Beyond Labels

A 360° Discussion of Foreign, National and Local Policy Issues

Monthly Archives November 2015

Solar energy capability

Could the United States meet its electricity requirements using solar power? The answer seems to be yes, in theory, but there’s a long, long, long, loooong way to go to get there.

A 2012 report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory gives the total consumption of electricity in the US (2011)  as 3,856 TWh (Terrawatt-hours). The report assess the “available renewable energy resources” for each state and state that “urban utility scale photovoltaics” could supply almost 2/3 that amount, rooftop photovoltaics could produce 20% more. Rural scale photovoltaics, onshore and offshore wind could produce way, way more. The total, if exploited, would be more than 100 times current consumption. Wikipedia Ref.   Source material ref.

Where are we now? Here’s a graphic that shows the sources and uses of energy in the United States

Sources and uses of energy

A looooong way to go.

Issues in addressing climate change

Assume, for a moment (even if you don’t already believe it) that the effect of humans on the climate is certain, significant, and dangerous.

If you don’t believe it, just, assume it, for the moment.

This is an article by Bret Victor, a thoughtful guy I follow in the tech world. He lays out the underlying issues  in the following framework:

  • Funding
  • Producing energy
  • Moving energy
  • Consuming energy

Then, because so much of he opportunity and success in the area depends on what scientists and engineers do:

  • Tools for Scientists and engineer

And because robust, reasoned public debate requires better understanding of complex situations:

  • Media for understanding situations

 

I happen NOT to believe that the effect of humans on the climate is all three of certain, significant, and dangerous.  But from a risk-management perspective, it makes just about zero sense to me to do nothing but criticize people who are trying, however imperfectly, to assess a risky situation, and argue that markets will solve the problem better than governments.

Which maybe is a segue into next week’s topic.

The history of admissions criteria

Malcolm Gladwell documents the process, link here, by which colleges in the United States (at least) came to embrace “diversity” rather than pure merit as a basis for admission:

In 1905, Harvard College adopted the College Entrance Examination Board tests as the principal basis for admission, which meant that virtually any academically gifted high—school senior who could afford a private college had a straightforward shot at attending.

Previously Harvard had “been the preserve of the New England boarding-school complex known in the admissions world as St. Grottlesex.”  But meritocratic admission changed that. How?

The enrollment of Jews began to rise dramatically. By 1922, they made up more than a fifth of Harvard’s freshman class.

Of course, Harvard was delighted that they were fulfilling their educational mission by picking brighter, more capable students to teach.

Not really.

Gladwell continues.

The administration and alumni were up in arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising.

A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school: “The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also.”

The solution of Harvard (and others) to this problem is the  “diversity-based” admissions policies of most US universities.

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