Julie Tomlin: Gene Sharp: The Knowledge of How People Can Be Free is Spreading Throughout the World
Ramp1885.com: The Arab Spring Fosters a New Tunisian Fashion Scene
Should we green most of the deserts or not?
Done right, we can both get solar power and use the shading to allow crops to grow under them. We can even use the panels to condense moisture.
only 3% of the Sahara alone would provide more energy than the world uses.
Yes preserve the best deserts, but not all of them. not even most of it.
Meanwhile the big money needs to go to rooftop solar.
This can be done in a green way. They did not pave the land between the mirrors, all they did was sink potholes.
Even if you disagree that our country should adopt more renewable energy sources in order to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, consider this point: adding such sources has the potential to allow us to diversify away from using oil, which is notoriously concentrated in political hotspots around the world.
And as any savvy investor knows, diversification is best achieved with a portfolio that allows for positive weights in investments that have negative expected returns.
If you don't agree with me on this last point, consider the following comments posted at this investment-oriented blog site:
http://seekingalpha.com/author/larry-swedroe/comment/1617780
A) "An asset that has negative correlation should theoretically have a less than riskless return. All insurance does. We buy life insurance and home owners insurance, etc. and we have negative expected returns."
B) "So even if [an investment] had [an expected return] less than [the] riskless return expected, [savvy investors] should not rule out its use. The key error people make is to think of the asset in ISOLATION, when the only right way to think about it is to see how the addition impacts the risk/return of the entire portfolio."
C) "If you thought of any insurance in isolation no one would buy it as it has negative expected returns, forget less than riskless returns."
Thanks, Larry, for helping me make my point about the value of investing in costly-but-valuable-for-diversification renewable energy sources.
The Tightwire Guy
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/42/49/38587081.pdf
http://warrington.ufl.edu/purc/purcdocs/papers/1009_Kury_The_Role_of.pdf
http://www.iags.org/china.htm
http://www.howleygreenenergy.com/2/post/2011/3/warren-buffett-sustainable-energy-and-american-competitiveness.html
http://www.nyiso.com/public/webdocs/newsroom/white_papers/fuel_diversity_11202008.pdf (see page 4-10)
http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/p001043.pdf (see page 4)
And simply discussing the topic of investing (even short term):
http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/strategies/spread-trading-diversification.html
But if you are still not convinced:
http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2009/02/can-betas-be-negative-and-other-well.html
And the author of that blog is... wait for it... wait for it...
Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at NYU.
So, vakh, got any more intelligent responses?
The Tightwire Guy
You miss the point completely
I have something I want to protect from loss I insure it
You want to shove down my throat something that is not economically viable as insurance.
The problem is you
We have not and will not be able to take advantage of our energy resources
Because of the direct attack by enviromentalists ,
"Tunis, the birthplace of the Arab Spring"
The oligarchs are running, and a true renewable energy spring may come in their wake.
I once read that if 1/8th the land area of Arizona was put into solar thermal electric power, the U.S. wouldn't need any other power source to supply all its electricity. That's just a demonstration of the potential here. Tunisia is signing up to 2GW of power, but it could be 200 GW before the potential is fully realized.
Ecosystems are also the habitats of all biological diversity. The southwestern systems Obama wants to kill are the homes to big horn sheep and the desert tortoise, both species, teetering on the edge of extinction. Our ecologically literate professors maintain, extinction of plant and animal biological diversity is about as safe for man as thermonuclear war, and when man kills ecosystems for any reason, he is suicidal.
Ecosystems not only sequester the heat trapping gases, they are also in the economy of rain and water. Can a dead field of solar panels release oxygen, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, sequester the heat trapping gases, naturally regulate and moderate the climate, provide the nitrogen cycle and hydrological system and the entirety of Earth's biogeochemistry?
Why not incorporate solar into each home, making every building and shopping center in America energy efficient? All ecosystems are integrated, and they all have feedbacks and loops to the climate and the atmosphere, and they all, altogether, create the very life zone of Earth, the biosphere/ecosphere.
What ????
And make you energy independant.
Thats not the plan.
Well
We can always tax the heck out of your house.
Thatll teach you wont it.
But desert solar thermal with thermal storage is a viable technology, let's limit is to 3% of the deserts, right? That's enough to supply all the world's energy needs (with storage).
Go to the links on this site. They are not paving the desert, is less than 1% of the area used. It's desert. what is the problem with life in the desert? Too much sun and heat.
Take 50% of that for electricity, and plant crops under the mirrors. Raise the mirrors mounts if needed. Now you turn deserts into farms, and generate all the world energy in 3% of the Sahara.
I like you Linus, I fanned you. Therefore I most respectfully go against your push.
3%. Please, let it happen. It's a good thing.
Desserts are the least productive bio spheres we have.
Yes, the unique desert ecosystems are worth saving.
What percent of the desert is it permissible to green, to bring to life?
For me, 3% is obviously fine. 30% is probably a good numbers. Why do you want to preserve the least productive, least living, least specifies and mass of life ecosystems?
Humans created many of the deserts, elephants, Zebras. These places used to be lush and productive biologically.
Why must the status quo be preserved?
Get ready for reality
Since this is an artificial man made environment, I've been wondering if we can have our cake and eat it too?
What if we put floating solar panels on parts of our man made lakes? Ecologically speaking we may damage a man made artificial ecosystem but it should prove far less fragile and important than the surrounding deserts.
We could create a lot of electricity store the energy in the water by heating or elevating it and using this potential energy at night.
And we reduce water loss on our precious water supply from evaporation.
Just a thought.
I have tried figuring out the economics of it... but sadly, it's not a strait forward win-win. Agriculture needs orders of magnitude more area than solar energy and spreading out solar over such large areas is an economic loser. One would probably do better with farming methods utilising mixed plantations, with trees giving shade to other culture plants that need more water and can't stand the full desert sun.
Who ancient cities are burried in the sands of time in these
deserts. I doubt we will alter the effects of the sands of time.
Can a solar panel dead field release oxygen, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, take care of the heat trapping gases for Earth, naturally regulate and moderate the climate [what sits on Earth's surface impacts climate as science refers to cities as heat islands] provide the nitrogen cycle and the hydrological storage and flux and create and renew a life giving soil, circulate vital nutrients and the entirety of Earth's biogeochemistry, to provide a short list of ecosystem life supporting services, including the the regulation and checking of disease pathogens in humans that cause pandemics [frogs, lizards, bats and some birds].
Why not recycle the old into the new technologies where people actually live, like existing buildings, shopping centers and homes? NASA proposed, placing immense solar panels in space instead of killing the planet. Killing ecosystems kills that much of Earth.
Yes, much better even than any plants, as it offsets hundred times more carbon based energy per unit area than any biofuel. However, you are still right that we shouldn't destroy these eco-systems. We don't have to because there is PLENTY of already ploughed under land available for solar.
Now, Obama has, of course, nothing to do with this. The solar federal land grab, and that's all this really is, has begun over a decade ago... under a previous president, who couldn't care less about the environment.
and southern sunbelt states continue to be politically supressed
with just no answers except to continue to be brainwashed by
the stupid idea that we need more oil and nuclear.
WAKE UP AMERICA.
If I can put it on my roof, why should SDG&E be able to ruin hundreds of acres of desert habitat to get the same results?
So, in essence... you wouldn't need ANY new land to replace all transportation fuels. The garages, parking lots and paved roads that we have would more than suffice. All you need to do is to put solar panels on top or above these structure and you are done.
I would rather the existing fossil fuel owners shift into renewables, rather than keeping us in fossil fuels until they run dry.
Even better, go and get yourself rooftop PV and help defeat the ownership stranglehold.
The new greenies don't get it. That first green's focus was entirely the salvation and protection of Earth's ecosystems and their biological diversity. Or, the living, life giving physical body of Mother Earth!
A thing is right when it preserves the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community or ecosystem; it is wrong otherwise. So applicable to today's greenwashing. Mind if I borrow your brilliance?
Something about renewable energy is remarkably civilizing.
Canadian oil is not an answer, it may or may not be a slight improvement.
Use something that can't be owned by others.
The only drawback I see is more or less related to geopolitical factors. Northern Africa is a notoriously unstable region. Perhaps this new co-dependence will lead to increased European investment in the region and I don't mean the kind that aims to liberate oil, but the kind that builds stable, prosperous societies.
One can only hope.
USA 0
I'm not even talking about power projects whereby excess solar power is being stored by pumping water into high altitude lakes for hydro generated power during the night.
All these things are feasible, Tunisia is at the same latitude as Las Vegas and Phoenix, and construction of such power plants will be a huge boost to the economy. It's not being done because of the powers that be which make huge profits from the carbon based economy (Koch and friends). It is these vested carbon interests that will eventually drag America down.
I hope for mankind, this desert supports no plant or animal biological diversity, and this desert ecosystem has already been destroyed by man. Ecologically literate scientists maintain, that man is suicidal when he kills ecosystems, and the extinction of biological diversity is a threat to mankind, right up there with thermonuclear war.
Can a solar panel, release oxygen, govern the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, naturally regulate and moderate the climate, naturally sequester heat trapping gases, provide the nitrogen cycle and hydrological flux and storage, circulation of vital nutrients, the entirety of the Earth's biogeochemistry to provide a short list of ecosystems' life supporting services. Ecosystems also regulate and control disease pathogens in the food chain with man that cause global pandemics.
Ecosystems are the natural sequestration of the heat trapping gases. Soil sinks these gases as well as plants, and especially trees. When they disturb the soil, the sequestered heat trapping gases will be released back into the atmosphere, releasing more C02 and methane gases!
If this desert is a viable ecosystem, man will kill that much of the Earth with dead solar panel fields, as life giving as Mars. All ecosystems are integrated, and all have feedbacks to the climate and the atmosphere. All ecosystems create the life zone of Earth, her biosphere/ecosphere. Biotic or life.
And if we were to not use solar:
"While there will be winners, there will also be losers; while there will be potential benefits, there will also be huge costs and unintended collateral consideratÂions, all of which are glossed over if not totally overlooked in such rosy narrativesÂ."
So I hope you are not thinking this was a subtle way of undermining the idea?
Of course we need to look at the down side, what we don't need to do is spin for fun & profit.
Put up actual worries and real world data not generic motherhood ideas of worries.