I'm not wasting my time writing something you won't read, or perhaps, simply don't understand. You are certainly not commenting from engagement with, and comprehension of these ideas. And this comment just seems designed to hurt me:

4) Your utopian dream is dead. — Jake

If I respected your intelligence in the least - that might matter, but I haven't got time for the closed minded, less yet the unpleasant. We're done. I will not speak to you again.

Solving the energy issue is the first necessary step to securing a sustainable future. Energy is fundamental to everything we do. And clean energy is necessary to prevent run-away climate change. There are two main obstacles to providing the world with bountiful clean energy:

1) an abundance of fossil fuels - still in the ground, and
2) the cost of applying the technology.

The idea that renewable sources of energy are necessarily unreliable or insufficient to the task - is not a genuine obstacle, if applied on a sufficiently large scale. But we'll come to that in due course. First, we must address the question of how to keep fossil fuels in the ground. This may seem like an insurmountable issue - but the solution I devised is very simple, and entirely consistent with the principles of our economic system. Basically, fossil fuels are commodities, and commodities are assets. Assets can be mortgaged - and in this way, fossil fuels can be monetized without being extracted. The money raised by mortgaging fossil fuels would first go to applying sustainable energy technology.

Having overcome these two obstacles, the next question is "what technology?"

Here I would suggest taking on board the next big problem, and solving that at the same time. The next most fundamental need we have is abundant fresh water. 7/10ths of the earth's surface is covered with water, but fresh water is scarce. Only 2.5% of the world's water is fresh water, and it's unevenly distributed around the world. That's the cause of great human suffering and environmental damage. Solving these two problems together, would be a tremendous boon to humankind, and is ultimately necessary to sustainability. So how do we do it?

Bearing in mind such issues as transmission loss over long distances, I would suggest that solar panels floating on the surface of the ocean, could produce electricity - used to power desalination and electrolysis, producing fresh water and hydrogen fuel at sea, collected by ship, or pumped through pipelines to shore. The geographical area available at sea is incredibly vast, and effectively shading the ocean, with thousands of square kilometers of solar panels would also help combat global warming.

Desalination can be achieved via evaporation - heating sea water and collecting the steam. Steam can drive a turbine, to produce electricity - at voltages, adequate to power electrolysis. Electrolysis is the process of breaking the atomic bonds between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in water, by passing an electric current through it. Thus, these two process work hand in hand - producing fresh water and hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen - when compressed into a liquid gas, contains 2.5 times the energy of petroleum by weight, but when burnt (oxidized) the hydrogen atoms recombine with an oxygen atom, giving back the energy spent wrenching them apart - and producing no pollutant more volatile than water vapour.

Burning hydrogen in traditional power stations would provide the base load for the energy grid - rather than, depending directly on renewable power sources, and the fresh water could be used to reclaim wasteland for agriculture and habitation - thus protecting environmental resources from over-exploitation. Eventually, this whole technological complex would power itself (as long as the sun shines) without adding a molecule of carbon to the atmosphere. Ships powered by hydrogen, would collect and bring water and fuel ashore.

Again, like I said, this is a utopian vision with no prospect of occurring in the real world any time soon. — Jake

Then I'm sorry to have wasted your time. Rest assured, I'll waste no more of it.

Where is the evidence that this utopian vision is possible? To me, this part of your message is equivalent to the utopian vision "once we all become good Christians then we will live in peace". These utopian visions might be true IN THEORY, but it's not going to happen, so... — Jake

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time - all human beings were hunter-gatherers, living in tribal groups of about 40-120 individuals. Ruled by an alpha male and one or two lieutenants, who ruled the tribe by threat and use of violence, they monopolized food and mating opportunities within the tribe.

For tens of thousands of years after human beings had achieved the kind of intellectual awareness evidenced in improved tools, burial of the dead, cave art, jewelry - they continued living as hunter gatherers, until approximately 15,000 years ago - when they joined together to form multi-tribal society, leading to civilization.

The question is - how? This is not a trivial question. They went against millions of years of evolutionary habit, and the power structure of tribal society - to form multi-tribal society, with no idea of the relative utopia they would thus create. They did this by agreeing to God as an objective authority for law. Similarly, I would argue - a scientific understanding of reality is objective with respect to all ideological interests. So, it has happened before. It is something of which human beings are capable.

This is part of the problem that James Howard Kunstler points out: a lot of chemicals go into making solar and wind power and all the associated equipment--chemicals derived from petroleum. Once petroleum becomes too scarce and expensive to obtain, it will be very difficult to replace all the infrastructure that was made from and with petroleum: plastics, lubricants, solvents, raw chemicals, finishes, and so on. Things wear out, break, burn up, are smashed, and so forth.

It isn't that nothing will or can be done in the future; it's just that manufacturing will have to re-invented for many products (if it can be).

Making the essential ingredients of concrete, like calcium obtained by heating limestone to a high temperature -- are very energy intensive and extensive. I don't see making the large amounts of portland cement with solar or wind.

There is a reason why we used so much coal and oil: It takes a hell of a lot of energy to build all the infrastructure you see around you. We can not rebuild all of it, or even half of it, on a meagre energy budget. We'll get along, but it will be on much different terms than we operate with now. — Bitter Crank

Your view of solar/wind energy seems to me colored by the piecemeal application of technology you see around you - but the full potential of the technology is yet to be realized. The entire world's total energy needs can be met from a solar farm 350 miles square - which is about the size of Switzerland. That's approximately 17.5 TW of electrical energy.

We could build that - and phase it in over time, such that we could combat climate change while allowing for sensible divestment from fossil fuels. And then build another one the same. In that case, I don't see scarcity of oil as a basis for other products becoming a problem in the foreseeable future. Even if oil were all gone somehow, there's no shortage of hydrocarbons. We could mine the frozen tundra of the Russian steppes for methane - or the anaerobic sludge that sits on the sea floor, and make plastics with that. The only thing we absolutely can't do is burn it for fuel.

There's no problem powering energy intensive processes with renewable energy. As a liquefied gas, hydrogen contains 2.5 times the energy of petroleum per kilo - such that it can power industrial processes. For example:

Swedish steel boss: 'Our pilot plant will only emit water vapour' - EurActiv
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/interview/hybrit-ceo-our-pilot-steel-plant-will-only-emit-water-vapour/

"A new pilot facility under construction in northern Sweden will produce steel using hydrogen from renewable electricity. The only emissions will be water vapour, explains Mårten Görnerup, CEO of Hybrit, the company behind the process, which seeks to revolutionise steelmaking."

The world needs to follow that man's example.

Ok, true enough, but the Manhattan Project was possible because somebody doing pure science discovered that the atom could be split, right? Could we say that the pure science was hijacked by ideological interests? Would that work for you? — Jake

If we were trying to explain what happened very simply - we could say that, but the reality is far more complex. I have construed the Church's reaction to Galileo's 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' - in which he set out the first formal statement of scientific method, as instrumental in the divorce of science as a tool - from science as an understanding of reality.

Science could have been welcomed by the Church as the true word of God; i.e. in the beginning there was the word. Pursued in a worshipful manner - and integrated into religion, politics and economics on an ongoing basis - it would have been as if a red carpet unfurled at our feet. There's a strong sense somehow, that's what should have happened, and certainly, at that moment - the Church had the power to make that happen. But then - one has to ask, why was that mistake not rectified by anyone else?

For instance, America effectively had a clean slate - once they threw off British rule. They wrote the Constitution in 1776, on a blank page - from an enlightenment perspective, and still didn't address the question of the priority of scientific knowledge, relative to religious, political and economic ideology. What we can say, is that the Manhattan Project in itself, wasn't where this mistaken relationship began. It merely repeated a pattern that has far deeper roots. So they didn't hijack science and use it for illegitimate ends as such, but rather, employed science - divorced from its meaningful implications, within an ideological context. In effect, they gave a rocket launcher to a caveman - i.e. they put advanced technology in the hands of the ideologically primitive.

Sorry about going on so long.

If yes, then before we rush headlong in to more and more and more pure science shouldn't we be figuring how to prevent such ideological hijackings from occurring? And if we can't come up with a reliable mechanism for preventing such hijackings is it not logical that we should therefore at least slow down on the pure science research? — Jake

As a philosopher, I'm driven by my subject. I couldn't shut up if I tried. I imagine research scientists are similarly driven by their specialist interests - to discover the truth. So the question would be - how do you put a cork in that kind of intellectual curiosity? The Church tried to control intellectual curiosity - and the consequences bring humankind to the brink of extinction, and you'd repeat the same failed strategy? No!

We need to do now what we should have done 400 years ago - and that is, accept that science is the means to establish true knowledge of reality, and honor that knowledge - particularly as a rationale for the application of technology.

And how many people have been killed due to nuclear accidents compared to the hundreds of thousands being killed every year by coal power plants and fossil fuels? Fukushima? 0 deaths. Chernobyl? Here's the conclusions that the United Nations, WHO and IAEA among other came to: — ssu

Statistical comparisons like this can be misleading. For example, did you know far more people die in hospital than in McDonald's. But if I fell ill - my first thought wouldn't be, I've got to get myself a happy meal. In that sense, I'd be willing to bet more people are killed by solar than nuclear energy, installers falling off roofs. I'm not defending fossil fuels, but rather pointing out that total number of deaths is no indication of the inherent dangers associated with any technology.

Yet the fact is that even if we take the WORST estimates that surely are propaganda, the simple fact is that nuclear power doesn't produce carbon emissions (which actually not many do know), and still is far safer than coal. — ssu

Nuclear power doesn't produce carbon emissions, but it takes half the energy a nuclear power station will ever produce - to build a nuclear power station. All that concrete and steel is incredibly energy intensive to produce, and that's almost certainly going to be fossil fuel energy. Further, nuclear power stations create massive amounts of heat - they have to shed, or explode. This is far more difficult in hot weather - and power output drops in relation to the heat that can be shed into the environment. Climate change is therefore an obstacle to nuclear power.

"We're going to have to solve the climate-change problem if we're going to have nuclear power, not the other way around," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who is with the Union of Concerned Scientists."
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/health/20iht-nuke.1.5788480.html

On the whole however, I think we're pretty much on the same page here. I agree fossil fuels are a massive problem. I just don't believe nuclear power is the answer, and designed my solar/hydrogen approach with these ideas in mind; not some overblown fear of radiation, but environmental costs of construction, running costs, and nuclear waste storage costs - against the type, amount and utility of the energy it produces. Solar/hydrogen is the best all round solution.

Right. The Manhattan Project was very "scientish" but was essentially a tremendous technological nuts and bolts project. There was, of course, an ideological goal. The Manhattan Project was intended to build an atomic weapon before Germany did. Germany could have, maybe, built an atomic weapon, but they decided they couldn't produce conventional weapons and atomic weapons at the same time. We didn't know that in 1942 (when the project was conceived). By the time the Manhattan Project was finished, Germany was no longer a threat. — Bitter Crank

There's a indirect, but definite relationship between the Manhattan Project, and the mistake made by the Church in relation to the discovery of scientific method by Galileo in 1630. That seems like a crazy idea on the surface of it - but Galileo's arrest, imprisonment and trial set a precedent that's never been overturned. Not even by the so-called Enlightenment. It's a blind-spot that's been carried forward for 400 years - and has led us to the brink of extinction.

Consider Mendel - the monk who did the work on genetic inheritance using pea plants, long before Darwin. That mechanism was the one thing missing from Darwin's Origin of Species. Had the statistics of inheritance been understood earlier, the racial element of Nazism might not have occurred. And subsequently, the Second World War, the Manhattan Project, and the Cold War might also have been averted.

It is the difference between science as a tool box, and science as an instruction manual. We've used the tools, but failed to read the instructions. That's what's wrong - with everything! It's why we're burning rain-forests to clear land for palm oil production, and cattle ranching. It makes sense ideologically - but in terms of a scientific conception of reality, it's insane, unnecessary, and ultimately fatal behavior.
— karl stone

Exactly.

"Read the instructions as a last resort". Now that we have made a colossal mess of things, we've opened the manual and discovered the really bad news. — Bitter Crank

First, sorry for quoting my own quote. Second, I'm delighted you agree. But thirdly, it's not all bad news. We're actually pretty well situated if we can recognize the mistake now, and very carefully - begin to correct it. It begins with energy and water - and results in sustainable markets, and a garden paradise of a world by 2100. It's either that, or we'll go through Hell - before we all, eventually die out.

It may be helpful if you can distinguish between science, and science culture, i.e. the group consensus of the scientific community regarding their relationship with science. A fact developed by science can be reasonably declared authoritative, while at the same time the culture which decided to develop that fact can be declared misguided.

As example, it's scientifically true that the atom can be split. That's an entirely different matter than leading scientists agreeing to work on the Manhattan project, and agreeing to further develop these weapons etc. Repeatedly chanting "science is truth" doesn't really solve much. — Jake

You are approaching upon the idea central to my thesis, but keep slipping past it.

Consider humankind, developing from animal ignorance into human knowledge over time. We developed the religious, political and economic ideological architecture of societies first - long before science was discovered. Because science contradicted ideology - science as an understanding of reality was suppressed, even while science provided technology to be used as directed by primitive ideologies.

Thus, the Manhattan Project is not a truly scientific endeavor. The motives are purely ideological. The scientists were employees of ideological interests. The was no scientific rationale for developing nuclear weapons - less yet spending the massive resources to build over 70,000 nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War.

It is the difference between science as a tool box, and science as an instruction manual. We've used the tools, but failed to read the instructions. That's what's wrong - with everything! It's why we're burning rain-forests to clear land for palm oil production, and cattle ranching. It makes sense ideologically - but in terms of a scientific conception of reality, it's insane, unnecessary, and ultimately fatal behavior.

The opposition to nuclear energy is exactly that: an ideology. And this ideology can drive us to worse energy policies than otherwise. — ssu

Only if one continues with an ideologically dictated, backward and piecemeal application of technology - I identify as the real underlying problem. By ideology, I mean the religious, political and economic ideological architecture of societies - not just some unsubstantiated belief, but ideas in terms of which we parse the world, construe our identities, derive our purposes, and make moral judgments.
An ideology is rather more than a misbegotten belief - its a misbegotten conception of reality. Its lenses cover both eyes completely, which is what makes science a stranger.

The real people killer is coal. Just in China annually coal power plants kill about 300 000 people. Yet somehow the facts and especially the magnitude of difference on the impact is many times not understood. The simple fact is that we have been using for ages coal ...and firewood. How dangerous smoke from fire can be isn't something that rattles peoples minds like the "invisible death" from radiation. And who understands radiation? Simply when nuclear power is discussed, the first image that comes to many peoples mind is Hiroshima. Unfortunately the misinformation (or basically disinformation) has taken root in this area, hence people believe whatever fictional statistic on the perils of nuclear energy. — ssu

I'd agree there's widespread ignorance and fear - but that fear is not entirely baseless. Radiation is dangerous, and in the event of a nuclear accident - can be carried a long way by the wind, contaminating vast swathes of land with a toxin that continues to be hazardous for a long time. Particles of radioactive material can be breathed in, and cause cancer. It can get into the food chain, and be passed on and on.

Globally we get roughly 40% of electricity from coal and in places like China it's still roughly 60%, which has come down from 80% in 2010. Their plan has it's problems: even if China is making a huge investment in alternative energy resources, it is basically using energy from coal (and other fossil fuels) to catch up the industrialized West. The idea simply is to use the coal now to transform to other energy resources. That's the idea. Yet the reality is that coal power plants are still built (see Satellite intelligence shows China in a vast rollout of coal-fired power stations) and what better thing is to sell the coal power plants to other countries when they come to be too dirty in China (see here and here). — ssu

It's not just China. 75% of India's electricity production is from fossil fuels - that's almost 3 billion people in total, dependent on coal for power. The only saving grace is that they are as yet, relatively poor. In terms of energy consumption, the average Chinese person uses approximately one third of the energy an American uses. The average Indian person, uses less than one tenth of the energy an American uses. And this disparity, between a rich country like the US, and poorer countries but with much larger populations - is at the heart of disagreements about how to tackle climate change. That's always going to be a problem with a "pain up front" strategy.

However much we build solar and wind power, it's still problematic. For example in 2016 in Germany (one of the leaders in Photovoltaic Power) increased solar power production as it has done year after year, yet the actually gigawatts produced fell. There was a natural reason: it wasn't so sunny as the year before. And the main point is the following. The real danger is that if we run down nuclear energy, we in the end and out of the media limelight, replace nuclear with fossil fuels and especially coal. The ugly fact seems to be that Germany in it's Energiewende, of going off nuclear, has exactly done this. — ssu

I disagree. In Germany, the share of renewable electricity rose from just 3.4% of gross electricity consumption in 1990 to exceed 10% by 2005, 20% by 2011 and 30% by 2015, reaching 36.2% of consumption by year end 2017. They are not reverting to coal. Further, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident was coincidental with regard to the policy. There was no fear driven rejection of nuclear on the part of Germany. If you look at the sector, it has proved hugely costly, as well as potentially very dangerous - on the rare occasions things go wrong, they can go very wrong. Germany rejected nuclear on its own merits, quite some time before the accident in Japan.

It's in consideration of all this, and a lot more like this - I've proposed a global scale approach based on a common agreement that science is true, and therefore authoritative - particularly on a subject like this, which is:

1) an existential necessity - i.e. if we don't solve this problem humankind will be rendered extinct.
2) a global scale problem, that throws partisan ideological approaches into conflict.
3) is a purely technical problem - entirely subject to a technological solution.

And I'm not the first to propose it:

The hydrogen economy is a proposed system of delivering energy using hydrogen. The term hydrogen economy was coined by John Bockris during a talk he gave in 1970 at General Motors (GM) Technical Center.[1] The concept was proposed earlier by geneticist J.B.S. Haldane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy

50 years ago!

I'm not an anti-natalist because I don't accept the central plank in their platform that "having children under any and all circumstances guarantees continued suffering". I have no desire to see our species vanish. — Bitter Crank

Anti-natalism unto extinction? That's extreme. If the argument were we should have less children - I don't agree we should seek to force that conclusion as a matter of policy, but it's an understandable position. Rather, I would argue, we can expect population to decline from a peak of 10-12 billion in 2100, as a consequence of the noted tendency of populations to limit family sizes in wealthier and healthier conditions. That's happening anyway. The challenge is to sustain that trend.

By "resting place" I merely meant that you have gone as far as you can in the logic of promoting H production at sea by solar power. Once you've proved that 2+2=4, people have to either accept the fact or ignore it. There are quite a few examples of 2+2=4 that people seem quite capable of ignoring. Just a simple example here: — Bitter Crank

It's not that I'm wedded in an absolute sense to this particular application of technology. I would yield to genuine expertise seeking to address the same issue on an adequate scale. However, it is necessary for me to demonstrate in a convincing way that it's possible to apply renewable energy technology in such a way as to meet world needs. That requires overcoming a number of technical problems, I would argue solar/hydrogen is more than able to account for.

Take Uranium as an example of a metal with a limited supply: the available unmined reserves of uranium are reported in "millions of pounds" not millions of tons. Were the world to use nuclear fuel heavily, we would find the supply far short of needs. — Bitter Crank

Beyond the fact a nuclear power station uses about half the energy it ever produces in the construction phase, in the form of fossil fuels, and putting aside the terrifically toxic waste we have to store forever afterward, a nuclear power station produces massive temperatures to boil water, to drive a turbine. That's a huge thermodynamic inefficiency - that from a scientific point of view, raises a large red flag.

It's quite difficult to explain, but it's an example of how - for ideological reasons, we cut across the grain of nature. I express the argument very poorly, but solar/hydrogen is implied by the grain of nature in a way that nuclear power is not. Hydrogen is the second most abundant element in the universe, and the energy reaction with oxygen is chemically simple and clean. Thus, we can have, and use enough solar/hydrogen energy to overcome the problem inherent in ever decreasing concentrations of minerals.

Let's say we have the discussion and worse case scenario we conclude we don't know, and are pretty much playing it by ear. There remains a possibility that science is so powerfully true in any respect the piecemeal approach wins out, regardless of our somewhat backward application of technology!

You are as doggéd in your defense of the solar powered hydrogen plant as Schopenhauer1 is of anti-natalism. Doggéd persistence is much more of a virtue than it is a vice, but your abiding interest is likely to outrun other people's enthusiasm. At which point one should move on to another topic. — Bitter Crank

I've thought about it, but anti-natalism is a misconceived approach in several ways; the most immediate that it is morally objectionable to construe the problem as the existence of people. Second is that it would require dictating women's reproductive rights. Third is the questions of ethnicity such an approach throws up. And then there are complex demographic effects one can hardly predict, but would need to take into account.

As for moving on to another topic, that would be another example of a futile attempt to hold back the tide. This is all I've thought about for years. All these ideas are public domain. It's not like I'm giving away state secrets. Nor is anything I've said twisted into a reason to hate or despair. So really, it's not my place to worry about other people's enthusiasm. Switch the channel if you don't like it - but I aim to succeed, and that's the perspective I'd be judged from.

Your point above is a resting place. Society has to decide whether to commit, and to which technology. (Society as a whole isn't going to decide -- it's international finance that will decide.) "They" haven't decided to do much of anything, yet, so... we will all have to stay tuned. — Bitter Crank

So you're saying my point is a resting place, I should move on to other issues, and:

I do not believe that technology and other human institutions can solve the food/water/energy problem by 2100 for 12 billion people. — Bitter Crank

I think otherwise. Seven tenths of the earth's surface is still as rich in metals as when the earth was new. There's no immediate resource bottleneck - given a willingness to develop resources, rather than simply exploit them to death. Shifting now to a renewable energy basis for civilization - we are very well situated, even anticipating significant climate consequences already, decisive proactive action could turn all to our advantage yet.

The ability to produce fresh water on a significant scale from renewable energy would solve a lot of problems as those effects manifest. And for that reason alone we should build it - if not so that fossil fuels would be forced to compete on an even playing field. If we can pump rivers of water inland, uphill - we can one day refill those depleted aquifers and empty inland seas at negligible cost. Just build the infrastructure, and set it going - if immediately to counter droughts, increasingly likely across larger parts of the planet - in future to repair environmental damage.

I cannot see that possibility slipping away and not give voice to it. I don't think I should stop talking about it. I'm quite prepared to be rude, to have people hate me, but I'm not trying to hurt anybody. Indeed, I went out of my way to devise a solution that seeks to account for vested interests in general - and doesn't require we do anything we don't already do in some respect.

Philosophically speaking, if one considers the occurrence of a scientific understanding of reality significant, then from that follows an authority, and a rationale for the application of technology. It's not rude to point out we could survive if we tried. We have to talk about it if there's any hope at all we might.

There is nothing "wrong" with your hydrogen plan, in itself. It's novel, sophisticated, probably do-able. The downside of the Stone Hydrogen Plan is this: we don't have the lead time to achieve this kind of solution before things get much worse. — Bitter Crank

We currently have the industrial capacity, the intelligence, the skills, and the capitalist economic scaffolding in place to implement the technology, something we cannot trust will be within reach subsequent to any conceivable 'catastrophe first' strategy. We must act proactively, and decisively now - while the capacity exists - or lose the opportunity that exists in sustainable markets of 10-12 billion consumers by 2100.

With a sufficiently methodical approach, this figure is entirely manageable. It begins with energy, and follows from water and hydrogen fuel - irrigation, fish farming, agriculture, jobs, ugg boots and iphones. It implies recycling be designed into production, right through to use and disposal - but the potential from a sustainable energy basis for civilization, is for a garden paradise of a world, where rivers run uphill. Imagine, if we had a free hand with the knowledge and technology we have, what could be achieved - and then ask yourself why that's not so.

It's not, as some might imagine that man is innately greedy. It's too shallow an explanation, not least because it doesn't explain civilization. If greed were man's primary motivation - which is not to say it's not a motive at all, but if it were dictatorial then civilization could not exist. In general we find that greed - insofar as it motivates man, is manifest in something productive, and in some sense worthwhile. Rather, I would focus on the needs of man, and how they might be met sustainably. I trust that if it can be shown to be both a rational and possible course - then the same motives dismissed as greed, will compel that course. If indeed, the world's energy needs can be met from a postage stamp of solar panels 350 miles square, on the letter that is the oceans to eternity, and we don't send that letter - we're an empty gesture.

I envy heroin addicts. Their life has purpose. Wife, job, kids, house, car - what's the purpose in any of that if our existence is unsustainable? It's all just one big masturbation. It's pleasure, but without meaning. We are wanking ourselves to death. So, the purpose I adopted was to secure a sustainable future - and on paper, I succeeded. I write about it here, on the foremost philosophy forum listed by google - and yet only get replies from wankers.

If your plan is based on "more is inevitable", it isn't a viable plan. We live in an environment with limited and dwindling resources. More is not an option. — Pattern-chaser

Thanks for your remarks, but if you believe this:

You can't have more (say) fresh water if there is no more fresh water to be had. — Pattern-chaser

Then perhaps you have some reading to do before you do any writing. Google the word 'desalination' - and have a good old read! And thank you again for your interest. Goodbye.

My arguments are a proposal. How to save the world is not some vague sentimental notion - it's a plan. A plan you haven't read, A plan Jake has glanced at, but not really understood. Imagine my frustration...

Or a million things. Or your neighbor might crash the ecosystem before any of that happens. What's your plan, do nothing and wait to see what happens? — Jake

What's your plan? Bitch about the need to limit technology in some vague way? How? It's not about that for you - or you'd be able to say how. It's about putting people down, about rubbing people's noses in it. That's what you're about.

Yes, so for instance, if the environment changes we have to change too. Or we can ignore the need to change, and die.

Your plan for change appears to be that humans will become Super Rational. But you offer no explanation of how that will happen, and blatantly ignore thousands of years of evidence which points in the opposite direction.

To be intellectually correct to reality we either have to scale ourselves up (become Super Rational!) to meet the new power rich environment created by science, or scale down the powers we give to the quite flawed creatures we actually are.

If you have a plan for how we become Super Rational it might be helpful if you'd like to present it. — Jake

You're telling me what I'm saying again. I'm not saying that. You're thus attacking a strawman again. I'm not arguing we need to become super rational. I don't even know what that means - if anything.

A natural tendency toward truth is very deeply ingrained in people. It's closely related to the moral sense. No artificial appeals are necessary, given certain assurances regarding legitimate limitations on the implications of science as truth. Limited to providing a rationale to apply renewable energy technology - we can safely accept that science is true, and thus has authority - in that context. No-one is suggesting re-organizing contemporary society as dictated by science. That would be morally wrong.

Like I've asked about a dozen times now, how do we mortgage an asset which can't be used in any realistic manner or time frame, and thus has no value? Are you going to lend YOUR money to such a hair brained project? No, you're not. Neither is anybody else. — Jake

I do not accept your objection is valid. It's the difference between commercial debt - which you're talking about, and something more akin to sovereign debt. Sovereign debt is valid as a consequence of a political obligation to service it - such that, surety for the debt follows from a political commitment to secure a sustainable future.

Regulation of knowledge is the problem. Failure to recognize scientific method as the means to valid knowledge of reality from 1630; and persisting in that mistake for 400 years, explains how we arrive at this state of affairs, how we've invoked these challenges to our existence, and why we have the knowledge and technology to address the problem, but lack the ability to apply it.

The argument from cause and effect is that there's a relationship between the validity of the knowledge bases of action and the consequences of such action.

The argument from evolution is that life is 'correct to reality' from the atom up, through its DNA, its physiology, its behavior - all crafted by the function or die algorithm of evolution. The implication is that we have to be intellectually correct to reality or be rendered extinct.

The argument from epistemology is that science tells us what we can know, and how we can know it in a methodologically rigorous way - that now constitutes a highly valid and coherent, if incomplete - understanding of reality. It is science as an understanding of reality, particularly as it has coalesced over the past 50 years - that is a new, and epistemically significant factor we have yet to account for.

This leads to a political argument - most basically, that government should be responsible to scientific truth. The longer version of the argument suggests significant limitations on the legitimacy of the principle, to account for the 'realities' of the world we live in. Most basically, existential necessity provides both prior authority to science, and a legitimate limit upon the priority of science over ideology.

Nonetheless, there's a powerful and valuable rationale that follows from accepting science is true, that enables us to overcome the limitations of ideologies without undermining them. These limitations are manifest in the argument we set out with - that explains why we have the knowledge and technology to secure a sustainable future, but at the same time, lack the ability to apply it.

That's not the case at all. There's nothing stopping us from updating our relationship with knowledge to adapt to the new environment that's been created by science. Well, nothing except grasping that the environment has profoundly changed, thus creating a need to adapt. But, your point is taken that we're not ready yet to do anything. Reason isn't enough, we're going to need some kind of big crisis to awake us from our philosophical slumbers. — Jake

Updating it how?
Who decides?
How much will that cost?
Adapt how? In relation to what? Thoughts and prayers?
What new environment? What's new about it? What does it mean?
"We're not ready to do anything?" I didn't say that.
What do you mean reason isn't enough? Who is depending solely on reason?

How are you going to fund what you've actually proposed?
You give sound bite answers to this, while investing post after post after post in expressing how dented your ego feels etc. — Jake

I've answered this question. Mortgage fossil fuels to the world to monetize without extracting them, and use the money raised to fund fossil fuel infrastructure. What is it about that answer do you not understand?

Yes, that's it. I understand what you're saying better than you do. I get that having this revealed to the world in print is annoying to you, and I do regret the dent your ego is experiencing, but again, this is a philosophy forum, and that's what happens in such places. — Jake

You don't even understand your own argument implies there's nothing anyone can do. If you believe that, why go on about it? Are you just trying to rub humanity's nose in their ineptitude and helplessness - unto inevitable extinction? What a perfectly horrible thing to say - over and over and over again.

I was an English major, so this is way out of my field, but I think you are referencing losses at low voltage. Transmission across long distances is at very high voltage, and losses are low -- less than 10% over a thousand km. The very high voltage of long distance transmission is stepped way down for distribution to consumers, and the stepping-down occurs in substations not very far from users. In much of the world, there would be no need to locate solar plants far from users. Indeed, if the solar panels are on one's roof, or near one's urban area, transmission won't be a problem. — Bitter Crank

Right, but transmission at high voltages requires base load, which is exactly what you have with coal or nuclear, you don't have with solar panels alone. Using solar panels to produce electricity at relatively low voltages, and using that to produce hydrogen - instead of transmitting electrical energy, overcomes that problem - allowing us to utilize solar energy a long way away from where the energy is gathered. The geographical area available for solar panels is thus multiplied tremendously.

In much of the world, there would be no need to locate solar plants far from users. Indeed, if the solar panels are on one's roof, or near one's urban area, transmission won't be a problem. — Bitter Crank

It is a problem; one that this approach solves.

Whenever I attempt to inspect those specific ideas with specific questions, you find the inspection inconvenient and either ignore the questions completely, or blow them off with a quick sentence. I think it just might be you who is refusing to discuss your ideas. — Jake

Not at all. I'm quite happy to discuss what I've actually proposed, but that's not what you're doing. You dismiss my arguments as scientific religion, and then attack that strawman. You think I'm saying more is better, and attack that. When I explain that's not what I'm saying, you flat out contradict me, insist that what you think I'm saying is what I'm saying, and then repeat yourself. Again, attacking the same STRAWMAN.

The premise of this thread which does not belong to you is that this is a technical problem requiring a technical solution. You appear to accept this premise as a matter of faith. You appear to be demanding that we do as well. But not all of us are actually members of the science religion. Some of us may decline to accept the premise "this is a technical problem" as a matter of faith. Some of us may wish to challenge that premise. — Jake

No. The premise of this thread is - the particular approach I argue is necessary to save the world, and I want to talk about it. Something you've refused to do - as evidence by the fact you think I'm saying this is a technical problem. It's a philosophical problem - i.e. a failure to recognize scientific method as the means to establish valid knowledge of reality. From this follows a failure to grant scientific knowledge the authority it rightfully owns. This explains the subsequent misapplication of technology; explains how and why we have created these problems, and why, despite availability of better technologies, we refuse to deploy them.

And now, the rest of your ridiculously long post is irrelevant.

How do we mortgage an asset which can never be used, and thus has no value? — Jake

Who says it can never be used? There may come a time in the future when it will be necessary to burn fossil fuels to regulate the climate in the opposite way - and if we can keep them in the ground now, that will be an option available to us. And, they are currently assets - which, once mortgaged to the world, do not need to have an ongoing commercial value.

How do we protect large scale solar array installations on the surface of stormy oceans? — Jake

I'd suggest a submersible design.

Which specific human beings will save the world by implementing your vision of "science as truth"? — Jake

Not you! If that's what you were wondering. Beyond that, I don't know what you're asking for. Names and addresses?

Here's an analogy which may help explain my focus in this thread. Let's say a religious person starts a thread where they want to debate Bible verse interpretations. — Jake

Okay. Go on...

You could join them in debating the real meaning of all the verses in the Bible, a process likely to take the rest of your life. Or, you could efficiently end run around all that unnecessary work by asking them to prove the Bible is the word of God. — Jake

It's rude and off topic. Crashing into someone else's thread with a vaguely related idea - contrary to the stated aim of the thread, is exactly what I'd call that - and it's exactly what you're doing here.

In this thread you're like the religious person who wants us to limit our focus to the level you're comfortable with. You want us to accept as a matter of faith as you do that technology is the solution, and then discuss/debate your particular technology idea. — Jake

I just want to discuss the proposal I started this thread to discuss - something you've refused to do.

Again, you seem to be suffering from the consistent illusion that this thread belongs to you personally. It actually belongs to the forum owner and his team of mods, who are the sole authority on what is appropriate in any thread. — Jake

Thanks for the tip!

Karl, you are obsessed with hydrogen! Take the simplest possible approach. Your plan is too complicated, too rococo, too many parts, processes, and potential problems. — Bitter Crank

I am obsessed with hydrogen - that's true, but the rest isn't true. There are good reasons for the particular application of technologies I suggested. Not least of these is the availability of sunlight and sea water. Using these to produce hydrogen (and fresh water) solves both the battery problem, and the transmission loss problem.

There is sun enough and land which is now, and will remain in the future unproductive. These locations are often near or are the same places that a lot of people live. Put the square kms of solar panels there, and supply the needs for energy at hand. For instance, California (39 million people) has desert land near their large population centers. Texas (28 million) has both sunshine and consistently windy highlands. — Bitter Crank

So, let us say you produce energy from solar power in the desert. How do you utilize it? It has to be transmitted for many miles, and transmission loss can be significant - upto 10% of power per kilometer. It cannot be used to produce fresh water, because it's in the desert, and so you've occupied land, that in theory, could be irrigated and inhabitable - if you produced energy where you could also produce fresh water, and hydrogen fuel.

Welcome. I found this observation of yours interesting and wanted to comment.

Of course. It's just the idea of regulating power and information sounds so, well, absurd. For one thing, the regulator would be the super elite, possessing all the power and information. Power tends to corrupt, you may have heard. — praxis

If I may just point out that 'how to save the world' is not a question. It's a proposal. I'd like to try and focus discussion on that proposal.

In regard to your comment, consider how the web of knowledge science describes makes it almost impossible to lie. A false fact is like a jigsaw puzzle piece that doesn't fit with all the surrounding pieces. My argument suggests, technology should be regulated in relation to science as truth. Thus, it would be virtually impossible to produce scientifically sound reasons to justify corrupt ends.

My beef with you is - this is my thread, and thus far you haven't discussed my ideas at all.
— karl stone
— Jake

1) I've discussed the philosophy behind your ideas because, um, this is a philosophy forum. And not an energy forum. — Jake

No Jake. You have either failed or not even tried to get to grips with my ideas. You're just dumping your nonsense on my thread. Start your own thread entitled "Why the world cannot be saved!" Oh, you did - and once everyone heard you say the same thing six times, it died - and now you want to kill my thread too.

My argument is difficult to understand. It suggests a mistake made 400 years ago, in our relationship to science, has had lasting consequences. It requires bearing in mind a distinction between science as truth, and science merely as a basis for technology. Understanding what I'm saying actually requires doing philosophy - that is, holding a set of premises in mind to compare to the current situation to suggest an alternate rationale and course of action. But you haven't understood, or even remembered those premises. Indeed, it's difficult to believe you even read them.

When you understand that argument, you will understand that the current technological basis of civilization is a misapplication of technology. It's technology applied as directed by pre-scientific religious, political and economic ideologies, that, whatever else they are - are not an accurate description of reality as it really is.

Understanding all that is necessary to understanding why technology should be applied as directed by science; a principle we can prove by considering the very nature of life - and how it is built from the atom up by evolution, to be correct to the cause and effect nature of its environment, or was rendered extinct.

To dismiss my argument again and again as some simplistic 'more is better' approach is insulting, and merely sets me up as a strawman for your own arguments. Can I ask you again, please - to discuss my arguments on my thread, or go open your own thread where you can discuss anything you like.

In the immediate and short term, sure - a huge economic dislocation you seem to want to cause on purpose, to make renewable energy more competitive. I just don't think that a good idea. — karl stone

botheius:

You would take the pain upfront if you would tax fossil fuels to decrease demand, and/or to force technological change. It could be done that way, if the will existed - but to the loss of current fossil fuel interests, the consumer, industry and so forth. If however, it might be possible to mortgage fossil fuel assets to the world, there may be - at some later date a debt to be paid, but it would be paid by a society that had a sustainable energy basis - in addition to all efforts allied to this one vast, and absolutely necessary endeavour. How that might be done - politically and legally, such that sustainable energy infrastructure is funded by the same means fossil fuels are kept in the ground is nothing upon which I might even venture a guess. I merely venture an idea in the hope it might appeal to enough of the relevant interests of which I know nothing. This may seem like an abdication from the authority of my ideas, but far from it. Rather if follows from a recognition that it's not my stuff. We cannot but be who we are, and act in our own considered interests. It's my humble submission that this is in everyone's interests.

How it could be done:

In terms of the physics of reality - solving the energy issue is the first necessary step to securing a sustainable future. Energy is fundamental because reality is entropic. Entropy is a concept from the Second Law of Thermodynamics - the effects of which can be described very simply. It is the tendency of everything in the universe to decline toward its lowest energy state, like water runs downhill, or an old building collapses to the ground over time. To keep the old place from falling down, we must spend energy. Energy is thus fundamental to everything we do. And clean energy is necessary to prevent run-away climate change.

There are two main obstacles to providing the world with bountiful clean energy:

1) an abundance of fossil fuels - still in the ground, and
2) the cost of applying the technology.

The idea that renewable sources of energy are necessarily unreliable or insufficient to the task - is not a genuine obstacle, if applied on a sufficiently large scale. But we'll come to that in due course. First, we must address the question of how to keep fossil fuels in the ground. This may seem like an insurmountable issue - but the solution I devised is very simple, and broadly consistent with the principles of our economic system. Basically, fossil fuels are commodities, and commodities are assets. Assets can be mortgaged - and in this way, fossil fuels can be monetized without being extracted. The money raised by mortgaging fossil fuels would first go to applying sustainable energy technology.

Having overcome these two obstacles, the next question is "what technology?"

Here I would suggest taking on board the next big problem, and solving that at the same time. The next most fundamental need we have is abundant fresh water. 7/10ths of the earth's surface is covered with water, but fresh water is scarce. Only 2.5% of the world's water is fresh water, and it's unevenly distributed around the world. That's the cause of great human suffering and environmental damage. Solving these two problems together, would be a tremendous boon to humankind, and is ultimately necessary to sustainability. So how do we do it?

Bearing in mind such issues as transmission loss over long distances, I would suggest that solar panels floating on the surface of the ocean, could produce electricity - used to power desalination and electrolysis, producing fresh water and hydrogen fuel at sea, collected by ship. The geographical area available at sea is incredibly vast, such that thousands of square kilometers of solar panels could be deployed without occupying valuable real estate close to inhabited areas - or incurring huge transmission loss over long distances away from inhabited areas, or requiring batteries.

"If we cover an area 335 kilometers by 335 kilometers with solar panels, it will provide more than 17.5 TW of power."

Desalination can be achieved via evaporation - heating sea water and collecting the steam. Steam can drive a turbine, to produce electricity - at voltages, adequate to power electrolysis. Electrolysis is the process of breaking the atomic bonds between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in water, by passing an electric current through it. Thus, these two process work hand in hand - producing fresh water and hydrogen fuel. Ships powered by hydrogen, would collect and bring water and fuel ashore. Hydrogen - when compressed into a liquid gas, contains 2.5 times the energy of petroleum by weight, but when burnt (oxidized) the hydrogen atoms recombine with an oxygen atom, giving back the energy spent wrenching them apart - and producing no pollutant more volatile than water vapour.

"Currently, the world consumes 15 TW of power from a combination of energy sources."

Burning hydrogen in traditional power stations would provide the base load for the energy grid - rather than, depending directly on renewable power sources, and the fresh water could be used to reclaim wasteland for agriculture and habitation - thus protecting environmental resources from over-exploitation.

What about ships running into the floating solar plants and wrecking them. Ships? What ships? Do you think there will still be shipping once we're reduced to collecting electricity on the surface of the ocean? — Bitter Crank

The flaw in my otherwise perfect plan, Ships might run into them! Oh no! I didn't think of that! It's beyond the wit of man and the reach of technology - to prevent ships running into things!

so the only solution was for us to learn how to migrate across the galaxy. — Jake

How are we going to live in space - if we cannot live sustainably here on earth? This planet is ideally suited to the kind of beings we are - or vice versa, and space is hostile in every possible regard, every breath, every drop of water, extremes of heat and cold, radiation.

How are we going to live there if we can't live here?
I know how we can live here. I know how we can get from here - to a sustainable future, in the least disruptive manner possible - and you don't want to know?
Then why graffiti my thread?

I'm asking readers to face the fact that the "more is better" group consensus which they assume to be correct is actually dangerously out of date. — Jake

Make that sixteen!

So, your alternative is what? That we have less? How is that achieved?
We dismantle capitalism - is that your plan? And exchange it for what - communism?
Well, firstly: no!
But secondly: "NO!"
And thirdly:

the "smart and serious" people who form the cultural elite of our society don't know what they're doing. — Jake

If people in government and science don't know what they're doing, how can you imagine they can centrally plan an economy to produce and distribute goods and services people need? Food, socks, toilet paper...?

In order to produce goods and services to a central plan, government must have absolute control of the people, and own all the land, and all the capital. So, you would have us give up freedom, and everything we own - create a massively powerful centralized government, for what? So people who, according to you are fundamentally inept, can tell us what to do? What to produce, how much to produce, where to send it, what those people should do, etc?

Do you have any idea of the processes by which raw materials are turned into something simple like socks? Lets begin by plowing a field - that guy needs food, clothing, housing, medicine, etc - his wife needs food and clothing, housing, his children need clothes and shoes and toys. Oh, no toys - we're trying to save the planet! You don't need toys! We need a tractor...

And here's the thing - all you've achieved, for all the misery you've sown, at best - is buy another trip or two around the sun, with the exact same outcome in the end. Less is not an answer.

True. Some technological hurdles have to be done, but I'm optimistic. Especially solar power has become dramatically cheaper. Renewable energy goes down in manufacturing price as it gets more popular, whereas fossil fuel becomes more expensive as it gets more rare. I assume that the biggest challenge is aircraft and ships as these need to have long endurance and powerfull motors. — ssu

It's not suitable technology, or knowledge of the problem that we lack. We can do this, but not without some innovative political and economic ideas. Trust in market mechanisms in this case, would in my view be misplaced. The cost of applying renewable energy technology is dependent on the price of fossil fuels, so renewables are effectively running on a treadmill powered by fossil fuels.

There's no magic symmetry that somehow changes the value of money to offset internalizing the true cost of fossil fuel burning. [/quote]

Not exactly, no - but increased oil costs effect everything else produced or supplied using oil. The ubiquity of oil raises prices on almost everything - a cost of living increase that eventually, wages increase to account for. Now, the original price hike has effectively disappeared. You don't get as many apples for a dollar - but you get more dollars an hour, and work the same hours for the same apples. Effectively therefore, the value of money has changed to accommodate the price hike.

The oil shocks of the past weren't somehow made redundant by money changing value, but rather created massive economic dislocations: incumbent industries shrinking because they don't make economic sense without cheap fossil fuel energy and new investment in renewable energy as they are more competitive if fossil energy is more expensive (i.e. the social upheaval that I alluded to in my post). — boethius

In the immediate and short term, sure - a huge economic dislocation you seem to want to cause on purpose, to make renewable energy more competitive. I just don't think that a good idea.

By "funding renewable infrastructure" I assume you mean by subsidy. If we view just the comparative cost of energies, it seems that forcing fossil to internalize true costs is the same as subsidizing renewables. However, it's not the same. By simply subsidizing renewables to be cost-comparable to fossil energy is not the same as internalizing the real cost of fossil energy. — boethius

No. I said renewable energy doesn't need subsidies - it needs infrastructure funding, like the rail network, the canals, or the Romans and their roads. I also propose a means we can raise the money to apply renewable energy on a massive scale, and keep fossil fuels in the ground at the same time.

I agree with the way you reason out the scenario you describe, but it's not what I'm proposing at all. If you'd read the OP - I'd love to get your opinion.

If you were the only person stuck in this outdated "more is better" paradigm I wouldn't harp on it, for I have no beef with you personally. I'm harping on it because the "more is better" position your position is rooted in dominates the entire society. And ANY position accepted without questioning by ANY group consensus requires inspection by philosophy. — Jake

My beef with you is - this is my thread, and thus far you haven't discussed my ideas at all. You keep putting the same idea forward again and again - and ignoring the massive flaws with it, which I've pointed out. Not least, that more is inevitable. Close second, it doesn't get us anywhere. Third, right now is that my energy proposals don't call for batteries. And your post is way too long to say the same thing again for the fifteenth time.