Reply #18: One tires of cornucopian fantasies [View All]

It's like a child having a tantrum when the parent imposes limits to their behavior.

And like a child, you engage in magical thinking- somehow believing that the austerity ahead can be avoided "if only."

Well, as the DOE's Hirsch Report noted- the lead time for that has long since passed.

Even with a massive shift in priorities (which means, among other things getting out of the fucking cars and rebuilding rail systems) even assuming (which most people do not) that there are sufficient non-fossil fuel non-nuclear low entropy energy sources readily available, America, in particular, is going to suffer for its lack of foresight in economic and land use planning.

That's a given. Now, does that mean that we ought ot throw up out hand and abandon mitigation efforts?

No. There are promising technologies available (wind turbines for example) that can provide certain regions with intermittent electrical power. There are also technologies in the testing phases (solar thermal) that may provide other regions with gigawatt base load power.

See, e.g. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/02/2048420.htm

(btw: I have have had a look at Liddel, for myself).

But on the SCALE and SCOPE required in the states as they are- you're not going to see them replacing fossil fuels & nuclear- nor will you see demand for energy drop significantly unless and until there's substantial economic hardship (the type which I guarantee that you can't imagine, unless you've traveled to 3rd world nations, where people live on much smaller energy and food budgets).

Reality vs. science fiction is what it boils down to.