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PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 8:46 pm
 


Within all systems you have the chance for errors.

Anyone that expect no errors ever is stupid, or perhaps just ignorant. If an operator is willing to take reasonable precautions and have in place methods to limit risk and harm that's about all you can ask for.
$1:
Where we do continue to produce and transport oil, it should be done with the highest possible safety standards, regardless of cost. We need to use oil much more efficiently and stop wasting it.

How stupid can you get? Regardless of cost?

Why do we even listen to these people?
$1:
In 1940, we produced 2.3 food calories for every 1 fossil fuel calorie used. By industrializing our food and farming systems, we now get 1 food calorie for every 10 fossil fuel calories used — a 23-fold reduction in efficiency.

Guess what, humans can not eat fossil fuels.

Anyway, again their is an outside max price that we will pay for liquid fuels. After a set cost point you can generate unlimited amounts of fuel from other energy sources. JP-5 can be produced from sea water and a high temperature nuclear reactor for $6 a gallon.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 10:55 pm
 


Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:
...and we have increased our yields way beyond what is natural and sustainable. Our huge population increase in the 20th century to levels way beyond what is naturally sustainable is a direct result of our highly successful but unsustainable petroleum based agriculture.

We are about to do an "Easter Island" on a colossal scale.


Nah. Don't believe the hype. All of the real evidence actually points the other way.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:21 am
 


Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:
In 1940, we produced 2.3 food calories for every 1 fossil fuel calorie used.

We used one hell of a lot of manual labour instead and farm families had to be large. You used to have ten+ people working land that one person farms now ... with quintuple the output per acre.

I suppose that you can do the Pol Pot thing and force the decadent bourgeois back on to the land to do some honest labour ... or else.


I'm not saying that we need to get rid of things like tractors or even the various chemicals. I'm saying that we heavily and carelessly overuse fertilizer and chemical pesticides as a substitute for good farming practise.

And again, all of this "feed the world" bullshit naively assumes that after investing billions in the chemical arms race against increasingly resistant pests, we will give away the product (food) to the world's poor . As I've already pointed out, the world already produces more food than it can consume yet almost a billion people starve because they cannot afford regular access the food supply.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:28 am
 


$1:
How stupid can you get? Regardless of cost?

So if a company says it can't afford a 'proper' safety program for its proposed oil rig, you would support a sub-standard safety program? If a construction company said it wanted to build a skyscraper, but couldn't afford to hire a structural engineer, or if an oil company wanted to build a pipeline but could only afford to build a leaky one, would you not say 'well, then you can't afford to do this job' or would you say 'oh, no problem, we'll waive the requirement since you can't handle the costs'. The standards to do the job right are the standards and if you can't afford to meet the standards, then you can't afford to do the job.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:41 am
 


Absolutely. That's my position on Enbridge for instance. But, who sets there standards. The environuts (as opposed to perfectly legitimate environmentalists - if you're not one you're stupid) would set the standard at 100% guaranteed safety. There is no such thing. We need best practices. Like double walled pipelines. Modern tankers, I've been reading, are already far far safer than the Valdez. With proper pilotage and a well built pipeline, Enbridge should be a go, tho I'd rather see the oil go east. The problem will be the pilotage - just not enough seasoned people around to meet the expected demand. I don't want to see them lower the standards there for the sake of expediency.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 12:32 pm
 


BeaverFever BeaverFever:
So if a company says it can't afford a 'proper' safety program for its proposed oil rig, you would support a sub-standard safety program?
If the price is too high I would not be buying their product and I would hope that they would understand that their is an upper limit to what people can and will pay, and never had done anything to start with.

$1:
The standards to do the job right are the standards and if you can't afford to meet the standards, then you can't afford to do the job.

In every case you must pay attention to the cost of the standard. Making a standard that has not factored cost is stupid, unless your goal is to just stop whatever is going to use that standard.

Everyone needs oil. If we set the standard to cost more than the return of using the fuel, then we would be out the value added from using that oil. Either paid for the standard that has no relation to the actual risk, or because we don't have the oil and as stuck using non oil dependant methods.

Everything we do is an assessment of risks and costs.

I would hope that saying something like without regard to cost is just marketing, exactly like no a single drop spilled.

I could just be reading too much into the literal meaning, but when dealing with activists you can never be sure if they are misusing the language or if they mean the exact literal truth of what they said.
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
I'm saying that we heavily and carelessly overuse fertilizer and chemical pesticides as a substitute for good farming practise.

Maybe you should talk to a modern farmer. The use of fertilizer and pesticides are a measured scientific action meant to deliver the best return on investment. It is anything but a careless use.

Even for non modern farmers they are given the best instruction possible without expensive testing equipment on when and how much to use in order to yield the best result.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 1:29 pm
 


Xort Xort:
Within all systems you have the chance for errors.

Anyone that expect no errors ever is stupid, or perhaps just ignorant. If an operator is willing to take reasonable precautions and have in place methods to limit risk and harm that's about all you can ask for.


While I agree with the first two sentences, the third doesn't necessarily follow. You can accept the risk if methods are in place to limit risk/harm, as you say, or you can still say no in spite of methods in place to limit risk/harm.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 1:47 pm
 


Zipperfish Zipperfish:
While I agree with the first two sentences, the third doesn't necessarily follow. You can accept the risk if methods are in place to limit risk/harm, as you say, or you can still say no in spite of methods in place to limit risk/harm.


Demanding zero risk isn't reasonable. Pushing into the edge of an exponential cost / safety curve is about the limit of acceptable risk avoidance.

However, this does not imply that if an operator meets those standards, that they are given free reign to do anything they want.

If the best practices and harm / risk reduction methods still can't produce a safe operation then it's still an unsafe operation and shouldn't be allowed.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 1:56 pm
 


Xort Xort:
Demanding zero risk isn't reasonable. Pushing into the edge of an exponential cost / safety curve is about the limit of acceptable risk avoidance.

However, this does not imply that if an operator meets those standards, that they are given free reign to do anything they want.

If the best practices and harm / risk reduction methods still can't produce a safe operation then it's still an unsafe operation and shouldn't be allowed.


Agreed.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:45 pm
 


Xort Xort:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
I'm saying that we heavily and carelessly overuse fertilizer and chemical pesticides as a substitute for good farming practise.

Maybe you should talk to a modern farmer. The use of fertilizer and pesticides are a measured scientific action meant to deliver the best return on investment. It is anything but a careless use.

Even for non modern farmers they are given the best instruction possible without expensive testing equipment on when and how much to use in order to yield the best result.


Yeah, yeah sure. Especially in places like Mexico, India, China where an increasing amount of our food comes from, right?

And is that why pesticide runoff causes Lake Erie and Lake Winnipeg to bloom with algae every summer now, because highly skilled and trained family farmers are applying a scientifically precise amout of fertilizer?


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 6:25 pm
 


BeaverFever BeaverFever:
Xort Xort:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
I'm saying that we heavily and carelessly overuse fertilizer and chemical pesticides as a substitute for good farming practise.

Maybe you should talk to a modern farmer. The use of fertilizer and pesticides are a measured scientific action meant to deliver the best return on investment. It is anything but a careless use.

Even for non modern farmers they are given the best instruction possible without expensive testing equipment on when and how much to use in order to yield the best result.


Yeah, yeah sure. Especially in places like Mexico, India, China where an increasing amount of our food comes from, right?

And is that why pesticide runoff causes Lake Erie and Lake Winnipeg to bloom with algae every summer now, because highly skilled and trained family farmers are applying a scientifically precise amout of fertilizer?


That's not pesticides, it's fertilizers--nitrogen.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 6:27 pm
 


Pesticide run-offs killed all of the lobsters in Lake Erie.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 8:15 pm
 


Zipperfish Zipperfish:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Yeah, yeah sure. Especially in places like Mexico, India, China where an increasing amount of our food comes from, right?

And is that why pesticide runoff causes Lake Erie and Lake Winnipeg to bloom with algae every summer now, because highly skilled and trained family farmers are applying a scientifically precise amout of fertilizer?


That's not pesticides, it's fertilizers--nitrogen.


Yeah, yeah, what I meant.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:44 pm
 


Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:
Pesticide run-offs killed all of the lobsters in Lake Erie.


But not due to algal blooms.

Pesticides are a more specific problem, since they are, of course, biocides by design. They tend to have a lot of unintended consequences--honeybees seem to be a recent example. And of course another recent example:

Wired: Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It


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