We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day I dislike windmills because they are inefficient, destabilise the grid and put up my electricity bills. That I think, should be enough to stop building the things. That they kill bats and birds is not something that we should making too much of a fuss about. Buses, aircraft, and just about everything that moves does too. If we ban windmills because of the threat they pose to wildlife then logically there is an equal case to do the same to really important things. Remember, the Green lobby don’t actually love animals, they hate humans and anything they can do to screw up our society they will do.
– Bishop Hill commenter “AndyS”
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I don’t dislike windmills because they are inefficient, or because they destabilize the grid, or because they increase electric bills, or even because they kill bats and birds. In fact I don’t dislike windmills at all. What I dislike is governments forcing them down our throats purely to satisfy political ends. I dislike governments mandating the use of windmills by imposing “alternative energy” quotas, I dislike their extracting money from captive taxpayers to subsidize the rent-seekers who build and deploy these monsters, and I especially dislike the resultant massive distortion in the energy markets. If windmills were a free market development I would welcome them.
And I feel the same way about ethanol, solar power and all the other “alternative energy” scams which lack any semblance of economic rationality and can only be sustained through governmental subsidies.
Obviously not a scientific, economic or political argument but for me it has to be a school trip to an alternative energy “village” in deepest, darkest North Wales many years ago. It was like, this place is horrible, what a stupid way to live. Then someone threw up on the way home and the puke ran right the way down the bus inducing even more vomiting and to top it all the bus driver wouldn’t play our Senseless Things cassettes.
Alton towers it was not!
‘And I feel the same way about ethanol, solar power and all the other “alternative energy” scams which lack any semblance of economic rationality and can only be sustained through governmental subsidies.
I agree COMPLETELY !!!!!!
‘…the Green lobby don’t actually love animals, they hate humans…’
This is the basis of their whole approach. Humans are the ultimate pollution and it would be glorious if they could eliminate humans – except for themselves of course because they are the best stewards mother earth and would care for her and nourish her and be free to skip through the green fields playing their Pan flutes and living just like the Eloi !!!
They are selfish fools.
The most incredible thing is that these are far from being the most efficient ways even to reduce CO2. No one seems to notice that “renewable energy,” which is what is being subsidised, is not the same as “low carbon energy,” which is what the arguments actually justify.
A 10% subsidy premium to convert the whole grid to nuclear and wipe out 1/4-1/3 of our carbon emissions in a few years with no disruption to our quality or way of life doesn’t seem to be what they want.
AndyS may be missing the point, however. The question is, Why don’t we see the usual environmental impact studies with Windmills that we usually see with other large projects? Does anyone know if the need for these studies have been waived?
Solar is potentially very promising, as it would free people to use their own power (and thus not be screwed over by the French government).
Nuclear is an expensive waste of taxpayers money and a byword for corporate sponging. An absurdly crude and wasteful method of making energy, it places an unacceptable burden on the taxpayer. Its outdated, inefficient, and expensive.
Coal is effective, but not conducive to the long-term.
Wind works quite well in small villages, etc, but is useless for larger scale energy.
The only truly viable form of energy is Fusion, if that can be pulled off then, it could solve many, many problems, given that its actually fairly cheap and would not require the obscene subsidies which the nuke industry’s parasitic spongers and the wind-wind-bags demand.
However, its important to remember the French control British energy supplies. We Brits should get used to bending over and taking it up the arse from the Frogs.
The big thing that’s missing in all this is intelligent load management. Until you have that, thinks like windmills and electric cars make very little sense. Once you have it, the balance (possibly) tips heavily in their favor. Suddenly, windmills aren’t spinning with nowhere for the electricity to go and when you plug your electric car in, another power plant doesn’t have to come online, 100 other cars just charge at 99% of the rate and the load stays constant.
The infrastructure is already there to support this, the main issue is standards and deployment. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation as most electricity usage is not amenable (or is just not worthwhile) to such load management. However, this is the place to start. (Note that current schemes that mandate control of peoples air conditioning are wrong-headed though could be implemented wisely in an orthogonal way).
mendicant; Note that solar *is* fusion. I think space solar is the way to go. It seems to me that the objections on grounds of safety etc are somewhat unfounded and that reasonable procedures could be devised to make things safe (it could be one hell of a weapon though).
I’m not sure what financial forces are keeping it from steaming ahead right now but I suspect it’s only a matter of time and energy will turn out to be much cheaper once we it gets established.
Decent power generation isn’t being held back by market forces, nor by a mere lack of political will.
As noted, greens are just not serious about replacing baseload. Their aim is to eliminate baseload. Their aim is the cessation of human industry, not “cleaning” it.
The left tried to control industry. It could not work, because the mind that keeps it running is also a mind capable and willing of questioning the ends to which its efforts are put. Modernity and tyranny cannot coexist for long. Thus modernity has to go.
Modernity is to be replaced by the mindset and and technology level of 2000BC (or even earlier – look up ‘back to the pleistocene!’). That the leftists find more amenable to their desire for control, allowing them to rule in the manner of an educated (relatively speaking) mysticist elite keeping the masses in check by superstition and not allowing very much at all in the way of independent reasoning. Thinkers will be made to join the elite or be murdered on some pretext of transgressions of some vague, mystical, or trumped-up nature.
Go google Maurice Strong and Paul Ehrlich on energy supplies issues, for instance. The evidence for the above is easy to find.
JJM
That’s too “tinfoil hat” for me. Simple self-interest and ignorance explains most of it.
“Green” NGOs want it because they are advocacy groups who while “Not For Profit” are *NOT* for “Not for Increased Revenue”, politicians want it because they get paid off (and they think it looks good, and who gives a d*mn about the long term consequences) and “The Public” goes along with it because “The Public” doesn’t understand the issues beyond what the media report and the media reporting is rubbish because modern “journalism” is just regurgitation of press releases by people who stuggle to understand science because they have degrees in English Literature or other Arts Subject.
“Solar is potentially very promising, as it would free people to use their own power (and thus not be screwed over by the French government).
Nuclear is an expensive waste of taxpayers money and a byword for corporate sponging. An absurdly crude and wasteful method of making energy, it places an unacceptable burden on the taxpayer. Its outdated, inefficient, and expensive.
Coal is effective, but not conducive to the long-term.”
idk what you mean here.
Nuclear is more expensive than coal but you seem to agree that coal isn’t very good. Nuclear is by far the cheapest of the not-coal (and not-gas) options.
Solar power frees you to instead of being “screwed” by the French government for a 10-20% premium to be screwed by the British government for a several hundred % premium.
I cannot agree that the greens, or the majority of them anyway, are anti human.
Rather they are people who are prepared to pay a high price to obtain the status of saints. Of course the majority of them are wealthy beyond their parents dreams, and have had no need to work for that wealth, which is why they take it for granted.
Actual outcomes don’t matter to them, they are too short sighted.
I believe we will find that as material wealth ceases to flow without effort the proportion of the people prioritising status over wealth will decline, and the power of the greens likewise.
They are mostly prepared for others to pay that price. What turns them anti-human is the temerity of too many of those others to disagree. IOW, like all other bullies, they don’t mind humans, as long they don’t stand in their way.