Re: DIG-L: a note on "philosophical" vs. "technical" discussions

[Simm <simm@mozcom.com>]

Do you call that philosophical? 

The US are not the finest nation in the world in this respect, like
probably in several others. So what?

Are you aware of the national breakdown of global energy consumption? For
example, in the Philippines, where I live at the moment, there is not
enough power to run a fridge in every household. 

You could call that energy efficiency. No fridge, zero heat loss. 

O.k. that's also not very philosophical. But it would probably make more of
a difference to concentrate on real problems. 

Anthony Simm

At 11:47 AM 02/19/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>This is in response to a private email I received from a person who is
>developing his own digester company and prefers not to have me reprint his
>proprietary text: 
>
>Hi Dean,
>
>To continue the discussion, I don't agree with your economic analysis of
>why the USA is behind Europe. Yes, Europe has more direct subsidies but
>you have forgotten that the USA has more hidden subsides for fossil fuels.
>Just compare our fuel prices to those of Europe. If our fossil fuel prices
>were truly governed in an "open market", they would be much higher and
>viable alternative energy technologies would have long ago made it to the
>marketplace. 
>
>In spite of the constraints that the artifically low fuel prices in the
>USA put on the development of alternative energy technologies, the USA
>marketplace has demanded more energy efficient technologies due to the
>hard work of advocates explaining the feasibility to the general public
>and DOE providing much help in research and development. Two excellent
>examples are DOE's backing of photovoltaic research and fuel cells, in
>addition to DOE's work in assisting many other areas of energy efficient
>technology. 
>
>In short, if you think you have a better mouse trap and need capital to
>prove it, I think DOE would be the first place to start looking, because I
>think you are wrong in stating that they don't think anaerobic digesters
>for methane recovery are viable. 
>
>What they may in fact think, is that presently there is not enough people
>in the USA who really know how to design them correctly, set them up
>correctly, and run them correctly, which is in fact, true. 
>
>Prove to them that you are on the right track with the
>expertise to succeed and I believe they will help you.
>
>A good place to start is with the regional DOE biomass office in your 
>area of the USA. Each office has a "request for proposals" section: 
>
>U.S. Department of Energy, Regional Biomass Energy Program
>http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/rbep.html
>
>These people are for real and are committed to 
>making biomass technology a reality in the USA.
>
>
>--
>         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>         .   From: Lowell Prag  -  Email: aj574@detroit.freenet.org  .
>         .      WWW Home Page: http://detroit.freenet.org/~aj574     .

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