Prosthetic Conscience

Physicist David J.C. MacKay injects some numbers into the discussion of renewable energy. It’s UK-centric; in the US our picture is a little better because we have regions better-adapted for solar than Britain, but the same basic messages apply (especially given our hoggish rate of consumption relative to the Brits). Scale is a killer: the most comprehensive totally-green scenario that doesn’t involve significant reduction in demand also involves offshore wind farms twice the size of Wales.

Excellent article at El Reg. Dr. MacKay doesn’t want to be known as pro-nuclear (he considers himself weakly anti-nuclear, I guess), but his numbers tend to favor nuclear over just about everything else.

The bulk of serious criticisms to this article seem to be along the lines that his calculations are based on the inefficiencies of present-day technology (in generation of power, transport of power, and end-usage). Which is fair, but at least he’s giving reasonable worst-case values.

From Social Memory Complex, an alternative way of looking at US politics. Rather than seeing the US as projecting force overseas, but troubled at home, consider domestic political turmoil as the rogue city-state of Washington projecting force into the 50 states. Consider the US as an occupied territory.

When home births are outlawed, only outlaws will have home births.

Closer-to-the-source link at Feministing, and quite a bit of interesting commentary.