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63 comments on From Botswana to New England - a different story
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63 comments on From Botswana to New England - a different story
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Franz,
Gratuitous anti-American comments are the worst part of The Oil Drum.
Dave
Au contraire, Dave: it's-all-about-population-close-the-borders-and-head-for-the-hills-YEEEEEHHAAAAAH! is the worst part of TOD.
Now, you may object to my use of the word 'retarded' ... so just concentrate on the other one, 'outlier'.
The US IS an outlier in many, many respects. It isn't normal at all. And here I use 'normal' in its neutral statistical sense.
Even for an Anglo-Saxon country, the US is just way off the edge. And Anglo-Saxon social arrangements and economic policies are already pretty weird, and would probably be completely unsuccessful but for the hangover provided by the British Empire and the 'hanger-on' effect afforded by the current US imperium.
But it's late here and I'm not arguing now ... the point is that developments in the US reflect the US's unique (and, yes, retarded) political and social structure and should not be taken to be representative of probable developments in the rest of the industrialized world.
[edited for typo: 'probably' changed to 'probable']
There is a fixation on natural gas usage for ethanol on TOD which does not make much sense and may reflect on the U.S. in general. Electricity production uses more natural gas than ethanol. When EROEI is applied (erroneously IMO due to unlike and unlike) it is lower than ethanol. Not only that, ethanol's usage of natural gas largely just replaces the usage of natural gas for MTBE before its phase out.
Electricity is almost a sacred cow even though most of it is produced from fossil fuels. It is hard for me to see the energy gain in switching to electric powered cars with the current infrastructure. True there may be an environmental gain as pollution may be easier to control at central plants, but there is a big loss of energy in electricity production unless it comes from solar or wind. And there is not enough of that currently.
I have to agree with Franz, it is difficult for Americans to apply logic. Being an atheist I think it is because the U.S. prides itself on being a religious nation. Logic and religion do not mix.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
Your ethanol drivel is as logical as Pat Robertson's sermons are religious.
Recommended reading:
"I Don't Believe in Atheists", Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2008
and for people interested in an informed analysis of the best use of land and insolation in the (non-food) bio-energy domain:
http://www.reap-canada.com/library/Bioenergy/BIOCAP_REAP_bioenergy_polic...
The linked study deals specifically with the comparative effectiveness of various energy production incentives for greenhouse gas mitigation, but is nonetheless very useful in understanding why ethanol production is a tragic waste of resources.
"Logic and religion do not mix."
I disagree with that statement personally, but unfortunately, for the majority of Americans, it is all too true.
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/tomorrow.htm
About 1/3 of Americans believe that Jesus will come and save them within their lifetime, so there is no reason to conserve energy/invest in renewables/worry about peak oil/think at all.
Luckily, Britain isn't quite as 'retarded' (to quote the above poster), but our politicians are almost as short-sighted.
What evidence can you provide that support your linking these two assertions?
If you just replaced all cars with plug-in hybrids and used eletricity (derived from the gas the cars wold be burning) to power short trips, you'd reduce fuel consuption by nearly half. (Engineer-poet already made those calculations.) That is because big generators are more efficient than car motors.
And, there seems to be no viable route to renewably powered cars except by eletrifying them, since most renewable (and nuclear) are good for generating eletricity, and hydrogen (the second best candidate) has a very big set of problems. Ok, maybe hydrogen-eletricity hybrids are more viable, but those still count as eletrical cars.
Any country that uses 1/4 of the world's oil is no outlier. It has to be paid attention to, regardless.
Well, that's wrong. Any country that uses 1/4 of the world's oil, considering that there are near 200 countries, has to be an outlier.
That is tautological. Now, the 'retarded' part has some oppinion/knowledge/predjudice (all having the same meaning here) on it.
Most of the higher US energy usage is a result of higher per capita income. Part of it is due to lower population density. Part of it is due to a large exporting agricultural sector.
That's like calling an elephant in the room an outlier.
Statistically, the elephant is the outlier.
"Any country that uses 1/4 of the world's oil is no outlier."
Unlikely that, but for sure any country with 5% of the worlds population that uses 25% of the world's oil definitely joins the in a group called Fat ____ Pigs.
Franz, I think these abnormalities in the US populace arise from two major factors.
(1) Unlimited availability of domestic oil and gas beginning around 1900 and lasting until about 1965. Using more was better because, as fuel roared through the production system, it left in its wake a built up infrastructure which effectively increased communal wealth. In this connection, bear in mind that US oil companies at that time had the ability to supply much more fuel than the populace could possibly use. In broad effect, we had unlimited free high-energy fuel. This period of time was entirely unprecedented in human history.
(2) Commercial broadcast radio and television on a very large scale encouraged constantly-increasing consumption of everything.
There is nothing wrong with the gene pool here; rather we have lived with such abundance, and saturated with such heavy pro-consumption propaganda, that we have lost touch with the reality that scarcity is possible and, in fact, is ultimately inevitable.
I think Americans are pretty retarded. 85% of the discussions on TOD are about how to keep the cars running and McMansions heated/cooled to a comfy 70 deg all year round.
The solutions are not real difficult -- basically trains and well-insulated apartments for urban areas, which is where most people would be barring an economic collapse, and efficient transport (motorcycles, electric bikes, etc.etc) combined with regional trains for rural areas, and far, far fewer suburban areas. My town here in rural upstate New York, population 1,000, has a train station from the 1800s that is no longer in service. (The station is now a train museum.)
If you did that, you would have something that looked like ... Europe. Heck, even in the Soviet Union, a huge, rambling land mass, people got by without personal automobiles.
Instead, we get a 24/7 technology wank-off. "Solar panels in parking lots! Ground-source heat pumps! Cars that run on compressed air!" Which are all OK, within the context of trains and proper urban/rural areas. As means to maintain suburbia, they will fail as suburbia is basically a failed experiment.
If you look at the history of civilization, from the Sumerians (3500 BC) to the present, you will notice that it is one of rural, food growing areas and dense urban areas, whether a small medieval village of 500 people or Paris of 1835. Suburbia was an experiment now about 60 years old, and it has been a failure. Nothing wrong with that, but let's move on. Like Communism in China, within the scope of their 5000 year history.
If you look at the recent history of civilization you will notice an industrial revoution, huge scientific discoveries, the development of communications and computing technologies, and now genetic engineering. The past is not always a reliable guide to the future.
I expect suburbs to shrink some. But most humans do not like living stacked up in many storied buildings. They will develop technological innovations that allow them to live in lower population densities.
"But most humans do not like living stacked up in many storied buildings. They will develop technological innovations that allow them to live in lower population densities."
equals:
"With a big enough technological wank-off, we can keep living in suburbia."
It is odd how Americans equate their odd preferences as those of "humans," although there is no evidence of such. The first apartment building in Japan was built in the 1920s. Today, there is a move OUT of suburbia into denser urban areas, because people don't like cars and long commutes, and prefer the pleasures of city living.
At some point, Americans may realize that their supposed preferences, which they equate with those of "humanity" although they have nary a clue what people in other countries think or live like, are the OUTLIER.
It should be no surprise that, when Americans persist in this behavior, they seem pretty retarded to people in the rest of the world.
The national character of Japan is very different from the United States. People steeped in (and likely even selected for genetically over generations) a culture which prizes harmony is going to get along much better in dense conditions than the boistrous, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural stew on the east of the Pacific.
econguy, Yes we have such different preferences. We like expensive German luxury cars. But the Germans don't. We like fast food restaurants. But our fast food companies can't expand abroad. We like Hollywood movies. But noone in the rest of the world watches them. We like to spend as much as we make. But the Brits are big savers. We like expensive clothes. But the Japanese are content to go around in modest outfits.
Oh wait, these people in other countries do want all that stuff. Consumer culture pops up wherever incomes rise.
Long commutes in Japan: Yes, if you make the commutes slow enough and long enough and expensive enough then people decide that given all these sticks they'll suddenly decide that an apartment looks like a carrot. But give them space and empty roads and cheap gas and the money to buy a house and few will live in apartments.
European lifestyles differ from American lifestyles out of necessity. Higher population densities, higher energy costs, and lower per capita GDPs cause more urban living. You can make a virtue out of necessity. But this is just after-the-fact let-me-feel-morally-superior spinning.
Gratuitous means "without cause". I think the anti-American comments are generally not without cause.
And in any case, any critiques I'd have of the US - being wasteful with energy, polluting, warmongering, arrogant, spineless in addressing real problems - apply just as much to my own country, Australia.
Yeah In Australia we are so smart that Kevin07 has gathered together a kilo of people to come up with some ideas next month to fix everything by 2020. Don't panic, we've signed Kyoto, apologised to the natives, abolished slavery (WorkChoices)and today we solved the drought and fixed the health system. It's a good thing this summit. For a while there I thought the guvmint was going to run out of things to do. I hope they decide how to keep us from becoming Merikans!