Rise of far right an ominous echo

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vtsnowedin
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Post by vtsnowedin »

Taking a further look at this to be fair about it.
:? They have to design the thing so it can handle all the waste heat on the hottest day of the summer when there is no market for it and the demand for electricity for AC is high. RC will be at the beach and not be in the market for any extra heat so what are they to do with it? They can't just dump it into the nearest body of water and fry the fish now can they? So they end up with a nice big set of cooling towers that are in their total control and work well. And with that in hand why bother with a set of pipes to deliver heat to a fickle market? You wouldn't want them to just run it on cold winter days when every house around is turning up the thermostat. So the heat main becomes a separate calculation based on distance to market and the amount of heat that can be sold on a full year basis and at what price. As fuel prices rise or carbon taxes go into effect that calculation will change.
There is a medium sized wood burning plant near here and it does run more in the winter then the summer and has taken to stockpiling acres of wood piled up in eight foot lengths so that it is well dried before they run it through the chipper on it's way to the fire. Thirty percent more efficient that way.
But I still wouldn't want to import wood from Brazil to run it. :roll:
Edit to add;
Here is an article that references the Springfield NH wood plant. with a picture of the wood pile. A pretty well reasoned discussion about expanding wood fired electric generation with some good comments.
http://yesvy.blogspot.com/2011/11/bioma ... place.html
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RenewableCandy
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Post by RenewableCandy »

RC will be at the beach and not be in the market for any extra heat so what are they to do with it?
:lol:
RC will probably be wrestling with the Triffids down at the Plot after which she will probably want to be chilled (there are chillers that run on hot air) or have a (hot) shower, so there is some hope. If I'm at the beach I'm likely collecting vraic for the asparagus :)

There's a second problem in the UK with heat-mains that makes it even worse: the free-market in energy means you can't even predict your number and consistency of punters, let alone whether there'll be an overall demand for heat.

Talking about heat, I don't dare look at the woodpile pic in your link for fear of dying of envy :twisted:
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vtsnowedin
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Post by vtsnowedin »

RenewableCandy wrote:[
Talking about heat, I don't dare look at the woodpile pic in your link for fear of dying of envy :twisted:
It's not that big. As per the article they burn just 100,000 cords a year and only about a third of that is in the log pile drying. A point the article is making is that local forests are already being cut at approximately the sustainable rate so there is not much room for expansion without diverting wood that is being used for other purposes.
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RenewableCandy
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Post by RenewableCandy »

If they build the plant up-wind from the forest, then with the extra CO_2 the trees might grow faster!
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kenneal - lagger
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Post by kenneal - lagger »

RenewableCandy wrote:Incredibly, heat mains just aren't usually thought of, and I'm not sure they do anything particularly intelligent with the ash, either. I mean, it'd be great as fertiliser on the Plot but here in Yorkshire they're set to blow £2Bn on a new Potash mine while they're probably going to throw away, or contaminate, ash from biomass plants. It makes me f***ing livid, how daft people can be...and this is in Yorkshire, we're supposed to be frugal types in this part o't'country. 'Appen.
Yorkshire's own Drax is a case in point. Co-firing biomass with coal in a plant with massive cooling towers. Destroys the fertilizer value of the ash and pollutes the environment with thrown away heat as well as CO2.
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DominicJ
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Post by DominicJ »

With increasing corporate interference and influence over the democratic process, we move each year, closer to fascism.
Fascism cant exist without a big powerful central state.
Last month the Euro­pean Bank for Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment doc­u­mented a sharp drop in pub­lic sup­port for democ­racy in the “new E.U.” coun­tries, the nations that joined the Euro­pean Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not sur­pris­ingly, the loss of faith in democ­racy has been great­est in the coun­tries that suf­fered the deep­est eco­nomic slumps.
We dont live in a democracy. Democracy isnt the process of ticking a box once every 5 years. Much of EUrope doesnt even get that.
Democracy comes from Demos, People, and Kratos, Power.
What power do people wield when their elected parliaments are bound by EU law? When their leaders are sacked by EU functionaires, and EU approved but unelected "Technocrats" put in their place?

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
The map is an illustration of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's "intention to overcome the Treaty of Trianon" at the end of the first World War, when Hungary was forced to give up Slovakia and parts of Romania and Serbia,
Not exatcly, Trianon ended a continuation war, Hungary disarmed, declared war imoral and became a pacifist state, its neighbours promptly began annexing town after town after town, first, to "free" none Hungarians from Hungarian rule, but soon, started asset grabbing, evebntual 34% of the Hungarian populace had been seperated from Hungary.
I am quite aware of the one-world crowd, but they have made very little process in the last fifty years.
................
Read some solid marxism... capitalism is programmed to its transformation or destruction
Rather big leap there, Marx was an idiot, a liar, and a fool. Not a genious savant who saw the world for what it really was....
The people, who in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land,
Except of course they didnt.
Much of the middle east was devestated as a deliberate act by Berbers to cripple the crusades eastward march.
which is no bad thing if you ask me. But I don't think the "village market" is Capitalism: it's just Trade. Capitalism is more like the belief that to make money out of having money (or some other resource that counts as "Capital", such as a building), is the correct thing to do.
Capitalism is the acceptance that people will choose to use their capital in the way that they feel gives the greatest return.
i do generally follow the gaia type theory
South America used to have mega fauna, like the Elephants and Rhinos of Africa. One day, the central americas rose above the sea, the North American wolves charged south and ate them.
The idea that nature is "balanced" is a lie.
Its balanced until it isnt, and then it makes our changes look mild.
And as far as population goes - we've already had a massive population boom (in Europe) at the same time we chopped down most of the forests.
I read recently that the UK has more trees today than at any time for the last 1000 years.
I mean, it'd be great as fertiliser on the Plot but here in Yorkshire they're set to blow £2Bn on a new Potash mine while they're probably going to throw away, or contaminate, ash from biomass plants. It makes me f***ing livid,
It'll be waste, according to giovernment, and so must go to approved waste processors for disposal.
I remember being told of a project, A guy wanted to build a sort of ECO Barn I suppose, he wanted to dig into a small hillock, and use what he dug out to raise the rest, leaving him a barn, sheltered on three sides.
Building Control said it was illegal to dump "building waste".
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Post by kenneal - lagger »

DominicJ wrote:I remember being told of a project, A guy wanted to build a sort of ECO Barn I suppose, he wanted to dig into a small hillock, and use what he dug out to raise the rest, leaving him a barn, sheltered on three sides.
Building Control said it was illegal to dump "building waste".
I managed to dig a 250 cubic metre hole for a cellar and used the resultant spoil to build the walls of my house without Building Control raising so much as an eyebrow. I think your Building Control should have been told to Image
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ceti331
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Post by ceti331 »

DominicJ wrote:The idea that nature is "balanced" is a lie.
Its balanced until it isnt, and then it makes our changes look mild.
it's a dynamic equilibrium. symbioses emerge through a process of trial and error.
without plants we don't have oxygen.
plants evolved to deliberately feed animals who in return disperse their seeds, pollinate them, recycle their waste oxygen.
it has evolved feedback mechanisms that keep oxygen at exactly 'the right level' same with c02.

When animals first evolved they were parasites, some might have caused catastrophe but they only survived when the symbiosis was figured out.

These balancing mechanisms are figured out slowly, over millions of years. Our changes are rapid, like an asteroid impact or super volcano explosion.. only we have choice.

Thats what 'gaia' theory is about.
"The stone age didn't end for a lack of stones"... correct, we'll be right back there.
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DominicJ
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Post by DominicJ »

Except thats not the case.
It didnt take time, one day wolves couldnt reach South America, and the next, they could.
Extinction then took years, not centuries.

Equilibrium occurs, but its temporary
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Post by kenneal - lagger »

DominicJ wrote:Equilibrium occurs, but its temporary
Until there is something that dislodges the equilibrium and a new equilibrium establishes itself.
Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez
ceti331
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Post by ceti331 »

DominicJ wrote:Except thats not the case.
it IS the case that oxygen is maintained in a narrow range by a dynamic equilibrium.

individual populations fluctuate to maintain that equilibrium.
they are evolved feedback mechanisms. Evolved for similar reasons to plants ending up with fruit to specifically feed animals.


if oxygen goes up a bit, perhaps the herbivores go a bit more hyperactive and eat too many plants and O2 production is reduced again, but
explosions of wolf populations stop herbivores from decimating all the plants.
etc etc.
"The stone age didn't end for a lack of stones"... correct, we'll be right back there.
JavaScriptDonkey
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Post by JavaScriptDonkey »

ceti331 wrote:
DominicJ wrote:Except thats not the case.
it IS the case that oxygen is maintained in a narrow range by a dynamic equilibrium.

individual populations fluctuate to maintain that equilibrium.
they are evolved feedback mechanisms. Evolved for similar reasons to plants ending up with fruit to specifically feed animals.


if oxygen goes up a bit, perhaps the herbivores go a bit more hyperactive and eat too many plants and O2 production is reduced again, but
explosions of wolf populations stop herbivores from decimating all the plants.
etc etc.
Gaia is fantasy maintained by limiting the time scale over which you view the planet. The balance is only an illusion factored by our short lifespans.

Life changes it's surroundings and depending on the nature of that change either makes the environment more or less habitable for itself and other life. It doesn't care which. There is no guiding hand. Resources are brutally competed for with no thought to sustainability or conservation. Even the oxygen on which we depend is just another atmospheric pollutant.

The only balance is obtained through over-shoot and die-off which is actually best described as a complete lack of balance.

The planet is not a self-regulating entity with organisms living in harmony. It is a battle ground of epic proportions where the weak die cold and alone; where the strong produce the next generation; and the environment is in a state of constant flux.
ceti331
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Post by ceti331 »

JavaScriptDonkey wrote: Life changes it's surroundings and depending on the nature of that change either makes the environment more or less habitable for itself and other life. It doesn't care which. There is no guiding hand.
correct. but just as a we got here by random cell mutations (useful limbs or deformities, mutations don't care which, there is no guiding hand), in the long run, only creatures which modified the environment to make it more habitable survived. because if they made it less habitable, they lost their food supply through feedback and were eliminated.

thats how plants evolved fruit, how plants evolved to use insects in pollination

molecules assemble into cells, cells assemble into organisms, organisms assemble into gaia.
nonsensical to consider any in isolation because they have so many interdependencies, especially via the interposing mediums of air, water
The only balance is obtained through over-shoot and die-off which is actually best described as a complete lack of balance.
No, absolutely not.

(i)big cats (apex predators) evolved the instinct to keep their own numbers down via infanticide, probably because ones that didn't went extinct through overwhelming their food supply. they deliberately avoid overshoot.

(ii) part of lovelocks' point is, the relationships between different creatures "overshooting and dieing off" when they do are part of gaia's balance, only in the dynamic equilibrium its more like fluctuations with feedback.
The only balance is obtained through over-shoot and die-off which is actually best described as a complete lack of balance.
agriculture when it's working right is a form of symbiosis
ants have something similar where they cultivate a fungus that has evolved to process food for them (leaves+fungus->ant food).
the ants didn't reason about that - they evolved that symbiosis slowly through trial and error.
"The stone age didn't end for a lack of stones"... correct, we'll be right back there.
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