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Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
alnev@midtown.net (A.J.) writes:
>Solar "income" is limited by the finite surface area that sunlight
>impinges on, and sunlight's intermittent & dispersed nature is what
>has prevented it from being practical on a huge scale.
I suppose that rules out growing trees for firewood then, or growing out-
of-season vegetables and flowers out of season in glasshouses. Using
agricultural crops to produce motor fuel is out of the question too.
A pity, they all sounded such a good idea ;-)
But seriously, you just do not undersand that one form of energy tends to
be subsitutable with another.
> As for nuclear
>power, the dream of fusion is always out of reach and not guaranteed
>by any means (although cornucopians treat it as a given).
People used to say the same about flying.
The
>byproducts of fission are very risky and we would be unwise to put all
>our eggs in that basket - which is exactly why nuclear power has been
>so restricted. Wise people are thankfully making policy decisions in
>that area.
FOr 'wise' read people who are ignorant of the technical aspects of the
alternatives and have an extremely skewed attitude to different risky
outcomes.
>Why not try the work-smarter approach of putting at least half our
>effort into *reducing demand* instead of always looking toward
>increasing the supply of everything? The assumption that we can
>support 15 billion people is the wrong attitude to begin with.
Quite likely there WILL be 15 billion people. So, the sooner we start
thinking about how to support them the better.
George Antony
PERSONAL OPINION ONLY
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