> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Dave Land > Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 1:12 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: Why so little renewable energy 30 years after the sweater > speach? > > > It is not necessarily a foregone conclusion that using less-polluting > energy sources will lead to global economic collapse or depression.
No, there is always the possibility that we will have a serendipitous discovery tomorrow, the next year, the next decade, etc. >It may even be that by reducing our current energy-spendthrift ways, we > may actually improve the global economy. That's an easy sounding thing to do, that belies the magnitude of the changes we would need to consider. You know, I presume, that the US would have to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by about a factor of 5 as part of a global effort to stem global warming.....and per capita by about a factor of 6 in 20 years or so. This sort of reduction is not a matter of using mass transit, car pooling, switching to 60 mpg hybrids, etc. It involves an overwhelming change in how we do things. I hope you remember my suggestion of a fossil fuel tax that would...as part of it...add about $5.00 per gallon of gasoline as an incentive to conserve and use other energy forms. This is very similar to the British government's proposal of a carbon tax (but I came up with it and posted her about it years before that report was written. :-) ) My estimate is that this would result in US cutting its fossil fuel use by about 10%....unless we go full out using nuclear power. That alone would probably allow us to cut fossil fuels by about 30%. We'd have to shut down every fossil fuel electrical generation station and replace them with another source. Of this number, about 95% would have to be nuclear. >It's not like we're going to burn money to drive our cars: much of that >money will merely be spent differently. How much of energy consumption in the US do you consider discretionary? One way I look at this is think of what would be changed if The British proposal for cutting energy consumption is the introduction of a carbon tax. Do you think we could cut fossil fuel use by a factor of 5 and per capita use by a factor of six through the elimination of discretionary energy use? That's what this sentence implies. The analysis of the cost of stopping global warming by maintaining the CO2 levels in the atmosphere at about 25% higher than they are now (which is a very optimistic scenario) is based on the effect on the economy of much more expensive energy. One way to look at it is the inverse of productivity. A great deal of productivity is tied to energy consumption. If energy consumption had to be cut drastically, then much less efficient means have to be used. Everything would cost a great deal more; there would be fewer jobs, etc. I have a hunch you, along with Doug, don't/won't believe in my economic analysis. I'd be curious to see how you would cut per capita fossil fuel consumption in the US by a factor of 6 without causing a depression. I can quickly go through the effects in my head...but I have a hunch that you would not accept my analysis. What interests me is why? Do you agree with Gore that new technology is merely a matter of putting our mind to it? Do you think that productivity is not really as important as most economists would argue? For example, is cutting costs by improving the productivity of each worker so that fewer workers are required to complete a task a good thing or a bad thing? Do you believe, as some people do, that we could go back to craftsmanship instead of mass production of furniture, clothing, etc? Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
