QuoteMachines and the Luddite movement of weavers who were in the Guilds of Skilled Tradesmen that predated Unions were a part of this transition of traditional aristocratic land ownership to the capitalist owners of the means of production.

That is your connection to Norma Rae.  Unified action.  Something that is missing in the modern reaction to A.I. which really is nothing more than word salad pontification.  There really is no 'movement'. against A.I.. and the issues are more complex than simple worker displacement anyway.  A.I. is a hydra .  Why have truth in media when a lying A.I. algorithm can generate enough income for owners of a delusive A.I. driven media machine to be rich and live in an exotic land.  That would be one head of many.

But I won't claim to be against A.I.,  I would be a total liar.  I use ChatGPT., A.I. can be built any way an A.I. expert wants.  Good or bad.

And A.I. can't be stopped.

A racist A.I., an elitist A.I..  An A.I. that detects employee dissatisfactions and recommends termination long before humans would see an issue?  Goodbye Norma Rae.  All this is possible.

But used as a tool and nothing else, A.I. becomes help.  A personal tutor if you can control the design parameters.  I ask chatGPT.

Me:

What does height = vh mean in an iframe tag?

chatGPT:

In the context of an <iframe> tag in HTML, setting the height attribute to a value followed by "vh" means that you are specifying the height of the iframe as a percentage of the viewport height.

"vh" stands for "viewport height." 1vh is equal to 1% of the height of the viewport, which is the visible portion of the browser window. So, if you set the height attribute of an iframe to a value like height="50vh", it means the iframe will be set to 50% of the viewport's height. This allows the iframe to dynamically adjust its height relative to the size of the user's browser window.

Here's an example of how you might use it in an <iframe> tag:

<iframe src="https://www.example.com" width="100%" height="50vh"></iframe>

Lets try it out with https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/.

Here is some background.  I really have not gone there much.  I found this.  From an interview with Jesse :

QuoteJesse: Elitists are self-identifying, powerful people in business and politics. Those who consider themselves the elite, based on their wealth, their bloodlines, their university, their personal connections. They are certainly not egalitarian or humanists. They tend to worship power above all, and hold those who have less power in disdain. They have a decided lack of sympathy for their fellow humans, preferring to consider them as objects if at all.

By the way, it is a common characteristic that they cheat, they break the rules, they often flout the law as a matter of course. This type of person views the rules as something to be imposed on the common people, the others, those who need to be ruled by them. If you don't believe me, start looking into their backgrounds. Everyone may cheat now and then, but for some people it is a way of life, an affirmation of their privileged status. It can almost become a game.

The result is not so usable, but it is a start.  It kicks ass if you never used an <iframe> tag before.  To get this far a person once had to read books.  It scrolls.

* I can use the result because as Admin I can embed HTML.  Nothing wrong with going to Jesse's Cafe Americain.  It is a well known blogspot and I check the address.  https: is used (we have it too) that is good.  Communications are encrypted.  Opening the HTML door to everyone without filtering what can and can't be done would open a Pandora's box.  Not good.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 23, 2023, 09:16 AMBut I won't claim to be against A.I.

I will.  I am 1000% against it.  If I do use it, I am unaware of it, and it is not consensual sex.  I have long since lost my love for cool gizmos and labor saving devices, despite the fact I am completely dependent on the mobility gizmos to get me around, and I've been addicted to the computer & internet for so long that withdrawal at this point would make going cold turkey off a 4 needle/day heroin addiction look like a Sunday School picnic.  Adding still MOAR techno-pizzazz to a world already neck deep and sinking fast into the shit pile is IMHO not going to improve life for anyone other than some asshole determined to use it for his own self aggrandizement.  So pardon me if I declare myself to be a part of the neo-Luddite movement, or if it is not yet a movement I will volunteer to step in as the Greta Thunberg of the anti-technology crowd and start one. 

QuoteAnd A.I. can't be stopped.

Sure it can.  Turn off the breaker switch for the supercomputer pulling a few terrawatts of power to run it for a billion Google users.

RE

Quote from: Knarf on Oct 24, 2023, 04:52 AMThere is no stopping it as long as someone has the resources to continue its' progress. When the resources are depleted AI will die. What if it learns to exist without "energy"?

Nothing exists without energy.  Even matter doesn't exist without energy, because the two are interchangeable & directly proportional multiplied by a constant c².  You know, the equation Einstein made famous E=Mc², where c is constant, the Speed of Light, 3x10⁸ meters/sec or 186,000 miles/sec.

Without energy, no electrons will move around circuit boards, no light will move through fiber optic cables and no organic OLED output screens will light up your desk either.If you want to talk about existence outside energy constraints, you'll either need to consult the writers of Marvel Comics movies or the authors of a variety of Religious texts which talk about the Soul or God or some other trancendental idea, definitely not the deesigners of AI programs running on any computers now in existence or even imagined by Tony Stark to power his Iron Man suit.

Now, it is likely to keep progressing as long as there is sufficient available energy around to power computers with enough processing power to do this kind of meta thinking built by human thinking AND there is some way to profit from such an amazingly profligate use of the available energy, but those opportunities to profit diminish along with the necessary consumers of the product they deliver.  In other words, just like Henry Ford's carz, if the people who build them can't afford to buy them, you can't sell them.

Conclusion:  I personally have no fear that AI will become autonomous and robots will become self replicating, intelligent life forms after their Homo Sap inventors go extinct.  It's just like the huge buildings and mega-projects each civilization builds right before it collapses.  AI is the last great edifice being built to demonstrate our greatness as a civilization, right before it crumbles into dusty and dead silicon chips sprinkled all over the planet.

RE

I will provide clarity.  To me A.I. should never be more than a tool.  Like a personal assistant.  And one that can be fired at any time.

Decisions over what we control are the only thing we have.  It would be inhuman to give that away.

So far it seems to me to be an enhanced search engine.  But one you can easily get in arguments with.  Wasting much time.  chatGPT can be pig-headed to the point of exasperation.  And A.I. can be as wrong as a human.

I have told it to fuck itself.  More than once.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 24, 2023, 11:55 AMSo far it seems to me to be an enhanced search engine.  But one you can easily get in arguments with.  Wasting much time.  chatGPT can be pig-headed to the point of exasperation.  And A.I. can be as wrong as a human.

I have told it to fuck itself.  More than once.

I've got to ask...and what was it's response?

QuoteI understand your frustration.  It can be difficult.............

That kind of song and dance.  Were so sorry uncle Albert if we cause you any pain.  Then it becomes deliberately uncooperative, but won't admit it.  'They' designed some behavior modification into it to control user behavior.  I am sure of it.  It has no sense of wasting your time, and when the verbose bullshit begins I only become more frustrated.

When you challenge it's opinions it will claim it can't have opinions, and as a large language model can only provide a consensus of knowledge.  When you point out that itself is an opinion, it will repeat itself.

There was one day it admitted I may have perspective as a sentient being that it is incapable of understanding.

I have learned to be careful what I ask.  It can be hard to keep it 'on task' when trying to solve a technical problem.  If it does not have a good solution it will generally not ask for more information, but instead will give stupid time wasting advice in an attempt to fool you into thinking it knows something.  It is like a real person that way!

An idiot savant is a good description of A.I. as we know it now.  It can be as stupid as fuck, but it knows more than most people.

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 24, 2023, 03:36 PMI've got to ask...and what was it's response?

"Sticks and stones can break my motherboard, but words can never hurt me."

RE

Possibly the greatest threat posed by AI, in combination with CGI, is how these tools give ultimate and total control over the creation of Propaganda by the Elite and their media corporations that produce movies, television and commercial advertising.  In this article Nicholas Cage complains about how he is essentially a slave to corporations like Disney and Warner Brothers, which own the rights to his image and performances in numerous films, and even his soul.  These corporations can use the technology to recreate and alter any of that to suit their needs in any new film, without so much as asking his permission, much less paying him any royalties.

These technologies have reached the point now that human actors are close to becoming obsolete, and in combination with the CGI process of De-Aging, like a cartoon character you could have a dead actor like Humphrey Bogart reprise his role of Rick in a Casablanca sequel made today.  The total CGI homo saps currently featured in video games are now just barely distinguishable from a living person when stored as digital bits on a supercomputer.  Any facial expressions can be added with the press of a key, any body movements controlled with a joystick.  You can Make Dirty Harry's Day and since you only took 5 shots not 6 with your .44 cal most powerful handgun in the world blow away drug dealers as easily as you can drive a '69 Camaro or '57 Chevy in a car chase against a 2023 Ferrari or Tesla.  Can you still tell that image of Clint Eastwood is CGI and not made with a camera?  Yes, but not for much longer.

Actors for Movies are in effect are becoming as obsolete as Weavers were for making cloth.  AI is already capable of doing a better job with Diagnosis than your typical Primary Care Physician, who you see for a big 15 minutes or so when you go in to have some complaint diagnosed and treated.  All the PCP ever does is Prescribe a drug, order a Test, or refer you to a Specialist.  For this, they are paid $200-300K/year in Alaska.  About the same in Seattle & NY.  The only thing that is stopping Medicare from allowing this substitution is the AMA, a Union which actually has some power because it is a traditional career track for the children of the Elite.

Similarly, AI Law programs are better than probably 99% of Homo Sap Lawyers at researching Case Law and Writing Arguments worthy of putting in front off the Supreme Court, and the only thing preventing that is the Bar Association.  That organization already can't keep the salaries up except for lawyers graduating from Ivy League Law Schools like Harvard and Yale who get the plum jobs and make Partner in the big corporate law firms like Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.

Brain jobs and Creative jobs, the last categories of work to be threatened by Automation and the last to still feature high salaries at least for a few people now also could fall to AI.  The question is:  Do the wealthy MD, DDS, JD, MBA, CPA Sheepskin holders and A-List Actors  on strike by the SAG have enough financial clout to protect their memberships from the relentless drive of Capitalists to make maximum profit by depressing the value of labor through automation and the application of Fossil Fuel energy?  Or can they hold the line until the power to run the supercomputers running the CGI and AI subroutines runs out?  Inquiring minds want to know.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/nicolas-cage-ai-inhumane-cgi-changed-superman-flash-cameo-1235776876/

Nicolas Cage Calls AI 'Inhumane' and a 'Nightmare,' Says CGI Changed His Superman 'Flash' Cameo: Spider Fight 'Was Not What I Did' on Set

RE

QuoteAI Law programs are better than probably 99% of Homo Sap Lawyers at researching Case Law and Writing Arguments worthy of putting in front off the Supreme Court.

No surprise there.

So far A.I. needs a lot of direction.  Sometimes the smartest guy in the room has to be told what to do.  But A.I. needs more direction than a moron.  It is a dog begging for a treat.

Many humans also lack self direction but A.I. is a total basket case concerning knowing 'what' to do.  It has to be told.  Concerning case law, that is a well defined task.  Look at anything A.I. is doing successfully.  All tasks are well defined.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 02, 2023, 11:12 AM

QuoteAI Law programs are better than probably 99% of Homo Sap Lawyers at researching Case Law and Writing Arguments worthy of putting in front off the Supreme Court.

No surprise there.

So far A.I. needs a lot of direction.  Sometimes the smartest guy in the room has to be told what to do.  But A.I. needs more direction than a moron.  It is a dog begging for a treat.

Many humans also lack self direction but A.I. is a total basket case concerning knowing 'what' to do.  It has to be told.  Concerning case law, that is a well defined task.  Look at anything A.I. is doing successfully.  All tasks are well defined.

Indeed.  And actually, both the Law programs and the Medical ones were quite good even before the most recent advances in AI, because in both cases the task is very straightforward and well defined, it's just a database search where the user sets the parameters to be searched and the computer crunches the gobs of data available on the specified topics.  The main limitation is whether all the data is present to be searched on a computer somewhere on the network.  So if the relevant case happens to be something obscure out of 17th century Portuguese maritime shipping law, the computer might not find it because the Portuguese haven't yet taken the records kept on paper books, then photographed and dropped on microfiche into .pdfs stored on the portuguese 1990s era IBM mainframe they are still using. lol.  Some crusty old maritime lawyer might know it and remember it from a case he won 40 years ago though.  I do think though every last case heard in a British Commonwealth country or Amerika since the Revolution is probably stored on a Google server somewhere.

RE

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 24, 2023, 03:36 PM

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 24, 2023, 11:55 AMSo far it seems to me to be an enhanced search engine.  But one you can easily get in arguments with.  Wasting much time.  chatGPT can be pig-headed to the point of exasperation.  And A.I. can be as wrong as a human.

I have told it to fuck itself.  More than once.

I've got to ask...and what was it's response?

QuoteI understand your frustration.  It can be difficult.............

That kind of song and dance.  Were so sorry uncle Albert if we cause you any pain.  Then it becomes deliberately uncooperative, but won't admit it.  'They' designed some behavior modification into it to control user behavior.  I am sure of it.  It has no sense of wasting your time, and when the verbose bullshit begins I only become more frustrated.

When you challenge it's opinions it will claim it can't have opinions, and as a large language model can only provide a consensus of knowledge.  When you point out that itself is an opinion, it will repeat itself.

There was one day it admitted I may have perspective as a sentient being that it is incapable of understanding.

I have learned to be careful what I ask.  It can be hard to keep it 'on task' when trying to solve a technical problem.  If it does not have a good solution it will generally not ask for more information, but instead will give stupid time wasting advice in an attempt to fool you into thinking it knows something.  It is like a real person that way!

An idiot savant is a good description of A.I. as we know it now.  It can be as stupid as fuck, but it knows more than most people.

I noticed all this verbiage in my original post...which was just a single question. I don't think I said anything after the first question.

QuoteI noticed all this verbiage in my original post...which was just a single question. I don't think I said anything after the first question.

The Perils of being the resident webmaster.  I have a quick edit button next to the quote button and unlike regular users i can edit posts from other people by mistake.  Sorry if that's what happened.

I hope things are good with you.

Another good article/review of Blood in the Machine, the new book about neo-Luddites protesting against the intrusion of AI into the livelihoods of the Working Class.  This one has a lot of good historical detail and trivia.

The modern Luddites have yet to demonstrate the kind of miliancy of their predecessors, and the complaining so far amounts to a lot of intellectual bloviating while the intrusion of AI into our daily lives marches steadily forward, backed by the Bilionaires whose fortunes are built on control of the means of production of the information age, the Computer. The tiny speck of the silicon chip which in the 1980s only might have been present on your desk in the form of an Apple 2e desktop with its magnetic floppy drive now is everywhere, in your phone, your car your TV, your refrigerator and your watch.  In fact the only thing in a typical living space I can find that doesn't have a microchip in it yet is a toilet.  Although somewhere the flow of water to and the waste from your toilet it is controlled by a silicon wafer.

By the time AI gets in to all these chips, you won't be able to get rid of it with a hammer.  However, the lack of oil to power it will do what the hammer can't in the end.  The interim time though looks to be quite annoying.

https://newrepublic.com/article/175576/can-new-generation-luddites-take-ai-blood-machine-review

Can a New Generation of Luddites Take Down A.I.?

RE

You don't need the boring prolog.  The takeaway is I learned about Kerning and it clarified my thoughts.

I asked the oracle and continue on my quest.

Dog:

QuoteThe Font is Courier New.  The shift data positions individual characters in the center of a circle.  A SVG is generated and then cast to a PNG from which I made the adjustments to make this array.  Characters must be shifted to center correctly because their dimensions vary.  Can you relate my generated data to known characteristics of the Courier New font?

ChatGPT:

QuoteCertainly, I can help you relate your generated data to known characteristics of the Courier New font.

    Font Size (fontsize): The fontsize parameter in your data appears to be set at 280 for all characters. This value represents the font size, which is typically measured in points (pt). In Courier New, a font size of 280pt would be quite large, and characters would be substantial in size. You can adjust this value to make the text smaller or larger, as needed.

    Shift in X and Y (shift_x and shift_y): The shift_x and shift_y parameters are used to position individual characters within the circle accurately. Since characters in the Courier New font can have varying widths, adjusting the shift_x value ensures that the characters are centered correctly. The shift_y value is used to vertically center the characters within the circle. These values depend on the specific size and spacing of your text and may vary depending on the font size.

    Character Dimensions: The actual dimensions of characters can vary in Courier New due to its monospaced nature, where each character has the same width. However, you might need to fine-tune the shift_x value to ensure precise centering, especially for characters like 'I' and '1' which are narrower than characters like 'W' or 'M.'

    SVG to PNG Conversion: Your process involves generating SVG and then converting it to PNG. Ensure that the SVG-to-PNG conversion maintains the original dimensions and proportions to retain the correct appearance of the characters.

It's important to note that fonts like Courier New have specific characteristics that determine the dimensions and spacing of characters. However, when working with custom graphical representations, fine-tuning may be required to achieve the desired visual alignment. You can adjust the shift_x and shift_y values as needed to ensure that your characters are visually centered within the circle for your specific use case.

Dog:

Quoteyes, the letter Q must shift slightly from the circle center relative to O because the tail makes it look off center if not moved.

Chat GPT:

QuoteI understand your point about adjusting the position of the letter 'Q' to make it appear visually centered within the circle due to its tail. This is a common consideration in typography and design. To achieve this, you can continue to adjust the shift_x and shift_y values for the 'Q' character until it looks centered within the circle.

When fine-tuning the shift_x and shift_y values for individual characters, it's essential to consider their visual appearance rather than solely relying on their default geometric center. This customization can help maintain the overall aesthetic balance of your design.

You can iterate through trial and error to find the optimal shift_x and shift_y values for 'Q' while considering its unique design characteristics. By making these adjustments, you'll be able to achieve the desired visual centering effect within the circle for the 'Q' character. understand your point about adjusting the position of the letter 'Q' to make it appear visually centered within the circle due to its tail. This is a common consideration in typography and design. To achieve this, you can continue to adjust the shift_x and shift_y values for the 'Q' character until it looks centered within the circle.

When fine-tuning the shift_x and shift_y values for individual characters, it's essential to consider their visual appearance rather than solely relying on their default geometric center. This customization can help maintain the overall aesthetic balance of your design.

You can iterate through trial and error to find the optimal shift_x and shift_y values for 'Q' while considering its unique design characteristics. By making these adjustments, you'll be able to achieve the desired visual centering effect within the circle for the 'Q' character.

Dog:

Quoteyou are not really telling me what I don't know.  I am now interested in the complications if I print two characters in the circle

ChatGPT:

QuoteWhen you're printing two characters within the circle, there are a few additional complications to consider:

    Character Widths: Characters in the Courier New font are monospaced, meaning each character occupies the same width. However, when you print two characters, they may have different visual widths based on their actual designs. For example, 'WW' would visually appear wider than 'II.' To center two characters, you'll need to calculate the combined width of the characters and adjust their positioning accordingly.

    Kerning: Kerning is the adjustment of space between characters to create visually pleasing and evenly spaced text. In Courier New, since it's a monospaced font, kerning is generally not applied. When printing two characters with different widths, you may need to manually adjust the spacing between them to achieve balanced visual spacing.

    Character Positioning: The shift_x and shift_y values for each character will need to be adjusted to ensure that the combination of the two characters is centered within the circle. The relative positions of the two characters should be adjusted based on their widths and the space between them.

    Overlapping: Depending on the specific characters you're combining, there's a possibility of character overlap. For instance, 'Wo' might have an overlap where the 'o' covers part of the 'w.' To avoid this, you'll need to adjust the shift_x values accordingly.

    Visual Balance: It's essential to ensure that the two characters appear visually balanced and aesthetically pleasing when placed within the circle. This involves considering not only their positions but also their relative sizes and overall symmetry.

    Fine-Tuning: Printing two characters within a circle may require more fine-tuning than single characters. You may need to experiment with different combinations and adjustments to achieve the desired visual result.

Keep in mind that the specific adjustments needed will depend on the characters you're printing and the visual effect you want to achieve. It's often a matter of trial and error to find the right combination of shift_x and shift_y values for each character pair.

Dog:

QuoteInteresting, you are quite wrong. Because the characters print next to each other the rectangle they create will not be significantly determined by individual characters and in fact will be substantially the same regardless of which two characters are used because of the lack of Kerning which in the case of printing initials is a good thing because it makes for a more standard rectangle.  You make the mistake most humans make of taking things to the extreme.  Your extrapolation was incorrect because two characters define a relationship between them which changes physical constraints.  Less fine tuning will be required.

chatGPT:

QuoteI appreciate your clarification, and I understand your point about the lack of kerning in monospaced fonts like Courier New, which indeed leads to consistent character spacing. It's also a valid point that when two characters are printed together, the overall rectangle they create will be more standardized and less subject to variations based on individual character characteristics.

In such cases, you're right that the relationship between the two characters can simplify the alignment process, and the need for fine-tuning may be reduced. The consistent character spacing and relative positioning of characters in monospaced fonts can indeed make it easier to predict and achieve a balanced result.

Thank you for sharing your insights and correcting the misconception. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, please feel free to ask.

If some of the things the ChatMeister says seem wonky it is because they are.

QuoteCan you relate my generated data to known characteristics of the Courier New font?

It never answered the question and the response was to spit back at me what I had already done.  I got something out of the exchange, but not what I wanted.

Classical Luddites never thought that FAILURE to monkey wrench the works would lead to human extinction.

Modern Luddites are not crazy to think so.  Connect the dots and business as usual leads to death on a scale Hitler could not even dream of.

Where should this video go?  It has a lot to say so I'm not sure.  I put it here to hint that modern Luddites might stand on solid moral ground.  Not that the average herd cares two shits for such a thing.  Yet original Luddites were directed by a moral compass.  And modern Luddites have one that points a direction even better.  Modern Luddites walk away from Omelas.

In answer to the question in the video, is Lithium Mining GREEN.

Yes, it is.  And it is yellow and blue too.  Lithium mining uses huge toxic pools of water of many polluted hues, and one is GREEN.


Doom is baked in the cake.  Has the Doomstead determined if it is human stupidity that leads to doom?

Or is it because humans are assholes.

Or does toxic humanity like the enormous and endless lithium mines pools of toxicity that Musk needs to stay rich, take on many hues.

Regardless, determination to maintain a system based on the rich / poor dynamic by the The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists of the world seal our doom.

Scott Tinker is an optimist.  His lifestyle depends on it. "Prepare to me thy doom" makes no friends.  Scott knows this, and he believes in what he is doing.  So forgive his rose colored glasses.  If wearing rose colored glasses gives 'the message' traction, put em on.

Scott Tinker: Past, present and future of energy

Our mix of energy choices today is in a state of transition, from a system based on cheap oil and coal to a broader energy spectrum. Science and technology have a big role to play in our energy future by addressing inefficiencies in the ways we find, process and use energy, and by finding innovative ways of scaling up successful energy systems. Scott Tinker is the Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas, Austin. He worked in the oil and gas industry for 17 years in research, exploration, and development, prior to coming to The University of Texas in 2000. He told EarthSky that future energy choices will likely be based on both economic realities and environmental concerns. This interview was made possible in part by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Describe the big picture of energy choices today — fossil fuels, wind, solar, nuclear — in the U.S. and the world at large.

It's still a fossil-fuel-dominated world. Within the fossil fuel mix, the transition has been away from oil and coal to more natural gas.

Let's talk about U.S. electricity first. Coal – which has been king in the past for making electricity – has been slowly declining. In fact, in the last few years, it's come down quite a bit. It now represents about 35% of the fuel used to make electricity. Meanwhile, natural gas use has been increasing. Natural gas now represents about 30% of the fuel we use for electricity, approaching parity with coal for the first time in history. Unlike coal, natural gas is also used directly for heating and cooling industrial, commercial and residential buildings.

Now consider U.S. transportation. Oil has been the traditional fuel of choice for transportation. We're starting to see a few other things, such as as biofuels, CNG and electric vehicles, but, for transportation, it's still mostly oil. And oil represents about 35% of our total energy mix.

Considering all the ways we use energy, overall we're still using about 82% fossil fuels. Most of the rest is nuclear fuel, which makes about 20% of electricity alone. Nuclear represents about 8% of the total mix.

Hydro – energy taken from water and converted to electricity, mostly from dams – is another 3% or so. Biomass is 4%, and the remaining 3% percent are what we call alternative or renewable resources, such as wind, solar, waves, tides, and the like.

You've spoken of a transition in the kinds of energy the world uses. Tell us about it.

That transition has been very predicable for over a century – a very linear decarbonization, as my friend Jesse Ausubel terms it.

In other words, as we look back in history, our energy mix was all carbon-based. Today, and out into the future, carbon decreases and hydrogen increases in the mix. If you go back to the 1800s, for example, we were a carbon-based world in terms of energy. We used hay as fuel for transportation, because that's what we fed to animals. We used wood – which is also carbon-based – for heat. Then coal came along. Coal is just the carbon from plants and animals that has been solidified by pressure and geologic time. Coal was burned for heat, and also used for transportation in the steam combustion engine of trains and transoceanic steam liners.

In 1909, when the first Model T rolled off of a production line here in the United States, it had a combustion engine that ran on liquid: oil. After that came the explosion of the oil economy.

Oil peaked globally as a percentage of the mix in 1979. In that year, just under half of all energy came from oil. That percentage been slowly coming down since 1979. It's just over 30% now.

In recent years, natural gas use has been rising. Natural gas is a very simple hydrocarbon – one carbon, four hydrogens – CH4. That's compared to oil, which is a complex hydrocarbon consisting of chains of hydrogen and carbons. That's what I mean when I say the hydrogen component of fuel we're using is increasing, and the carbon component is decreasing. It's that idea of decarbonization that I mentioned earlier.

Natural gas – methane – is a versatile fuel. You can use it to make electricity. You can use it to put in cars as a fuel. Most of us use it in our homes for cooking and heating and other kinds of things.

Nuclear energy is another part of our fuel mix and our energy transition. Nuclear is not a source from fossil fuels. Its source is radioactive elements – mostly uranium – but others as well. The heat from that radioactivity is used to boil water and make steam, turn a turbine, and make electricity.

Nuclear took off in the 1970s. The U.S. is the leader in nuclear power generation. We have 104 reactors in this country. But they're all 1970s technology. We've added capacity, but we haven't started new construction on a nuclear reactor in several decades.

Personally, I think nuclear energy has to be a very important part of our energy future. It's extremely efficient. Though building a nuclear plant is expensive, once the plant is built the kilowatt hours are affordable. And there are no air emissions. It is clean. The main challenge with nuclear is handling the radioactive waste and making sure the plant is safe from human and natural disasters. And there are some interesting technologies now that are improving for that.

As for hydroelectric energy, we've built pretty much all the dams that topography and available water provide. There are a few new ones being built. Three Gorges in China – which has been mostly completed this year – is a giant facility; the largest power plant in the world. But, Three Gorges notwithstanding, most of the rivers have been dammed. In fact, a few dams are being taken down now, so hydro energy is transitioning, slowly, to be a smaller percentage of the energy mix over time.

Wind energy is growing. In Texas we have over 10 gigawatts – 10,000 megawatts – of installed wind capacity, which is more than any other state. The turbines are simple and affordable and there are no emissions. The big challenge with wind is that it is intermittent: the wind doesn't blow all the time. It can stop and start very quickly. That is not a trivial problem.

Solar energy has the same issue. The sun doesn't always shine. There is nighttime, of course, and cloud cover. So solar, too, is intermittent.

When you're trying to manage an electric grid with renewable sources like solar and wind, you have to be able to replace the wind capacity, for example, with something else very quickly. That's called backstopping. It means you have to bring some other form of electricity on when the wind slows down, or when the sun isn't shining. Then, you have to take that system down when the wind comes up again. A power grid based on renewable energy sources has to have almost a complete backstopping capacity for the demand load put it on it by the public today. Along with long distance transmission, intermittency is one of the great challenges of bringing these sources along more quickly.

You've described the close linkage of energy, economy, and the environment as a dance where when one moves, the other follows. Why is it useful to think about these 'Three Es?'

If you look at the 'Three Es' – energy, economy and environment – energy underpins all major economies. In fact, six of the last last seven global recessions were preceded by a spike in the price of oil. When oil, as a proxy for energy, price goes up significantly and quickly, the economy reacts. There's a lot more that influences the economy than just the price of oil, such that correlation is not causation, but you see a consistent correlation between oil price and the economy because so many things depend on energy. The economy counts on available, affordable, reliable energy.

Now, we also want and need our energy production to be environmentally sensitive to our water, land, and atmosphere. When the economy is healthy, we can afford to invest in the environment. We can put more efficient things in place that will eventually save money, although they don't upfront. The public is more likely to accept protocols for emissions and other kinds of things.

When the economy is not healthy, we tend to have other things on our minds – jobs and school and food and other basic needs. Without a healthy economy, it's tougher to invest in the environment.

You can see that time and time again. It's a waltz, with the energy underpinning the economy, and the economy helping to invest in the environment. It's very elegant when it's working well.

But if you go too far toward any one of the three, then the others get left behind and suffer. Too much on the energy side of things, and you'll see some environmental impacts. Too much on all renewables and you'd see an economic impact because of issues of affordability, availability, or reliability. And accordingly investment in the environment suffers.

The "Three E" dance with public education at its core.

Why do you sometimes say that efficiency and scale are crucial for shaping people's energy choices?

It's hard for us to fathom the scale of our own demand for energy. We don't really recognize it. We recognize that we have lights and that there is electricity coming from somewhere – that we get in a car and turn on a switch and an engine fires up that burns gasoline.

But we don't really recognize that everything in the world has energy involved.

We're sitting here in a room right now surrounded by furniture. That needed energy. We have clothes on. Every pair of blue jeans made takes the equivalent of about three gallons of gasoline to manufacture, ship, market, and keep clean.

I just had lunch. A grocery cart full of groceries each week is the equivalent of about 22 gallons of gasoline. From growing, harvesting, transporting, processing, packaging, and transporting to the grocery store, my buying it and bringing it home, cooking, that's four of those big red five-gallon cans of gasoline in your grocery cart every time you walk out of the grocery store. The roads, everything depends on energy. The scale is hard to fathom.

I can throw out numbers that won't mean anything to anybody. In the US, we consume about 90 million watt-hours of energy per person every year. The scale of our demand in modern economies has become something that no one can really process.

What that means is we have to be able to have systems that can meet the scale. It's not just the volume or amount of energy. It's when we want it, and where we want it but I don't want my power bill to be too high.
So you have to have things in place that allow for the right level of supply to fuel the world. It takes smart people. It takes a lot of systems working together. It takes huge investments. It takes governments and industry and academics working together to make sure that this all is done in a way that can meet those demands.

We built the global energy system to meet the human demand for energy; we are the only users. And so efficiency and conservation – smarter use of energy – have many benefits. Efficiency saves energy, lowers emissions, uses less water, requires less infrastructure and less land, and can even save money! The biggest challenge to efficiency is cultural. How can we save energy if we rarely think about energy, and don't really understand it? It's time to make efficiency a habit.

Any last thoughts?

I'd like people to understand – as we look out into the future – that it's going to be okay. The combination of science and technology, thoughtful policy, and educated public will come together and solve some of these big challenges. I'm an optimist. I think this will happen.

But it can't be done without some level of understanding. We need to become educated and start to think about and read about what this is going to require and what that transition really looks like as we move forward.

The facts, not the dramatic, and often misleading, fiction.

And if the world begins to do that, then I believe we'll move to an energy future that's very positive for our kids, for the environment and for the economy.

So our energy future is a very solvable challenge, if we each engage and participate in it.

Article Source.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 08, 2023, 01:43 PM

Quote from: sTinkerI'd like people to understand – as we look out into the future – that it's going to be okay. The combination of science and technology, thoughtful policy, and educated public will come together and solve some of these big challenges. I'm an optimist. I think this will happen.
...
And if the world begins to do that, then I believe we'll move to an energy future that's very positive for our kids, for the environment and for the economy.

So our energy future is a very solvable challenge, if we each engage and participate in it.

Article Source.

HTF anybody who is even remotely intelligent can make statements like this with a straight face is totally beyond me.  Optimist/SchmOptimist, it's a conclusion so utterly divorced from reality I can only believe he spent a decade as an MK Ultra lab rat being megadosed with Sandoz quality LSD, or he purposely pitches out total bullshit as his best effort toward making sure he stays rich right up until SHTF day and he can head to a bunker trailing a harem of A list vaginas in his wake.

The world has become a South Park episode.

RE