??? 05/01/07 03:39 Read: times |
#138356 - What makes you so important? Responding to: ???'s previous message |
I mean, aside from the fact you had the energy to start up and run this web site?
Craig Steiner said:
Richard Erlacher said:
Well, those deer and antelope, as you put it, and the bacteria and grasshoppers as well, are just as important as any and all humans. Sorry, I must disagree with you. Global climate change effects take place over decades. Nuclear screwups can mortally injure billions in a matter of days. If you truly don't care whether your offspring, and theirs, survive, then, perhaps it's worth the risk to you. Again, whether it happens tomorrow or the next few decades, we're being told global climate change is going to kill, what, billions of people? I'm trying to remember if that was one of the "mainstream" numbers. If that's the case, perhaps the risk of losing a city to a nuclear accident is a better option than sacrificing billions to global warming? Well, hopefully it will get rid of ALL of them ... particularly the ones who want their money now and care not a whit about the consequences for them, their progeny, or anyone else. Again, I think it's all hogwash. But I still think nuclear power makes sense. And you don't have to have the plants located in the middle of population centers. One of the advantages we have in the U.S. is vast amounts of land that is far away from everything. Well, just consider the nuclear plant in Platteville. It cost billions, never produced a picowatt of commercial power and is shut down. We're all still paying for that, too. Why? Nuclear plants can't be built to operate within tolerable limits of safety in the U.S. because of the culture of corruption. Elsewhere, well, maybe, but not here. I'm taking a wild guess, but based on that comment I suspect you have no idea what real corruption is. You'd be mistaken there, sir. When I left government service, I had over 100 different countries' stamps in my passport. If you have two guys building something, it's possible, not certain, but possible, since they can watch one another, that it will be done properly. If you have 10 people working on a nuclear plant, it's nearly certain someone will screw up. If you have 100 people working on the plant, it's nearly certain someone will cut a corner somewhere that will cause, no, not MAY cause, but will, absolutely, cause a problem, in order to save a dime. No, not a dime per kWH, but a dime, total. If you have 10000 people working on the plant, it's a virtual certainty that someone will compromise the safety of the facility to save someone a few bucks and to secure a bribe or cover up his own error. Ok, you've convinced me. Forget nuclear power. Let's just keep burning carbon fuels. Just don't complain about me emitting CO2. I'm sick and tired of people telling me I can't emit CO2 but then they don't really like the alternatives, either. The only conclusion one can draw is that they do want us to go back to living in caves. No thanks. A thinking man knows he has to clean up his own mess. CO2 isn't a mess and it's not something I need to clean up. And I have absolutely no moral problem leaving my children with a few hundred extra PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere. Heck, I wouldn't have a moral problem leaving them with twice as much CO2. And it's not because I don't care about my children but because I don't believe that CO2 is a pollutant that needs to be cleaned up as if it were cyanide in a river. There's a quantity of cynanide that's purported to be safe for those mining concerns in the mountains to be releasing or allowing to leech into the rivers. It's not about the substance, it's about the amount. I imagine you don't complain much about the occasional bird fesces on your house. If it were 100 kTons per day, however ... even a ton, or even 100 pounds, I'd expect to hear about your complaint. BTW, I see you've pruned out the remarks you made that led to my comment below. That's complete nonsense! It applies only to cases where increased volume allows for increased economies of scale. Once the infrastructure is in place, power distribution costs are pretty well fixed and, if anything, an increase in volume costs the supplier more rather than less. Even with fixed infrastructure, it's cheaper to support one client (and related infrastructure) that requires 1000 widgets per month than 100 clients that require 10 widgets per month. Economies of scale apply even to energy. I don't see how that can be true ... the counting is done by the infrastructure, the billing is done by the infrastructure, and no human effort is required at all. The much more complex and costly infrastructure required to serve a large factory or even office building costs MUCH more per kW delivered than the meter, wiring and 1/3 transformer on a typical residence, and that seldom has to be dealt with more than once every 80 years or so, while the office building or factory seldom survives that long. Further, electric power is a scarce commodity. Why would users willing to economize want to pay more than users not willing to do that? They don't pay more. They pay less. They just pay an initially higher rate. The rate goes down, not the total amount paid. If you use more energy, you still pay more than if you had used less. Ture enough, but it's a metered commodity. It's like the cost of gasoline. If they use more, they pay more, but if they are effectively incentivized to squander it, the rest of us suffer from the resulting shortage. XCEL Energy was, last year, pushing a contol system that allows them to turn off your AC so the buildings downtown can use theirs, even though their building occupancy is down to 10% after close of business. As a consequence, you get to come home, at 6 in the evening, to a house at 90+ degrees so the guys downtown who pay way less than half what you pay for your power can waste theirs. And I declined that offer. Problem solved. And I still paid less than those guys downtown. They might get a lower kWh price, but the total they pay is more than me. I'm ok with that. So you figure that it's OK if a guy who buys more hamburger than you at the same butcher shop where you buy yours pays 10% of what you pay per pound, because he buys more, that's OK, even though his increased waste every year causes your price to rise and the availability to suffer? The obvious solution to the problem of restoring the condition of the planet to a state prior to the existence of industrialized man, is to remove industrialized man and his activities. If you feel so strongly about it, you first. Personally, I don't think that's the obvious solution and I'm not willing to take it. Most people aren't. That's why I think the global warming cult is a bunch of extremist nuts that are out of tocuh with reality. And you seem to be personifying that extremism with great skill. I will probably go first, but when I go it will be knowing that I've done as little as I could to exacerbate these problems. People like you who argue that there's a "global warming cult" know full well that it's not nuts and it's not wrong, but your own shortsighted self-interest is what makes you proclaim such beliefs in order to justify your egocentric practices. Anyway, since most of us aren't willing to self-terminate to reduce CO2 emissions, you're going to have to come up with another solution. So far you don't like us emitting CO2 but you won't let us go nuclear. What do you propose short of taking out a knife and just eliminating ourselves on the spot? Nobody's saying that anyone should self-terminate to reduce CO2 emissions, but lots of folks would advocate using less energy in general, and, specifically, avoid driving a small car when it's not necessary to drive a big gas-guzzling one. They'd advocate local power generation over distributed infrastructure, and they'd certainly advocate for supporting the currently considered legislation that allows end-users who also produce power to drive their excess power onto the grid and be compensated for it. Regards,
Craig Steiner One man? What is he in the greater scheme of things? In what way is he "better" or more significant than a bug or a paramecium or a bird or a spider, or a speck of dung, if all he can think of is how to satisfy his own wants, irrespective of the needs of the greater world? RE |