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Ok, if we're talking total energy, then 5% rather than 15%. The point still stands. I've no idea why he would include imports. Does he exclude exports? It seem

by phaemon 12y ago

Ok, if we're talking total energy, then 5% rather than 15%. The point still stands. I've no idea why he would include imports. Does he exclude exports? It seems a bit mad. There's a huge difference between me buying some aluminium and having to generate the electricity at my home to smelt it myself as a kind of cottage industry! (A case of he who smelted, dealt it?) The point about area use not increasing linearly is a good one. However, Prof Mackay doesn't do this. He consistently states that - even giving renewables every advantage and pretending they'll always work at peak efficiency - you'd still have to blanket the country with them to make them effective. I've read his book and it's where I first started to think there was something a bit off in what he was saying. Yes, he's very full of the idea that he's the hard-nosed realist and anyone who disagree must have their heads in the sand. I've heard that tactic before.

reitzensteinm 12y ago
If your goal is sustainability, there is no difference. Pushing your energy consumption out to another country is just shifting the problem. Though yes, you would want to exclude exports in this model. Picture a hypothetical country that solely consists of stay at home programmers making large sums of money, powered entirely by solar, but importing vast amounts of physical goods manufactured in environmentally unfriendly ways. The country would by traditional measures be a perfect model of sustainability, but it is simply paying others to do unsustainable actions on its behalf. The book isn't really "saying" much, for the most part. The vast bulk of it is simple, back of the envelope calculations for energy consumption which shows working. I realize you might not want to take a half hour to find specific faults in it, but it is not helpful say there is "something a bit off" with a work like that, when the source code is published for all to see. For instance, that he counts embodied energy of imports, and you do not wish to, makes a big difference to the bottom line. Just skimming the chapter headings is enough to point out a concrete disagreement. Fair point about the hard nosed realist tactic often being used to discredit dissenting views. That wasn't my intention, I was more trying to say that the conclusions presented should not be used to infer some political position of the author. There are a ton of studies paid for by the oil industry that paint all kinds of pictures, I just meant it's not a book like that. If I realized you'd already read it, I wouldn't have included that part.
- phaemon 12y ago
  Having read the book the specific fault with it is that the results it comes up with from its simple back of the envelope calculations, bear no resemblance to actual reality and are therefore wrong. Including imports is wrong. In your hypothetical country, fixing those unsustainable actions is up to the country they're importing goods from. Show that they can't use wind/solar on their landmass if you want. The idea that every area of a country (or indeed the world) are equally good at generating power is obviously incorrect. Claiming that this makes wind and solar power unusable is equally incorrect. The book reads like it was paid for by the nuclear industry (I don't think it was; it just reads that way).

by phaemon 12y ago

reitzensteinm 12y ago

If your goal is sustainability, there is no difference. Pushing your energy consumption out to another country is just shifting the problem. Though yes, you would want to exclude exports in this model. Picture a hypothetical country that solely consists of stay at home programmers making large sums of money, powered entirely by solar, but importing vast amounts of physical goods manufactured in environmentally unfriendly ways. The country would by traditional measures be a perfect model of sustainability, but it is simply paying others to do unsustainable actions on its behalf. The book isn't really "saying" much, for the most part. The vast bulk of it is simple, back of the envelope calculations for energy consumption which shows working. I realize you might not want to take a half hour to find specific faults in it, but it is not helpful say there is "something a bit off" with a work like that, when the source code is published for all to see. For instance, that he counts embodied energy of imports, and you do not wish to, makes a big difference to the bottom line. Just skimming the chapter headings is enough to point out a concrete disagreement. Fair point about the hard nosed realist tactic often being used to discredit dissenting views. That wasn't my intention, I was more trying to say that the conclusions presented should not be used to infer some political position of the author. There are a ton of studies paid for by the oil industry that paint all kinds of pictures, I just meant it's not a book like that. If I realized you'd already read it, I wouldn't have included that part.

phaemon 12y ago
Having read the book the specific fault with it is that the results it comes up with from its simple back of the envelope calculations, bear no resemblance to actual reality and are therefore wrong. Including imports is wrong. In your hypothetical country, fixing those unsustainable actions is up to the country they're importing goods from. Show that they can't use wind/solar on their landmass if you want. The idea that every area of a country (or indeed the world) are equally good at generating power is obviously incorrect. Claiming that this makes wind and solar power unusable is equally incorrect. The book reads like it was paid for by the nuclear industry (I don't think it was; it just reads that way).