[simplelife]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'E')ven Lovelock supports nuclear power. Some things that were otherwise off the table become viable when you're staring doom in the face. It's not really about propping up BAU as it is trying to stave off die-off. I'm not entirely convinced that permaculture and transition towns can do that by themselves, and as it is now, they are hardly past the starting gate. I don't think we can actively walk away from the system that keeps us alive. I think we have to try to keep that system on life support long enough to build a functional net underneath us. Peak oil (and global warming, whichever comes first or hits hardest) will want to impose its own crash curve and we are going to want to smooth that curve out to buy us time to fully wean ourselves off of BAU.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('retiredguy', 'R')ather than spending so much effort and expense on a national electric grid,

[Ludi]

Sorry guys, I'm not going to promote nuke plants be built in someone else's backyard. Or coal plants. Or giant wind turbine farms. If folks want those things in their own backyards they are welcome to have them. Good luck paying for them.

<<<<first in line to practice "premitive permaculture."

[retiredguy]

Odegaard,

I concur with your take on suburban living.

Being connected to a national grid certainly does have its advantages, at least as long as there still is a nation to maintain it. If life becomes intensely local in the future, as it may well, then a CHP system would insure that a locality would get power and heat, at least most of the time.

I just don't think spending a trillion dollars on a smart grid is a very good investment unless one believes the future is going to look pretty much like the past.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('retiredguy', 'I') just don't think spending a trillion dollars on a smart grid is a very good investment unless one believes the future is going to look pretty much like the past.

[ki11ercane]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kylon', 'I')'ll start this thread off, and say this thread is for those people who want to suggest ideas on how to recover the economy.

Anybody may post in this thread, as long as there aren't ad hominem attacks. If you want to attack someone's idea, provide constructive criticism, which means tell why is something stupid, not just that it's just stupid.

The first idea I'll start off. I don't think I originally came up with this concept but I'll post it anyway.

Basically the way to get out of Peak Oil, is to mass produce thousands upon thousands of nuclear breeder reactors, and with these nuclear breeder reactors we could produce most of our own energy, and most of our own fuel. If we mass produced them then the cost would go way down. The main cost of nuclear power is the upfront cost. Since the upfront cost would be reduced, the cost of power would also be reduced.

This would provide cheap energy on which a strong economy could grow.

Anybody else want to post something?

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kylon', 'A')nybody may post in this thread, as long as there aren't ad hominem attacks. If you want to attack someone's idea, provide constructive criticism, which means tell why is something stupid, not just that it's just stupid.

[dohboi]

"Who is going to do this and pay for it? Not the "private sector","

Wait a minute. I thought the free market always solves all problems perfectly. Just get every last bit of anything that looks like a regulation out of the way and everything will just go as smooth as tapioca.

It worked for mortgage lending, and investment banking and dotcoms ....

Didn't it?

/sarcasm

On the topic of the post, why in the name of all that is holy would anyone want to recover an economy that depended for its continued existence on eternal growth in a finite world, on endlessly increasing consumer spending, on war, on ever faster extraction of limited resources, on the destruction of the planet...???

If you want to redefine "the economy" in some way, please do so. But without some clear qualifiers, we must assume that you want the bad old consumption economy back in all its nebulous glory.