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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.geodesic
Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 15:39:00 EST
              <GEODESIC@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         Bill Long <LONGWJ@SNYPLAVA.BITNET>
Subject:      alternatives (was re: rest in peace)

>From: Ken Latta <klatta@MERIT.EDU>
>
>[paragraph deleted]
>
>Now I'm not for or against them, just trying to understand them.
>Some other issues, utilities hookup. I believe almost every dwelling
>should be connected to the utilities grid unless the cost of
>connection is truly prohibitive. While I support exploratory
>technology, few dwellings only ever have one owner. Re-use
>requires flexibility.
>
>Even the "bad" technologies aren't always so obviously bad. Consider
>electricity. The encouragement of electric vehicles for instance
>represents an increase in demand. And don't forget that one of
>Fullers' goals was the world power grid which would permit the distribution
>of electricity generated by the most benign sources (wind, hydro, natural
>gas).
>
>[more stuff deleted]

I don't get it.  I guess I feel this is an issue that Bucky goofed on.  I
fail to see what advantage a world power grid would have.  Sure, power
could be distributed from energy rich regions to areas not so fortunate,
but it could be witheld just as easily.  If a dwelling can be energy self-
sufficient then why not?  In fact I think every dwelling should produce,
store, and use its own power (thermal, mechanical, or electrical) and I
don't think this is an unrealistic goal.  Remember, electricity is only as
clean as the fuel that was burned to produce it (a significant contributor
to the eastern U.S.'s acid rain problem is coal fired generation plants in
the mid-west for example) and besides that any "grid" will contain control
nodes that may be prone to tamperring (I won't go so far as to say energy
terrorism).  Localized generation of electricity would have none of these
pitfalls (maybe others).  More disheartening than the fact that there are
not more domes in use is the fact that more existing homes haven't been
retrofitted with solar-electric panels.  Yeah, the cost at this time is
prohibitive to most of us, but would that be the case if as much money was
spent on solar R&D as is currently spent looking for, drilling for,
transporting, and cleaning up oil?...I don't think so.

As for flexibility, how many of us would know how to operate the gas lamps
that were used for lighting homes at the turn of the century (in the US
anyway)?  Their improper use could lead to asphixiation or explosion.  Even
the batteries I would use to store my solar generated electricity carry
with them certain hazards (don't want to spill battery acid all over) and
their production has a detrimental impact on our environment.  For that
matter the wind-driven electrical generator/water pump I intend to build
one day soon might pose a threat to local birds and hawks, the gas pipeline
that will be skirting along the edge of my property may disrupt the feeding
range of the local deer population, and many early hydro-electric dams were
built with no consideration of how they might affect fish species that need
to spawn upstream (or the value of the land that was flooded to produce
them).  We need to be flexible of mind in order to utilize the advances
that are within the realm of possibility while minimizing the impact (read
damage) we produce on this earth and I don't see a world power grid leading
to this type of innovative thought...just dependancy on existing technology.

I realize that I look at this issue within the context of my own limited
point of view.  If you can expand it, please do.

billong   ->not a dome virgin anymore!
somewhere in Clinton county, Upstate New York, bienvennue to my french-
canadian neighbors
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