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Of course, what we have here is the basic first step in moving to a sustainable economy.  J is always harping on demand destruction, which i think Amory Lovins first called negawatts.  In any case, this is the cheapest electricity we can find, and "producing" serious amounts of it enables renewables to be more effective.

Though for the life of me i don't understand why one needs a machine just to keep the bier cold.  ;-)

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaďs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sat Nov 15th, 2008 at 05:33:20 AM EST
The traditional Finnish 'earth cellar' - an outside cellar either built into a hillock or bermed by earth on 3 sides, and used for storing vegetables over winter, is ideal, so I am told, for storing beer.

In town, during the winter, domestic parties are powered by crates of beer  (24 x 1/3 l) left to chill on the balcony or outside.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Nov 15th, 2008 at 06:23:27 AM EST
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Though our resident beer expert might have something to say about the imprecision of serving temperature under these conditions ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Nov 15th, 2008 at 06:25:03 AM EST
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Another reason why every appartment should have a balcony.
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Sat Nov 15th, 2008 at 11:10:16 AM EST
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Ernst Ullrich von Weizsäcker, who wrote his factor four book with Lovins, is now talking about 'resource productivity'. He says that the efficiency Lovins talks about is 'in a box' and that productivity is about networks.

I don't know if that's necessarily so. You can always upscale your definition of efficiency. But in practical terms, it is true that we talk too much about how we can make one thing better rather than an entire network.

To go back, this is the difference of talking about better mileage for cars and talking about car-sharing, biking and more public transport. TreeHugger had a good, simple post on this recently:

7 Overrated Technologies and Their Underrated Low-Tech Alternatives : TreeHugger

Technology rocks, and improving upon what we have is a boon for fighting climate change in a lot of ways. But sometimes green gadgets get more attention than the totally effective non-tech solutions to problems in our lives, because, well, non-tech solutions are boring. The latest and greatest is always fun to talk about.
by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Sat Nov 15th, 2008 at 02:31:37 PM EST
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