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Re: Yuri receives hypocrite of the week award (was Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy)



I won't requote dlj response--read the post to which this is a reply--most
of which is convoluted nonsense.

Human technological society requires energy in a useful form--electricity,
heat, portable fuels for transportation.  Currently about 95% of this kind
of energy comes from coal, oil, and natural gas with the rest being
supplied by hydroelectric, nuclear, and a little from wind and solar. 
Cities DON'T create any of this!  Cities create a demand for this energy. 
Cities can't survive without using resources from the surrounding rural
countryside--the most notable resource being food.  It is DLJ that has it
turned around.  

DLJ also likes to play semantic games and twist statements around--such as
the fact that I used the phrase 'If cost is not a factor' in reference to
the ability to use photovoltaics and battery storage today to make a home
energy self-sufficient.   He first asks "What the hell does that mean?"   I
guess DLJ can't figure out that to do this IS currently very expensive, and
consequently very few would choose to do so, but the point was IT CAN BE
DONE.  We don't currently have the technology to make a 1000 person
high-rise energy self sufficient without using land or energy resources
EXTERNAL to that high rise.  I guess WE COULD go back to his old steam
generator--but you still have to pipe the fuel (oil or gas) in from
external sources.  The solar or wind power available ON SITE is
insufficient.  Anyway, DLJ takes this one phrase and tries to attribute it
to everything else I said in the post!

Cities do, and will for the forseeable future require high density energy
production (conversion if DLJ likes) facilities.  Small nuclear reactors
and fuel cell technology (DLJs alternatives) are not likely to be available
for running buildings (looking at cost, maintenance, efficiency).  Even if
such do come about, you are still looking at needed resources external to
the city to produce and fuel both of these technologies.  Of course
Manhattan's gas fired generators get the gas from somewhere--bet its not
>from  under Manhattan (might have been once upon a time).


>DLJ
"I repeat:
cities do not suck energy from supply systems: cities bild supply
systems and generate the energy that goes into them."


While cities do require the  _building_ of an energy distribution system
(with conversion generators and distribution lines for electricity, gas
pipelines for natural gas, pipelines or other delivery systems for fuel oil
and gasoline) I see no way that cities generate the energy.  The SOURCES of
the energy are currently the fossil fuels, which certainly aren't generated
by cities and in fact must be shipped IN.  The demand for these fuels ARE
generated by society as a whole (both urban and rural) and my one major
point in all this is still that CITIES ARE HIGH DENSITY CENTERS FOR THE USE
of this kind of energy--again, ENERGY measured in joules, BTUs, or
kilowatt-hours.  

Spreading people about the countryside does NOT reduce the demand for
energy--it is people and the technology that demand the energy.  If
anything, the energy/person needed to sustain a given standard of living
probably increases somewhat without cities due to transportation energy
costs (maybe not if modern Information Technology would allow many to work
>from  home).  However, the more diffuse the population, the more practical
becomes the use of alternate energy sources.  Economies of scale don't
translate into wind and solar the same way they do in many other areas. 
Anyway, if everybody in the U.S. lived 'out on the farm' and had basically
the same collection of 'things', the same level of health care, sanitation,
etc., etc., we would have the same level of energy demand--so I don't see
how cities 'generate this kind of energy'.  

If someone other than dlj wants to take up this point, I'll be happy to
continue, but it seems pointless to debate dlj any longer.

Rick Tarara






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