From: jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton)
Newsgroups: sci.energy,talk.environment
Subject: Re: FEATURE: "Energy Without Oil" Executive Summary
Keywords: energy environment oil press
Date: 23 Jan 93 17:43:59 GMT
Reply-To: jamesh@aifh.ed.ac.uk (James Hammerton)
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <1993Jan21.104647@roper.mc.ti.com>, a722756@roper.mc.ti.com (W.
Donald Rolph) writes:
# 
# I find a great deal of discomfort with some hypotheses required to support
this
# proposal:
#  
#      1)  96 mpg cars for the general case strike me as highly unrealistic

92mpg prototypes exist at the moment.

#      2)  doubling of fuel efficiency of power plants seems unlikely

CHP does precisely that at the moment!

#      3)  no mention is made for acomodating growth which barring
intervention to
#            ensure a no growth policy will occur at between 2% and 4% a year
#            minimum

A study for the Swedish State Power board showed that with increasing end use
energy efficiencies, CHP, and switching to biofuels, and lower carbon fossil
fuels
(ie gas), that country can eliminate it's nuclear programme, support a 54%
larger
GNP, and have a $1billion per annum saving in the cost of electrical
services.
Over the timescale of the study it allowed 1.9% growth in GNP per annum. In
the
Energy without Oil report, they may have covered this, but since neither you
nor
I have read it, we won't  know will we?
 
#      4)  no mention is made regarding handling the developing countries
which can
#            potentially cause an explosion in the need for energy

Yes it certainly can, especially if the developing countries follow our
examples and
go straight for fossil fuel based power, and use inefficient technologies.
However
remember that in the developing countries, there is the possibility of them 
leapfrogging from their current technologies to the highly efficient
technologies
that we could use to cut our energy demands with. Of course this would require
aid
in the form of money, technical expertise and the transfer of the
technologies
themselves, but it would prevent a lot of environmental disruption, and be
much
cheaper than if they carried on with the current inefficent technologies.
Also
remember again that this was a brief summary that was posted to the group, the
full
report may indeed deal with this.
 
# Statments like these which presuppose fundamental change in worldwide
wpolicy
# without explicitly addressing these policy changes directly strike me as at
best
# misleading.  Why not come out and express the realities:
#  
#      1)  Population growth must be controlled world wide
#      2)  Standards of living in the devleoped world will drop by perhaps as
much
#             as 1/3  to 1/2

Not necessarily. If efficient use of energy and resources is vigorously
pursued,we
can maintain our high living standards whilst considerably reducing the impact
on
the environment.

#      3)  Business will have to undergo major restructuriong to approach
zero
#             emmisions and massive recyclin

I wouldn't disaggree about this, just point out that it may well be necessary
anyway.

#      4)  progress in the devloping world will be slowed by a rigorous need
to
#              support the environemntal controls which are at least being 
#              attempted in the developed world today

But efficient technologies would provide them with a chance to develop a lot
more
easily whilst still supporting the environmental controls.

#      5)  Nonfossile energy sources need to be the predominant energy sources
in
#              the developing world
#      6)  Nuclear energy sources will become ever increasingly important

Not necessarily, I'm getting the data together at the moment which shows that
renewables can supply our energy needs.

# My list may not be complete, may overspecify some items etc., but these are
the
# classes of policy changes required world wide for visions such as the
proposed
# fossile free energy world to be achieved.   


I doubt if anyone would dare to suggest that we can achieve a fossil fuel free
world
without some far reaching changes. This report I suspect demonstrates the
technical
possibility of doing so, but I wouldn't be surprised if it offers at least
some
pointers as to how the changes are actually implemented. We'll need to wait
until
full report is published before we can find out though.
# -- 
# 
# Regards.
#  
# Don Rolph  a722756@pan.mc.ti.com WD3 MS10-13 (508)-699-1263

James

-- 
*  James Hammerton               *  If Pascal is equivalent to the     *
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