🚀 go-pugleaf

"Murray Love" <murraylove@home.com> wrote in message
news:K4F15.407$Zq.15347@news1.gvcl1.bc.home.com...
> > >
>
> Wayne, I credit you with the best intentions.  Unfortunately, it's going
to
> take a lot more than you and me and the rest of the middle class
> weatherizing our houses. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't do it, and
it
> all helps, but large sections of the developing world will be coming on to
> the grid in a big way in the next couple of decades, and chances are
they'll
> be powered by coal (China and India have lots of it).  Their concerns are
> getting factories up and running, providing reliable irrigation to
> agricultural areas, and supplying domestic demand when people start
> purchasing microwaves and the like.  To put it bluntly, they don't care
> about efficiency - it's far from even a secondary concern--they need
> reliable baseload.  Efficiency is a concern of comfortable people.
>
> The paper I have here is not a pro-nuclear tract; in fact, the authors
> dismiss nuke pretty much completely.  I will send you a copy, if you like.
> In any case, the authors calculate that, in order to stabilize atmospheric
> CO2 levels at twice pre-industrial levels, we'll need 16 TW of carbon-free
> energy by 2050, IF we maintain our current rate of energy intensity
decline
> (efficiency increases) at 1% per year.  If we manage 1.5%, we'll only need
7
> TW.  Right now, the world has 1.5 TW of carbon-free energy; that's hydro,
> nuke, and some renewables.
>
> Just so you know, if we take the best case of 7 TW needed, that's 618,520
> sq. km of PV cells.  It's also 185,556 sq. km of wind turbine area,
housing
> 58.8 million wind turbines.  Calculated from the paper.  I would welcome a
> check on my numbers.
>
> For the interested, the paper is "Climate Change Policy is an Energy
> Problem", and the authors are Chris Green and Doug Lightfoot of McGill
> University.
>
>
First off, I'm not advocating anything that will solve every problem,
everywhere. I'd rather try and teach my cat to play the kazoo. I'll limit
myself to encouraging people to do what they can, for their own benefit.
I'll leave China and India to the rest of you. :-)

Interesting figures though about conservation. 1%? Oh, the humanity! :-) You
guys seem to like to stick to figures, so here are some questions you can
answer with them. (WAGs acceptable, excepting rationalizations) What
percentage of home energy use reduction would result if the average middle
class family installed a solar water heating system? Does that 1% projection
include things like that? If it does, then how come I'm not seeing more of
them? Why aren't they for sale at Home Depot? If it doesn't, then how much
could that 1% be increased if it did?

What percentage reduction of electricity use could be achieved if every
person who bought a new refrigerator from today forward, insisted on the
most efficient model, rather than the one with the most gee-gaws?

In my state, last I read there were 14 new natural gas fired power plants in
the works. Seems like somebody wants to make some money selling electricity.
How many of those 14 (or the equivalent MW of older plants) would be
required if the people of the state got serious about getting rid of
incandescent light bulbs? Or even just turning the damned lights off
overnight? (more huge sacrifices, I know <G>)

BTW, I think you guys who like to promote nuclear energy could do yourselves
a favor by doing more than mentioning conservation and alternatives as an
aside. Even though you really don't count them for much, you could gain
credibility by at least appearing to be interested in exploring the
alternatives. Sort of "we're really trying to encourage alternatives, but we
've done all we can on that front, so now we need nukes", rather than "we
need nukes, because all that other stuff isn't worth talking about".

Wayne