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Thread: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

  1. #26
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Issues would be a tort rather than coming from bureaucratic fiat. Because of the abridgement of such rights, the gate was swung wide open for pollution causing technology instead of development being steered toward usable and clean technology(which was possible, but pointless when the courts decided to ignore legitimate gripes against their croonies). It would take a while to sort out today because of the 150 year legacy of such political behavior, but it is quite fixable.

    For things to clean up even faster and be even less tangled, de-nationalizing the roads and allowing the road owners to set various "Terms of Agreement" and so forth for road usage would steer us toward the optimum level of "economically" pollution based around the judgement of pollution versus "convenience" made by the consumers of road usage and so forth. Such an enviroment would also stimulate development in areas almost untouched now such as "air suckers" along roads that clean up the ambient air and so forth. Because the government owns the roads and not competiting private owners for the most part, there is no real incentive to go into such a field.

    I can't predict the solutions the market would choose, but I can contrast the incentive structures and offer some gueses as to what things would look like.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Sadly true, and yet another example of foreign companies and countries looking at great, sustainable techonogies which HAD THE POTENTIAL TO BE CORE US INDUSTRIES, wating until the US economy pressed them out (possibly because the companies were competing with existing corporations that had HUGE economies of scale and crushed them), and picked them up to resell back to US
    Unfortunately, this is just the tip of an immense iceberg i.e. the same economy of scale and vertical integration advantages which accrue to say a Siemens come at the expense of the German gov't essentially closing the door on would-be German upstart companies with new ideas, come at the expense of the German gov't underwriting essentially guaranteed jobs and benefits for unionized Siemens employees, and a host of other trade-offs which accompany a gov't officially allowing all of the eggs to be put in one or two gigantic baskets.

    Remember that the lumbering giant Siemens was not able to get in on the ground floor of VFD technology, and persisted with its own inferior D.C. technology for a decade until the advantages of VFD (i.e. the market share VFD was starting to draw away from D.C.) culminated in a no choice buy out/force out the US competitors situation for Siemens.

    Allowing the same sort of virtually unlimited vertical integration and de-facto monopoly status of a Siemens to say a General Electric was a decision taken up in the US courts decades ago, and appropriately shot down in the grand American spirit of competitiveness.

  3. #28
    Senior Member Satara's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Kudos to DiscreteDancer 4 dubunking the rightwinger bullshit that was originaly presented in this topic...... I learned some interesting in4 from ur posts........ just wanted 2 say thanks & that i'm looking 4ward to reading more from U

  4. #29
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Thanks Myssi for posting that UK wind power link. They are certainly facing most of the same embedded subsidy cost issues which exist for windmill and solar cell power here in the USA. The major difference seems to be that Germany and the UK are a bit farther down the road than we are in regard to "green power', the embedded subsidies and shifted costs are becoming quite large in terms of average peoples' taxes and electric bills, and certain portions of their gov'ts and news media are beginning to openly discuss the embedded subsidy cost issues (as opposed to the US gov't and news media which so far have not).


    (snip)"'Wind penalty'

    The report by the German government-backed agency says it will cost Germany 1.1bn euro (£700 million) to link its wind farms to the national grid - which it must do if it is to reach its target of 20% of energy coming from renewable sources by 2015.

    With more than 15,000 turbines, the nation has the most wind farms in the world.

    But, says the report, almost the same cuts in carbon dioxide emissions - at nothing like the cost of wind power - can be achieved by installing modern filters at existing fossil-fuel power plants.

    Anti-wind farm groups say the revelation, from a country which in some areas already has 20% of its energy supplied by wind power, confirmed their views.

    They also said government grants paid to the sector meant the taxpayer was subsidising "this madness".

    "'Green' tariff consumers in the UK believe they are saving the world. In fact they are causing a heavy penalty to be transferred to all other consumers as this so-called 'green' electricity costs up to three times what they actually pay," said Angela Kelly, director of Country Guardian, which campaigns against wind farms.

    "The UK's plans to rely more heavily on wind power onshore, and especially offshore, will bring the huge extra costs of more transmission lines.

    "Public opposition to wind farms has risen rapidly as the facts about wind power become known and consumers realize that they will be landed with the cost."(snip)

  5. #30
    Featured Member Destiny's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Quote Originally Posted by discretedancer
    Thanks for the detailed reference on the pollution fact....very helpful. I will look up the entire article, but at a glance the one thing missing there is that CO2 is just one of the gasses we're concerned with...pollution monitors are worried about several components of exhaust.

    i never said you don't look at them, but neither do you ignore the caus of "the remaining 50%" (in quotes because I don't know that I agree it's 50%)

    Invalid, or imperfect? The idea of testing is not negated because it doesn't do everything perfectly. If it can only attack 50% of the problem, that's 50% more than we have without it

    Ethanol is a valid fuel source, not my favorite....so I don't mention it much.

    I appreciate the compliment and love the debate with you, Mel and others. I don't want to seem angry (I'm not) - just making my points fast in between other projects.
    It may have not been clear from the quotes I posted. While the studies dealt specifically with CO2, the authors concluded that the same percentages would apply to all pollutants.

    Scientifically invalid or imperfect, either one is fine with me. The main point is that when politicians get involved it gets dirty.

    As far as old polluting cars, I've often wondered if it wouldn't be cheaper or at least more effective for the government to buy up all the old dirty cars and get them off the road. Then again, even if you could scientifically prove that buying up the old cars was the most cost-effective way to clean up the air, I doubt you could pass if politically.

    Your comments about mass-transit reminded me. I used to live in a city where the citizen's twice voted down mass-transit. The reason? They were afraid mass-transit would attract poor people to the city. Of course the roads are a mess and people constantly complain about the congestion. But I guess in a way we as a population get what we deserve.
    Dancing is wonderful training for girls, it's the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it. ~Christopher Morley, Kitty Foyle

  6. #31
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    As far as old polluting cars, I've often wondered if it wouldn't be cheaper or at least more effective for the government to buy up all the old dirty cars and get them off the road. Then again, even if you could scientifically prove that buying up the old cars was the most cost-effective way to clean up the air, I doubt you could pass if politically.
    Don't suggest that too loudly in Blue states ... they're likely to add buying a new car for 'poor' people as a new welfare benefit in the interest of cleaner air [email protected]!

    Of course this would first have to resurrect the argument as to whether or not illegal aliens were eligible for free cars from social services, depending on whether or not that state issues drivers licenses and provides welfare benefits to illegal aliens.

  7. #32
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    Don't suggest that too loudly in Blue states ... they're likely to add buying a new car for 'poor' people as a new welfare benefit in the interest of cleaner air [email protected]!

    Of course this would first have to resurrect the argument as to whether or not illegal aliens were eligible for free cars from social services, depending on whether or not that state issues drivers licenses and provides welfare benefits to illegal aliens.
    Oy.



    Because there ain't no tits on the radio

  8. #33
    Featured Member discretedancer's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Blue state...red state. How long will we refer to our country with such division lines? Seems like the last time we did this (1860's) there was a war.

  9. #34
    Featured Member discretedancer's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Quote Originally Posted by Sh0t
    There is no "public interest", everything useful is useful to individuals and each individual is guided by different values.
    To a point I agree, but I do think that clean water and air (which require pollution controls and limits on cuttiong down wild spaces which filter both) are true elements of public interest that are worth protecting. Don't you?

    The best way to let each individual pursue his own interests and happiness is to remove ALL the regulation, affirm property rights, and let the individual keep all of his money.
    Worked so well during the Carnegie, Ford (Henry I) and glory days of coal (living in NOrtheastern PA where anthracite coal was first burned) years...no government involvemtent until the profit was gone, companies closed and the taxpayer was left to pay for the cleanup of PERMANENTLY DESTROYED communities, watersheds and land.

    I am a BIG supporter of private rights - as long as they don't detrimentally affect public welfare and security.

    The whole ideology of "the public good" came about from a need to con the public into letting elites use the government into slaughtering the masses economically.
    Actually, most of it came as a result of big corporations abusing their workers, polluting towns and making competition impossible. Just ask Teddy Roosevelt, among others who helped install the first phases of "public good" legislation for the 1900's

    Even things like emissions and smog came about because of the abridgement of property rights, namely the air within our lungs and the crops of certain farmers and such.
    AGREED! Companies that polluted were infringing on my right to drink clean water, breathe clean air and live in a clean commuity.


    One can track the progression as the courts began to circumvent common law and make rulings based on "the public good", allowing factories to pollute and destroy crops and such.
    Oh please...explain this..I'm completely lost.

  10. #35
    Featured Member discretedancer's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Quote Originally Posted by Sh0t
    de-nationalizing the roads and allowing the road owners to set various "Terms of Agreement" and so forth for road usage would steer us toward the optimum level of "economically" pollution based around the judgement of pollution versus "convenience" made by the consumers of road usage and so forth.
    1. huh? the sentence seems to contain 2 thoughts, only 1 of which I follow

    2. Private roads, which were common in colonial America, were chosen by the people as less fair than public roads - mostly because the tolls charged were unregulated, and people on popular routes could make passage too expensive for everyone to use. In an effort to support free trade within its borders, and exclude no one from using the roads, we decided on a public road system. I can think of no country that has successfully tried a completely private road network, so I don't know how well it would work.

  11. #36
    Featured Member discretedancer's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    .

    But, says the report, almost the same cuts in carbon dioxide emissions - at nothing like the cost of wind power - can be achieved by installing modern filters at existing fossil-fuel power plants.
    Where do the pollutants trapped by these "filters" (which essentially capture the pollutants from an otherwise dirty system) end up? Surely we don't believe they disappear?

    Most likely, they are released into the groundwater (burying the filters) the air (burning the filters) or in some other way...since matter is never destroyed...

    So, since the pollution still exists, have we really corrected anything?

  12. #37
    Featured Member discretedancer's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Solar Technology creates extra pollution and fossil fuel consumption

    I'd like to invite anyone interested to check out
    http://www.practicalenvironmentalism.org

    a new site I'm launching with a friend...we're looking for people to contribute articles (from both sides of the issue..Melonie?) and would love to have chats and forums on topics like this over there....

    Interested?

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