Wind power

[Aggie]

We have too many people in prison.  Treadmills, generators, free power.

Calories require massive petroleum input, and the human metabolism isn't overly efficient, so you're better off burning CH₄. I've done years of environmental work in the oilpatch (aka wiping big oil's arse); conventional gas is better than oil in terms of petroleum-based contamination, but it still isn't pretty. Salt spills remain a major issue with gas, and can screw up the land much more visibly and persistently. Also, much of it is sour and the H₂S concentrations can kill you dead on the spot, in Alberta, anyways.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Calories require massive petroleum input

Unless the tractors, combines, trucks, plus the fertilizer are powered by... wind turbines!
 

[Griffin NoName]

Calories require massive petroleum input,

How did stone-age man get his?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Calories require massive petroleum input,

How did stone-age man get his?

By eating the fat-layer of wooly mammoths... of course.  

Later on, man learned to mine the deep-fat deposits from The Fifth Elephant

[Swatopluk]

Calories require massive petroleum input

Unless the tractors, combines, trucks, plus the fertilizer are powered by... wind turbines!
 

The idea is not new. I have read a Reneaissance or late medieval text that described the idea of driving heavy mobile machinery with windpower (imagine your typical Dutch windmill on wheels (which were driven by the sail shaft). If one could pull siege powers into position with them, then they could easily pull the plow too (given the materials of the day, they would have barely been able to move their own weight if at all).

[Swatopluk]

I wonder if people objected to sight of the first castles built on top of hills?

Less to the sight but to what it meant: their ruthless subjugation

[Bluenose]

Unless the tractors, combines, trucks, plus the fertilizer are powered by... wind turbines!
 

The idea is not new. I have read a Reneaissance or late medieval text that described the idea of driving heavy mobile machinery with windpower (imagine your typical Dutch windmill on wheels (which were driven by the sail shaft). If one could pull siege powers into position with them, then they could easily pull the plow too (given the materials of the day, they would have barely been able to move their own weight if at all).

You know, for some reason this reminds of a scene in the Goon Show episode The Great Trans-Africa Aeroplane Canal.  Eccles and Bluebottle had been sent out from England to break a strike by 40,000 British workers digging the canal.  Bluebottle says to Seagoon "Captain, this machine can do the work of two men!"  Seagoon asks them to demonstrate it and Bluebottle replies, "Well, you'll have to help us. because it takes three men to work it..."

[Sibling DavidH]

Love the Goons, but sadly I've never heard that one.  Like so many of Milligan's mad jokes, there's a nugget of wisdom in there.

[Swatopluk]

It's a variation on the old saying that computers help us to solve problems we would not have without them.

Best ways to ruin a company:
1. Gambling - the fastest way
2. Women - the nicest way
3. Computers - the sure-fire way

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

You know, for some reason this reminds of a scene in the Goon Show episode The Great Trans-Africa Aeroplane Canal.  Eccles and Bluebottle had been sent out from England to break a strike by 40,000 British workers digging the canal.  Bluebottle says to Seagoon "Captain, this machine can do the work of two men!"  Seagoon asks them to demonstrate it and Bluebottle replies, "Well, you'll have to help us. because it takes three men to work it..."

Yes, yes it does-- and more to the point?

Those 3 men must be better educated than a mere ditch-digger.  Engineers, even.  As such, they would demand a higher salary too.  Education tends to bring with it a realization that work isn't everything, so they'd also insist on more reasonable working hours as well...

... and so it goes.

[Bluenose]

Completely aside and for those who love the Goons, the script for the episode in question is here

[Aggie]

Calories require massive petroleum input

Unless the tractors, combines, trucks, plus the fertilizer are powered by... wind turbines!
 

One of the necessities of truly non-petroleum energy is decent electric construction equipment. There's a lot of diesel necessary to erect any sort of infrastructure.  The fossil fuel burden of something like a hydroelectric dam must be immense, once production of concrete, trucking, digging, pouring etc. are factored in.

[Sibling DavidH]

Thanks for the link, Blue!  I've bookmarked it.

[Lindorm]

Calories require massive petroleum input

Unless the tractors, combines, trucks, plus the fertilizer are powered by... wind turbines!
 

One of the necessities of truly non-petroleum energy is decent electric construction equipment. There's a lot of diesel necessary to erect any sort of infrastructure.  The fossil fuel burden of something like a hydroelectric dam must be immense, once production of concrete, trucking, digging, pouring etc. are factored in.

Yes and no. The initial construction of a hydroelectric dam does consume a lot of fossil fuels, but if you look at it from an LCC perspective, i suspect things change a lot. The Swedish railway network is to a large extent powered by hydroelectrically generated electricity, and I do know that the national rail infrastructure board has looked into these questions to a rather detailed level. I'll see if I can dig up some information in english later.

Meanwhile, what with human-powered springs and all, I suspect that this thread needs a reference to the works of Paolo Bacigalupi: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi

(Actually, his stories set in the "calorie company" universe are both very good reading and very thought-provoking dystopias)

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Interesting Lindorm-- I added his "Windup Girl" to my "books to buy" list.