I'm not actually opposed to basic research into battery technologies (at all!), but the thing I'd keep an eye on (if I had any power in this) was where "intellectual property rights" would reside. The killer these days is when public funds advance science, and then hand off ownership to a corporate entity. We, the little people, pay more than once.

Another one of your moronic economic statements. The Fed is not the Treasury. It is independent. And Washington must sell instruments to acquire funds. And they don't miss their payments. Don't be such a fool when folks expect better from u.

If that's chump change the Treasury can send me a check anytime, I'll recommend another for DS and one for TOD. Right after mine clears.

John,
First, of all, thanks for being syntactically correct about the shutting down of the 'conveyor belt.' So many people talk about the Gulf Stream shutting down and this is just plain ignorant. The Gulf Stream will not shut down any more than any other major ocean current will shut down.

Second, every so often I toss out this bit of contrarian research for comment. I don't know how robust it is or if there have been follow up studies, but it has the imprimatur of Lamont-Doherty which is quite respectable in the Earth-Sciences and climate change area.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-01/teia-crr012203.php

But of course Diamond himself has said recently:

I am cautiously optimistic about the state of the world, because: 1. Big businesses sometimes conclude that what is good for the long-term future of humanity is also good for their bottom line (cf. Wal-Mart's recent decision to shift their seafood purchases entirely to certified sustainable fisheries within the next three to five years). 2. Voters in democracy sometimes make good choices and avoid bad choices (cf. some recent elections in a major First World country).

In answer to the question above, I think it is actually unknowable. Some will work back-of-the-envelope calculations for footprints possible, etc., but it really takes too many assumptions, and too many rough guesses for the basic numbers involved.

I think we have to deal with the problems and opportunities we have around us today. Some of that is pretty simple ... if the oceans are in trouble, stop washing your car with soap (around here "drains lead to ocean"), stop eating so many fish (especially middle-class luxury fish), and so on.

There are plenty concrete things to deal with, I think.

So how would you do it?

Have we learned anything ??

"Agriculture was probably the most important invention in human
history. It enabled the rise of world civilizations. But many ancient
societies repeatedly chose short-sighted food production practices
that spoiled their environments and undermined their civilizations.

It is tempting to believe that our earliest ancestors lived in
complete harmony with nature. But this was not the case. From the
very beginning of human life, people changed their environment,
sometimes in very damaging ways.

Archaeologists have evidence that small hunting and gathering groups
in many parts of the world set forest and prairie fires to get rid of
unwanted vegetation. Hunters also used fires to flush out game. These
fires often changed plant and animal habitats in ways that favored
food resources most beneficial to humans.

Hunters in North America drove herds of buffalo over cliffs to their
death. But the hunters could use the meat of only a few of the dead
animals, which sometimes numbered in the thousands. In some places,
over-hunting caused the extinction of some animals and birds. "These
first American settlers," says one environmental historian, "left a
trail of destruction across the continent."

After thousands of years of constantly moving in search of food, the
people in a few isolated areas of the world began to settle favorable
areas. These people could do this only when they learned how to
cultivate food crops and domesticate animals. Beginning about 10,000
years ago, this agricultural revolution was probably the most
important human invention of all time.

Farming allowed people to live in the same place for long periods of
time. After planting, it gave people more time to focus on art,
religion, and architecture. In time, it led to cities, labor
specialization, class systems, and more leisure time. Civilizations
could not have developed without the invention of agriculture.

Agriculture and the Environment

At first, farming required more work than hunting and gathering. But
agriculture had one big advantage. Growing crops and raising animals
on a limited area of land could sustain a larger population, which
made a group more powerful. Once people understood this, they began
to construct permanent homes. This eventually led to cities and all
the other things that define a civilization.

The first agricultural settlements of 50 to 100 persons emerged
primarily in hilly areas of Southwest Asia. These areas today make up
Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, southern Turkey, and western Iran.
The climate consisted of long dry summers and short rainy winters.
The soil was naturally fertile, but thin. The world's first farmers
cultivated grains like wheat and barley along with some vegetables.
They domesticated mainly sheep and goats.

As the village populations grew, farmers cleared more land for
planting. They burned forests and plowed up the groundcover. In the
meantime, their herds of sheep and goats increased, requiring more
land to graze. Goats in particular are very efficient grazers, eating
weeds and other plants of little use to people.

As more people settled in villages, they constructed houses and other
buildings, often with wood. They also used wood as a fuel for
cooking, heating, and burning lime to make plaster.

By about 6000 B.C., they had eliminated most of the forests around
their villages. In addition, much of the natural groundcover was gone
due to grazing by goats and intense farming. The dry climate required
a long time for trees, other natural vegetation, and the soil to
regenerate. With ever more mouths to feed, however, the farmers could
not wait. They could not afford to let the land remain fallow
(unplanted) for more than a year or two.

Finally, the winter rains began to erode the thin bare soil, ruining
the land for farming. Farmers cleared new lands, but the same cycle
of deforestation, erosion, and ruined land took place. Gradually,
food production decreased. The population dropped. Sometimes, people
abandoned entire villages.

The Sumerian Puzzle

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers begin in the mountains of Turkey and
flow south for more than a thousand miles through modern-day Iraq to
the Persian Gulf. Known in ancient times as Mesopotamia, the lands
between these two rivers lacked adequate rainfall for agriculture.
But people could always use water from the rivers for their crops.

By 5000 B.C., many small farming villages flourished near the banks
of the two great rivers. The farmers dug simple ditches to irrigate
their fields of wheat, barley, and vegetables. The resulting increase
in the food supply led to a population explosion.

Several hundred years later, independent city-states like Ur arose.
They had populations ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 people. By 3000
B.C., the city-states of southern Mesopotamia had formed the world's
first civilization, called Sumer.

The Sumerians developed a complex class system that included priests,
rulers, a government bureaucracy, craft workers, merchants, laborers,
soldiers, and peasants who worked the fields. The rulers organized
major building projects in the cities. They constructed canals for a
large irrigation system that opened more land for growing food crops.
The Sumerians also developed the world's first writing system.

In the early 20th century, archaeologists in Mesopotamia puzzled over
the barren desert that had once been a rich and powerful
civilization. "What happened to Sumer?" they asked themselves.

Over the centuries, silt carried by the Tigris and Euphrates built up
the stream beds. Eventually, the surrounding farmlands were below the
level of the rivers. The Sumerians constructed levees to contain the
rivers, which worked except during major floods.

The irrigated water went to the fields, where it often collected on
the surface. The hot Mesopotamian sun evaporated the standing water
and left behind layers of salt. The soil also became waterlogged in
places. This caused the water table to rise, bringing more salt to
the surface. One clay tablet with Sumerian writing recorded that "the
earth turned white."

The only solution to this salt problem, called salinization, was for
the Sumerians to leave the land unwatered and fallow for several
seasons to allow the water table to fall. The scarce rains would then
slowly draw the salt down below the soil cultivation zone.

The Sumerian farmers knew that leaving the land alone for a while was
the right thing to do. But the rulers of Sumer had based their wealth
and power on the skills and labor of an ever-growing population.
Therefore, they ordered the farmers to continue irrigating and
planting the damaged land to produce more food.

Wheat is less tolerant of salt than barley. Based on clay tablet
records, barley gradually replaced wheat in the Sumerian diet. Soon,
the yields of barley and the other crops decreased steadily. The
Sumerian people began to suffer from hunger, which led to
malnutrition and disease.

The shortsighted demands of the Sumerian rulers led to the collapse
of their civilization. The rulers could no longer feed and pay for
large armies. Peasant revolts and warfare among the Sumerian city-
states erupted over control of remaining fertile farmlands. Finally,
in 2370 B.C., the Akkadian Empire from the north conquered a weakened
Sumer.

By 1800 B.C., agriculture in southern Mesopotamia had almost
disappeared, leaving an impoverished people who lived on a desolate
and poisoned land. The world's first civilization had created a
monumental environmental disaster.

Short-Term Gains and Long-Term Consequences

The pattern of shortsighted treatment of the environment continued in
most of the other cradles of civilization. In the Indus River Valley
of India, another rich society based on irrigation agriculture arose
around 2300 B.C.

Once again, a vast irrigation system caused soil salinization. In
addition, the people constructed their buildings with kiln-fired
bricks. The kilns required huge amounts of wood to fuel the firing
process. Within a few hundred years, the people had cleared the
hillside forests, causing severe erosion of the farmlands in the
valley below. By 1900 B.C., the people of the Indus River Valley
civilization had abandoned their once-impressive cities.

In China, farmers in the northern plains plowed the grasslands to
plant millet, another grain crop. But wind and rain soon eroded the
soil. Massive deforestation also added to the erosion disaster. For
centuries afterward, silt from the erosion clogged Chinese rivers,
causing frequent destructive floods and the loss of millions of lives.

One of the major cradles of civilization avoided an environmental
crisis for more than 7,000 years. Egypt's Nile River floods annually,
washing away any salt deposits and laying down new fertile soil. This
natural cycle enabled Egyptian farmers to sustain high crop yields
year after year.

In modern times, Egypt built dams on the Nile to control the floods
and hold reserves of water. But the dams also blocked the fertile
silt from reaching the farmlands and replenishing the soil. Today,
Egyptian agriculture depends heavily on expensive commercial
fertilizers.

Most ancient environmental disasters occurred because of the
salinization or erosion of farmlands caused by irrigation systems,
deforestation, and overgrazing by domesticated animals. In these
ways, the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Vikings in Greenland, Mayans in
Central America, Native Americans in the Southwest, and Polynesians
on Pacific islands all damaged their environments to some degree.

Climate changes and warfare often added pressure on civilizations
already weakened by environmental disasters. In virtually every case,
however, people contributed to their own downfall by over-exploiting
their environment for short-term gains while ignoring the long-term
consequences."

http://www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria18_4a.htm

Our county is in the process of rezoning much of our ag land to
residential and our native brothers and sisters are converting there
land to casinos and golf courses

jmy in ca

Totally agree. The very nature of life on this planet is of ups and downs. Civilizations rise and collapse (Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese...)

Can you teach yeast in a petrie dish to live in a steady state?

In my mind we always live at the edge of what technology allows. As technology continuously improves, the edge continues to move... until one day there's a 'collapse.'

It's my opinion that predicting the collapse is folly. You can't.

Peak Oil could be the catylyst for such a collapse, or it might not. Who's to say?

The bottom line is their has always been money to be made in predicting these collapses. Club of Rome, DieOff.org, DailyReckoning, The Religious Right, and thousands of others... They all have their own spin, but they are all essentially the same.

"The collapse is coming."

When?

"Soon. Protect yourself."

How?

"Read this website. Heed our advice. Buy these stocks. Buy gold. Worship with us. Visit our advertisers."

And it's not that they give horrible advice. Most seem to recommend living within your means. Diversification. Embracing personal relationships with your neghbors.

But don't let them fool you - they can't predict collapse.

I'm now convinced that our impression of being in conscious control of our behaviour is largely an illusion.

This sentence really struck me. I will think about it for a few days.

Thanks

GliderGuider, you seem to have the exact same reading habits as I. And I agree completely, our impression of being in conscious control of our behaviour is largely an illusion.

You would probably enjoy "The Mind's Past" by Michael S. Gazzaniga, it is a real shocker. One reviewer wrote:

Gazzaniga is at his most interesting when he explores the notion of the "interpreter", a mechanism in our left brain which "creates the illusion that we are in charge of our actions and does so by interpreting our past."

Ron Patterson

- The destruction of the natural world is not the result of
global capitalism, industrialization, 'Western civilization'
or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of
the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious
primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human
advance has coincided with ecological devastation.
John Gray, "Straw Dogs"

That's an important point. I've suspected for a while now that the fractional reserve system is going to play a major role in whatever instabilities are to come.

Of course Gnazzo didn't delve into it - I don't think his brain could parse the phrase "the end of fractional reserve banking".

There is nothing inherently wrong (or right) with fractional reserve banking. When he was a young man, Milton Friedman advocated 100% reserve banking, and that system can surely work.

The problem is not in the type of central bank or banking system you have. The problem is that central bankers may be forced to yield to inflationary pressures. Ben Bernake was deadly serious when he said that he'd have helicopters drop bundles of cash rather than see American society go through a deflation. Politically, deflation is poison.

Inflation is a sweetly addictive drug. We're hooked on inflation in the two to three percent range now, and when deficit spending gets into the multitrillion dollar range (as I expect it will, within a dozen years), then we'll see inflation tend to rise something like this: 2%, 4%, 6%, 10% and then things get really nasty once we get into multiple years of double digit inflation. Due to the humongous unfunded financial burdens of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and federal pensions I see no plausible scenario to escape high and rising rates of inflation.

You see, with unexpected and abrupt inflation the government can steal from savers, steal from those on Social Security, etc., and the political driving forces that prevent nominal cuts in, say, Social Security benefits will not prevent cutting them in real terms.

Little known fact: Cost of Living adjustments to Social Security are capped--at around 3% per year last time I looked. So if we want to reduce Social Security benefits three percent in real terms, all we have to do is go for a six percent inflation rate; and a ten percent inflation rate would cut real benefits by seven percent.

I do not think the working population of the U.S. will consent to be taxed at the rate that would be necessary to keep current levels of real Social Security, Medicare etc. benefits in the future.

Nobody has the slightest clue how to finance the retirement of the Baby Boomers, the first of whom just turned sixty-one years old this year. As rising waves of Boomers hit sixty-six or sixty-seven years of age, the financial feces are going to hit the whirling turbine blades--and it is not going to be pretty.

I hate speculators, but they do play an important role in the economy in most sectors. While common sense would indicate that they spike the market, as Greenspan explained in so eloquent way recently, the speculators also bring down the amplitude of the spikes in most commodities.

That is because some day they must sell their positions or put a great load on their building's freight elevator when they take delivery of oil or pork bellies.

At that time, they are flooding the market with product that otherwise would have seen relative scarcity. We saw this in Autumn 2005 and it is repeating today. We can see their positions in full transparency. We hate them when they bid up the prices. But we know that someday they have to unload. Every north american farmer with low cash flow and operating capital luvs the speculators.

It's all about cycles...

What is killing the speculators this month is their lack of due diligence. In July and August last year, there was much exposure given to short and medium term outlooks for oil production, capacity and refinery infrastructure. Some didn't read the writing on the wall...

It appears that even with the softness of heating oil sales, a new quarterly record will be set in global oil production in Q1.

I do wonder if the situation has changed in a fundamental way, and people just aren't getting it. BP's production down for the sixth quarter in a row...and the number was a surprise to analysts.

Then there was yesterday's CNN story about how oil would be $35 if not for "speculators."

Russia has admitted to a year over year decline in exports, but what is particularly interesting is the decline in exports since June, 2006. According to a chart in the following article, oil exports to countries outside the CIS have steadily fallen through December, by a total of 600,000 bpd: http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1168362120.php

The Big Three--Saudi Arabia; Russia and Norway--accounted for half of the exports by the top 10 net oil exporters in 2005.

According to the EIA, the Big Three showed a combined increase in Total Liquids consumption of about 600,000 bpd from 2004 to 2005.

If we plug in a similar increase in consumption for 2006, the 1.1 mbpd decline in Saudi crude production, the probable 400,000 bpd drop in Norwegian production, and a 300,000 bpd (?) decline in Russian exports to non-CIS countries, it looks like the decline in net exports by the Big Three, as of 2/07, from the 2005 average, could easily be on the order of 2.5 mbpd.

The problem, as I noted a year ago, is that these three regions, based on the HL method, are hugely depleted: Saudi Arabia, about 60% depleted; Russia, about 85% depleted; Norway, about 70% depleted.

As I predicted a year ago, I foresee rising domestic consumption and falling domestic production ahead for the Big Three.

EIA This Week In Petroleum (1/10/07): ". . . the large crude oil draw this week not "as alarming" as it may first appear. . . the draw last week was a continuation of draws seen over the last several weeks"

First, regarding crude oil, inputs into refineries increased while imports declined substantially. With domestic production relatively flat from week to week, additional supply for refineries must come from either imports and/or drawdowns from inventories. If crude oil inputs into refineries increase, and imports decrease significantly, a large crude oil inventory drawdown must occur. Given that crude oil inventories were above the average range for this time of year, there was plenty of crude oil available to draw upon, making the large crude oil draw this week not as alarming as it may first appear. Plus, the draw last week was a continuation of draws seen over the last several weeks, and inventories still remain above the average range, even after the latest draw, albeit by much less than they were several weeks ago.

No problems. All is well. Continue with your planned purchases of large SUV's.

We can continue to increase our total petroleum imports year over year . . . forever.

Amd it was just determined that 2006 wins the prize for the warmest year worldwide on record. Beating 2005. 2.2 degrees above average.

Of course, this is just a "natural cycle". Record levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have nothing to do with it. Silly notion. As our president says, "Don't worry, go shopping".

Total snowfall so far this year in S. New Hampshire: 1" (melted long ago). None predicted for the next week. Natural, right...

The GW deniers I seem to be surrounded with are starting to crack. The weather is, of course, a topic of conservation. And they comment about how warm it is, and then quickly say "But I'm not complaining". I say nothing anymore, I just smile and nod my head. But I'm sure I hear a little panic around the edges. Somebody even rented "An Inconvenient Truth" (gasp!)...

Yes - Americans really have no idea how incredibly out of touch their ideas seem to be. As for the numbers - roughly 300 million Americans, and roughly 470 million Europeans in the EU - but Americans are certain their beliefs are not only self-evidently correct, but dominant.

Oh well, just getting ready for the 50+ mile an hour winds in the 50°+ weather here in the Rhine Valley - or 80+ kph at 12°+ for the approximately 6 billion people who don't use the correct measurement system.

(never mind)

Not only 8% of Americans but Texas is one of the last old style industrial states around with huge numbers of refineries and consequently huge numbers of manufacturing plants that deal with hydrocarbon products such as plastic manufacturers, etc.

Earlier in the day that was the whole text, now there is more. You need to have WSJ online to see the original, so I didn't link it. But here are some more quotes:

Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the intelligence, military and industry experts said the U.S. needed to dramatically change its energy policy in order to address a fundamental change in the structure of global energy markets.

IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said continuing demand growth from populous and fast-developing China and India, a peak and decline of non-OPEC production within 10 years, and uncertain investment and production capacity increases in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia meant the global energy future was unsustainable.

Flynt Leverett - ex-intelligence analyst and a director at the New American Foundation - warned that the structural changes in the global market were dramatically impacting U.S. foreign policy.

"The most profound challenges to U.S. preeminence during the next 25 years flow from the strategic and political consequences of ongoing structural shifts in global energy markets," Leverett said.

Birol said because most of the production growth in the longer-term was coming from politically unstable states such as Iran, Venezuela and Iraq, and investment was much more uncertain than in the previous global energy market paradigm, consuming nations such as the U.S. needed to take serious policy decisions.

The IEA economist recommended the U.S. first implement energy efficiency reforms, particularly in the transport sector, but also increase domestic production, boost alternative energy sources and fuels.

Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World". His final warning to the Human Race. I'm starting to re-read it today.

Find a book/magazine store like Uncle Hugo's (Gernsback) in Minneapolis, bring a few dollars and enjoy many hours of browsing.

Well, I do have a 4 hour layover in Minneapolis (and a 3-hour layover in Amsterdam). Maybe I will get out of the airport and do that.

I read Billions and Billions. Good book. Footfall is really familiar. I have read some Niven, but not that one. I think I have picked it up and looked it over before. I will keep an eye out for it.

I will download this one. The price is definitely right. :)

It's a free online library based in Tasmania.

I downloaded this one. It is free, but they ask for a donation. If you don't donate (I wouldn't have gotten the book had it not been free) they try to put a guilt trip on you:

Dear Non-Contributing User,

From its inception in early 1997 until January, 2005, nearly all the costs of the Soil And Health Library were paid for by me, Steve Solomon. After seven plus years of financing the library to the cumulative tune of about $7,000 I began to feel some resentment. About that same time I also realized that the library's content was not increasing as rapidly as it once had been. My negative emotions were burdening the library's progress.

So I did a series of meditations, seeking advice from the Universe about this matter. And was given this answer: "insistantly and directly ask those using your library to contribute a small amount; a membership fee." So I am doing just that.

If you had already made the small contribution I request you would not be seeing this letter. But you have not yet joined the library. You have not exchanged ten Euros for access to highly valuable information that has been painstakingly assembled and provided for your benefit. Consequently I feel entitled to give you a bit of my viewpoint.

Let me first remind you that your request for a copy of whatever it was you asked for has not been denied. This is and shall remain a free public library because there are people who can gain access to the world wide web but who feel so impoverished that a donation of ten euros seems entirely beyond them.

Your use of this library is being subsidized by the contributions of others. You are getting something whilst giving back nothing. This is an "out" exchange. I am entirely certain that if you wish to make spiritual progress in your lifetime then you must get "in" exchange with others. To get your "karma" in order it is probable that you in particular will have to overemphasize the "in" part of your exchanges because there probably have been many other instances in your past of being "out" exchange. My own past failures to have my own exchanges in balance is one reason I make and for seven years almost entirely paid for this library myself.

Airdale

Was wondering if you have read any of Ken Wilbur's material? And what your thoughts were.

Also, Quantum Mechanics is also one of my "Leisure" reading subjects. Great stuff.

John

Second the motion on Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy - the 3rd is System of the World. Plus his Cryptonomicon - main characters descendants of those of the Trilogy but set in WWII and the present time. Cryptology plus great plot, characters and writing. Cryptonomicon was written before the Trilogy and one could start either way.

Also in SF: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is absolutely tops, esp. for those interested in sustainability and in political organization, which is virtually all of us at TOD.

What Native Americans were really like before Europeans "discovered" them...

That sort of thing is right up my alley. I have been fascinated with Native American life since I was about eight years old.

I also second the choice of 1491

It was probably the most 'mind blowing' of books I've read lately. I think Mann does an excellent job of presenting a balanced picture of the anthropological evidence, unlike some tomes in which the author obviously has an axe to grind, nevertheless, the weight of evidence makes it hard to deny that at the least, our current picture of pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere life has been badly lacking.

One of my favorite books too.

The Darwin's finches on this little island are found to be evolving over just the few years of the study. The process is driven by an erratic, weather-derived "cycle" of alternating proliferation, overshoot, and collapse.

There's a thread at PO.com with a discussion of peak-oil related novels. While most are generic apocalypse scenarios, a couple are specifically energy or oil-related. "Ill Wind" and "Wolfbane," and a couple of others.

I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend:

Black Easter, By James Blish.

It's a beautifully written novel by a true wordsmith. Sort of an end of the world sci-fi/fantasy novel.

Garth

Robert

You have quite a list above. But since you are leaving Montana, and have an interest in biology,
I suggest a neglected biome of the earth, so important to Montana, and by a local author

"Grassland" Richard Manning

also important to Montana biology

"World Fire The culture of fire on earth." Stephen J Pyne 1995

and should you look for prose, don't neglect these award winning Montana authors--Ivan Doig or William Kittredge, if you haven't read them already.

One general science crossing all disciplnes is

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Thomas S. Kuhn

The Aberdeen Public Library has about a third of the titles I listed. It doesn't have Tainter or Catton. I checked Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Ouch! I could blow my book budget on Tainter. I got a Barnes and Noble gift card for Christmas, and I think I will see how many books on the list I can pick up before I run out of money.

Scifi
Briefing For A Descent Into Hell, Doris Lessing
Invisibles series, Grant Morrison (graphic novel)
Transmetropolitan series, Warren Ellis (graphic novel)
Poetry
Pieces of a Song, Diane di Prima
The Butcher's Apron, Diane Wakoski
Novels
The Pickup, Nadine Gordimer
Let it Come Down and/or The Sheltering Sky, Paul
Bowles
Filmscript
In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni, Guy Debord
(in French or English, only the palindrome is Latin)

It's a vacation. Skip the engineer stuff.

I agree that Kurzweil is incredibly optimistic to the point of being unrealistic. The reason the book blew me away was just to think about the possibilities. That's the same reason The Long Emergency blew me away - thinking about the possibilities.

When I was reading Singularity, I kept waiting for him to address future energy supplies. He essentially argued that computers are using less and less energy, and therefore our energy needs in the future will go way down. I can't stress how far off the mark I think this argument is.

I think the reason sales are down is that there is mostly cr*p out there. The fiction being promoted is all by worn-out Names working to formula. Most of the nonfiction is the ten thousandth diet book or fitness book or self help book or memoir of somebody uninteresting. During all of 2006 I purchased not one single book published that year, but I bought plenty of used books and a new Barnes & Nobles hardcover cheapy edition of a classic.

It is not the Net that is killing book sales, it is the low quality of what the publishers are trying to get us to buy mindlessly. If you ever fly first class, it is so funny: Everybody is reading a hardcover from the short list of "must" reading in management or business--alomost all of which are thin rehashes with a little bit of new vocabulary to give the illusion of originality.

You wanna' sell new books? Publish some juicy meaty ones. Instead we get scores of wanna-be best sellers imitating last year's best selling titles. These publishers deserve to go broke. Barnes and Nobles, insofar as they are in on this (and they are) also deserves to go broke, though it is a good place to meet single people and drink Starbuck's.

I could go on, but this rant is long enough.

Every time a new book comes out I read or reread an old one.

Precisely what Venezuela's motivation is, I don't know, but Equador doesn't have the refining capacity for their heavy crude. They also don't have the hard currency to pay for imports of refined products, or should I say the hard currency comes at a very heavy price.

Equador just announced a major bond default so obtaining hard currency will become even more difficult.

Equador's new President is a Bolivarian and this appears to a friendship deal. Chavez is actively seeking this type of cooperative synergy in the region.

Perhaps there are refinery problems in Ecuador? It may be that rather than Venezuela needing crude, it's Ecuador that needs the refined products.

You're seriously praising the incubation of yet another autocracy in south america?

Oh he talks the talk that the leftists like, but keep an eye on things like 'constitutional refore to legislate by presidential decree'

Hes like just any other politician with absolute power in his sights.

In support of their plans to increase the # of wells from 500 to 3000, the developers said:

Current restrictions for drilling will allow only about 35% of the natural gas trapped in Jonah Field formations to be produced. This prevents production of up to 4.5 TCF, enough to serve all of Wyoming households for 468 years.

It doesn't mention Colorado, so I guess they are hosed. It's a good thing Wyoming has its own standing army.

It would be very interesting to have a feature article on LNG in North America. I've seen the technical presentations showing the locations and capacity and planned completion rates.

What I would like to see is a sound analysis of the overall feasibility of LNG in North America. Where do the extra ships come from? How long will it take to get them online and who is going to build them? Where do the contracts come from? Kitimat has the go ahead to build but is having difficulty getting contracts. What are the chances of the LNG market being liberalized? I'm sure there are many other critical questions dealing with whether or not LNG can or cannot be a practical solution, quite aside from the officially projected completion rates and NIMBYism.

A sharp drop HO HO HO. 4.5 Tcf may be 468 years for Wyoming but it is 75 days worth for the USA. LNG will never impact the price of NG in the US, however NG depletion will.

I have less confidence in the competence of elites than you, perhaps. I guess I define TPTB as our elected officials as influenced by their own agendas (for bettor or worse) and special interests. On top of this is the momentum of legacy policies that define our national identity and woven together provide the foundation for the status quo. The influence of the electorate fall in somewhere below these components. There is little political will to readdress any of these long-lived polices that overstay their usefulness unless the popular agenda or a powerful special interest legitimizes action.

The result, for example, is that we continue to subsidize the continued growth of the suburbs long after population growth has called the wisdom of the policy into question and many of the original motives have lost thier shine. Even if big agriculture were to raise the alarm and draft some legislation to preserve farmland by containing sprawl, I would expect they would find themselves in a real battle with TPTB. My point is, once unleashed, I'm not sure anyone really controls TPTB. My local city officials are certainly slave to what they understand as market forces and “growth is good” thinking despite feedback from the community to the contrary.

I anticipate that TPTB will generally continue on course until something triggers the unified voice of the electorate to make themselves heard starting at the local level. I don't think this generally happens unless the people become uncomfortable and even if it does, as you point out, fear could be used by TPTB to suppress this.

So I think I tend to see a menu of human frailties (i.e. apathy, incompetence, fear, faith, infighting...) as more central to our problems as compared to willful and effective long range planning of the selfish elite. Not because the elite don’t scheme to amass power and pull the strings, but because they really are not very good at it and the status quo limits them to operating in a narrow band. When the Bush administration swept in, they exhibited an unusual degree of coordination, but it appears that the level of planning and sophistication required overcoming the status quo undermined even their attempts to drive change on their terms. The neo-cons appear to be dropping out left and right as a result.

Change is hard, bureaucracies are tenacious, and people really aren’t inclined to think for the long-term when left to their own devices. The elites will certianly have thier work cut out for them in the uncertian times ahead.

That is my leaning...hyperinflation followed by deflation. For the simple reasoning that in the beginning, people will still have the money/credit to attempt to buy things thereby driving the price up on a lessening supply, but once people spend it all and are maxed out on credit with no job they'll be desperate for money. With a lot of people out of work and stuff still on the shelf, deflation.

When I was young and foolish I subscribed to newsletters.
Was that an insult, Don? I just happen to consider Gross a "guru" and I visit his website once a month to read what he has to say (for free). I also read the WSJ in print "when I'm in the mood", otherwise agree with all you say--life is too short and it's boring.