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Lädt ... Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (2) (Original 2008; 2009. Auflage)von JC MacKay (Autor)
Werk-InformationenSustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air von David J. C. MacKay (2008)
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Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. Read the hardcopy of this book some years ago. I recommend this book to anyone trying to understand what is going on with the energy crisis. Loved the book. ( ) Windfarms are becoming big business in Australia and a Senate enquiry report has just come out looking at the implications, including, most importantly, health. You can see the whole thing here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/clac_ctte/impact_rural_wind_farms/report/... The aspect of health that is most likely to be affected by windfarms is the psychological and physiological debilitation resulting from noise pollution and the report observes, in attempting to hear from all interested parties:
The report goes on to discuss the technical aspects of what is happening:
I don't understand why Australia seems to be moving away from solar, when it would seem to have the perfect conditions for it, and towards something that if nothing else, is both visually and aurally offensive. I am also curious to know why it is that wind farms are set up in populated areas, sometimes in scenes that were previously of breathtaking beauty, rather than in all the empty bits. Is it because infrastructure exists in populated areas? I guess that's the obvious answer. The report is 132 pages long. I have quoted just a tiny bit of it. ----------------------------- post-Japan Been mulling this over for a while. One of the ideas that comes from the advocates of nuclear generated power is that when we have an accident that will just be collateral damage. This is from Manny’s review:
It is kind of chilling reading it put like that, wouldn’t you say? Maybe we do all agree that what’s happening in Japan is just arithmetic. But it is arithmetic we only want to see on Fox TV news. We don’t actually want to be there. A nuclear wastedump? Go THERE? Check me out now p-lease. But this is Japan: http://hakodatebirding.blogspot.com/ Isn’t it beautiful? This IS Japan. It is Hakodate, the same town we were in six months ago, it was flooded by the tsunami, the fishing industry is dead, but still, there is this. Coming from Australia means I come from the country that is selling uranium while having as little as possible to do with it in our own country. Nuclear power? You must be joking. Australia has obvious alternatives in solar and wind, since most of the country is an uninhabitable desert of sun and wind. But I gather that in Europe nuclear power makes sense, you all believe in it over here. But if you believe in it, then part of that belief has got to be that you WILL go to Japan and see what it really is, not just what Fox News tells you it is. Will you go to Japan? Now? If not, why not? I’ve been discussing this lately with people partly because a friend runs an international music festival in Hakodate. Post-Japan almost all the overseas acts have pulled out. So, I did what an Australian would. I started writing to musicians in Australia asking if they would consider going. This is not good timing as the festival is in a few months and of course most musicians have their schedules organised a year or more in advance. But still, the very first person I wrote to replied straight away with yes, she would. Then I noticed that our Prime Minister is in Japan at the moment, the first overseas leader to visit. She was just involved in a fund-raiser there with a name which will mean more to the average goodreader: Kylie. Quoting from ABC news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/23/3199065.htm Kylie Minogue, in town for a series of concerts, was also guest of honour at the fundraiser, which raised about $140,000 for a Red Cross tsunami appeal through ticket sales alone. I don’t know what this says about Australians compared with the rest of the first world. I can’t help compare with this, from a blog here: http://concordnanae.com/:
That was April 3 and the blog hasn’t been updated since. Kind of ironic that this is from somebody whose job title is ‘Coordinator of International Relations’. I just don’t quite get how the words fit in with the actions. There are millions of people in Japan who have to live with the consequences of arithmetic, who are what we like to call collateral damage. I’m wondering if the difference between them and the first world people who are happy to support the idea that nuclear catastrophe is arithmetic, is that we all have the agency to flee it. Maybe it is the rich people of the world who see nuclear power as necessary and the defects as collateral. Of course, complicating this view is that the Japanese themselves are still remarkably isolationist. I have no idea if they even notice that we are not going there, and if they notice, I don’t know if they care. ------------------------------------------ Later still. Written at the risk of incurring the ire of Paul. The issue was raised on Manny's review of this book as to whether it was possible to sell the idea that we should be wearing chunky warm sweaters and that if only we'd all do this, practically all the problems facing us would be solved. Or something like that...sorry, I like to be extravagant. Can warm jumpers look sexy? If I was a boy I'd think all these were: Urusula: Jean: She's so gorgeous I have to give you this one too: When I was little I really wanted to grow up to be Julie because it seemed like the obvious way to get Christopher Plummer to fall in love with me: Well, I don't see why the good example of these girls can't save the planet for us. If anybody can. ------------------------------ Later.
I guess that might have been written yesterday, but actually it was Diocletian during the fall of the Roman Empire. What is the difference between us and all the other civilisations that have, at their apex, destroyed themselves? Ours is the only one that built the capacity to take the whole shebang with it. It must be really irritating to people who live in straw huts and walk everywhere that they are going to go too. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thoughts-in-progress. Look at this: Campaigners also mislead. People who want to promote renewables over nuclear, for example, say “offshore wind power could power all UK homes;” then they say “new nuclear power stations will do little to tackle climate change” because 10 new nuclear stations would “reduce emissions only by about 4%.” This argument is misleading because the playing field is switched half-way through, from the “number of homes powered” to “reduction of emissions.” The truth is that the amount of electrical power generated by the wonderful windmills that “could power all UK homes” is exactly the same as the amount that would be generated by the 10 nuclear power stations! “Powering all UK homes” accounts for just 4% of UK emissions. That's a fabulously dishonest piece of promotion, I must say. What about this statistic: p. 100 The financial expenditure by the USA on manufacturing and deploying nuclear weapons from 1945 to 1996 was $5.5 trillion (in 1996 dollars). Nuclear-weapons spending over this period exceeded the combined total federal spending for education; agriculture; training, employment, and social services; natural resources and the environment; general science, space, and technology; community and regional development (including disaster relief); law enforcement; and energy production and regulation. I've read this paragraph a dozen times and I'm still gobsmacked. It's like some bizarre sci-fi story. The idea that it is the real world, the real expenditure of a Western democracy, beggars belief. Another fascinating statistic: p. 221 According to the Stern review, the global cost of averting dangerous climate change (if we act now) is $440 billion per year ($440 per year per person, if shared equally between the 1 billion richest people). In 2005, the US government alone spent $480 billion on wars and preparation for wars. The total military expenditure of the 15 biggest military-spending countries was $840 billion. There is some discussion here of the nature of the market and whether it can be the tool via which climate change is meaningfully brought about. pp. 224-5 What should we do to bring about the development of non-fossil energy supply, and of efficiency measures? One attitude is “Just let the market handle it. As fossil fuels become expensive, renewables and nuclear power will become relatively cheaper, and the rational consumer will prefer efficient technologies.” I find it odd that people have such faith in markets, given how regularly markets give us things like booms and busts, credit crunches, and collapses of banks. Markets may be a good way of making some short-term decisions – about investments that will pay off within ten years or so – but can we expect markets to do a good job of making decisions about energy, decisions whose impacts last many decades or centuries? Well, not really. The market, like the democracy is no more than the reflection of our wishes. We can't blame the market, any more than we can blame our politicians. Both are doing what we want. What we have to change is not the market, not the politicians, but ourselves. The rest will follow. But unfortunately we all have the pathetic 'little old me can't do anything on my own and so I will do nothing' attitude which lets us carry on doing the wrong thing ad infinitum. And so everybody does nothing, whereas if they all did something, that would add up to quite a bit. It is plain wrong to say that doing something isn't enough. Just setting an example is something. Fighting the good fight is something. And that will be catchy. If we do the right thing, the politicians and the market will do the right thing too. Stop blaming systems and institutions and others. Take responsibility, each and every person. It is your fault, my fault, our fault. If we want the market and the politicians to do the right thing, at least behave in a way that lets them understand that. Still, the fact is that democracy is uniquely unqualified for the task at hand. The whole point of democracy as it is played out in practice in most of the world is that I say 'yes' and you say 'no'. It is how it works. Well, if you call that working. Nothing, including as we can see now, the end of the world, is going to change that. We need a benevolent dictator, somebody at the top of the world whom we permit to be in charge. It is obvious from reading this book that if we did that now, with not much money and not much time invested, there is the distinct possibility that we would save ourselves. I'm voting for Bill Clinton. If he sorted out the US economy, surely this will be a piece of cake for him. Even when he's lying you feel like you can trust him. He has an equally good micro and macro eye. He knows an awful lot. He's fair. And, just addressing the girls in the audience, who wouldn't want to not have sex with him? Or is that just in my head because I'm not getting enough? Windfarms are becoming big business in Australia and a Senate enquiry report has just come out looking at the implications, including, most importantly, health. You can see the whole thing here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/clac_ctte/impact_rural_wind_farms/report/... The aspect of health that is most likely to be affected by windfarms is the psychological and physiological debilitation resulting from noise pollution and the report observes, in attempting to hear from all interested parties:
The report goes on to discuss the technical aspects of what is happening:
I don't understand why Australia seems to be moving away from solar, when it would seem to have the perfect conditions for it, and towards something that if nothing else, is both visually and aurally offensive. I am also curious to know why it is that wind farms are set up in populated areas, sometimes in scenes that were previously of breathtaking beauty, rather than in all the empty bits. Is it because infrastructure exists in populated areas? I guess that's the obvious answer. The report is 132 pages long. I have quoted just a tiny bit of it. ----------------------------- post-Japan Been mulling this over for a while. One of the ideas that comes from the advocates of nuclear generated power is that when we have an accident that will just be collateral damage. This is from Manny’s review:
It is kind of chilling reading it put like that, wouldn’t you say? Maybe we do all agree that what’s happening in Japan is just arithmetic. But it is arithmetic we only want to see on Fox TV news. We don’t actually want to be there. A nuclear wastedump? Go THERE? Check me out now p-lease. But this is Japan: http://hakodatebirding.blogspot.com/ Isn’t it beautiful? This IS Japan. It is Hakodate, the same town we were in six months ago, it was flooded by the tsunami, the fishing industry is dead, but still, there is this. Coming from Australia means I come from the country that is selling uranium while having as little as possible to do with it in our own country. Nuclear power? You must be joking. Australia has obvious alternatives in solar and wind, since most of the country is an uninhabitable desert of sun and wind. But I gather that in Europe nuclear power makes sense, you all believe in it over here. But if you believe in it, then part of that belief has got to be that you WILL go to Japan and see what it really is, not just what Fox News tells you it is. Will you go to Japan? Now? If not, why not? I’ve been discussing this lately with people partly because a friend runs an international music festival in Hakodate. Post-Japan almost all the overseas acts have pulled out. So, I did what an Australian would. I started writing to musicians in Australia asking if they would consider going. This is not good timing as the festival is in a few months and of course most musicians have their schedules organised a year or more in advance. But still, the very first person I wrote to replied straight away with yes, she would. Then I noticed that our Prime Minister is in Japan at the moment, the first overseas leader to visit. She was just involved in a fund-raiser there with a name which will mean more to the average goodreader: Kylie. Quoting from ABC news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/23/3199065.htm Kylie Minogue, in town for a series of concerts, was also guest of honour at the fundraiser, which raised about $140,000 for a Red Cross tsunami appeal through ticket sales alone. I don’t know what this says about Australians compared with the rest of the first world. I can’t help compare with this, from a blog here: http://concordnanae.com/:
That was April 3 and the blog hasn’t been updated since. Kind of ironic that this is from somebody whose job title is ‘Coordinator of International Relations’. I just don’t quite get how the words fit in with the actions. There are millions of people in Japan who have to live with the consequences of arithmetic, who are what we like to call collateral damage. I’m wondering if the difference between them and the first world people who are happy to support the idea that nuclear catastrophe is arithmetic, is that we all have the agency to flee it. Maybe it is the rich people of the world who see nuclear power as necessary and the defects as collateral. Of course, complicating this view is that the Japanese themselves are still remarkably isolationist. I have no idea if they even notice that we are not going there, and if they notice, I don’t know if they care. ------------------------------------------ Later still. Written at the risk of incurring the ire of Paul. The issue was raised on Manny's review of this book as to whether it was possible to sell the idea that we should be wearing chunky warm sweaters and that if only we'd all do this, practically all the problems facing us would be solved. Or something like that...sorry, I like to be extravagant. Can warm jumpers look sexy? If I was a boy I'd think all these were: Urusula: Jean: She's so gorgeous I have to give you this one too: When I was little I really wanted to grow up to be Julie because it seemed like the obvious way to get Christopher Plummer to fall in love with me: Well, I don't see why the good example of these girls can't save the planet for us. If anybody can. ------------------------------ Later.
I guess that might have been written yesterday, but actually it was Diocletian during the fall of the Roman Empire. What is the difference between us and all the other civilisations that have, at their apex, destroyed themselves? Ours is the only one that built the capacity to take the whole shebang with it. It must be really irritating to people who live in straw huts and walk everywhere that they are going to go too. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thoughts-in-progress. Look at this: Campaigners also mislead. People who want to promote renewables over nuclear, for example, say “offshore wind power could power all UK homes;” then they say “new nuclear power stations will do little to tackle climate change” because 10 new nuclear stations would “reduce emissions only by about 4%.” This argument is misleading because the playing field is switched half-way through, from the “number of homes powered” to “reduction of emissions.” The truth is that the amount of electrical power generated by the wonderful windmills that “could power all UK homes” is exactly the same as the amount that would be generated by the 10 nuclear power stations! “Powering all UK homes” accounts for just 4% of UK emissions. That's a fabulously dishonest piece of promotion, I must say. What about this statistic: p. 100 The financial expenditure by the USA on manufacturing and deploying nuclear weapons from 1945 to 1996 was $5.5 trillion (in 1996 dollars). Nuclear-weapons spending over this period exceeded the combined total federal spending for education; agriculture; training, employment, and social services; natural resources and the environment; general science, space, and technology; community and regional development (including disaster relief); law enforcement; and energy production and regulation. I've read this paragraph a dozen times and I'm still gobsmacked. It's like some bizarre sci-fi story. The idea that it is the real world, the real expenditure of a Western democracy, beggars belief. Another fascinating statistic: p. 221 According to the Stern review, the global cost of averting dangerous climate change (if we act now) is $440 billion per year ($440 per year per person, if shared equally between the 1 billion richest people). In 2005, the US government alone spent $480 billion on wars and preparation for wars. The total military expenditure of the 15 biggest military-spending countries was $840 billion. There is some discussion here of the nature of the market and whether it can be the tool via which climate change is meaningfully brought about. pp. 224-5 What should we do to bring about the development of non-fossil energy supply, and of efficiency measures? One attitude is “Just let the market handle it. As fossil fuels become expensive, renewables and nuclear power will become relatively cheaper, and the rational consumer will prefer efficient technologies.” I find it odd that people have such faith in markets, given how regularly markets give us things like booms and busts, credit crunches, and collapses of banks. Markets may be a good way of making some short-term decisions – about investments that will pay off within ten years or so – but can we expect markets to do a good job of making decisions about energy, decisions whose impacts last many decades or centuries? Well, not really. The market, like the democracy is no more than the reflection of our wishes. We can't blame the market, any more than we can blame our politicians. Both are doing what we want. What we have to change is not the market, not the politicians, but ourselves. The rest will follow. But unfortunately we all have the pathetic 'little old me can't do anything on my own and so I will do nothing' attitude which lets us carry on doing the wrong thing ad infinitum. And so everybody does nothing, whereas if they all did something, that would add up to quite a bit. It is plain wrong to say that doing something isn't enough. Just setting an example is something. Fighting the good fight is something. And that will be catchy. If we do the right thing, the politicians and the market will do the right thing too. Stop blaming systems and institutions and others. Take responsibility, each and every person. It is your fault, my fault, our fault. If we want the market and the politicians to do the right thing, at least behave in a way that lets them understand that. Still, the fact is that democracy is uniquely unqualified for the task at hand. The whole point of democracy as it is played out in practice in most of the world is that I say 'yes' and you say 'no'. It is how it works. Well, if you call that working. Nothing, including as we can see now, the end of the world, is going to change that. We need a benevolent dictator, somebody at the top of the world whom we permit to be in charge. It is obvious from reading this book that if we did that now, with not much money and not much time invested, there is the distinct possibility that we would save ourselves. I'm voting for Bill Clinton. If he sorted out the US economy, surely this will be a piece of cake for him. Even when he's lying you feel like you can trust him. He has an equally good micro and macro eye. He knows an awful lot. He's fair. And, just addressing the girls in the audience, who wouldn't want to not have sex with him? Or is that just in my head because I'm not getting enough? keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Addressing the sustainable energy crisis in an objective manner, this enlightening book analyzes the relevant numbers and organizes a plan for change on both a personal level and an international scale--for Europe, the United States, and the world. In case study format, this informative reference answers questions surrounding nuclear energy, the potential of sustainable fossil fuels, and the possibilities of sharing renewable power with foreign countries. While underlining the difficulty of minimizing consumption, the tone remains positive as it debunks misinformation and clearly explains the calculations of expenditure per person to encourage people to make individual changes that will benefit the world at large. If you've thrown your hands up in despair thinking no solution is possible, then read this book - it's an honest, realistic, and humorous discussion of all our energy options. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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