tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post5876130181919442980..comments2024-03-22T18:01:20.065-05:00Comments on Geezer with a Grudge: Not Like EverybodyT.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-44441489151746083112010-05-07T08:36:13.923-05:002010-05-07T08:36:13.923-05:00If by "informed," you mean they know wha...If by "informed," you mean they know what their friends are Twittering and they are killer video game players I suspect you are right. This is the least math-enabled generation in decades. Our kids' kids have taken fewer math and science classes from less capable math and science teachers by the time they escape No Child's Behind Left K-12 testing torture. Unless our best-and-brightest find a way to do something useful with financial "instruments" or legal maneuvers, those bankers and lawyers will be administrating the failure of the technological culture they abandoned. <br /><br />As for motorcycle emissions, all you have to do is ride in a pack of cruisers and you'll suspect that the California study was optimistic. All those "modified" Hardlys spew unburned fuel like a British Petroleum off-shore well.T.W. Dayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-36530653577191165422010-05-03T12:25:33.422-05:002010-05-03T12:25:33.422-05:00First, you can't rely on non-scientific articl...First, you can't rely on non-scientific articles about tricky subjects like air pollution. A few years ago there were lots of articles like this about boat engines, but when you dug deeper it turned out that someone was using back-of-the-envelope calculations assuming that all outboard motors were the dirtiest type of two-strokes. Second, it has been shown numerous times that insurance companies don't accurately price the risk on many things. In reality what they do is charge as much as the market will bear. They make their real money on other investments. So, insurance rates tend to rise during economic good times, when the market will bear more, and decline during recessions, even though the risk doesn't change. Third, I'm optimistic our kids will be able to figure it all out--I think they are a lot more informed than we were at their ages.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-82002231981028480082010-05-02T11:08:25.255-05:002010-05-02T11:08:25.255-05:00Your faith in the foresight of oil companies (or b...Your faith in the foresight of oil companies (or business in general) far exceeds mine. I don’t think most execs could maintain a lemonade stand without federal support and their inheritance. I fully expect humans to burn the last drop of oil before worrying about a NEXT BIG THING. Cream isn’t the only thing that floats to the top of a bowl. I do not understand how “single container” recycling is supposed to be efficient. In an urban community, when households and businesses sort their recyclables and those materials are kept separated at pickup and delivery, I’m pretty sure that system could be efficient and useful. Most cities appear to want to cater to the “feeling” of Green rather than the reality, so they go to single container systems and somebody, somewhere has to resort all that crap. One look at an urban landfill ought to make any reasonable person question the wisdom of that English study. We are building mountains of waste. <br /><br />I have to wonder if there is a NEXT BIG THING. Nuclear energy makes recycling look clever. Many of our “alternatives” require so much oil to produce and maintain that they are BTU losers. All of the systems we’ve discussed have serious drawbacks and efficiency limitations. We might just run to the end of this and go back to living in caves (after a World War or three to fight over the remains). In his book, Hubbert's Peak, Ken Deffeyes tossed off the fact that OPEC was created to divvy out North Africa’s oil resources in proportion to the reserves each of the members claimed the possessed. Those numbers have not changed, miraculously, since 1971. Saudi Arabia, for example, has pumped out 1-9 million barrels a day and, according to their “experts,” that hasn’t reduced their reserves at all. They must be squashing dinosaurs and prehistoric plants into oil, somewhere out in the desert, to create this miracle. Or just blowing smoke up their own superstitious asses and infecting that mental condition on our genius oil company execs.T.W. Dayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-12774287172033568032010-05-02T11:07:41.229-05:002010-05-02T11:07:41.229-05:00A study done in England concluded that the Diesel ...A study done in England concluded that the Diesel fuel required to truck recycling materials back and forth across the country made it sounder environmentally, overall, to take them to local dumps. I suspect much of this craze is the same.<br /> <br />Green is fun for many people until it becomes mandatory. When people are compelled to go shopping once a month, six-in-a-car with their assigned partners, they won't be so supportive. And I doubt it gets to that. If there were a shortage of energy the oil companies would be furiously developing the NEXT BIG THING. They aren't.<br /> <br />KCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-26017472301608884502010-05-02T11:07:12.878-05:002010-05-02T11:07:12.878-05:00Saving energy is a pretty complicated subject for ...Saving energy is a pretty complicated subject for a simple guy like me to dive into. A physicist friend is convinced that if the country were to insulate every household and business building to modern standards, we'd save more energy than by any other outlay. I met an engineer in South Dakota who told me that each wind generator the state or power company installs will have to work constantly, flawlessly and without maintenance for a decade to break even, energy-wise. Some time back, I saw a film that related all of our favorite consumer products to a portion of, or quantities of, barrels of oil. I was amazed at how much energy it takes to make a single microprocessor. In retrospect, that was pretty foolish but I'd never thought about it. <br /><br />I worry about the byproducts of all the lithium we're using in new battery technology. I'm not sure about your cost=energy analysis, but it's possible. It's also possible that the cost is related to complexity in process which isn't a direct energy component. Manufacturing is a messy business, however. Nothing there ever changes much. Large scale manufacturing, in my experience, is exponentially messier than small scale production. <br /><br />Your last statement has been at the core of my own belief for decades. Many people are unnecessary. They don't have the skills to fit into a technological society and never will. They don't have the motivation or the information to find a place where they are useful. Like most Americans, they believe they have been granted the right to be happy instead of the right to pursue it and they desperately resent the fact that the pursuit is hard work. Human population has expanded well beyond useful and reasonable and too many people with authority and power who should know better either don't get that or don't want to get it.T.W. Dayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-68950919421720394882010-05-01T15:24:49.503-05:002010-05-01T15:24:49.503-05:00Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter. Let'...Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter. Let's compare the emissions caused or brought about by the average middle-class lifestyle - home heating, vehicles, vacation jet travel, manufactured goods, entertainment, lighting, paint-and-varnish, clothing, to someone whose life is really "green" - someone like...Mahatma Gandhi. He sat on a warm stone, wearing a diaper, and had nothing. Zero. No car, no house, barely (by the look of him) enough to eat. But he was not ineffective. He got BIG STUFF done, like the independence of India.<br /> <br />Also, an average motorcycle uses 1/8 the materials necessary to construct a car. Smelting metals, rolling, welding, forming, and painting them have big energy costs. Motorcycles take up little room on highways. Machinery is bought by the pound<br /> <br />But Gandhi got 'er done at minimum enviro cost. He should be the ideal - not some oaf in a Hummer.<br /> <br />Here in the US, people think two Priuses are more green than one. But the simple fact is that the cost of anything is a good measure of the environmental disturbance involved in its creation. Priuses cost 40% more than comparable single-engined econo-cars, so I conclude that their manufacture creates a 40% larger environmental disturbance. Same with a rooftop solar array. Its cost on a per-kilowatt basis is roughly 4-6X what equivalent coal or fuel oil would cost, which is why no sensible person has a rooftop solar array. Again, stirring around to develop and manufacture silicon photovoltaics is obviously environmentally costly. So is getting the Chinese to sell lanthanum for the batteries in the Prius fleet.<br /> <br />Mass production will bring costs down? Prius has been in production ten years now, and Toyota currently estimate they make 3-5% on that car. Is that a business? Or is it a "green promo" loss leader?<br /> <br />Until saving energy saves money, it can't happen. And simply taxing the shit out of it just swells the already large numbers of Americans who have become economically unnecessary.<br /> <br />KCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com