greenspeak


A page relevant to energy issues and a word I may have invented

 

Greenspeak is political jargon with a greenist agenda.

 

I coined this usage for the term as a parallel to newspeak, and I think it's a far more natural meaning than any of the existing ones. 

 

And it is far more popular than you would hope.

 

Some examples.



 

 

Renewable

This is a very important term historically. But it is now past its use-by date.

 

Hydroelectricity and whale oil are both renewable energy sources. Hydro was even the prototypical renewable energy source.

 

But that doesn't make them sustainable or good for the environment. 

 

Nuclear power is sustainable but not of course renewable. That is why old-guard environmentalists prefer to talk about renewables, and even try to get you to accept their tacit assumption that renewable and sustainable mean much the same thing. Obviously they don't, and equally obviously they know this very well. 

 

In practice. those who prefer to use the term renewable these days are saying I don't like nuclear. And we should respect their beliefs. It's just better to express them openly.

 

There was even an attempt to save the term renewable by redefining it to include nuclear. Not a good idea. The terms both have clear meanings. It's just that sustainable is far more relevant to the present day, and that reality makes the anti-nuclear-power lobby look rather silly. Tough.

 

 

Run-of-the-river

A hydro scheme without a dam? All very well in theory. It didn't work in practice except for very small schemes.

 

See Pulangi_Dam and Magat_Dam in the Philippines for how it works in practice. Other schemes in India have worked out similarly.

 

When is a dam not a dam? When it's a pondage. But I wonder, can the environment tell the difference?

 

More to follow