A comment in my local shop today. Context: I needed a bag to put some things in. The woman handed me the bag. As she did so she said.
"Next time, you can put 2p in the charity box for the bag."
"Oh, of course," I said, digging into my pocket, "Here, I've got 10p."
"The world won't be the same for our children," she said, taking the money.
"You can get biodegradable plastic bags now," I said.
"They [I'm not sure if she meant the biodegradable bags] last 22 years in the ground," she said.
"Oh! Oh," I said. (Thinking.) "Here, have the bag back."
But she waved it away. "You take it. If you go to the supermarket you can buy one of their bags, and when it wears out they'll give you a new one free of charge."
"Well okay," I said. "I'll keep this one. This'll be my bag from now on."
And it is. My tiny plastic bag for when I need a bag.
All of which is to say that momentum is building...this was a corner shop--a newsagents. These are the issues she is thinking about and trying to resolve.
And you are a fine part of that process, Jerome. Thing is, we accept the logic, and are ready (I think) for the next steps...
I would very much (I'm OT, I know, but if I can drag some minds into the diary space--), yes, I would very much like to follow up on Nomad's modelling-up concept, where we start at an (e.g.) Amish level of material subsistence and then see how many modern...aspects we can add on...using wind and solar power only. (And waves...anything renewable.)
I know the Amish can't produce wind turbines and solar panels, so there's an element of using today's technology to fund a different future, but...let's go with the CEO...let's say we have a window...ten years, twenty years...
How much...modern life?...could we have if, say, wind turbines were planted every 2 km across europe (c.f. Elco B's comment about a belgian village buying a wind turbine)? What negatives would this have? What would we lose?
Tie this into...ach...I can hear Starvid getting his nuclear comments ready...
Anyways, that's enough from me. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Well, Swedish process industry recently said they will invest 500 million euros in 1 TWh of windpower. They also added that windpower would not be an attractive investment without subsidies. Now I have nothing against certain subsidies (sovereign interest rate loans for example), but these subsidies are not optimal.
They'll also build a new power line to import power from Leningrad RBMK nuclear power plant. What a sucess for Swedish energy policy... ;( Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
I can't see any negatives from planting wind turbines across Europe at a suitable spacing for some basic level of local energy security. I think it was you who confirmed in the Maglev train diary that a wind turbine every 3.5 km along a track would power a rail network. "But why separate them, why not bunch them together?" was your next question...I think. But for me it's the bunching together that creates the problems, you need more set aside land, the noise levels increase, you need larger support structures.
But but but! My main thought is that constructing wind turbines at a spacing of, say, one every 2km square of land, from Ireland to the Ukraine--and on into Russia, round the Black Sea, etc... would enable engineers to move out of the oil pipe...for years...and the movement would generate waves, secondary development...I'd like to live near a wind turbine (and I know you enjoy living near a nuclear power station ;), we have one sixty miles down the road...
Decentralisation...it seems Europe has been tasked with being the world's forward thinker (for reasons of political stability and diversity, I think), and if our main problems in years to come are:
--human pollution of the environment
and
--too many humans
I'd say that lowering group sizes is a way to go...but keep the groups connected...a village/town at every wind turbine...you've had enough of where you live? The next community is a train ride away...3.5 km...I know, fantasy land, but I can't see any technical or environmental reason why Europe can't become a wind turbine plantation...but not in the factory farm sense used at present. (Every industrial estate could have a pair, that kind of thing...)
Starvid, you're a positivist. I don't know why I have a prejudice against positivist thought when it comes to nuclear power, except that it doesn't seem to take enough account of the unforseen and non-linear (but hey, I'm reading a book on Chaos Theory, so anyways... Here's a wind turbine!)
Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
You have to consider the distances involved in building and servicing all these turbines. Putting them all together in a relatively dense field is efficient because of that. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
I simply wonder how much energy Europe (wherever its borders lie...;) could produce from a windmill every 2.5 km, but I 'm not good at maths...
And then, once we have that number, following the "from the ground up" model, what necessary services could we provide a bunch of humans with this energy--and to how many humans? Well, they're the same question the wrong way round, but those are the kinds of questions I'm intersted in...if not for Europe, why not Tanzania, or Mongolia? A part of the world free to do what it wants (within X, Y,Z limits--hence the questions) thanks to the HUGE nuclear reactor out there...in space (where nuclear belongs...)
R Buckminster Fuller
And more roads and more heavy vehicles to power. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
How much infastructure do you currently need to supply/build/etc. the oil/gas/coal system? Let's say you need that much plus some more to implement a distributed wind-turbine structure. But you don't need the heaviness (or the width?) and you are talking about dropping (or dragging, or pulling etc.) a descrete number of mechanical parts plus cables to a specific number of locations once-in-X-years. Let's say X=25. For the other 24 years and 300 or so days...peace and quiet...the lanes can grow over, vegetable can be planted...the lack of ongoing intensive polluting activity... For a given area there could be one factory (very small scale) near a train track and connected via communications media to other centres...best practice passed along...ever better and lighter machines helping humans to build an ever better and lighter system...
Sommat like that? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Good point, but re rg, the idea of resurrecting field railways, e.g. temporary tracks, is attractive to me... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
How about field maglev tracks? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Apart from the structures (which I imagine can be made out of ever lighter materials) which components are going to necessitate all this heaviness? Even the heavist components could be transported to within a km or so of site via light-rail
In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
It looks very long, what is it, 60m? I can imagine that a track can be made in 60m-straight sections. Is it very heavy? Too heavy for a light-rail solution? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Reuse is the idea, because even biodegradable requires wasteful production, so producing long-lasting bags should help.
I give terrible stuff like this for gifts: http://tinyurl.com/ubhk2 This example supports a cottage industry, but requires shipping too far, so I am trying to find an African/European source. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
