Comments on: Offshore windfarms attract killer whales

Offshore windfarms attract killer whales

Artw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:14:59 -0800

Chris Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, talks about the ten big green energy myths.

By: youcancallmeal

youcancallmeal — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:56:20 -0800

The uncomfortable reality is that we already struggle to feed six billion people. Wow, this is crap. The problem is not one of production, but of distribution. Imagine if all the corn that were grown for HFCS were actually edible instead of requiring processing to create an additive? That's millons of bushels that we could be nomming right there.

By: dances_with_sneetches

dances_with_sneetches — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:00:53 -0800

Myth number one: The energy created from constructing straw men can be converted to convincing arguments. I feel guilty about disliking this, but nearly all of his myths are condescending.

By: Alex404

Alex404 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:02:16 -0800

The uncomfortable reality is that we already struggle to feed six billion people. I thought this article was actually very good, but I didn't like this heading either. But not because of the production vs. distribution thing. That dichotomy has always bothered me a fair bit, because ultimately the best means of distribution are in producing at least in the rough vicinity of the areas that need it. Anyway, the real thing that bothered me about that is simply accepting that as countries gain wealth they're going to demand more meat. Which is of course true, but also very very shitty. Yes, I'm a vegetarian, and yes, there's a lot for the world to gain from more closely approximating a diet of such a nature.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:02:27 -0800

but rapid innovation in the US means that the next generation of panels will be much thinner, capture far more of the energy in the sun's light and cost a fraction of what they do today. How can you possibly know that? We can't count on future technology to save our asses.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:03:59 -0800

I mean, you could also say " rapid innovation in the US means that the next generation of coal power plants will be much cleaner."

By: Justinian

Justinian — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:07:51 -0800

A lot of it was quite facile. Take the nuclear power one; his argument was that two nuclear plants were significantly over budget. By itself that doesn't tell us anything since we need to know both whether coal plants or these greener energy sources regularly go over budget and more importantly whether they are cheaper per kilowatt regardless of whether the nuclear plant is over budget. I have no idea what the real numbers are but I know that his analysis is crap.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:07:56 -0800

Rapid innovation in the US means that the next generation of porn will be much pornier.

By: giraffe

giraffe — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:08:43 -0800

Exactly how much do I have to do for the Earth before it constitutes "enough"? I already cry myself to sleep thinking about all the trees that died because of my paper-pushing job. The worse you make me feel about the environment, the more Wellbutrin I'm pissing into the water supply, dammit!

By: garlic

garlic — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:27:37 -0800

giraffe, if you recycled your water properly, you could take less wellbutrin since it'd be in your own water supply.

By: davemee

davemee — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:28:57 -0800

Rapid innovation in Goodall's head mean the next generation of this article will be £9.99 pricier than it was today

By: cytherea

cytherea — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:29:07 -0800

Exactly how much do I have to do for the Earth before it constitutes "enough"? You need to stop global warming and a catastrophic ecological collapse.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:31:16 -0800

Imagine if all the corn that were grown for HFCS were actually edible instead of requiring processing to create an additive? That's millons of bushels that we could be nomming right there. posted by youcancallmeal In 2007, about 5% of corn consumed in the USA was used for HFCS production. 58.5% went to animal feed, and 28.5% to fuel ethanol production. Very little corn is eaten as corn. Most of it is converted to other stuff.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:31:59 -0800

Most studies show that yields under organic cultivation are little more than half what can be achieved elsewhere. I'm not so sure this is true. I feel like Polyface-style intensive mixed agriculture was significantly more productive per acre, although much more labor intensive. Also, according to wikipedia, studies find that traditional agriculture yields are bigger in the developed world, where we're dumping tons of fossil fuel-derived fertilizer, but not necessarily in the developing world where they aren't. I'm not so sure why people just LOVE making this type of claim. I think Wired recently also claimed that we MUST use GM foods to feed the world. Observations upthread about distribution and meat eating are also very relevant. So why does everyone want to claim we can only survive by eating GM monoculture factory farmed non-food? Is it actually BECAUSE it's such a ridiculous idea? If these people want to be contrarian, why not claim that the only way humanity can survive is to eat our own shit?

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:32:14 -0800

MIT shows amazing advancements in solar cell efficiency and cost

By: rocket88

rocket88 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:33:21 -0800

How can you possibly know that? We can't count on future technology to save our asses. The advances are already being made in materials science, lab models, and prototypes. The current hurdle is making them feasible and manufacturable on a large scale. He's not just making this stuff up.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:34:32 -0800

I'd be happy if you'd stop calling polar bear pelts "God's perfect car seat cover." Of all furs, I think polar bear is hardest to keep clean. And I hear polar bears are endangered, to boot.

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:36:54 -0800

MYTH: SUPERMAN'S FLYING CONTRIBUTES TO GLOBAL WARMING. Actually, the Man of Steel exhales only 13% more CO2 than an average human man. Since he has personally planted 1265 trees in Canada, he is actually a carbon sink.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:38:13 -0800

My previous post was in reply to the question "Exactly how much do I have to do for the Earth before it constitutes "enough"?" "The current hurdle is making them feasible and manufacturable on a large scale. He's not just making this stuff up." But he's also banking on these prototypes becoming something that can scale up. Yes, there are a lot of efforts towards higher efficiency renewable energy generation, but so many of these touted Next Great Invention seem to disappear between exciting tech news to on-the-shelves attainability (or maybe they become obsolete, or folded into another technology ...).

By: electroboy

electroboy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:39:26 -0800

So why does everyone want to claim we can only survive by eating GM monoculture factory farmed non-food? Is it actually BECAUSE it's such a ridiculous idea? No more ridiculous than the other side's hyperbolic claims about conventional agriculture.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:40:06 -0800

Isn't that exactly whats happening with windpower right now?

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:45:53 -0800

Windpower? I'm sorry, do you mean "magical consequence-free energy of the future" or "sadistic bat-slaying device"?

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:50:23 -0800

It doesn't address the 'ugly' factor, but I like electric cars. Still, if your running costs are just over 1p per mile, you should probably get a prostate check.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:50:39 -0800

I mean anergy source that's scaling up quite nicely, thank you.

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:50:47 -0800

"sadistic bat-slaying device" Sadistic bats deserve to be slain.

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:52:14 -0800

Actually there's this oil baron in Texas building a huge wind farm that's pretty neat. I read about him just last week.

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:54:07 -0800

T Boone Pickens.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:55:21 -0800

There's an island community in Dnemark that's gone completely carbon neutral with wind, carbon negative if you count energy exports. Denmarks pretty good with wind, though I beleive Germany has it beat in terms of raw gigawatts.

By: An Infinity Of Monkeys

An Infinity Of Monkeys — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:00:39 -0800

If we had 1.21 gigawatts we could go back in time to before we read this article and then not read it.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:02:35 -0800

electroboy, I guess I'm just not familiar with the hyperbolic claims to which you refer. I feel like most of what I've read with regard to sustainable agriculture is that it's doable, but a lot of work. I don't feel like I've ever heard it referred to as some sort of magic bullet (like rice with extra proteins and vitamins in it). I feel like the overall tenor is that it is worth it in the long run, even though it will take a ton of effort.

By: electroboy

electroboy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:03:54 -0800

Pickens' wind plan hits snag

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:09:26 -0800

...but rapid innovation in Metafilter means that the next generation of trolls will be much thinner, capture far more of the energy in the threads and cost a fraction of what they do today.

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:21:13 -0800

Climate crisis game. (lower your volume at first-- there's a bunch of high-pitched BEEP BEEP stuff at the beginning).

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:40:02 -0800

You need to stop global warming and a catastrophic ecological collapse. And all I heard was, "Are you a bad enough dude... "

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:46:05 -0800

Wow, this is crap. The problem is not one of production, but of distribution. Imagine if all the corn that were grown for HFCS were actually edible instead of requiring processing to create an additive? HFCS is edible, you can use it just like you would honey. And anyway, there is no need to do anything like that to feed six billion people. For one thing, it takes a vast amount of grain calories to make one calorie of beef or other meats. So if people ate more vegetables rather then meat, there would be a huge reduction in the amount of grain needed for the world. But that said, it's not clear at all that we have any supply problems. The problems relate to an inability to get food to war torn areas. Also, I don't get how on the one hand people can complain about low food prices from subsides driving out local farmers, and then on the other hand complain about high food prices due to ethanol production. I mean, you could also say "rapid innovation in the US means that the next generation of coal power plants will be much cleaner." He does say that. There's a section in there about carbon capture. Finally, T. Boone Pickens is a douche. His natural gas plan would be bad for global warming, among other problems.

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:51:44 -0800

If we wait for the guys who aren't douches to step up and sink money into new energy ventures, we wait forever.

By: stet

stet — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:02:17 -0800

No more ridiculous than the other side's hyperbolic claims about conventional agriculture. Conventional agriculture is comprised of a methodology and set of practices that are, on the outside, about sixty years old. If you want to look for starry-eyed optimists who believe in some crazy untried shit, I'd suggest a big fucking mirror before you start whinging about those of us that practice non-petroleum-based agriculture.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:08:21 -0800

delmoi, I think youcancallmeal was saying that the corn used to produce HFCS is not edible until it has been processed, which I believe is true. There's a good documentary called King Corn that goes into such stuff in detail.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:15:56 -0800

delmoi, regarding your question about subsidies and ethanol, I believe the argument is that paying subsidies to grow inedible corn is the underlying problem behind both things. We are subsidizing a specific crop, and on a practical level, a specific way of farming, that undermines the viability of small working farms. At the same time, subsidies for ethanol cause give large farms an incentive to move away from edible foods and grow even more corn.

By: mr. strange

mr. strange — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:38:44 -0800

What a load of unsourced nonsense. I mean some of his assertions might be true (solar power is looking good) and some of them might be bullshit (nuclear power's too expensive), but how can you tell? He might as well have made point 11. Ninety-five percent of all statistics are made up on the spot, or 12. Aliens from another galaxy will arrive and solve all of our energy problems within ten years! If you want some real information on our future energy options, then read Without Hot Air, it's comprehensive, readable, fully referenced and doesn't cost £9.99.

By: symbollocks

symbollocks — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:08:51 -0800

Most studies show that yields under organic cultivation are little more than half what can be achieved elsewhere. Except in Africa?

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:38:15 -0800

Conventional agriculture is comprised of a methodology and set of practices that are, on the outside, about sixty years old. Min-maxing subsidies to the point of ridiculousness?

By: electroboy

electroboy — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:58:47 -0800

I'd suggest a big fucking mirror before you start whinging about those of us that practice non-petroleum-based agriculture. I was more whinging about ridiculous statements like "GM monoculture factory farmed non-food", which serve absolutely no purpose other than to alienate people. Say what you want about conventional agriculture, but the Green Revolution made many nations agriculturally self-sufficient and saved millions (possibly a billion) from starvation. That's not to gloss over its problems (erosion, nutrient runoff, pesticides, topsoil depletion) but "non-petroleum based agriculture" (whatever that means) has plenty of instances of soil depletion and erosion, so it's also far from perfect. What needs to happen is for people to focus on sustainable farming that keeps food cheap. This will likely incorporate organic (incorporation of biomass, crop rotation) as well as conventional techniques (limited chemical fertilizers, GM/hybrid plants, mechanized harvesting). In any case, fantastic claims about the superiority of either system doesn't feed people, and the current state of organic farming (or that biodynamic nonsense) hasn't existed unchanged for thousands of years.