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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (22833)	7/5/2006 7:49:56 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541375

The space race was part moral crusade part engineering miracle, driven by said crusade and commitment, so was the race for the bomb- same can be said is needed here. It sometimes takes a moral crusade to drive the engineering. As Gore said, too many go straight from denial to defeatism, without ever trying for the same sort of technological push we had during the 40's/60's. Yes, it's an engineering problem, and without the will to solve it, we never shall.

To: Lane3 who wrote (22833)	7/5/2006 9:29:34 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541375

It's about time. Good for Samuelson. As per usual, I'm at a bit of a different place. For instance, there is more than a little of the tone that is the curse of the last several years, the great dichotomies of reasoning: good or evil or, in this case, all or nothing. It's not the overall logic of the piece, granted, but there is the "let's find the engineering solution (and solution is the key word here) before we do anything" about it. And then there is this: The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless. Which, in my experience is the economist and engineering logic at work. Just innocent of all political work, not a little totalistic (I'm tempted to type a worse word but it really doesn't fit). It's totalistic in the sense that the only solutions are one's which do it all and the only way to get that solution is to turn the engineers and/or economists loose to do it. I am reminded, and this is not a cheap shot, of Plato's philosopher kings. But the problem is that's another way to say nothing will be done. The solutions have an inherent political dimension to them; there has to be a general alarm that problems need to be addressed before serious resources can be allocated. And before all those emergent and always collective solutions can emerge. As I understand the Gore argument, that's what he is trying to do.

To: Lane3 who wrote (22833)	7/5/2006 9:53:31 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541375

Thorium thread... Subject 56072

To: Lane3 who wrote (22833)	7/5/2006 10:25:51 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541375

Taming the 2 horses of the apocalypse..GW and Peak Oil New solar power much cheaper than oil, says report 04/07/2006 - 10:49:01 A study released today claimed that Europe cut emissions of CO2 from electricity generation by 70% by the year 2050 and phase out nuclear power whilst meeting all its electricity needs. The report, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, supports the gradual replacement of old power plants that rely on dwindling supplies of fuel with a greater range of non-polluting sources of energy. “Every year, each square kilometre of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5m barrels of oil,” said the study’s project manager, Dr Franz Trieb. “Multiplying by the area of deserts world-wide, this is nearly a thousand times the entire current energy consumption of the world.” "We can tap in to this energy by using mirrors to concentrate sunlight and create heat. The heat may be used to raise steam and drive a generator in the conventional way. “This kind of ‘concentrating solar power’ (CSP) — which is very different from the better-known photovoltaic ‘solar panels’ — has been producing electricity successfully in California for nearly twenty years. "The cost of collecting solar thermal energy equivalent to one barrel of oil is about $50 (€39) right now - already less than the current world price of oil. This is likely to come down to around $20 (€15.61) in future.” breakingnews.iol.ie