``The discovery of a new motor force in nature is always a precious thing, when we can succeed in regularizing its effects, and use it to spare man's efforts.... ``Antiquity knew little of those motor forces; they only employed living human beings, weights, waterfalls, or wind. Those forces all being developed by nature itself, it was necessary, in order to apply them, to know only the effect of the lever.... But those assemblies of levers are only inert masses, merely able to transmit the action of moving forces without ever increasing them: It is the motor force which is everything. Modern man has discovered several motor forces, or rather has created them: because, though their elements be necessarily pre-existing, in nature, their dissemination nullifies them in this respect; they only acquire the quality of moving forces through artificial means, such as the expansive force of water reduced to steam, as the upward force which launches the aerostatic balloon.''(fn12)
This notion fundamentally refutes the mechanical interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics, as well as the simplistic interpretation of the principle of conservation of energy attributed to Carnot. It also destroys the stupid arguments of today's ecology movement for solar energy, for new ``diffuse'' sources of energy.
If man wants to progress, he must create new forms of energy of greater and greater densities. This implies precise social and political considerations which Carnot was to elaborate in his first writings, ``Eloge de Vauban'' (``In Praise of Vauban'') (1784) and ``Memoire sur les Places Fortes'' (``Memorandum on Fortifications'') (1788).
Contaminating the environment via accidental releases of radiation and causing cancer spikes is "progress"? Who knew? (my link concerned close calls and radiation releases in the US, not France. Although...).
btw, Lazare Carnot advocated for nuclear power in 1788? He must have been the Nostradamus of his time, given that it wasn't until 1932 that "physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered that when lithium atoms were split by protons from a proton accelerator, immense amounts of energy were released".
You should probably ask yourself whether or not slavery could have ever been eliminated but for the industrial revolution made possible by the burning of fossil fuels.
12 comments:
So you agree with Jimmy Dore that we should be moving away from fossil fuels because drilling and burning them is driving climate change?
Nope. But I agree that it's a discussion worth having.
Because a discussion will expose the climate change hoax?
No, it will convince people that nuclear is the ONLY sensible alternative.
Nuclear power accidents (Fukushima, Chernobyl) represent a "sensible alternative"? Who knew?
France melted down? Who knew?
Apparently only the French and me have taken Lazare Carnot's maxim's to heart...
In 1806, Carnot wrote in a report to the Academy of Sciences on the work of the physicist Nicéphore Niepce on a combustion engine:
``The discovery of a new motor force in nature is always a precious thing, when we can succeed in regularizing its effects, and use it to spare man's efforts....
``Antiquity knew little of those motor forces; they only employed living human beings, weights, waterfalls, or wind. Those forces all being developed by nature itself, it was necessary, in order to apply them, to know only the effect of the lever.... But those assemblies of levers are only inert masses, merely able to transmit the action of moving forces without ever increasing them: It is the motor force which is everything. Modern man has discovered several motor forces, or rather has created them: because, though their elements be necessarily pre-existing, in nature, their dissemination nullifies them in this respect; they only acquire the quality of moving forces through artificial means, such as the expansive force of water reduced to steam, as the upward force which launches the aerostatic balloon.''(fn12)
This notion fundamentally refutes the mechanical interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics, as well as the simplistic interpretation of the principle of conservation of energy attributed to Carnot. It also destroys the stupid arguments of today's ecology movement for solar energy, for new ``diffuse'' sources of energy.
If man wants to progress, he must create new forms of energy of greater and greater densities. This implies precise social and political considerations which Carnot was to elaborate in his first writings, ``Eloge de Vauban'' (``In Praise of Vauban'') (1784) and ``Memoire sur les Places Fortes'' (``Memorandum on Fortifications'') (1788).
Contaminating the environment via accidental releases of radiation and causing cancer spikes is "progress"? Who knew? (my link concerned close calls and radiation releases in the US, not France. Although...).
btw, Lazare Carnot advocated for nuclear power in 1788? He must have been the Nostradamus of his time, given that it wasn't until 1932 that "physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered that when lithium atoms were split by protons from a proton accelerator, immense amounts of energy were released".
You should probably ask yourself whether or not slavery could have ever been eliminated but for the industrial revolution made possible by the burning of fossil fuels.
And yes, Lazare was a man FAR ahead of his time.
So give me a Lazare Carnot quote about nuclear power. Did he think that the dangers posed by nuclear waste and reactor accidents was a fair trade-off?
"If man wants to progress, he must create new forms of energy of greater and greater densities."
That is from your prior comment. The quote doesn't mention nuclear power.
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