[lbo-talk] catastrophy

Gar Lipow gar.lipow at gmail.com
Wed Mar 16 10:53:04 PDT 2011


On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Alan,
>
> While I appreciate that you pay attention to what I post to this list,
> I also think that you over-analyze it way too much.  I was making a
> simple point that people tend to be more scared by catastrophic events
> than by continuous but far more dangerous peril.  So chill out man -
> it is a schmoozing list not a seminar in litcrit or pomo theory :)
>
> Wojtek

A couple of empirical points. There have been a number of studies suggesting that renewables without nuclear can replace fossil fuels at a cost comparable to fossil fuels. This is not necessarily a "soft path" because the cheapest solar and wind are large solar and wind farms that take advantage of economies of scale. (small isn't always beautiful even with reneewable energy.)

A recent peer reviewed example:

Jacobson, Mark Z. and Mark A. Delucchi. 2010a. "Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities and areas of infrastructure,and materials." Energy Policy. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.040. www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf

Jacobson, Mark Z. and Mark A. Delucchi. 2010b. "Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part II: Reliability, system and transmission costs, and Policies. "Energy Policy. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2010.11.045. www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnPolicyPt2.pdf

Incidentally, Jacobson ranked power sources by social harm in another article.

http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayHTMLArticleforfree.cfm?JournalCode=EE&Year=2009&ManuscriptID=b809990c&Iss=Advance_Article

Ethanol ranked worse than nuclear. Nuclear and CCS coal were ranked equal, so coal without CCS (which is all existng coal minus an experimental station or two) by implication does indeed rank worse than nuclear. Hydro is barely better than nuclear.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list