Sustainable Economics and Ecological Psychology

[Dale]

Yeah, but the point is that gangs and mafias definitely murder and plunder at will. There isn't any innate mechanism in markets or capitalism that promotes and protects the public good, things like preventing encroachment on rights is something that has to be forced on a capitalist system from the outside or the players in it will willingly and unhesitatingly disregard those things.

I agree with you on this point. This is essentially why the Libertarian ideal of freedom is not the same as anarchy. There must be some mechanism for protecting individuals and groups from injury and fraud of other individuals and groups.

A group of individuals, whether it be a gang or mafia or corporation or government, is no more or less moral and honorable than the individuals that compose the group. I think that Economist may be objecting to an all too common characterization of corporations as inherently malicious and the worse characterization of profit as inherently immoral. I have a fairly optimistic world-view so I tend to think most individuals are basically good until they demonstrate otherwise, and therefore most groups of individuals are also basically good.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I agree with you on this point. This is essentially why the Libertarian ideal of freedom is not the same as anarchy. There must be some mechanism for protecting individuals and groups from injury and fraud of other individuals and groups.

I don't know much about Libertarianism but this seems like a very salient way to articulate it. Bravo!

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[OmCheeto]

I didn't know where to put the following little revelation, but this old thread seemed close enough to the topic.

I saw a post by Astronuc a while back that the current Iraq war was going to cost about a trillion dollars. I did the calculations the other day and found that if that money had been invested in solar panels vs. the war, half of the electricity in America would be generated by those solar panels. Today, while looking for the answer to how much money the US government had invested in solar energy, I ran across the following:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan&page=1
...
If wind, biomass and geothermal sources were also developed, renewable energy could provide 100 percent of the nation’s electricity and 90 percent of its energy by 2100.

The federal government would have to invest more than $400 billion over the next 40 years to complete the 2050 plan. That investment is substantial, ...

Why is it that we barely flinch at spending a trillion dollars in 10 years, but 400 billion dollars invested over 40 years is a "substantial investment"?

 

[CaptainQuasar]

We could also drain the Great Lakes and fill them with Cheetos. (Just kidding, point well taken about how much of a waste it is and what other problems we could solve for the same price. Much less for the same sacrifice of lives.)

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[Dale]

Or we could stop wasting all that money on the various redistribution of wealth programs and then we could buy several more Iraq wars!

 

[russ_watters]

I didn't know where to put the following little revelation, but this old thread seemed close enough to the topic.

I saw a post by Astronuc a while back that the current Iraq war was going to cost about a trillion dollars. I did the calculations the other day and found that if that money had been invested in solar panels vs. the war, half of the electricity in America would be generated by those solar panels.

I'm not sure where you got the numbers for that calculation, but it doesn't look right to me. We recently discussed this here: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=217933&page=5

About the best we can expect in the near term for an installed cost solar panels and associated hardware is $5/watt. Note, that's not a real number - it isn't possible yet (currently, it's more than $7/watt). Backing that up with something else (like gas turbines) for when the sun is shining will add a few dollars to that as well.

The total US generating capacity is a little over 1,000,000 megawatts: http://www.eei.org/industry_issues/industry_overview_and_statistics/industry_statistics

Assuming $5/watt, $1 trillion will get you 200,000 megawatts or 1/5 of that.

I don't know why Sciam is talking about these exotic plans using nonexistent technology: nuclear power is here now and it works just fine. We should use it: at $1.85 (unless we cut some of the BS they have to go through to build the plants - then it could be less)

 

[OmCheeto]

I'm not sure where you got the numbers for that calculation, but it doesn't look right to me. We recently discussed this here: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=217933&page=5

About the best we can expect in the near term for an installed cost solar panels and associated hardware is $5/watt. Note, that's not a real number - it isn't possible yet (currently, it's more than $7/watt). Backing that up with something else (like gas turbines) for when the sun is shining will add a few dollars to that as well.

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/specials.html?gclid=CJjUhbHMo5ICFRWkiQodGliDMw#mitsubishis?source=google
$620 / 130 watts = $4.77 per watt

The total US generating capacity is a little over 1,000,000 megawatts: http://www.eei.org/industry_issues/industry_overview_and_statistics/industry_statistics

Assuming $5/watt, $1 trillion will get you 200,000 megawatts or 1/5 of that.

Ooops. Just redid the calculations and see that you are correct.
A trillion dollars worth of solar panels will only produce 1/9th of our electrical needs.

Perhaps my thoughts are on another spreadsheet.
A graph on the following site:
http://www.nppd.com/My_Home/Product_Brochures/Additional_Files/electric_usage.asp
implies that 62% of electricity is used to heat something.
You don't need photovoltaic's to produce heat.
This is far more economically done with much cheaper thermal collectors.
This may be where I can up with half.
I post to 5 different forums and may have explained it somewhere else.
Sorry!

I don't know why Sciam is talking about these exotic plans using nonexistent technology: nuclear power is here now and it works just fine. We should use it: at $1.85 (unless we cut some of the BS they have to go through to build the plants - then it could be less)

1E+12 dollars spent on the Iraq war
5 dollars per watt
2E+11 watts we could be producing right now
6 average hours of good sunlight per day
365.25 days in a year
4.383E+11 kw hours we’ve not been producing a year
0.1 cost of an average kilowatt-hour
$43,830,000,000.00 annual production by the panels in dollars
22.8 years to recoup our trillion dollar investment

What we are going to get with our trillion dollar investment in Iraq: ?

I don't really know the answer.
But the thread title kind of implies the correct question, in my feeble mind anyways.

 

[mulp]

Quick comment on the solar power point - PV is not the solution anyone is proposing. Wind is competitive in many places but can't be stored easily. But solar heat can be stored and at least a dozen competitve engineering solutions are being actively pursued that concentrate and store heat so power can be generated by steam using conventional equipment even after the sun goes down. Of course, the cheapest power is often that not consumed, and many opportunities exist for that.

The cost of solar heat isn't competitive with the highly subsidized fossil fuel power, but the big bill for fossil fuel will come due after I'm dead. After all the old guys trying to bring awareness to the mandate for sustainability, after my Woodstock generation is dead, after Reagan is dead, after Carter is dead.

But sustainability is mandatory.

 

[mulp]

This totally neglects the idea of trade-offs. Since this thread is related to environmental issues, it should be pointed out that the optimal level of pollution is not zero pollution. Do you realize that it's impossible to enjoy even a modest standard of living without some level of pollution? Do you really expect some of the poorest nations to not become industrialized at the expense of increasing their "carbon footprint?" Do you also realize that in order to escape poverty and have a higher standard of living (which includes non-material things like education, literacy, life expectancy, increased nutrition, more leisure time, etc) they would probably have to pollute more than they currently are?

Well, as long as you expect civilization to end soon, you can take that point of view.

But let's make this more personal. There is no reason for you or anyone else to clean the room you live in. Doing so and maintaining zero pollution, the accumulation of unwanted dirt, trash, would demand you live less well, for you to sacrifice your lifestyle, to become impoverished, so you should only clean some of the trash, some of the dirt, you create. And you can never move.

After all, only a little dirt and trash accumulate so it can't be a problem. What harm can .001 inch more of dirt a day do. You will never notice it. Why waste time when you only have so much time in your four years of college, so why waste time cleaning something you will never notice.