🚀 go-pugleaf

On 19 Oct 1997 14:17:59 GMT, kym@faraday.ee.latrobe.edu.au (Kym
Horsell) wrote:

>In article <61cgjv$fh0@crl.crl.com>,
>Paul W. Cashman <vanyel@crl.crl.com> wrote:
>>kym@faraday.ee.latrobe.edu.au (Kym Horsell) writes:
(snip)
>>
>>Moreover, the amount of land area required to mount solar cells to
>>equal a typical coal or nuclear (or pumped-storage or....) power plant
>>isn't measured in acres, but in SQUARE MILES!     --Dozens of square
>>miles, in fact.   Funny; I don't see environmentalists screaming about
>>the resulting damage to regional arcologies from such a vast project.
>>Wonder why, forsooth?
>
>This argument also won't wash (and is actually of the same general form).
>
>If "amount of land that's used" was an over-riding factor, freeways
>would be banned.
>
>Other factors to consider -- why "land"? There's lots of ocean, for
>example. 
>
Yeah, and it might be a good idea, if there was nothing living in the
ocean.  Most of the CO2 is converted back into O2 by plants in the
ocean, not on land.

>In any case -- thinking in terms of what you _know now_ (either in
>terms of "basic science" or "basic economics") is not a proven way to 
>anticipate or attempt to "refute" a given technology. ;-) It would
>seem exactly the opposite.

Yeah, we should build them on the oceans anyway, damn the
consequences.  The best way to evaluate any new technology is to just
go ahead and use it, regardless of any obvious drawbacks. Then, once
the damage is done...forgot where I was going with this argument.

ryan "who the hell decided to cross-post to all these groups" cragg
not that i'm helping