Brother, Can You Spare 22 Terawatts? Big ideas for the future of energy (Ronald Bailey)

Reason Magazine ^ | 24 November 2006 | Ronald Bailey

[devolve]

Yes

Creating a new parody .gif ????

[Lurker]

I didn't even bother bringing a jacket to work tonite.

Thanks for the Orbison wav file. I'm a big fan of that guy.

He's the only performer that Elvis said he would never follow on stage.

High praise indeed.

L

[ckilmer]

A great idea would be to combine water desalination with algae-to-oil production.

[devolve]

But we Republicans own all the secrets and patents

And algore can't get any lefties to invent or invest in alternative energy production without federal grants

And the Sierra Club and Greens now have decided that don't want any windfarms or magic gizmos ruining our pristine power hungry cities or rural areas or oceans or rivers

[potlatch]

I didn't post an Orbison wav file. Possibly you got the link from devolve's huge music links??

[potlatch]

Well, Teddy isn't going to allow them to ruin his view but I think Texas may end up with some out in the Gulf of Mexico.

[monkapotamus]

[Lurker]

Yep. It was devolve.

You have my apologies.

L

[potlatch]

No apologies needed. devolve has all the good music!!

[Lurker]

I have Mr. Orbison to thank for a particularly good evening back in my 20s.

The young woman involved had never heard of him before, so I introduced her to his work.

We were innocently chatting away over a bottle of wine in front of a fire place with Roy singing softly in the background and before I knew it....

Thanks again Mr. Orbison.

L

[devolve]

Except for the PBS Roy Orbison shows many do not see or hear him much now

So I keep some those singers out there in my small way

My liberal NYC sister is huge Roy Orbison fan

I made her a webpage of some of his top songs and some graphics I worked up a few years ago

[Lurker]

I've got a couple Orbison discs in my collection.

They're great for those evenings when Lurker Jr is elsewhere and Mrs. L and I have the house to ourselves.

It's amazing what a few small things like a fireplace, an Orbison CD, and a decent bottle of wine can do for an evening.

L

[devolve]

Yup

Any particular Roy Orbison songs you like best?

I've got some excellent .wavs - and Elvis plus even some of the lib singers who I only sing and not talk

Also several versions of 007 theme sites

I use a 56K dialup WebTV Plus - so I must avoid the huge 2500-3500K .mp3s like they are poison

[Lurker]

"In Dreams" is one of my favorites, "Crying" does it every time, and "Mystery Girl" is another great.

"Only The Lonely" is another Orbison classic.

Then there's "Dream Baby"...

Man it's hard to think of one I don't like. His performance in "Black and White Night" was incredible.

"Blue Bayou" is an out and out heartstopper as far as I'm concerned.

Then man was amazing. The world is a poorer place without him.

L

[AmericaUnited]

Nocera calculates that if 9 billion people in 2050 used energy at the rate that Americans do today that the world would have to generate 102.2 TW of power—more than seven times current production.

How idiotic and stupid!!! As if the entire globe's population of 9 billion would EVER, EVER, EVER be living at the American quality of life 44 years from now.

[Scutter]

Nocera suggests, assuming heroic conservation measures that would enable affluent American lifestyles

OR maybe China and India could master birth control and stop increasing their populations at an unsustainable rate.

I know it's not popular with some of the folks here, but what America needs to do is completely eliminate it's dependence on foreign oil. IMHO this means a move to electric cars coupled with the development of a sufficient power generation system based on nuclear and other technologies not requiring foreign oil.

If we do that, China and India can reproduce themselves back into the stone age and it won't directly effect us because we won't be competing with them for oil.

[highlander_UW]

22 Terra-watts!? What they going to do, run a time machine built into a DeLaurian?

[sig226]

"On the other hand if the world's 9 billion in 2050 adopted India's current living standards, the world would need to produce only 4 TW of power."

There's a great idea </sarc> from the article. The piece also suggests that if we generate power from rivers and wind farms, it would solve a large part of this problem. That is, if Ted Kennedy and the greenies ever allow it to happen.

In keeping with the musical sub theme of this thread, it occurs to me that is a good band name: Ted Kennedy and The Greenies. Of course, they would suck.

[Kenny Bunk]

The answer is to revive the New England paper mills.

Here in my town, when we were the world's leading producer of ... ahem ... "personal tissue" all of our beautiful downtown got their electricity from the hydro plant used to run the mill, and houses were heated with waste steam from the boilers fired with would chips.

But wait, perhaps we won't at least need heat in the winters of the future. What with global warming, and all, the Commons of NE towns may start to look like Mexican colonial towns, with palm trees and orchids growing round.

Make our new populations feel right to home. The Somalis can pick dates to their hearts' content, and the Mexicans can riot in familiar surroundings.

[potlatch]

You've got the music devolve!! I did forget that "Dream Baby" IS on my page in one of your graphics!