re: #229 Cato the Elder

Right now in my neck of the New England woods there is a serious proposal for a carbon-neutral biomass power plant.

You should see the greens and the reds and the watermelons coming out of the woodwork to scotch that snake!

Their main objection, aside from the fact that it [shudder] burns stuff and isn’t wind-powered, is that the company behind it might actually make money.

Oh, and then there’s a new category known as “economy of scale”. If I, for example, burn four cords of firewood to heat my house this winter - at an energy / heat efficiency quotient of 30% - that’s fine, because I’m a little guy. If the biomass plant burns forty thousand tons in the same time period to heat 4,000 houses at an ehq of 60% - that’s evil. Someone said that in a church-hall town meeting, so it must be true.

Of course they’re against wind farms, too, if they cast shadows on their view.

ΠΙΜΦ: Dammit! Fingers on autopilot tonight. There’s nothing new about “economy of scale”. The new variation is “ethics of scale”. Meaning, if I burn a bunch of wood in an inefficient stove at a 30% energy/heat ratio, that’s better than if a medium-sized company burns less wood per house at a 50% energy/heat ratio. Because I’m a little guy.

The logical disconnect here is staggering. If 5,000 houses all burn the same amount of wood at the same low e/h ration I get, they put out vastly more CO2 than 5,000 houses each using less total wood and getting a 20% higher heat return per volume. But “little” is better than “big”.

As an aside, has anyone noticed that “ethical” has now become the word of choice for those who shy away from “religious” or “moral” justifications? Yet “ethical” can no more be defended without regard to an outside scale of values than religion or morals.