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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: axial who wrote (37469)	1/18/2011 1:24:12 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

Jim, Rob... Great discussion, folks. Marginalization and suffering wouldn't occur over a weekend. It's a more gradual process, one that I suspect will be more abrupt relatively speaking than many would feel comfortable with. But the species will adapt moving-window style as it always does. The focus of the last couple of posts in this thread centered heavily on transportation and supply-chain economics. Elsewhere, earlier today on another discussion list you, Jim, made similar assertions about Internet. I maintain that Internet is relatively benign environmentally and energywise. It doesn't consume near as much as you ascribed to it. Transmission systems are ultra efficient today, relative to the per megabit costs (financial and environmentally) of earlier systems. It's the data centers you have been referring to, those that comprise and support the Web's super-apps, the digital substitutes and evolving clouds that perform brick & mortar substitution, many of which are being used arbitrarily in ways that sometimes have a mitigating effect on energy consumption, but all too often also have the direct opposite effect by exacerbating, and as you noted, accelerating the problems associated with inefficient behaviors of many types. The Web is not Internet, and data centers used for commerce and trade are not Internet. To borrow from a popular saying, The Internet doesn't kill people, people kill people. When leveraged properly, Internet could put a heavy dent into all of the ills you listed where energy is being used foolishly. The Internet should not be confused with the appendages that exploit it. FAC ------

To: axial who wrote (37469)	1/18/2011 4:17:29 AM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 46821

Me, me, me, me.... <Who here doesn't commute 30 miles to and from work, alone in their car? Who doesn't use coal-fired generation, or its products? Who doesn't use the fast-food drive-through? Who doesn't eat the typical meal, the contents of which have traveled an average 1500 miles, often refrigerated, before ending up on someone's plate? > Being a little more precise, I'm long gone from the commute and days can go by during which only my feet or bicycle leave the driveway as means of propulsion. While I use a little bit of coal-fired generation, hidden in the raw materials of the few objects I buy, it's not much. I wouldn't mind using lots of coal but I prefer not to waste money. I have been into a fast food drive through maybe twice in my life. I did take grand daughter on the bar of my bicycle, with padding for comfort, to McDonalds for some fries, tomato sauce and a play in the play ground on several occasions. They use good oil now. My typical meal is eggs, corn, bananas [the bananas come a longggg way], apples, tomatoes, bread [I guess the wheat travels a long way or at least some of it], peas, beans, nectarines, onions, rice [good mileage there]. Sometimes fish and infrequently beef or fowl. Average distance per kilogram about 200 I guess. I buy the cheapest food of good nutritional value. I don't care how far it comes or how much CO2 is produced in the process, but of course the more it travels the greater the cost. I like cheap. Peas are about the only refrigerated product. Meat is cooled. Milk powder is dry. Hopefully nobody is so silly: <How many here are prepared to sacrifice their jobs and upward mobility to promote energy efficiency? > Dollars are the best measure of value. Energy efficiency is good to avoid wasting money. Same with producing not much CO2 = save money. It's selfish, but if somebody wants CO2 for their crops, they can buy fuel and burn it in their glasshouse. No worries Jim. Save money, not energy. Mqurice