thereisnospoon
Gold Member
Are you THAT dense?
flacaltenn is forwarding the National Academy report on The Hidden Costs of Energy as Gospel. As a matter of FACT, flacaltenn says it was written by "America's premiere scientists".
But when "America's premiere scientists" say "Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for--and in many cases is already affecting--a broad range of human and natural systems." they are no longer "America's premiere scientists", and no longer of ANY use to flacaltenn. NOW they return to being hacks and enviro-NUTS.
All that carthartic whining is getting you closer BFgrn.. You're on the verge of a revelation about the diff between "consensus" and "power" in politics and how science and engineering actually work.. This is hopeful..
Even a 5-4 decision at the Sup. Ct. --- although it is LAW ---- is not a settled issue. Folks can learn a lot by reading the dissident opinion.. Problem with the legal system is ---- THEY NEED immediate resolution.. So the 5 mug the 4 -- and we proceed..
Doesn't EVER happen in science.
The reason I appealed to "power" and "consensus" was simply to piss BFgrn off.. Truly !!!
I was aware of all these facts we discussed WAAAAY before I knew there was a NAScience paper on the topic. But my viewpoint is --- some of these findings are SECONDARY to formulating a CORRECT energy/environmental policy for this country. So -- I accept the facts presented and WEIGH the larger tradeoffs to obtain "my opinion"..
Which is --- if the manufacturing cycle of EVehicles contains MORE societal costs in terms of materials and energy to produce -- I still might want EVehicles that run on HYDROGEN fuel cells in order to structure a better energy market.
Now if YOU'RE upset that you got dumped in the skeptic camp on this dustup -- you're job is to contact the "resistance" movement and suggest REAL alternative views without trying to subvert the facts in evidence. That's exactly what I do on the AGW topics.
There is no appeal to "prestige" or "power" or "consensus" allowed.. Just a lot of dam study and PERSONAL work to be done on "your opinion"..
My avi tag line demonstrates that. This is NOT a spectator sport. And placing bets on the outcome of these technology driven topics -- shouldn't be arrived at simply by the "credentials" or "prestige" or "numbers" of the players in the game.
WOW, an awful lot of chest beating there. You are a real legend...
What I find hard to understand is the amount of joy you right wing regressive turds get from siding with polluters who bring death and destruction to society. And liberals who always put human beings, life, and the right to breathe clean air first and foremost are called eco-fascists.
I have said all along there is no ONE energy source that will replace fossil fuels. We need an all hands on deck approach. It seems you want to put all your eggs in one basket and dump EVs...not very wise IMO.
Are EVs viable? You had a tantrum when I presented some 'qualifiers' in the National Academy report, but they are paramount to deciding if an approach or technology is viable. There is nothing in the report that recommends dumping EVs. And my point about coal burning power is that it should not be held against the EV. Yes, it is a present day reality, but it should be a huge wake up call to make a concerted effort to get away from coal, the most catastrophically expensive way to boil a pot of water that has ever been devised. And it is a clarion call for a national energy policy.
In terms of science, that National Academy report is ancient history. It was published before modern EVs were really on the road. Many of the costs have come down in manufacturing EV's. Battery technology continues to evolve:
Author Claims Electric Vehicles Are a Green Illusion | Autopia | Wired.com
A few years ago, EV batteries were costing roughly $900 per kilowatt-hour, he says. Today they are around $400. Estimates by numerous analysts have that cost reduced to about $250 per kilowatt-hour by 2015, notes Chambers. So weve already seen the cost drop by more than 50 percent in the last few years and, if predictions hold true, well see a 70 percent drop by 2015. If, as Zehner says, batteries cost so much because of their fossil fuel intensive construction, how can they drop in price so quickly even as the cost of oil has risen?
Motor technology:
Japanese researchers develop EV motor not reliant on rare earth metals
Japanese researchers working out of Tokyo University of Science, have built what they describe as a motor for electric cars that does not require so-called rare earth metals; a move that could drive down the costs for such vehicles.
America needs to continue to support progress in all avenues and possibilities. I still believe America can lead in this new frontier, just like we led and won the race to the moon 50 years ago.
There were plenty of deniers and cynics back in 1962. No one other than a few wise men could foresee all the innovations and knowledge gained from throwing our hat over the wall of space. Every single life on this planet has benefited from that glorious venture.
President John F. Kennedy gave his last speech in San Antonio, TX on November 21, 1963 at the Dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center. It was about the future...a future that would vanish for him within 24 hours.
Here's a segment:
"Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them.
This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side."
One of my favorite speeches by President Kennedy was at Rice Stadium on September 12, 1962. It is famously called the Moon Speech. In it he gives a fantastic synopsis of how fast the pace of knowledge and technology has accelerated.
"We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.
Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.
If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
Yes, all conservatives side with the 'polluters'..
Typical chicken little sky is fallin liberal crap.
And I suppose your definition of 'polluter' is any business you don't like.
The problem is you lefty enviro wackos cannot define what pollution is. In fact you just pick whatever business pisses you off or 'makes too much profit'..
