- Feb 4, 2006
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Should we use high-tech or low-tech methods and means to mitigate global warming?
My usual advise is to buy when the price is low and sell when the price is high. In this case though I advise to buy high land and sell all your low land property. This would be a real good time to sell off that swamp land investment in Florida.Should we use high-tech or low-tech methods and means to mitigate global warming?
My usual advise is to buy when the price is low and sell when the price is high. In this case though I advise to buy high land and sell all your low land property. This would be a real good time to sell off that swamp land investment in Florida.
Should we use high-tech or low-tech methods and means to mitigate global warming?
Why should we choose? Seems to me that we should use what works, whether this is high-tech or low-tech is completely irrelevant.Should we use high-tech or low-tech methods and means to mitigate global warming?
Should we use high-tech or low-tech methods and means to mitigate global warming?
Why should we choose? Seems to me that we should use what works, whether this is high-tech or low-tech is completely irrelevant.
Both. Or really, whatever will work.
I have wondered about that all my life. When I was a kid I use to play in the area by the river where all the storm water drained. I use to see houses on a cliff that looked like they could fall if a good storm came along. As it turns out the Federal Government beginning with Roosevelt has provided money for this area to make sure it does not get washed away with erosion. In fact the last time they did a really good job and it is holding up real good now. There is a lot of money for projects like this now a days. I have a friend that worked on 80 million dollar projects on the Niagara River where he ran a tunnel machine and they were building 25 food water pipes. So high water is NO problem for the great lakes. It is very easy for them to drain off that water into the ocean. In fact people fight over that water and what it to make money off of.
But consult geologist before you buy. Because higher land always tends to slide down.
They have no choice. The politicians can line their pockets with money all they want. But when houses and cars get swallowed up with a broken sewer pipe, then they have to fix it. As the old times use to say: The squeaky hinge gets oiled.In our present economic condition maybe we can't afford the more high-tech systems.
In our present economic condition maybe we can't afford the more high-tech systems. Also the low-tech approaches don't attract the interest of highly educated folks, or investment money. It looks like we've stalled out.
If you had to choose one, which would it be?
Whether a high-tech system can be afforded depends on the system and what you want to use it for. I disagree that the low-tech approaches do not attract the interest of highly educated folk, my experience is that they quite like the ingenuity of low-tech solutions. Again, it would seem to me that you tailor your choice of high- or low-tech on the particular problem you want a solution for, instead of just blindly favoring one over the other
Perhaps low-tech would attract passing interest but little participation of brainier folks. It doesn't have enough challenge for them.
But perhaps you have some specific examples of low-tech or high-tech solution that have been favored or not?
I like tree planting and managing grasslands and croplands for carbon sequestration. Very effective, low cost and low tech. Also insulation, weatherization, off-peak electrical usage, enforcing highway speed limits. Bringing constant attention to conservation. Simple stuff like that. High-tech is nice for large institutions but has a limited general market.
We can do both.Perhaps low-tech would attract passing interest but little participation of brainier folks. It doesn't have enough challenge for them.
The problem for aforrestation (planting forests where there were none before) is the sheer scale required to trap carbon. I'm currently reading a paper on it (as a lay-person trying to get my head around the science) but the idea is to desalinate enough water to irrigate central Australia and the Sahara and grow tens of thousands of kilometres of brand new forest! That could solve global warming, but at a price. TRILLIONS of dollars!I like tree planting and managing grasslands and croplands for carbon sequestration. Very effective, low cost and low tech. Also insulation, weatherization, off-peak electrical usage, enforcing highway speed limits. Bringing constant attention to conservation. Simple stuff like that. High-tech is nice for large institutions but has a limited general market.
Now, it would seem to me to be more worthwhile to take that money and put it into building clean energy in the first place.
GenIV reactors will eat nuclear waste, have passive safety physics even Homer Simpson could not break, can be situated far away from large population centres and can even be built underground for extra safety. Fukushima would NOT have happened with a GenIV reactor! Not only this, but these reliable 24/7 power sources are also essential to back up any large intermittent wind and solar energy system. When the wind stops blowing and the sun goes down at night, the nukes will provide the energy we need. The BEST thing is that GenIV reactors turn the 'problem' of nuclear waste into a SOLUTION. We could run the world for 500 years on just today's nuclear waste! The rest of the land uranium could run the world for 50,000 years, and add in uranium from seawater, and we could run the world for a billion years!
For more see Dr Barry Brook, head of Climate at Adelaide University.
Sustainable Nuclear | BraveNewClimate