[Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

[David Morelli]

On Jan 24, 2007, at 8:04 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> Again, you  didn't answer the question, nor did I expect you to be  
> able to unless you have access to research I've not yet uncovered.
...
> But that wasn't my question at all. As an environmentally- 
> responsible person I don't think in terms of "how much is there to  
> take?" but rather I ask,
> "How much do we need to thrive?"
>
> So my question was, "How much energy is needed?" It was not "How  
> much can we take?"
>
> There's a huge difference.

Actually, just now you have rephrased the words that you used in your  
question, perhaps to reflect what you intended to ask.  I did address  
your question.

> On Jan 24, 2007, at 9:21 AM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
>
>>
>> My question is "What level of energy consumption is sustainable?"

There is a big difference between the two questions, I agree.  And  
that difference is important, because it is possible that "how much  
we need to thrive?" is greater than "how much is sustainable?"  In  
that case we cannot thrive, period.  I happen to believe otherwise.   
I feel that the portion of the world's energy budget that we can use  
on a sustained basis is sufficient for us to thrive as a species.    
It is not without limits.

> But first, let's deal with what you did bring up: the idea that  
> solar, tide and geothermal energy is very large.

> [I said] ... The  earth converts a predictable amount of this  
> energy to drive the weather cycle and the plant cycle.  In the end  
> we can predict the energy available for human consumption from  
> those five sources.

Perhaps I wasn't clear.  The weather and plant cycle takes a large  
part of the total energy available, and it needs to take that  
energy.  Our potential share is a small fraction of the total available.

> We dare not touch even a fraction of that energy if we don't want  
> an environmental catastrophe on our hands.

Actually, we already take a fraction of that energy and we have  
always done so.  The question will always be, "how interference in  
the natural process is too much interference".  We need to know which  
interference is most "permanent" and which interference is most  
"temporary".  It is a bit like setting up camp in the dark.  Yes, we  
do need to know how much space the tent will require ( our needs),  
but we may need to know the location of the edge of the cliff ( our  
limits).  There may not be enough room for the tent, and you want to  
know that before you back up.

> ... We dare not use a significant percentage of ANY resource  
> without great care.

Agreed.

> So my question was, "How much energy is needed?"
...
> Once we've answered that question, or at least given it our best  
> "first estimate", then we need to look at our technology and  
> resources and see where we can find it.
>
> Once we do that, we have to make a huge "guess" about how much we  
> dare harvest from each source without damaging the planet.

Here we disagree.  There is never "enough", people always "need"  
more.  I haven't ever been in a home where the furniture was  
clustered at a comfortable distance in one part and nothing was  
placed in the rest of the room.  All the space was always used.  If  
nothing else the space becomes "storage" for stuff that is seldom  
used or needed.  And when people move to a larger space, the whole  
process repeats itself.
>
> Then, and only then, can we move ahead with some confidence - based  
> on how good our guess was - that we can thrive without doing  
> irreparable ecological harm.

Once we have determined the available energy we may find that "we"  
can thrive if there are fewer of us.  That doesn't require war, but  
it may require that we exercise more discretion in our procreation  
habits.  We might need to stress quality over quantity.  That isn't  
popular in some circles, but it may be the natural outcome of  
calculating our energy budget, and that is one reason why the budget  
needs to be done first.

> ...
> And that's one you forgot. Every erg of energy we can harvest from  
> solar, geothermal, wave, wind is dwarfed to insignificance by the  
> amount of energy available from nuclear reactions. Indeed, it's  
> such a huge source of energy we need to be very careful with its  
> use, but our track record both here in the USA, where more than 10%  
> of our electricity is generated in nuclear plants, and around the  
> world is excellent! The only serious accident to date was a  
> political blunder. It was politics that caused the Chernobyl plant  
> to be operating over the objections of scientists and engineers all  
> over the world.

Nuclear fission is an energy source similar to petroleum and coal.   
It can be processed into fuel as fast as it can be extracted, and  
when the vein is gone it is gone except for the waste products.  A  
full processing cycle that burns the waste as fuel would be more  
efficient than the current process, but that has to deal with  
plutonium breeders and the whole problem of Weapons of Mass  
Destruction.  We committed to losing soldiers every day because we  
had to worry about that problem.  And we still need to deal with  
North Korea and Iran on that issue.  Nuclear power is not a cheap  
solution.
>
> It's a reminder that we need look not just to better science, but  
> to better politics, better government and better international  
> cooperation if we're to
> solve the scientific riddles facing us today.
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire