Topic: Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming? - page 3. (Read 30176 times)

Exactly. So the longer you wait to start building the car, the greater the chances that the flaws will be found at the design stage.

Well sure, why pay for something if you can get the government to pay for it? The problem is that the government faces the same problem choosing priorities for basic research. But however you slice it, and whoever funds basic research, the more prosperous we are, the more basic research there can be.

You're again operating on the assumption that you can create some test to find the winners. You can't. The information to do that doesn't exist. If you created such a program, you likely would have passed right over Einstein. (I'll admit, you probably would have caught Beethoven.)

Only if you ignore the cost of the obsolete infrastructure you spend money on and the cost of decommissioning it, in addition to the cost of the new infrastructure.


toyoto warranties the prius' battery for 8 years/100k miles.  do you really think they would do that if they didn't think it would last at least that long?

one of the local taxi companies jumped on the original prius as soon as it came out here back in 2001.  the batteries are still going strong.


only up to a point.  past a certain degree of warming (+3 degrees, IIRC), the losses overtake the gains, mostly because much of the land the growing zone expands into is utterly useless for farming.  permafrost just turns into a marshy mess and you're not growing anything on barren rock regardless of how warm it gets.


These aren't lead-acid or nickel-cadmium.

NiMH batteries contain nickel (obviously), cobalt, magnesium ,or aluminum. and various rare earths (lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and praseodymium), which aren't particularly toxic.


It would still be an improvement due to efficiency of scale.  a car-size IC engine is about 25% efficient, at best.  combined cycle coal will do 50%+.

it's also nicer for general pollution outside of CO2, as it's loads easier and cheaper to scrub the hell out of the emissions of a handful of big plants than to try to scrub tens of thousands of itty bitty engines.

Batteries can only be recycled to an extent, and it depends upon the type of battery as well.  Steel block engines have been recycled for over a century.


Only in the immediate area, not overall.  That is, unless you live in France, where 80% of the baseload power grid is fission nuclear.  In the US, widespread adoption of electric vehicles would tax the grid as it is, and spur the contruction of more coal fired plants.  I've worked in coal plants, nat gas peaking plants, and nuke plants.  I'll never voluntarily return to a coal plant, but wouldn't think twice about living within 10 miles of a modern American nuke plant, but we won't get nuke plants, we would get more coal plants.  You're electric vehicle burns coal, as delayed and distant that combustion may be.  And don't even bother to bring up solar power or wind power to run the American private vehicle fleet.  That doesn't even come close to being realistic.


Not off of the line, but max speed is an issue or max range is an issue.  It's a design trade off.  Falls back to that energy density issue again.


I presume that you mean one of the various versions of the inductive highway lane concept.  Sure, that works but it's incrediblely inefficient, and there is no way to solve that inefficiency without making the electric cars incompatible with the roads we have everywhere else or making all of the other cars incompatible with driving on an inductive lane, or both.  It's a band-aid solution to the limited range issue that would require a massive investment into new highway infrastructure, and who is going to pay for all of that?


Yeah, I've seen it.  The one where they talk about leasing the battery pack to the owner of the car.  This is because the battery will not last as long as an average car, which is only about 7-9 years.  Imagine if you had to completely rebuild your engine every two years, how well would that vehicle compete in an open market?


Sure, you have a say.  You're saying right here.  What you don't have is a vote in the matter as it pertains to the rights of others.  Get used to that.


Reality is a bitch, but that doesn't mean that is because of something "the Rich" have done to you, personally or as a member of some class/group.  The privileged are so privileged as a direct consequence of not being screwed.  The underprivileged are not so underprivileged because "the Man" is trying to keep them down, but as a consequence of being screwed for other reasons.  Not everything that goes wrong is someone else's fault.


So what?  I can't do anything about that, it's just the way the world is.  If you feel called to do something, become a teacher.  My kids are homeschooled.  They are both the only kids for whom I am responsible and the only kids for whom I can do anything to help.  I'm doing my part, are you?

Batteries can be recycled and reused and yes they are poisonous in case of an accident. So are ICE cars. Not really a world of difference, except that it's easier to reduce pollution from electric cars. Are electric cars slow? Compared to what? They are on par with regular cars. The range could be solved and I know of a few ideas currently undergoing testing on how to charge electric cars during operation, which would also help with refuelling times. That too is an engineering problem and can be solved fairly easy. I saw a TED talk about replaceable battery packs. Go look for it. It's interesting.
I too see issues with green tech, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. I had something similar to Revopower when I was young. Small two-stroke engine attached to the hub of a normal bike. Worked like a charm.

There's plenty to be done with our current reactors. They can be much more efficient than today. And fusion is still 20 years off.

Why shouldn't I have a say in things that affect me?

That's not creating an equal playing field. That's maintaining the status quo where the privileged have access to better everything and underprivileged are still screwed. Children with parents who won't or can't provide for them will be at a disadvantage, and most will never catch up.

So.... the corrupt government should decide who gets the best chance at some predetermined age decided by sociologists trying to keep their jobs so the local bureaucrat doesn't get them fired. That's extreme but it completely negates your simplified argument. We all agree it sucks when some possibly really smart person is born into poverty and never allowed to reach her/his potential. No one argues that that sucks. Please propose an actual, applicable, real world solution to the problem rather than a vague idea.

So if you design a new car, and you find a flaw in the design, would it be cheaper to fix it at the design stage, or after you've set up a production line, done all your tooling, trained your staff, ordered all components and started rolling out cars?

I agree with your assertion that a prosperous economy does a world of good for research, but basic research? Assuming we're talking about the same things here I'd say that's not something done by most companies. Companies does applied research, and they're damn good at it. Basic research is just a money sink to them and something most often done with taxpayers money. Solar is a good example.  Now they're beginning to become efficient and many companies are investing in researching it, because of the research done over the last 30 years or so, mainly funded by taxpayers. Does that mean that the research done over the last 30 years have been wasted? Or that they've provided a foundation that companies can build on?

When it comes to the children then. I thought the race was on to find the next Einstein/Beethoven, not to provide a comfortable life for your children. Perhaps one of the snotty children of that poor family over there have the potential, but don't get the chance to proper education because of their socio-economic status. While we all like to think that our children are geniuses, the likelihood of that being true is slim. So you need a broad search scope, meaning that you'd want to give the largest amount of people possible the chance to test their potential. Not just the ones lucky enough to have good parents.

I totally agree. Great response.

Ironic, since the truth is the reverse.

But that's not what would have happened. We'd have built dozens more crappy reactors like the ones at Fukushima. And the resources devoted to electric cars wouldn't have gone to developing the more sophisticated computers and basic research that is making *good* electric cars possible.

The reason we can design such great nuclear reactors and electric cars today is not because of all the research into electric cars and nuclear reactors we've done. It's because we have (or at least *had*) a prosperous economy with good basic research, so we can do *everything* better.

When these things will really work, the profit motive will direct money into them. If you have to push to get money into them, it's strong evidence you're trying to do it wrong. You don't know if solar is right. You don't know if hydrogen is right. You don't know if thorium is right. Central planning will always tend to move resources to less productive uses because the information to make the right decisions simply does not exist without an open market.

We don't want to equalize the chances. If your children get an equal chance regardless of what you do, why bother to do much for them? If you want excellence, you have to try as hard as you can *NOT* to do anything that tends to even things out.

Batteries are heavy, and include a huge 'sunk' energy cost in their production.  They also don't last very long relative to the steel block combustion engine.  They contain huge amounts of poisons that would contanimate any area that a major accident occurred.  They are relatively slow, and have very limited ranges and long 'refueling' times.  Even many 'green' leaning inventors have acknowleged the problems with electric transport, which is why the Revopower Wheel was invented.  Pity it never made it to mass production, I would have bought one straight away.  There is no substitute for the energy density of petrol.


Mostly matters of physics and economics, not matters of technology.  Electric vehicles will become commonplace as soon as the economics of peak oil force the issue, and then people get accustomed to the particular inconviences that electric transport presents.


That is an accurate assessment.


Perhaps we could have, but again, there isn't a lot of further research to be done.  Again, we know how to build thorium cycle reactors, and we did it fourty years ago, but we just don't.  The infrastructure, as you noted, exists for the refinement and production of uranium fuel rods, because of the military's desire for plutonium.  We no longer need any more of that, and really need a lot less than we have, but the infrastructure exists.  So uranium fuel cycle reactors not only have a precedent, they have an economicly mature nationwide/worldwide supply chain.  An equivilent supply chain for thorium reactors would have to be built up from scratch, which can be done if we had the political will, but it seems that no one but India has any such will.


No contest there, but it's not really your's to decide.


True equal rights under the "law" (common law or natural law, like how the term was intended when the framers spoke the term.)  No special rights for historicly oppressed groups, no identity politics.  As a parent, I am responsible for the quality of their education and their health care, and no one else gets to intervene in my decisions. (excepting, perhaps, the child) 

What economic realities are you talking about? The fact that you don't have to pay for your pollution? And physical disadvantages? Like in real physical hurdles that can't be overcome? Or problems to be solved?
Yes, and why do we use uranium instead? To produce weapons. Sad but true. Thorium waste can't be refined to nuclear bombs so that line of research was killed. Depressing isn't it? Is that really the end of the line in nuclear research? Don't you think we could have gotten a bit further if we didn't focus most of our energy on burning oil?

Sure the SUV have valid uses. Is that how most of them are used? The idea of using 3 tonnes of steel to transport 70 kg of flesh is bloody stupid.

How do you present a level playing field? Education for everyone? Nutrition to help them develop their physical and mental strength? Who will pay for this?

the electric car was invented before the internal combustion engine driven car.  The electric one lost due to real physical disadvantages and economic realities that persist to the present day.  So your assumptions are demonstratablely wrong.  We also know how to build thorium reactors, we just don't.

The SUV has a valid use case.  It's not significantly different than a minivan, nor are they less efficient; and they can be used as a small truck as well.

We can't.  The best we can do is to present a level playing field and hope that the law of averages will permit these talented types to rise to their potential.

There's an old truth saying that the longer you wait the more expensive and hard things will be to change.
Wouldn't it have been great if we'd done that? Invested in electric cars, and nuclear? Then we would probably have an efficient electric car today, and knowledge about nuclear power unknown to us. Perhaps we would use thorium reactors? Perhaps something better?

I'm all for growing economies. I'm against waste. Be frugal when possible and use resources where it does good. You can achieve the same thing with a different type of car as you can with a SUV. You're just wasting resources by building and driving that. Not that SUVs are the main problem, but they illustrate a point.

I'm in total agreement with you about the population thing though. But I have one more thought about that. How do we make sure that the potential Einsteins/Beethovens are able to reach their full potential? How do we equalize the chance everyone gets when starting out their lives?

Yes, it really does matter. If it's a century off, we'll probably manage it all wrong if we try to manage it now. The longer we can wait to deal with the problem, the more prosperous we'll be when we deal with it and the better the technology we'll have to address it with. Also, the more science we'll know, so our chances of screwing it up will be lower. (Imagine if we invested tens of billions into electric cars and trillions into nuclear power in the 70s because we were told we only had 20 years of oil left.)

The difference between this simplistic silliness and reality is why this kind of reasoning is complete nonsense. It's not about driving SUVs, it's about growing global economies so that we have the resources and understanding to deal with big problems the best way possible.

Every reduction in human population is one less ticket in the lottery for the next Einstein or Beethoven. The stakes are as high as they can be.