Eco-Economy Offers Alternative To Middle East Oil
"For the first time since the oil age began, the world has the technology to wean itself from petroleum coming from the politically volatile Middle East," says Lester R. Brown in his new book, "Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth." (Available for FREE downloading athttp://www.earth-policy.org/Books/index.htm).
"A combination of wind turbines, solar cells, hydrogen generators, and fuel cell engines offers not only energy independence, but an alternative to climate-disrupting fossil fuels," said Brown, President of the newly established Earth Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental research organization.
In "Eco-Economy," Brown says the global economy is out of sync with the earth's ecosystem, as evidenced by collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, expanding deserts, eroding soils, and falling water tables. This can also be seen in the earth's changing climate as rising temperatures lead to more destructive storms, melting glaciers, and rising sea levels.
In the new economy, which Brown calls an eco-economy, renewable energy will replace climate-disrupting fossil fuels and a recycling economy will replace the throwaway economy. Wind turbines will replace coal mines and recycling industries will replace mining industries.
Restructuring Under Way
棕褐报告已经开始，全球经济的所需重组。近年来这些能源的对比增长率可以看到从化石燃料时代到太阳能/氢气时代的转变。在过去十年中，风力的使用量每年增长25％，太阳能电池为每年20％，每年4％的地热能。在鲜明的对比中，每年仅扩大1％的石油，每年只下降1％。天然气注定是从化石燃料时代到氢时代的过渡燃料，每年增长2％。
The restructuring is gaining momentum. For example, from 1995 to 2000, world wind electric generation expanded nearly fourfold, a growth rate previously found only in the computer industry. Denmark gets 15% of its electricity from wind. In the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein, it is 19%. For Spain's state of Navarra, it is 22%.
"Wind power has an enormous potential," said Brown. "According to a U.S. Department of Energy wind resources inventory, three of the most wind-rich states-North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas-have enough harnessable wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs. China can double its current electricity generation from wind alone. Europe's offshore wind potential is sufficient to meet the continent's electricity needs."
Advances in wind turbine design have reduced electricity costs from 38¢ per kilowatt hour in the early 1980s to less than 4¢ at prime wind sites in 2001. Further cuts are in prospect. In response to falling costs, wind farms have come online recently in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
A quarter-acre of land leased to the local utility to site a large, advanced design wind turbine can easily yield a farmer or rancher $2,000 in royalties per year while providing the community with $100,000 worth of electricity.
Money spent on wind-generated electricity tends to remain in the community, providing income, jobs, and tax revenue.
Record Undertaking
A project in the planning stages in eastern South Dakota to develop 3,000 megawatts of wind power for transmission across Iowa to the industrial Midwest around Chicago is not only a large wind power project, it is one of the largest energy projects in the world today.
As wind-generating costs continue to fall and concern about climate change escalates, more and more countries are turning to wind energy. In December 2000, France announced plans to develop 5,000 megawatts of wind power by 2010 (1 megawatt supplies 350 homes in an industrial society). Argentina followed with a plan to develop 3,000 megawatts of wind power by 2010 in Patagonia, with its world-class wind resources. In April, the United Kingdom accepted offshore bids to develop 1,500 megawatts of wind power. And in May 2001, China reported that it will develop some 2,500 megawatts of wind power by 2005.
The European Wind Energy Association, which in 1996 had set a target of 40,000 megawatts for Europe by 2010, recently raised its goal to 60,000 megawatts. The United States is projected to increase its wind-generating capacity in 2001 by at least 60%.
风电场的廉价电力可用于电解水并产生氢气，可用于电源供电时的燃气轮机，当风潮时供电。氢也是新的燃料电池发动机的首选燃料，即每个主要的汽车制造商正在进行。拥有大多数美国风权的农民和牧场主可能有一天不仅提供全国大部分电力，而且提供了其汽车中使用的大部分燃料。
Solar Blossoms
The use of solar cells is also expanding rapidly. In remote villages where supplying electricity traditionally depended on building a centralized power plant and constructing a grid to distribute the electricity, it is now often cheaper simply to install solar cells. In inaccessible Andean villages, investing in solar cells may be cheaper than buying candles. The same is true for those villages in India where lighting comes from kerosene lamps.
At the end of 2000, nearly one million homes worldwide were getting their electricity from solar cells. With the new solar cell roofing material developed in Japan, the stage is set for dramatic gains in this new energy source as rooftops become the power plants of buildings. For many of the nearly 2 billion people without electricity, solar cells are their best hope.
"The materials economy is also changing," said Brown. "The challenge is to shift from a linear flow-through economy to a comprehensive recycling economy. Progress is being made on this front, but not nearly enough. Some countries are advancing. For example, 58% of U.S. steel production now comes from scrap. In Germany 72% of all paper comes from paper recycling mills. If the entire world were to achieve this rate, wood needed for pulp production would drop by nearly one third."
'Sunset, Sunrise Technologies'
In describing the transition to the eco-economy, Brown identifies both sunset and sunrise industries. Among the sunset industries are coal mining, oil pumping, clearcut logging, and the manufacture of internal combustion engines and throwaway products. Among the sunrise industries are wind turbine manufacturing, hydrogen generation, fuel cell manufacturing, solar cell manufacturing, light rail construction, reforestation, and fish farming.
快速增长的职业包括生态经济学家，风气象学家，回收工程师，地热地质学家和环境建筑师。
在生态经济中，大多数能源是从风，太阳能电池，水电，生物质和地热源产生的，从而为发展中国家提供了新的基层发展潜力，这是一个不需要支出在进口油上的外汇外汇。通过全面的回收经济，进口原材料的需求也将减少，减少对外部政治和经济不稳定的脆弱性。
Another key characteristic of an eco-economy is population stability. Over the last few decades, some 31 countries in Europe plus Japan have stabilized their populations. One of the keys to this is improving the status of women. The more education women have, the fewer children they have. World Bank research indicates that investing in the education of girls yields an economic return perhaps four times that of investing in electric utilities.
各级的经济决策者 - 企业规划者，政府领导，投资银行家和个人消费者 - 所有人都依赖于市场信号。但市场往往不会说实话。例如，当我们购买一加仑汽油时，我们支付生产汽油的成本，而不是遭受污染空气，酸雨损害的人的医疗费用，或燃烧汽油的气候破坏的成本。
Learning The Hard Way
Sometimes we learn of the market's shortcomings the hard way. For example, by 1998, China's Yangtze River basin had lost 85% of its original forest cover. Partly as a result, flooding of the Yangtze River basin that year displaced 120 million people and caused $30 billion worth of damage. In response, Chinese officials banned tree cutting in the upper reaches of the basin. Trees standing, they argued, were worth three times as much as trees cut.
重组经济的关键是重组税收系统，让市场讲述生态真理。正如挪威和北海的前埃克森副总裁Øysteindahle，“社会主义崩溃，因为它不允许价格讲述经济真理。资本主义可能会崩溃，因为它不允许价格达到生态真理。”
Restructuring the global economy will require ecologists and economists to work together to identify the indirect costs associated with a particular product or service. These costs can then be incorporated into market prices in the form of a tax and offset by a reduction in income taxes.
“这税收体系的重组,这是the key to restructuring the economy, does not change the level of taxes," Brown emphasized, "only their composition."
Building an eco-economy represents the greatest investment opportunity in history. The companies that have a vision of the new economy and incorporate it into their planning will be the winners. Those that cling to the past risk becoming part of it.
生态经济是beginning to take shape. Glimpses of it can be seen in the wind farms of Denmark, the solar rooftops of Japan, the paper recycling mills of Germany, the steel recycling mills of the United States, the irrigation systems of Israel, the reforested mountains of South Korea, and the bicycle networks of the Netherlands.
Almost all the components of an eco-economy can be found in at least one country. The challenge now is for each country to put all the pieces of an eco-economy together.
No Room for Compromise
"Building an eco-economy is a goal that cannot be compromised," said Brown. "If we are going to restructure the economy in the time available, all of us will need to be involved. One way or another, the choice will be made by our generation. But it will affect life on earth for all generations to come."
Earth Policy Institute has put Eco-Economy online so that it can be read or downloaded free of charge. To place your order, visithttp://www.earth-policy.org/books/index.htm.
--------------------
TheEarth Policy Institute, founded by Lester R. Brown, is a nonprofit research organization focused on providing a vision of an environmentally sustainable economy -- an eco-economy.
"A combination of wind turbines, solar cells, hydrogen generators, and fuel cell engines offers not only energy independence, but an alternative to climate-disrupting fossil fuels," said Brown, President of the newly established Earth Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental research organization.
In "Eco-Economy," Brown says the global economy is out of sync with the earth's ecosystem, as evidenced by collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, expanding deserts, eroding soils, and falling water tables. This can also be seen in the earth's changing climate as rising temperatures lead to more destructive storms, melting glaciers, and rising sea levels.
In the new economy, which Brown calls an eco-economy, renewable energy will replace climate-disrupting fossil fuels and a recycling economy will replace the throwaway economy. Wind turbines will replace coal mines and recycling industries will replace mining industries.
Restructuring Under Way
棕褐报告已经开始，全球经济的所需重组。近年来这些能源的对比增长率可以看到从化石燃料时代到太阳能/氢气时代的转变。在过去十年中，风力的使用量每年增长25％，太阳能电池为每年20％，每年4％的地热能。在鲜明的对比中，每年仅扩大1％的石油，每年只下降1％。天然气注定是从化石燃料时代到氢时代的过渡燃料，每年增长2％。
The restructuring is gaining momentum. For example, from 1995 to 2000, world wind electric generation expanded nearly fourfold, a growth rate previously found only in the computer industry. Denmark gets 15% of its electricity from wind. In the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein, it is 19%. For Spain's state of Navarra, it is 22%.
"Wind power has an enormous potential," said Brown. "According to a U.S. Department of Energy wind resources inventory, three of the most wind-rich states-North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas-have enough harnessable wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs. China can double its current electricity generation from wind alone. Europe's offshore wind potential is sufficient to meet the continent's electricity needs."
Advances in wind turbine design have reduced electricity costs from 38¢ per kilowatt hour in the early 1980s to less than 4¢ at prime wind sites in 2001. Further cuts are in prospect. In response to falling costs, wind farms have come online recently in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
A quarter-acre of land leased to the local utility to site a large, advanced design wind turbine can easily yield a farmer or rancher $2,000 in royalties per year while providing the community with $100,000 worth of electricity.
Money spent on wind-generated electricity tends to remain in the community, providing income, jobs, and tax revenue.
Record Undertaking
A project in the planning stages in eastern South Dakota to develop 3,000 megawatts of wind power for transmission across Iowa to the industrial Midwest around Chicago is not only a large wind power project, it is one of the largest energy projects in the world today.
As wind-generating costs continue to fall and concern about climate change escalates, more and more countries are turning to wind energy. In December 2000, France announced plans to develop 5,000 megawatts of wind power by 2010 (1 megawatt supplies 350 homes in an industrial society). Argentina followed with a plan to develop 3,000 megawatts of wind power by 2010 in Patagonia, with its world-class wind resources. In April, the United Kingdom accepted offshore bids to develop 1,500 megawatts of wind power. And in May 2001, China reported that it will develop some 2,500 megawatts of wind power by 2005.
The European Wind Energy Association, which in 1996 had set a target of 40,000 megawatts for Europe by 2010, recently raised its goal to 60,000 megawatts. The United States is projected to increase its wind-generating capacity in 2001 by at least 60%.
风电场的廉价电力可用于电解水并产生氢气，可用于电源供电时的燃气轮机，当风潮时供电。氢也是新的燃料电池发动机的首选燃料，即每个主要的汽车制造商正在进行。拥有大多数美国风权的农民和牧场主可能有一天不仅提供全国大部分电力，而且提供了其汽车中使用的大部分燃料。
Solar Blossoms
The use of solar cells is also expanding rapidly. In remote villages where supplying electricity traditionally depended on building a centralized power plant and constructing a grid to distribute the electricity, it is now often cheaper simply to install solar cells. In inaccessible Andean villages, investing in solar cells may be cheaper than buying candles. The same is true for those villages in India where lighting comes from kerosene lamps.
At the end of 2000, nearly one million homes worldwide were getting their electricity from solar cells. With the new solar cell roofing material developed in Japan, the stage is set for dramatic gains in this new energy source as rooftops become the power plants of buildings. For many of the nearly 2 billion people without electricity, solar cells are their best hope.
"The materials economy is also changing," said Brown. "The challenge is to shift from a linear flow-through economy to a comprehensive recycling economy. Progress is being made on this front, but not nearly enough. Some countries are advancing. For example, 58% of U.S. steel production now comes from scrap. In Germany 72% of all paper comes from paper recycling mills. If the entire world were to achieve this rate, wood needed for pulp production would drop by nearly one third."
'Sunset, Sunrise Technologies'
In describing the transition to the eco-economy, Brown identifies both sunset and sunrise industries. Among the sunset industries are coal mining, oil pumping, clearcut logging, and the manufacture of internal combustion engines and throwaway products. Among the sunrise industries are wind turbine manufacturing, hydrogen generation, fuel cell manufacturing, solar cell manufacturing, light rail construction, reforestation, and fish farming.
快速增长的职业包括生态经济学家，风气象学家，回收工程师，地热地质学家和环境建筑师。
在生态经济中，大多数能源是从风，太阳能电池，水电，生物质和地热源产生的，从而为发展中国家提供了新的基层发展潜力，这是一个不需要支出在进口油上的外汇外汇。通过全面的回收经济，进口原材料的需求也将减少，减少对外部政治和经济不稳定的脆弱性。
Another key characteristic of an eco-economy is population stability. Over the last few decades, some 31 countries in Europe plus Japan have stabilized their populations. One of the keys to this is improving the status of women. The more education women have, the fewer children they have. World Bank research indicates that investing in the education of girls yields an economic return perhaps four times that of investing in electric utilities.
各级的经济决策者 - 企业规划者，政府领导，投资银行家和个人消费者 - 所有人都依赖于市场信号。但市场往往不会说实话。例如，当我们购买一加仑汽油时，我们支付生产汽油的成本，而不是遭受污染空气，酸雨损害的人的医疗费用，或燃烧汽油的气候破坏的成本。
Learning The Hard Way
Sometimes we learn of the market's shortcomings the hard way. For example, by 1998, China's Yangtze River basin had lost 85% of its original forest cover. Partly as a result, flooding of the Yangtze River basin that year displaced 120 million people and caused $30 billion worth of damage. In response, Chinese officials banned tree cutting in the upper reaches of the basin. Trees standing, they argued, were worth three times as much as trees cut.
重组经济的关键是重组税收系统，让市场讲述生态真理。正如挪威和北海的前埃克森副总裁Øysteindahle，“社会主义崩溃，因为它不允许价格讲述经济真理。资本主义可能会崩溃，因为它不允许价格达到生态真理。”
Restructuring the global economy will require ecologists and economists to work together to identify the indirect costs associated with a particular product or service. These costs can then be incorporated into market prices in the form of a tax and offset by a reduction in income taxes.
“这税收体系的重组,这是the key to restructuring the economy, does not change the level of taxes," Brown emphasized, "only their composition."
Building an eco-economy represents the greatest investment opportunity in history. The companies that have a vision of the new economy and incorporate it into their planning will be the winners. Those that cling to the past risk becoming part of it.
生态经济是beginning to take shape. Glimpses of it can be seen in the wind farms of Denmark, the solar rooftops of Japan, the paper recycling mills of Germany, the steel recycling mills of the United States, the irrigation systems of Israel, the reforested mountains of South Korea, and the bicycle networks of the Netherlands.
Almost all the components of an eco-economy can be found in at least one country. The challenge now is for each country to put all the pieces of an eco-economy together.
No Room for Compromise
"Building an eco-economy is a goal that cannot be compromised," said Brown. "If we are going to restructure the economy in the time available, all of us will need to be involved. One way or another, the choice will be made by our generation. But it will affect life on earth for all generations to come."
Earth Policy Institute has put Eco-Economy online so that it can be read or downloaded free of charge. To place your order, visithttp://www.earth-policy.org/books/index.htm.
--------------------
TheEarth Policy Institute, founded by Lester R. Brown, is a nonprofit research organization focused on providing a vision of an environmentally sustainable economy -- an eco-economy.