Summing up a Green position on SSPS

>>> 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