The Air Con

In the United States, consumption of energy for air-conditioning homes and vehicles has more than doubled just since the mid-1990s. In India, total consumption for air-conditioning is projected to climb as much as ten-fold over the coming decade; air-conditioners already reportedly account for a staggering 40 per cent of all electricity consumption in the city of Mumbai. In Brazil, air-conditioning demand has more than tripled in just five years, contributing to a surge in electricity consumption. Unusually steep increases in electricity demand in southern European countries are being blamed on the proliferation of air-conditioning. The greatest irony, of course, is that by chilling the indoor environment today, we are helping ensure that future summers will be even hotter. Turning buildings into refrigerators burns fossil fuels, which emits greenhouse gases, which raises global temperatures, which creates a need for -- you guessed it -- more air-conditioning. Air-conditioning's massive energy demand is overwhelming efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This isn't smart.

Take the output from all of the United States’ renewable electricity sources combined, multiply it by five, and it still could not satisfy current air-conditioning demand - let alone serve other uses. The US department of energy projects that wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass electricity generation will indeed expand almost fivefold, but not until 2030. By that year, if the department's predictions hold, total electrical generation from all renewable sources will be sufficient to satisfy only 75 per cent of air-conditioning demand. For everything else, there will be no green alternative.

 Energy consumption is not the only issue. The cool, still, dry atmosphere of the standard home or office has a variety of other unpleasant and sometimes hazardous side effects. Obviously, air-conditioning can play an important role during killer heat waves. But keeping vulnerable members of our communities alive during heat emergencies is one thing; using that as an excuse for neglecting horrible urban living conditions while at the same time tolerating the routine, lavish deployment of chilled air throughout much of the rest of society is another. Well-insulated buildings often suffer from so-called sick building syndrome. Depending on the extent of outside ventilation, toxins and irritants can be ten to 100 times as concentrated in indoor air as they are outdoors. Researchers in Brazil, the United States, and Europe have found that people who are employed in air-conditioned workplaces visit doctors and hospitals more frequently and generally have a higher risk of poor health than do those who work without air-conditioning. Under natural ventilation, people have been found to experience fewer problems with headaches, colds, other respiratory ailments, circulation problems, eye dryness, allergies, and chest tightness. There is lower absenteeism when employees work near windows and can open them. 

In a world without air con and capitalism, a more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a more pleasant time, offices close, working hours are reduced. Daily afternoon siestas. Yet for capitalists all the see is slower workdays mean less productivity, shorter hours and closed offices mean lost profits for employers. Socialists envisage more people spending more time outdoors -- particularly in the late afternoon and evening, when temperatures fall more quickly outside than they do inside -- neighborhoods see a boom in spontaneous summertime socializing. Rather than cowering alone in chilly home-entertainment rooms, neighbors get to know one another.

 New construction style such as high ceilings, better cross-ventilation, whole-house fans, screened porches, basements and white "cool roofs" to reflect solar rays.  "Green roofs" of grass, ivy and even food crops sprout on the flat tops of government and commercial buildings around the city, including the White House. These layers of soil and vegetation (on top of a crucially leak-proof surface) insulate interiors from the pounding sun, while water from the plants' leaves provides evaporative cooling. More trees than ever appear in both private and public spaces.

 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/2012610131431227431.html

S-C-A-ISM minus O-I-L

No one is disputing that in any consideration of existing social problems, the question of energy supply is of prime importance.

But the vital question is about the reasons why the existing world capitalist system cannot take up the technical possibilities which now exist for the setting up of a safe and adequate world energy system. This question also takes us out of the sphere of applied science and technology and inevitably into the sphere of world economics and politics. From a practical point of view, society has available a wide range of technical options and there are large reserves of skill, labour and materials, yet at the same time we suffer from a chronic inability to take these up in a free and consciously regulated manner. In the field of energy supply, as in every other field, such resources, skills and production methods which are taken up will be determined by the economic imperatives of the market system or consistent with the existing national economic or military strategies. Socialism would not be bound by the economics of market competition to use methods which embodied the least amounts of labour in their production. Global energy policy is not being driven by concerns about the environment. It’s about ownership and control of key resources, who has them, and who’s got the weaponry to seize them.

There is no single alternative to oil, so a suite of alternatives will have to be employed. The main problem with renewables is that the oil-addicted capitalist economy has starved them of funds, because set-up costs are prohibitive and returns long-term. This is true of geothermal heating systems, wind and tidal systems, ocean thermal electricity, biowaste to oil reconversion plants, solar technology. Capitalism is not, of course,really interested in saving energy. Energy companies could offer customer discounts to those who were frugal, but in fact that's not the way to make money. Thermal Conversion Process can take any type of carbon waste including animal remains, car tyres, old computers and human sewage and within half an hour turn it into useful fertilizer minerals, carbon charcoal and oil. What’s the catch? Lack of profit. Paul Horsnell, Head of Energy Research at investment bank Barclays Capital: “To transport and process all the waste, pay the energy costs, provide for the capital costs and still make a profit does look difficult at first sight. By comparison, fossil fuel oil is actually pretty cheap.”
Under capitalism renewable sources will only be adopted on a wide scale when the price becomes right.

We live in a social system predicated on endless expansion and it is the blind, unplanned drive to accumulate is the hallmark of capitalist production – the profit motive – that has created the environmental problem, not individuals. There can be no such thing as sustainable or environmentally friendly capitalism. It is completely impossible under capitalism for humanity to use the earth's resources for the benefit of all people, and it is equally impossible for it to deploy the accumulated knowledge, the skills and the techniques of production which now exist in a direct relationship with human needs on a basis of world-wide co-operation.

If capitalism uses up the obtainable oil in its customary spendthrift way, then socialism is going to have to employ solutions, both in means of supply and modes of consumption.

What is, for a socialist, strange is nobody ever suggests that we just take drop in energy consumption and live with it. How can we continue to live the life of the motorway-commuter without petrol? Oh no, we can't possibly give that up, we'll have to use hydrogen or electric cars. How do we continue to have all our cities' department stores lit up every night so people can window-shop at 4 am? Dread the thought that consumers should have their nocturnal browsing habits constrained.

Humanity may have no choice but to adapt to a low energy way of life. Yet studies abound that demonstrate that traditional intensive farming methods can out-perform industrial agricultural methods. People may desire this change but the economic framework of capitalism won’t allow it.

Fusion power is the Holy Grail but that infinite energy would be uncomfortable to capitalist markets. It could never be allowed to get out. If fusion ever came about , we can be sure about one thing - our electricity bills won't go down. New technology tends to deliver wealth upwards, to the rich who own and control it, not downwards to the rest of us.

"Saving the planet is a nice thing to do"

Further to this post the Guardian writes no matter how much research is done and money is spent attempting to commercialise fusion technology, it always appears to be stuck at least a generation away. "Advocates of fusion research predict that the first commercial fusion electricity might be delivered in 50-80 years from now," said Jan Vande Putte, Greenpeace International's nuclear campaigner. "But most likely, it will lead to a dead end, as the technical barriers to be overcome are enormous."

Fusion doesn't produce greenhouse gases, it is intrinsically safe and it leaves no burden on future generations. The primary reaction does not produce nuclear material, only helium. There's a limited problem in that you produce neutrons, but this only makes the reactor chamber itself radioactive. Within 100 years, you could recycle the chamber so there's no need for geological-timescale storage as there is with the waste from fission energy. And the fuel is virtually unlimited. All you need is lithium and hydrogen. Sea water alone could fuel current human consumption levels for 30 million years. Reactors would be so safe that they could be located amid urban centres where the power is most needed. A tsunami, earthquake or bomb could hit a fusion reactor and the problems caused would only ever be structural. With fission, you have to release the energy if there's a problem, whereas fusion shuts down instantly if disrupted.

So, what are the barriers preventing a great leap forward?

"We could produce net electricity right now, but the costs would be huge," says Cowley. "The barrier is finding a material than can withstand the neutron bombardment inside the tokamak (doughnut-shaped chambers where the fusion reaction takes place). We could also just say damn to the cost of the electricity required to demonstrate this. But we don't want to do something that cannot be shown to be commercially viable. What's the point?"

It's hard not to look at the potential of fusion and scream: "We need this right now!" If the motivation was there, the global community could find the money to fund 10 rival fusion projects to fast-track the process of finding the optimum design. So, why haven't we seen a Manhattan Project-style push for fusion. As long as fusion research remains underfunded then it will never save humanity from climate change, oil wars and the poverty and underdevelopment caused by ever-higher energy costs.

Who will stand to benefit financially from its commercialisation? The global energy market is worth $5-6 trillion a year: somebody will make a lot of money out of this. If fusion (the star in the jar) ever becomes proved, Mailstrom can absolutely rely on one thing - our electricity bills won't go down. New technology tends to deliver wealth upwards, to the rich who own and control it, not downwards to the rest of us. An orgy of free energy would still have to wait for socialist society to be realised.

Beyond Peak Oil 3

Scotland's first commercial-scale tidal turbine has been connected to the electricity grid off the Orkney coast and begun generating power. Tidal turbines harness the energy provided by the movement of the tides and supporters say they will provide a predictable, reliable source of green electricity.

The gigantic machine which resembles an underwater wind turbine weighs 1,500 tonnes and stands 70 feet off the seabed and will generate enough electricity annually to power about 1,000 homes. Hundreds of these machines could be installed in the turbulent waters of the Pentland Firth off Scotland's north coast. 400 of the turbines in the Inner Sound tidal site in the Pentland Firth, behind the island of Stroma and the mainland would provide enough electricity for about 400,000 homes.

However, questions remain about the impact of tidal renewable energy on marine life.

Beyond Peak Oil 2

Gas prices are rising, ethanol is under attack and nuclear power continues to struggle in the shadow of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. But an abundant, safe and clean energy source once thought to be the stuff of science fiction is closer than many realize: nuclear fusion. Fusion used to be an energy source for our generation’s grandchildren; now, plans across the world call for a demonstration power plant in about 20 years. Harnessing nuclear fusion, the energy that powers the sun and the stars, has been a goal of physicists worldwide since the 1950s. It is essentially inexhaustible and it can be created using hydrogen isotopes — chemical cousins of hydrogen, like deuterium — that can readily be extracted from seawater. Fusion energy is created by fusing two atomic nuclei, in the process converting mass to energy, which appears as heat. The heat, as in conventional nuclear fission reactors, turns water into steam, which drives turbines to generate electricity, or is used to produce fuels for transportation or other uses. Fusion energy generates zero greenhouse gases. It offers no chance of a catastrophic accident. It can be available to all nations, relying only on the Earth’s oceans. There’s a catch. The development of fusion energy is one of the most difficult science and engineering challenges ever undertaken. Among other challenges, it requires production and confinement of a hot gas — a plasma — with a temperature around 100 million degrees Celsius.

Once a poorly understood area of research, plasma physics has become highly developed. Scientists not only produce 100 million-degree plasmas routinely, but they control and manipulate such “small suns” with remarkable finesse. Since 1970 the power produced by magnetic fusion in the lab has grown from one-tenth of a watt, produced for a fraction of a second, to 16 million watts produced for one second — a billionfold increase in fusion energy. Seven partners — the European Union, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States — have teamed up on an experiment to produce 500 million watts of fusion power for 500 seconds and longer by 2020, demonstrating key scientific and engineering aspects of fusion at the scale of a reactor.

What has been lacking is the political and economic will to develop materials that can withstand the harsh fusion environment, sustain hot plasma indefinitely and integrate all these features in an experimental facility to produce continuous fusion power. Fusion has the potential to help with all the emerging challenges of this still-new century: energy independence, national economic competitiveness, environmental responsibility and reduction of conflict over natural resources. A rough estimate is that it would take $30 billion and 20 years to go from the current state of research to the first working fusion reactor. But put in perspective, that sum is equal to about a week of domestic energy consumption, or about 2 percent of the annual energy expenditure of $1.5 trillion.

But socialism won't be placing a price tag on research as does capitalism.

From here

Ecological Concerns

Another extract from the 2002 Production for Use Report

Socialism and Resources – Mike Foster.

The subject is extensive and in view of this I will focus on 4 aspects: fish production, deforestation, our use of fossil fuels, and food production. For each, I will describe how capitalism dictates their production or use and compare this with how they could be managed in socialism.

FISH STOCKS. Fish provides about a fifth of the animal protein in our diets worldwide. In total it exceeds that of poultry, beef and pork combined. Globally, the marine fishing catch almost doubled between 1975 and 1995 when demand was for 75 million tonnes a year. This is expected to rise to 110 million tonnes in 2010 Over fishing has led to declining yields requiring more intensive fishing methods.

In socialism, it may be necessary to make plans to allow the number of fish in the sea to increase. One possibility would be to produce more from fish farming. Democratised versions of capitalist fisheries could transfer some of their workers and equipment to organisations managing fish farms. In 1994, fish caught from the sea accounted for around 72% of the total fish harvest, with only 15% from fish farms, and 13% from freshwater. It would benefit marine ecosystems if our intervention in the seas are reduced, allowing species time to repopulate. With a transfer of emphasis away from marine fishing to fish farming, fish yields could potentially be maintained at sufficiently high levels. In the short term, food could be diverted to communities heavily dependent on sea fishing.

The mentality encouraged by capitalism is to strive for profits at the expense of long-term consequences. The warnings raised by the environmentalists and scientists are muffled by the demands of economic exploitation. Following a socialist revolution, the wealth of knowledge and skills held by those who work in the fisheries could be applied to a conservation based use of sea marine resources. The expertise and technology provide could be acted on, without the constraints of the market.

DEFORESTATION. Another example of a vital resource plundered for profits is our forestland. Between 1960 and 1990 Asia lost a third of its forest, and Africa and Latin America lost 18% each. Overall, this amounts to the destruction of one fifth of all tropical forest cover in just forty years. By the end of the twentieth century, an area the size of the United Kingdom was being cleared every year. The reason for deforestation is spiraling demand for timber and paper. Multinational companies tear up the rainforests, sell their trees to Europe and North America, and then sell the cleared land to ranchers. Plants and animals are being made extinct, native tribes are being made homeless, and cleared land is suffering from soil erosion. With fewer trees and plants to hold the soil together falling rain washes the topsoil away. This wastes vital nutrients and spreads desertification. At the same time, landfill sites across the globe are burying our waste paper and leaving it to rot amongst the wasted glass, metal, plastics and drums of hazardous waste. Recycling paper has long been an alternative to using wood pulp from freshly felled trees, but it is usually considered too costly and inconvenient. Faced with the choice of paying for recycling plants or keeping that money as profits, capitalist companies have to go for more profits. In socialism the barriers preventing more recycling wouldn’t exist.

There is widespread concern for the state of the rainforests. We all think it’s bad for ecosystems to be decimated, for wildlife to become extinct and for the planet’s lungs to be chipped away. In socialism, with democratic control of resources and production solely for need people would be able to do something about it. Deforestation could easily be reversed. One option would be to go in for reclamation of soils and extensive tree planting programmes. These could be carried out on the land created where capitalism’s office blocks and sub-standard houses would be cleared.

FUEL AND POWER. Deforestation also means there are fewer trees and plants to absorb the carbon dioxide we are producing by burning fossil fuels. In the mid-nineties, coal, oil and gas provided 90% of our power and these fossil fuels creates carbon dioxide. By the late 1990s, emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere were four times greater than in 1950. Consequently, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached their highest level in 160,000 years. This has led to the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere allows radiation from the Sun to pass through and reach the Earth, but it doesn’t allow heat coming from the Earth to travel into the upper atmosphere. So, the planet slowly heats up. It has been predicted that the planet’s average surface temperature will warm by 1.0c to 3.5c before the year 2100 – this would be a more rapid change in climate than has occurred for the last 10,000 years. With such a rise in temperature, the polar ice caps will start to melt, causing sea levels to rise, and weather patterns will be disrupted. The recent flooding in Europe may have been caused by the greenhouse effect.

From the environmentalist’s point of view, alternative sources of energy to fossil fuels are better because they impact less on the environment. They don’t produce the carbon dioxide which is smothering our planet. But one barrier preventing the development of wind power, solar power and power from the sea is their expense compared to burning fossil fuels. In most countries, fossil fuel prices are kept low by state subsidies. And because alternative sources of energy require new technology, research and development of infrastructure they are expensive and financially risky. Capitalist companies need to keep costs low in order to maximise their profits, and so the costs of alternative sources of energy plus their threat to existing energy interests makes them less attractive, for the capitalists at least.

But of course, protecting the environment isn’t our only consideration. The needs of people have to be met. But in socialism, it would be more straightforward to balance the needs of people with conserving the environment than it is in capitalism. Once the profit motive no longer operates, different sources of power can be judged not on their financial cost and the likelihood of a profitable return. Instead, they can be judged on their real merits; the pollutants they release, whether the fuel is plentiful or not, and whether its extraction damages the environment. Another important consideration is the efficiency of the fuel. Fossil fuel burning power stations are usually less than forty percent efficient. By this I mean that in each tonne of coal or oil, less than forty percent of its mass is available as energy when it’s converted to electricity. By contrast, with hydroelectric power stations, where water flows through turbines, ninety five percent of the mechanical energy created when the turbines turn can be converted to electricity

In socialism, people would have more control over their lives and this will include the vital work of energy production. This would be reflected in the community, and there might be trends towards communities having more autonomy, in some respects. And so in some places, power production might become more localised. A town might have its own wind generators, for example, and it could still be connected to a national (sic) grid to transfer power in if there was a local shortage or out when there was a surplus.

FOOD. – Since news-reel, cinema and television first showed pictures from around the world, the inequalities which capitalism creates everywhere have been brought vividly to life.. Any news bulletin shows us pictures of starving children in Somalia, and obese children in California. More and more people in developed countries are suffering from obesity, while globally, one in five of the population suffers from serious hunger. But even in developing countries, enough food is being produced for between 1.6 and 9.3 times the actual population there, depending on yield. Between the 1960s and the 1990s, food production has more than doubled - a faster rate of growth than that of the population, especially in Asia and Latin America. However, the food which is being produced in developing countries doesn’t always go to feed the people living there. Instead, it is being exported to places like North America, where food supply exceeds requirements by almost fifty percent.

But the explanation for this isn’t to be found by looking for physical differences between countries. Instead, the problem is in differences in wealth. Most of the world’s capital is to be found in North America, Europe and Japan, so that’s where the food goes. Food and other commodities follow capital like birds follow a trawler. The minority of capitalists in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia never go without.

After a socialist revolution, capital would become obsolete. So, the reason behind the problems with food distribution would no longer operate. Instead, the problem would become a short-term, practical one. Workers in Africa would probably be reluctant to continue exporting the vast majority of their produce. Instead, they might want it to be distributed more locally, to areas which might still be at risk of shortages.

But this wouldn’t necessarily cause shortages for people in the areas which are now called the developed countries. Many of them would have a background of working for organisations which would have no place in socialism: banks, insurance companies, loan companies. These people would need to find new ways to spend their time. And food production is both an essential and fulfilling occupation. Business parks and office blocks could be bulldozed to make way for plantations and food factories. People in Europe and North America could start to produce more food for themselves, and the areas of the southern hemisphere which currently produce food for export could keep more of their produce for themselves. Globally, food production might became more localised, while still allowing for products to be exported if they couldn’t be grown elsewhere. In socialism there would no longer be any need for a community to import wheat from thousands of miles away when it can be grown nearby.

In capitalism, natural resources such as land, as well as means of production are used for the production of commodities which are sold on for profit to the consumer through the markets. This means that the potential of resources to be used for enjoyment and the satisfaction of needs is subordinate to the profit interests of their owners. If the production of something is profitable, then it continues, and if it is unprofitable, it stops. The profitability of a product is linked to the cost of its being produced, and the extent to which it can be sold. In order to maximise profits, companies produce as cheaply as possible. This means that corners are cut and the methods and techniques used are those which bring in short-term gains rather than long-term sustainability. Labour and resources in developing countries are exploited to the hilt because they are cheaper. This is why children in Korea and Indonesia are stitching footballs and trainers like slaves, and why cheap forestland in South America and Africa is being decimated. In order for production to be of minimum cost to the company, it often ends up as being of maximum cost to the environment, and humanity. This doesn’t mean that all cost-saving techniques are necessarily more harmful than the techniques they replace, but simply that their effect on people or the environment isn’t the main consideration in adopting them. And if a company adopts a method of production which is environmentally safe, for example, but expensive in terms of labour or materials, it will become uncompetitive. A rival organisation producing a similar product cheaper will have the advantage, no matter what the ecological or human cost.

Eventually, capitalist organisations have to take notice of the state of the environment, but it is usually a case of too little, too late. They only take notice once the damage has been done - once a resource has become scarce, once a reserve of needed water has become polluted. And if the environmental cost doesn’t raise production costs, then it is often ignored.
After a socialist revolution, when common ownership of resources and production processes replaces private ownership, when the profit motive has become irrelevant, the factors to consider in production will change. When it comes to our use of natural resources, we could consider how much of the resource would be needed, whether it is scarce or abundant, whether that resource replaces itself over time or is in fixed supply, whether its extraction upsets the ecosystem, whether its production or use releases pollutants, whether the resulting product is durable or not, whether or not it is biodegradable. All these are considerations in capitalist production, but now they are subordinate to the need to minimise financial costs and maximise profits.

When land, resources and factories are owned communally and controlled democratically, there will be no them-and-us. There will no longer be a privileged elite who own the means of production, so there will be no-one to sell our time and energy to, no-one who would live off our labour and pay us peanuts in return. And if and when this change in ownership happens, the existence of money will become an anachronism. There will no longer be any need to buy goods from someone else or sell them to someone else, because you would have as much of a claim of ownership on them as they would. This would mean that we could just take what we need from the distribution centres.

Whilst the means of production are owned by a minority, the motivation for production is to make a profit for that minority. Satisfying the needs and wants of humanity and protecting the environment is incidental to this, so no wonder many people are left without enough food and other goods, and no wonder resources are scarce or polluted.

Profit and the Environment by H Stone and J Washington-Smith (John Wiley and sons, 2002). p.12
Global Environmental Outlook 2000, United Nations Environment Programme / Earthscan.
World Resources 1998-9, World Resources Institute, United Nations Environment Programme, World Bank (Oxford University Press, 1998)
Collins Pocket Planet Earth factfile (Collins, 1995)
Environment Dictionary by David Kemp
Teach Yourself Conservation by N and R Foskett (1999).
Times of Hunger, by R W Kates, in Person, Place and Thing, S T Wang (ed), (Baton Rouge, GeoScience Publications, 1992).
Land, Food and People (FAO, 1984)
www.fao.org (September 2001)
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