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I'd rather this ship with the latest technology is transporting fuels from small drilling rigs than rainforest in Southeast Asia and South America being clear f

by brc 12y ago

I'd rather this ship with the latest technology is transporting fuels from small drilling rigs than rainforest in Southeast Asia and South America being clear felled to make bio fuels. Fuel use is morally defensible and fossil fuels are the most efficient fuel for the time being. Until a replacement tech is found and developed then the correct thing to do is find more efficient extraction, transportation and use of fossil fuel. Happily that's the way things are going as the current price drop demonstrates.

dTal 12y ago
And that price drop will increase consumption. It's unfortunate, but developments in fuel efficiency will inevitably lead to higher use. This is a general principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox From this it could be argued that the "morally correct" thing to do would be to discourage research into more efficient ways of extracting bad fuels, and use those freed resources to study alternative sources of energy. You don't want to keep widening the profitability gap.
- brc 12y ago
  "Bad fuel"? All fuels have costs and benefits. Natural gas is probably the best one going. Extraction has minimal environmental impact, it burns clean with very little pollution and can't be spilled into the ocean like oil. It's also versatile, being suitable as a vehicle fuel, a heating / cooking fuel and as a basis for both large scale industrial and electrical production. I'd say that before an alternative large scale energy source is developed, natural gas is the best way forward.
  - dTal 12y ago
    All of that may be true, but it doesn't mitigate the fundamental problem: it's a CO2-releasing fossil fuel. Alternative energy sources don't just magically drop out of the sky through the inexorable march of utopian technology - they get developed through effort. The more expensive and inconvenient a fuel is, the higher the incentive to work on alternatives. Again, why widen the gap by improving extraction efficiency? In the short term, it will increase use by lowering the price, and in the long term it will slow the development of clean fuels. Neither of these is good for the environment. Incidentally, we already have an alternative large-scale energy source - nuclear. It has problems (mainly red tape and waste-disposal), but the worst-case scenario for nuclear doesn't involve the mass-destruction of ecosystems and coastal towns across the globe.

by brc 12y ago

dTal 12y ago

And that price drop will increase consumption. It's unfortunate, but developments in fuel efficiency will inevitably lead to higher use. This is a general principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox From this it could be argued that the "morally correct" thing to do would be to discourage research into more efficient ways of extracting bad fuels, and use those freed resources to study alternative sources of energy. You don't want to keep widening the profitability gap.

brc 12y ago
"Bad fuel"? All fuels have costs and benefits. Natural gas is probably the best one going. Extraction has minimal environmental impact, it burns clean with very little pollution and can't be spilled into the ocean like oil. It's also versatile, being suitable as a vehicle fuel, a heating / cooking fuel and as a basis for both large scale industrial and electrical production. I'd say that before an alternative large scale energy source is developed, natural gas is the best way forward.
- dTal 12y ago
  All of that may be true, but it doesn't mitigate the fundamental problem: it's a CO2-releasing fossil fuel. Alternative energy sources don't just magically drop out of the sky through the inexorable march of utopian technology - they get developed through effort. The more expensive and inconvenient a fuel is, the higher the incentive to work on alternatives. Again, why widen the gap by improving extraction efficiency? In the short term, it will increase use by lowering the price, and in the long term it will slow the development of clean fuels. Neither of these is good for the environment. Incidentally, we already have an alternative large-scale energy source - nuclear. It has problems (mainly red tape and waste-disposal), but the worst-case scenario for nuclear doesn't involve the mass-destruction of ecosystems and coastal towns across the globe.