[LMB] "Civilization isn't just electricity."

[Stewart Dean]

Well not culturally, but pretty much technologically.  Electricity means 
small compact rotary power...whence cometh (no quibbling, please) 
refrigeration, air conditioning, furnaces, power tools, vacuum cleaners, 
water pumps, washing machines and dryers, dishwashers, cars that can 
start themselves, etc, etc.  It also means pinpoint heat sources and 
smart tools/appliances/computers.  Consider the alternatives.  I grew up 
in a house with a door on the wall of the back kitchen porch for ice, 
never used in my time.  I once saw a horse treadmill in a barn museum.  
And an old machine shop with a single overhead shaft running the length 
of the ceiling with great flapping leather belts coming down from it to 
drive every power tool in the shop, for when power meant a steam engine 
or an electric motor 3' in diamter.
Oh sure you can live without them, but they make life so /easy/ and 
productive.../and/ they empower and cost reduce the means of production. 
The thing I dread about peak oil and the loss of cheap energy is all of 
that getting priced out of usage.  May America get a sane government 
this time and one that goes after alternative energy.

-- 
// Stewart Dean == Kingston, NY
// home: 845-336-4815  sdean at sdean.net
// work: 845-758-7475, sdean at bard.edu