Reply to a moveon forum post:

Living with the earth, instead of consuming it.  Living symbiotically with nature. 

Conservation and renwable energy allowing a lifestyle that makes a few sacrifices for the environment, but still provides the necessary comfort level.  A quality of life that reaches out to the natural world emotionally and functionally as well.

War over the commodity oil is the obvious result of the quantity point of view.  People are quantities to be sacrificed for a quantity of oil.

Citizens become quantities of voters.  Nature becomes quantities of resources...And so forth...

Replies in a debate with a critic on gristmill blog.  Click this link to read the original discussion (join in!)

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/7/18/1459/58709

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/36mw/36mw_data.htm You will see from the chart headed "annual energy yield: 3.6 megawatt" that at 10 m/s average wind speed the 341 foot diamter machine produces 15 million kwh of power per year. There are 8760 hours per year, a 20 megawatt continuouisly operating power source would produce 175,200,000 kwh per year. Aproximately 12 times the 3.6 megawatt GE machine.   A wind machine 3 times the diameter of this one will produce 9 times the power.  The hub of the larger machine is twice as high as the GE machine. Windspeed rises with height above the ground.  And since the output of a wind machine varies as the cube of the windspeed, only a small percentage rise in wind speed of 14% due to the added tower height will push the output up to the 12 times needed to equal the number of kwh per year yielded by a 20megawatt continuous source. Kwh per year breaks through all the flawed extrapolation trying to compare wind to other sources.

More reply: You dispute GE's figures? That is the performance that GE promises it's customers, they could be sued if they fall short. I'm betting they are fairly conservative and that even more kwh per year are typical.  Those are conservative estimates based on real world results. My extrapolation is based on the basic physics behind wind power engineering.   Double the diameter of the blades, you quadruple the area of the wind operating on the blades, and the power produced.  Triple the diameter and you get 9 times the power. Double the wind speed and you get 8 times the power from the same sized wind machine.  Power rises as the cube of wind speed. The example of continuous generation merely counts the amount of power, in kwh, that a 20 megwatt power source would produce if it ran for one year (8760 hours).   It is not meant to imply that wind or any other source is continuous, fossil and nukes are rated at 80% continuous operation.  The general figure for wind is 40% of fossil powered generation.  But these figures are misleading, only comparing kwh per year is straighforward. It is a clear way to determine how large a wind machine would have to be to equal a fossil or nuclear power source.  And the GE machine is rated in kwh per year produced at a given average annual wind speed. The best cost estimates per kwh are also based upon how many kwh are generated over time. And the current wind power cost of 2 cents per kwh takes into account all inefficiencies due to wind variability and load conditions on the grid. I think now that large wind systems are connecting to large power grids the variability problems are already being smoothed out. The use of large energy storage systems based on superconducting technology are very promising.  Electrical energy rides artound these rings with virtually no resistance, it is like an electrical flywheel where the electrons are the only things moving. Power is added or removed by electromagnetic induction.  Added when the sun shines and wind blows strong, and put back into the grid when wind is light, the sun is down, and demand rises. A nuclear 1000 megwatt reactor.....at 80% operational time would be equivalent to an 800megawatt continuous (theoretical)source. My 20 megawatt continuous equivalent rated wind machine example would take 40 installations to equal that one 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor. All the nonsense is thus removed from calculating equivalent generating capacities for wind, solar, nukes, fossil... The present generating capacity of the US is aproximately 600,000 megawatts.  With most of it rated at around 80% operation time.

http://www.sprol.com/?p=212

An excellent article, with satelite pictures, on the tragic aftermath of Chernobyl in very human terms!

The heroes that risked it all to stop the radiation spread, dead, dying, or abandoned by their system.

Why risk nuclear power, shut if down NOW!!

68 open nuclear fuel storage pools like this one, all with 7 to 18 times the radiation released at Chernobyl, ready to burn if the water in the pool is merely drained, no backup water or security either.  At least one is on a major earthquake faultline!!

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/nukes7e_20050407.htm

The Rove recking crew is in a difficult position.  Abortion is one of their very best wedge issues.  If roe is overturned by Roberts and another bushco inc. justice, that issue comes to benefit our side instead of theirs.

We will have a rallying point in the fight to make reproductive rights for women the law of the land through legislation.  It is the atomic wedgie, Rove will have his underwear pulled up over his head.

So what was the "strategery" in picking Roberts?  To pick someone who would appear to be a faithful wing nut, but who really will not overturn roe?  That is my guess. 

By the time it comes up in the Supreme Court again and Roberts proves to be a traitor to the witch burning evangelical mob, puppeteer Rove can have duuuhbya say that he is dismayed by Roberts' vote, the kristian taliban will be powerless to do anything about it.

And now they will reap political wheat crying about US radical leftists opposing a "moderate" Roberts.  While the dead from the neck up extremists that prayed for liberal justices to die and hold Eric Rudolph as their hero are fooled into thinking that bushco inc is fullfilling their promises to gaaaawd, Fallwell, and Robertson.

By replacing a woman with a right wing white man, Rove has already fullfilled a fond wish of the misogynist, faux christians.  He has put womannkind in it's place.

Oppose Roberts because a woman ought to be appointed this time, not on the basis of guessing how he will vote on roe.  It's the best way to screw up rove's little plan.

Once again the lies of these perpetual neoconman liars are catching up to one another.

Blair is being criticized now for going to war in Iraq on the grounds that it brought on the London bombing.

So Blair says, those critics are using the same reasoning as terrorist groups who link the London bombing as a justifiable response to the Iraq invasion. In effect calling his critics terrorist sympathizers? Yep, the old duuuhbyaist regime tactic.

But who linked Iraq, fraudulently according to the Downing Street memos and the obvious lack of WMDs found in Iraq, to 911? Why the Bush and Blair administrations did that! As an excuse to invade Iraq, instead of pursuing Bin Laden into Pakistan.

Coincidentally (!?!) where al qada trained and sent out the London bombers from.

And who now claims that Iraq and terrorism are inextricably linked? Now that they have the brilliant Bush "bring 'em on" strategery in Iraq. Why these same war mongers for oil based on lies.

Those who point out the obvious fact that the war in Iraq based on fraud has precipitated the London bombing are now terrorist sympathizing traitors?

There truly is no limit to the elitest lying of these people, looking down on the public as gullible sheople to be fooled over and over again with no consequences to their depraved dreams of oily empire.

http://www.scientific-alliance.org/news_archives/energy/visionsofanuclear.htm#top

This is a promising development that has been overlooked by the debate on reviving nuclear power.

It uses a particle accelerator to make even radioactive waste fuel for a sub-critical reactor.  Sub-critical means that the reactor simply shuts down without the energy fed into it by the particle accelerator, theoretically making it safe from melrdown, with the sadded benefit of being able to use radioactive waste as fuel.

And rendering that waste non-radioactive after a period within the reactor.  Eureka the solution to rad waste?

Well yes it might be, but of course the cost of the electricity produced would be many times that of the present (and still falling) cost of wind electricity.  But why not build one of these ar Yucca Moutain or at another centrally located site to get rid of the waste we already are burdened with?

If this test project is successful it seems to be a solution to the waste problem that will be much cheaper and safer than storing it all in those open used fuel rod storage pools. 

Throw the nuclear industry a bone and get out of the waste problem, but don't allow anymore uneconomic, dangerous  waste producing reactors to be built.  I think that's a solution we could all live with.

Plus the HUGE accelerator (bigger than any ever built) needed to power this reactor might double as a research reactor?  Powering pure research into the nature of sub atomic physics, the microcosm.  And in turn the macrocosm out there in the universe.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/7/16/22229/1604#1

Were there no intervention in the situation the population would stabilize at the carrying rate of the local environment.  Desertification from deforestation and climate change would leave the local area suitable only for desert nomads and the sparse vegetation they survive on.

So why all this intervention?  Oil and mineral wealth under the local area.

Those who exploit it need to maintain a friendly dictatorship to facilitate the extraction of that wealth.  Starving, desperate people interfere with that business.

They are driven off or massacred by the oil industry friendly dictatorship, onto land already occupied by other groups of starving, desperate people.  This creates further devestation as the horsemen of the apocalypse are then in charge.

The money to buy those "apples" ought to be obtained by taxing the companies that profit from the oil extraction, instead any money from that source goes to support the dictatorship, that buys the guns, that hires the thugs, to drive off and massacre the people.

And if that money were only used to buy sustenance from others, then eventually when that oil runs out, a large population supported by that money from the oil will once again be desperate and starving.

If that money is used to educate the local population and establish businesses that produce products that can bring in the money to sustain it, then it will survive the end of subsidy from oil extraction.  If reproductive rights for women are part of the education, then the population will stabilize without the horsemen's help.

A state that is solely supported  upon oil revenues that would be a benevolent dictatorship would leave people helpless at the end of oil.

Natural economic and political evolution would produce a culture based on small family farms and businesses operating in a free market protected from outside interference by monopoly forces like the oil and mineral industries.  

The only solution to these problems is global regulation of monopoly corporate power to facilitate that local economic and political evolution.  That is what the UN and other development agencies ought to pursue.

And every arable region ought to grow their own "apples".  Local business cannot be replaced by global commerce.  In fact local business must be protected from the forces of global monopoly businesses like big oil.

Real competitive capitalism engenders economic and political evolution, monopoly corporatism produces a devolution into global mega-feudalsim.

It is to the benefit of economic and political freedom in each local area to prevent encroachment of corporate monopoly upon any other local region on planet earth, for once the four horsemen start to march, they often march into areas far away from the original scene of conflict created by corporate greed and corruption.

They did that in NYC on 9/11.

"July 13th, 2005 Leonard Update I just spoke with Leonard’s wife (Wednesday morning, July 13, ‘05) and she informed me that Leonard called her last night and told her he was released from his arrest. This is good news and thanks to all of you that helped get the word out! I have no other details right now, but will keep you posted.

Esther Duran Lumm"

They even want new nuclear bunker buster bombs to play MAD (muttually assured destruction) games with suicide bombers?

And Star Wars to shoot down nukes from terrorists. Meanwhile only 1% of the shipping containers coming into the US are inspected.

It's a topsy-turvy world, lead by this neoconman big lie regime.

"Nuclear power stations using high-grade uranium ores would have to run for seven to 10 years before they created enough power to cancel out the energy required to establish them."

"Wind power takes just three to six months to do the same."

Even if electric power from these respective sources were used exclusively in the process of creating new wind and nuke power installations; electric powered mining, transportation, processing, and construction of wind mills and nuclear power plants, wind still wins.

Wind consumes a fraction of the energy of nukes for construction, maintenance, and has no fuel, coming in at a bottonline cost of 2 cents per kwh and still dropping due to mass production and installation efficiencies.

The current cost of nuclear power is 10 cents per kwh and rapidly rising due to the hidden cost of nuclear waste disposal, storage, and subsequent leaking into the environment.

This analysis leaves out the added greenhouse gas and ozone destroying compounds released during nuclear fuel processing. 

I got a dam removal alternative already.

Why are dams useful? They generate electric power, prevent flooding, and save water for times of low rainfall.

Imagine this: A dam beside the river. Let's take the example of the Mississippi.

When flooding occurs, the dam opens up letting the overflow fill vast wetlands beside the river. As the water flows through this dam it turns the blades of water electric generators, they look like windmills, but are mounted underwater. Moving water contains 180 times the power of the equivalent speed and volume of moving air due to water's greater density.

When the water flow is down the dam is opened and water from the wetlands flows into the river, again powering the underwater generators.

The wetlands restore the groundwater levels 100s of miles from the river, that have been depleted by irrigation wells.

Wetlands can be restored even further from the river by using windmills to pump the water further up the river basin.

The aquifer across the farmlands of the midwest are in serious trouble right now. This would solve that problem.

Fish and wildlife could swim right through these dams and around the slow moving blades of these underwater generators.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/7/8/171658/2983

Keep the protests non-violent, a good old clog-in, like the bikes clogging the streets of Manhattan last GOP convention, will give the heart of corporatist corruption a coronary!!

Fight the power!!  Clog up the arteries of the corporatist police state with non-violent protest!!!!

http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2005/07/atomic-power-creates-more-greenhouse.html

Awesome news on an awesome blog!!!  Nukes create more warming than even natural gas that emits CO2, a major greenhouse gas.  All due to the energy used in construction, maintenance, and nuclear fuel and waste disposal and storage,  that uses CO2 generating oil and fossil fuels.

I suspected as much.   Plus the heat released to boil water in the reactor is all transferred eventually into the climate.  It's like bringing part of good old sol down to earth. 

Nuclear power and it's toxic waste was meant to be 93 million miles from earth, in the sun, where it's safe!

The neoconman argument that only nuclear power can solve global climate disaster is shown to be another  big corporatist lie, like the WMD lie for war in Iraq.

Write and call your representatives, this must be stopped!! The police state let loose on the world by bushco inc oily empire has turned on one of our own!!

Real patriotic americans are the target of bushco inc., like Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson were.

Leonard is speaking the truth about Iraq from first hand experience, and is now in the custody of bushco inc death squads. 

The situation in London ought to remind US all, almost no progress has been made on real security.

Only 1% of shipping containers coming into the US are actually inspected.

Our borders are still porous.

No national postive identification (like thumbprint ID) makes faking documents like driver's lisences childs play for terrorists.

The vast percentage of the billions spent on homeland security has been wasted on bushco inc contractor fraud for GOP "donation" scams.

Cargo planes are unguarded.

In over 50% of the blind tests of airline security with gun, bomb, and knife-like objects screening failed!

Cockpit door replacements are flimsy and one was kicked through by a deranged passenger, only the response of people on that airliner stopped him!

Bushco inc. homeland security is a fraud!!

What's the problem? Remember the memo? "Al Quaeda Determined to Attack Inside The US"? did duuuhbya return from Crawford in 2001 when he got that? Nope.

But he DID return from vacation (on an EMERGENCY basis!)in the case of the feeding tube frenzy, Terry Shiavo (victimized for poltical Rovery) bill.

Homeland Security? For duuhbya it's a joke, another terror incident, another "trifecta". Another chance to rend the US constitution and international law.

Our hearts go out to the Londoners who were victims of terror and oil wars, a never ending cycle of violence over oily empire.

Renewable energy now!!!!

How many hours per day does the average person drive their car? Maybe one hour?

What if the rest of the time your prospective electric car was plugged into the power grid? With 100 million vehicles or so plugged in at any one time... why that would provide all the power storage needed for the entire US.

Smoothing out the wind and solar power generated with the demand for power across the nation.

And with the new quick charge batteries, your car would be ready to drive in 5 to 10 minutes at anytime. Anyone guaranteeing to drive giving say 20 minutes notice would get a discount commensurate with that advantage to the power grid.

The same way someone with a certificate of deposit gets interest on their money, but a checking account, with instant cash access gets less or no interest.

A national renewable energy account? Yep.

Get on this moveon and democrats in congess. We can beat bushco inc's bloody oil warring with energy policy like this!!

It is time for moveon to sponsor positive energy issue ads, instead of merely political attack. Attack is important in rough and tumble politics at times, I'll admit.

But the zen of this kind of energy plan can beat the negative Rovery of this neoconman administration.

Someone who has George Soros's email address get this idea to him. He will understand it instantly. You have the power to make it happen Mr. Soros. Do it now!

2 cent per kwh electricity from the wind..

http://amazngdrx.myblogsite.com/blog/_archives/2005/6/18/951555.html

And the "gas' tank to carry it in our cars. Fast charge batteries, now get those assembly lines humming! With batteries and windmills instead of bombs.

For instance: Switch from agri-chem meat that uses 3 pounds of oil to produce one pound of hormone and anti-biotic laden meat...to organic meat purchased from a local farm family business. By cutting the average meat consumption in half the cost will be even a bit less even though organic costs more.

This move undercuts big biz and boosts real families producing real food.

This is memorial day for the death of US freedom.

Fly your flag proudly, upside down.

But fight on anyway, we will get our country back from this neoconman coup!!!!

The soldiers at valley forge did not give up, and neither will we the people.