"Deliverables"

[de_koraco]

Re: &quoteliverables"

Yes we do agree that GW "phenomenon" exists, but the big question that is (still) being asked is how much are we to do with the phenomenon. I think one of the best ways to deal with it is to move to cleaner energy sources, but I fear that all the best methods to access them are being locked up by the big energy, who make plenty of money from fossil fuels, in patents to prevent those alternative energy sources from being used and cut into their bottom line by making then more affordable to use by regular folk.

BTW to all ... Dzień Szczęśliwy Dziękczynienia ( Happy Thanksgiving Day)

You misunderstood me. When I said "we agree", I was pointing to the pseudo-scientific method being employed to analyze the climate. And let me lol a little at Big Energy stopping the research into cleaner sources. For one, I thought people knew by now that 70 percent of the proceeds from fossil fuels goes into the hands of governments (you can't count Aramco as a private company)? Exxon, Shell and Gang are minor players when it comes to research. historically, funds for research of the type is provided by the governments. The Middle Eastern guys are sure as hell not gonna compromise research into cheaper oil extraction and distribution for alternative sources, and the West is a shamefull in that respect.

With the notable exception of Norway, who has funded meaningful research into wind power, and stands to profit accordingly, the rest of the developed world is using alternative energy as a stepping stone for corruption and scoring cheap political points. And they're still able to portray this colossal waste of resources as an uphill struggle against the iiiivil oil companies, lolol.

[bsniadajewski]

Re: &quoteliverables"

So what you guys are thinking is that GW (caused by man) is all a big lie? Correct if I'm wrong though. I don't mean to troll, but just don't thatwhat we have done in the past (Industrial Revolution, etc.) didn't affect our environment one bit. I, and quite a few people who may agree with me and are looking her, would love to be proven wrong.

I've seen similar articles over on Slashdot and, though the prevaling (nto dominating) attitude is somewhat libertarian (unlike me), there is good even split between "deniers" and non-"deniers" (I using that for lack of a better term.)

[woodsmoke]

Re: &quoteliverables"

Hi
I'm visiting with the kids, grandkids, aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens so am not at my machine, I'm in another state, so you will just have to take this with no citations.

But, here is a "short history" of how we got to where we are.

a) the "Greenhouse effect" is a real thing, it is why we can live on the earth, and why we do not live on the moon.
b) the "Greenhouse effect" occurs because of the mix of gasses(O2, N2, C02 etc.) AND water vapour.
c) Now I would like for you to type into google, or bing, or whatever the "standard search term" for this whole thing which is "what are the greenhouse gasses" or some such search term and you will see THOUSANDS of lists of 02, N2, C02 etc.
HOWEVER, you will not see "water vapour" because

1) water is a "vapour" and not a " gas" and
2) the water vapour moves from the "unseen" form to the "seen form" so......

Now you have to really think about this.

Water Vapour which DWARFS all other things(the gasses)

Was DROPPED from ALL of the "greenhouse gasses" equations because it is:

i) a vapour
ii) variable, so variable, that they could not easily "quantify" it and therefore dropped.

Ummmmmm could not "quantify it"...... so they DROPPED it.... hmmmm

Ok....

BUT ....let us get back to the history.

Actually the conjecture about Carbon Dioxide goes back a very long way...back into the 1930s ...I think, it may have been the twenties, but anyway.....

A real scientist was thinking about the "greenhouse effect" before it was called that and conjecturing about what effect each "gas" had on it.

Different gasses interact with the long wave radiation that comes in from the sun and the REradiated short wave radiation that goes BACK into the atmosphere from the soil, ice and water.

The research was bounced back and forth and basically forgotten because of the lack of equipment, and worldwide stations, to do the basic research one way or the other.

Enter Margaret Thatcher.

She was, of course the "Iron Prime Minister" of British fame and was running for election and in brainstorming with her handlers they were looking for a way to get the "greenies" involved and on of them was assigned to "look for an environmental thing" that she could be involved in.

The designated researcher found the research about carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect, and of course there REALLY ARE many air pollutants that should be reduced, but she had to find an environmental thing that would make her stand out from the rest of the pack.

Notice......all of this is very innocent and of REAL worth...

In other words.....it was a valid research question.

So.... she had her people hunt around for somebody to do the research, put some money in it and what used to be called HADCRUT....

HADley Climate Research UniT..... was born, with Phil Jones the lead researcher.

Welll

ALL OF THIS IS A MODEL.....

A model is a PROJECTION.......that is done from the REAL data....

it is a "massaging" of the original data....

in 99.99999999999999999 percent of scientific research this modeling is done from data from.....nuclear reactors, chemical equations, rockets flying in space....

This modeling had to be done with ALL of the gasses in the air, PLUS water vapour, plus what are known as the "forcings" of different gasses, the heat produced by the incoming long radiation, the REradiated short wave radiation from all of the soil TYPES, the water TYPES, fresh in rivers, lakes, salt in oceans, estuaries, ice floating, ice continental etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Almost ALL of this kind of modeling in science uses MAYBE two or three variables.

When you get to having many variables, that is called Multi-variate analysis.

And for every variable you add you add......ERROR....

So then you have to pile error on error by making "assumptions" about the ERRORS.....

Let me give you one very simple example.

The predictions about sea level rise.

The original "stations" were basically wood devices that floated in the oceans gotta remember the tides go in and they go out.....many of them had been MOVED over the decades, many repaired, many non-functional, etc. etc.

so...into the mix of information from many different quality physical devices they threw in satellite data.

This gets complicated but....

The earth is not round it is an "oblate spheroid" kind of like an egg.

So, the satellite calculations had to take into account many things, but the very first thing was to calculate the "average" depth of the ocean and in terms of it being an oblate spheroid not a ball....

Ok, the calcualtions just to figure an "average" depth are horrendous but let us say that they could do that.....

The depth, remember has to be calculated before you can calculate the "where the surface it",

Because..... the gravitational field of the earth affects the "tides" which affects.....the "height" of the water......

So.....after that monstorous multivariate analysis that had to be done for that....they could then figure in the radar readings for the "surface" of the oceans which also has to be "averaged".

And, to give a very SMALL indication of the complexity of this....

Think of islands in the ocean...

Small islands have the water "lower" around them than do big islands...it is because of the heat of the land mass....

That is just ONE of the MANY "averages" that had to be thrown into the multivariate analysis....

But......they then came back with an "average sea level" from the satellites...

Now to the end of this digression.....

You DO remember that the predictions about sea level rise were in the amounts of a centimeter or so ....right....?

Think about that.... the predictions were in the amounts of a centimeter.

Well, I discovered an article published.....BY NASA....BY....NASA... who was running the satellites....

And it said that the ERROR in the satellite readings were UNDER a meter....

please try to understand that....

They were making a calculation which measured one centimeter when the ERROR of the equipment was UNDER 99 centimeters.

That means that the ERROR .......DWARFED the measurement....

THEN was when I learned to COPY everything to a cd..... within two months the article disappeared from public view it is only vieweable by subscription....

Later an article appeared which said that they had been able to "take care of" the error.....

not with physically better equipment but with....more calculations...

Now...to get back to Margaret Thatcher....

A guy made the now (in)famous "hocky stick" graph which showed that the carbon dioxide and temperatures had catapulted upward at the same time and there was the smoking gun.

The British Government then THREW money at HADCRUT....

To fast forward, a very famous scientist and politician in Britian debunked the hockey stick graph, the Physical Society in the U.S. blew massive holes in it and it quietly went away....

That was the first chink in the armour.

A lot of people started asking Phil Jones for his data, and he started calling names and wouldn't show the data.

Then the 7th IPCC report came out that said that carbon dioxide temperature etc. had increased, I think, 20 percent..... a half a year later one of the original guys that got the nobel prize, there were a bunch, pointed out that a BUREAUCRAT...in the U.N. had....

moved the decimal place.....20 should be 2

That was quietly buried.

Then the glaciers melting in the Himalayas was shown to be based on a:
Telephone call
to a guy that had read a blog
that was written by some guy, we do not know who.

The Indian scientists had been waving their hands over in India saying....hey ...look here.....the glaciers aren't melting!! Hey....look over here...

And the people at HADCRUT in england, said oh they are just deniers....

but....the glaciers are GROWING...duuuhhh

they do....melt.....somewhat...in the summer...

But back to HADCRUT.....

The heat was now so bad that the name of the place was changed to:

Climate Research Unit or CRU.

The EFFECT of that is very simple for research ON THE NET......which is what the average "lay" person does....

After a couple of years.......everybody in school or whatever has been trained on CRU.....

They do not enter "HADCRUT".....

so......all of the discussion that I just gave above...is now BURIED hundreds of thousands of posts down in that marvellous number that you see when Google says..."returned 1.2 million results in .4 seconds".

So......

to recap.

I) What started out as a simple scientific question that could not be researched properly at the time became:
II) A valid research question that was going to be played for a political purpose but was still a valid question that became:
III) A political football that.....

Came to the United States when GWB was in office....

Here is what the people that hate GWB want to FORGET....

BUSH actually BOUGHT INTO IT.....HE WAS ON THE RIGHT SIDE...as far as the lefty progressives are concerned....

Now, he had to mollify BOTH sides.....but he bought into it....

BUT the leftie progressives still hate him....

So then you had Al Gore really get involved.... he wanted to for two reasons:

a) he got credit with the lefties in the Democratic party
b) he could make money hand over fist....he owns stock in MANY green corporations...

then the whole thing took on a life all it's own.

Now....are there bad things in the air...YES....

Should we reduce them....YES....

But carbon dioxide is not one of them...

Last year, in a desperate attempt to get some more traction out of this and to save face....

the EPA announced that carbon dioxide is a POISON and should be reduced...

If I were you, I would immediately hold my breath because you are exhaling carbon dioxide right now and MIGHT DIE!!!

So again to finish up.....what started out a valid scientific question turned into a money making political scam.

woodsmoke

[de_koraco]

Re: &quoteliverables"

what started out a valid scientific question turned into a money making political scam.

So as not to do a long post (woodsmoke covered that one), this is the essence. Like all the greenie BS, it plays to the simple sense of white people's self loathing - food, the environment, how we killed off natives in America or Africa or whereever... It's like the stats giving 99 percent of desktop usage to Windows - nobody involved in that stuff wants to see any other kind of data, so there must not be any, and if you call BS on the "models" (I haphazardly lol at mathemathical models of a chaotic system like the climate), you're called out as a "denier" or something like that - secretly billed as a lunatic.

I never thought I'd say it, but thank God for China, without them the UN would actually be able to enforce additional money wasting "standards".

[bsniadajewski]

Re: &quoteliverables"

Fascinating, woody. Politics (and $$) seems to always screw up a truly valid scientific venture and research.

I think that in large quantities does CO2 become to animals but not to plants, since they (plants) "inhale", if you will, CO2 and "exhale" O2. But since CO2 makes up currently only 0.0039% of our atmosphere, it isn't.

On a related note, I found, through our good friends over at Slashdot, an article over at The Bulletin concerning renewable energy that is very intriguing, but it still seems weak since we'd only need ~4.5 million wind turbines to provide all the world's energy usage @ 10MW per turbine. Two billion of them would not be necessary. So there may be an agenda.

Of course it's not infinite - nothing is (probably) but that's not really the claim, is it? The only sensible point made is that renewable sources require materials that are finite, but I think we knew that already.

That's pretty much it. (I'm getting Slashdot syndrome, mistyping everywhere thoughI fixed 'em. Must be getting hot in here)

Also, Happy Thanksgiving (Dzień Szczęśliwy Dziękczynienia) <== That's Polish, (I hope I have that right, any other Polish speakers around?)

[eggbert]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

So what you guys are thinking is that GW (caused by man) is all a big lie? Correct if I'm wrong though. I don't mean to troll, but just don't thatwhat we have done in the past (Industrial Revolution, etc.) didn't affect our environment one bit. I, and quite a few people who may agree with me and are looking her, would love to be proven wrong.

I've seen similar articles over on Slashdot and, though the prevaling (nto dominating) attitude is somewhat libertarian (unlike me), there is good even split between "deniers" and non-"deniers" (I using that for lack of a better term.)

I've always wondered about volcanoes, forest fires, etc constantly spewing soot and debris into the air. Volcanoes have been occurring forever, and the industrial revolution only about 200 years. Yet we are all still here.

Although I suppose burning fossil fuels is somewhat different than volcanic activity... But I somehow think the environment has been through much much worse than a few years of tail pipe fumes

There's a funny video on youtube called "George Carlin on the environment." I won't post the link here because it contains foul language, but I think he hits the nail right on the head. Beneath all the misanthropy, there is a lot of wisdom there.

[GreyGeek]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

I read that article on "The Myth of Renewable Energy".

It is identical to the argument that Microsoft made in times past by claiming that Linux was not free. When one runs a computer the cost of the computer is not affected by the cost of the OS used to run it. An OS that costs $300 costs exactly $300 more than one which costs $0. The cost of the hardware is a wash.

A coal/nuclear fired power plant that consumes resources during its construction and maintenance is no different from a solar array which consumes resources during its construction and maintenance. Once in place, the coal/nuclear fired plant must continue to pay for the mining, processing and shipping of coal/uranium to its location, and it must pay for the disposal of ash/spent fuel. And, it will use water as a cooling/cleaning medium. A solar plant, while it does use water for cleaning and cooling, does not have to pay a penny for the mining, processing and delivery of sunlight to its collectors. Also, it does not have to pay for the disposal of spent sunlight.

So, while the coal or uranium is NOT a wash in those power plants, the sunlight IS a wash, unless some government gets cute and decides to level a sunlight tax on solar power plants.

Looking at it in another way, we have a good measure of how much AFFORDABLE coal is available for consumption, the rate at which it is being consumed, and the math which describes its consumption and exhaustion is well defined. When the Arab oil embargo took place in the 1970s coal companies paid for a nation-wide ad which exclaimed that "There is NO energy shortages! We have 600 years of coal left at the current level of consumption!". Fifteen years later, during another energy scare, another ad was placed saying that "We have 200 years of coal left at the current level of consumption!". In both cases they were right. BUT, rates of consumption don't remain constant, and they knew it.

[url=http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_section3.htm]Table IX.[/url]

Lifetime in years of United States coal (EET). The lifetime (EET) in years of U.S. 
coal reserves (both the high and low estimate of the U.S.G.S.) are shown for several 
rates of growth of production from the 1972 level of 0.5 (x109) metric tons per year. 
 
     High Estimate (yr)   Low Estimate (yr) 
Zero      2872           680 
 1%      339            205 
[b] 2%      203            134 [/b]
 3%      149            102 
 4%      119            83 
 5%      99            71 
 6%      86            62 
 7%      76            55 
 8%      68            50 
 9%      62            46 
 10%      57            42 
 11%      52            39 
 12%      49            37 
 13%      46            35

Bartlett adds:

Other advertisements stress just the 500 years (no caveat):
"We are sitting on half the world's known supply of coal–enough for over 500 years."
Some ads stress the idea of self-sufficiency without stating for how long a period we might be self-sufficient.
"Coal, the only fuel in which America is totally self-sufficient."
Other ads suggest a deep lack of understanding of the fundamentals of the exponential function.

Yet today there are still those who shrill (sic) for less energy and no growth...
Now America is obligated to generate more energy - not less - merely to provide
for its increasing population... With oil and gas in short supply, where will that
energy come from? Predominately from coal. The U.S. Department of the Interior
estimates America has 23 % more coal than we dreamed of, 4,000,000,000,000 (trillion!) tons
of it. Enough for over 500 years. (The non-sentences are in the original.)

A simple calculation of the EET based on a current production rate of 0.6 x 109 tons / yr
shows that the growth in the rate of production of coal can't exceed 0.8 % / yr if the ad's
4 x 1012 tons of coal is to last for the ad's 500 yr. However, it should be noted that
the 4 x 1012 tons cited in the ad is 2.8 times the size of the large estimate of U.S. coal reserves
and is 12 times the size of the small estimate of U.S. coal reserves as cited by Hubbert.

When we view the range of creative information that is offered to the public we cannot
wonder that people are confused. We may wish that we could have rapid growth of the
rate of consumption and have the reserves of U.S. coal last for a large number of years,
but very simple calculations are all that is needed to prove that these two goals are incompatible.
At this critical time in our nation's history we need to shift our faith to calculations (arithmetic)
based on factual data and give up our belief in Walt Disney's First Law: "Wishing will make it so."

[woodsmoke]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

Oh yeah, because I am sure that I was boring the readers with my LONG post above, I didn't mention that the people that were doing the AGW calculations left out volcanic activity also.

As an illustration of just how spot on eggbert's comment is, the painting "the Scream" has the red sky because of Krakatoa erupting on the OTHER side of the Earth weeks before.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream

Of course some art critics who are MUCH smarter than Munch himself said that he would never be that literal and that actually he was making a reference to nearby slaughterhouses.

I don't know but the accepted story is the Krakatoa explosion.

The Mt. Tambora eruption caused the "Year without a summer"..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

Yet....please remember that volcanic activity was completely discounted in the calculations because it was "intermitent" what is not talked about by them is what a few climatologists admit....is that have NO CLUE as to how much stuff from volcanoes stays in the atmosphere and for how long.

And yes the Carlin routine is very funny!

great comment eggbert!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

Science magazine is now beginning the back-down from carbon dioxide, just too rich for words.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15858603

Of course if any of the major media in the U.S. had interviewed Phil Jones, like Daily Mail magazine in Britain did, then the Journal Science could have saved some paper.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...organised.html

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

The back down is now OFFICIAL in the U.S.

ABC news....ooops....not the ABC news.... the

online ABCScience site...buried, below the fold on page 43:

is repeating, with expansion, the study FUNDED by AAAS

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...25/3376365.htm

woodsmoke

[bsniadajewski]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

Yes, those are things to consider too, woody and eggbert.

A coal/nuclear fired power plant that consumes resources during its construction and maintenance is no different from a solar array which consumes resources during its construction and maintenance. Once in place, the coal/nuclear fired plant must continue to pay for the mining, processing and shipping of coal/uranium to its location, and it must pay for the disposal of ash/spent fuel. And, it will use water as a cooling/cleaning medium. A solar plant, while it does use water for cleaning and cooling, does not have to pay a penny for the mining, processing and delivery of sunlight to its collectors. Also, it does not have to pay for the disposal of spent sunlight.

So, while the coal or uranium is NOT a wash in those power plants, the sunlight IS a wash, unless some government gets cute and decides to level a sunlight tax on solar power plants.

Looking at it in another way, we have a good measure of how much AFFORDABLE coal is available for consumption, the rate at which it is being consumed, and the math which describes its consumption and exhaustion is well defined. When the Arab oil embargo took place in the 1970s coal companies paid for a nation-wide ad which exclaimed that "There is NO energy shortages! We have 600 years of coal left at the current level of consumption!". Fifteen years later, during another energy scare, another ad was placed saying that "We have 200 years of coal left at the current level of consumption!". In both cases they were right. BUT, rates of consumption don't remain constant, and they knew it.

Based on what I read here from you, it should be much less expensive to build solar panels then, since they would save a whole bunch of money on not having to extract sunlight (it's being done for us already) and solar waste disposal (there is no waste, I think).

I wonder the how much coal we have at our disposal now. The ads said 600 yrs in the '70s, 200 yrs in the late '80s to early '90s, extrapolation would suggest not even a century's worth (maybe, I don't know), since as you said rates of consumption don't remain constant (they'd go up). That means, I think, we still need to have these other energy sources like solar and wind at the ready for when we ever come close to an energy problem. Instead of "shrilling" for less energy, I'd say we should just be more responsible with the energy and not waste too much of it.

[woodsmoke]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

All good points bsniadajewski.

Anyone who knows my history knows that I have, since first entering a Linux forum, stated that I hold an earned MS in plant ecology and have been an "environmentalist" since the sixties.

I am all about conserving energy, doing more with less, recycling etc. etc. I was one of the winners in the old Mother Earth News magazines holistic farming contest in the early seventies.

And, a hick farmer and my "idea" for an electric "fence charger" was on the front cover of TMEN with a modification that we did not think of, a simple diode from Radio Shack.

So... I am ALL for any kind of environmental thing, but I'm also about not being scammed and having "the people" talked to, by the smarter than thous, like they are morons just because they don't have degrees from an ivy league college.

Again, good points all.

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

.....
I wonder the how much coal we have at our disposal now. The ads said 600 yrs in the '70s, 200 yrs in the late '80s to early '90s, extrapolation would suggest not even a century's worth (maybe, I don't know), since as you said rates of consumption don't remain constant (they'd go up). ....

Here is a graph showing our coal reserves as a pyramid:
[img width=400 height=351]http://www.clean-energy.us/images/pyramid.gif[/img]

Notice that the peak represents active mines. Including our active mines and "estimated recoverable" it claims that we have 275 Billion short tons (2000 lbs as opposed to 2,200 lbs). Adding "demonstrated" we have 507 Billion short tons. If we include "identified" and "inferred" we have 1,731 Billion short tons. If we add "undiscovered" it claims we have 3,096 Billion short tons.

The chart I gave above is in Metric tons, which is close to a Long ton, or 2,200 lbs. A short ton is about 90% of a Metric ton, so the 275 Billion short tons would be about 248 Metric tons, and 3,096 would be about 2,786 Metric tons. The US has been producing and consuming about 1.06 Billion short tons per year for the last 10 years. No significant new recoverable coal fields have been discovered in several decades.
[img width=400 height=175]http://ubuntuone.com/1AmiZOTn9szIvvxKthhUAk[/img]
www.nma.org/pdf/c_most_requested.pdf

The question now is "what is the US annual rate of consumption of coal?"
The answer is:
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.asp...on-growth-rate

As you can see, the annual rate oscillated between -3% and 8% until 2008. Since then it has declined to a -10% rate, according to the graph. (A steady -3% rate would assure that our children and great great great grandchildren will have coal to use. )

The chart I posted before was made during the early 80's, when the rate was about 8%. At that annual rate of consumption the coal reserves would have lasted between 50 and 68 more years. The NMA data shows that the reserves, production and consumption hasn't essential changed in the last 10 years, but it doesn't showthe decline the graph does.

So, according to conflicting data, the world's consumption of coal is going up, but the US production and consumption of coal, has been about the same for the last 10 years. But, except for when the rates go negative during bad economic times, it appears that the rate could be approximated by using an average of 3%. That means that the US coal resource could last between 100 and 150 years. But, if people can't afford it the coal could last much longer.

Thankfully, the coal will be a source of energy that will allow us to build infrastructure to transition to from oil to renewables , even if those renewables are recycled Carbon, which is a good idea regardless of AGW. Because, quite frankly, carbon based liquid fuels are the only energy source with the density to power aircraft and automobiles efficiently and effectively. IMO.

[de_koraco]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

Instead of "shrilling" for less energy, I'd say we should just be more responsible with the energy and not waste too much of it.

Hard to achieve with emerging countries continually increasing their demands. I haven't been actively following the stats since I quit my job as a journalist, but in essence, the last 20 years or so have seen a mild increase in fossil fuel demand and consumtion in the West, and a huge one among the emerging countries. Hell, the severe insistence of the Western countries that Africa not dig into its coal reserves has been one of the reasons why the whole continent has been stagnating during the entire technology boom. Coal (and oil of course) is also one of the main reasons why China is basically colonizing Africa, in addition to ousourcing their production costs.

China has been staedfastly vetoing all the resolutions on global emisssion cuts precisely for that reason, they don't intend to halt development in order to fund an unproven hypothesis. Can we really blame them? lol, and at the same time that the Obama administration is planning to bring broadband internet to every corner of the US (why, so Joe and Sally can do porn and Netflix?), and Germany is leveraging their biggest companies in order to fund a money losing solar power program, China is putting billions into nanotechnology. You're right, I would like to see Western governments be somewhat more responsible with their taxpayers money, but I don't think that one is coming any time soon.

We are likely to see some changes in the general lifestyle in the West due to the ongoing financial crisis. the end effect should be a decrease in energy consumption, but what's really needed is a real political incentive towards making alternative energy sources financially viable. You don't have that, and at the current rate you're not likely to see it any time soon.

[bsniadajewski]

Re: &quoteliverables&quot;

We are likely to see some changes in the general lifestyle in the West due to the ongoing financial crisis. the end effect should be a decrease in energy consumption, but what's really needed is a real political incentive towards making alternative energy sources financially viable. You don't have that, and at the current rate you're not likely to see it any time soon.

Agreed.

Another article to look at here at Ars Technica.