OFF: UK's premier green awareness festival under threat from police and local council.

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, M Holmes wrote:

> Jonathan Jarrett writes:
>>  	Well, sustainability, fundamentally, wouldn't you say?
> It's a big universe. Could be a while before we use all the energy and
> materials in it.

 	If we can't reach anything off-earth economically it doesn't 
matter how of it there is, does it?

> Ah, but you might be agreeing with me for the wrong reasons ;-)

 	Or, at a pinch, in the wrong order ;-)

>> and people
>> have been pointing this out since the 1960s but now that green is more
>> mainstream the basic contradictions are beginning to be addressed, as with
>> any ideology that attracts a following. Again, however, as to the
>> necessity of solutions like nuclear power, I agree with you, though my
>> money's on solar-catalysed fuel cells.
>
> Could be, though we'd have to cover an awful lot of deserts with them to
> make a dent in the problem.

 	No, no, you're thinking at a very different level to me. You're 
thinking super-huge infrastructure projects, but I'm thinking `have a 
fuel-cell bin to power your house' sort of affair. Massively-distributed 
*local* generation, such as we're already beginning to get with houses 
whose solar gear generates a surplus. The grid becomes something you only 
need for industry because most energy is being generated at or close to 
point of use. And there are two teams in London alone working on this 
(typically, without cooperating) so I'm hopeful an answer will be 
forthcoming before long. Of course it's not a final answer, and the 
biggest problem is how much water it takes out of circulation if it's done 
on any scale. But it's an excellent temporiser.

> The economics of this aren't significantly different to those which
> built sewers. It's an infrastructural public health project. The first
> sewers were privately built IIRC. If it doesn't get done as a gummint
> project, mebbe some Blofeld character can build 'em and say he'll turn
> 'em around if we all don't keep paying the fees.

 	For a libertarian, Mike, you sure are keen on the gummint to solve 
our problems.

> It's not even as if solar sails wouldn't be useful anyways. It's time we
> got in some practice using 'em.

 	Solar surfboards will not, I'd hazard, be far behind in this 
conversation. Yours,
 		     Jon

-- 
       Jonathan Jarrett, Cambridge    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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  "With Capitalism, man exploits man.  With Socialism, it is exactly opposite"
 	                 -Robert Anton Wilson