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Warming trends, Hating v. Louisiana.
Oct. 15th, 2009 04:05 pmI love this news story. A couple buys a hot springs resort, discovers that it uses 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel every month to heat its swimming pool, go "LOLWTF?" and then invent an efficient low-temperature geothermal power process.
Geothermal power's already big in places like Iceland that are volcanically active and have obvious heat sources to tap, but it's not like you need an actual magma flow to find warmth inside the earth. A way of tapping the relatively small difference in temperatures at ground level and far below it might just be the biggest idea in renewable energy ever. Why? Because you could generate power anywhere that you could sink a deep enough well... or anywhere that a well already exists. I can imagine the petrochemical cartels getting behind this in a way that they won't other alternative energy schemes because they hold the resources needed to take advantage of it, in the forms of existing wells and the equipment and expertise to sink new ones. Investing in it now would allow them to maintain some wealth and power as the supply of fossil fuels dwindles and the demand for alternatives increases.
At the same time, the fact that the technology is not tied to a finite resource and could be used to generate power from a greater range of locations means that it would ultimately become easier for people and groups to live "off the grid", for communities to address their own power needs locally. No high tension towers trailing wires across fragile desert habitats, no pipelines over the tundra.
...
On the other hand, I'm less crazy about this story. If you think the justice of the peace has a point either in his reasoning or his claim that this isn't racist, feel free to say so on your own Livejournal because I'm not going to entertain you here. A much higher authority than him decided this matter in 1967... any higher authority than that probably threw up its hands long before that and said, "No, wait, seriously... why is this even a question?"
It's not his place to set odds on the success or failure of a prospective marriage, nor is it his place to make decisions for a couple based on what may or may not happen to children they may or may not have... and it's certainly not his place to make those judgments based solely on the race of the participants.
As much smug fun as it is to look at stories of horrible and irresponsible parenting and say "You should need a license to have children.", cases like this... and laws that attempt to regulate who has access to what, historically, has been viewed as a license to have children... and experiments with eugenics and forced sterilizations... demonstrate pretty well how such a licensing system would work in actuality.
Geothermal power's already big in places like Iceland that are volcanically active and have obvious heat sources to tap, but it's not like you need an actual magma flow to find warmth inside the earth. A way of tapping the relatively small difference in temperatures at ground level and far below it might just be the biggest idea in renewable energy ever. Why? Because you could generate power anywhere that you could sink a deep enough well... or anywhere that a well already exists. I can imagine the petrochemical cartels getting behind this in a way that they won't other alternative energy schemes because they hold the resources needed to take advantage of it, in the forms of existing wells and the equipment and expertise to sink new ones. Investing in it now would allow them to maintain some wealth and power as the supply of fossil fuels dwindles and the demand for alternatives increases.
At the same time, the fact that the technology is not tied to a finite resource and could be used to generate power from a greater range of locations means that it would ultimately become easier for people and groups to live "off the grid", for communities to address their own power needs locally. No high tension towers trailing wires across fragile desert habitats, no pipelines over the tundra.
...
On the other hand, I'm less crazy about this story. If you think the justice of the peace has a point either in his reasoning or his claim that this isn't racist, feel free to say so on your own Livejournal because I'm not going to entertain you here. A much higher authority than him decided this matter in 1967... any higher authority than that probably threw up its hands long before that and said, "No, wait, seriously... why is this even a question?"
It's not his place to set odds on the success or failure of a prospective marriage, nor is it his place to make decisions for a couple based on what may or may not happen to children they may or may not have... and it's certainly not his place to make those judgments based solely on the race of the participants.
As much smug fun as it is to look at stories of horrible and irresponsible parenting and say "You should need a license to have children.", cases like this... and laws that attempt to regulate who has access to what, historically, has been viewed as a license to have children... and experiments with eugenics and forced sterilizations... demonstrate pretty well how such a licensing system would work in actuality.