I wonder if anyone considers the fact that oil is the dominant feedstock for chemicals. Chemicals for everything. LIke the coating on the key board I'm typing on, the plastic shell of the monitor I'm looking at, the toothpaste I brush with, the toothbrush I brush with, the aspirin I take when I have a headache, etc.

Yes, all the more reason to evolve away from using petroleum merely for combustion.

That's precisely what I'm saying. But "demand" isn't some preset number; it's determined by our use. So the lower the demand, the fewer wind turbines (or any other energy source) we'll need. The more efficient we are, the lower our demand than what it would otherwise be.

So conservation/efficiency is good. If we relied on wind energy but didn't control our demand, eventually we'd see turbines on every hillside, in our national parks, swatting migrating birds ...

Apparently it's not if you're a bird fancier (yea, birds get wacked cuz their simple brains can't deal with the moving blades)or own elite resort property on Nantucket.

Personally, I like seeing wind turbines. I was driving along the southern coast of Nova Scotia this summer and there is a row of really big wind generators. "Cool" was my reaction. NS also has the western hemisphere's only tidal generating installation.

A single row? Have you seen some of the large wind farms in California, like the ones near Livermore or San Bernadio, with upwards of 500 towers? The large scale installations really are rather ugly. I'm all for wind power, btw, but like any other big industry, it is a visual blight when it's large numbers.
Here's a Shell Oil farm in Wyoming.
This one is in California
Another California example.

And I can see why you might not want to live near one.

In order... My reaction to the pictures:

COOL!

Cool...

Mostly cool.

FREAKIN AWESOME!

As far as a reason not to live by one, umm how about... It's really freakin windy all the time!

But "demand" isn't some preset number; it's determined by our use. So the lower the demand, the fewer wind turbines (or any other energy source) we'll need.

Do you really believe that, absent some catastrophe, demand, in the long run, will diminish anywhere?

They are also surprisingly noisy. There's also the possibility of high velocity bird carcasses coming at you from random vectors!

Like any other piece of technology, they do have their failure modes:

http://easthamwindtruth.com/Netherlands_10-31-06.jpg http://easthamwindtruth.com/413_crash_oct_2002_2.jpg http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2006/wind-shock-2.jpg

Well, if it doesn't, so what? If the end of civilization as we know it is inevitable, does that mean we should be energy hogs now and use everything up as quickly as possible (which would bring on that catastrophe)?

Demand will level out or diminish at some point: we'll either lean to live within our means, or we'll use up our resources and return (perhaps violently) to lower populations and older lifestyles.

I favor trying to learn to live within our means. The sooner we start, the greater chance that we'll avoid a catastrophe. Technology can help. Conservation can help. That's what Carter was talking about 30 years ago. And if people had paid more attention, I think we could have been about 25 years ahead of where we are today.

And there are a few trends towards decreasing energy consumption. Population is a big driver of demand, but many developed nations are experiencing close to zero or even negative population growth. There's little reason why we couldn't reduce our gasoline consumption if we all got more fuel-efficient vehicles over the next decade, and if we didn't have population growth we wouldn't need more cars.

I agree that near-term global demand will go up, but I don't see why it needs to go up indefinitely. And that growth will stand a better chance of being sustainable if it's done more efficiently rather than less. No outcome is certain, but I think it's worth making the effort.

I'm not naysaying what you advocate, Daniel; just expressing pessimism over the likelihood of its adoption.