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ENERGY_FUTURES
July 30, 2007
Having trouble envisioning a
post-fossil fuel oil world? Possibly "fossil
fuel" should be in
Here's mine: quotes, if you're GOLD
a Thomas Gold fan.
(0) For now, don't
worry about oil. Let the Middle East
take care of itself Trying to "manage it"
(1) Coal burning is for awhile. hasn't worked very
a bigger problem: well, has it?
we need to
immediately begin NUKE
switching to
nuclear power as an Nuclear fuel, like
electrical source. coal, has plentiful
domestic supplies.
(2) Zoning regulations
need to be fixed so If we don't stop using
that it's legal to coal powered electricity,
build "real cities" Some thought "electric vehicles" (even
again (i.e. high should be trains!) are dirtier than
density ones). put into gas burners.
retrofiting
Places like New suburban This is a nasty problem
York and San towns to even before you start
Francisco have allow them talking about "greenhouse
become hugely to grow into gases".
popular: it real cities.
should not be
illegal to build (But the political
more places like problems inherent
them. in that one makes
my head hurt, even
ILLEGAL_LANDS in utopian-scheming
mode.)
(3) Public transit.
Really. It's not that
hard to find places Possibly: a moritorium
where it works, even on road building?
in the US.
Possibly: need to perfect
And bicycles are toll roads (with automatic Note: the version
even better: sensors?) to fix the of "congestion
bike facilities illusion that driving on pricing" that NY
are cheap, and them is "free". just avoided strikes
you get health me as insanely
benefits out of over-engineered
them too. and invasive.
And bicycles If NY wants to
*on* public discourage
transit can be driving, it's
a killer as simple as
combination: it jacking the
fills in the bridge and
gaps neatly, tunnel tolls,
solving the along with the
usual problems metered parking.
with transfers.
(4) Fund experiments and
trial programs with "renewable
energy" and keep pushing
for "conservation".
Wind and solar fanatics
always seem to have an
exaggerated notion of what The trouble is that
can be done with these, but they involve
what the hell, the research harvesting extremely
is cheap, it's likely to diffuse, intermittant
have interesting spin-offs, sources of energy.
and even if they only stay
niche technologies, there's Wind and solar
nothing wrong with having has a very nice
some niche technologies. and harmless vibe
going for them,
but that's
because they're But there may
really wimpy and be a trick
toothless. in the deck
(5) Now we're at the stage where we're missing:
"electric vehicles" make some
sense: doing this at the earlier POWER_SATS
stages would be solving the Or "clawless":
wrong problem.
"It is because I deem
you capable of evil
that I expect the good
of you. Verily I have
often laughed at those
who thought themselves
good because they had
no claws."
-- Nietzsche,
Kaufman translation
(from memory)
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