Summing up a Green position on SSPS

--- 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