Conquer Club

Just heard on the radio yesterday about some Oregon activist group got plans to build a thermal power plant torp'd. These are the same sort of lunatics that probably set fire to those logging trucks about five years ago. And I wouldn't doubt that they are in league with those Earth First/ELF madmen who drive railroad spikes into trees so as to damage saw mill equipment and (potentially) kill employees of the mill.

I love the outdoors and would hate to live in the over-crowded, over-poluted world of Soylent Green, but that kind of behavior is unacceptable!

It's a thermal power plant. That's not like trying to sabotage logging or burn trucks.

But thermal energy is something they should want! What, do they expect either some sort of magical solution to our energy needs or for all the world to go back to living not a lot older than thirty? They never seem to tell anyone what they do want, just what they don't want. Maybe if they told us the former and not the later, it wouldn't bother me so much.

I'm going to the US tomorrow for the first time (properly), this sort of thing makes me so glad I'm going to the Pacific Northwest, I'm sure I'm going to feel right at home amongst the fleece wearing Seattle lefties and get a beautifully biased picture of what a nice, moderate, conscious and thoughtful bunch of people you yanks really are.

Never mind. I thought they wanted to make a thermal power plant and you were complaining about that for some reason.

Simon Viavant wrote:Never mind. I thought they wanted to make a thermal power plant and you were complaining about that for some reason.

I like the idea of thermal plants. And Hydro-electric dams. Wind and solar, not so much; a solar panel or two for the home is fine and a local wind generator is ok IF you can find a good place to put it for maximum effect. I also like the Fischer-Tropsch process to create synthetic petroleum fuels out of industrial byproducts.

be right back!

I like the idea of orbital solar power generators. These were looked at seriously in the 70's, and with the shortage/price of oil are being looked at again seriously now.

ELF

One of the most active domestic terrorist groups in the USA, but only classified as such since March, 2001. I don't think they've ever been responsible for any human loss of life, however, only damage to property.

(I haven't read the wikipedia article, but I've followed them in the news for over a decade.)

I used to know some folks who did elfy stuff back in the good old days when dancing in a field at 6AM was a regular occurence, standing in groups of 5 wasn't an offence and crusties were crusties and did stuff like chain themselves to gates and dig tunnels and climb trees to prevent bypasses and break into labs and set guinea pigs free instead of the now ever present middle class techno crusties drinking chai lattes and bemoaning the lack of good vegan fast food. Its a shame they took all the charm out of it really. I appreciate most of you in the US will have no idea what I'm going on about but suffice to say back at its roots elf was hardly guerilla warfare.

Bertros Bertros wrote:I used to know some folks who did elfy stuff back in the good old days when dancing in a field at 6AM was a regular occurence, standing in groups of 5 wasn't an offence and crusties were crusties and did stuff like chain themselves to gates and dig tunnels and climb trees to prevent bypasses and break into labs and set guinea pigs free instead of the now ever present middle class techno crusties drinking chai lattes and bemoaning the lack of good vegan fast food. Its a shame they took all the charm out of it really. I appreciate most of you in the US will have no idea what I'm going on about but suffice to say back at its roots elf was hardly guerilla warfare.

yeah, i hardly know what you are talking about there, i must be too young, but i can agree with you that damage and violence to get your point across will only give your enemies good reason to spank your ass right back.

black elk speaks wrote:

Bertros Bertros wrote:I used to know some folks who did elfy stuff back in the good old days when dancing in a field at 6AM was a regular occurence, standing in groups of 5 wasn't an offence and crusties were crusties and did stuff like chain themselves to gates and dig tunnels and climb trees to prevent bypasses and break into labs and set guinea pigs free instead of the now ever present middle class techno crusties drinking chai lattes and bemoaning the lack of good vegan fast food. Its a shame they took all the charm out of it really. I appreciate most of you in the US will have no idea what I'm going on about but suffice to say back at its roots elf was hardly guerilla warfare.

yeah, i hardly know what you are talking about there, i must be too young, but i can agree with you that damage and violence to get your point across will only give your enemies good reason to spank your ass right back.

I prefer to give my friends good reason to spank my arse, better not to get that personal with your enemies.

Bertros Bertros wrote:I used to know some folks who did elfy stuff back in the good old days when dancing in a field at 6AM was a regular occurence, standing in groups of 5 wasn't an offence and crusties were crusties and did stuff like chain themselves to gates and dig tunnels and climb trees to prevent bypasses and break into labs and set guinea pigs free instead of the now ever present middle class techno crusties drinking chai lattes and bemoaning the lack of good vegan fast food. Its a shame they took all the charm out of it really. I appreciate most of you in the US will have no idea what I'm going on about but suffice to say back at its roots elf was hardly guerilla warfare.

No, I know all too well. I remember back when Earth First was on the lips of every kid from the suburbs that owned a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, before the great split of 92.

ELF has, over the years, taken things too far, and with very little "progress" to show for it. Shame really.

jonesthecurl wrote:I like the idea of orbital solar power generators. These were looked at seriously in the 70's, and with the shortage/price of oil are being looked at again seriously now.

How did they propose to get the energy down here?

Can't wait for Fusion to be figured out; right now, they haven't quite stabilized it.

The original proposals were for low-energy microwaves and big receiving atennae - I haven't seen anything on current proposals.

Fusion - "Haven't quite stablised it" is a bit of an understatement.

Bertros Bertros wrote:I'm going to the US tomorrow for the first time (properly), this sort of thing makes me so glad I'm going to the Pacific Northwest, I'm sure I'm going to feel right at home amongst the fleece wearing Seattle lefties and get a beautifully biased picture of what a nice, moderate, conscious and thoughtful bunch of people you yanks really are.

Make sure you visit Crater Lake

jonesthecurl wrote:The original proposals were for low-energy microwaves and big receiving atennae - I haven't seen anything on current proposals.

Why don't they just run a big wire up there?

Dancing Mustard wrote:

jonesthecurl wrote:The original proposals were for low-energy microwaves and big receiving atennae - I haven't seen anything on current proposals.

Why don't they just run a big wire up there?

Haha...part of me loves the idea of a huge wire crashing its way across the planet as the satellite orbits us.

Dancing Mustard wrote:

jonesthecurl wrote:The original proposals were for low-energy microwaves and big receiving atennae - I haven't seen anything on current proposals.

Why don't they just run a big wire up there?

Well the Space Elevator is theoretically a viable concept, but I think microwaves are more immediately pursuable.