Sunday, July 24, 2011

Bill Gates on World Energy Issues

From an interview with Bill Gates by Wired Editor Chris Anderson: 

Q: When you look at the big picture, where should we be focusing besides nuclear? On massive solar plants in the desert? On middle-size stuff for office roofs? Or is there a reinvention that could be done right in the home?

Bill Gates: If you’re going for cuteness, the stuff in the home is the place to go. It’s really kind of cool to have solar panels on your roof. But if you’re really interested in the energy problem, it’s those big things in the desert.

Rich countries can afford to overpay for things. We can afford to overpay for medicine, we can overpay for energy, we can rig our food prices and overpay for cotton. But in the world where 80 percent of Earth’s population lives, energy is going to be bought where it’s economical. People are going to buy cheap fertilizer so they can grow enough crops to feed themselves, which will be increasingly difficult with climate change.

You have to help the rest of the world get energy at a reasonable price to get anywhere. It’s great to have the rich world, because we’re there to think about long-term problems and fund the R&D. But we get sloppy, because we’re rich. For example, despite often-heard claims to the contrary, ethanol has nothing to do with reducing CO2; it’s just a form of farm subsidy.

If you’re using first-class land for biofuels, then you’re competing with the growing of food. And so you’re actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture. For rich people, this is OK. For poor people, this is a real problem, because their food budget is an extremely high percentage of their income. As we’re pushing these things, poor people are driven from having adequate food to not having adequate food. 

About solar: I think people deeply underestimate what a huge problem this day-night issue is if you’re trying to design an energy system involving solar technology that’s more than just a hobby. You know, the sun shines during the day, and people turn their air conditioners on during the day, so you can catch some of that peaking load, particularly if you get enough subsidies. It’s cute, you know, it’s nice. But the economics are so, so far from making sense. And yet that’s where subsidies are going now. We’re putting 90 percent of the subsidies in deployment—this is true in Europe and the United States—not in R&D. And so unfortunately you get technologies that, no matter how much of them you buy, there’s no path to being economical. You need fundamental breakthroughs, which come more out of basic research.

Q: So suffice to say we will find no solar cells on the roof of the Gates residence?

Gates: Oh, we like to be cute like everyone. For rich people, this is OK. Rich people can do whatever they want.

HT: Pete Friedlander

53 Comments:

At 7/24/2011 9:59 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Did I read that right? Bill Gates "believes in global warming"?

Oh dear. And he was a GOP hero for monopolizing markets and stomping on those liberals at Apple--except now Apple is coming out on top.

Some days, it just does not pay to get out of bed.

 
At 7/24/2011 11:04 PM, Blogger Mark Holder said...

Well said, but he never addressed what the answer was other than more focus on research instead of subsidies that aren't economical. Still appears that cheap nat gas and coal are the only answers to the developing world.

 
At 7/24/2011 11:21 PM, Blogger Trey said...

Interesting article. His straight talk that ethanol doesn't reduce CO2 is good to hear. I’m glad to see he’s putting his own money into nuclear. Gates has talked with Vaclav Smil, an energy expert, so he at least has some idea of the scale of the world’s energy needs. He admits that rooftop solar is a feel good measure at this point. (Are subsidies that make a $25000 system cost only $7000 to the homeowner sustainable? Yes, solar PV is getting cheaper, but keep in mind that Moore’s Law for integrated circuits is 40% scaling reduction in area per year, while solar is only 7% reduction per year in $/watt.)

“Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.” Maybe, but it’s not the best allocation of our resources.

“But in the world where 80 percent of Earth’s population lives, energy is going to be bought where it’s economical.” True. Way too many people live in energy poverty.

Gates mentions cellulosic ethanol. I recently read Gusher of Lies by Robert Bryce. He called CE the vapor-ware of the energy business. OK, you can say the same about fusion.

“You know, the sun shines during the day, and people turn their air conditioners on during the day, so you can catch some of that peaking load, particularly if you get enough subsidies. It’s cute, you know, it’s nice. But the economics are so, so far from making sense.” Nice.

One last observation. The title used the term “energy crisis”. I think crisis is too strong a term. “Energy problem”, maybe.

 
At 7/25/2011 12:24 AM, Blogger Rufus II said...

Gates is just another guy that had a really good idea about one thing, made a lot of money, and likes to run his mouth about other things that he knows squat about.

 
At 7/25/2011 1:30 AM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

I agree with Rufus.

Also, peak oil is a constraint on this weak and expensive U-shaped recovery, at best.

We're three years into a lost decade or two, which will likely worsen.

Over the past three years, trillions of dollars of government overspending has been compensating for trillions of dollars of lost output, to maintain living standards, which is unsustainable.

 
At 7/25/2011 7:35 AM, Blogger Hans said...

Once this man leave Softville, he is a lost soul...

 
At 7/25/2011 8:21 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

Benjamin: " Bill Gates "believes in global warming"? "

Gates is no conservative, which I think you're suggesting.

Many conservatives believe that the earth has warmed considerably since the last ice age. But such conservatives still ahve very different views than do the leftists who are trying to use global warming to increases their social causes.

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one believes that humans have caused that warming.

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one believes such warming represents a threat to live on earth.

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one accepts government solutions can do anything to prevent such warming.

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one also believes the econ-nuts have an f***ing clue what they are talking about.

 
At 7/25/2011 8:31 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one believes that humans have caused that warming.

but that does not mean they might not be able to prevent some future warming, if that is warranted.

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one believes such warming represents a threat to live on earth.

Probably not a threat to life on earth, but there is the question of whether it will incude human life, and if it does, how much damage will it sustain?

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one accepts government solutions can do anything to prevent such warming.

Nor does it mean one accepts the notion that government can do nothing.

 
At 7/25/2011 8:37 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

Believing that the earth is warming does not mean one also believes the econ-nuts have an f***ing clue what they are talking about.

==============================

Did you mean econo - nuts or eco - nuts?

Seems to me we have plenty of both, and both are equally clueless.


Surely, whatever the environment hands us, the market will percolate along, still obeying all of its rules. That does not imply the free market has any way to internalize or solve environmental problems.

The market may percolate along at an entirely different level, one defined by physical resources.

And that is just what the eco-nuts are warning the econo-nuts about.

 
At 7/25/2011 8:40 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

Gates was right about one thing: the rich can do pretty much whatever they want.

Therefore, if one is in favor of freedom, the way to have more of it is to make more people rich.

 
At 7/25/2011 9:25 AM, Blogger Che is dead said...

"... he was a GOP hero for monopolizing markets ..." -- "Benji"

With his every utterance, "Benji" reaffirms that he is completely clueless.

 
At 7/25/2011 9:28 AM, Blogger Che is dead said...

The cost of energy by source - The Financial Post

 
At 7/25/2011 9:43 AM, Blogger Che is dead said...

Kirk Sorensen, formerly of NASA, is chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering. Here's a video of him speaking at a TED event about Thorium Reactors: TEDxYYC - Kirk Sorensen - Thorium

 
At 7/25/2011 9:48 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

Hydra,

No disagreement here. I was merely making the point to Benjamin that there is no black and white position with respect to the issues generally limped together as "climate change" or "global warming". If Bill Gates believes in global warming that doesn't imply Bill Gates believes all the other garbage which you seem to be suggesting many others do believe.

 
At 7/25/2011 9:51 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

Hydra: "if one is in favor of freedom, the way to have more of it is to make more people rich."

I see it a little differently. The way to enable more freedom is to prevent government from curbing freedom. I firmly believe that redistribution curbs freedom for most, and encourages dependence which ultimately robs freedom from all.

 
At 7/25/2011 9:53 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

Hydra,

I meant to type "eco-nuts". I have no idea what is meant by the term "econo-nuts". Would you help me understand?

 
At 7/25/2011 9:55 AM, Blogger Che is dead said...

Barry Brook, of the University of Adelaide, Australia speaks about "Fast Reactor" technology: Fast Nuclear Reactors: An Inexhaustible Source of Energy?

If you could get the eco-nazis out of the way, our energy future looks brighter than ever.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:21 AM, Blogger Che is dead said...

Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the MIT, calls bullshit on the whole idea of Anthropogenic Global Warming:

The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating ...

For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century. ...

Given that the evidence (and I have noted only a few of many pieces of evidence) strongly implies that anthropogenic warming has been greatly exaggerated, the basis for alarm due to such warming is similarly diminished. However, a really important point is that the case for alarm would still be weak even if anthropogenic global warming were significant. ...

When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ‘saving’ the earth. ...

Richard Lindzen: A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action

 
At 7/25/2011 10:23 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

And so you’re actually spiking food prices by moving energy production into agriculture. For rich people, this is OK.

==============================
Especially since mainly rich people own farms.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:26 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

I meant to type "eco-nuts". I have no idea what is meant by the term "econo-nuts". Would you help me understand?


===============================

People who take valid basic beliefs to ridiculous extremes.

Similar idea in both cases.


Nice Freudian slip, though.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:29 AM, Blogger Jim said...

Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.

Exactly which country is rich?

If he was really honest, Gates would be saying that his own success is due to fact that even IBM could not predict the winners in technology or they would have used their own version of UNIX instead of buying one from Microsoft. Why does the government think they can pick winners by using taxpayer money?

Unlike most large bureaucracies, IBM survived its follies by decentralizing and restructuring. Can the government do that? History doesn't provide much hope.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:31 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause.

============================

You mean external cause like sunspots?

The whole point here is that these small changes may NOT be because of some external cause.

Small changes in climate are associated with enormous amounts of energy, and despite this claim, tht energy does not come from no place, or diappear to noplace, as the case may be.

There has to be some kind of driving force, natural or not, and part of it may be associated with human activities.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:36 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted ....

=================================

Taxation requires property, and property requires property rights to protect is. If we are all granted property rights to our share of the atmosphere it would represent immense new wealth and opportunities for wealth.

In that case, some small level of taxation might be readily accepted.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:40 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

I firmly believe that redistribution curbs freedom for most, and encourages dependence which ultimately robs freedom from all.

===========================

You are welcome to your beliefs, but where did I say anything about redistribution? It is not a zero sum game, after all.

Most games are played by some kind of rules.

The games we play without rules are the ones we call crime and war.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:43 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

there is no black and white position with respect to the issues generally limped together as "climate change" or "global warming".

==============================

Oh, but there are black and white positions, which is exactly why people are so polarized.

There is probably no black and white answer. There are a lot of proposed answers, which are often simple, appealing, and wrong.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:50 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

Fast Nuclear Reactors: An Inexhaustible Source of Energy?

If you could get the eco-nazis out of the way, our energy future looks brighter than ever.

===============================


It is a question of property rights, isn't it? If we could "get the eco - nazis out of the way" suggests asserting our property rights in one future over their property rights in a different one.

If we are right, and fast nuclear reactors are that great, we should be able to buy all the property rights we need with the money generated. No need to propose "getting people out of the way" if we think they will actually buy in to a fair deal fairly made.

Is there?


From a PR perspective I suggest we stop using the nomenclature "fast nuclear reactors" . Sounds too much like a nuclear weapon.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:52 AM, Blogger Jim said...

From Why Power Companies Build Nuclear Reactors on Fault Lines: The Case of Japan

Source: Why Power Companies Build Nuclear Reactors on Fault Lines: The Case of Japan by J. Ramseyer :: SSRN

As to Japan's nuclear disaster,
Every century a massive (magnitude 8+) earthquake hits the Sanriku coast, and every century it brings a devastating (typically 20+ meters) tsunami. Any seismologist knew this. Any Sanriku fisherman knew this. And blithely, Tokyo Electric placed ten nuclear reactors on the coast.

As long ago as 1934, Akitune Imamura of the Tokyo Imperial University Seismological Institute could write that "the eastern coast of the locality popularly known as the San-Riku (three-Riku) district ... is well known from historic times as the region frequently visited by tunami." What is more, he continued, "it is most notorious in this country, if not in the whole world."


BTW, is it ironic that Gates' personal website comment section does not work?

 
At 7/25/2011 10:55 AM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Jet and Che:

Actually, as I am collector of antique maps, I knew that glaciers and ice pack were smaller 1000 years ago than today, and that Lief Ericson visited North America and found grapes growing in New Foundland. Eventually the Norse established colonies in Greenland.

Advancing cold wiped out the Greenland colonies. The globe cooled for 1000 years.

In the last several million years, the problem has been chronic Ice Ages, not heat. Indeed, usually the earth of a ball on ice from the north.

I do not know if man-made CO2 is staving off the next Ice Age, which is just about due.

Intereting topic--I am still opposed to pollution, which violates property and water rights. And I suppose people are entitled to breath air that is not poisonous.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:57 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

The cost of energy by source - The Financial Post

===============================

Pretty good article. So you agree that the price or cost of CO2 is around $50 a ton?

 
At 7/25/2011 11:08 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

Intereting topic--I am still opposed to pollution, which violates property and water rights. And I suppose people are entitled to breath air that is not poisonous.


=================================

How can pollution be a violation of property rights, since NO activity is possible without creating some kind of waste product?

What you are saying is that people who breathe are "entitled" to assert any property right they choose - even if it violates other property rights: they are entilted to clean air, even if it means shutting down the diesel tractors that others use to provide food.


There are costs and benefits to clean air. If you think you are entitled to the benefits, you must accept the costs as well. if you want the benefits without the costs, you are proposing to steal, which is hardly an argument for property rights.

With this argument you are not arguing for equal property rights, you are arguing for your rights being superior.

 
At 7/25/2011 11:20 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

Hydra: "Oh, but there are black and white positions, which is exactly why people are so polarized."

Oh, but you are mistaken. SOME people are polarized, but they are not the majority by amny means.

The so-called "scientific consensus" on anthropogenic global warming is not actually a consensus at all:

- some scientists believe that the earth is warming, and that is about the limit of their agreement with the eco-nuts.

- some scientists believe that a small part of the warming is the result of human activity, but that is about the limit of their agreement with the eco-nuts.

- some scientists believe that humans have caused most of the current global warming, but disagree that anything at all can be done to reverse the impact.

- a few scientists believe that humans caused the very recent global warming and also believe that humans can do something to reverse that trend.

There is no scientific consensus.

IMO, it is only the eco-nuts who are polarized.

 
At 7/25/2011 11:23 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

Hydra: "but where did I say anything about redistribution?"

I didn't say you did. I explained what I believe about curbs on freedom.

 
At 7/25/2011 11:46 AM, Blogger Innovation rules said...

It is currently PC to say that most people acknowledge that the earth is warming.

Given that a large majority of the tracking stations are in the USA, and that over 70% of them are compromised by their proximity to AC units and tarmac and the like, many folks wonder if the globe is warming at all.

We need statisticians, not global warming scientists, to confirm this data and when we have done that, they go away horrified.

Not to mention that measuring 'average' temperature, even over a thousand years, seems surreal. One of the most significant facts must be that as Greenland's glaciers recede, we find abandoned Viking mines. Why isn't that the end of the story?

It was not uncommon at one time for sailing ships to navigate the Arctic circle. Now it is our fault we can do that again? Really? The devolution required by society to counteract such a thing would put us all back in the Stone Age, since humans are not even the largest producer of CO2 on the planet now.

The whole AGW argument from premise to cause to suggested action is full of fallacy.

 
At 7/25/2011 12:20 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

"It is a question of property rights, isn't it? If we could "get the eco - nazis out of the way" suggests asserting our property rights in one future over their property rights in a different one."

No one holds "property rights" over a given "future". While they certainly have the right to express their opposition to a future which includes a potential abundance of clean, cheap energy, they do not have a "right" to such a future. So, yes, if such a future is to be realized their opposition must be overcome. Dense.

 
At 7/25/2011 12:25 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

"So you agree that the price or cost of CO2 is around $50 a ton?"

One can create a market for anything, including insipid comments. So, if you are willing to pay $50 a ton for my exhaled breath, I am perfectly willing to sell.

 
At 7/25/2011 2:14 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Oh dear. And he was a GOP hero for monopolizing markets and stomping on those liberals at Apple--except now Apple is coming out on top"...

Well this is nothing short of hilarious!!

Time for pseudo benny to put the psilocybin mushrooms down and maybe try a cup of coffee instead...

BTW who really gives a damn what Bill Gates has to say?

Bill Gates real claim to fame was that he maximized someone else's work...

Is that the basis of what Gates chooses to say about anything else a credible platform for continued discussion?

If Charles Ponzi were still alive would it be a good idea to seek his advice on retirement plans?

 
At 7/25/2011 3:14 PM, Blogger Mike said...

Being an extremely early adapter and creating a massive global change is incredibly special, but it doesn't mean you are omnipotent.

His comments on CO2 tell me that he's actually behind the current wave of chicken/egg thinking on (at least) that particular greenhouse gas.

I read about a 'think tank'.... a Microsoft genius round table...working on curing all that's wrong in the world. The one thing that said it all to me was their idea for eliminating malaria with lasers that target and shoot mosquitoes. He wants to talk about cute solutions for the rich...why not invest a tiny fraction of that money into doing some actual research regarding the 'negative' effects of DDT. That stuff seemed to work pretty well and, if there were health issues, they seemed to be in line (cost/benefit) with the 'negative' reactions to immunization.

 
At 7/25/2011 5:25 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

> And so unfortunately you get technologies that, no matter how much of them you buy, there’s no path to being economical. You need fundamental breakthroughs, which come more out of basic research.

GEEZ -- am I the ONLY person on this planet who can do SIMPLE MATH?

There IS NO TECH FIX FOR LAND-BASED SOLAR!

None.

Zip.

**NADA**.

The sun only drops 1kw of energy per SQUARE METER (that's "per square YARD" for us Yanks)

ONE SINGLE STINKING LOUSY KILOWATT.

If you had PERFECT cells (not in THIS universe!), that is ALL you could possibly get.

This means that, after you deal with
a) The day-night issue
b) Storage for night-time/cloudy times
c) transmission losses
d) really GREAT 50% conversion cells or mirror->heat exchange systems

That you'd have to COVER 4/5ths of the entire state of DELAWARE with cells to replace the US power grid.

I don't care if you plan to cover that area in the AZ desert or where, you are going to have the Greens FREAK when you indicate your intentions like that.

What, "you only want 20% of that amount"? So you think ONE FIFTH of Delaware isn't going to make Greentards' heads explode, too?

Combine this with the fact that, at least NOW, these processes are basically making computer chips, which has some of the most toxic by-products humans make. And you're talking about going from a small areal amount used to make computer chips the size of your thumbnail or smaller, to ramping up to cover HUGE AREAS with them?

Are you NUTS? Or just clueless?

More here
=====

The only solar power system with ANY hope is one relying on using the vast ocean surface as a collecting area, which then uses the thermal incline from the surface area to about 60-90 feet depth to derive energy.

And even THAT is fraught with problems, we don't have any good, reliable, efficient tech for taking energy from a gradient that low. And the Greens are almost sure to whine about THAT, too, regardless of if you use a closed system or an open system to do the work.

 
At 7/25/2011 5:48 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

>> And he was a GOP hero for monopolizing markets and stomping on those liberals at Apple--except now Apple is coming out on top.


LOL, dude, you have no freakin' clue.

Everyone in the tech industry hates his guts if they don't make lots of money off Microsoft, and that's more than 90% of them.

First off, Apple screwed itself. They went for a declining share of an increasing market, preferring control and high markups over market share. Microsoft ATE THEIR LUNCH.

They COULD have kept, and won, it all... at their peak there were companies starting to develop Mac clones that would be functional equivalents at a much lower price. Instead of relaxing their direct control, and, say, selling the critical Mac proms (which contained the heart of the OS) from a generation back (which would have kept the desirability of Apple-branded Macs high) they squashed all efforts in that regard by suing M$ over the look-and-feel of Windows. And if Apple is going to sue over windows looking like the mac, what will they do to someone making a mac clone? So instead of having the cream of the market, with their designs spread far and wide at lower cost by independent companies, they kept the entire mac market all to themselves... and the windows clones kept out-selling them *as a whole*, until the software market for Mac stuff dried up. Eventually, even Adobe, their prime selling point, stopped designing the "next version" on the Mac and did it on windows and ported it later to the Mac. Which led to even graphic artists, Apple's bread-and-butter, jumping ship to Windows machines.


Now, with the phone market, they're making THE EXACT SAME MISTAKES.

a) the iPhone outsells every other phone on the market, yes. But sales across the market of Google Android are greater than those of the iPhone by a very large margin -- Android sales passed iPhone sales in the USA a year ago.

See
Google Android Now On 130M Total Devices, With 6B App Downloads
.

And
Google's Android Market Set To Surpass Apple's App Store By August 2011
.

Apple is screwing itself over by the exact same libtard-generated need for control over the universe that screwed them the first time.

About a year or so ago, some mustangs attempted to bring some sex-based apps to the iPhone, and got shut down almost instantaneously.

Now, you can have ANY opinion over that you want to -- but as a potential developer, do you want to allow ANY organization to be your sole channel to your customers...?

Or, if there are two likely markets -- one of which is Apple-sole-controlled, and the other is pretty much close to the Wild West... "do as you best can, sell to anyone you want anything you have" -- then WHICH OF THOSE DO YOU THINK DEVELOPERS WILL GENERALLY BUILD FOR **first**?

Google is going to eat Apple's iPhone lunch, just as Microsoft did to Apple's Mac market.

Apple understands the market in terms of what the customer directly wants. They SUCK when it comes to actually running the business after they have produced that. They will run it into the ground every time.

Apple needs to grasp where their core competencies lie, and license everything from that point onward.

But for now, I strongly recommend: short Apple.

Big time.

They are only going to trend downward in the long run until they find yet another new niche to develop a cutting-edge world-class product for.

 
At 7/25/2011 5:54 PM, Blogger OBloodyHell said...

>> So, if you are willing to pay $50 a ton for my exhaled breath, I am perfectly willing to sell.

Che, don't short yourself out of the market.

The stuff out of the other end is worth even more, since it's largely methane, which should be worth about $200 a ton.

Get 'em paying you at both ends.

;-D

 
At 7/25/2011 10:15 PM, Blogger Hydra said...

" I didn't say you did. I explained what I believe about curbs on....."

In other words you ignored me and changed the subject.

Jet Beagle: you referred me to a piece that calculated the cost of energy, including the cost of co2 pollution at $50 a ton. I made the reasonable inference that since you pointed out the article, that you must agree with the premises. By suggesting that I pay you for ( perfectly natural and unavoidable) pollution, you also have changed the subject.

This is a common and ineffectual tactic when no direct response is available.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:23 PM, Blogger Hydra said...

Oh, but you are mistaken. SOME people are polarized, but they are not the majority by amny means.

=====================>
Peoples opinions are polarized. It makes no difference how many, because scientific truth does not depend on a plebescite.


The truth will be whatever it turns out to be.

But, let me ask, how much evidence would it take to convince you that anthropogenic global warming is a fact?

I am not suggesting that it is, only asking what it would take to convince you?

 
At 7/25/2011 10:40 PM, Blogger Hydra said...

.... they do not have a "right" to such a future. So, yes, if such a future is to be realized their opposition must be overcome.

=======<<<<<<<========

By your own argument, you have no more right to the future you desire than they have.

Your suggestion that we get the eco basis out of the way suggests that you are not interested in equal rights, but simply power over them.

Perhaps you should work with your representative government to get a bill passed. Or you could follow che, and take a more direct approach to get them out of the way.

I don't see how you get to a free market without equal rights to it.

 
At 7/25/2011 10:46 PM, Blogger Hydra said...

Solar panels are essentially glass, which is energy intensive to make. Not too long ago a solar panel took more power to make than it would ever produce.

In large quantities they will be dispersed all over the place, requiring a lot of travel for installation and maintenance.

I submit their co2 contribution may be underestimated.

 
At 7/25/2011 11:11 PM, Blogger Hydra said...

Radio? Preposterous. Who would want to send a message to no one in particular?

Yet now, we think nothing of buying and selling radio spectrum.

Buy oxygen ( so you can create co2) ? Preposterous.

We don't think anything of buying the carbon, for the other half of that equation, do we?

 
At 7/26/2011 5:51 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

hydra: "Jet Beagle: you referred me to a piece that calculated the cost of energy, including the cost of co2 pollution at $50 a ton."

Nope. That wasn't me.

 
At 7/26/2011 5:56 AM, Blogger Jet Beagle said...

hydra: "how much evidence would it take to convince you that anthropogenic global warming is a fact?"

I'm already convinced that humans have altered the climate - but not convinced we've altered it significantly.

In any case, it doesn't matter to me how much "evidence" you provide, I'm not going to rely on you as a source for forming an opinion about anthropogenic global warming. It doesn't matter how many links you provide in trying to convince me. I'm already convinced you are not someone I would rely on to do research for me.

 
At 7/26/2011 8:03 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"But, let me ask, how much evidence would it take to convince you that anthropogenic global warming is a fact?"...

You'd have an easier (well not much easier) time convincing nominally educated people that the moon was made of green cheese...

Besides to many of the pushers of this thoroughly debunked nonsense had to cheat and lie their way to more taxpayer financed funding...

 
At 7/26/2011 10:30 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

You'd have an easier (well not much easier) time convincing nominally educated people that the moon was made of green cheese...

=================================

I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. Neither do I care what previous evidence you think was bogus


I'm just asking what would represent sufficient and valid proof, and your answer suggests there is no such thing. Your mind cannot be changed and you are incapable of learning anything, no matter what.

That being the case, there is no point in having any kind of discussion, pro or con.




I'm agnostic on the subject, myself. Suppose that part of global warming is anthropogenic and the rest or major portion is from as yet undetermined natural cause, of much greater magnitude.

In that case all the dire warnings the eco-nuts predict may be true, but be natural disasters, not man made. If that is the case, 50 or a 100 years sooner due to anthropogenic causes won't make much difference in the grand scheme.

 
At 7/26/2011 10:32 AM, Blogger Hydra said...

JB: You are right of course, I misapplied that quote. My apology.

 
At 7/26/2011 11:45 AM, Blogger mike250 said...

Suppose that part of global warming is anthropogenic and the rest or major portion is from as yet undetermined natural cause, of much greater magnitude

There is no such thing as a non-natural cause

 
At 7/26/2011 11:49 AM, Blogger mike250 said...

Polticially the relevant questions are how much of an effect and to what extent is such effect a rights violation?

 
At 7/26/2011 11:51 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"I'm agnostic on the subject, myself"...

Yeah, sure you are hydra...

 

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