Environmentalists will need to fix these charts before green energy is worth it.

[Zecora]

Cold mind please. Leave emotions aside. Resources are scarce, a free market is way more efficient allocating resources, a free market preserves our resources better than the central planners. Economics 1.0

A free market only preserves resources when it benefits those who actively participate in the free market on a large scale. If it benefits a large-scale participant in a free market to cause pollution or waste resources to achieve a better cost to production ratio, said participant will do so regardless of whether or not said pollution or waste of resources harm others. If the market is regulated to prevent pollution by way of stiff fines or similar, this problem is avoided.

---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 12:50 AM ----------

I just told you that pollution in most cases is a market failure because it can't be solved in the courts the same way as other property/health damage. And with proper regulation to ensure that the costs are borne by those who cause them to society (and those who suffer from this pollution are compensation) in a reasonably accurate manner, we will rid ourselves of this issue of pollution.

The market will then once again reflect the actual benefit to society. If a pollutive activity is still profitable after these changes, then the rewards are worth the pollution. If the activity becomes unprofitable due to the new changes, then the activity does not add value to society. Unfortunately it's pretty damn hard to achieve reasonably accurate regulation in this issue.

You are looking at a snapshot in time, in your latter scenario. Pollution may be "profitable" at a given time, while being overwhelmingly negative on a larger timescale, something free markets cannot and will not compensate for.

Emotions have no place in this discussion. I don't care how you or anyone "feels" on the issue. I want to know what you think.

I have told you what I think, the fact that you chose to overlook that because I have also told you how I feel is your problem.

---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 12:54 AM ----------

Blind faith? Burying the stuff half a mile under a mountain in a desert 100 miles from where anyone lives in rooms that aren't above cracks in a near seismologically inactive area that's been greenlit by the USGS and DOE is blind faith?

Considering the half-life of your average nuclear waste, as well as the time-scale on which the deposit needs to be absolutely safe, yes. Trusting that it won't leak is blind faith. And if you think "100 miles" is sufficient distance to populated areas when the area has faults that decend to the groundwater level...well, I guess you should read up on hydrology.

The area has been studied for 30 years. You seem to have an awful lot of faith in the government except when it's studying rocks.

I have very little faith in YOUR government.

---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 12:57 AM ----------

The geologists are corporate shills. Wake up sheeple!

That's your claim, not mine. They are, however, human beings who are incapable of guaranteeing that a nuclear waste facillity will be completely sealed for aeons, ESPECIALLY in the fourth most geologically active state in the US.

[Deleted]

You are looking at a snapshot in time, in your latter scenario. Pollution may be "profitable" at a given time, while being overwhelmingly negative on a larger timescale, something free markets cannot and will not compensate for.

I don't think you understand the point of the regulation I'm proposing. The regulation isn't written by the free market. The regulation would capture the cost of the pollution. Because we cannot have no-pollution, we must put a price on pollution and make sure we only pollute when the positives outweigh the negatives.

[Zecora]

I don't think you understand the point of the regulation I'm proposing. The regulation isn't written by the free market. The regulation would capture the cost of the pollution. Because we cannot have no-pollution, we must put a price on pollution and make sure we only pollute when the positives outweigh the negatives.

I see your idea quite clearly, but unless I am mistaken, your idea of regulation would put a price on pollution based on the "actual cost" as it appears right now. However, the cost of pollution often approach infinite in the long term, and as such, it is almost impossible to have a situation where the positives outweigh the negatives, EXCEPT when you base your assessment on short-term profit, which is why short-term profit should never form the basis of any cost- or other regulation of pollution.

[Kurioxan]

(it is in my view that profit based markets are self destructive, a true free market will have ideals over profit, profit being simply a byproduct of good work, but ill just go back to my cage)

[Zecora]

(it is in my view that profit based markets are self destructive, a true free market will have ideals over profit, profit being simply a byproduct of good work, but ill just go back to my cage)

*shrug* The idea's nice...but would it actually work?

Either way, bed for me. Toodles.

[Herecius]

Regardless of cost, eventually, there just won't be a choice in the matter. Eventually (perhaps not in the very near future, but almost certainly eventually), something other than coal and gas power will need to be used on a much larger scale than it currently is.

I am not a knowing-enough person to make more conjecture than that, really.

---------- Post added 2013-01-11 at 04:18 PM ----------

(it is in my view that profit based markets are self destructive, a true free market will have ideals over profit, profit being simply a byproduct of good work, but ill just go back to my cage)

That would require quite a bit of a shift in modern human nature... but who knows, perhaps necessity will eventually cause it.

[Kurioxan]

*shrug* The idea's nice...but would it actually work?

Either way, bed for me. Toodles.

Yes, there are several entrepenours who have that business model and is quite viable, quite a lot gave TED talks.

[Reeve]

Let's not forget that a lot of nuclear waste can be transmuted into much shorter halflife elements or non-harmful elements.

[Deleted]

That windmill was designed for a completely different purpose, grinding wheat. Don't be so bloody ridiculous.

You really are clueless, aren't you? It really, really does not matter what purpose it has been designed for. The principle remains the same, wind moves the propellers which in turn rotate something, that something being either a grindstone or a turbine.

Well yeah, the basic principle of "use the wind to make this thing spin" is kinda a constant.

You know what this is? http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/p...r-470-0709.jpg

It's another windmill design. Takes up less area and will handle high winds without having to shut down.

So, it's a windmill that looks different? So? You have no data to prove it is any better than the current ones.

Besides, it has already been proven in 1919 by a German physicist Albert Betz that no turbine, despite the shape or form, can extract more than 59.3% of the kinetic energy of the wind. This is called the Betz' law. Current wind mill designs get to about 80 % of this theoretical limit. Changing the looks of the windmill or using any other stupid gimmick like the ones posted in this thread are not going to circumvent the laws of physics. Nor is the 20% left from the theoretical limit going to solve the world energy crisis.

[Deleted]

You really are clueless, aren't you?

No. But you clearly are if you think wind technology is at it's peak.

[Deleted]

I see your idea quite clearly, but unless I am mistaken, your idea of regulation would put a price on pollution based on the "actual cost" as it appears right now. However, the cost of pollution often approach infinite in the long term, and as such, it is almost impossible to have a situation where the positives outweigh the negatives, EXCEPT when you base your assessment on short-term profit, which is why short-term profit should never form the basis of any cost- or other regulation of pollution.

In theory the regulation would put a price on all costs. Principles of finance (and common sense) however dictate that costs that occur years from now are not as costly as costs that occur right now. That is, if your action today causes society a cost of $100 in ten years, you do not actually pay $100 now, but rather $100/(1+r)^10. Where r is the time value of money (plus opportunity cost).

And this is all in theory, in practice we cannot possibly estimate all costs, and especially the longer in the future we look, the harder they are to estimate. Using too much resources to estimate each action we take is also not feasible, you can't have teams calculating the exact cost of every action or all money goes to these estimators. And we also cannot identify the specific victims of the pollution, so the money paid by the polluters cannot go directly to those affected, but rather to the government. The practical end results looks vastly different than the "optimal" solution in theory.

[starlord]

what is the market value of an ecosystem? a species? the net cost of people getting ill or having deformed children from pollutants?

[Deleted]

No. But you clearly are if you think wind technology is at it's peak.

You, nor anyone else in this thread has provided anything else than blind faith towards funky looking gimmicks to prove otherwise.

[starlord]

What is the cost then, of storing nuclear waste in a facility located in a place where no one lives, the water table isn't an issue, given it isn't there, and has been studied for at least 30 years by geologists and others, and has been found to be positively no risk to anything to store the waste there?

If we had used that place, we could of possibly started building nuclear power plants again, which are very clean compared to traditional coal plants, and have a very little chance of failure. The radioactive waste could also have been transmuted to where it had a much shorter half-life, making it become harmless even quicker.

ask the people of bikini atoll about their "safe nuclear testing". the people of nevada didnt feel it was worth the risk of their children ending up like this because of some unforseen accident.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:...lMuseum_15.jpg

[Reeve]

ask the people of bikini atoll about their "safe nuclear testing". the people of nevada didnt feel it was worth the risk of their children ending up like this because of some unforseen accident.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:...lMuseum_15.jpg

Spiderdog, spiderdog
Does whatever a spiderdog can
Look out! Here comes the spiderdog!

[starlord]

Irrelevant, I wasn't talking about nuclear testing, it was for storage. And if a place with no life around it, that has been studied for over 30 years by many different scientists, that has been declared safe for nuclear waste storage isn't safe, then I'll eat my hand.

I just must ask though, why are you so opposed to nuclear power, when it can be done safely? (And the waste can be stored safely)

whether the radiation is direct, from fallout, or from a leaking storage facility it will still irradiate you.
its only safe as long as no accidents occur. then its extremely devastating. part of why theres such opposition to nuclear power in japan is because they can still see living people who've been affected by it.

---------- Post added 2013-01-12 at 06:29 PM ----------

Spiderdog, spiderdog
Does whatever a spiderdog can
Look out! Here comes the spiderdog!

its actually a pig

[Masark]

So, it's a windmill that looks different? So? You have no data to prove it is any better than the current ones.

Besides, it has already been proven in 1919 by a German physicist Albert Betz that no turbine, despite the shape or form, can extract more than 59.3% of the kinetic energy of the wind. This is called the Betz' law. Current wind mill designs get to about 80 % of this theoretical limit. Changing the looks of the windmill or using any other stupid gimmick like the ones posted in this thread are not going to circumvent the laws of physics. Nor is the 20% left from the theoretical limit going to solve the world energy crisis.

Your point appears to be concealed in an exceedingly clever manner as I find myself unable to locate it.

[Spectral]

Ignoring externalities and looking only at direct costs is a really, really bad approach. If your cost system isn't factoring in public health effects, pollution, and climate change, you're doing it wrong.