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A key reason why so little has been accomplished by the environmental movement - often doing precisely the opposite of what would help - is that there is very little thought spent on the policies they support. Instead they back ritual actions that can, to some, have the appearance of virtue though they lack substance.
If wind energy were the one practical and affordable answer to global warming then I would grit my teeth at the loss of the countryside and accept it. But I know that windfarms are no answer to global warming in northern Europe.None of this is surprising to anyone who has given the subject any thought at all. The facts have long been known. Wind power is intermittent, and so an inappropriate technology for the provision of constant power. But advocates are charmed by the idea of wind power so they invent convoluted kluges to work around the basic defects of the idea. The kluges don't work, even in theory, but that can be glossed over or concealed enough to allow politicians to press ahead with implementations. The continuing failures are similarly concealed from harsh scrutiny until finally the ruse is exposed.The Germans, who have invested more than anyone in this form of energy, are finding, according to Der Spiegel, that despite more than 17,000 wind turbines across Germany the nation is emitting more CO2 than before it built them.
Why? Because the turbines are only 17% efficient. The wind does not blow at the right speed often enough for them to do better.
As a result, 83% of the electricity that should have come from wind has to be made in coal-burning power stations that can never work at optimum efficiency because they are forever adjusting to the fluctuating flow from wind generation. Even with the huge attraction of subsidies, energy companies are increasingly abandoning wind as an effective and green source of energy.
It's not that such intermittent power sources have no uses, it's that they are better used for interruptible applications. See Energy Storage for one such application.
The article quoted above is by James Lovelock - no stranger to hyperbole - and is titled: Ministerial hectoring on green energy is fascism in the wind
In Prague Castle at a Forum 2000 conference hosted by President Vaclav Havel, I heard the distinguished novelist and freedom fighter Wole Soyinka say with great passion that political correctness is evil. He argued that while brute force is one way to take away our democratic rights, they can be lost as easily by the social rejection of political correctness.Though I find such speech unsatisfying it may be, as many claim, that it is necessary to use over the top language and metaphor to make effective response to advocates who are doing the same and worse. One must shout to be heard above the din. I have my doubts that this is actually useful since we have a spotless record of adopting bad policies. The result of such shouting matches seems to be bad policies since they thrive in an environment so fouled.It seems we are now subject to a campaign that uses social rejection as a force to make us accept industrial-scale wind energy stations across the UK; to call them windfarms is disingenuous.
As part of this campaign, the great and the good are hectoring on the moral need to embrace wind energy. No less a person than the environment minister, Ed Miliband, said: "Opposition to windfarms should be as unacceptable as failing to wear a seatbelt."
Knowing that seatbelts are a legal requirement, those who care for freedom should beware. To reinforce the minister's warning, the Green party pleaded for wind energy in a broadcast as if it were holier than motherhood.
There is no such thing as renewable energy; it belongs as an idea with perpetual motion and other delusions, but politicians and ideologues have become skilled at using enticing words to cover essentially rotten ideas. . .IMV the larger issue is that such delusions and misguided faith impede necessary efforts to improve energy systems. The childish greens are having a hissy fit and making it more difficult for adults to deal with the situation.I recoil at the thought that through misguided faith in renewable energy we could destroy the 1,000km South West Coast Path that runs along the seaward edge of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset and includes some of the best coastal scenery in the world. Let us be proud to be Nimbys: our backyard is the countryside and that is the face of Gaia.
Global warming is real and deadly and we have to do our best to counter it but we must not be led astray by the special pleading of an industry made rich by over-generous subsidies paid for by your taxes and one that is bound to fail to deliver.
It is false pride and hubris to believe we can do anything to "save the planet". At most we can save the people here on these islands. Wind energy will hamper not help us achieve that end. It is time we fully and deeply understood that our Earth can and always has saved itself, although not necessarily for our benefit.
So I was watching this program about the Great Lakes last night and besides telling the story of how the lakes were formed, they told about how the levels of the northern lakes are going down and the levels in the southern lakes are going up.
Scientists are postulating that when the Laurentian glacier covered the northern part of the continent it pushed the mantle down since it was kinda heavy (I guess!). Since the glacier receded it is imagined that the mantle is pushing back up ever so slowly, which is causing the northern lakes to spill their water into the southern ones.
So I'm looking at their graphics and I'm thinking about the immense engine the earth is. And then I think about how silly it is to think we can change its course by recycling aluminum cans (which I realize is an overstatement of the "warmings' position).
"Global warming is real and deadly and we have to do our best to counter it.."
"It is false pride and hubris to believe we can do anything to "save the planet""
It seems this fellow Lovelock is of two minds.
And as for 'the adults', well they should have at it....in the meantime, send in the clowns.
Posted by: alice at April 3, 2009 04:50 PMYou're right Alice - Lovelock is conflicted, or seems to be. I've been meaning to post about Oliver's recent report of a meeting with Lovelock. as a follow on to this one. Oliver's last graf may pique your interest:
"It’s an idea that may sit uneasily with Lovelock’s current pessimism, which sees human activity as bound to lead to a fairly massive die-back. But it flows easily from the tradition of thought that Lovelock (and Freeman Dyson, and the late Arthur C. Clarke) drank from as a young man, a tradition that combines a respect for thermodynamics (there’s a free-energy/information level to Lovelock’s analogy that would probably be interesting to tease out) with a cosmically-contextualised yearning for transcendence. It’s a tradition that retains its power to move today, and it’s a thought-provoking pleasure to hear him give it voice."Posted by: back40 at April 3, 2009 06:59 PM
I read the article. I guess what Lovelock (or the author, I'm not sure), is saying is that although we may not, as a species survive, what we have become in the way of intelligence will in fact survive, just as oxygen has survived and allowed the vast array of life we see around us.
Is this the transcendence alluded to?
Posted by: alice at April 5, 2009 09:37 AMSo now I've looked up Lovelock and connected him with Gaia. Did you know William Golding suggested the name?
Lovelock has made so many explicit predictions it will be easy to see if he knows what he's talking about.
Posted by: alice at April 5, 2009 11:57 AMI guess this stuff that I (and Oliver) write isn't meaningful, or perhaps even interesting, except to those who are familiar with the references. When Oliver says that stuff it connects with other information I have about the folks he mentions and others, such as Thomas Gold (deep hot biosphere), that weren't mentioned, since Oliver has interviewed and written about him before.
I have a post trying to happen about Dyson too. See this NYT article.
Among Dyson’s gifts is interpretive clarity, a penetrating ability to grasp the method and significance of what many kinds of scientists do. His thoughts about how science works appear in a series of lucid, elegant books for nonspecialists that have made him a trusted arbiter of ideas ranging far beyond physics.
I'm interested in people like Lovelock, Dyson, Feynman, Gold etc. who seem to be above, or at least outside, the crowd of clubbish strivers who school like fishes about any issue, and so contribute little of use.
Posted by: back40 at April 5, 2009 12:46 PMI love to find knowledge in the corners. By reading one person I find another person and so on. Of course people who aren't familiar with certain ideas or persons may have a hard time picking up the fine points, but so what?
BTW I have read (and didn't really understand) Five Easy Pieces by Feynman. I think one either understands physics or doesn't.
I like geology.
Posted by: alice at April 6, 2009 07:31 AM