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



On 9 Dec 1996 01:14:50 GMT, "Rick & Bea Tarara" <rbtarara@sprynet.com>
wrote:

>David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@inforamp.net> wrote in article 
>> How do you figger?  My impression is that cities have been sources of
>> energy for most of history; in the current generation the, uh, current
>> generation has moved to the suburbs.  Still you will find that the
>> wires generally carry the power _from_ cities where it is generated to
>> everywhere else.
>>  
>> Cities of course import coal, oil, gas, and now uranium and plutonium
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> -- but they export the thought to pay for them, as well as the energy
>> generated from them.
>>  

>But this is just the point--I'm talking ONLY about the energy resources
>(the kinds measured in Joules, BTUs, or kilowatt hours) necessary to
>sustain the society. 

Rick,
 
This is not what you said.  You said energy.  Oil is a greasy chemical
that comes out of the ground.  Coal is this hard carbon stuff.
neither is energy.
 
They are converted into energy in and by cities. The coal and the oil
only get value from the work of cities.


> Everybody, whether rural or city, requires a certain
>amount to maintain their lives, but it will be 'more' possible in the
>future to supply rural populations with dispersed, renewable, energy
>sources.  For example, if cost is not a factor, you can set up
>photovoltaics with battery storage today and be energy self-sufficient--for
>a separate house with only a little land. 

What the hell does "if cost is not a factor" mean?  Cost is always a
factor.  Costs are the fundamental factor in everything; the only
problem is identyfying them plausibly, if not accurately.

>     However, consider a high-rise
>with maybe 1000 people living within.  That building does not occupy enough
>space to be self-sufficient.  

Horsefeathers.  Lots of high rises had steam engines generatng
electricity in them seventy years ago, and I don't see any reason why
lots of high rises shouldn't have atomic or hydrogen cells in their
basements anywhere from twenty years from now onwards.  Manhattan
already has gas fired generators here and there around the place.

>      The energy source must be external.  Thus the
>coal, oil, gas, and or nuclear power plants are necessary to run the high
>rise.  Put a bunch of high rises together with stores, factories, office
>buildings and put those all as close together as you can--and you have
>yourself a city--which sucks energy from any supply system.  You do gain
>certain efficiencies with close packing the population and reducing
>transportation costs, but for the solar/wind proponents, cities are a
>problem because of the energy densities needed.  Lots of energy in one
>place.

Since you're the guy saying "if cost is not a factor," nothing you
have to say about cities has any credibility whatsoever.  I repeat:
cities do not suck energy from supply systems: cities bild supply
systems and generate the energy that goes into them.

>Cities have NEVER been a source of this kind of energy.  The source IS
>coal, oil, natural gas, a little hydro and a little nuclear.  

Source, shmource.  The source of energy is human enginuity.  Coal and
oil are currently things from which we _generate_ energy.

>                                                                                                      Cities don't
>generate any of this--they use it (as does all of civilization).

Nobody, city, country, or ships at sea, "generates" coal or oil.  What
are you nattering about?

>                                 Mankind has already tapped almost 50% of
>the readily available hydro power (which amounts to less than 3% of world
>energy use anyway), 

There you go again!  We haven't tapped the power.  We've tapped the
water and created the power.  You continue to get it backwards.
 
If you keep confusing consumption with creation, you're going to get
yourself into all kinds of messes, just like the greenfaces.

<same error snipped and snipped again>

>> Your "sink" idea rather reminds me of the idea that the countryside
>> supports the cities, which is of course not true.  Famines always
>> happen worst in rural areas; cities can buy food anywhere.  It is the
>> cities which provide the rural areas with the income they need to buy
>> the necessities -- energy, clothing, manufactured goods.  Food?  Hell,
>> anywhere there's sunlight or salt water.
>
>How much food is grown in Manhattan? 

I dunno.  Most of the farms in Manhattan are high value items, herbs
and green vegetables, as far as I know, though I do have one
acquaintance who has a commercial cactus farm under lights there.  She
subscribes to the Tombstone, Arizona newspaper, and whenever it
mentions rain she goes down to the basement and waters them.
 
Manhattan does, however, have a population of about 4,000 horses, I'm
told.  Seems high to me, but they export seals, monkeys,
butterflies...

> Haven't seen many dairy farms in
>downtown Chicago.  

After Mrs. O'Leary's goddam cow, how many do you expect?  Chicago is,
however, "hog butcher to the world."  It is also where the world goes
to buy its cotton, wheat, corn, and all the other fundamentals -- the
profitable growing of which is made possible by Chicago's railhead.
 
Chicago made the farms of the Midwest, not vice versa.

>Phoenix's water supplies?  

Phoenix imports water in order to support its major agricultural
industry: golf greens  :-)
.
>Coal mines, iron mines, in
>downtown Pittsburgh?  Sorry--the raw materials, the FOOD, and often even
>the water that supports cities comes from the rural surroundings (not the
>suburbs which are only slightly less dense cities)--and certainly the
>energy resources as well.

Case by case.  Johannasberg is built on top of its mines.  There are
any number of cities in the US and around the world where there are
oil wells pumping away inthe downtowns
 
Steel cities, on the other hand tend to be built right in the middle
of the goods they sue -- the limestone, coal, and iron ore, which tend
to be remote from each other.  hence the city is near to none of the
three.  This does not stop it from "generating" the steel which
results.  Yes, they import; they export more.
 
The fact that the cities are generally distant from the raw materials
points to an important fact that you seem to be missing: the raw
materials are not what's important.  What's important is the thought
and trade that go into making them valuable.  These take place in
cities.

                                                      -dlj.



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