Zardoz wrote:MonteQuest wrote:Novus wrote:Have you ever stopped to think honestly about what power down really means.
Sure I have. For over 35 years. I am now 55. It means restricted per capita energy use, population reduction and downscaling everything we do to a sustainable level. It means more free time and less rat race. It means better quality products in lieu of junk quantity. It means ecological responsibility, resulting in a better environmental balance. It means seriously addressing global warming. It means addressing the gross inequities in the world. It means more global cooperation and less war and strife. It means less competition. It means more community of man and more of a local culture in the production of goods and services.
Novus, we really need for you to give us your complete, concise definition of "power down". I get the impression that you think it means "power off".
MQ has given us his definition. Now please give us yours. Please define "power down".
I see power down as euphemism for power off. Monte's vision of power down has less to do with actual power and more to do with social justice issues.
Here is Monte's Logic:
It means restricted per capita energy use. (already happening)
population reduction. (Some form of mass death no doubt.)
downscaling everything we do to a sustainable level. (depends, but could be reasonable)
It means more free time and less rat race. (nothing to do with power)
It means better quality products in lieu of junk quantity. (This won't happen on its own and has little to do with power)
It means ecological responsibility, resulting in a better environmental balance. (Difficult or impossible to do without technology)
It means seriously addressing global warming. (see technology)
It means addressing the gross inequities in the world. (social justice)
It means more global cooperation (Pick up a history book)
It means less competition. (Illogical at best, fewer resources mean more competition for them)
It means more community of man (what does that mean)
more of a local culture in the production of goods and services. (reasonable)
The way I see it power down is a massive rollback of the industrial and green revolutions. This means universal poverty and mass starvation. It will also mean the total distruction of the evironment as a global Easter Island would unfold as desparate people cut down every single tree, eat every animal, and over fish the seas down to the last snale. The only way to carry out a power down would be through organized mass cullings of the surpluss population. The Dr. Death solution if you will. Release the airborn Ebola-Reston strain to kill-off 90% of the human race so that the 10% that lives is given a chance to survive powered down.
There is only one reasonable solution and that is to reject the madness of power down and move toward Repowering the industrial world for when oil runs out. Even now that we are past peak it can still be done. It will require a massive re-organization of the way people live and work but society more or less will remain the same. This reorganization will not require complete tear downs of existing inferstructure but simply a re-ordering of it.
If this task is given to the engineers of the world it can be done.
Techology to non-engineers is often alien and disasociated with the workings of modern life. Non-engineers have no idea what technology can be made to do. Engineers live by a phrase. It is called: "Failure is not option." It means you do what needs to be done and you make it work.
This ethic was used most successfully during the Apollo 13 crisis. After an explosion crippled the service modual the three men inside seemed doomed. The commander told his crew we are bringing these men home and invoked the phrase "Failure is not option." The bean counters said it could not be done. There simply was not enough power to get the men home. Sound familiar? The bean counters did not build the machine and did not understand all that could be done. Every engineer that built any component of the Apollo 13 spacecraft was summoned to squeeze every last bit of power out of the system. These engineers were able to find the power hidden in the system by reordering the technology that was already on the spacecraft. When the men returned home alive the President said it was miricle but the truth was it was engineering that saved them.
I invoke "Failure is not an option" today because that is what is needed in the face of Peak Oil. The task at hand is to bring on enough alternatives for them to become self sustaining without outside fosil fuels. Engineers are going to go through every single component of the industrial machine looking for power and by hell they are going to find it and the bean counters who say it can't be done are going to be prooven wrong.