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.