Huge study about safety can be misinterpreted by SUV drivers

They are going to move production of CO2 to China? All those
inefficient old coal-fired power plants are going to China? And do
what, export the electricity to the US, or sell the average Chinese
more electricity? How's that going to work?[/QUOTE]

Step 1. Production/manufacturing is moved to China
Step 2. Plant needs electricity so power plant is built in China

Did I miss something? I thought the concept was pretty easy to understand.

Textiles and steel are teetering on the edge as we speak. Levi Strauss has
or is shortly closing their last North American production facility. The
pressure on companies to move production comes in 3 flavors: 1) labor costs
2) taxes 3) regulation. If you think all those that would move have moved,
your're dreaming. Kyoto just turns up the volume on #3, regulation.

 

This argument really is a dead-ender. No one is making the argument you're
arguing against! Power generation isn't the point. Manufacturing is (Guess
what? A production facility needs electricity)

This is *so* self evident as as to make one stop and wonder how you decided
even to bother making it.

 

Oh, I thought it was from all the gas used by Canadians driving to Florida.

Ed

 

Nope, then we're burning *American* energy!
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail

Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.

 

You are completely high. Ask any homebrewer.

 

Isn't the point that we should use the best methods for the area?

If I am generating power for Southern Arizona, which has very limited
hydro and wind, but lots of sun, solar makes sense.

If I am generating power for Washington or Oregon, which have a lot of
hydro, hyrdo makes sense.

If I am generating power for Wyoming, which has a lot of wind, wind
makes sense.

In every case, it makes sense as well to generate closer rather than
further, due to (1) transmission losses, and (2) greater
infrastructure and bureaucracy for the transmission and generation
systems.

I agree that physics should drive progress. However, we need the
politics to get things done, because the entire market is full of
government controls and regulations. It might be nice if that were
not the case, but the current beneficiaries of those regulations --
coal and oil companies, would use their political clout to prevent
that with little difficulty.

 

You know, if you put the "anti-left" agenda away, your arguments would
make more sense.

Yes, there are radical leftists who have a desire to stop capitalism.

Yest, there are radical rightwingers who have a desire to let some
rogue companies destroy our air, our water, and everything that makes
this planet livable for the sake of their own lifestyles.

However, neither of those are at the core of this debate, even if both
sides scream louder than the centrists.

The fact is that Kyoto was a bad treaty -- all of the treaties that
say "you have controls, we won't" are problematic that way.

There is a good argument, however, that the Bush administration
approach of simply walking away from it was worse. Combined with
Cheney's backroom politics with lobbyists for dirty energy, it makes
the US look like the champions of environmental evil. In so doing, it
marginalizes our ability to reach a meaningful global solution.

Please note that I am far from being a liberal. I just don't think
that demonizing the common sense idea of putting out less pollutants
is sensible policy.

 

Ummm - I think it's because their entire socio-economic-political system
sucks. So we should be punished because we are blessed with a better
system rather than one that forces a certain brand of equality on people
so that everyone is pushed down to a desperate state of misery? Nah!

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

IIRC, the big concern of the environuts a few (maybe 10 or 15) years ago that
wanted to put something similar to sealed diapers on cows and other farm animals
was the release of too much methane into the atmosphere. Wouldn't you like to
have had the Depends™ concession if that had gone thru, z?

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with
"x")

 

I think z would go for the California model for "conservation" wherein
you legally ban the building of power generation facilities, then, when
the demand far outstrips the supply capacity, the price for energy goes
up so high that everyone turns their a.c. off because they can't afford
to run them - everybody wins because, once again, everyone is forced
down to the same level of misery - equality achieved at last. Oh one
catch - the people responsible aren't even allowed to finish out their
term due to the anger of the recipients of the benevolence of the
government.

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

If you dishonestly define efficiency, probably almost always. In
reality, definitely not always. You have to look at the cost to make
those efficiencies happen - you can't hide them in government incentives
and subsidies and not include that in the efficiency cost calculations.
20 years ago, solar panels looked attractive only because there were
huge tax subsidies and the people doing the calculations also ingored
the "cost of money" over the long payback period (learned that from my
dad).

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Right on. China's communist government is smarter than the Soviets, but
still, much of what they're doing is hiring out their population to foreign
companies who find it cheaper to outsource work to Chinese "companies"
(government owned). I doubt there's much real wealth being created in
China. It's a hard currency project so the government can modernize....
mostly their military.

 

You forgot the best aspect. The rich elites can still afford the
higher rates and can keep their AC on without any supply problems.

 

We're going to pay for that eventually, and that is the main reason why
I try to avoid goods made in red China as much as possible. Since I am
a tool addict, this gets expensive. I will buy Taiwanese tools if I
just can't afford the US made equivalent (my JET drill press is a good
example of this, I couldn't even find a new American made drill press)
on the theory that at least Taiwan is an ally, and the fact that their
continued success can only piss off the communists. The quality tends
to be better than the stuff from the mainland as well.

 

Taiwan made stuff isn't the greatest generally but better than
mainland china. Hong Kong is about the same as Taiwan.

One common practice is to make the production tolling in taiwan
or Hong Kong and then once there won't be any more tooling changes,
ship the tool to mainland china for production.

 

Reminds me of my experience in a country a few years ago that had "free"
(i.e., rationed) medical care for all. The demand for care outstripped the
supply and the only people who got decent medical care were the people with
money, who could pay for a private doctor. Everyone else had to go wait in
line at the clinic and hope for decent care.

This is the template one could overlay anything. Energy, Healthcare, Food,
etc., etc. Those who support Kyoto are lefties and the farther left you go,
the more strident the support for Kyoto. The "rich" are the ones one need
to be reigned in so the "poor" will have a chance.

 

So either way I am still subsidizing Red China's machine tool industry?
Krap.

 

True, true. But with a good tax/confiscation plan, you can reduce them
to a minimum. 8^)

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Not as of 1997 at least. The only nations higher than the US are Qatar,
Bahrain, UAE, Netherlands, Kuwait, and Luxembourg.

(from http://www.earthtrends.wri.org/text/ENG/variables/351.htm)

 

A total, flat-out lie.

Which is why research sponsored by industry is suspect.

Uh, most of those agencies and articles do reference the IPCC report.