HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska)
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:23:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.142156.7115@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <1992Jul27.152430.9460@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>
>If you had *read* the paragraph you quoted instead of knee jerk flaming,
>you would have seen Larry's proposed solution. That's strict emissions
>requirements. The advantage of this scheme over taxation is that the 
>government doesn't profit from it. Larry seems very determined to limit
>the amount of money the government coerces from his pocket, an admirable
>trait. This sometimes leads to other problems such as the fact that 
>regulations tend to have hidden costs that are often poorly understood.
>The carbon tax idea is better at getting the costs out in the open, but
>is subject to abuse as a revenue raising measure for the government. 
>
>Allowing the government to get it's hands on too much money is
>a bad thing(tm) because they'll spend it on silly pork to get themselves
>re-elected, achieving a social good should be done at the expense of
>*all* the people who benefit, and at no expense to those who don't.
>That means the carbon tax is flawed since many of those who benefit
>from reduced pollution don't pay. 

Who should pay?  Those who get the "benefit" of clean air, or those who
cause the dirty air.  I think a carbon tax makes the right people pay.
The problem of govt profiting and eventually depending on it is a real 
one, though.

>This brings up the idea of a market
>in tradeable pollution permits. The government could issue a set number
>of permits each year, at no cost, to every citizen. The citizens could
>engage in free trade in these permits. This way the government receives
>no revenue from pollution. Yet the total amount of pollution is reduced
>to the level of the number of permits. A built in safeguard against
>overly strict regulation could be a price trigger on permit trades such 
>that if permit bidding drove the price above a certain limit, the government 
>would be obligated to issue additional permits.

This has some similarities to regulations in that the level of permissable
pollution is set by govt which is a questionable situation.  Your
safeguard would be of questionable value since setting its level would
be subject to the same pressures as those affecting the number of permits.
Would there be limits on the "migration" of these permits so that
regions inhabited by rich polluters wouldn't be dirty?

What if the carbon "tax" were mandated to be spent on projects related
to carbon pollution only, such as cleanup and retrofiting, health care
for pollution related expenses.  These schemes are sometimes referred to
as true cost pricing since they attempt to avoid giving the money to the
govt.
>
>Gary


-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Date: 26 Jul 92 01:11:26 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <JMC.92Jul25115938@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>In article <50876@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>Let me amplify Victor Yodaiken's point.  Carter's authority over all
>foreign countries was limited.  His theory that the U.S. dropping
>reprocessing would somehow promote non-proliferation and would be
>copied by other countries was completely wrong.  Not one other
>country gave up reprocessing.  France is building up its reprocessing
>capacity to 800 tons of fuel rods per year.

Let me clarify my point a little. Carter cut off funding for the Clinch
River fast breeder demonstration project for several reasons, one of which
may have been nuclear proliferation (fast breeders can manufacture
plutonium for nuclear bombs), but certainly the vast costs and technical
uncertainties of the project were also an issue. I want to point out,
however, that the abysmal failure of the French fast breeder program has
at least partially justified Carter's decision, and that those who claim
that the nuclear cycle would be economic without "political interference"
need to explain the failure of the French project, and why one should
believe that a US project would fare better. 

>Carter's decision split the difference between the anti-nukes and
>the pro-nukes, generating an incoherent policy of retaining nuclear
>power but doing it in a half-assed way.  It was his habit.  He gave
>half of foreign policy to Cyrus Vance, a conservative Democrat, at
>the State Department and the other half to Andrew Young, an anti-U.S.
>leftist at the U.N.

I'll agree with all of this except for the characterizations of Young and 
Vance. Vance certainly did more harm to his country than Young ever did.

Reminds me of a Phil Agee story. When Agee, first returned to the US
(he had fled after breaking CIA regs and publishing a harrowing 
account of his years with the CIA helping to prop up various torture
regimes) he came during the last presidential election. Our Great Leader
(at the time only a great leader designate) was CIA chief at the time
that Agee published his expose, and rushed to the press to denounce Agee
as an enemy of the US. Agee's comment was "If I really wanted to 
damage the USA, I'd be working 24hours a day in the Bush campaign."



>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.skeptic
From: orf@scrap.ssec.wisc.edu (Leigh Orf)
Subject: Re: Lawyer's science vs. unbiased presentation of the facts
Reply-To: orf@scrap.ssec.wisc.edu (Leigh Orf)
Organization: Dept. of Atmospheric, Oceanic & Space Sciences, UW Maidson, WI
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 16:39:59 GMT

In article <1992Jul25.210755.21103@techbook.com>, szabo@techbook.com (Nick
Szabo) writes:
 
>We already know that there are _benefits_ of CO2 itself, such as the 
>fertilization effect which increases the productivity of agriculture 
>and most ecosystems.

Increasing atmospheric CO2 will increase agricultural productivity? Hmmm. I
would be interested in reading documentation about this. I have always been
under the impression that most plants are very efficient CO2 engines, and
that, unlike phosphorus, CO2 is not a biolimiting compound.

leigh

>-- 
>szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
>Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 


                                      --
                      leigh orf orf@scrap.ssec.wisc.edu 
            u of wisconsin atmospheric oceanic and space sciences
                       'your hands and feet are mangos
                         you're gonna be a genius anyway'
                          -Phish
From: mmwang@adobe.com (Michael Wang)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:44:38 GMT
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated

mancus@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Keith Mancus) writes:
>houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle) writes:
>>  Environmentalists do not advocate coal as an energy source.
>
>  Then what do you advocate in the short term?  I think that some combination
>of (hot) fusion power and space-based solar will prevail in the long term,
>but we just don't have the technology to switch to either one yet.

How about natural gas?

-- 
Michael Wang
mmwang@adobe.com
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9795 sci.physics:11397 sci.energy:3541
From: mancus@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Keith Mancus 283-4283)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real?
Date: 22 Jul 1992 20:40:24 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment, sci.energy
Organization: nasa-jsc

In article <1992Jul22.163434.28422@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
>But like the canals and railroads before them, roads and
>personal vehicles exist to fill a need for mobility expressed by the
>general population. That mobility is economic and social as well as
>physical. Personal mobility has fostered the job hopping career path
>of the majority of Americans. Few feel constrained to remain in one
>spot working for one company all their lives because that's where the
>rail line runs. Instead they have been liberated to change their direction
>at will by the network of roadways and the cheap, quick vehicles that
>travel them.

  Which raises an interesting question for the Europeans (and others):
does this pattern also prevail in your country?  Does the average professional
have a dozen jobs over the course of a lifetime?  Are houses regarded
as investments and resold every 5 years?  Do people hop from city to city?
Does anyone commute 1 hour each way to and from work?
  I am expressing no opinion either way.  I am simply trying to find
out how other countries compare to the U.S. career culture.

  -Keith Mancus <mancus@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: haralds@ifi.unit.no
Subject: Re: Whale rights - Science and sentimen
Organization: Ifi, University of Trondheim / AVH
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 08:48:02 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.071631.5359@reed.edu> sharvy@reed.edu (V Headshape)
writes:

(misc deleted for readab.)

>This sounds like a "might makes right" argument.  It is probably false that
>'using force and fraud in social relations is not in one's rational
>self-interest..."  If, through use of force, I can gain total power over
>everyone, then it is probably in my "rational self-interest" to do so,
>especially if I have an urgent need for power (people's needs differ).
>As for the particular criteria presented above: YES, some animals
>(e.g., whales) are members of social arrangements (and some individual
                ^^^^^^^^
there are big differences  between different kinds of whales, some are and some

are not. The killer whale is a rather smart one and has a relatively
social behaviour, but the minke whale is a bit stupid and has a very 
limited social life. 

>people are not); PERHAPS some can make moral evaluations (this depends
>on their intelligence & sentience, which was the basis for MY analysis
>of where rights come from); YES, some will retaliate if not treated well
>(although this criterion is irrelevant); WHO CARES if one can be protected
>from this (one can be protected from human retaliation too); and WHO CARES
>whether the animal is of practical use to us.
>
>-- 
>Liberate the Weirdoes and You Liberate the Squares
>

harald
From: ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Clinton, Gore, and the End of the Automobile Age
Date: 23 Jul 92 23:08:04 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

In article <BruItw.9BD@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>I guess that depends on how you define "long distance".  I usually fly when
>I want to go a "long distance" (more than about a three or four hour drive).
On a private plane, no doubt.

>if you need a car on the other end?  Hail a cab?  What a mess.  Simply driving
>to where you want to be is much more simple, direct, convenient, and 
>comfortable.

You are projecting your rural/suburban situation on urbanites. Anyone commuting
into Paris would take twice as long driving as they would using the Metro. The
strike in 87 showed that the city can't function normally without public
transportation. I happened to be visiting there and rode with a collegue to his
lab; it took 3 hrs compared to his usual 30 min commute. 

And hailing a cab and giving your destination is surely simpler, and
at least as direct and convenient (no parking) as driving, especially
if the city is unfamiliar.

>So what have I done beyond your nose?  I am annoyed by the folks around LA
>who insist that I pay for a train system I hope I never have to use.  Such
>people are overstepping my "nose boundary".  If some people want to build
>a train and charge people to ride on it that's fine with me, but I don't want
>to have anything to do with such a waste of money, time, and resources.

In a densely populated area, everyone benefits from public
transportation.  Witness Paris, London or NYC. Drivers would certainly
suffer in NYC if the subway shut down. Beyond the question of
congestion, electric trains produce less polution and everyone
benefits from that too. Similar justification (arguable, perhaps) is
used for diesel buses.

I'm not familiar with LA but there are cities where public transportation
is not just safer and cleaner, but necessary, and for many purposes, simpler
faster, more convenient, and if you like reading, more comfortable.
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Radioactivity and Coal (Was Re: Is car pooling for real?)
Followup-To: sci.environment
Date: 22 Jul 92 14:21:32
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
	<131133@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: shaw@s119.es.llnl.gov's message of 22 Jul 92 19:12:21 GMT

In article <131133@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> shaw@s119.es.llnl.gov (Henry Shaw 510 423-4645) writes:


   anything more recent.)  This amounts to about about 200,000,000 kg of
   ash produced for every 600MW-year electricity produced. (This
   200,000,000kg of ash contains ~300 kg of U).  The total radioactivity of

Hmm, at 0.7% U235 this concentrates enough material for a small
fission device in a couple of years operation of a large modern 
coal plant!  ;-) ;-) ;-)
	I still think a class-action suit to force coal powerstations
to cut emissions of radioactive materials is in order. :-)

|  Steinn Sigurdsson	|I saw two shooting stars last night		|
|  Lick Observatory	|I wished on them but they were only satellites	|
|steinly@helios.ucsc.edu|Is it wrong to wish on space hardware?		|
| "standard disclaimer"	|I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care - B.B. 1983	|

Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.skeptic
From: rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert)
Subject: Re: Lawyer's science vs. unbiased presentation of the facts
Reply-To: rtp1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 20:22:58 GMT


Following on my previous comments concerning Younger-Dryas:

Does anybody know if there is any historical precedent for
a 4-5 degree WARMING in a period of less than 1000 years?
Especially for a warming of global mean temperatures (YD
was a cooling of (I think) about this magnitude, but it
is supposed to have been pretty localized).
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 28 Jul 92 17:39:08 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <50959@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>It's obvious that the Stanford
>Computer Science department has engaged in a long-term effort to advance
>computerization, and the odds are that some control device which
>depends only on relays  will suffer a control failure  less often than
>a device depending on computer control, or even, God forbid, an AI program.

Actually, control systems based on relays have, in my experience, much higher
failure rates than solid-state systems.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9738 sci.physics:11339 sci.energy:3511
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Subject: Re: Electricity Efficiency
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 06:04:39 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.220122.13101@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:
>As to the issue of economic growth without increased electricity supply:
>
>	These well-established methods [DSM] are so effective that when
>	Southern California Edison Co had a peak load of 15 billion
>	watts, in 1983-1984, it was able to reduce its forecast of
>	peak demand by more than 500 million watts in a single year.

I wonder whether Southen California Edison's ability to reduce its forecast of
peak demand by 500MW (out of more than 15000MW; that's 3.3% of peak demand)
might have had anything to do with their campaign in the early 80s to get
customers to reschedule activities that used electricity to off-peak hours. 
Things like not running your washer and dryer (most home dryers are electrical)
between 10am and 9pm.  Seems like that could put quite a dent in peak demand. 
Doesn't do a damned thing about total demand, though.  Coal and nuclear plants
are BASE-LOAD plants; they run 24 hours a day.

>	At the same time, California's appliance and building standards
>	increased electricity savings even more.  Annual savings
>	represented 8.6% of the utility's peak demand at the time and
>	cost the utility only about 1% as much as building and running
>	a new power station.  If all Americans saved as much electricity
>	as fast as those 10 million did, the U.S. economy could grow by
>	several percent every year while total electricity use decreased.
>
>	Scientific American 9-90
>	note: DSM = Demand Side Management

And, largely due to what they consider overregulation by the state, businesses
are currently fleeing California in droves.

>Obviously we are not talking about wishful thinking, but methods that
>are tried and proven successsful in one of the largest urban areas in
>the U.S.

No, we're talking about confusing total demand with peak demand.  See John
McCarthy's sig, and add to it "And those who don't pay attention to what the
numbers they're using for their arithmetic mean are no better off."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Clinton, Gore, and the End of the Automobile Age
Date: 30 Jul 92 13:50:46 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul27.103350.22764@ccu.umanitoba.ca> ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:
>Check back; I did qualify that statement. It's actually possible for a 
>city to have both methods of transportation available: trains to
>transport the people to work for whom it is convenient, and, stay
>with me now, roads for those people for whom cars are more convenient
>or for travelling at odd hours or for women at night or for grocery
>shopping.... It is permissible to own both a car and a transit pass.

If it were this simple, no one would be arguing. The reality is that
transportation is being viewed as a zero sum game with the bulk of the
funding coming from motorists and going to the benefit of the riders of 
mass transit. I think that if it were percieved that transit riders
were bearing the costs of their choice, and motorists the costs of 
their choice, the arguments would mostly disappear. As long as subsidies
from motorists to transit riders exists, there is going to be bitterness
and debate. In many cases the question boils down to freeways *or* transit, 
and not freeways *and* transit while motorists are expected to bear the
brunt of the costs in either case.

Gary
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9986 sci.physics:11614 sci.energy:3665
From: andrew@rentec.com (Andrew Mullhaupt)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 24 Jul 92 02:09:40 GMT
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Renaissance Technologies Corp., Setauket, NY.

In article <11008@cis.rand.org> rodger@rand.ORG (Rodger Madison) writes:
>Well, as a previous poster pointed out, most of the nations commercial
>airlines fly automated systems.  I haven't heard of any fatalities related
>to this.  There almost certainly will be but they almost certainly will be
>caused by a failure of maintenance or procedure (ie. human error). 

The Airbus that crashed at the Paris air show was as a result of what I would
call an interaction between the (then) new fly-by-wire and pilot error. I
remember that the problem was that the computer 'overruled' the pilots need
to pull the nose up until a delay had passed. The pilot wasn't used to the
delay being a problem since he didn't usually make low passes at air shows.

You may want to call this pure pilot error, but the lack of options available
to the pilot in that situation was (rightly) recognized as unacceptable. It's
too close to a single point failure.


Later,
Andrew Mullhaupt



Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.psychology
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: 23 Jul 92 22:18:34 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <1992Jul23.145515.7912@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:
>I have in front of me a graph of the U.S. that indicates that if we had
>100% extraction of wind potential from a band of states in the center
>of the U.S., we could supply 90% of current U.S. electricity demands.
>I realize that we can't get 100% extraction, or probably even close
>to it, but 20% extraction means 18% of our energy supply.  The graph is
>from Scientific American (9-90) and the article is by the manager of R&D
>at PG&E and a senior research physicist at Princeton.

20% extraction also means an engineering project on the order of building the
Great Wall of China!  And keeping all of those windmills in good running shape
through out rainstorms, tornados, blizzards, floods, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy