I read about that... I just didn't really comment on it.
They did a lot of things related to energy conservation as part of their drive to become more independant. And it seems to have paid off.
It's just a good idea all around.
What I have a problem with is "green initiatives" that wrap politics around energy instead of letting science take care of the technology, and the free market take care of the financial side of things.
Why should the government tell me what kind of light bulbs I'm allowed to buy? If I want to spend four times as much on electricity for the same amount of light, that's no one's business but my own. Maybe I live in a cold area and I want the extra heat. Maybe I prefer opex over capex and I'd rather buy cheap bulbs up front.
Denmark *does* have the right idea. Develop new and innovative sources of energy, but don't simultaneously shut down conventional sources. Renewables are a great idea, but they're not going to be online in sufficient quantity to keep us from having to buy foreign oil. So why shouldn't we use our own oil and gas to close that gap?
I'm also particularly frustrated with the current administration's use of the EPA as a way to institute cap and trade through the back door without it having to pass through Congress.
I'm certainly not advocating any kind of legislation to regulate energy consumption, or limit the purchase of non-energy efficient items, but I do think that the question of how much impact does our energy use have on others needs to at least be considered. No actions can really be taken until the impact, if any, is understood.
Energy Binder
We might get the legislation that everyone will hate. BBC had a gloom/doom message a few hours ago. They floated the idea of $250/barrel as a worst case scenario. So the current speculation is being driven by the media's reportage of the Libyan revolution and others. I hope reality catches up with the future traders soon. Supply/demand in real numbers is desirable, not lots of 'could be true'.
Fr Mär 04 2011 15:21:18 EST von Spell Binder @ UncensoredI think bart's point, and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, bart, is that the conservation of energy has an impact on energy prices for everyone, not just the immediate consumer.
Using more energy depletes available fuel sources, which can cause fuel prices to rise. Building more power plants requires money, too, and that cost gets transferred onto the customers as well.
I'm certainly not advocating any kind of legislation to regulate energy consumption, or limit the purchase of non-energy efficient items, but I do think that the question of how much impact does our energy use have on others needs to at least be considered. No actions can really be taken until the impact, if any, is understood.
Energy Binder
the light bulbs discussion has some weightfull counter arguments:
- when profiling you go for the big bits first, light is ~5% or less
- neons wear off more quickly if you turn them off/on frequent, so in a staircase they might be a bad choice
- led lights might be available verry soon
- at least in .de there even was a tax on neons, while it should have been vice versa...
one big weak point is, that capitalism works bad for saving energy; the guys that sell you the energy don't have any interest to encourage you to purchase less energy...
since they exactly want you to purchase as much energy as possible...
so what might be good for some in the short term, isn't good for all of us in the long term.
I think there have been similar incidents about car manufacturers buying into pulic transportation in some bigger american citiess.They simply have an interest of public transport being no alternative to the cars they sell.
Solar, wind, and biomass will continue to be "boutique" energy sources for the foreseeable future.
It is known that the anti-energy crowd wants gasoline to be priced at about $8.00 per gallon in order to meet the requirements of their agenda. If oil companies were allowed to produce and refine what is available domestically, we would probably be looking at $2.00 per gallon.
Remember, the USA has unique energy requirements because it is so *big*.
We have many states that are, by themselves, larger than most European countries. Often it is not feasible to just toss in a nice little rail system and expect everyone to be able to use it most of the time. The size and layout of our country lends itself to automobiles.
You might choose to read the "sustainability" pages written by John McCarthy, a professor emeritus at Stanford University [ http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html ]. He focuses on the idea that the energy utilization that we consider "unsustainable" makes some bad assumptions.
Yeah, you'll get mixed messages about our rising oil production, because this administration has had to limit off-shore drilling due to the huge oil spill that occured earlier. The one that really fucked the southern shores.
It won't do any good, though. Most of US oil consumption comes from our vehicles. Ergo, we need to find something else to fuel them... something that is more sustainable, or at least that we can generate domestically without too much fuss.
saw in the news that in spain they found a way to farm alga in glass-tubes by feeding them with CO2, which in term produce bio-mass style oil.
so you just need to find out a way to get co2 and whater to arizona ;-)
talking about profiling.. this is a major way to save energy.
its just 5 ships running with this so far in 2 years of existence of this product, and it seems as if they have a hard time to find people willing to buy it for their ships.
and onto propaganda.... A man comes in and murders a mother, father, and three children in their sleep. Fatah claims responsibility and celebrates in the streets, giving out candy, and CNN calls it a "terror attack" in quotes.. as if it could be considered anything else. And... the lead article is about how Israel is allowing the building of new homes as a memorial to the fallen, and the Palestinians believe it's a provocation which could lead to escalation.
I'm sorry. Murdering two parents and three kids isn't a provocation? I think if anyone wants escalation, it's the people handing out candy in honor of the murder of a 4-month-old baby
calling it a terror attack gives such looneys to much credit.
otoh, they were settlers, right? so in first place they weren't meant to be living there.
unbelievable. It's ok to kill a baby because someone once drew a green line on a map which ISRAEL respected. 19 years later, when attacked, Israel secured an additional buffer zone and decided not to give it back to the people who had attacked while swearing to annihilate them. So... then Israel builds houses in the uninhabited space in their buffer zone that they were all but forced to take, and because a family lives there, it's ok to kill them?
Un-be-fuckin-leivable!
Imagine if you and your neighbor had gotten into an argument over where the property line was and your neighbor had built a house where you believed was your property. Let's even say you'd gone to the courthouse and had proof it was your property. So to get revenge, you went in and killed your neighbor, his wife, and three kids, including a 4-month-old baby while they were sleeping.
It's ok, because they shouldn't have been there to begin with. right?
First of all I have to take exception to the notion that Barry O "has had to limit" offshore drilling because of last year's oil spill. We're talking about an administration that is unapologetically the sworn enemy of conventional energy. The oil spill was a convenient gift to them.
We need to ramp up *all* energy production -- conventional, nuclear, and renewables. All of them -- not one at the expense of the others, and we need to do it using the free market instead of spending taxpayer money to artificially take corn out of our children's mouths and put it into our gas tanks instead.
Yes, I said nuclear. Lots of it. I want you all to read this article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/
Once you read this article and learn all the details, you'll see why Japan's nuclear plants have performed wonderfully even though they sustained damage far beyond what they were rated for. Despite the fact that the anti-nuke crowd will be proudly trotting out photos of the steam explosion for years to come, there have not been any nuclear-related casualties and there probably will not be.
its not ok to weightn the two of them against each others.
to walk into houses, and do a homicide i'd at best deserve to be brought to the looneybin.
To settle on ground where everybody else except israel thinks its not a good thing to settle on also is something which you shouldn't do.
Its the same as the people in the US who got killed by indians as they took their land.
the christs have a saying for that: endanger yourself and you will die.
@IG
I completely agree. As the report you noted says, there were some extreme modern advances and several great triumphs that were associated with those nuclear power plants. I'm all for nuclear power, if it's built as well as the ones in Japan were. If you use the older beaker-like towers, then it's doing nothing more than spewing those horrible long-half-life materials, but the ones in Japan have a way of regulating what is released and when it's released, making it safer for everyone.
I say push for energy, not cut back.
Mo Mär 14 2011 12:22:22 EDT von IGnatius T Foobar @ UncensoredBack to energy.
First of all I have to take exception to the notion that Barry O "has had to limit" offshore drilling because of last year's oil spill. We're talking about an administration that is unapologetically the sworn enemy of conventional energy. The oil spill was a convenient gift to them.
We need to ramp up *all* energy production -- conventional, nuclear, and renewables. All of them -- not one at the expense of the others, and we need to do it using the free market instead of spending taxpayer money to artificially take corn out of our children's mouths and put it into our gas tanks instead.
Yes, I said nuclear. Lots of it. I want you all to read this article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/
Once you read this article and learn all the details, you'll see why Japan's nuclear plants have performed wonderfully even though they sustained damage far beyond what they were rated for. Despite the fact that the anti-nuke crowd will be proudly trotting out photos of the steam explosion for years to come, there have not been any nuclear-related casualties and there probably will not be.
what a bullshit. I realy think its not yet over. These cores aren't all down yet, and you realy don't know whats happening to these cores by flushing them with salt whater; they also can break because of that.If it was a that shure shot, why didn't they do it beforehand, since Fukushima I was planned to go offline this month?
Have a look at the news about Block II. Seems as if the next problem is arizing, they simply ran out of cooling fluid for it.
The right question is, what would have happened if Fukushima was another sort of power plant, like coal turbine or gas turbine power station.
Next big thing is, that there are Nuclear power stations around, that most probably wouldn't survive the current situation without a core breach, where the core pot is welded at the lower end which right now has to catch the melting fuel rods.