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285 comments on DrumBeat: December 19, 2006

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expat on December 19, 2006 - 12:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You had written something about this before - personally, I find it inconceivable, at least in a country which considers itself to be the leading member of the industrial West.

This seems to illustrate one of the deepest differences between America and where I live - no one would put up with such obviously stupid behavior, and no one cares the reason behind it either. It will take an incredibly broad breakdown in social order before people would consider burning plastic to keep warm, whereas in the U.S., to some at least, it seems a clever response since it burns hot and is cheap.

Nothing like creating toxic waste to keep warm - what a metaphor of the American Dream going up in smoke.

This still boggles my mind in some hard to define way - plastic is just disgusting to burn (to my nose, much worse than coal), apart from how nasty the byproducts may be (not being current on the plastics currently in use, it is a fair assumption). I guess tires are next in the good old U. S. of A. In Germany, burning too much paper or cardboard is considered socially unacceptable, since the amount of ash generated is noticeable for those living in the same area.

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Leanan on December 19, 2006 - 12:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm fully expecting them to dig up the roads to burn the asphalt.
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hummingbird on December 19, 2006 - 12:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wow!  I never thought of that.  I wonder if people will be out defending their roads--or will they be the ones digging it up?
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expat on December 19, 2006 - 12:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sometimes, I have this feeling that you think the U.S. is even more insane than my worst imaginings.

Which doesn't mean you are wrong - it was certainly striking at how very little had actually changed in 6 years in any real sense between U.S. visits, but such beliefs (if my statement is close enough to truth) imply a collapse of truly immense proportions, and quite honestly, I don't think the rest of the world will simply follow along that path.

Besides, burning plastic is something any lazy person can do - ripping up roads will require a level of fitness no longer common in the U.S.

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Leanan on December 19, 2006 - 1:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What can I say, I'm a very imaginative person.  ;-)

I've also seen what people do to public infrastructure now, just for profit or out of random vandalism.

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InfinitePossibilities on December 19, 2006 - 2:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"What can I say, I'm a very imaginative person."

Then why not use that imagination to help solve the problems rather than to paint gloom and doom on every wall?

;-)

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Leanan on December 19, 2006 - 3:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What makes you think I'm not?
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InfinitePossibilities on December 20, 2006 - 5:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Your negativism. Maybe you just don't know how to advertise? There is nothing wrong with being positive, you know. The only thing that is flat out wrong is to be un-realistic.
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Darwinian on December 19, 2006 - 4:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Then why not use that imagination to help solve the problems rather than to paint gloom and doom on every wall?

You know something Infinite, Peak oil IS the solution to most of the problems Mother Earth is suffering from.

Ron Patterson

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Samsara on December 19, 2006 - 10:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Dead on Ron.

Mother Nature Bats Last.

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InfinitePossibilities on December 20, 2006 - 5:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If that were to be true, we also needed to see peak coal and peak methane within a decade. We won't... Earth's atmosphere was thick with CO2 in the past and too much of it got sequestered into forms that can be released. Sorry to burst your bubble... reality is more complex than your version of it.
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DelusionaL on December 19, 2006 - 3:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
yes, mostly meth addicts here but they are a problem.  Our local utility has a magazine with an article about some guy who got into a power substation to steal @$20.00 worth of copper wire only to get himself electrocuted.
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Leanan on December 19, 2006 - 3:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What about that incident in Germany, where someone dug up three miles of railroad track and sold it for scrap?  That wasn't meth addicts.  IIRC, they said it was probably organized crime.  

There was something about all the aluminum luggage carts in Sweden or some such place being stolen and sold for scrap.  

And in China, people are falling through the street because hundreds of thousands of steel manhole covers have been stolen.

It's not just we rowdy Americans.

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DelusionaL on December 19, 2006 - 3:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
OMG look at what we can learn from the true "leaders" in "recycling".  3 miles of track WOW!!

Some funny stuff you just can't make up.

Ever read the darwin awards? - often given post-mortem to those who do us a favor and remove themselves from the gene pool.

Other good reading are the Buller Lyton (sp?) awards for bad writing.  some very good stuff...
D

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JimK on December 19, 2006 - 8:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Edward Bulwer Lytton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bulwer-Lytton,_1st_Baron_Lytton

Not half as bad a writer as all the jokes make him out to be! Pelham must have been a big influence on Dickens. The scenes from the wrong side of the tracks in London are quite vivid. Though of course they didn't have tracks in those days!

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expat on December 20, 2006 - 2:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I found a link - http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1709261.html?menu=news.quirkies.strangecrime and this was a fairly unusual, but not exactly infrastructure destroying crime in terms of some desperate person bringing down part of the grid for a few dollars.

And it fits into a certain German tradition, stretching back to this incident - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptmann_von_K%C3%B6penick

Nonetheless, the 'scavenging' of infrastructure will certainly happen more into the future, no argument.

Of course, no one is stealing the huge number of bicycles left at the stations for steel or rubber yet - and I don't expect it to happen, if only because then some sort of security will be implemented - which already tends to exist at train stations here.

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InfinitePossibilities on December 20, 2006 - 6:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Power lines have a mechanism to protect themselves from thieves... they usually kill them. And even if you are very skilled, how long until someone notices? Approx. 120us for a 15 mile long power line. The speed of light is fast...

:-)

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DelusionaL on December 20, 2006 - 11:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Gives new meaning to the word "derailment" .-)
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InfinitePossibilities on December 20, 2006 - 6:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Let me know when the world copper market collapses because of copper thiefs.

:-)

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DelusionaL on December 19, 2006 - 3:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Leanan,  great links (above) by the way.  The one on the coming oil wars is rather bleak looking for the US.  Also peak debt. Sure makes you wonder...how soon and how fast/slow does something tip the scales.
D
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HeIsSoFly on December 19, 2006 - 1:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We'll be destroying the roads to clear land for food production. US paved surface is about the size the UK, lots off grwoth potential.

So, food and heat, a win-win for everybody. Free enterprise.

I'd imagine the land beneath the pavement would be dead as nails though for a few years.

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DelusionaL on December 19, 2006 - 3:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If they treated under the roads with sodium borate (boron) then a few years might be a few decades...or longer.
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Leanan on December 19, 2006 - 3:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You would have to condition the soil.  All the topsoil is removed.  It's considered unsuitable to build on, because the organic matter will rot, causing anything built on it to shift. So they dig it out and sell it to farmers or landscapers.

This is one reason why older cities are better places to homestead.  They didn't scrape off the topsoil in the old days.  Plus, older cities are usually situated in the best spots (as far as soil, water, shelter, etc., go).

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GROK on December 19, 2006 - 5:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Older buidings have lead paint that has flaked off around the foundations.  One should check for lead and other chemicals around older buidings if planting a garden.
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InfinitePossibilities on December 20, 2006 - 6:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Why exactly do we need more land for agriculture? Didn't we just bribe our farmers with corn-ethanol pork to re-start production on previously unused land?

If we got too much of anything, it is probably agricultural area...

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AlphaMaleProphetOfDoom on December 19, 2006 - 5:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I just deadlifted 375 for 5. My all time best is 405 for 8. I hope to being doing 475 for 5 by June 28 of this upcoming year. This is with a pause in between each rep so there's no momentum.

It's good to know my muscular buttocks will be in demand post-peak oil.

Wait that sounded really bad . . . .

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Francois on December 19, 2006 - 6:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Peak Toil?
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jokuhl on December 20, 2006 - 1:10am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sounded more like a Toilet Peek..
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expat on December 20, 2006 - 2:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You may want to consider the SAS perspective on such a question - according to several different SAS accounts, they find the American emphasis on strength, especially upper body strength, to be fairly worthless.

The SAS emphasizes endurance and fitness - they find the ability to be able to cover 20 miles over a mountain range in less than a day much more important than the ability to lift something heavy a few times - after all, generally you aren't alone, you are with other people who can help with anything too heavy for one person.

But then, that is the British perspective - they were famous for their Navy, not for Hollywood Westerns portaying single figures facing down evil alone.

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radlafari on December 19, 2006 - 2:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
maybe nuclear waste is a good choice either - keeps warm for quite some time ..
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rude crude on December 19, 2006 - 2:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Should we burn the tires or the asphault first?...Hmm
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DelusionaL on December 19, 2006 - 4:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Indian build small fire - sit close.

White man build big fire - stand way back.  

With regards to our energy future we should do some trial and error.  Maybe get a DOE grant or something.  
Trial #1 Burning parked cars. - tires, some pavement(?), etc. and sell the scrap metal.
<test result questions>
Do Ford's burn better than Chevy's?
Diesel vrs. gas cars - which burns the most efficiently?
How many people can stay warm around a compact car vrs a full size suv?
Do red cars burn fatser than white ones? ;)

<:)

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ET on December 19, 2006 - 2:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
In Southern Appalachia it was common for tires to be used as fuel for heating a 50-gallon drum of water for scraping the hog at a hog slaughtering. Quick and hot... and very dirty. Not that many people do their own hogs anymore, they are done in modern slaughter houses that are clean, safe and ecological </sarcasm off>
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InfinitePossibilities on December 19, 2006 - 2:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What is the cancer incidence in Appalachia? About twice that in the rest of the US? Sounds about right...
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Substrate on December 19, 2006 - 2:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Unless my memory fails me, the burning of plastic (which is a common practice with medical waste in particular) creates dioxins, which are not pretty.
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Engineer-Poet on December 20, 2006 - 12:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Only if it contains chlorine.  You're probably safe burning polyethylene or PTFE, but make sure you don't have any PVC.
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expat on December 20, 2006 - 2:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
But I wonder about all the things which add color to plastic. Not to mention that the controls in the U.S. are probably pretty lax under the Bush League - do the Chinese care about the plastic they use or export?
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Engineer-Poet on December 20, 2006 - 2:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
If it was my decision, I'd sidestep the issue by using CWT's process with a shot of limestone to soak up the chlorine and turn it into CaCl2.  They claim it works with waste plastic, rubber and a host of other things.

I suspect that CWT's thermochemical conversion process could turn waste plastic, algal fats and just about anything else into a very light, sweet synthetic oil plus gas (if it works with turkey fat, how could it not?).  The gas product provides the process heat, and it would not surprise me if the liquid and gaseous effluents would be happily munched up by algae again to make more fats.  This would give you a trash-to-fuel process which converts plastics and everything else into fuel, and recycles the carbon in the process-heat exhaust to more fuel.  Odor-causing emissions would be trapped and made available to algae (possibly dealing with THAT problem), while the power would ultimately be supplied by sunlight.

I wonder how many acres of Fresh Kills that NYC would be willing to devote to covered algae greenhouses...

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285 comments on DrumBeat: December 19, 2006

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