"Earth Getting Mysteriously Windier"

[wintler2]

Just like computer processing speed—which doubles every 18 months in accordance with Moore's law—the nanotechnology that drives innovations in solar power progresses exponentially.

What useless, disempowering, infantile nonsense from Ray Kuzweil, way to keep the peeps showing up for work, waiting on that long promised golden teat in the sky.
"Jam, Tomorrow!" its called, has been used to sell every war since Cain.

Industry figures: Fifty Two Percent Annual Growth of US Solar PV Capacity Possible (2008)





Energy & capital blog
So wheres this rapid/exponential doubling then Ray? And what is the penetration to date of nanotech PV? Note that figs above from pre-GFC. Note also that in 2008, Europe represented over 80% of the global PV market, Germany and Spain mainly, thanks to subsidies. Those subsidies gone or going byebyes, can anyone find any evidence that installed PV capacity has met the projection above, never mind Kurweils extravagent lies.

Where is Kurzweils exponential growth - how does he get away with being so wrong?

He and the people who publish him get away with it because, they reckon, we are too stupid to check and/or too lazy to do anything should we discover that we're being lied to. Are they right?

[wintler2]

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/04 ... -graph.php

5. We are kidding ourselves about them running on renewable energy.

Solar, geothermal and wind are, as David Roberts at Grist notes, little more than a rounding error right now. Natural gas will grow, and it has half the CO2 per unit of electricity than coal is a great improvement, but is not without issues. Unless we make a massive, almost mind-bogglingly huge commitment right now to renewable and nuclear energy right now, we are just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Anybody see that happening?

[JackRiddler]

SNIP

Unless we make a massive, almost mind-bogglingly huge commitment right now to renewable and nuclear energy right now, we are just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Anybody see that happening?

Nuclear, sure.

And oh yeah, renewables? Efficiencies and conservation? Mind-bogglingly huge! Such a conversion would probably be on a scale comparable to the postwar building of the interstate highway system and the sprawl-burbs to house 50 million people over 20 years time, plus 10,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery systems, plus the Apollo program, plus-or-minus the Internet. Which, as we all know, were all far too expensive in some bankster's mind, and proved to be technologically impossible! I say, let's have a world war instead, because those are easy to conceive and are proven to drive economic growth.

Vision and imagination: Rare earth elements.

.

[anothershamus]

SNIP

Unless we make a massive, almost mind-bogglingly huge commitment right now to renewable and nuclear energy right now, we are just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Anybody see that happening?

Nuclear, sure.

And oh yeah, renewables? Efficiencies and conservation? Mind-bogglingly huge! Such a conversion would probably be on a scale comparable to the postwar building of the interstate highway system and the sprawl-burbs to house 50 million people over 20 years time, plus 10,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery systems, plus the Apollo program, plus-or-minus the Internet. Which, as we all know, were all far too expensive in some bankster's mind, and proved to be technologically impossible! I say, let's have a world war instead, because those are easy to conceive and are proven to drive economic growth.

Vision and imagination: Rare earth elements.

.

Too bad depleted uranium couldn't be used for solar technologies. We would be all set!

[wintler2]

Which, as we all know, were all far too expensive in some bankster's mind, and proved to be technologically impossible! I say, let's have a world war instead, because those are easy to conceive and are proven to drive economic growth.
Vision and imagination: Rare earth elements.
.

If by this you mean that all you yanks currently lack is vision and imagination, you've been at the Hope cool aid. It is not a case of 'we did that then so we can do this now', it is 'we did that then so now most of the oil & minerals are literally gone and it is extremely doubtful whether we can do this now'.

Yes, if the US pulled an overnight transformation of ideals and social operating systems, maybe you could build enough renewables before your oil & gas runs completely dry (?20-30years for the contiguous states) to provide some intermittent gigawatts of renewable electricity. But i think it is more likely you will discover that Americum is edible rather than a deadly radioactive element.
The cruel joke in my own country Australia is that being a few centuries 'younger' (to capitalism) we do still have the required resources to build a renewables grid. But we wont, cos why bother when we've got all that coal.

[eyeno]

dutchsinse comes up with some interesting artifacts from time to time.

[Sounder]

Wintler2 wrote…

Unless we make a massive, almost mind-bogglingly huge commitment right now to renewable and nuclear energy right now,

Hmmmm, no normalcy bias at work here. Nuclear power is so clean safe and POWERFUL, and surely none of that clean radioactivity will escape into the larger environment. And, and, and we can store the spent fuel right at the plants, maybe right above the live piles of rods, hell there can’t be any problem with that, can there?

Well ok, we’ll make some of it into bomb tips, that will get rid of a good bit of the shit. Well what do you say, fellow planet fuckers, do we have a deal?

Thank-you, thank-you, just call me King Imagination.

[wintler2]

Wintler2 wrote…

Unless we make a massive, almost mind-bogglingly huge commitment right now to renewable and nuclear energy right now,

Hmmmm, no normalcy bias at work here. Nuclear power is so clean safe and POWERFUL, ...

Except i never wrote that, you just invented it. Allow me to return the favour..

I think Viscount Monkton is a genius who should be granted degrees in all the sciences he has opinions in, even when those opinions differ.

This way madness lies, my friend.

Incidentally, if you're labouring under impression i have or might advocate nuclear power, i haven't and wont.

[eyeno]

Just watched another video on those supposed haarp rings. Seems there are airports located in the vicinity of the rings much of the time. Probably radar signature instead of haarp.

[Sounder]

That's odd wintler2, because I thought that I had cut and pasted those very words that were in the quote box.

Was it improper to exclude the part after the comma?

Perhaps you can tell me how when you wrote this;

Unless we make a massive, almost mind-bogglingly huge commitment right now to renewable and nuclear energy right now,

you did not mean it to be an endorsement of nuclear power?

Maybe I am missing something.

[JackRiddler]

you did not mean it to be an endorsement of nuclear power?

Maybe I am missing something.

Sounder, what you're missing is that wintler2 was quoting another author writing that part. wintler2, you should have laid that out more clearly, it also confused me for a moment. Now both of you, this is no time to bicker and argue about who killed who, this is supposed to be a happy occasion. Authorship, article title, links and a date, all these should always be given when quoting.

wintler2 wasn't presenting that quote in support of nuclear power but for the conclusion that because of peak oil and other depletions it's too late for the US and other places to effect a conversion to renewable (or non-carbon) energies and still avoid collapse. I consider this kind of pointless thinking. It's not too late to start effecting the only available reasonable option, which is to undertake that conversion with all available resources for as long as it takes (20-30 years minimum). And if it's too late to avoid collapse, well then that's coming regardless. The more renewables are in place before that, the (likely) better the outcome. Can't do better than that. Certainly better than just continuing to deny and pretend and consume the remaining carbon energy for nonsensical growth.

.

[Sounder]

Ah, thank-you so much Jack. I'm still working on my reading comprehension and my bad habit of jumping to conclusions.

wintler2, I apologize for mischaracterizing those words as belonging to you.

Jack wrote...

.....but for the conclusion that because of peak oil and other depletions it's too late for the US and other places to effect a conversion to renewable (or non-carbon) energies and still avoid collapse. I consider this kind of pointless thinking.

Which is more cogent than the empty bluster that I had posted. This may reflect frustration at the lack of interest in possibilities yet to be realized. We are after all living in a sea of infinity and I'm pretty sure that there are enormous aspects to reality (nature) that currently we are totally blind towards.

So it interests me to read about things like what these Italian Physicists are doing and I find the lack of interest from others to be puzzling.

[wintler2]

you did not mean it to be an endorsement of nuclear power?

Maybe I am missing something.

Sounder, what you're missing is that wintler2 was quoting another author writing that part. wintler2, you should have laid that out more clearly, it also confused me for a moment.

JR is right, i coulda cited this post bettter, apologies Sounder & all. Maybe its time for a citation formatting confab, given we're so rigorous n'all. i also omitted that treehuggers Lloyd Alter was talking specifically about whether renewables could run electric cars, not entirely what we were very broadly talking about.

Now both of you, this is no time to bicker and argue about who killed who, this is supposed to be a happy occasion. Authorship, article title, links and a date, all these should always be given when quoting.

Hmm, it'll be good to get everyones views. One worry for me is it increases the drag on citations, which are thin on the ground generally and not to be discouraged. i'd be happier if we could somehow acheive just link along with guaranteed dialogue or defence of the evidence and its source as required. OT, for now.

wintler2 wasn't presenting that quote in support of nuclear power but for the conclusion that because of peak oil and other depletions it's too late for the US and other places to effect a conversion to renewable (or non-carbon) energies and still avoid collapse. I consider this kind of pointless thinking.

Its not even a question of 'too late' , its just still not possible to run our fossil fueled civ. on renewable energy. Nobody has come close to demonstrating it even might be. A much 'poorer'/lower consuming civ., sure, but i think thats what you JR and many others would call 'collapse'.
I do have to showboat and point out that quite a few things are already in collapse, but it is not too late to stop them getting alot worse, eg. extant species diversity, language and cultural diversity, autonomy of individual humans. Maybe saving BAU is just not as high on my list of priorities.

It's not too late to start effecting the only available reasonable option, which is to undertake that conversion with all available resources for as long as it takes (20-30 years minimum).

It's not too late to start effecting the only available reasonable option, which is to powerdown this suicide cult before it kills us all.

And if it's too late to avoid collapse, well then that's coming regardless.

Curious, circular, unassailable.

The more renewables are in place before that, the (likely) better the outcome.

Wrong! Trying to rebuild a national grid around renewables would be a massive misallocation of resources. Building instead a lot of decentralised low capacity plant would provide the free-standing redundancy that our civ. desperately needs. The latter will always at least part-work, while the former wont last the first bump.

Can't do better than that.

Well thats convincing!

Certainly better than just continuing to deny and pretend and consume the remaining carbon energy for nonsensical growth. .

Because thats the only other option? Is anyone here arguing for that anyway?
Bizarre man.


The idea of renewables grid is classic bargaining, "i'll be good and support a renewable mains electricity grid, cos then god will let me still have mains electricity, just like in the good old days'. But renewables can't match fossil fuels in quantity & quality of energy supplied, God is not in a forgiving mood, and complex systems with multiple points of failure will fail.

[wintler2]

..wintler2, I apologize for mischaracterizing those words as belonging to you.

No drama, my careless too.
Must admit i had a giddy moment at the thought we were all going to start inventing quotes for each other.

..So it interests me to read about things like what these Italian Physicists are doing and I find the lack of interest from others to be puzzling.

I can't get excited myself because i've seen so many 'exciting potentials' come and go, and they all look alike to me now. Show me it powering something substantial, every time they throw the switch, and i might be interested. Extraordinary claims, such as breaking any of the laws of thermodynamics, do require extraordinary evidence, and replications.

[JackRiddler]

.

wintler2, please don't put words in my mouth. You pretty much do so down the line in your last post, in each case interpreting things I didn't say or even contrary to what I said, and it's too much work to respond to each one of those. (A reader who doubts that can just compare each of my quoted sentences and see if your some-time non-sequitur refutations follow by any logic.) I especially don't like the part where you attribute to me some kind of denial about ecological disaster, the loss of species and languages and human rights, and so forth. So stop that. Thank you.

The first steps in a conversion involve a lot of power-down, conservation and efficiency measures. Has to start with the war economy, pageant consumption and building efficiency, then how work and residence are arranged within cities, transport of all kinds (mass rather than automotive, light rail before high-speed), and maximum use starting immediately of the decentral, renewable alternatives. A power grid has to be developed that can efficiently take energy from decentral sources as available (which is not what the strawman you're trying to make out of me). Nothing is stopping the building of solar-hydrogen facilities starting today, except the missing vision. Our power-holders prefer to make up nearly impossible scenarios for terror and war, and plan around those, rather than acknowledge the high-probability and far worse scenarios for ecology and civilization, which are already unfolding around us.

.