From: Anne Marie Tobias (atobias@interwoven.com)
Date: Thu Jun 14 2001 - 22:20:41 MDT
Hello Smigrodzki,
The study I did was on a scalable community, designed on several
critical goals. The first was that it was a viable living space for a
nominal human population, giving them adequate living, working,
and playing space. It had to support human and environmental
diversity, and provide a sustainable, productive, and flexible space
promoting a diverse human, cultural, and living ecology. This lead
to an interesting phenomena. As in the world we live in, the short
sighted solutions we impose, often result in numerous results and
negative impacts we did not plan on, or include in the cost/benefit
analysis upon which our original decision was based.
eg.
When the Army Corp of Engineers, straightened and dredged out
large sections of the Missippi River, they were attempting to give
us a better waterway, and reduce the likelihood of flooding. In
fact what they did was, dramatically increase the river's speed,
preventing silt deposition (literally causing lowland like the delta and
New Orleans to sink into the gulf), silt flooding into the gulf (killing
huge areas of Gulf sea life), a drop in the water table all along the
river causing subsidence, and in some cases massive pot holes, the
death of our South Eastern wetlands, and the very thing it was
supposed to prevent... increased occurrence of flooding.
So, what if we looked at solutions in a holistic/WHOListic manner.
What if we begin to use the power of our new technology to make
better models, models that are diverse, complex, chaotic, and have
all the self criticality one would expect in the real world. Now you
can see the real problems, twisted trees of interdependence, deeply
knotted constraints, dynamic active problem sets... you can begin
to see that a solution here is going to deeply impact half a dozen
other domains. Creating solutions in such models is one of the big
problems that needs to be promoted. Business is just now doing
it (Federal Express just completely redesigned the way it did it's
business using such technology, which an incredible increase in
responsiveness, and reliability.)
The methanol solution is based on this kind of thinking. It looks at
the environmental cost, the cost of transport, the advantages of a
reliable local power source, and energy independence, a fuel for
power and transportation, a fuel that can be burned, separated, or
used in fuel cells. It answers issues regarding atmospheric carbon,
environmental toxicity, quick biodegradation, low reactivity with
critical climatic systems, and a high level of compatability both in
use and production with local biological systems.
There have been numerous breakthroughs in the last ten years, I
would like to go through my original notes and designs and bring
them up to date. There are new systems that could provide great
benefit to people... the methanol digestors could be using a hybrid
bacteria that can also produce methane, fertilizer, cloth fiber, and
a high protein food supplements. The digestors could run on soft
refuse, grey and black water reclamation, kelp, garden waste,
compost, chaff, and crop stubble, farm wastes, algae from first
level water reclamation, nontoxic organic industrial waste, rushes,
reeds from second level water reclamation, and invading plant
overgrowth (Kudzu, and Water Hyacinth), and finally any waste
cellulose and cellulose byproducts.
So this solution has the benefits of;
* Clean renewable energy
* Possible source of natural gas
* Possible source of cloth fiber
* Possible source of plant oil
* Possible source of food protein
* Low toxicity, little environmental impact
* Local production, little transport cost
* Flexible fuel, usable in many ways
* No net atmospheric carbon increase
* Many sources or raw material, some with great environmental
advantage (eg. reduced landfill, water reclamation, sewage, etc.)
* Supports aquaculture
* Provides new industy, and economic base
Plug this solution into a system designed to protect diversity,
while at the same time promote a high quality of life for all it's
inhabitants... and you have something amazing. Something clean,
stable, sustainable, and able to support all it's members in grand
fashion. You have a healthy place to make people, discoveries,
and the continuation of life. We have a really good idea about
what doesn't work. Sadly combative vested interests on all sides
make this a no man's land instead of a wonderful invitation to
experiment... to discover what works. Our ethical basis, should
absolutely include fair trade, and the power of commerce. It must
also include a commitment to quality of life, a respect for all life,
and a plan that allow competing interests to coexist peacefully.
It is possible for people to turn cities into gardens, to change towns
into diverse natural habitats that respect and honor the local life,
and at the same time provide people with the necessities and
luxuries that make life worth living. We need to stop looking at
beating nature, and need to begin to coopt it... at least for the
present time, we are biotic beings, and it is in our own best
interest that we preserver what is best about our biosphere. That
includes business.
Marie Tobias
P.S. Anybody interested in city/town models, and biodiverse
human cohabitats, can contact me. I've collected some wonderful
information.
"Smigrodzki, Rafal" wrote:
>
>
> Anna Marie Tobias wrote:
>
> ran a "COMPLETE" cost/benefit analysis on methanol in 1987, it beat
> petroleum pruducts by near 2X. I'm guessing close to 4X now, but I
> could be off by as much as 50%. Still methanol beats petroleum. it
> just can't beat the pertroleum manufacturers.
>
> Could you post or send me the actual calculations?
>
> Rafal Smigrodzki MD-PhD
> Dept Neurology University of Pittsburgh
> smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu
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