Same thing with Iran.

Chavez, like Bush, is a symptom of dysfunction and polarization.

"There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."

(Yawn) Spare me your cliches.

No, I don't demand it. Maybe the lawsuit does a bit of good. Maybe Prop 87 does indirectly reduce consumption. I am honestly not sure how I would vote on it, and if I demanded perfection it would be a no-brainer to vote against it.

What is frustrating for me is that we don't accept more responsibility for our personal contribution to Peak Oil and Global Warming, and therefore we have to settle for very tiny incremental changes. I don't know that we have time for that.

If everyone accepted personal responsibility, and were willing to take serious steps toward mitigation, we could postpone Peak Oil talk for a long, long time by slappping on a $4/gal gasoline tax. But such things are only possible if we stop pointing fingers at everyone else and accept personal responsibility.

I think you misinterpret that this means I advocate primarily individual actions. No. I favor mass action, but meaningful mass action is going to be tough to implement with today's climate of "not my fault."

But other than that, I agree :)

Robert keep up the good work. You are expending the energy a lot of us don't have. Don't think we don't appreciate it. We'd even help, if you asked.

I certainly don't. But things like Roy wrote:

"you stand for absolutely nothing" are well beyond a counter argument. You should also see some of the hate mail I get from time to time. But, probably only about 10% of my e-mail is hate mail.

I don't expect us to build any more big hydro in California, just because the good places are taken.  The remaining possible is in Yosemite and even those conspicuous consumers agree building there would be a crime.

It is also very unlikely that we'll get much in-state coal added.  Right now they have to build over the boarder or on Indian Reservations.

We could work out where we stand the opposite way, for the purposes of peak oil/gas.  That is, calc the oil gas percentage of our electricity generation.  It's less than half, which is good from a preparedness standpoint.

The question, as pragmatic citizens, is where to put our efforts.  I'll back conservation as a first priority, and wind/solar second ... but don't expect those to do more than slow fossil fuel expansion.

Coal advocates do not get everything they wish for, as an example.

FWIW, I think I've seen an acceleration of response in the last couple years to energy problems.  That would make straight-line extrapolations questionable.  We need to know if the acceleration will continue, or fall back.

What if those solar stirling engines they are putting out in the desert really work?

When my grandmother was a child, the radio was cutting edge technology. She saw the invention of the home refridgerator. Antibiotics. Vaccines. TV. Jet planes. Landing on the moon.

The unthinkable was done over and over again.

I feel it is important to draw the distinction between fantasy and past history because it allows easier communication. You can say "I know your intution and experience say there will always be growth, let me show you the energy curve that has happened your whole life" and then show them the energy curve coming.

We know that the years of past experience just yield a mirage of the future, but those years are more real for most people than some dry graphs and equations.

Yes, all renewables eventually fail, but large dams represent a massive investment of manpower, equipment and concrete.  For those investments to be considered renewable, the structure must, in my opinion, perform for an extended period.  Consider the embodied energy vs. power production over the life of the structure.  Consider the difficulty in recycling the structure.  There are solar panels from the early sixties which still perform quite well; approximately 70-80% of rated power with only very gradual declines in power production.  No one really knows how long modern solar panels will last, but a century seems possible, maybe longer.

Certain sites are more siltation-friendly, and yes, dams can be designed to flush silt to some degree.  Typically, flushing sediments obviates other dam functions like: flood control, reservoir, and steady power production because it is done during maximum flow periods.  Indeed, flushing works mostly at the dam end; sedimentation occurring in the distal portions of the reservoir is extremely difficult to address.  

Given that many desert dams are distant from end users, the transmission losses also effect the "renewable-ness" of dams.  4000 watts of rooftop solar may be worth twice the dam-generated electricity due to distributed generation factors.

That said, I am not against hydroelectric power; but I do understand why its renewable credentials are doubted in some quarters.

Dredging costs, either by clamshell or suction, are significant and the energy spent dredging most be "charged" against the dams production.

Your idea would have a minimal environmental impact because it would only take a small portion of the energy carried by the river.  This is why alot of us here favor scaling down energy consumption first, and then scaling up renewables.

Just one cubic meter of silt displaces 264 gallons of water, according to Hall, who works for the Pine Mountain Soil & Water Conservation District.

Heh, heh. He could have just as easily said one cubic meter of silt displaces 61023 cubic inches of water ;^)

The trees decay once and release greenhouse emissions once. After a number of years the amount of CO2 and methane emissions changes.  Logically it declines at some point.
As is pointed out above, the reqrowth and death of plantlife on the shoreline involves sequestration and release.

On the other hand, the emissions from hydrocarbon generated electricity increase as the quality of the hydrocarbon decreases and as the amount of hydrocarbon consumed to produce the fuel increases.

Therefore overtime the equasion changes.  The ratio provided for the dam in South America in relation to hydro-carbon generated electricity is not stagnant and logically changes in favour, from an emissions standpoint, of the hydro electric dam.  So I asked you if you could provide information on the rate of change in this ratio.

I'm well aware of the adverse affects of mercury contamination from hydro development for Cree and others, especially those dependent on traditional fisheries.  I am also aware that the mercury contamination is a relatively minor cause of poor physical and mental health outcomes experienced by first nations since Europeans began the rape of this continent.  I was only trying to provide context and did not wish to diminish the nefarious effects of mercury contamination, especially for those people who were unaware that their traditional fish diet was post reservoir killing them.

Are we going to have a greater or lesser problem with mercury and other contaminants without hydro-electricity?  I ask this question not in the sense of dam or no dam, but in the sense of hydro-electricity or coal-generated electricity, coal being the evident worldwide preferred option, when alternatives are denied.  I should have been clearer.  

I must say that I couldn't find anything on the link to the Cree website re mercury pollution.  Perhaps I missed it.  I did note comments from various representatives of the Cree relating to the economic opportunities presented by hydro development.  It is perhaps regrettable that so much has been lost, but life goes on and I'm glad that the Cree are insisting on leading their own way out of the wilderness of despair that has afflicted so many of their communities in recent decades.  

Direct mercury emmissions from coal burning and fell in an area with few natural buffers/adsorption agents.  And the acid rain allows leaching from the ground (this has been noted in the US NE and most boreal rains are naturally neutral.  Add acid rain from coal burning > leaching).

But there was a very ancient example of large scale water management in China.  Something about an engineer who later became a saint, or something?  ... Discovery Chanel.

Maybe this relates:

http://english.people.com.cn/200212/11/eng20021211_108307.shtml

Amusing snippet:

"Judging from these records, the dam's water levels during Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) were lower than in modern times, Li said."

Anyway, flood control, levies, irrigation, are as old as civilization.