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Originally Posted by UncleAl
"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The US burned the equivalent of 47 million bbl of oil today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Promises of a fairy dust future Eden don't cut it when somebody flips a lightswitch. Why don't yout ell us how much 47 million bbl of oil weigh?
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I dont understand what point you are trying to make. The point of sustainable development is that resources are used effectively and efficiently. Weight means absolutely nothing in these terms. The fact is that the energy resources we currently have cannot sustain human baing for an indefinate period of time. Of course, we dont need to worry about it now or for the next 50-75yrs or so, why should we, we will be in the ground.
The fact that oil reserves are limited, means that sometime in the future humans will have to find alternative cleaner technologies to solve the problem. None of the new technologies that may solve the problem will appear overnight, and probably not be economic for at least another couple of decades, couple that with the vested interests and lobbying of energy producing companies, it will take longer. When there are brownouts and blackouts such as you see in the American eastern seaboard, and when they become more common than not, then there will be moves towards finding these technologies. But why not do the work now of being able to have the ability to solve these issues before they become real major problems.
Like all technologies they have to start somewhere, and they will not be efficient enough at the beginning, but they will be. Almost all technologies improve and evolve through time, it is far better to plan than to be forced into it. Of course we could use nuclear technology, which pound for pound is 1million times more efficient than coal or oil. But then, do you want a nuclear waste facility in your back yard?
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The spotted owl is an endangered species. No gene-geneered Franken-forests. No active pest management- toxic! No clear cutting! No cutting forests that suck up carbon dioxide. Wood is off-limits. No wood.
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Clearly you do not know what sustainability is. Managed forests do not exclude fauna, nor should they. It would be appreciated if you could take the post within its context. Wood, is a good example of sustainability, it has zero net loss of carbon, indeed in some farms there is a net lowering of carbon to atmosphere. The cycle when managed correctly has little atmospheric impact. I used wood as an example of sustainability, in no way am I proporting that that should be used as an energy resource. You stated that sustainability is Luddism, care to explain how? Im sure people said exactly the same thing with the spinning jenny. Technologies move on, more effective and efficient systems developed. That is what sustainable development is partly about.
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MIRACLE! Grantology. A nano-whatever is all surface area and no volume. Tell us how to run a machine whose power output is less than the surface tension of water. Dirt and wet seize them solid.
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Yes it is. How would you propose to develop a technology that will have clear benefits? Surely we cannot just make a nano-bot to manipulate on the atomic scale from scratch? We have to start somewhere, and as it's developed more applications will be realised. I'm sure you would appreciate that without minimisation and downscaling that we would still be sitting at our desks using Coloussus to surf the net. Nanotechnology is being researched in biotechnology as well as electronic applications, it is achievable and given time will be done.
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Do you have any idea how much energy the US uses/year? It has held reasonably steady at 60 bbl oil equiv/capita. 1 boe = 1700 kWhr-thermal. There are 290 million US folk or
1.74x10^10 boe/year, or
2.96x10^13 kWhr-thermal/year, or
1.065x10^20 joules/year, or...
...or the equivalent of 1.2 metric tonnes of matter 100% converted into energy each year, E=mc^2. Are ya gonna alternatively burn algae, git, or catch wind?
THEY LIED TO YOU. "Shut up and calculate," Richard Feynman.
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/lecture4.html
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So? The USA is the world largest energy consumer and worlds largest waste producer. By developing nuclear fusion technologies, wind, wave power or any other cleaner technologies, the energy requirements could be easily fullfilled. What is going to happen to the USA when the reserves of oil in the Middle East, and southern US start to run dry? It is simply not sustainable, when its gone, its gone. Surely it would be better for the future to have something to turn to when the USA can no longer invade or economically strangle another country for its energy resources, but that's a different thread.
