82 comments on C2C – the Emerging Energy Technologies Summit – day 2
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k Nation (Jim Kunstler)
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Thanks again for the post! the quote below intrigued me:
"From that point of view, the “sixth wave” of technical progress should be a disruptive wave, rather than one of logical progression. The energy business, because it has been heavily regulated for so long, is one of the slowest to adapt and needs that sort of action. He noted that when Prime Minister Blair introduced the initiative to work on global warming issues at the Gleneagles G-8 summit two years ago, he initially received a positive response for the governments attending. However, when the price of some $10-30 billion was presented those nations choked. He noted that this was not because of the reality of the message, but because of the price."
The "sixth wave" of tech progress? I did not know there were six. Any elaboration?
The energy business is slow to adapt because of heavy regulation? I thought the opposite would be true. Is this a real observation or simply an excuse thrown out to cover the energy industry's own inertia and unwillingness to confront the huge environmental issues we face -- scarcening resources and global warming?
No one is willing to pay the price now for sustainable infrastructure and planning. That I find easy to believe. We are psychotically divorced from reality, are we not?
No wonder the summit seemed to end with a fizzle and a pop. My own impression is that plenty of "green" business people are interested in developing sustainable energy projects, but that government and "the market" don't want to pay for them. Just burn more coal, etc.
"No change." Or was there more hope than that?
I think that we should make the wave disruptive by banning all new coal project, including all those on the drawing board, and by the way, all those planned for Texas.
tstreet,
This is exactly the kind of thinking that has caused delays up until now. "Ban coal" or "lets use Hydrogen" or "lets use ethanol" are all bandwagons that people jump on, that prevent them from seeing other solutions. The problem is GHGs, so ban those. If the Texas coal industry can find a way to sequester, good for them.
Banning coal isn't going to happen. They're trying it in California, but it won't work everywhere. We must be somewhat pragmatic. The place to start is on the consumption side. We should ban all televisions that draw more than 200 watts, all refrigerators that draw more than 500 kWh/yr avg. Light bulbs should not be sold over x watts, new cars should be required to get 30 mpg minimum, etc., etc. While we're at it we should ban private jets, yachts, sporting events, especially motor sports and houses over 3000 sq. ft. Think I could get elected on that platform?
Why not start by eliminating NASCAR!!
All we have to eliminate NASCAR is to turn our 300W tvs off while it's on. The advertisers will do the rest for us.
:-)
I think that the organizers are anticipating putting up some of the presentations on the web. This could only be a very short review of all that was said, and could not include the slides and a lot of the underlying information that was given.
You could go back and look at the site in a week or two and maybe they will have it posted (that's where I got the info on last years conference).
HO