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A little deeper perspective
rod,
I've been thinking about your last paragraph:
"When it comes to energy - the USA needs to invest in sources
that can win championships, not try to level a playing field in a
competition where nature gave uranium 2 million times as much
energy per unit mass as oil and made wind powered ships
uncompetitive with ships driven by primitive coal fired engines in
the 1850s."
...and want to clarify where I'm coming from in order to try to at least give you an idea that I'm not just an anti-technology luddite that rejects progress outright. Where I'm coming from is based on a closer look at how energy is collected, stored and transformed within the planetary biosphere, a process which we have an incomplete knowledge of but is something that is immensely important to have a scientific grasp of if we have any hope of having a human culture that will be sustainable in the long run.
The broad picture of net energy balance is pretty well understood--see this for details: http://okfirst.mesonet.org/train/meteorology/EnergyBudget2.html
Now plants and other photosynthetic organisms fix the incoming diffuse energy at around 1% efficiency, something that seems incredibly inefficient when compared to what we've been able to accomplish with fossil fuels and nuclear energy. But what is left out of this perspective is the fact that all of these concentrated energy sources have their source from those biologically and geologically based "inefficient" processes.
A quick aside: I'm not even excluding uranium and other nuclear fuels; the economically minable deposits that are extracted and refined into fuel were biologically concentrated through the food chain of biological organisms early in the earth's history, so without living organisms, even uranium deposits would be too diffuse to extract. In fact in some of the richest veins in Africa, there was the start of some naturally occurring chain reactions in these deposits, leading to the speculation that if life began earlier in the history of the earth, biological concentration through the food chain would have concentrated uranium into deposits that could have resulted in enough chain reactions that life could have been wiped out!
But back to the main point: it is through the "inefficient" processes of biological concentration via the food chain that that has created the surpluses we use, ranging from metal ore deposits, fossil fuels, biomass, wood, limestone (concrete) and pretty much everything you see and use in our built environment. If we as humans can learn to better utilize these same "inefficient" processes that the planet has used, then your path to a sustainable future is limitless, because you are living on the income and not the savings of our planet. You can't live on the savings forever, and the incredible diversity of living species on our planet shows what is possible by living on the income, so why not join the rest of the planet?
I've been thinking about your last paragraph:
"When it comes to energy - the USA needs to invest in sources
that can win championships, not try to level a playing field in a
competition where nature gave uranium 2 million times as much
energy per unit mass as oil and made wind powered ships
uncompetitive with ships driven by primitive coal fired engines in
the 1850s."
...and want to clarify where I'm coming from in order to try to at least give you an idea that I'm not just an anti-technology luddite that rejects progress outright. Where I'm coming from is based on a closer look at how energy is collected, stored and transformed within the planetary biosphere, a process which we have an incomplete knowledge of but is something that is immensely important to have a scientific grasp of if we have any hope of having a human culture that will be sustainable in the long run.
The broad picture of net energy balance is pretty well understood--see this for details: http://okfirst.mesonet.org/train/meteorology/EnergyBudget2.html
Now plants and other photosynthetic organisms fix the incoming diffuse energy at around 1% efficiency, something that seems incredibly inefficient when compared to what we've been able to accomplish with fossil fuels and nuclear energy. But what is left out of this perspective is the fact that all of these concentrated energy sources have their source from those biologically and geologically based "inefficient" processes.
A quick aside: I'm not even excluding uranium and other nuclear fuels; the economically minable deposits that are extracted and refined into fuel were biologically concentrated through the food chain of biological organisms early in the earth's history, so without living organisms, even uranium deposits would be too diffuse to extract. In fact in some of the richest veins in Africa, there was the start of some naturally occurring chain reactions in these deposits, leading to the speculation that if life began earlier in the history of the earth, biological concentration through the food chain would have concentrated uranium into deposits that could have resulted in enough chain reactions that life could have been wiped out!
But back to the main point: it is through the "inefficient" processes of biological concentration via the food chain that that has created the surpluses we use, ranging from metal ore deposits, fossil fuels, biomass, wood, limestone (concrete) and pretty much everything you see and use in our built environment. If we as humans can learn to better utilize these same "inefficient" processes that the planet has used, then your path to a sustainable future is limitless, because you are living on the income and not the savings of our planet. You can't live on the savings forever, and the incredible diversity of living species on our planet shows what is possible by living on the income, so why not join the rest of the planet?
Posted by klassman6
2nd Mar 2011