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Nothing Is Infinite, Except Stupidity

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Fumarole Near Thingvellir

Fumarole Near Thingvellir

Some time ago, I heard that Iceland was looking for some way to store electricity for transshipment to other countries that were shortchanged of the fuels required to run their turbines. It appeared that, with all their volcanoes, the little island nation was sitting on an infinite source of energy. After all, one just had to punch a hole in the ground, and steam would come pouring out.

But the actual situation is more complicated than that. For one thing, there is a relatively new kind of pollution that occurs when you harness the seemingly infinite energies of molten lava under the earth. For one thing, you get Hydrogen Sulphide pollution, which is already so bad in Reykjavík that it adversely affects sound recording equipment. The geothermal power plant at Hellisheiði is some 30 km east of the capital—contrary to the prevailing westerly wind. Yet H2S precipitates on copper and silver lead to a shortening of the equipment’s life. This could put a serious crimp in Iceland’s attempt to become a rock and roll superpower.

Then there is the matter of polluted effluent lagoons for the steam that has cooled. These pool are loaded with minerals, the concentration of which has not yet been sufficiently studied. The tourist area south of Hellisheiði, Hveragerði, is complaining that pollutants are leaching into their soil and water supply.

The Geothermal Power Plant at Hellisheiði

The Geothermal Power Plant at Hellisheiði

When Iceland lurched into its own economic recession in 2008, the solution was to build even more geothermal plants, which could generate power to run gigantic aluminum smelters—one of the most energy-intensive industrial processes known to man. The plan was to put up a cluster of power plants just to power the giant smelter at Helguvík, just south of the capital on the way to the airport. But then it was found that Hellisheiði produced insufficient power to run the smelter, and that the additional power plants envisioned by the government were running into strong opposition from the ecology-minded citizens.

Not only that, but the Hellisheiði plant was in danger of being tapped out.

 

From the Confederate Point of View

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Historian Shelby Foote (1916-2005)

Historian Shelby Foote (1916-2005)

If you have ever seen the multipart Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War first broadcast by PBS in September 1990, you will undoubtedly remember Shelby Foote (above), who is famous for his trilogy The Civil War: A Narrative. For today, I decided to post my review of the second volume of his trilogy, covering the pivotal year of 1863.

Ever since I first came across the works of Bruce Catton in my teens, I have been an aficionado of the American Civil War. So much concentrated slaughter among peoples who resembled one another so much! Also, so many lessons to be learned about the arts of leadership, and what happens when they are lacking—as in all but the last generals in charge of the Army of the Potomac!

This is the second volume of three of historian Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative. Nestled away in the “Bibliographical Note” section at the end is this revealing quote:

As for method, it may explain much for me to state that my favorite historian is Tacitus, who dealt mainly with high-placed scoundrels, but that the finest compliment I ever heard paid a historian was rendered by Thomas Hobbes in the forward to his translation of The Peloponnesian War, in which he referred to Thucydides as “one who, though he never digress to read a Lecture, Moral or Political, upon his own Text, nor enter into men’s hearts, further than the Actions themselves evidently guide him … filleth his Narrations with that choice of matter, and ordereth them with that Judgement, and with such perspicuity and efficacy expresseth himself that (as Plutarch saith) he maketh his Auditor a Spectator. For he setteth his Reader in the Assemblies of the People, and in their Senates, at their debating; in the Streets, at their Seditions; and in the Field, at their Battels.” There indeed is something worth aiming at, however far short of attainment we fall.

I don’t think Foote falls far short at all. In Periclean Athens, there was not much first-hand information upon which the historian could rely, whereas the Civil War is one of the most written-about episodes in all of world history. In addition to making his information vivid, Foote has to wade through terabytes of minutiae to find interesting episodes. One example: Southern General Nathan Bedford Forrest, encountering one of his men in headlong retreat, stopping him in his tracks, pulling down his trousers, and administering a savage spanking with a brush in front of his peers to motivate him to reconsider, which he did.

The period covered by the volume is calendar year 1863, in which two of the most decisive Union victories took place: Gettysburg and Vicksburg — right around the 4th of July. The other major battle discussed was Chickamauga, a Southern victory which ruined the careers of both generals, Rosecrans and Bragg, and which could have gone either way if a third of the Union line had not panicked and run. There is also a brief look-ahead to the spring of 1864, when U.S. Grant was named a Lieutenant General and appointed to the Army of the Potomac.

This 966-page book seems shorter than its weight would imply. That is due to Foote. In fact, this volume is so good that two extracts have been separately published as books: The Stars in Their Courses about Gettysburg and The Beleaguered City about Vicksburg, both of which are excellent reads in their own right.