I am catching up on my summer reading and ran across an excellent and highly recommended book:
Two excerpts are worth quoting in full:
"...Whatever they may believe about global warming, it's time now for
all serious greens, left or right, to face up to three fundamental facts.
First, an economic fact. Demand for electricity has been rising without
interruption since Edison invented the light bulb over a century ago.
Short of some massive economic convulsion that drastically shrinks the
economy, it will go on rising. Total U.S. electricity consumption will
increase another 20 to 30 percent, at least, over the next ten years.
Economic growth marches hand in hand with increased consumption of
electricity--always, everywhere, without significant exception in the
annals of modern industrial history.
Second, a political fact. Neither Democrats nor Republicans will let
the grid go cold. Not even if that means burning yet another additional
400 million more tons of coal. Not even if that means, in turn, melting
the ice caps and putting much of Bangladesh under water. No governor
or president aspires to become the next chief executive recalled from
office when the lights go out.
Third, a technological fact. Coal, uranium, and gas plants generate
gargantuan amounts of power in very small amounts of space, which
means they really can and do get built within reach of the population
centers that need the power. Sun and wind come nowhere close.
Earnest though they are, the people who maintain otherwise are the
people who brought us 400 million more tons of coal a year. ...
...The next five years are set; all we can usefully discuss now is what
will come after. Will it be still more fossil fuel, a good half (or more)
of it coal? Or more uranium?
"Neither," the most passionate greens will respond. And from
West Virginia to Wyoming, coal miners will quietly cheer them on.
"Neither" has been the official green line since 1980, when Big Coal was
400 million tons a year poorer than it is today. What they ought to do
is part company with Hollywood and reach some sensible political
accommodation with the nuclear industry in case their global warming
projections turn out to be right. ..."
"...Enough of everything. Everything that matters about energy comes
down to hot-cold cycles, and structures that pluck their order from the
hot-cold interface. Megawatt power supplies feed microwatt junctions
to propel logic through semiconductors. Hot feeds into cold to propel
motion in steam engines. And the white heat of the sun pours out into
the black cold of deep space to propel life on a tiny jewel of a planet
that spins on its axis at just the right point between the between the
inferno and oblivion. Perhaps these seeming antitheses are only
manifestations of a single, higher logic. Perhaps the logic and power
are really one and the same. Perhaps they appear different only
because we arbitarily divide our own, human-centered conceptions of
existence between heavy and light, body and mind, flesh and spirit.
At the time of creation there was infinite power in zero-space and
thus, perhaps, infinite logic in the one place and time. ..."
I would also recommend reading Peter Huber's previous book, Hard Green.
I would also recommend reading Peter Huber's previous book, Hard Green.
Are You a Hard Green, Soft Green or Agile Capitalist?
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=278926
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