| ??? 04/30/07 21:39 Read: times |
#138343 - Ok, see above Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Christoph Franck said:
and compare the ratios of their GDP (total, and per capita) to various forms of energy (electricity, oil, natural gas ... too bad they don't have coal in there) consumed. I assume that the guys who wrote this are pretty good at what they're doing, as long as they're not getting their expected results dictated by politicians. I also assume that they don't have a negative bias against the USA. See my previous comments in this thread. I understood you to mean that you were advocating some type of economy other than capitalism. Of course you don't. Because no one actually claims that. However, how much of the energy gained is used for certain tasks, and how much of the energy is spent on habits and convenience instead of actual "economy", this is where you will find inefficiency if you look closely enough: "Habits" and "convenience" are a huge part of the economy. Air-conditioning (often poorly insulated) buildings to sub-70F's while it's 90F and above outside ? That's spending energy on a habit that has nothing to do with economy. It gets even better when some people start running space heaters in their office because they're not quite as cold-tolerant as their colleagues. I've seen it. Meanwhile, I'll let each person choose (and pay for) being at the temperature he or she feels comfortable at. So, what would you call running a space heater in a sub-70F air-conditioned building ? I'd call that practiced waste of energy. I've seen it happen, too. And no one found anything wrong with it. Why, electricity comes out of the wall socket ? It seems extreme to me, too. But probably cheaper than trying to modify the heating/cooling system on a cubicle-by-cubicle basis. And people do have different temperature tolerances. Ultimately, whether or not to tolerate that is a matter of whoever is paying the bill. This might shock you when I say that, but most of the worlds hunger problems could be solved by rounding up all the two-bit politicians, dicators and warlords (I don't think I need to mention names) that keep people in their countries from actually producing enough food, and dumping them on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, preferably together with a ton of guns and ammo. That wouldn't come as a shock to me and I'd agree it'd be a good thing to do. But Amnesty International would protest. Regards, Craig Steiner |
