To make things worse, the solution to this is not simply to begin
adding meshwork components to the mix. Indeed, one must resist the
temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes,
not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one
another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and
the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but
demand concrete experimentation. Certain standardizations, say, of
electric outlet designs or of data-structures traveling through the
Internet, may actually turn out to promote heterogenization at another
level, in terms of the appliances that may be designed around the
standard outlet, or of the services that a common data-structure may
make possible. On the other hand, the mere presence of increased
heterogeneity is no guarantee that a better state for society has been
achieved. After all, the territory occupied by former Yugoslavia is more
heterogeneous now than it was ten years ago, but the lack of uniformity
at one level simply hides an increase of homogeneity at the level of the
warring ethnic communities. But even if we managed to promote not only
heterogeneity, but diversity articulated into a meshwork, that still
would not be a perfect solution. After all, meshworks grow by drift and
they may drift to places where we do not want to go. The
goal-directedness of hierarchies is the kind of property that we may
desire to keep at least for certain institutions. Hence, demonizing
centralization and glorifying decentralization as the solution to all
our problems would be wrong. An open and experimental attitude towards
the question of different hybrids and mixtures is what the complexity of
reality itself seems to call for. To paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari,
never believe that a meshwork will suffice to save us."

> The US took the other approach and rewarded efficiency at the
> expense of equality and look at the results. Yes, the system can be
> brutal and impart a lot of pain, but many would argue that it
> provides the greatest good for the greatest number.

Many people question that. For one example, the ancestors of the tens of
millions of native peoples killed by biological warfare etc. to take
their land and resources centuries ago etc. with theft and treachery
against them for greedy reasons going on through this century. To get a
feel for all the propaganda implicit behind your statement [not accusing
you of anything here other than having paid attention in history class
:-)], see for example:
"Lies my Teacher Told Me"
http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/
"A People's History of The United States"
http://www.geocities.com/howardzinnfans/

> You can't have it both ways. Now that the writer of that article is
> addressing union members, which we all know are not the strongest
> advocates of capitalism, and many unions have strong sympathies for
> socialism, communism, and in the past had ties to the Soviet Union,
> doesn't surprise me.
>
> I hardly think it serves as an adequate rebuttal to the many people
> who have benefited from capitalism. I know that there are many
> environmentalists who disdain the capitalist system, so too with the
> Anti-Globalization advocates, the Anarchists, and other disaffected
> groups, and if they are the audience that you're appealing to and
> draw sustenance from, then the incestuous amplification I referred
> to previously is segregating you and your cohort from the majority
> of people and you're visions of Lovins' "million points of light"
> decentralization scheme is going to be looked at, and already is, as
> ideological driven, and impractical, from an efficiency and wealth
> generating perspective, not to mention more ecologically devastating
> than a SPS, or even a Fusion, approach.

This is too complex an issue for this forum and going more and more OT,
so I'll let my rebuttal here drop. :-)

>
>>They may use the grid nowadays because it is cheap and
>>available, but it is not fundamentally needed long term because of
>>the possibility of storing energy locally using hydrogen etc. You
>>just continue to dismiss this possibility out of hand without IMHO
>>seriously contemplating it or rebutting it.
>
> OK, let's assume that the grid is done away with. How will the
> hydrogen be transported? Pipelines? Hmm, replace an electrical grid
> to implement a misguided environmentalist energy policy centered on
> solar/wind/hydrogen and now we need to magically create mountains of
> platinum for the necessary fuel cell catalyst and then institute a
> hydrogen pipeline grid. We're better off because?

You don't need a grid or much pipeline if the energy is produced
locally. You don't need much platinum because of R&D or using Hydrogen
gas burning turbines.

> How will the energy density demand of urban centers be met? If your
> solar shingle example is used. A surface area of 100 m^2 will
> provide power for a family. Now consider a 20 story building housing
> 20 families under the same roof area? There is no grid to bring them
> power, and only one lucky family in the building can use the roof
> for solar shingles, so I guess everyone will have to bid for the
> power, and the dastardly Bourgeoisie family will live in comfort
> while all of the Proletariat will suffer without electricity. OK, I
> know I've gone too far with the last statement. Surely there will be
> rationing instituted to insure that each family in the building gets
> the same amount of electricity. 1/20th of what they really need.
> This type of response worked really well after the Russian
> Revolution where living space was divided equally, after all why did
> the Bourgeoisie family need more living space than their Proletarian
> neighbors? Different families sharing a spacious apartment was the
> most equatable solution. Hmmm. I wonder how this vision of the
> future will sell to Joe-SixPack and Helen-Middle Manager?

I see we've both seen or read "Dr. Zhivago". :-)

Suffice to say, most cities are not as dense as you make out, and most
could have several local PV or Wind etc. plants nearby. Toronto is a
city, and as I referenced in another post, but it bears repeating here,
this is an example of city housing in a northern location which is
fairly self-powered:
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."

By the way, another argument for local PV+Hydrogen vs. SPS that occurred
to me as I thought about more hidden costs in SPS systems. If everyone
got all their energy from SPS electricity (including heating) the
electric grid (which is now pretty much at capacity) would need to be
massively increased in size by a factor of three or more to carry all
the current. This would be a huge cost and would increase visual
pollution by new towers to carry the heavier power cables, as well as
involve cutting more trees for larger right of ways, leading to more
soil erosion and herbicide use and so on. Thus it would likely be
cheaper and better for the environment to eliminate most of the grid (or
even just keep it at its current size) using local
PV+Insulation+PassiveSolar+SolarHotWater+Hydrogen rather than expand the
grid to many times its current capacity. Also, note that if 1/2 my
energy bill is for grid operational costs, and I then have to pay for an
expansion of the grid by a factor of three, as well as its maintenance,
even if the power was free, my utility bill might more than double from
paying very much more for grid access. So, SPS power, even if free, may
cost me more to access if everyone else goes all electric based on the
grid. In the meanwhile, over the course of decades, people will still
burn coal and oil, which may go down some in price to compete with SPS
power especially where the grid has not been upgraded (since oil often
costs just $2 / barrel in real costs, the rest is profit). So, with an
SPS future, given grid issues, we may well see acid rain from sulfurous
coal, oil slicks from oil tanker failures, and so on for a very long
time... The only thing to change this is laws related to external costs
of pollutiuon, but if we had those now the system could fix itself
without SPS just using PV and other Earth-based renewables. :-)

By the way, for a motive by someone for an attack against SPS systems,
remember that SPS would displace oil producing nations, and so they
would have every reason to foster its destruction or delayed completion
to maintain their economic value such as by supporting SPS-hating
terrorist groups covertly (many oil producing nations have no other
significant industry). You still have not rebutted my vulnerability
assessment in all aspects, and even one significant vulnerability like
to GEO missiles or hackers is one too many to make them worth building.
(And we got into all this asking how to spend 87 billion for energy
security.) Also, I remain nonplussed by your saying they will not become
a cartel or unionized and strike because it seems since the whole SPS
idea revolves around building a mass driver and habitats first, and so
the upfront costs are going to be in one big consortium, and so why
should they give up a controlling interest in any SPS? So your
suggestion of multiple owners of SPSs doesn't ring true to me.

Just rereading parts of Amory Lovins' "Soft Energy Paths" written in the
1970s and see that the section on reasons not to use centralized power
systems which promote grid dependency are completely applicable to
SPS... One point he makes there is that people who push one technology
(like nukes, or SPS :-) fail to become well versed in other
alternatives, and so the debate often isn't very productive. :-(
Not to say this applies entirely to your comments -- you've made many
good points (especially about grid scaling).

Also, thinking of two cost issues with SPS interest on the trillions to
build them (or the habitats that build them, given that even operating
the fairly small scale Space Station is costing many tens of billions),
which might be a hundred of billion a year in interest, plus hundreds of
billions in expenses for the ongoing militarization of space, thus
putting the annual cost of power from them at several hundreds of
billions a year... Take a look at:
http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/7_12/The_Solar_Resource.htm
[which, by the way suggests, "We find that we would need an area of 1.29
x 104 square miles, which is an area 100 miles by 129 miles, to
completely power the US. This is approximately four times the area of
White Sands Missile Range!"]
From this, w can see the US uses 2.93 x 10exp13 kw-hr/yr. So, divide
this by $300,000,000,000 per year, (or 3 X 10exp11) and we get costs of
$0.01 per kWh irrespective of other SPS operating costs (if I got my
decimals right). Add to this the costs of maintaining a power grid that
is several times larger than the one we have now (which currently costs
$0.06/kWh), and we are still looking at electricity whose costs is
comparable to what have now. (Margo Deckard's analysis in the latest
edition of The High Frontier claims fractions of a penny for electricity
from SPS...) And before you start saying other countries will buy all
their power from the US, current geopolitical realities suggest that
will never happen (without force!). So this will be a US only energy
system which must be factored into the price and the political
vulnerability of the SPS network.

As I see it, given the state of the art in PV and wind and hydrogen
storage and fuel cells in the mid 1970s, and given a hope of a peaceful
world, the SPS dream may have made economic and technical sense at that
time. Had the world recognized that dream, and acted together to build
it in the mid 1970s, the world might be a much better place today.
Twenty five years later, given the state of the art in these sorts of
technologies, plus what is expected over the next decade or so, the SPS
concept for Earthly power needs is now an obsolete idea especially given
a long lead time and need for capital concentration and need for grid
upgrades and inherent vulnerabilities to terrorism. SPS is obsolete
technically, obsolete economically, obsolete politically, and obsolete
philosophically. And, because of the internet and new ideas on
cooperation on free and open source artifacts, SPS (or CATS for that
matter) is no longer needed to give us habitats -- as they can be
designed by hobbyists to unfold from self-replicating seeds, and one
seed can be launched on an expensive rocket by one philanthropist, and
the results can send back space craft and maybe even the power for them
to get back out of a gravity hole via habitat constructed SPSs. ;-) And
that is just one alternative approach -- others may exist as well.

--Paul Fernhout