I started on this response days ago, and at Keith's prompting, I figure I'll try to wrap it up:
Hey Robert: |----- Original Message ----- |From: "robert and benita rabello" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org |Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 3:01:00 PM |Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power (George Monbiot) | |On 3/25/2011 10:38 AM, Dawie Coetzee wrote: |> I fear that, despite Keith's occasional promptings to the contrary, I still had |> no great love for George Monbiot anyway. The latest merely confirms my earlier |> misgivings. |> |> My own position, in which the Green is rather overshadowed by the Black, |> represents one of the few angles from which George's cloven hoof is really |> visible. To me he has always been far too much the eco-authoritarian, for whom |> ecological survival could never really, thoroughly, consummately co-exist with |> personal liberty. His localism seems thin and superficial, his centralism runs |> much deeper. |> |> An appreciation for obscure local apple cultivars gave George Monbiot a chance. |> He has blown it now. | | Ok, it's one thing to dismiss the article offhand because it |doesn't harmonize with the overall theme of local energy and food |production, but I would like to ask the list what I believe is an |important question. Mr. Monibot mentioned that pre-industrial England |did not support a very comfortable lifestyle for most of its |inhabitants, and that full reliance on solar, wind and biomass would |move English society backward without nuclear power. I think when folks talk about pre-industrial, they are actually talking about pre-easy-coal, aka 17th century. There was plenty of industry in the 1600s and before. Granted, charcoal foundries were pretty hard on their resources, but they were also self-limiting. Feedback loops and all. |Does it follow |that a reduction in energy use and reliance on renewables would |necessarily result in massive declines in both industrial output and |citizen comfort? (I'm also thinking of that article Keith posted a few |weeks ago, in which analysis of coal consumption in Industrial |Revolution England actually INCREASED with improvements in efficiency.) |Can we support large populations in the industrialized nations without |fossil and nuclear power? It follows that a reduction in energy use and reliance on renewables would necessarily result in massive, and I mean MASSIVE declines in industrial output, and a reduction in the waste of the lives of the citizenry. Industrial output is about putting more cars, trucks, ships, aircraft and the equipment for producing, loading, and unloading of those same things out there (and arms of course). The big question is, do we really NEED or even WANT more and more and more cars, trucks, ships, aircraft and equipment for producing, loading and unloading of those same things? Simply put, the ability to sit back and be a George Monbiot (and pontificate about how Nuclear is good and useful, because it allows George Monbiot to be George Monbiot, and not just another neighbor farmer/blacksmith/shopsmith/ cooper/wheelbuilder/schoolteacher/framer/teamster/etc, (IE, someone who actually does something)) just isn't all that useful, or even necessary, In a world made by hand. Am I romanticizing? Sure. However, this romance allows for a lot more 'room' or 'slack' in the system, than the romance of Growth Without End, Amen. Which doesn't allow for much slack. In fairness, it has created some slack despite itself. (anecdote warning!) Back in Feb, I was a farming conference keynoted by Wes Jackson of the Land Institute, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Jackson In his keynote, he gave a quick and interesting history of the 'industrial age' in particular, the early 'industrial age'. He explained that the industrial age did in fact, create some very useful slack. To wit: Of the folks born on 12 February 1809 (exactly 202 years before the keynote) There were 2 men men in particular. One went on to become a great emancipator, the other went on to become a notable president of the United States. Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Darwin stepped out there, building on the work of those who came before, he came up with a model of existence that was testable, an experience that could be experimented upon. A great unshackling from dogmatic belief. And in another example, the other -building on the slack created by the heavily industrialized northern states- was able to entertain seriously the concept of the removal of the state of slavery from the moral and ethical code of law for a nation, as a model to the rest of the world. The wealth of the so-called southern states was still tied to up-to-16th century agrarian economic models, hence slavery. So, there was a conflict. Further, he also went into (as did Keith earlier) William Stanley Jevon's work, in particular the yet-to-be refuted work in The Coal Question that does a wonderful job of postulating, and defending the logic that increasing energy efficiency reduces energy costs and therefor increases, rather than decreases it's use. In essence assuring the depletion of an energy resource. In that work, he speculated, (and I quote verbatim) "Are we wise in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it?" Moving away from Jackson's keynote address, I have to concur, I find the logic compelling. No, we are NOT wise to allowing commerce of any country in general, the world in particular to rise beyond the point at which is can long be maintained. A different approach is required for moving forward. At it's BEST, the only thing nuclear buys us is 'kicking the can a little further down the road'. That some people, living well on the slack created by industrial process, by slavery, by massive and destructive resource depletion, who would just as soon not get any dirt under their fingernails not withstanding. In point of fact, it's arguable that it even accomplishes that, very . | I can envision a personal lifestyle in which my energy needs are |significantly reduced, and I think we--as a society--could make |substantial progress in better fitting solar energy to demand. (Using |solar thermal air conditioning is a good example.) But someone still |needs to make appliances and sundries. The equipment to convert diffuse |energy into electricity and heat must be manufactured, somehow. Where |is the energy going to come from for these activities? How can we work |with metals, and perform other energy-intensive tasks, without massive |power plants? That we have massive power plants, and will continue to have massive power plants into at least the immediate future is inarguable. Therefore it's of an increasingly radical importance that utilizing our available materials, and energy resources to move in an opposite direction is called for. (cut from an old blog post of mine) I heard some talking head from Bank America on CSPAN this am, he was making noise that current PV solar was in the neighborhood of 15% efficient (at converting the solar radiation striking the surface area of the panel to electrical power) and if we could get that up to 30 percent we'd really have something. What? There are folks out there right now, who paid insane prices for solar PV 30+ years ago, who have been laughing at the rest of us, for OVER 30 YEARS. Sure, it would be great to get to 30%. But the stuff we have today, that we had 10, 20, 30+ years ago works, still works. The first solar cells ever made back in the 1950s still work, and still don't pollute. I'm all for pushing the technology forward, but not if it's at the cost of deployment. How many times have I heard or read folks explaining that they are going to wait because they read some press release from some company that has no actual product, that the price was getting ready to drop? Well, I've heard it a lot. The best way to push this technology forward it to deploy it. The time is now. One thing this fellow did touch on that wasn't quite so insane was that BoA (I know, not everyone's favorite too-big-to-fail right now) worked with GM (I know, ibid) on keeping their energy use flat while they expanded certain operations through increasing efficiency and energy auditing, and managed to find a bottom line savings of four billion dollars in energy costs. Yeah, four billion. That's what he said, I dunno. But I do know that ALL of the studies done, since Carter starting talking this game all those many decades ago, show that dollar for dollar, energy efficiency trumps energy use every single time. And that's where the future is. Ready or not, here it comes. (End excerpt) | Or, is Mr. Monibot's "either / or" scenario completely off base |altogether? It's off base altogether, in my well considered opinion (for which I am not remunerated) | | When I hear talk of "energy independence," it's usually in the |context of substituting one form of energy for another, or blind |insistence that the environment matters less than our need for energy |and we should "drill and dig" with renewed vigor. I don't hear a lot of |willingness to re-organize our cities, invest in public transit and move |away from factory farms. Our current economic model enjoys an almost |mystical reverence, and none of its underlying assumptions can be |challenged without accusations of "socialism" (or worse) being flung |about. But even IF we could come up with a new form of economic policy, |where is the dense energy for manufacturing going to come from? It's |clear that we'll need to keep on building things, so HOW can that happen? Energy Independence is a phrase that began in some think tank or another in the US, back in the 70s, on the heels of the US peaking it's domestic oil production. It's basically a buzz word that signifies nothing. You won't hear a lot of willingness to re-imagine our respective communities in all the usual places. However, don't take that to imply that this willingness isn't there. it's right here, on this mailing list. it's all over the place. 'pet chickens' is probably the most faddish thing that has come along in quite a while. Folks selling 'easter peeps' are selling out within a day. "real" poultry outfits are going wanting for peeps because of the 'hobby' market. This is actually bigger than Charlie Sheen, but you won't hear about it from the main stream media. Are having a few laying hens in one's backyard going to change the world? Yes actually. Because it doesn't stop there, it never does. it's human nature to grow, to expand, and I see this new agrarianism, this new re-localization, this new adjustment as expanding, not going away. Further, it's being reinforced by economic pressures. The US is (arguably) in decline. The indicators that show this decline are actually pretty clear, despite the fantasy world of NPR marketplace and other even less critical so-called economic reporting outlets. Back to dear ole England, Just a few years ago, permaculturist Rob Hopkins, at the Kinsale Further Education College began working with his students on an Energy Descent Action Plan. From there, two of his students, Catherine Dunne and Louise Rooney took this work in front of Kinsale Town Council, who in turn, went 'Hrmmm' and adopted this energy descent action plan. Shortly there after, Hopkin's home town of Totnes adopted this plan, along with some new input from Kinsale, and a movement was underway. In a few short years, there are now over 300 communities across the globe that have integrated these concepts and are registered as 'Transition Towns'. And this is just the beginning. No, the change will not come from the mainstream. The changes underway in the so-called 'mid-east' pretty much shook the intelligence communities of all the world. Things are changing, and the 'one's in charge' aren't really in charge, and ever really were. We know so much more than we did, and what we knew then was a lot that we have now forgotten. I started following this mailing list, oh, I dunno, 10 years ago? More? I can't actually recall. But I know as a direct result of this mailing list, and the massive compilation of material at Keith's website, my life has changed significantly, and there is no going back, I don't even want to go back. The future I see is so much brighter than the one I saw before I started tending to my own soils, my own foods, even just dabbling makes a massive difference. There is a vast yawning abyss between what is actually needed and what is perceived as needed. We are told we need this and that, which we don't actually need. Further, I see a lot more to emulate in the lifestyles of those neighbors around who get their sustenance directly from what they see when they look out the kitchen door in the morning, who move across the land at a human scale and speed, and actually enjoy their sundays, than I do from my fellow cubicle-mates. Perhaps this is a function of age, and yes, I am romanticizing this life style to which I grow closer with each passing day. I admit it. But the romance of bigger and deadlier bombs, faster motorcars, glaring yellow lamps blotting out the night sky above a landscape of empty strip mall shopping centers where the cry of a coyote hasn't been heard since the days when I was young, is a future with no future. As Kunstler put it, The greatest mis-allocation of resources in the history of civilization, and it has no future. I didn't dismiss Monbiot out of hand, I stated flatly that he is mistaken. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
