World Energy Use - There's No Tomorrow - Let's Fix This!

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kubel said:
AndyH said:
Sorry. Unfortunately, it's our number one problem - the single problem that is supporting all the other challenges we face.

I guess it all depends on who "our" is and what they plan to do.
"Our" is the human species currently occupying planet Earth.

kubel said:
I have a theory that we really don't need to do anything about it since I don't see it as a problem.
Good luck.
 
AndyH said:
:shock: What? The 'cartoon' is not about energy - it's about the sum of all we're taking from AND DOING TO the planet on which we depend. (The source is linked in the post, BTW.) Energy is only one small part of the process.

As for recycling finite resources, it's probably not socially acceptable to take the Coke can away from Joe before she's finished the drink in order to recycle it! Ok, maybe too obscure. Continually dividing the number of tons of available aluminum among a continually growing population suggests that we'd better forget 12 ounce drinks and learn to accept little 2-ounce cans - for a while, anyway.

Look back at the carrying capacity/logistic curve for a minute. This beautiful curve represents "The maximum number of individuals of a given species that a particular environment can support for an indefinite period, assuming the environment doesn't change."

The cartoon is not about energy alone, I know, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that in the real world it is all about energy. Therefore it is unnecessary to worry about anything else.

If you explain the coke-can recycling a bit more? I dont understand why we have to take peoples cans away before they finished drinking?
While I agree that for a number of reasons, smaller cans (or portion sizes in general) would be good for peoples health, from a recycling point of view, larger cans would seem better. Or do you think there is not enough aluminum for everyone?

I think there is not a problem with aluminum shortages...However it is a resource that consumes hideous amounts of energy to refine into the final product, so recycling is definitely the way to treat those used soda cans.
I think the cartoon creates the false impression, that in addition to hydrocarbons, we are running out of all the other resources too, but that is just plain nonsense, negligence at best. The reason why all the rare earths come from China for example is NOT because it is the only place where they can be found, but it is currently the only places that REFINES them.
They are probably everywhere, like any other resource.

About the "carrying capacity" of the land: Who defined that number? Do you know how many people can live on a piece of land? Is this truly a constant? (History has shown it is not!). Is this as solid a number as the 14 billion population estimate??
 
klapauzius said:
The reason why all the rare earths come from China for example is NOT because it is the only place where they can be found, but it is currently the only places that REFINES them.
They are probably everywhere, like any other resource.
I understood "rare earth" just meant the item is a byproduct of other mining operations. So a company digs for iron or aluminum ore as the main event but gets these rare earth minerals or metals as part of the process. Industry does not yet demand the price or volume to go mine these rare earth items as the primary resource.
 
smkettner said:
I understood "rare earth" just meant the item is a byproduct of other mining operations. So a company digs for iron or aluminum ore as the main event but gets these rare earth minerals or metals as part of the process. Industry does not yet demand the price or volume to go mine these rare earth items as the primary resource.

They are really important for electronics, batteries etc...Some people are worried that the bulk of it is coming out of China, which has restricted exports, because they use an increasingly portion of it themselves..Needless to say that military applications also heavily rely on these "rare" earths (which in reality are not that "rare"). Eventually they have to be produced/refined somewhere else, or the world economy will be at China's mercy.
 
klapauzius said:
They are really important for electronics, batteries etc...Some people are worried that the bulk of it is coming out of China, which has restricted exports, because they use an increasingly portion of it themselves..Needless to say that military applications also heavily rely on these "rare" earths (which in reality are not that "rare"). Eventually they have to be produced/refined somewhere else, or the world economy will be at China's mercy.
One reason China took over the market for producing rare earth metals is because much of the mining and refining there is done without environmental regulations. Producing rare earths tends to make a lot of toxic and radioactive waste (because they are associated with other heavy metals and radioactive elements). The lack of (enforced) waste disposal and worker safety regulations gave Chinese producers a cost advantage over other countries, such as the USA and Australia. Now that limited supply from China has caused prices to rise sharply, mines in other countries are in the process of being reopened, notably the Molycorp mine in Mountain Pass, California.
 
klapauzius said:
AndyH said:
:shock: What? The 'cartoon' is not about energy - it's about the sum of all we're taking from AND DOING TO the planet on which we depend. (The source is linked in the post, BTW.) Energy is only one small part of the process.

As for recycling finite resources, it's probably not socially acceptable to take the Coke can away from Joe before she's finished the drink in order to recycle it! Ok, maybe too obscure. Continually dividing the number of tons of available aluminum among a continually growing population suggests that we'd better forget 12 ounce drinks and learn to accept little 2-ounce cans - for a while, anyway.

Look back at the carrying capacity/logistic curve for a minute. This beautiful curve represents "The maximum number of individuals of a given species that a particular environment can support for an indefinite period, assuming the environment doesn't change."

The cartoon is not about energy alone, I know, but if you think about it for a moment you will see that in the real world it is all about energy. Therefore it is unnecessary to worry about anything else.

If you explain the coke-can recycling a bit more? I dont understand why we have to take peoples cans away before they finished drinking?
While I agree that for a number of reasons, smaller cans (or portion sizes in general) would be good for peoples health, from a recycling point of view, larger cans would seem better. Or do you think there is not enough aluminum for everyone?

I think there is not a problem with aluminum shortages...However it is a resource that consumes hideous amounts of energy to refine into the final product, so recycling is definitely the way to treat those used soda cans.
I think the cartoon creates the false impression, that in addition to hydrocarbons, we are running out of all the other resources too, but that is just plain nonsense, negligence at best. The reason why all the rare earths come from China for example is NOT because it is the only place where they can be found, but it is currently the only places that REFINES them.
They are probably everywhere, like any other resource.

About the "carrying capacity" of the land: Who defined that number? Do you know how many people can live on a piece of land? Is this truly a constant? (History has shown it is not!). Is this as solid a number as the 14 billion population estimate??
First, an apology. I read 'cartoon' and jumped to the 1.4 earth image from WWF via the Environment text. It looks like you went to the original video. (Here's a piece of 2x4. Feel free to give me a whack in future if I fail to make the jump/connection. Seriously! Thanks.)

The can tangent (cangent?) is a comment on non-renewables. Many seem to think that the best way to decrease the birth rate is to quickly bring the developing world 'up' to developed world levels of industry, education, etc. so that we can benefit from the 'natural' drop in birth rate that'll bring. But it's clear that we simply do not have the raw materials - renewable and non-renewable - to support everyone on the planet living as we do. This problem is way too large and the pieces too interconnected to solve from a narrow perspective. Ultimately that's the real significance of the WWF chart - we hit 1.5 Earths in 2010 and are heading for 2 Earths by about 2030.

edit - stumbled on this today. One study using real CO2 numbers rather than estimates, suggests that GDP growth is more significant for CO2 emissions than short-term population increases.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...onomic-growth-linked_n_1468100.html?ref=green
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901112000469
/edit

Based on what I've found, the video gives a pretty accurate look at the state of renewables and non-renewables. We're at or near peak oil, peak (fresh) water, peak chemical fertilizer...and more.
Foreign Policy said:
Our dwindling supply of phosphorus, a primary component underlying the growth of global agricultural production, threatens to disrupt food security across the planet during the coming century. This is the gravest natural resource shortage you've never heard of.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/20/peak_phosphorus

This fertilizer thing is just one piece. Take a wider look - Since 1950 we've lost 20% of agricultural land and 20% of the topsoil on that land, yet we have about twice as many people to feed. The soil that remains is severely damaged and depleted and is biologically dead. This requires using more and more chemical fertilizer to get the same yields - and yet we're running out of fertilizer components (and burning/wasting the organic matter that could be rebuilding the soil instead of putting it back in/on the ground). One more knot in the noose, please?

As for the US, we have about 4% of the population yet use ~25% of the oil, for example. And what do we produce? What's our number one export [to China in 2010]?

Garbage. Waste. We export waste paper and used steel to China to be recycled - we don't even recycle the majority of our own junk! We send barges full of garbage and hazardous waste to other countries with lower environmental and worker safety requirements.

In order to bring things into balance the developing world does need to develop more - they desperately need food, education, family planning, medicine...engineers and doctors... (Apparently, only 10% of the world's highly skilled professionals - Dr./engineers/etc. are in the developing world - and most of those are in 2 or three countries like Cuba.) But - the developing world - especially the number one producer of waste - US! - needs to do SIGNIFICANTLY better than we have been. I agree - there's plenty of fat to cut.

Carrying capacity of the planet...I haven't seen anything that gives a hard number. One thing we do know, though, via direct measurement, is that we're in deficit territory with regard to some of our waste products - we dump more than the planet can process. Seems we could continue to grow if we can get out waste problem under control...but how much more? Considering the immense population inertia already built into the system, when should we start making adjustments and how quickly? Just as there's a 40 year lag between CO2 emissions and temperature change, we'll not reach zero population growth overnight.

Energy...Sorry, I don't (yet?) agree. It's certainly part of the problem - and maybe one of the more pressing problems (provided you're not one of the ~29,000 kids from zero to 5 that dies of disease or malnutrition each day). But I'm not sure we really can focus solely on energy and ignore the rest. Even if we link energy to CO2 and work to lower our CO2 emissions - the problem is still multifaceted. 40% of emissions are due to energy used to heat/cool buildings. Building codes are changing (but really only apply to new construction), and programs like LEED and others will result in lower energy use over time - but it's really slow - too slow! And doesn't address the existing buildings. Electrifying transportation is great as well - yet it's not the primary polluter, and again it's going to take bloody forever at current rates to make a significant dent in the problem.

Seems to me that we need some significant solutions and need to start some very significant actions yesterday. But it all starts with an attitude adjustment - and with the current US policy (or lack thereof), and Canada pulling out of the Kyoto protocol, seems we're moving attitudes (and progress) in the wrong direction. :(

Sorry about all the words. I don't know enough yet to communicate this more economically. ;)
 
AndyH said:
Seems to me that we need some significant solutions and need to start some very significant actions yesterday. But it all starts with an attitude adjustment - and with the current US policy (or lack thereof), and Canada pulling out of the Kyoto protocol, seems we're moving attitudes (and progress) in the wrong direction. :(

Sorry about all the words. I don't know enough yet to communicate this more economically. ;)

I try to be part of the solution but get kicked every time I try - I'll keep trying anyway. You have to stop listing all the problems and start saying how you are going to contribute with critical thinking and risk evaluation. There are no simple problems nor simple answers. So I'll close today with another observation - there is enough uranium in sea water for fuel to last longer than the sun.
 
Nekota said:
AndyH said:
Seems to me that we need some significant solutions and need to start some very significant actions yesterday. But it all starts with an attitude adjustment - and with the current US policy (or lack thereof), and Canada pulling out of the Kyoto protocol, seems we're moving attitudes (and progress) in the wrong direction. :(

Sorry about all the words. I don't know enough yet to communicate this more economically. ;)

I try to be part of the solution but get kicked every time I try - I'll keep trying anyway. You have to stop listing all the problems and start saying how you are going to contribute with critical thinking and risk evaluation. There are no simple problems nor simple answers. So I'll close today with another observation - there is enough uranium in sea water for fuel to last longer than the sun.
Thanks for being here! While working on solutions (I did call for a solutions thread a bit earlier but you're the first taker!) we'll also see if we can expand your world view a bit as well. :) There is more to life than fission - symbolically tearing things apart, and all. ;) Even though fusion is outside our grasp 'in the flesh' maybe we can at least keep the 'coming together to do good things' alive in spirit. :D

As for risk evaluation - shall we brainstorm some possible solutions first before racking/stacking each? Or am I missing something?

Problems...they aren't fun to read, type, or evaluate - and some here don't agree that there are problems. Seems to me that there's value in putting all the cards on the table, even if we have to take Dramamine before hand. I really don't like the possible alternative...

humans.jpg
 
Nekota said:
there is enough uranium in sea water for fuel to last longer than the sun.
There's a nice discussion of this here: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_163.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The net is I think you've exaggerated the situation a little bit. The analysis the author does basically assumes you can extract 10% of the uranium from the ocean. The power you could generate from this (in an advanced breeder reactor that hasn't been perfected yet!) would supply 420kWh per person per day for 1000 years at TODAY's population level. To put that number in perspective, current US power consumption is 250kWh per person per day (not electricity consumption, POWER consumption--this includes things like heating/cooling, transportation, energy required to make all the stuff we buy, etc.) So even if we scale up the assumptions to extremes and assume you could get 100% of the uranium, we suddenly experienced zero population growth starting tomorrow, and the average consumption of humans stabilized at half the US number (125kWh/person/day--which would be great for most of the planet, but for us here in the US that would be a dramatic lifestyle change!), we're still talking about 40,000 years of supply. Not that that's not a great number! But it certainly is not "the lifetime of the sun".

The real ultimate solution (if it's technically possible at all, but I'll put on my optimist hat here) is deuterium from the ocean to supply fusion reactors. This is covered a few pages later: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_173.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This would supply 30,000kWh/person/day for 1 million years for 60 billion people.

This would give us the next big step in our energy evolution, similar to the effect that coal and the steam engine had on growth in the industrial revolution that led us to our current situation. Sadly, even though 30MWh/day sounds like a huge number, I have no doubt that if we ever got to the point where we can technically do this we'd find some way to squander that amount of energy!
 
lpickup said:
The real ultimate solution (if it's technically possible at all, but I'll put on my optimist hat here) is deuterium from the ocean to supply fusion reactors. This is covered a few pages later: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_173.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I just want to reiterate how silly these kinds of analysis are. You (and the author of that article) are implicitly assuming 100% of our energy needs need to be, or will be, satisfied by a single technology. That's beyond nonsense; it's insane.

If you want an energy source that will last as long as the sun? We have that already, it's called solar power. There is literally hundreds of times more energy that we need raining down on our heads every day, and we don't need any technological breakthroughs to tap it.

By all means let's pursue fusion power and advanced fission reactor designs - but we do not need them and it's foolish to plan our future on them.
=Smidge=
 
Smidge204 said:
You (and the author of that article) are implicitly assuming 100% of our energy needs need to be, or will be, satisfied by a single technology. That's beyond nonsense; it's insane.
No, not at all. In fact the vast majority of that book discusses MANY different solutions, most of which will have to be implemented to shift to a completely sustainable energy landscape. I don't think the author is necessarily bullish on nuclear fusion being practical--he's just pointing out what the possible potential is if it does so. You can mix and match whatever consumption and generation solutions you think stand a chance of being implemented and stack them up against each other and see if you have a positive balance sheet at the end of the day.

I will say this though: if we expect to keep the current standards of living and current growth rates up, then the traditional solutions we can imagine today will not work. They are going to have to be too big and potentially compete with each other and with other needs such as food, water, living space, etc. Either something's gonna have to give or we'll have to come up with some white knight type of solution.

I personally believe that we will always lie in an equilibrium. That is, if our growth rate is not sustainable, we won't grow. It won't be like the bottle exploding, but I would be very surprised not to see an increase in conflicts over resources, and for some (i.e. those who stand the most to lose--Americans) the process will be painful. If we do achieve a sustainable energy balance, or even a surplus of energy, we will certainly find a way to use it.
 
lpickup said:
Smidge204 said:
You (and the author of that article) are implicitly assuming 100% of our energy needs need to be, or will be, satisfied by a single technology. That's beyond nonsense; it's insane.
No, not at all. In fact the vast majority of that book discusses MANY different solutions, most of which will have to be implemented to shift to a completely sustainable energy landscape.
My point being that as soon as you put any one of these solutions all by itself in the context of total global energy needs, you've cocked up your argument one way or another. If you start with "250kWh per person per day" and then use that as a basis to calculating how much uranium we'd need, you've implied that nuclear would comprise 100% of our energy generation by not subtracting non-nuclear power from that 250kWh value. Although to your credit, you did at least explicitly state that assumption as part of the point you were making. Others are not that careful.

It's kind of a sore spot for me because the defeatists always use that method to argue that it can't be done. Maybe I'm being too sensitive about it. :?
=Smidge=
 
Smidge204 said:
My point being that as soon as you put any one of these solutions all by itself in the context of total global energy needs, you've cocked up your argument one way or another. If you start with "250kWh per person per day" and then use that as a basis to calculating how much uranium we'd need, you've implied that nuclear would comprise 100% of our energy generation by not subtracting non-nuclear power from that 250kWh value. Although to your credit, you did at least explicitly state that assumption as part of the point you were making. Others are not that careful.
Actually this section of the book was dealing with "sustainable" fossil fuel (and nuclear) energy use, where he arbitrarily chose 1000 years as being a sufficiently long time period where we could use the existing finite resources at a rate that would last that long. I don't know why he chose 1000 instead of 500 or 2000, but like he said, it was arbitrary. At any rate, he used that number to determine, based on various fossil and nuclear resources, how much energy could be supplied with those various resources if spread out for that period of time, for example if we had to supplement renewable energy generation with fossil fuels or nuclear. So actually he arrived at the value from the opposite direction you assumed: instead of starting with 420 kWh/p/d, he fixed the "persons" and "days" and calculated how much of each various resource we could "sustainably" use. And other than seawater uranium and deuterium fusion, none of the other sources even got close to satisfying our demand for 1000 years based on current usage.

If you're interested, he did lay out several alternative plans (for his home country of the UK) which are made up of many different components summarized on this page: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c27/page_212.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note that this particular author is not focusing on the political or economic issues surrounding this whole topic (and I don't blame him!) only the technical issues. But he doesn't ignore them completely either.
 
"If you use more energy to get the fuel than is contained in the fuel it's not worth the effort to get it"

Patently false. One might use far more energy from other sources (eg coal and natural gas) extracting oil as is contained in the extracted oil itself and still make a handsome profit, depending on relative price of the oil vs the other sources.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
"If you use more energy to get the fuel than is contained in the fuel it's not worth the effort to get it"

Patently false. One might use far more energy from other sources (eg coal and natural gas) extracting oil as is contained in the extracted oil itself and still make a handsome profit, depending on relative price of the oil vs the other sources.
Interesting. Energy is money, or at least it should be. If I use more energy to extract a fuel than the fuel provides, why would anybody buy that fuel when they can get more energy for less money from the other fuels?

The problem is that the market isn't pure. If the market is truly self correcting then I would lose customers (to the cheaper fuel) and the price would crash on the extracted fuel and the fuel extraction would no longer be profitable so I'd start losing more money and go out of business. E.g. if oil becomes too expensive relative to other fuels everybody should switch to coal & NG powered EV's to drive.

Funny thing is EV fuel (electricity) is already significantly cheaper than ICE fuel, but not too many people are switching (yet). So the market has other factors: subsidies, convenience, cost of entry, captive markets, etc. which delay the transition to the cheaper fuel. As oil prices rise with cost for extraction eventually the other market factors would be nullified so that the market for oil shrinks and its price crashes, but not until economies have wasted a lot money on a fuel that costs more than the cheap alternatives.

Kind of the makes the case for the government artificially jump starting EV's no?
 
adric22 said:
klapauzius said:
In addition to that, population growth will inevitably stop, as countries get richer.
That's something I was wondering about too. I think as a country becomes more industrialized, the population stops growing. I heard somewhere that the US population would actually be shrinking if it weren't for all of the immigration.
Maybe so, but immigration/migration/etc. is included in the population growth numbers as a matter of course. The countries that have gotten to zero or negative growth haven't walled-off their borders.
 
Nice work gents.

One thing I notice is how difficult it seems to be to get folks to step back from their favorites and spend some time looking at the whole picture first. Tunnel vision is a huge part of how/why we've gotten in to the bind we're in.

One dramatic example of our "Vision, Tunnel, Variant: Western" was made in an earlier post...well, in a link in an earlier post.

Subject: Food. Question: Which works better: GMO rice with chemical support, or 'natural' methods?
Eastern Decision: Natural Methods
Western Decision: GMO/Chemical

For example, let’s say the United Nations
commissions a study of genetically
engineered rice production in Vietnam.
Some land grant grad students and their
properly credentialed Ph.D. mentor fly
over there. Their genetically modified organism
(GMO) paddy grows lots of rice.

The adjacent one, built on indigenous
methods, grows rice, tilapia in the water,
ducks that make meat and lay eggs, and
around the edges, prodigious bok choy
and arugula. But these Western linear,
reductionist, compartmentalized, fragmentized,
systematized, parts-oriented
researchers don’t measure the ducks,
eggs, fish or edible greens. They went
to study rice.
And the GMO rice,
in a chemical-ized paddy devoid
of any other life in or around it,
sure grows rice. Conclusion —
our side can’t feed the world.
http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Sept10_Salatin.pdf

Tunnel Vision. Can't see the forest for the trees. Loss of perspective.

We can do better than this!
 
Solutions

- We must include all externalities
- we must open our eyes to see all options regardless of the source - "The truth is the truth even if we hear it from a liar" comes to mind here...
- Profit can be a motive, but let's move it down a couple of notches - we can have our cake and eat it too - but we're not allowed to kill anyone to get the cake ;)

I think these three groups/organizations/movements can provide the vast majority of the solution not just to fixing our immediate problem, and not just to reach the 'sustainable' point, but to move to an environment of constant improvement.

Lester R Brown "Plan B 4.0 Mobilizing to save civilization"
This book lists the problems, organizes them into two major categories - Population Pressure: Land and Water and Climate Change and the Energy Transition - and then outlines a complete response that can be implemented across the entire planet with current technology and for less money than our current level of spending.

The book's in stores and available free in PDF format from the Earth Policy Institute's website:
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/pb4

Permaculture

What it is:
http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mollison.html
Mollison: Permaculture: A Designer's Manual said:
Permaculture...is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way...

The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.
The single best book I've found is the main "Permaculture: A Designer's Manual"
http://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-...8015/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335995280&sr=8-1
This is a nearly 600 page dense text that covers philosophy, ethics, chemistry, physics, meteorology, climatology, geometry, botany, hydrology, soil science and other aspects of geology, landscape design, money and finance, trusts and legal structure, village and town development...etc. etc...

Other books are a better place to start, however - especially if one wants to concentrate on the food/gardening/ag/land/agroforestry piece of the puzzle:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-...8082/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1335995280&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-...0298/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335995280&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Sepp-Holzers-...370X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1335995280&sr=8-4

There's plenty on Youtube - look for permaculture, Bill Mollison, and/or Geoff Lawton for the core info.

The Rocky Mountain Institute
A "think and do tank" that's in the trenches to help redesign transportation, energy, housing, and other areas. Huge focus on efficiency.
http://www.rmi.org/

Each of these three is an existing organization/structure, has been in the trenches more than long enough and have a highly significant track record, and are actively changing the world.

Let's add to the list?
 
lpickup said:
Actually this section of the book was dealing with "sustainable" fossil fuel (and nuclear) energy use, where he arbitrarily chose 1000 years as being a sufficiently long time period where we could use the existing finite resources at a rate that would last that long...
You've provided proof of the contradiction in your post.

Sustainable use means we use a resource no faster than it's being regenerated. There simply is no such thing as 'sustainable' anything that relies on a finite substance. There's no sustainable oil, natural gas, uranium, or coal on the planet.

We'll have wind and solar and geothermal and wave and hydro power available on the planet long after we humans are gone. And we know that we can power the world from any of these by itself if we choose, but certainly any combination.

Let's train our brains to see through greenwashing and other diversions - kids in West Virginia can't eat greenwashing - especially when it's downwind of a coal plant or down the hill from a leaking sludge reservoir.

post_full_1273696481marshfork3.jpg

http://www.good.is/post/marsh-fork-elementary-school-will-escape-the-mass-of-toxic-coal-sludge/
 
AndyH said:
You've provided proof of the contradiction in your post.

Sustainable use means we use a resource no faster than it's being regenerated.
That's why the word "sustainable" is in quotes. He acknowledges it's not truly sustainable, but at least gets us by for a long period of time, by which time maybe it's likely we'll figure something else out.

I do realize I've only provided snippets of the whole book, so it's probably easy to take this stuff out of context. But you need to look at the whole book to see where he's coming from.
 
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