436 comments on Is Relocalization Doomed?: A Response to Staniford’s "Fallacy of Reversibility"
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Home Buyers Demand Short Commutes, Efficient Homes (with Backyards, Parking, lots of Square Feet)
- Streets: Utilitarian Corridors or Livable Public Space
- Summer Streets a Success!
TOD:Europe
- IEA WEO 2008 - Fossil Fuel Ultimates and CO2 Emissions Scenarios
- The IEA WEO 2008: Will coal usage be phased out?
- Oilwatch Monthly - November 2008
TOD:Canada
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
“It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it.”
—Upton Sinclair
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
"Why do you call nuclear 'The most modern'?"
To further clarify this comment, wind power has been used for centuries, in ships and windmills, it's a small step to connect a generator to these. Also, I don't have the referece, but the first wave energy device was proposed i believe, but not built, in the 1800s. Renewable energy technology is merely the refinement of an old idea. The high technology comes in when you want to make them economic.
By contrast, nuclear fission has only been understood relatively recently, hence it is by far the most modern.
You seem resistant to considering the idea that while some of our Reactors, as recent as they are to HUMAN history, are today a couple generations old and facing 'Advanced Decrepitude'. They are now OLD sources in terms of the 2008 Energy Supply.
As a solution to our present energy situation, they are not at the head of the list (speaking of chronology, not priority) not the new kid in class, as ways have been developing to make other sources both increasingly economical, and less politically objectionable. In that conversation, Nuclear is not a NEW item on that agenda, and it's advocates are not the Avant Garde. They are an 'established' and 'historical' provider. This is the point Astyk seems to be making as well.
Meanwhile, the US installed 5gw of Wind Capacity last year. That's by all rights NEW, even if it's an age-old power source. Are proponents of Windmills and Solar Panels 'Reversalists' or 'Technophiles'? The point is that the term is overly vague, and most likely divisive.
Computers are 'New' and 'Modern'.. but if you're running Win3.1, you are clearly a wierdo who is stuck in the distant past. Right?
Bob
I'm not resistant. Nuclear fission is more modern than fossil fuel based technology. I don't see how you can argue this. I'm referring to the technology, not individual reactors. I'm aware that time passing makes things age.
I'll try again.
Advocating for the 'Resurgence of Nuclear Energy Development in the US' would be a 'Reversalist' position, since we've had a full generation's lull in New Reactors. It's an OLD position in the energy choices we face. It's soo 1960. Is that what makes it a bad (or good) choice? No,
The AGE of the technology does not describe its usefulness. IF Nuke is really right, then MAYBE we should 'Go Back' to building that out. IF wind is right, then let's GO BACK to that.
Calling someone, ANYone who wants to 'go back' to a previously discarded approach some kind of euphemism of a 'Retard' is unhelpful.
Bob
Actually, in the case of photvoltaics you have this backwards. Fermi built a pile in 1942. The transister was invented in 1947 by Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain. Nuclear power is a much less sophisticated means of power generation, as can be seen from the term pile. It's tolerances are mainly to do with the extreme hazards. The tolerances for PV are actually much higher owing to the need for extreme purity of the semiconductor (eight nines). Only recently has it seemed possible to relax these a bit. However, the development of PV promises much better EROEI compared to nuclear power and much reduced safety issues. That PV appears simpler has more to do with the greater elegance of the physics compared to the rather crude production of dangerous mid-mass radionuclei involved in fission.
Chris