☆☆四星级☆☆Economist Debate阅读写作分析－－energy crisis

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The results are in, and the winner of our debate on energy technology is the Pro team: 55% to 45%. Though the Pro debaters held on to their early lead, the close outcome reflects the strength of the Con team’s support.

The close match also suggests that there is a powerful and legitimate disagreement among experts and punters alike about the relative importance of rapid deployment of today’s technologies and investment in tomorrow’s inventions.

The Economist would like to thank Joseph Romm and Peter Meisen for their thought-provoking but respectful style of pugilism. With occasional testy exceptions, our readers followed their noble lead and made many insightful comments and critiques. We thank all of you for those important contributions.

Taken together, those contributions have made this one of our most successful debates to date. Numerous web outlets, blogs and even other publications picked up on this battle of wits. I believe the reason for this success is this: in this debate, you helped us engage in a proper conversation about one of the great debates of our age. And that, after all, was the very reason The Economist was founded over 160 years ago.

Thank you all for your contributions.

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Comments from the floorcjwirth wrote:
A review of scientific and government studies by Peak Oil Associates International indicates that no matter how much time is available, it is not possible to mitigate the impacts of Peak Oil. In fact, the development of alternative energies will accelerate oil depletion. Alternative energies yield electric power, which is not what we need -- liquid fuels for tractors/combines, trucks, trains, buses, and ocean transport.
posted on 19/08/2008 13:04:00 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

civix wrote:
It doesn't seem to me that proposition and opposition are so different.
posted on 19/08/2008 13:17:26 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

willstewart wrote:
Unfortunately but perhaps inevitably your protagonists are talking past one another (did they see each other's statements pre-publication?). They are both arguing for extending the use of known technologies, that are already at or near commercial. This is fine up to a point but who is going to argue for the role of the breakthrough? Ironically Romm's statement gives more clues as to where one might look for breakthroughs (solar from deserts perhaps) - certainly not to Iceland, which has very unusual geology!（我很同意，例子太特殊了。）
posted on 19/08/2008 13:30:16 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

andrews416 wrote:
We CAN solve our energy problems with existing technologies but unfortunately, it's not likely. Can and will are very different places. We are moving from energy dense sources (oil, gas, coal) to less energy dense sources (wind, solar, tidal). New technologies will be developed to harness these diffused sources处理分散的源 but it is highly unlikely that anything will scale up按比例增加 fast enough to offset the decline in fossil fuel availability. Demand destruction is what economist call it, global economic collapse may be what the rest of us will call it.
posted on 19/08/2008 14:14:14 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

antimonyinlima wrote:
We have the science and technical capability to address the energy question. It is a moral and political lack we suffer. Full steam ahead on energies without considering environmental, climate and social justice is now tantamount to等于 suicide. All hydrocarbon fuel sources should be banned, including coal, synfuels, and mass scale biofuels. Full steam ahead with solar, wind, tidal, nuclear and full steam ahead on every efficiency option available to us. Yes to electricity based solutions, no to liquid fuels.
posted on 19/08/2008 14:44:33 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

Schuyler wrote:
Given current technologies and their use, we are already beyond the threshold of long term carrying capacity开始进入. Ecosystems are declining world wide. Life in regions without high per capita energy resources have subsistence living standards and even those are on the decline where populations continue to grow exponentially due to outside intervention. The first issue that must be faced in order to achieve long term economic sustainability is population growth. Only after that will changes involving restructuring of societies, reapplication of existing technology, and economic paradigms, serve to further ensure the prolonged vitality of human civilization.
posted on 19/08/2008 14:53:08 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

EcoEcon wrote:
Some solutions to energy related problems deal with supply and demand issues better than others. For example, a high fuel tax in one part of the world lowers petroleum demand and helps keep supply high in other parts of the globe. Another example, tax credits for wind power keep the supply of electricity high so that prices are low and demand for all electric power (even coal produced power) stays high. What is needed is a "breakthrough innovation" in power production. That breakthrough must simultaneously produce power at a lower cost relative to carbon fuels and also reduce global warming. This seems to be the desirable alternative to a long, drawn-out旷日持久的
global struggle between cheap-dirty carbon-based energy and the expensive-clean alternatives that are currently available.
posted on 19/08/2008 14:54:55 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse


M.McCarville wrote:
What are our energy problems? If we could generate enough energy for the entire world's population from 2050-2150, and do so using wind, solar, biomass, combined heat and power, hydrogen, other energy storage techniques, etc. then how are we fixed for our material resources if we use the energy to leverage利用 linear waste streams? I am concerned that we must tackle our global energy problems in the context of our global consumption dysfunction. Otherwise, even if we successfully dodge this brick wall we will inevitably turn towards another.
So, I say that we can do this. Energy efficiency, demand side management, peak shaving etc., capacitor banks, renewable energy (solar thermal power plants, wind, hydro, etc) , electricity infrastructure, plug-in hybrid electrics and/or electric vehicles, electricity storage tech... all the while we can do the R&D to develop new disruptive technologies (thin film solar to cost-effectiveness, tidal, hydrogen, bioenergy, batteries)... Who knows, in 70 years there could be space solar where power is beamed via laser to earth... enough to meet the entire world's energy needs... demos are proposed for this as of today and the technical feasibility for the large-scale tech deployment requires now breakthroughs but rather many pieces of a high-tech puzzle.
posted on 19/08/2008 14:55:05 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse