[AlexdeLarge]

"Peak Oil changes everything. Carbon emissions are now completely and irreversibly irrelevant."

Amen to that Cashmere!

[dohboi]

Coal can still toast us. This is why the emphasis on electricity which is about 50% generated from coal in the US.

Conservation and efficiency are the main things we have to do, but for the rest we have to get off ff and fast.

Of course Cashmere and friends are in the idiot fringe hold outs that still don't believe the humans have anything to do with global warming. So all of his other criticisms of Gore are pretty much beside the point.

Having said that, I certainly agree with this point of his:

"2. Spending money on wind turbines without first mandating massive power downs in usage is a waste of money."

Most driving should be eliminated. Most of the rest should be electrified. But if that electricity comes from coal, we will be truly sealing our doom.

Perhaps we should start another thread with people who actually have a clue so we could talk about the real pros and cons of Gore's ideas?

Never mind. The monkeys will always find a way to ape their masters' hatreds and shout down any reasoned discussion.

[Dont_Panic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'W')ow. The Alaholics on this thread are amazing.

One says - "10 trillion - that's doable." Nice. The U.S. budget is about 2.9 trillion. So if we simply stop spending money, we'll have the required amount, by your number, in about 3 years. Well done.

Another implies - "take the money we spend on oil and use it to put up wind turbines." Great. I suppose we'll use donkey carts to move people and stuff while the turbines go up.

Another says - "look at this link - it supports my side" and then I go to that link and it says that the turbines have been updated since their 1980s installation. If you're going to try to argue that windmills are low maintenance, you'll have to do better.

Another says that 100% no-carbon based electricity in 10 years is "optimistic." If that's "optimistic", so too is a colony on Mars by 2050.

Another says that I'm a nay-sayer and people like me impeded progress.

People like me drive this world. I can look at my tax receipts and tell you that.


Let me be clear about this. The idea of dumping a bunch of money into windmills misses the core issue, which, if you've been reading the site Kiosk recently, you'll recognize as overshoot.

It makes little sense to invest in an expanded electrical infrastructure at this juncture for <i>at least</i> the following reasons:

1. We will have a liquid fuels/natural gas crisis long before we have an electricity crisis.

2. Spending money on wind turbines without first mandating massive power downs in usage is a waste of money. We would be, essentially, putting up windmills so that people could watch big TVs and use hairblowers.

3. The biggest problem that we will face in the next 2 decades will have nothing to do with electricity. The biggest problem we will face is keeping society from fragmenting and keeping people fed.

4. We already have more than enough electrical generation. I suggest that we immediately impose a 20-50% usage reduction on all non-commercial users. If you don't want to turn your lights off, and you pass your limit, then you pay 10x the amount for additional power. <i><b>Generating more electricity is not the answer, because the problem is not insufficient electrical generation</b></i>.


It is my opinion that much of the to-do about windmills is left over from a pre-peak oil mindset.

Peak Oil changes everything. Carbon emissions are now completely and irreversibly irrelevant.

What is relevant is that <b><i>we will soon be facing a potential 8%+ decline in oil and perhaps more in Natural Gas, with a halving of supply within 10 years, and we're going to need to worry about feeding everyone well before we worry about everybody having 24/7 110V/AC access</b></i>.

I suppose I've pulled a MonteQuest here, but I hope everybody understands why I have made this argument.

Arguing about carbon emissions and wind power and this sort of thing is now a major distraction from the core issue, and as long as people like Al Gore continue to keep the spot light on such uncritical issues, we further dig ourselves into the oil depletion pit of no return.

If we had 10 trillion laying around to spend, we should use it to immediately begin setting up a population control system and a power down plan that considers as its end point that we are a mere decade or two away from returning to non-fossil fuel based food production.

THAT is the critical issue, and remember this admonition . . .

You cannot eat electricity.

[Cashmere]

To the guy who said I was on the "idiot fringe", do you really think I'm an idiot?

I mean, ignorant, you could argue, although you haven't, but "idiot".?


We're not "hold outs", by the way.

The trend in this debate, just like global temperatures, has shifted.

Obviously, you're unhappy about that.

And as temperatures don't rise in the coming years, momentum will build.

I could take 50 people who would call me idiot for disagreeing with them about GW and put them in a room, and in that room you wouldn't have 10% of the scientific knowledge that I possess.

These are people who never took calculus barking at me that I'm a denier and an idiot because I challenge their basic assumptions.

These are people who would be hard pressed to perform basic algebra. They are the art majors and the history majors and . . . people who think Al Gore is a prophet, and, secretly, believe that he <i>did</i> in fact invent the Internet, which, to them, is nothing more than whatever icon substitutes for I. Explorer on a Mac.

Here's the scoop, despite your protestations . . .

The tide has turned. GW is now losing ground as an important issue in the world.

Public opinion is shifting away from GW.

The globe, is not, in fact warming, but is currently cooling (which is why GW folks have now tried to rename it "climate change", because then every weather fart qualifies as evidence in support).

It's over.

You guys are like Hillary Clinton fighting a lost battle - you've got to recognize when you're going down.

You're going down boys, and insults won't save you.

[arretium]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Blewbird', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arretium', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('darwinsdog', 'W')here's the energy for producing all that cement, mining & smelting all that iron & copper, supposed to come from? Get real big Al. There's not going to be much more energy than your own muscles can provide, provided you have anything to eat, in the near future. We're going to be lucky if we can even score wood to burn. All the techno-fix visionaries are full of crap. Denial motivated by fear, is all they're spewing.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cabrone', 'T')he US consumes around 21M bbl of oil p.day @ around $140.

Current daily cost = $2.94 billion

Cost over 10 years = $10.7 trillion (assuming current consumption and a steady $140 p.bbl price over the next decade)

How many CSP\Wind\Tidal\Wave\Biomass\Nuclear plants could be put up for this amount of $$ and how much would grid strengthening cost?

Al Gore is right, it's a no brainer really (except to some of the cave dwellers on here).

[lexicon]

Dmitri Orlov has a nice take on the Gore Proposal:

I read through the speech, and it's not bad as such speeches go. It says all the right things about the problems we face - things quite a few of us already know - and it makes us feel good to hear them said well and to a large audience. Whether that audience is capable of absorbing the message is another matter. Al is careful to avoid proposing to slaughter any of the sacred cows of the "American way of life," such as private automobile ownership, or the right to squander as much energy as you can afford, be it by cranking up the air conditioning or cruising around in a motor yacht. In this, Al Gore and Dick Cheney seem to be soul-mates: to them the American way of life is non-negotiable.

If it were, his speech might run something like this:


Folks, oil is starting to run out, and we can't afford to keep on driving like we're used to. So, let's stop making and importing new cars, let's stop with the highway expansion, stop maintaining all those highway lanes at public expense, and move those resources to funding public transportation. Second, we've got to stop burning so much coal before the planet's climate blows up on us (of course, it may anyway, because of all the coal we've burned already) so let's build some wind mills, to provide, say, 75% of electricity within 10 years (100% won't work, because wind is intermittent, so you need some gas-fired power plants, for when it isn't blowing). But most importantly we must cut our energy use, before we're bankrupt as a nation (which we may be already) and we must do so very quickly. So let's regulate the use of air conditioning in businesses (ceiling fans, anyone?), stop illuminating roads and parking lots at night, and make a lot of other, sensible measures to cut energy use. And once we've done all these things, we will realize what sort of country we are now: not one that's driving off a cliff at breakneck speed with eyes shut tight, but an older, poorer, troubled country, not one likely to ever go to the moon again, but one that is perhaps capable of learning to live within its means without collapsing altogether. Thank you, and drive safely."

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45970

Someone check my math here. If the Hirsch Report says it will take 20 years to wean our energy infrastructure off of oil and that the cost will be $20 trillion dollars, then if we try to reach Gore's goal of achieving this in 10 years, wouldn't the cost be...

(Imitating Dr. Evil's voice)

FORTY TRILLION DOLLARS?!!!

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'S')o this is your grand plan? We don't spend money on gasoline?

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', '.')..
Another implies - "take the money we spend on oil and use it to put up wind turbines." Great. I suppose we'll use donkey carts to move people and stuff while the turbines go up.
...

[Ludi]

I think the windmills are mostly made of plastic, at least the blades are. The pylons are probably metal (aluminum or steel, I'm not sure).

They are unbelievably huge. We often have trucks carry turbine parts pass us on the interstate, pretty much any time my husband or I go to town.

The amount of materials that go into these things boggles the mind.

[Ghog]

How much steel can we salvage from highway signs and guard rails? I figure there won't be a great need to know what exit is coming up when no one is on the road to begin with.

The massive amount of resources applied to the highways system alone is mind-blowing. Conservation at that level will just happen as there won't be money or energy available to keep it going. For those that can, how dangerous will it be traveling long distance on a crumbling interstate?

[Cashmere]

Yes please, why even bother responding?

A link to a 38 page pdf and a "nope"?

Oh yes, and your required smiley faces just to prove to the world you don't care.

Seriously, why even bother responding.

I ask you to define a term you are using and you cite a link to a 38 page paper?

Problem will be food. Carbon emissions and GW are dying issues, as this thread exemplifies, and windmills are not the answer to any of our pressing problems.

You Alaholics are a religion unto yourselves.

In 15 years, some starving guy will punch a stranger in the face for even mentioning carbon emissions.

"Excuse me sir - if you used renewable solar to heat the 1/2 cup of daily gruel you're eating, your carbon footprint would shrink dramatically"

BOOM.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'Y')es please, why even bother responding?

A link to a 38 page pdf and a "nope"?

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') think the windmills are mostly made of plastic, at least the blades are.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'Y')es please, why even bother responding?

A link to a 38 page pdf and a "nope"?

Oh yes, and your required smiley faces just to prove to the world you don't care.

Seriously, why even bother responding.

I ask you to define a term you are using and you cite a link to a 38 page paper?
....

[HKFarmboy]

If you listen to the dimwits on the right, Al Gore is to blame for $4+ gasoline. If you listen to the pinheads on the left, bush, cheney are responsible for $4 gas.

Wouldn't it be great if the US had some real leadership instead of just trying to place blame? Who is to blame for peak oil happening so soon? Everyone, all together now, look in the mirror.

Al Gore ain't at the center of the global warming discussion and never will be, for all of the reasons documented so well on this thread over the past several days.

It is refreshing to see so many people who understand that.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'B')TW Cashmere, yesplease, is on my ignore list.

and now you know why.......

[dohboi]

Hey, yesplease, I guess we're in the same club of people now on cube's ignore list. I find it quite an honor. He has proved himself to be a sexist idiot by posting the following on the neighboring thread (which was started by Leanan, no less!!)

"When PO reaches the point where bleeding-heart liberal feminist women talk about topics like EROEI or overshoot in coffee shops instead of "universal health care" or "Sex in the City" or whatever the hell it is that women talk about then I will consider it mainstream.

PO awareness has to extend beyond just a bunch of men visiting an internet message board."

What a f'n idiot.

And yes, Cash, you are also an idiot, because you are not just ignorant, but willfully so, insisting on ignoring overwhelming evidence accepted by every major established scientific body in the world that has weighed in on the issue of global warming.

Maybe by repeating your inanities over and over (something you denialists seem to revel in) you will convince yourself that some kind of tide has turned.

But the direction of the tide is against you. Not even Exxon denies AGW any more. You and your ilk are exactly like the Japanese soldiers stranded on remote Pacific islands that kept fighting WWII long after it was over.

Get a grip, and get a life.

[Cashmere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'B')ut the direction of the tide is against you.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')"To reduce weight, the three rotor blades are made from an innovative glass/carbon fiber hybrid fabric that is held together by synthetic resins."
Perhaps that's just a really fancy phrase for plastic.