Subject: Re: Major problem with western 'lifestyle'
From: CDS4AW@leeds.ac.uk (A. Whitworth)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 10:36:37 +0000 (GMT)
In article <01bbcedc$8f0ad780$89d0d6cc@masher>, "Mike Asher"
wrote:
>
>> alnev@midtown.net (A.J.) writes:
>>
>>For the umpteenth time, people don't "make" resources.
>>
I don't know exactly what some of these are made of but even
as a layman I feel obliged to point out the odd hole in this
line of reasoning....
>
>What about computer chips, are they a resource?
Chips = silicon, a mineral
>How about plastics?
Plastics = oil, a mineral
>Steel?
Steel = iron, a metal
>Fiber-optic cable?
= glass, which = sand, a mineral (I admit that fibre-optic
cable is relatively resource-friendly)
>Fertilizer?
= phosphates or nitrates, minerals
>Gasoline?
= oil, I think, which seems pretty mineral-like to me
> Plutonium?
= .... ok, you got me on that one. Uranium?
>Did nature make these?
Yup, she sure did.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"There's only one... WAY of life... and that's your
own, that's your own, that's your own"
(15,000 people simultaneously at every Levellers gig)
cds4aw@lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk
Any unsolicited e-mail will not even be read,
so don't bother.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: masonc@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 06:22:26 GMT
On 16 Nov 1996 02:53:54 GMT, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) wrote:
> >On 15 Nov 1996 dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) wrote:
> >>This is false. Genocide is the result not of any "economism,"
> >>whatever that may be, but of reversion to pre-economic racisms. In
> >>Rwanda as in Germany, it is the expression of ancient tribalism.
> >
> >As in Germany? Hitler was elected with the mandate that he 'get rid
> >of' those who people blamed for taking their jobs and losing the war,
> >(thereby driving them into economic turmoil). The rise in popular
> >support for these racist actions was definitely economically driven.
> >Sound familiar?
>
> The fact that something is familiar does not make it true. Hitler did
> not invent German or Polish antisemitism, and the Holocaust took place
> mainly in 1938-42, when the economy was in fine shape, thanks to the
> war build-up and Nazi victories. Even the late stages, the Hungarian
> Holocaust of 1944-45, took place in a country spared from both war and
> depression at the time.
>
> -dlj.
David is right. This WAS tribalism, with economics as a mask - an excuse -
a propaganda tool. Quite unlike Bosnia, Rwanda, Los Angeles, Azerbajan etc.
Come to think of it Afghanistan today is probably another example, the
majority country Talibans against the city rulers.
---------------------------------------
Mason A Clark masonc@ix.netcom.com
www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3210
or: www.netcom.com/~masonc (maybe)
Political-Economics, Comets, Weather
The Healing Wisdom of Dr. P.P.Quimby
---------------------------------
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: "Mike Asher"
Date: 16 Nov 1996 07:36:06 GMT
D. Braun wrote:
> >
> > In Medieval times, 90+% of the population was chronically malnourished.
A
> > man was deemed well off if he ate meat once a week. Most children
suffered
> > from rickets and other defiency conditions. Many castles and manor
homes
> > tossed trenchers (crusts of bread) and other dinner-table scraps to
hungry
> > people who clustered outside, who fought bitterly for line rights.
Often,
> > a government official would, upon their yearly visit to a village, find
> > that starvation and disease had wiped out the entire populace sometime
in
> > the past year, with none the wiser.
> >
> > Beer was widely consumed, by children and adults, as water was too
> > dangerous to drink. When you did drink river water, you were taught to
> > "strain" it between your teeth to remove the larger creatures found
> > naturally in it.
> >
> > Even the wealthy had their problems. Food poisoning was endemic,
fruits
> > and vegetables were unknown out of season, seafood was impossible
unless
> > you lived near the coast, and at thirty-five, you needed soft food as
your
> > teeth had all rotted out...unless an abcessed tooth killed you, as was
> > quite common.
> >
> > This is the true world of 'organic' farming, biomass power, and
> > deindustrialization many environmentalists would have us return to.
I'd
> > prefer to work out our problems and stay here.
>
> Mike, your description of medieval times was interesting, but does
nothing
> to buttress your last paragraph. It is complete fabrication. The
question
> is, why do yuo persist in such poor attempts at propaganda? Is every
issue
> merely entertainment for you?
I'm sorry if the reality of the Middle Ages doesn't agree with your copy of
Robin Hood, Dave. Have you read any serious history of, say, the 15th
century?
> .. Do you see that I am
> reduced to asking rhetorical questions, becasue substantive debate with
> you is apparently impossible?.
Please, introduce a fact, or at least a logical construction. Your
incessant name-calling is starting to wear thin. Even the radicals in this
group manage civility; you, though, are an exception.
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy.
Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was
deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged.) Then they told me
that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have
a dime. But I have a great vocabulary."
-Jules Feiffer (1965)
Subject: Re: new energy forms
From: Rod Adams
Date: 16 Nov 1996 13:46:14 GMT
cdean73352@aol.com wrote:
>You have to remember that nuclear power was once just a research project
>as well. However, I like nuclear power and believe that they are the best
>current method of generating power. It has gotten a bad review over the
>years and this needs to be corrected.
>
>The U.S. needs to increase its funding of advanced fission reactors and
>adopt a policy of reprocessing the spent nuclear fuel instead of burying
>in the ground for prosperity.l
The history of fission reactors is quite different from that of fusion
power.
In 1934, Enrico Fermi bombarded various isotopes with neutrons. He got
some weird results with uranium, but misinterpreted them. He thought
he was producing new heavy isotopes, when in fact he was splitting the
uranium into lighter, previously unknown isotopes of existing elements.
A German chemist, Ida Noddack, suggested the possibility that uranium
was splitting, but her theories were discounted by the physicists.
In 1938, just four years later, Otto Hahn and Franz Strassmann
bombarded uranium with neutrons and carefully analysed the resulting
material. They found that at least one of the products was barium
(atomic number 56).
Hahn shared his chemical results with Lise Mitner (his former partner
who had become a refugee from Germany because of her Jewish faith)
and Otto Frisch, her nephew. They recalled Bohr's liquid drop model of
the atomic nucleus, put it together with Einstein's famous E=MC^2
equation and determined that uranium was "fissioning" (a term that they
took from biological cell division) with a released energy of
approximately 200 million electron volts per fission. (The calculations
were typical back of the envelope calculations.) This analysis occured
in early 1939.
On December 2, 1942, (less than 4 years later), Enrico Fermi's
pile of graphite and uranium achieved the world's first fission chain
reaction. The total budget of this reactor was on the order of a few
hundred thousand dollars.
By the end of the war, large reactors had been built to produce
plutonium with the heat released being treated as a waste product.
In 1953, STR-1, the Nautilus prototype reactor achieved criticality and
conducted a simulated trip across the Atlantic ocean.
In 1956, Calder Hall, the first of a series of CO2 cooled, Magnesium
Oxide (Magnox) clad, graphite moderated, nuclear reactors began
producing commercial quantities of electricity in Great Britain.
In 1957, Shippingport, the first US commercial PWR began producing
60 MW of power.
By the end of 1995, nuclear fission reactors were producing 17 percent
of the world's electricity needs, representing more than 7 percent of
the world's total energy needs. They had surpassed hydroelectic dams
as the second largest source of electricity in the United States.
Compare that to fusion. We have known that fusion was the source of the
sun's energy for nearly 100 years, ever since helium was sensed by
spectrographic means.
The first fusion power release initiated by man occured in 1951 with the
testing of the first tritium boosted bomb.
Since that time, billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent in
the US, Japan and Europe without producing a single net kilowatt-hour
of electricity.
For my money, it seems like fission is much simpler, cheaper and better
able to positively affect the lives of those taxpayers who are
supporting fusion research.
Rod Adams
Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
http://www.opennet.com/AAE
Subject: Re: question on conservation of energy
From: Axel_Berger@k2.maus.de (Axel Berger)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 96 14:30:00 +0200
*conover@tiac.net* wrote on Sat, 96-11-09 01:31 in sci.energy:
HHC>In chemical reactions, mass is conserved. In nuclear reactions,
HHC>mass/energy is conserved.
HHC> There's a significant conceptual difference, since chemical
HHC>reactions don't require E=MC^^2 considerations.
HHC> Harry C.
Sorry Harry, but this is utter and total nonsense. The energy set free
in nuclear fission is the binding energy inside the nucleus. Two small
nuclei are energetically lower than one bis one (or lots of very small
ones, the optimum being iron) and the excess binding energy is given
off. This is *in no way* different from chemical reactions. One mole H2
plus half a mole O2 have more mass than one mole H2O and this excess
mass can exactly be computed with the Einstein formula. The one and
only difference being that in one case the mass change is big enaugh
relative to the base mass to be measurable and in the other, using
normal equipment, it isn't. A wristwatch with a wound spring is also
heavier than a run down one btw.
A principal difference would occur if there was a chance in particle
count. (Incidentally this does happen in nuclear stations too: Very
high energy gamma gets absobed in a pair building, and one electron and
one positron that weren't there before get created. The positron will
however not be longlived and can be ignored together with the extra
electron in the final net results.)
Tschö wa
Axel
Subject: Re: Dangerous Solar (Humour!)
From: Rod Adams
Date: 16 Nov 1996 14:12:08 GMT
shepherd@alfred.tds-eagan.lmco.com (Bob Shepherd) wrote:
>
>:Please tell me, where are solar power systems (no matter which
>:configuration you choose) most effective?
>
>I believe that solar and wind power systems are effective in sparsely
>populated areas. They are obviously most effective where wire runs are
>prohibitively expensive.
Wow!! A pro-solar comment that I can agree with. I guess my bias is
that I am a suburban dweller and I tend to think about how to supply
large power needs of cities and suburbs.
BTW, I happen to like living in or near cities. I also think it is
best for the planet if humans do not work to hard on spreading
themselves out over too large an area. By concentrating ourselves in
places where the natural environment is already significantly altered,
we make less of an overall impact.
>However, I believe they can also be effective in
>less remote rural areas. Even though it may not be reflected in the bill,
>the cost of providing electricity in these areas is probably more than the
>cost of providing it to city users or factories, due to the cost of
>maintaining the wires.
There is no probably about it. It is far cheaper to deliver power in
massive quantities to a concentrated customer base than it is to
deliver dribs and drabs to a dispersed customer base. In this respect
electricity has a lot in common with all other commodity products.
(The price of wheat to ConAgra is far less than the price of a pound
of flour in a rural grocery store.)
Distribution systems always cost money and it is often not much more
expensive to deliver large quantities over the same path than it is
to deliver small quantities. Therefore the delivery cost per unit of
product always favors larger deliveries.
(Yes, I am implying that the city dwellers and
>especially factories may be subsidizing the rural users.)
>
Factories not only subsidize rural users; they subsidize their
residential neighbors. A factory using thousands of dollars worth
of electricity every month pays an identical cost per kilowatt hour
(at least here in Florida) with little old ladies who turn off every
light that is not in use. However, the cost to bill those those little
old ladies is about the same as the cost to bill the factory. It also
does not cost much more to maintain a high voltage line than it does
to maintain a low voltage line.
>Should New Mexico be covered with photovoltaics and the energy be shipped to
>New York City? Probably not. High concentrations of people require high
>concentrations of power, which are difficult for AE sources to produce.
>
>Bob Shepherd
Again, Bob, I could not agree more. Urban areas need highly
concentrated sources of power. Even considering trying to collect
solar power in the desert southwest for transportation to the
countries population centers in the form of hydrogen (which is
considerably less energy dense than natural gas, coal or oil) or
on electric wires (which are measurably less efficient than a coal
train or a pipeline for carrying energy over long distances)
demonstrates to me the ideological nature of the attititude of many
pro- alternative energy people.
For them, solar is "good", nuclear is "bad" so solar is always
preferable, no matter what the numbers say.
For me, both sources of power are philosophically neutral. Both
are natural, both have certain characteristics which make them
advantageous in some situations and less advantageous in others.
On a sailboat needing a few watt-hours of energy each day for navigation
equipment a solar panel or a small wind-mill might be just the ticket.
For a moderately sized factory needing a few hundred kilowatts of power
24 hours per day, 7 days per week, centrally generated electricty
is probably the most logical option. For a moderately sized city
located well away from other population centers and located well away
from coal, oil or natural gas, a small nuclear reactor might be an
economic option. It all depends on where you are, how much power you
need and how important it is to always have that power available.
Rod Adams
Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
Subject: Re: Dangerous Solar (was Re: Global oil production could peak in as little as four years!)
From: tooie@sover.net (Ron Jeremy)
Date: 16 Nov 1996 14:18:51 GMT
mfriesel@ix.netcom.com wrote:
:
: What seems to be missing here is a balanced attitude that permits
: progress. When the public sees engineering actually solve a problem,
: any problem whether nuclear or solar, it makes them generally more
: amenable to developing other energy production methods as well. This
: solar-nuclear-wind-fossil-solar-nuclear-wind-fossil bickering isn't
: helping anyone.
Mark has hit the nail on the head. I sometimes cringe at the
"arguements" used my my fellow pro-nuclear brethren. Unfortunately,
rational discussions/arguements are usually ignored, flamed, etc. The
pro-nuclear side is correct to point out that solar (or anything else)
does has an impact. As pointed out in other posts, risk is a subject most
people do not deal with on anything else than a gut level. Many people
chant the nuclear=bad - solar=good (or vice versa) mantra without looking
objectively at the big picture. Extremism on either side provides
nothing but the occasionally funny (unitentional more often than not) post.
I know both side will now jump to defend their collective honor ;-)
: It seems to me that research funding in all of these
: areas started drying up almost simultaneously, and that's where I
: think the real problem is. Much of it is going to pay off the
: national debt, coupled with 'smaller and less invasive government'.
: Baby and bath right out the window.
FYI, 1997 DOE fiscal projections (I'm sure the actual numbers are out now
if anyone really cares)
LWR research $40 million
Nuclear R&D; $30 million
Energy efficiency and renewables $369 million
Energy conservation $760 million
You can check prior years at the DOE site. I'm well aware that these
levels have changed over the years, so don't waste your time whining.
tooie (yes someone *did* piss in my oatmeal this morning)
Subject: Re: wind energy
From: tooie@sover.net (Ron Jeremy)
Date: 16 Nov 1996 14:41:12 GMT
Bruce Scott TOK (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de) wrote:
: Ron Jeremy (tooie@sover.net) wrote:
: : Sheila M Nauman (snauman@iastate.edu) wrote:
: : : What is the power output of Nevada, Iowa's wind machines
:
: : 337.4 MWe
:
: For each machine or for the whole lot. If the latter, how many
: machines?
:
First, 337.4 MWe from a single wind turbine is currently not feasible.
Second, it was a joke. It was my hope that I could fool an Iowa State
student (I'm using the term loosely) and get her to use this number
without doing any research on her own. As I stated before, I find it
amusing that this "student's" idea (and many others) of research it to
post to Usenet. Give me a fucking break, a one line question and we're
supossed to do her/his homework. Not even a thank you, jeez, today's
kids have no manners. I'm working on sarcasm detecting software to
eliminate problems like this in the future ;-)
tooie
Subject: Re: Major problem with climate predictions
From: Leonard Evens
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 08:48:47 -0600
John Moore wrote:
>
> Let me also point out that Idso (1989) [a historical climatologist]
> suggested that greenhouse warming may actually decrease the frequency
> and intensity of hurricanes. I have heard Idso speak on the topic.
>
Let me suggest that you not rely on one selectively chosen source.
If I remember correctly, Idso is one of the few `greenhouse critics', so
while his opinion may be useful, it is worthwhile trying to get a broad
range of opinions. This is just the purpose of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. I have just checked Chapter
6 of Climate Change, 1995, the most recent Report of the IPCC. They
conclude that current models are not sufficiently sophisticated to make
predictions about the intensity of storms. Different models give
opposite results. On the other hand, there do appear to be consistent
predictions by the models of more extreme events involving total
precipitation. In addition, there are predictions of more extremes in
temperatures.
Thomas Karl .et .al, using continental US weather data demonstrated an
statistically significant increase in two indices. One measured the
frequency of extreme events and the other extreme events expected in a
world with enhanced greenhouse warming. (The paper was in the first
issue of Consequences, a journal available over the internet, and you
can look there to see how these indices were derived.) However, no
studies of other areas of the world have produced similar results.
(That of course does not mean that the other studies contradicted Kar,
et. al. It may be the databases were not sufficiently detailed or of
course it might also be that the continental US is not representative of
the globe as a whole.)
> Historical evidence of hurricane strength vs yearly temperatures
> support Idso, but do not prove his case. They show a negative
> correlation between temperatures and hurricane freqiency or intensity,
> but are not statistically significant. And that's because the time
> series is too low.
>
> Anyway, in any case there was a drought. If you don't believe me, go
> check out on the net and it will match my case.
>
> Even scientific supporters of the global warming theory have objected
> to the supposition that a bit of recent severe weather increase has
> any significant about that debate.
>
That may be, but the Karl, et. al. study at least raises this possiblity
with respect to some extreme events, but as you say there is probably no
reason to expect intensity of storms to increase on the basis of what is
now known. But increased flooding is a distinct possibility, and
certainly more extremes in temperatures would be expected..
--
Leonard Evens len@math.nwu.edu 491-5537
Department of Mathematics, Norwthwestern University
Evanston Illinois
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: Steinn Sigurdsson
Date: 16 Nov 1996 14:58:18 +0000
ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) writes:
> Steinn Sigurdsson (steinn@sandy.ast.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> : Steinn Sigurdsson writes:
> : > ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) writes:
> : > > Steinn Sigurdsson (steinn@sandy.ast.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> : > > : BF FF FI
> : > > : p q p q
> : > >
> : > > : 1995 2 20 10 1 100
> : > >
> : > > : 1996 2 15 11 5 170 <- WRONG: 102 is correct.
> : > I'd like to see that calculation explicitly.
> : Ah, I see, your index is
> : Sum_i (New price_i * Old Quantity_i)/Sum_i (Old price_i*Old Quantity_i)
> Thanks for giving me the credit, but I didn't invent the concept
> of a price index. _Everybody_ who's ever calculated one knows that
> the idea is to hold the quantity constant, and measure only the change
> in price. Your method doesn't do this, and so it's _wrong_. This is
> not a matter of opinion. Most of you criticisms of the fish CPI rest
> on your confusion of prices and quantities and so they are wrong too.
No hold on a second here. I constructed my example
to hold the quantity constant - 20 or 21 units of
fish are sold each year, which is reasonable assuming
people eat roughly constant amounts and that the
supply is fixed by the catch effort, not variable, which
is a reasonable assumption.
Thus what changes is the price, and if the people
measuring the price index of "fish" fail to
separate the "basic fish" from the "fancy fish"
they will see an apparent rise in the index of 70% or so,
because they will see constant sales of "fish units"
put people paying a higher price in the second year.
If they manage to distinguish the two different classes
of fish, they still see a rise in price, which does
not reflect a supply shortage - which what this sub-thread
was originally about, remember?
> : That does indeed give a 2% year-year increase in the CPI,
> : which is quite reasonable, and I would think the natural
> : response of FF price in response to sharply rising demand
> : is that it go up - where as your example assumed it went down
> : with rising demand... Whence Econ 101 there?
> No. My example assumed that people bought more and at the same
> time, the price went down. This is consistent with the supply
> curve shifting out. It is also consistent with both curves
> shifting at the same time. In general, data about prices
> and quantities tells us _nothing_ about supply and
> demand. If you ever take econ 1, this question will be on
> the test.
I seriously doubt I'll be taking econ 1, I already have enough
letters after my name and prefer to get economic theory straight
from my colleagues.
I'm puzzled at your assertion about the relationship between
prices and quantities - they assuredly tell us _something_ about
supply and demand (eg. the supply can not possibly have been
less than the quantity sold... and last I checked, at fixed
supply and rising demand the usual response is for the price
to rise).
Your constructed price examples, BTW, appeared nonsensical
and artificial for the purpose of showing a declining CPI
in the presence of increased sales of a value added product.
> : > My assumption was FI = 100*(2*15+11*5)/(2*20+10*1)=170
> : > I assumed the price of fancy fish would rise a little
> : > due to increased demand, but that most of the
> : > price difference reflects labour intensive value
> : > added (ie BF and FF are the same raw fish, but FF
> : > has value added as it is, say spiced&ready; to cook,
> : > while BF is just a plain fillet).
> : >
> : > > : 1997 2 10 12 11 178(since1996)
> : > > : 304(since 1995)
>
> : With the (correct) CPI calculation the 1996-1997
> : increase is now 6%, and 12% over 1995. Note the quantity
> : of raw material in demand is still not increasing.
>
> : > > You really should understand the basics before you make esoteric
> : > > criticisms. A price index holds the bundle of goods constant over
> : > > time. This is the whole point. Because you don't understand this,
> : > > your calculations are wrong.
>
> : My apologies, I misunderstood your defined index. You are mistaken
> : if you believe there is unique definition of a price index,
>
> There is more than one way, yes, but _all_ of them hold the
> quantities constant between two years. Your method doesn't do this,
> and so it is not a price index.
I did hold the quantity constant between the years! Add them
up (well, except for letting q slip one unit in the middle
year, that was an unnecessary refinement).
I think you misunderstand what the concept of an "index" is,
it is not unique to economics, nor is there a law of nature
as to how the indices are constructed. I can give you real
life examples if you want.
> : indeed there is continued dispute over just how to
> : allow for the change in composition of the value of
> : goods weighed in your typical index.
> : > > I've corrected your 1996 value. You've calculated a 70% increase in
> : > > _expenditures_ on fish, but this is not the same as an increase in
> : > > price. The increase in expenditures mostly occurred because quantity
> : > > increased. The _price_ only rose 2%.
> : > Ah, the quantity in the above calculation actually
> : > _decreased_ from 1995 to 1996, there 21 units
> : > of "fish" sold in 1995, and 20 units in 1996.
> : > That was a deliberate assumption - and a realistic
> : > one. The mean retail cost of fish in this example
> : > increases sharply because of value added at the retail
> : > level, not because of a supply-demand response.
> In your example, the price index goes up because people have
> switched to something whose price was increasing. It
> is irrelevant that they switched to something with more "value
> added" and a higher price.
No, it is not irrelevant, it is the whole point.
I think you've forgotten why this became a point of
debate in the first place.
> Suppose processed fish is more expensive, but its price is rising
> at a slower rate. Then if people buy more processed fish and
> less fresh fish, the CPI won't rise as fast. In fact,
> this is what has happened. The price of fresh and frozen fish
> has risen much faster than the price of processed fish.
This is because there has been technological deflation
in processing cost, plus some gains from economy of scale.
The point remains, how finely do the people who construct
CPIs discern the differently handled, processed and marketed
products? If they fail to distinguish sub-categories of
products they will see spurious index inflation in certain
plausible scenarios.
> : > Since the basket or retail good used to calculate
> : > consumer price indices includes specifically
> : > processed, value added goods, not generally wholesale
> : > raw materials, some of the variation in the index
> : > must be due to this.
> : > As it happens this actually happened with fish
> : > sold in the US over the period where you noted
> : > a CPI rise above inflation. They sold cod in both
> : > 1970 and 1995, but in 1995 the cod was more likely
> : > to be frozen, breaded and ready to nuke.
> : This point remains.
> And this made the CPI rise _less_ than it otherwise would have.
Ah, no, if the fancy fish had never taken off the CPI would
be constant. So the switch to a "fancier" retail product
drives a rise in the CPI which is unrelated to the cost of
the raw material, or the supply of the basic product.
Ergo you can't assert that simply because CPI for "fish"
rose more rapidly than the general CPI, that this implies
anything much about fish supplies.
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 15 Nov 1996 18:38:55 GMT
jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>When I was a boy in Los Angeles, Technocracy Inc. was active.
>1. Their doctrine was that engineers could and should seize power.
Always remember, engineers are the guys with vomit on their shirts at
the football games.
>2.They had cars with yin-yang symbols on the sides and loud speakers
>on the roofs. This was so that in some unspecified emergency, they
>could drive their cars around the city and tell the citizens what to
>do.
There's still one of those signs on Highway 8, north of Hamilton, Ont.
>3. They had a maximal leader, and the movement collapsed when he died.
A maximal leader for a group dedicated to something as decentral as
electricity??
>4. They wanted to measure value in terms of energy,
>i.e. kilowatt-hours. I remember one of them who came frequently to
>Caltech peddling magazines being pointed to the electric power socket
>and being invited to put in his finger and extract as many
>kilowatt-hours as he thought is magazine was worth.
A currency currency. Cute.
>In their fixation with energy as the measure of value, they were
>precursors of the energy religion of today. I don't think they
>imagined that there was a shortage, however, so they weren't quite as
>dumb.
They've got the same basic problem as the gold bugs: why fix the price
of _any_ commodity? Anything artificial will have some relationship
to labour, so there's some reason to expect a bit of constancy over
any short to medium term; natural forces and commodities, by contrast,
are subject to human ingenuity. They can change price by an order of
magnitude overnight. Hell, if we suddenly figured out an industrial
use for iodine, gold would be a glut on the market because we'd it'd
be a byproduct of the seawater industry. Never, ever, a safe price to
control.
-dlj.
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: bg364@torfree.net (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 14:51:19 GMT
Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
: Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
: > How do you know this? The number of hungry people on the planet is now
: > greater than ever!
: In Medieval times, 90+% of the population was chronically malnourished.
This is a lot of nonsense. Were they malnourished at the harvest time?
Were people in fertile agricultural areas malnourished?
But the biggest problem with this reasoning is the focus on medieval
times. This is rather naive. The course of human history consists of 99%
of the time living in hunter/gatherer tribal social organizations. The
medieval period is only a tiny portion of human history. Perhaps you
Libber types should not show your ignorance of basic anthropology so
obviously...
Anyway, to come to the point, people in such tribal societies had plenty
of leisure time, and most of the time they had plenty to eat. (True, some
of them suffered during some brief seasonal times of scarcity).
The work of Marvin Harris and of other Cultural Materialists clearly
demonstrates that the modern/Libertarian idea of progress always making
things better is completely bogus. Progress made the life of common people
during the middle ages much worse than it was in tribal societies.
: A
: man was deemed well off if he ate meat once a week.
And in India most people never eat meat and they are none the worse for it.
: Beer was widely consumed, by children and adults,
I supposed this is meant to indicate their poverty?
: as water was too
: dangerous to drink. When you did drink river water, you were taught to
: "strain" it between your teeth to remove the larger creatures found
: naturally in it.
These are ridiculous anecdotes. Have you ever heard about wells?
Get informed, Mike!
Ecologically,
Yuri.
--
Yuri Kuchinsky | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
------------------------| is always Paradise: so say the most ancient
Toronto ... the Earth | and the most modern serpents." F. Nietzsche
-------- A WEBPAGE LIKE ANY OTHER: http://www.io.org/~yuku -----------
Subject: Re: Locomotives: single or double expansion?
From: jack yates
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 10:51:58 -0800
Janos ERO wrote:
>
> Hugh Lippincott wrote:
> >
> > There even was at least one steam turbine engine,
> > with horrendous gearing.
>
> Even more. Many countries made experiments with steam turbibe
> locomotives, most without success. AFAIK the only ones doing revenue job
> were the Swedish ones. One of them is preserved in working condition and
> hauls turist trains. The only operating steam turbine loco of the world.
>
> Biggest problem was that they usually needed another turbine to go
> backwards.
>
> > Interesting HISTORY, but why even discuss it?
>
> OK, I post this to the misc.transport.rail.misc too.
>
> >
> > All the steam engines were OPEN cycle and so ran out of water
> > before they ran out of fuel.
> > The open cycle is horrendously in-efficient as well. Tcold > 100C
>
> Yes, I share this opinion. Even then it is not possible to over 20-25%
> thermal efficiency. The Chapelon Pacifics could have max. 16.5%.
>
> > If you want to increase the range and efficiency you must CLOSE
> > the steam cycle, but you end up with HUGE condensors that are
> > essentially gas to gas fluid heat exchangers. That must be MOBILE.
>
> Many countries experimented with condensation locomotives, but I know
> only about two types built in numbers:
>
> The Germans built a version of their BR52 war locomotive (Decapod) with
> condenser tender to use them in the Russian desert. The goal was not to
> increase the efficiency but to save water in the desert. Some of them
> survived after the WW2, but were changed for normal tenders after a
> while.
>
> In South Africa there were condenser steamers built in the '50s to serve
> in the deserts. AFAIK they were the only succesful condenser steam
> locomotives.
>
> Janos Ero
Errr...weren't some of the last US locomotives, especially the
articulated, compound engine ones equipped with condensers?..I think I
have a file somewhere...........
Jack
Subject: Re: Major problem with climate predictions
From: mfriesel@ix.netcom.com
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 08:20:18 -0700
John Moore wrote:
>
> On Fri, 15 Nov 1996 15:45:21 -0700, mfriesel@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
> >
> >What do you think is really happening in society today? I see lots of
> >businesses jetisoning highly trained and experienced people who would
> >like nothing better than to work. They end up in a market where jobs
> >are scarce and cost of living is high. Meanwhile, the value of shares
> >and the compensation of top corporate executives continues to
> >skyrocket. I don't think this trend was caused by taxes on
> >businesses.
>
> Any efficient economic system requires reallocation of productive
> resources, including workers. That is what is happening.
I ask:
Let's take one at a time: Where are the productive resources laid off
at Hanford being reallocated to? Give me some examples..
>Also,
> employess are getting more and more expensive, between increasing
> government mandated spending (per employee) and rising costs of
> healthcare.
I ask:
This must be why the U.S. has dropped from first to thirteenth in the
category of employee compensation. Government mandated spending per
employee? Please explain.
He continues:
>
> I would also point out that there are many consultants out there who
> are filling these slots, and they make a lot more than employees.
I reply:
What slots? Give me some examples:
> We
> have used many of these people in a true free market voluntary
> transaction - we both benefit - they aren't oppressed and we aren't
> coerced.
>
I note:
This is a fine supply-side system, to flood the market with
underemployed and unemployed skilled labor, then hire a few back and
say 'see how we both benefit'. No one's coerced and no one's
oppressed.
> Thos who imagine that society can provide jobs for everyone are sadly wrong.
I reply:
Clearly. Management that wastes and abuses, and cannot produce work
for its and society's highest achievers is also clearly second rate
and should be tossed out on its ear. Third rate management tries to
excuse such behavior.
Subject: Re: Chinese energy efficiency and generation
From: charliew@hal-pc.org (charliew)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 96 15:40:22 GMT
In article ,
jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>Will Stewart is engaging in wishful thinking when he speaks
of the
>Chinese increasing energy efficiency and
>
> They will have reduced their energy costs. If they
need
> more, then they can add renewable energy sources in
order to
> reduce pollution, CO2, and dependence on non-renewable
> resources.
>
I'll add my $0.02 worth to this posting. The assumption is
made by the original poster that renewable energy sources
are non-polluting. This is almost certainly incorrect. One
or two of the South American countries (Brazil?) tried to
use ethanol in a big way, and they used sugar cane
fermentation to get the ethanol. This process produced a
*lot* of liquid waste, because fermentation only produces
ethanol in the range of approximately 10%, with the rest
being water (which has to be disposed of). Thus, even
though the ethanol is a "natural" product, too much natural
waste water from this process is still a problem.
Subject: Re: Major problem with climate predictions
From: gdy52150@prairie.lakes.com (gdy52150@prairie.lakes.com)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 16:04:20 GMT
ozone@primenet.com (John Moore) wrote:
>On Fri, 15 Nov 1996 21:37:18 GMT, gdy52150@prairie.lakes.com
>(gdy52150@prairie.lakes.com) wrote:
>>hey stupid the first observable predicted from global warming theory
>>was an increase in the number and the severity of storms.
>Talk about being off the mark.
>My point was that there is no evidence of increased severity of
>storms.
and that you failed at
>Do you understand time series analysis and statistical significance?
yes
>Obiously not.
>If you had bothered to check any reference, you would realize that
>hurricanes (which you mentioned) had a 30 year period of LOW activity
>that ended recently. By your logic, that would be proof that global
>cooling was happening - in total defiance of the greenhouse theory!
>In other words, you are just mouthing crap you read in some hysterical
>nonscientific journal like Time, written by a person as clueless as
>you are. Anyone who relies on the popular press for scientific
sure got that one wrong. I just don't allow the anti enviros and dits
to tell lies that go unchallenged. reminds me of the following by
Robert Bidinotto .
"almost at once,I was shocked to find that virtually none of the well
known scientific skeptics had done their homework. I was dismayed to
discover, again and again, that I was providing these experts with
relevant scientific paper and data, a not vice-versa."
>information is going to see continual crises where there are none.
no some clowns just like raping the enviro and say they are doing no
harm
>That's how they make their profit, and since reporters are usually
reread my comment above
>clueless about the methods of science, they are willing to jump on
>these "hot stories."
>> I think
>>however incedental you think the above was, it was a response to some
>>dumb shit trying to dismiss global warming by stating that in the past
>>the hurricanes were abnormallly low.
>Let me also point out that Idso (1989) [a historical climatologist]
>suggested that greenhouse warming may actually decrease the frequency
>and intensity of hurricanes. I have heard Idso speak on the topic.
thats strange, since you are so well informed you have been able to
produce one peer reviewed cite
>Historical evidence of hurricane strength vs yearly temperatures
>support Idso, but do not prove his case. They show a negative
>correlation between temperatures and hurricane freqiency or intensity,
>but are not statistically significant. And that's because the time
>series is too low.
>Anyway, in any case there was a drought. If you don't believe me, go
>check out on the net and it will match my case.
>Even scientific supporters of the global warming theory have objected
>to the supposition that a bit of recent severe weather increase has
>any significant about that debate.
>>he was wrong just like you. Now
>>everything I listed above is a statistically significant event.
>Yeah, right. Would you care to explain where you came up with this
>"statistical significance?" I can't figure out if you are responding
>out of ignorance or dishonesty.
>>>Wow, record high and low temps and tornados.
>>
>>>Obviously, however, newer data shows that an ice age is just around
>>>the corner! Look at the record weather in Cleveland if you don't
>>>believe me.
>>
>>>Sheesh!
>>
>>
>What? No asinine comments? You must have forgotten.
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 16:52:55 GMT
"D. Braun" wrote for all to see:
>On 15 Nov 1996, Mike Asher wrote:
>
>> Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
>> >
>> > : It would also be my guess that at the turn of the century there were
>> > : 800 million hungry out of a population of a billion.
>> >
>> > How do you know this? The number of hungry people on the planet is now
>> > greater than ever!
>> The FAO figures you quote indicate "malnourished" people. FAO classifies
>> people with sufficient caloric intake, but with a diet 'insufficiently
>> varied' as malnourished as well. Still a problem, of course, but please
>> define it properly.
>>
>> In Medieval times, 90+% of the population was chronically malnourished. A
>> man was deemed well off if he ate meat once a week. Most children suffered
>> from rickets and other defiency conditions. Many castles and manor homes
>> tossed trenchers (crusts of bread) and other dinner-table scraps to hungry
>> people who clustered outside, who fought bitterly for line rights. Often,
>> a government official would, upon their yearly visit to a village, find
>> that starvation and disease had wiped out the entire populace sometime in
>> the past year, with none the wiser.
>>
>> Beer was widely consumed, by children and adults, as water was too
>> dangerous to drink. When you did drink river water, you were taught to
>> "strain" it between your teeth to remove the larger creatures found
>> naturally in it.
>>
>> Even the wealthy had their problems. Food poisoning was endemic, fruits
>> and vegetables were unknown out of season, seafood was impossible unless
>> you lived near the coast, and at thirty-five, you needed soft food as your
>> teeth had all rotted out...unless an abcessed tooth killed you, as was
>> quite common.
>>
>> This is the true world of 'organic' farming, biomass power, and
>> deindustrialization many environmentalists would have us return to. I'd
>> prefer to work out our problems and stay here.
>
>Mike, your description of medieval times was interesting, but does nothing
>to buttress your last paragraph. It is complete fabrication.
What was a complete fabrication? His description of medieval life?
You are incorrect Mr. Braun. I will give you some sources, that,
since you are posting from a major university, you will be able to
obtain at no great effort:
1. H.O. Lancaster, "Expectations of Life: A Study of the Demography,
Statistics, and History of World Mortality", New York: SPringer-Verlag
(1990).
2. R. Scholfield, D. Reher, and A. Bideau, "The Decline of Mortality
in Europe", Oxford, UK: The Clarendon Press (1991).
[edited]
Regards, Harold
----------
"Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are
generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory,
sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of
more use to them."
---Benjamin Franklin, in autobiography, 1771-90.
Subject: Re: Dangerous Solar (was Re: Global oil production could peak in as little as four years!)
From: Emil.Naepflein@philosys.de (Emil Naepflein)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 14:06:18 +0100
"Mike Asher" (Mike Asher) wrote:
> Michael Turton wrote:
>
> >>Unfortunately, this is true. Risk analysis studies rate solar
> >> power as more dangerous than coal or nuclear.
> >
> >This is hilarious! Solar power more dangerous than
> >nuclear power. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
>
> My source is "Energy Risk Assessment" Herbert Inhaber, 1983, Gordon &
> Breach. Solar power is rated far more dangerous than nuclear, and even
> more so than coal, with its deaths from lung disease and mining accidents.
If this is a reprint of the Inhaber study from 1978 I have another interesting
reference:
Here are some comments to the Inhaber study which is from
Ruske/Teufel, Das sanfte Energie-Handbuch, rororo Verlag 1980.
= Teufel has analyzed the study for the german *Bundesministerium des Innern*.
= He found so many methodical errors, wrong numbers and data from the
literature,
= wrong assumptions and models, not considered risks, wrong selections of
= energy components and some arithmetic errors, that the correction of the
= most important errors alone make the statements of Inhaber invalid.
=
= The most important flaws and errors are
=
= - He fully ignored long-term risks, which favours nuclear were most of the
= risks are long-term.
=
= - He has not taken fully account of nuclear catastrophic accidents.
=
= - He has used the most pessimistic figures for coal, oil and renewable energy
= sources, but the most optimistic values for nuclear (in spite of stating
= the opposite).
=
= - He has used outdated technology standards for coal and prototypes for
= the renewables.
=
= - He has overestimated the steel use for wind converters by 50 times, because
= of a wrong reading of a table, and done a lot more mistakes and wrong
= assumptions.
Somebody which is interested in more details can request the analysis from
Teufel.
= Vergleichende Abschaetzung der Risiken bei der Erzeugung von Strom aus
= verschiedenen Primaerenergietraegern - Analyse der Inhaber-Studie,
= im Auftrag des Bundesministers des Innern, Maerz 1980, 225 S.
Send 50 DM to Postfach 10 56 61, 6900 Heidelberg, Germany.
I don't know if the address is still valid, it is now 16 years old and
may have changed.
=After correction of the most important mistakes you get the following results:
=
=ENERGY SOURCE man-days lost/MWa
=coal, old technology 86
=coal, new technology 26
=oil, old technology 43
=oil, new technology 20
=natural gas 8
=nuclear 235
=solar tower 23
=photovoltaic 20
=solar, domestic heating 28
=wind 17
=methanol 10
=ocean thermal 5
=
=The values for the renewables contain the total risk, for coal, oil and
=natural gas the risk of emitting CO2, NOX and dust have to be added, for
=nuclear the risk for
=
=- accidents during reprocessing of nuclear waste,
=- of transport and storage of nuclear waste,
=- of building the cycle (mine, processing, reprocessing, storage),
=- accidents which are not part of the german nuclear security study
= (sabotage, war, man errors)
=- genetic defects caused by radioactivity,
=
=have to be added. However the table above shows that the statements of the
=Inhaber study are wrong and the real situation is opposite.
=
After this I think it is clear that the Inhaber study is no good reference
for the pro nuclear. However the Inhaber study is from 1978 and the above
analysis has been done 1980. Both of them are out-dated, because of the
advances in technology. We should discuss by using more up to date data.
Emil
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 17:07:24 GMT
l.mcfadden@mail.utexas.edu (Loretta McFadden) wrote for all to see:
[edited]
>
>Well, I hope you like surprises, then, you've got more coming. I recommend
>browsing (make sure you've got alot of time on your hands, the
>bibliographies are very extensive) the USDA's National Agriculture Library
>collection called Alternative Farming Systems
>(http://www.nalusda.gov/answers/answers.html). Full of what you might call
>"agricultural doomsaying." I call it responsible acknowledgement of our
>failings, and, subsequently, responsibilities to try to mitigate the
>damage we've done to our world.
The quoted URL is that of the National Agricultural Library. This is
the page referred to, minus the graphics:
Answers to Your Questions
General Reference Services
Find out how to obtain agriculture-related database searches and
information products including bibliographies, resource guides,
and fact sheets. Access to experts and organizations is also
provided.
Information Centers (listed below)
NAL has 10 subject specific information centers that provide
customized services to the agricultural community and others.
Through the Internet, the centers provide access to digital
information including images, databases, software, patents,
bibliographies, and resource guides. They also provide subject
matter expertise and perform extensive outreach and
collaborative activities.
1. Agricultural Trade and Marketing Information Center (ATMIC)
2. Alternative Farming Systems Information Center (AFSIC)
3. Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC)
4. Aquaculture Information Center (AIC)
5. Biotechnology Information Center (BIC)
6. Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC)
7. Plant Genome Data and Information Center (PGDIC)
8. Rural Information Center (RIC) and RIC Health Service (RICHS)
9. Technology Transfer Information Center (TTIC)
10. Water Quality Information Center (WQIC)
I looked into each one of these, and found little if any "agricultural
doomsaying". Each of the ten centers features as its primary
contribution a bibliography of books and papers covering its area of
concern. Some of the these were informative, here is one from AFSIC,
picked at random, more or less:
TITLE: The Basic Principles of Sustainable Agriculture
(also called Alternative Agriculture and
LISA): An Introduction for Farmers,
Environmentalists, the Public, and
Policy-makers
AUTHOR: Hudson, William J. and Jonathan Harsch
PUBLISHER: Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture,
Cooperative Extension Service, February 1991.
32 p.
NAL NUMBER: aS441.H82 1991
ANNOTATION: A booklet that answers, in very general terms,
elementary questions about sustainable agriculture.
Highlights beneficial aspects of 1985 and 1990 federal farm
legislation. Includes some data on fertilizer and chemical
pesticide costs; comparative crop rotations and yields;
tillage systems; livestock needs; pest control; marketing and
economic aspects; how farmers should approach the transition from
conventional to sustainable agriculture.
Available from U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Cooperative
Extension Service, Room 3849 South Building, Washington, DC 20250.
I can't believe I actually spent several hours trying to locate a hint
of "doomday agriculture", but I did not find any. If Ms. McFadden
could sharpen her pointers a little, maybe I could find the articles
she is referring to.
Regards, Harold
----
"But if, like a spendthrift, [the federal government] throws discretion
to the winds and is willing to make no sacrifice at all in spending, if
it extends its taxing to the limit of the people's power to pay and
continues to pile up deficits, then it is on the road to bankruptcy."
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, campaign address, October 1932
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 17:20:05 GMT
masonc@ix.netcom.com (Mason A. Clark) wrote for all to see:
>On 15 Nov 1996 17:23:22 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
[edited]
> Here lies the most common fallacy in economics: linearity.
>
> Linearity is valid ONLY for short time intervals. And time is of
> the essence, e.g. "the number of cars being made" is a time variable.
>
> There are NO linear relationships in economics over long time intervals.
>
> Classical and neo-classical economics are polluted with linearity
> assumptions.
I would have to disagree with you on this, as I see almost no
assumptions of linearity in economics. One of the first things out of
the box is referred to as the "Law of Diminishing Returns".
To quote from a current college beginning text, Chap 1, page 39,
"Economics", 6th edition "As any activity is extended, it eventually
becomes increasingly difficult to pursue the activity further".
In more advanced, mathmatically oriented courses, you are told that
"all economic functions are bounded by a strictly convex hull."
Regards, Harold
----
"But I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular, administrative
system whose aim will be to provide for the needs of the poor will breed
more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants
to help and comfort, will in time reduce the rich to being no more than
the tenant-farmers of the poor, will dry up the source of savings, will
stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade,
will benumb human industry and activity"
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir on Pauperism , 1835
Subject: Re: Dangerous Solar (was Re: Global oil production could peak in as little as four years!)
From: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK )
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:08:48 GMT
Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
: Bruce Scott TOK wrote:
: > Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
: >
: > : My source is "Energy Risk Assessment" Herbert Inhaber, 1983, Gordon &
: > : Breach. Solar power is rated far more dangerous than nuclear, and even
: > : more so than coal, with its deaths from lung disease and mining
: accidents.
: >
: > This was for photovoltaic solar, right? If so it doesn't surprise me.
: >
: Yes, PV cells with ancillary collection via mirrors. Unfortunately, as
: pie-in-the-sky as these types of power plants are, most other plans for
: solar generation are even worse.
I know... solar power satellites.
I went to several talks roughly 1978-82, and watched the presenters get
shriller at each one, telling us, "this is happening now, this is our
tomorrow", etc, etc. An SF author (I think it was even G Harry Stine)
got wise, calling them "hell beamers" :-)
During the Cold War, such a project might have been impossible for
political reasons (remember, the Soviets in those days were calling the
then-planned shuttle an "ideal weapons platform", and visibly panicked
when someone suggested the shuttle could put a Salyut into its bay and
carry it back to the US :-)
Now, it is just too-obviously expensive.
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/
Subject: Re: Paul & Anne Ehrlich's Betrayal of Science and Reason
From: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK )
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:07:43 GMT
John McCarthy (jmc@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
: In article <56f98q$4dfn@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de> bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) writes:
:
: > John McCarthy (jmc@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
: > : There is only one thing actually false in Ehrlich's story of the bet.
: > : Having to pay more than $500 on a $1,000 futures contract is not "a
: > : small sum" relative to the size of the contract. The tale is fuzzy in
: > : other ways than not mentioning how much Ehrlich had to pay. Of
: > : course, for a man who got a $350,000 prize for making repeated false
: > : predictions, $500 is a small sum. To mention only the false
: > : prediction in _The Population Bomb_ is again fuzzing up matters.
: >
: > It is, actually. Futures contracts are dangerous if you don't know what
: > you're doing, because you can end up losing (and being liable for) much
: > more than the amount of the contract. That 1000 above is probably
: > margin on something worth more like 10,000. I don't know if the usual
: > margin is as high as 10-1, but for oil before the Gulf War, though, it
: > was usually above 5-1 and was only lowered to about 3 or 4 to 1 (8,000
: > per contract, price between 22 and 32, in the last two months of 1990)
: > because of the volatility.
: >
: > If Erlich had been _badly_ wrong, he could have lost several times more
: > than he did. If you bought call on Jan 91 oil at 25 dollars in Sep 90
: > (before the doubling of the margin) and it had only dropped to 23, you
: > would have lost half your contract. That is miniscule compared to what
: > actually happened to the price. Most people lost everything and landed
: > in debt.
:
: Bruce Scott is confused.
: No margins were involved in the bet.
: Ehrlich could not have lost more than $1,000. If the price of the
: metals had gone to zero, $1,000 is what he would have lost. Since the
: price only halved (in constant dollars), he only had to pay about
: $500. Simon was the one with the unlimited risk. If the price of
: metals had gone up by a factor of 10, he would have had to pay $9,000.
: If it had gone up by 100, he would have had to pay $99,000.
It is John McCarthy who doesn't know what he talking about. What he
describes is a "call option", not a "futures contract", although he
indeed calls it a "futures contract", which is why I, not knowing the
story of the bet, assumed it was a "futures contract".
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/
Subject: Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy
From: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK )
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:19:15 GMT
Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
: I'm sorry if the reality of the Middle Ages doesn't agree with your copy of
: Robin Hood, Dave. Have you read any serious history of, say, the 15th
: century?
You're wrong, Mike. Here is the reference:
Clive Ponting, _A Green History of the World_, Chapter 6: "The Long
Struggle". It is about the neck-and-neck struggle against starvation.
It is the (short term: a few 100 years) disappearance of this problem in
industrial countries that I thought you might be crowing.
: > .. Do you see that I am
: > reduced to asking rhetorical questions, becasue substantive debate with
: > you is apparently impossible?.
: Please, introduce a fact, or at least a logical construction. Your
: incessant name-calling is starting to wear thin. Even the radicals in this
: group manage civility; you, though, are an exception.
Done.
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/
Subject: Re: Food production Was:(Re: Paul...)
From: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK )
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:20:54 GMT
Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
: Bruce Scott TOK wrote:
: >
: > A very paradoxical but nevertheless real difficulty is this: the EU
: > produces far too much food, and to try to get rid of it they attempt to
: > sell it where it is most needed: Africa. In the attempt to make it
: > affordable, they dump it there at something like 30-40 percent of world
: > market prices. But... the effect of that dumping is to put domestic
: > farmers in those countries out of business and turn them into destitute
: > itinerants. Domestic production collapses and people not in naturally
: > fortunate areas such as northwestern Cameroon do starve and the poorest
: > of them cannot buy world food at any price. What to do? ...
: >
: > I admit I am very perplexed at this. So, apparently, are world leaders
: > of every stripe.
: Hehe, Bruce Scott takes a small step towards discovering free markets.
: Socialism is always less efficient, Bruce. Your statement that world
: leaders "of every stripe" are perplexed is innacurate. If that stripe is
: socialized, I'm sure they are.
: The only real solution is independence. As any good welfare state knows,
: dependence simply breeds more of the same.
Ahh, Mike forgot to jump off his hobby horse. Read my quote above, and
note that if the EU _didn't_ dump that grain, the poor farmers would
have to pay the world market price, which they cannot afford.
Global markets are no solution, Mike.
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/
Subject: Re: Dangerous Solar (was Re: Global oil production could peak in as little as four years!)
From: "Mike Asher"
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:35:51 GMT
Bruce Scott TOK wrote:
>
> I know... solar power satellites.
>
> I went to several talks roughly 1978-82, and watched the presenters get
> shriller at each one, telling us, "this is happening now, this is our
> tomorrow", etc, etc. An SF author (I think it was even G Harry Stine)
> got wise, calling them "hell beamers" :-)
>
Satellites beaming raw energy down to the surface is a joke, I agree.
There is an incarnation in which solar power satellites could become
feasible-- if we send down finished product instead. Aluminum, for
instance, requires so much power for its manufacture, that some call it
"solid electricity". Other high-energy operations could be carried out in
orbit, and the goods dropped to the surface.
Of course, we need launch costs to drop by not one, but two orders of
magnitude first.
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice
as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."
-H. L. Mencken
Subject: Re: Food production Was:(Re: Paul...)
From: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK )
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:39:45 GMT
George Antony Ph 93818 (antonyg@planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au) wrote:
: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) writes:
: >A very paradoxical but nevertheless real difficulty is this: the EU
: >produces far too much food, and to try to get rid of it they attempt to
: >sell it where it is most needed: Africa. In the attempt to make it
: >affordable, they dump it there at something like 30-40 percent of world
: >market prices. But... the effect of that dumping is to put domestic
: >farmers in those countries out of business and turn them into destitute
: >itinerants. Domestic production collapses and people not in naturally
: >fortunate areas such as northwestern Cameroon do starve and the poorest
: >of them cannot buy world food at any price. What to do? The IMF will
: >not let these countries push food production over cash crops because all
: >these countries owe external creditors a lot of money.
: Could you please refer us to sources containing IMF directives against
: food production in developing countries.
IMF are for economic Structural Adjustment Programmes. In order to get
the debt into line, the Government is forced into cash crop production.
My source is basically the on-and-off reporting of the issue in the
International Herald Tribune, which always takes the IMF/economists'
side. If you want to look it up, hop to it.
My source on NW Cameroon is personal experience: I was there, I saw the
local technology, and it is clear that this small fraction of Africa
would do fine if nobody (including the France-backed central Government,
which represents people so foreign to Ndop people that they may as well
come from the Moon) meddled there.
: >I admit I am very perplexed at this. So, apparently, are world leaders
: >of every stripe. At least we know that simple trade is not the answer.
: >I cannot believe that simple debt relief would be, either, since that
: >would simply start the same process all over again. But what is?
: FAIR trade would be a good start. Just about every economist in the
: world will tell you that it is totally predictable that the EU's
: totally irresponsible agricultural production and trade practices
: are screwing up the whole world's agricultural systems, with corresponding
: resource implications.
I agree with FAIR trade, not FREE-for-all trade which is what we are
getting. GATT and NAFTA have nothing to do with FAIR trade. The EU and
US, and Australia, do what they do for their own reasons. Nobody in any
position of power is lifting a finger for the subsistence and
local-market farmers in Africa. If what you are saying is for the
multis to leave them alone, I whole-heartedly agree.
: To force the EU to cease and desist, the sheepishly ignorant and uninterested
: EU citizenry ought to force their own politicians to find less internationally
: destructive ways of mollycoddling a small rural population. If you read
: around a little you may even find that this is the very thing the IMF would
: recommend too.
Agree here. Germans pay a heavy price for this. It helps only the very
largest of the farmers, who not conincidentally form one of the major
backbones of the CDU's support. The CDU have ruled Germany for 16
years.
: If the dumped food disappeared from international markets, food prices
: would rise and peasants in Cameroon would be able to make a buck from
: producing food for sale to the non-peasant population currently buying
: dumped EU surpluses.
: YOU are in the EU, presumably an EU citizen: DO SOMETHING !
Nice rant. You might take care to find out who is already on your side
before you shout at them.
Here is a rant for you: Make No Assumptions About Nationality On Usenet!
I am a US citizen with no voting rights in Germany (local voting rights
for foreigners exists only in a couple of major cities). In the US, I
vote Green, and I am anti-NAFTA and anti-GATT. Et tu?
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/
Subject: Re: Dangerous Solar (was Re: Global oil production could peak in as little as four years!)
From: "Mike Asher"
Date: 16 Nov 1996 17:43:18 GMT
Steinn Sigurdsson wrote:
>
> > The December Scientific American has a brief note on plastic solar
> > cells (market name of the polymer: Lumeloid). In theory, it could
> > convert 75% of incident light into electricity...
> I don't believe that. With a broadband spectrum like the solar
> spectrum it is virtually impossible to get 75% conversion
> efficiencies.....
> It is conceivable the 75% efficiency quoted is the
> conversion efficiency from some narrow band (standard) source,
> it would not be the practical efficiency.
>
Steinn, you're obviously ignorant of the beauty of this approach. They get
the 75% efficiency rating by fermenting beet sugar, burning the resultant
alchohol to provide heat, converting the heat into electricity, using the
electricity to power a monochromatic light source, which then shines on the
PV cell. A wonderfully inventive low-tech, zero-emission solution to our
energy needs.
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither
equality nor freedom."
Milton Friedman
Subject: Re: Major problem with western 'lifestyle'
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 17:30:31 GMT
CDS4AW@leeds.ac.uk (A. Whitworth) wrote for all to see:
>In article <01bbcedc$8f0ad780$89d0d6cc@masher>, "Mike Asher"
> wrote:
>>
>>> alnev@midtown.net (A.J.) writes:
>>>
>>>For the umpteenth time, people don't "make" resources.
>>>
>I don't know exactly what some of these are made of but even
>as a layman I feel obliged to point out the odd hole in this
>line of reasoning....
>
>>What about computer chips, are they a resource?
>
>Chips = silicon, a mineral
If you are worried about running out of silicon any time soon, you can
stop right now. Rest assured that the potential supply of silicon is
enormous.
>>How about plastics?
>
>Plastics = oil, a mineral
Not all plastics are made from oil, in fact, I am not even sure a
majority are anymore. All plastics could be made from any organic
scrap you have laying around, coal, or from natural gas. It would be
more expensive today than using oil cracking sludge, but there are
active research programs to reduce this expense.
Essentially, you can take a material that is not useful today, and
convert it into a useful material, the same as turning a rock into a
hoe by breaking it and tying it to a stick, just faster and easier.
Regards, Harold
----
"But I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular, administrative
system whose aim will be to provide for the needs of the poor will breed
more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants
to help and comfort, will in time reduce the rich to being no more than
the tenant-farmers of the poor, will dry up the source of savings, will
stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade,
will benumb human industry and activity"
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir on Pauperism , 1835
