Drumbeat: October 20, 2010
Posted by Leanan on October 20, 2010 - 10:05am
Preparing Kids for the Unknown
There are many reasons not to start the push toward college before your child is even in preschool. You know most of them, but here’s one you might not have thought of: There is no point in pushing children, because by the time today’s toddlers turn 18, college — along with the book-based world for which college prepares you — will be an obsolete relic....What if “a fully wired, completely interconnected, always-on global marketplace of ideas and innovation” isn’t actually what the future will look like, she asks. “What if we’re raising our kids to succeed in a George Jetson kind of world, but they wind up living more like Fred Flintstone?”
Why you can have an economy of people who don’t sweat
The productivity of modern economies is based on the division of labour. If everyone grows their own food, and gathers their own fuel, it takes them most of the day. There is little time or energy left for conversation, entertainment, trading derivatives or inventing new goods.That is what most of the world was like for most of history, and much of it is still like that. But specialisation of tasks gave opportunities to achieve economies of scale and to focus on tasks at which individuals or companies were, or became, particularly skilled. Less time had to be devoted to toolmaking, hunting and foraging, and more was available for chatting, playing music, hairdressing, insurance broking and discovering how the world worked. Some new activities required rarer skills and were consequently well rewarded.
Exxon Cuts Venezuela Arbitration Claim to $7 Billion
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has nationalized parts of the oil, metals, cement and utilities industries during his 11 years in power. Chavez forced foreign oil producers into joint ventures as minority partners in 2007 and is in international arbitration with the U.S.’s Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, which rejected revised terms.Exxon Mobil, based in Irving, Texas, filed for arbitration three years ago after abandoning a joint oil venture with PDVSA following contract changes by Chavez. The project was developed to pump tar-like crude and refine it into lighter synthetic oil.
WA's explosive gas price clash
As Western Australia's natural gas row continues to burn corporate consumers and users, the WA government appears intent to sit on its hands, hoping nothing more will go wrong while it tries to nut out a cunning, long-term plan. But balancing the needs of the two main protagonists could be more difficult than the government expects.The battle is important not only because it's being fought in Australia's most gas-heavy state – the WA market accounts for 40 per cent of gas demand nationally, and is almost as large as New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland combined – but it also pits some of Australia's largest companies against each other, along the lines of producers and users.
Iraq is considering linking up to a gas pipeline running from Egypt through other Arab states as a way to export its gas, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said today after meeting the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Origin stops coal seam gas drilling after chemicals found in water
Farmers near a coal seam gas ''fracking'' site in Queensland will have their water supplies tested for toxic benzene and other chemicals today after Origin Energy found contaminated water near drilling sites.
13 hurt in Novatek Yamal blast
Thirteen gas industry workers were injured in Russia's Arctic Yamal-Nenets region after a valve at a Novatek gas processing plant exploded today, Russia's Emergencies Ministry reported.
Deepwater Horizon Insured Losses May Be as Much as $6 Billion, Fitch Says
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico could result in insured losses of as much as $6 billion, according to Fitch Ratings Ltd.The explosion was “a material event for the reinsurance sector,” Chris Waterman, a managing director with Fitch, said today during a presentation in Zurich.
WEA, Companies Sue BLM for Failing to Issue Leases
The Denver-based Western Energy Alliance (WEA) and six companies have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), arguing that BLM has failed to issue mineral leases to the top qualified bidders at competitive lease sales within 60 days of the date that leases are paid for.
Ensco Seeks Continuation of Deepwater Drilling Challenge
One of the oil companies that sued the Obama administration over its now-rescinded ban on new deepwater oil wells said Tuesday its case should continue because the drilling moratorium isn't really over.
With the fast depletion of gas reserves, Bangladesh is likely to face acute energy crisis after 2015 if no new reserve is discovered immediately. The situation has gone to such an extent that all concerned seem to have accepted the likely devastating effect of the gas supply crunch on the country's economy as a fait accompli.
Thar coal project to resolve energy crisis, says Qaim
KARACHI: The Sindh government Tuesday furnished the details of the ‘fiscal incentive package’ for Thar coal mining project, which was recently approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC).
Fuel companies co-operating over diesel
Diesel stocks are tight and companies are sharing what they have after a refinery shut-down, bad weather at sea, and problems getting fuel from South Korea.New Zealand's biggest fuel suppliers confirmed this week they were working together to manage supplies as they waited for national diesel stocks to improve.
Fuel blockades continue despite police intervention
Fresh blockades by French workers continued Wednesday as senators examined the contentious pension reform bill. The country's fuel crisis worsened as oil workers blocked depots despite police intervention.
Of bribes, bullets and bargains
IRAN is a hard place to do business because of sanctions. Iraq, its neighbour, is a hard place to do business because of everything else (see chart). Yet some firms in Iraq are notching up double-digit growth. The country has “the best prospects for oil in the world,” says Sara Akbar, chief executive of Kuwait Energy. It claims the world’s second-largest reserves, yet its wells are woefully underdeveloped. After years of war and a trade embargo that ended in 2003, the country is crying out for investment in just about everything.
Iranian CNG Program at Crossroads
Among other things, additional capacity to produce gasoline through local refineries is expected to come online sometime next year. This takes pressure off the country to continue their CNG program at the current pace. Though the country has substantial oil reserves, they have relied heavily on imported gasoline to date due to insufficient local refining capacity. The cost of these imports, along with the possibility of sanctions which could restrict them, was the original stimulus for the CNG program which puts the country’s vast natural gas reserves to use.
Eaga hit by UK govt's phasing out of fuel scheme
Reuters) - British energy efficiency firm Eaga (EAGA.L) said it will consider how it will be impacted after the government announced plans to cut spending on a fuel scheme by more than it was expecting, hurting its shares.As part of a spending review on Wednesday aimed at slashing the UK's budget deficit, the government said it would phase out the Warm Front scheme which provides grants to help people in fuel poverty.
China denies reports on halting export of rare earth
Beijing, China (CNN) -- China vehemently denied Wednesday that it has halted export of rare earth materials amid news reports that Beijing started blocking shipments of the crucial minerals to the United States and Europe following similar measures against Japan."China will continue to provide rare earth to the rest of the world," the ministry of commerce said in a statement faxed to CNN. "At the same time, to protect exhaustible resources and achieve sustainable development, China will also continue to implement restrictive measures on the mining, production and export of rare earth."
£669 ($1068 Canadian) worth of food grown on this patio, balcony and windowsill
Vertical Veg is a not-for-profit enterprise that aims to inspire people to grow high yields of food in small spaces.Can you grow £500 worth of food without a garden or an allotment? That’s the target Mark set himself on 1 May this year – all from his 9 x 6 foot north-west facing balcony and six window sills in Tufnell Park, North London. By 8 October he’d already beaten his target by £169, growing food worth £669.
Mexico stretches funds to cut greenhouse emissions
(Reuters) - Hopes are dim for a global agreement to help developing nations cut carbon emissions, so Mexico is relying on an imperfect blend of grants, loans and ingenuity to meet self-imposed limits on greenhouse gases.
How to Bring Down the Coal and Oil Goliath: A Million Personal Letters
With support from Citizens Climate Lobby, Laurie just launched the Million Letter March, a campaign to generate a million personal letters -- signed, placed in a stamped envelope and mailed to Washington -- asking members of Congress to enact effective legislation to stop climate change. And by effective legislation, we're talking about a direct fee on carbon-based fuels, such that solar, wind and other forms of clean energy are cheaper than dirty energy within ten years. And to make sure that families can afford the energy they need -- a carbon fee will increase the cost -- all the revenue generated should be returned equitably to every American, preferably as monthly rebates or "green checks."
Jeff Rubin: Can Canada afford the oil sands?
America is banking on a lot more Canadian bitumen exports to supply it with oil in the future. Already the single largest source of imported oil, the Alberta oil sands’ supply could soon form almost a third of America’s total oil imports—apart from the fact that it’s far from clear whether or not the rest of the Canadian economy could afford the consequences.Whether Canadians like it or not, their dollar has become a petro-currency. Currently trading near parity against the greenback, it wasn’t that long ago that the Canadian dollar was trading as low as 61 cents against its bigger cousin. But of course back then oil was trading at close to $20 (U.S.) per barrel, and at that price Alberta’s tar sands were a marginal energy resource.
Oil Rises on Speculation U.S. Fuel Supplies Dropped, China Demand Outlook
Crude rose, recouping part of the biggest loss in eight months, on signs that U.S. fuel stockpiles are shrinking and speculation that China’s economy will continue to drive oil demand.The U.S. Energy Department may report today that gasoline stockpiles fell 1.5 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Futures rebounded after yesterday’s 4.3 percent decline, the biggest drop since Feb. 4, as concern eased that an unexpected rate increase by China’s central bank will harm fuel consumption in the world’s largest energy user.
Oil May Extend Decline Beyond `Consolidation' Range: Technical Analysis
Oil may extend its decline below $80 a barrel after prices dropped out of a “consolidation range” on technical charts, according to Cameron Hanover Inc.Crude, which tumbled the most in eight months yesterday after China unexpectedly raised interest rates, is trading below a sideways band in place since the start of this month, said Peter Beutel, president of the New Canaan, Connecticut-based energy adviser. Prices have also slipped further from the higher of two Bollinger Bands and could approach the lower marker near $72 a barrel before a sustained rebound, he said.
Rioters rampage, protesters block French airports
PARIS – Workers opposed to a higher retirement age blocked access to airports in Paris and around the country on Wednesday as hooded youths smashed store windows amid clouds of tear gas outside the capital.Riot police in black body armor forced striking workers away from blocked fuel depots in western France, restoring gasoline to areas where pumps were dry after weeks of protests over the government proposal raising the age from 60 to 62.
Ethylene Profit Gains to Falter on Rising China Production
China, the world’s second-biggest crude consumer, is buying less ethylene as it boosts domestic production after a 42 percent jump in oil-refining capacity in five years. Manufacturers in South Korea and Taiwan count on China to buy 80 percent of their ethylene-based exports, according to Brynjar Eirik Bustnes, a Hong Kong-based analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
China to boost natural gas pipelines network
BEIJING - China will triple the total length of its natural gas pipelines in the next five years to meet rising demand, said industry insiders.The total length of natural gas pipelines in the country will reach 100,000 km by the end of 2015, compared with 36,000 km by the end of 2010, said Yang Jianhong, deputy director of the oil and gas pipeline department at the China Petroleum Planning and Engineering Institute.
French Strikes Weigh on Crude for Prompt Delivery as Tankers Can't Unload
Crude for immediate loading in the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe declined relative to futures contracts as strikes halted deliveries of oil to refineries across France.As many as 47 crude-oil and oil-product tankers were stranded at the port of Marseille, unable to discharge as a strike by port workers continues into a third week.
Iraq Gas Auction Draws Meager Interest
Iraq is set to open three major natural gas fields to international companies on Wednesday, but lackluster turnout by potential bidders could stymie the country’s hopes of exploiting a commodity it sorely needs to rebuild, The Associated Press said.
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq awarded three gas fields at an international auction on Wednesday as it vies to become a major world player in a policy the oil minister said is key to boosting the war-ravaged economy.The largest of the three fields up for sale went to a Kazakh and Korean consortium; the next biggest to a Turkish-Kuwaiti-Korean bid; and the smallest to a Turkish-Kuwaiti joint venture.
More Russian roulette for BP's Dudley
Rosneft's Kremlin-led breakthrough into German oil refining this month has been accompanied by a sudden global expansion of the Russian half in the TNK-BP joint venture, again at the expense of its partner British Petroleum.Both Russian moves capitalize on BP's financial liabilities from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster and on Moscow's special relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Kremlin is now using these opportunities to coordinate a series of oil and gas asset transfers to Russia and its energy companies.
Mexican Lawmakers Approve Wider 2011 Budget Gap Than Calderon Proposed
Mexico’s lower house of congress approved the income portion of the 2011 budget, passing a wider deficit and higher oil price than President Felipe Calderon originally proposed.
BHP Billiton: future 'positive', hikes production
SYDNEY (AFP) – The world's biggest miner BHP Billiton Wednesday reported a boost in iron ore output and production records in petroleum and natural gas in a "strong" quarter.BHP said it increased output of 11 commodities in the three months to September and expressed confidence about its outlook thanks to strong demand including from China and India.
Deutsche Bank Considers Expanding Japan Coal, Iron Ore Derivative Business
Deutsche Bank AG may expand the sale of coal and iron ore cargoes and derivatives in Japan to meet growing demand from steelmakers and utilities for hedging the commodities against price swings.
Angola's December Crude Oil Exports to Drop Because of Terminal Disruption
Angolan crude exports will drop in December as a disruption at the Plutonio terminal reduce shipments from the nation on Africa’s southwest coast, loading schedules show.At least 48 crude cargoes will load in December, compared with 54 shipments in November, according to a revised loading plan obtained by Bloomberg. That includes three shipments of Palanca crude whose schedule wasn’t previously available.
6 months after oil spill, much remains unknown
NEW ORLEANS – The crude has stopped gushing and coastlines are largely clear of the thick goo that washed ashore for months, but the impact of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history will no doubt linger for years.Six months after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion, the environment and economy of the entire northern Gulf of Mexico region remain in a state of uncertainty, with overturned livelihoods, out-of-work fishermen, reluctant tourists, widespread emotional anguish and untold damage to the sea and its shores.
Montara report 'will change Oz offshore'
Australian Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told Parliament that the recommendations in the Borthwick report into last year's Montara spill will have far-reaching implications for the country's upstream sector.
Weatherization Went Awry, Audit Shows
Twelve of 15 homes that underwent improvements financed by stimulus funds failed final inspections. For 10 homes, contractors billed for charges that were not incurred.
The lure for catfish farmers is sinking
The American catfish industry has hit hard times of late, largely because of two factors: the tremendous increase in feed costs and of cheaper Asian fish flooding the market, Townsend Kyser says.
The head of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi has quit her post, it emerged yesterday.Helene Pelosse, who has served as IRENA's interim director general for almost 15 months, will be replaced at a high-level agency meeting next week, according to a conference agenda. Member states will also use funds from Abu Dhabi to help to resolve a continuing cash shortage at the agency.
New ethanol gas benefits new cars
E-15 is gas that contains up to 15 percent ethanol instead of 10 percent, which is in some blends now.It has the potential to reduce dependence on foreign oil, cut greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs and help corn farmers.
But the National Resource Defense Council says E-15 may still confuse consumers and damage many cars on the road.
Green energy firm Ecotricity plans bond offer
(Reuters) - Ecotricity, the UK's largest independent green energy company, plans to raise up to 10 million pounds via a 4-year bond to help accelerate its renewable energy sources building plans.The company, which is not rated by any major credit rating agency, plans to raise the cash without the use of any banking intermediary in order to keep costs to a minimum.
A Cheaper Route to Solar Cells
A company that secured a Department of Energy grant to pursue a breakthrough idea in the manufacture of solar cells plans to announce on Tuesday that it has raised $20 million to commercialize its technique, which it says will reduce the price of solar panels by 40 percent.
Cambridge firm helps the world turn old tires into cash
Gary Hedges, RTI’s president, notes that about seven gallons of oil are used to make a car tire. So with predictions of “peak oil” and diminishing reserves, burning tires is “unfortunate, because it is a waste of valuable energy,” he says.Countries around the world also are concerned about their piles of old tires. “From what we have been told, Saudi Arabia, for example, has about 600 million tires sitting in the desert, which is a very large environmental problem, but also a large source of raw material,” Hedges says. “So the Middle East is a big target market for us.”
Wind Is the New Cash Crop in Rural Wash. Town
GOLDENDALE, Wash. -- On an 80-degree day in this tiny rural town, winds gust up to 30 miles per hour, tossing tree branches and whipping hair into faces. Resident Cheryl Davenport smiles. She knows she's making money."It's a T & E day," said Davenport, 62, using jargon familiar to locals. "T & E," means "turn and earn," a mantra whispered to hundreds of windmills. Davenport sits on her porch on days like this, rocking in a chair and cheering spinning white blades, "Turn and earn, turn and earn."
Enel to sell wind power in U.S.
(Reuters) - Enel Green Power (EGP), the renewable energy arm of Italy's biggest utility Enel, has agreed to sell power to be generated by its new 200 megawatt U.S. wind farm as it aims to expand on the U.S. market.The U.S. government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will buy the annual output of the farm to be built and operated by EGP in Elk County, Kansas, EGP said in a statement, without giving commercial details of the power purchase agreement.
Inside the Illusory Empire of the Banking Commodity Con Game
With oil, I believe that the banking/oil cartel utilizes the same perceived and artificially low supply scam as the diamond cartel to effectively create deliberate wild fluctuations in oil prices that they can capitalize on to amass great fortunes. Over my investment career, I have written both articles declaring my belief for the peak oil theory as well as articles in which I rejected the peak oil theory after becoming privy to additional knowledge of which I had previously been unaware. I stand today, after further research, firmly no longer a believer in the peak oil theory. Yes, I am aware of the reported figures about dwindling production in Mexico's largest oilfield, Cantarell. Yes I am aware of rapidly dwindling oil production numbers for global oil production numbers as well. Yes, I am aware that the predominant number of people in this world believes in the Peak Oil Theory (which alone is reason for me to start questioning it). And yes, I am aware that many will think that it is ludicrous to challenge the Peak Oil Theory. But should the concept of challenging a “universal truth” that we have been told, even instructed to believe, ever be considered ludicrous? For that is all I am suggesting here. I will present facts of an alternative theory regarding the possible abundance of oil that merit consideration and I merely challenge you to consider the possibility that it could be true.
China Said to Widen Its Embargo of Minerals
HONG KONG — China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said this week.
It’s liquid crystal clear – we’re running on empty
ALTHOUGH the prospect of reaching peak oil production and the depletion of fossil fuels has appeared on the general business radar, relatively few people are concerned with the levels of gallium, indium and tantalum left in the world.Yet these metals are important commodities in the production of many things that we take for granted – that are supposedly integral to our high-tech future.
A climate, oil and economic crisis looms: Will we avoid or adjust?
Kathy McMahon believes most people, including politicians, are using a simple strategy to deal with a trio of crises confronting the world: avoidance.The clinical psychologist from Cummington, Mass., is in B.C. this week as part of a 12-community speaking tour about coping with climate change, oil depletion and economic collapse.
Japan to Fund Feasibility Study on Carbon Offsets for Overseas Projects
Japan’s government will fund feasibility studies on overseas projects using nuclear power and carbon capture and storage technologies to offset its emissions.
As Prop. 23 dives, money goes elsewhere
A few months ago, Assemblyman Dan Logue predicted that the ballot fight to roll back California's global warming law would be "like nothing we have ever seen before."It is turning out to be one for the ages, but not quite like Logue imagined. It may be one of the most ill-conceived measures ever.
The Chico-area Republican thought the ballot measure he was promoting, Proposition 23, would become a donnybrook, with tens of millions getting spent by both sides. Last week, the Yes-on-23 campaign went dark, with no ads on television.
"The private sector is spread thin," Logue explained last week. "Resources have diminished more than we thought."
Climate change is no threat-Czech president
LONDON (Reuters) - Climate change is not a threat and the consequences of global warming will not be catastrophic, the President of the Czech Republic said on Tuesday.Vaclav Klaus is a vocal sceptic on the topic of global warming. He published a book in 2007 in which he said global warming had turned into a new religion, an ideology that threatens to undermine freedom and the world's economic and social order.
Why Mali is missing its old way of life
I'm here to find out about the impact of climate change on one of the most remote parts of the world and we're due to drive even further east, almost to the border of Burkina Faso in the next few days. This is a huge country – Mali is twice the size of France with a population of only 13 million. What I'm seeing is a story replicated along a swathe of countries in the Sahel: a losing battle for people struggling to hold on to their way of life.
Report: Gulf damages could total $350B by 2030
NEW ORLEANS — Global warming, rising sea levels, fiercer and more frequent hurricanes and environmental degradation could result in $350 billion in losses over the next 20 years on the Gulf Coast, America's oil and natural gas nerve center, according to a risk assessment released Wednesday by power company Entergy Corp.The analysis of hazards, assets and vulnerabilities — including the offshore oil and gas world in the Gulf of Mexico — paints a bleak picture for the energy corridor between Texas and Alabama.
"Sitting here doing nothing is not a plan that is acceptable," said Wayne Leonard, the chairman and CEO of Entergy, a Fortune 500 power provider based in New Orleans.
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How batteries grow old: Researchers build facility to put hybrid car batteries to the test
In a laboratory at Ohio State University, an ongoing experiment is studying why batteries lose their ability to hold a charge as they age -- specifically lithium-ion batteries, which have generated a lot of buzz for their potential to power the electric cars of the future.
"We can clearly see that an aged sample versus and unaged sample has much lower lithium concentration in the cathode," said Rizzoni, director of the Center for Automotive Research at OSU. "It has essentially combined with anode material in an irreversible way."
So as batteries age they incrementally hold less energy with each recharge. What it's sounding like is it's going to be too expensive for most people to have battery powered vehicles. If a Volt costs 41k when new and needs new batteries every say 5 years, then what is the per year average cost of the vehicle over its life, including the cost of recharging?
That is vs. the Ranger I bought used with 40k miles for 10k and have driven 100k miles without ever worrying about how long batteries might last or if the vehicle would ever get less than 320 miles on a 55 dollar fill up. I can drive with a trailer load of 1500 lbs. and get 3-4 less miles to the gallon per mile driven, but no worries about running out of fuel or driving up steep grades for long periods of time. The vehicle still runs like it did when I got it, but of course I maintain it on a regular basis and don't push it too hard.
I think pure electric will work only for people that drive very short distances. Then over many years it makes economic sense - maybe? But for a changeover for the world from ICE's to Electric? Won't work.
But for a changeover for the world from ICE's to Electric [cars] Won't work.
Yup.
Which is why you will not be able to afford to fill up your Ranger.
One cannot burn more oil than is available. Price rationing & economic contraction seem the likely means of allocating what is available.
Alan
Electrified rail will work though. No batteries or oil required.
After listening to the news today (on the U.S. real-estate loan mess) and after reading Jeff Rubin's post (up top) I am sad.
I get the feeling that it's far worse than it appears to be. And that the consequences may appear far sooner than expected.
Anyone have any happy news on the topic of the World's energy situation?... please.
How about: "Ignorance is Bliss"...
E. Swanson
I get the feeling that it's far worse than it appears to be
Depends on what you think is "worse". Bad for the banks with their fraud - yup. Bad for the scammers who sold the Real Estate Trusts as investment methods - yup. Bad for local income taxes based on the land values - yup.
Good for people who are willing to use the 1873 Supreme Court ruling about the bifurcation of the mortgage from the note. Good if you have a pile of cash and can work to 'own' the home outright/ask a judge for Quiet title.
Easy.
Go Here
and Go Here
But first we go through the "other" demographic transition.
My guess is that it will be a Darwinian event.
Your first link is all about cold fusion. Your second link is on human colonies in space. My guess is that you are being sarcastic about this being the easy "good news". Good catch, I found it very funny.
But what is the "other" demographic transition?
Ron P.
what is the "other" demographic transition
http://dieoff.org/
Ah yes, the wonderful fantasy that if only those unwanted 90% of the population conveniently go away the rest will have it on easy street.
Not gonna happen that way, the only way that anyone will have it good is by clawing and scratching their way upwards even against the odds.
I think the number needs to be above 95% due to environmental degradation and no one is thinking we will go quietly. We have already seen wars due to population density in Ruwanda. There are already several failed states. There simply will not be enough food and water to support large populations without cheap energy.
The idea that a very strong petroleum industry will hurt the rest of Canada's economy is nuts. If a government needs to devalue its currency it can always do it by printing more money.
Follow Candide's advice.. Get out into the sun and make your garden grow.
I just got my first of two energy audits today, this one on my 3-unit apartment house that we just moved out of. Lots of good info on ways to improve my 'Tenant Garden'.. Tomorrow is Auditing my Mom's house, which we just bought from my sibs and moved into, which is a 2-unit.
If you want to feel good, go find a young person you can teach..
If you want to feel young, go find a class and learn something new.
Candide, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds. I love that piece. I saw a documentary on the history of Earth. It changed my perspective of our role on the planet. Through our mythology, we put ourselves in the center of the universe. Truthfully, we humans are a footnote; we are at the bottom or off to the side, not at the center. This is very difficult for a necessarily self-centered species to accept. Homo sapiens has not been here very long and is not likely to survive for a very long time. Neandertal, Homo habilis, and the other species before us are gone. I believe the geologic and fossil record shows that the more intelligent and clever the species, the shorter its occupancy on the planet. Homo sapiens started off in clans and developed more complex cultures only a few thousand years ago. Prior to mammals, reptiles ruled, prior to reptiles, the sea was the only home to life. This planet has gone through many phases and will likely die a fiery death several billion years from now. We are made of star dust.
To me, the evidence compiled by climatologists of climate change suggests that natural processes of climate change have accelerated and change is happening at a more rapid rate than in the past. Resource depletion means we will have a very different world very soon. Climate change and resource depletion are likely to interact, compounding problems. More chaos has been introduced to our ecosystem. I don't know if what is ahead is survivable for humans and other large animals. When I hear predictions with certitude, I'm very skeptical. I am very convinced that at some point, humans will no longer occupy the planet. I believe our time will come to an end relatively soon, but I am not certain when or how. We may survive only 1 or 2 more generations or 1000. I lean more toward the idea that we have fewer generations, that we are in overshoot.
At 53, being more of an intellectual sort than a practical, I doubt that I would be one who survives long should we face catastrophic change in my lifetime. How then shall I choose to live? My answer is to live as well as I can in the present, enjoying what I love in the here and now, while considering what I can do to help the next generation. It is too much for me to consider generations further than the next. While I am a childless gay man, I still see myself as responsible to help the next generation in whatever ways I can contribute. I am a learner, I will learn as long as my eyes can read. I love to teach and understand people. So I will be the best version of myself I can be. I will seek to care for those around me who are part of my life, to exist. "We'll build our house, we'll chop our wood and make our garden grow."
What mythology? We really are at the center of the universe... >;^)
Thanks for the thoughts, RD.
As Mssrs Sondheim and Bernstein showed us, we can learn and grow much from the offspring of our childless Gay Brothers. (I don't know that they weren't dads actually.. but it's beside the point.. and I guess S Sondheim was with GB on West Side Story, not Candide, right?)
Bob
Along with the civil unrest in France, another preview of coming attractions for the US:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11579979
Spending Review: Osborne wields UK spending axe
It seems to me, combining this economic strategy with the dire state of future UK energy and electricity infrastructure, that the UK is following the catabolic path to collapse favoured by Greer. Tidal barrage scheme cancelled. New build coal power cancelled. Nuclear rebuild to be entirely without subsidy. Oil and natural gas supplies in terminal decline. At least we have offshore wind expanding rapidly, even if we don't own the turbines. And a domestic PV feed in tariff to die for, if it survives the cuts.
We are destroying demand by destroying the state and the economy. We will never have energy shortages. But we may start to go hungry when we can no longer afford to import the food we eat.
Kline's 'shock doctrine' has ensured the cuts are without a murmur of protest in this country, whilst the banker's bonuses are back to boom time levels. Tax havens are still booming on UK business.
I expect a major crime wave as both welfare and policing budgets as slashed.
and regarding offshore WT's - what to say about this 5 y old offshore windfarm?
Thanet Offshore Wind Farm gearbox faults 'solved' Now, is it solved, really?
There has been an excellent series of reports on offshore wind here at TOD. 5 years is a long time in a fast moving industry. Thanet has taught many lessons that have been learnt.
Think aircraft technology between 1939 and 1944.
The idea of wind in the UK is to replace existing electricity as production such as existing nuclear is shut down over the next 9 years or so.
Some of the problems with wind (or any power supply) is you have to invest energy into making them which has to be recovered before you get any net energy, and they take time to plan, manufacture and install measured in years.
So, if you invest a certain amount of energy to build a windmill no net energy is produced for at least 6 months, then you can use the energy being produced to make another windmill. 1 year has gone by and no net power.
After another six months you can make 2 more windmills - still no net power.
After another six months you can make 4 more windmills - now you have 8 windmills, 2 years have gone by.
To meet UK Government targets we need at least 7000 of the biggest windmills currently in use by 2020 producing net energy (just 9 years away!)
... do the math to tell how many years after planning is completed before any net energy is produced. There is a limit to how many of these things can be manufactured/installed/imported/maintained per year for use in windy, deep water, situations in order to meet the required deadline.
Nick, are you listening ?
That's why I assert that the only open question as fossil fuels decline is how far the economy contracts before a sustainable energy system stops it. Do we land at point A or point B?
"Do we land at point A or point B?" Posted by Aangel
Likely enough we will end up at some point between A and B. But to me what is far more important isn't shown on the graph. The graph shows rising renewable energy white lines intersecting the declining fossil fuel blue line, with the white lines apparently continuing to rise for an indefinite future.
However, renewable energy is to a large extent dependent on a foundation which is itself largely dependent on fossil fuels, both directly and indirectly. Directly, due to the fossil energy involved the mining and refining of various resources which are then put to use by being fabricated (using more fossil fuels) into windmills or solar panels, etc., and indirectly, simply by being a small part of the general fossil energy powered BAU economy. The renewable energy industry cannot exist in isolation; it is attached by numerous, you might say, umbilical cords, to the BAU economy.
And I expect that shortly after the white and blue lines cross, wherever that is, that the white line will have its own peak before turning downhill. It will eventually level off and go steady-state, but how far above the graph’s horizontal axis and how far out this will be, we can only speculate.
Antoinetta III
If we started with animals and wood, I think it is likely that we will return to that. We probably will retrace our energy path from nuclear back through natural gas, petroleum, and coal. We will end up at food, feed amd trees. This probably means a huge population reduction either through planning or increased death rates. If you have land, start planting trees now. They will be worth a lot not only in terms of fueland furniture but in climate stabilization. Pyrolize the tree trimmings and add the charcoal to the soil to maintain fertility by sequestration.
Nick is intellectually dishonest. He's not worth arguing with.
It is a political decision, as to which power source is replaced by wind.
Coal would be the environmental first choice, but there are also considerations
of domestic supply security, of a finite fuel resource.
So that means Coal replacement may have to flip to Gas replacement, and Nuclear
decommission may need to flip to Nuclear refurbish, if you want to insulate against Finite Fuels effects.
If you have the sites, infrastructure and staff for Nuclear, it is not too smart to remove that too quickly.
I found this:
The UK’s 69.2TWh of nuclear demand in 2009 is forecast to fall to 54.6TWh by 2014 as reactors are decommissioned...
An increase of 27% in nuclear power use during 2010-19 is one key element of generation growth. Thermal power generation is forecast to fall by 3.6% between 2010 and 2019, with hydro use up 131% (from a very low base).
So the near term is a fall in UK Nuclear, followed by a rise.
According to my calculations, after 7 years you will have 8192 windmills. After that all energy produced by them (minus the cost of maintenance) is net energy.
Number of Years Number of windmills
=============== ====================
0.5 1
1.0 2
1.5 4
2.0 8
2.5 16
3.0 32
3.5 64
4.0 128
4.5 256
5.0 512
5.5 1024
6.0 2048
6.5 4096
7.0 8192
The problem, as always, is the exponential growth required. You can shut infrastructure at an exponential rate, but replacement at the same rate soon becomes impossible.
In year 7 you have to install 4096 of these things, they are huge ... each blade is longer than the total wingspan of a 747!
It is intended that they be positioned in some very windy, deep offshore places, the number of calm days per year when you can manhandle these components out there is measured in days not months, so a number like 4096 is physically impossible ... we don't have the resources.
Since we haven't even planned where these wind farms are going to be (to say nothing of the finance required) and we need a gradual build up to the full net energy required, it looks to me like we should have started on this several years ago.
Going to be awesome trying to keep that food frozen only when the wind blows. Stock up on ice.
I am putting my freezer on battery backed PV.
We are going to have to learn adaptive demand. Wind is less variable off-shore, and the wider the area covered by turbines, the more the total supply averages out. A European wide super-grid would be a far sighted investment.
We can stockpile a lot of coal. Wind forecasts are accurate at the three day level, enough time to fire up our old, polluting coal stations for those cold, still high pressure systems. We don't need to keep any more spinning reserve than we do now, probably less.
I am moving more to canning and dry processing; keeping stuff cool will be a whole lot easier than keeping it cold!
Craig
Ice houses of the past will come back in some places, but other than that. Canning, drying, pickling are the best ways to preserve foods. Salting or brining meat, as well as drying it with salt has practical and healthy results.
We have gotten used to freezing foods, and have a whole range of food products for the ready made dinner crowd that can't do without a freezer or else they'd spoil fast. One more reason to think about how we store and keep food. We use a lot of energy that we once had almost free to waste, that now we can't afford to waste, but can't figure out how to make our own dinners from anything that is not in a box.
But none of this is going to get outside of a thin cell of people who know there is going to be issues in the future, and who are doing their little bit to fix their section of the world.
Just wait until Joe and Jane six pack has to figure out how to cook without a microwave over, then all hell will break loose.
Charles,
BioWebScape Designs for a better fed and housed world.
When I was a lad, during Summer, the ice man was a welcome treat. He had a horse drawn wagon; clop clop... people who still used ice had a sign in their window, telling him "20 #", or whatever amount they needed in their box. The ice went in the top; water collected below and was 'ice cold.' The treat part was, as he chipped a block, the pieces flew!!! In 95 deg weather, there was a scramble to be the one who got the biggest piece! Clear, and delicious!
Ice was made using ammonia as a coolant. What will the future ice house use? Alternative source, farther north, was ice cut from rivers and lakes and stored in barns insulated with straw, mostly.
Today, Reddy Ice and a few others pretty much rule the roost. They pretty well buy up all those ice houses for now.
Best wishes for cooking in a solar oven.
Craig
Currently my microwave is tango uniform, a rough guess is that it will cost more to repair than replace despite the parts involved probably are worth 1/10th of the price of the oven. It is actually frustrating for cooking economically as I would prepare several meals, freeze then microwave. I have not found easy ways to reheat a number of items such as refried beans, cooked meats etc. If I heat stuff on the stove or in the oven it ends up with a lot of waste heat. Microwaves are quite efficient for some jobs :(
NAOM
I was more talking about all the boxed foods that get cooked in the microwave.
For small items to reheat, you can set some containers in a double boiler, and heat with water on a stove. Or package leftovers diferently to use this method.
I've gotten used to over time of eating some foods cold the second time through, Or letting them warm up to room temp, then eating. But that does not work for everything. As with all modes of cooking in the past, we will learn to deal with it, and develope methods to eat differently than we do today.
I do use the Nuker-Wave to heat things up, when I can't use the oven or stove top as easily. We have a gas stove with an active pilot light, it's a very old range, so using that available heat is good if you are willing to wait a while for the foods to warm up slowly.
Ps,
Craig, we need to teach everyone chemical reactions so that we don't loose the ability to go back to older methods of getting chemicals.
Charles,
BioWebScape Designs for a better fed and housed world.
There are things called "batteries". You can use them to electrochemicaly store electricity.
Thus one can 'stock up' on electricity when the wind blows and use it to keep the freezer running when the wind stops blowing.
Filling all the "empty space" in the freezer with plastic containers of water will also help keep the freezer frozen for a lot longer when the power goes off for a while.
The phase change stores a lot of energy.
Only nit-picking here, but the phase change for plain water ice wouldn't kick in until everything reached 32 °F; below that, the ice may provide a lot of thermal mass, but it doesn't melt. You don't want your freezer to get that warm very often, since lots of other things will start thawing also. Simple enough to lower the temp where the phase change occurs: 20% ethanol by volume drops it to 15 °F.
What about Brine?
Sure. Something around 17% by weight sodium chloride also gets the phase change down to about 15 °F — call it 1.7 pounds of salt per gallon. I was thinking about accidents and spillage. At these concentrations, I'd much rather clean up the alcohol mixture than brine.
What a simple idea, thanks, I'm off to experiment! I do love this site!
Is that how those blue freezer pack thingeys work? You could stuff your freezer with those.
Jon.
That is something I am starting to play about with. The first motivation being freezing mix for ice cream (try 290g per litre left in the freezer - it doesn't freeze there - then add that to your ice instead of salt). 150g per litre suggests an interesting mix. A top loading freezer is probably best for this type of back up as the salted ice can be kept in containers above the produce so that the cold air will sink and the rising hot (well, relatively) air will defrost the ice. Good strong bottles (soda bottles?), partially filled should greatly reduce the risk of leakage.
NAOM
Vodka sours, and whiskey sours, and mint julips, all in zipper bags, fozen for your end of power days, replace with fresh bags after your next party. Other drinks as you like them.
Charles.
Pity I can't go play pool right now.
BioWebScape Designs for a better fed and housed world, where making beer and bread and other neat things is not lost.
A few 5 liter boxes of wine?
Yair...Northern Australia summer 45-48 degrees. Shut generator off after breakfast, go to work come home at dark start generator to run a/c so we can sleep. Did that for five years, lost nothing freezers/fridges didn't defrost.
Eight to ten hour power outs are no problem if freezers and fridges kept full and not opened.
Those are all good, and then, if we can just use thick, hearty insulation that is as effective as whatever Mymomishot has in his ears and around his cerebellum, then what cold (really just the ignorance of heat) we've got, we can keep!
Standard hurricane prep is to fill up plastic bottles and Mardi Gras cups with water and place in freezer & frig. Even cold water in the frig will slow the thawing and spoiling of food during power outages.
Best Hopes for short power outages,
Alan
Know which stores have the coldest soda bottles, in your favourite flavours, in their fridges then fill spare space in your fridge with those. Reduces the amount of refrigeration you will need to cool down the water. Can be important if you are preparing in a hurry and the drinks make a change from the gallons of drinking water you have stocked in the cupboard.
NAOM
Strawman... Make lots of ice when the wind blows and try opening the freezer door only to actually take out or put in what you need instead of keeping it wide open while you contemplate your navel...
Who knows if it's entirely solved. But with each gearbox refit it's pushing the tech forward.
Engineering advances usually derive from failures.
And Enercon wind turbines avoid gearboxes.
Alan
I've been reading Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" lately and had come to the conclusion that the UK defecit was being used as an excuse for a massive rolling back of the state.
George Monbiot seems to have come to the same conclusion yesterday in his article in the Guardian.
One of the few good things the government announced in the spending review today was that the Renewable Heat Incentive is to go ahead.
Yup, this seems about right from the article:
Fairly sure we're already there.
Ralph,this appears to be self-imposed pain via devotion to neo-classical economic theory aka more loot for the rich.As the UK is a sovereign nation with full control of its currency it hasn't got the excuse of the EMU crowd.
Cold comfort for you that the UK is not alone in its idiocy.Google Modern Monetary Theory for an opening to some enlightenment.
Perhaps this was always going to be part of the endgame in a world of 7 billion people, a world in which the population of almost every nation on earth has exploded for longer than we can remember, with precious few exceptions.
Billions...even hundreds or tens of millions of people...cannot live like Kings, and the Kings are letting us know that.
Funny how the financial "reform" never seems to identify any "redundancies" amongst the bankster class in the financial "industry"... it's always the worker bees (i.e. hosts) that are "redundant" while all the smartest boyz (i.e. parasites) on Wall Street are just so indispensible to civilization...
That seems patently inaccurate. Wall street layoff were huge. At several major investment banks were dissolved in their entirety. In cases, I know well, 40% of entire banks staff were laid off at banks that survived.
You can be angry at banks, think they are the problem, think bankers are overpaid.
But to claim that employment or earnings in the banking sector isn't miles more risky than just about any other vocation, particularly government, is just plain wrong.
I would guess that there were more redundancies as a percentage of staff in banks then any other major business and more than the economy as a whole by a factor of two or three.
You are letting your emotions turn the facts up side down.
But to claim that employment or earnings in the banking sector isn't miles more risky than just about any other vocation
Farming
Soldiering
Modern meat packing plants
Three examples of "miles more risky" and all with far worse pay.
Need more examples?
The comment I was responding to talked about risk of losing jobs. Not how dangerous a job is.
Risk is not the same as danger
Risk to earnings is not the same as low pay
I don't think huge portions of the farming, soldiering, or meat packing industries (say 10% plus) got laid off in the recent downturn, which is the case in banks.
I don't think that those who work in those industries saw their earning cut in half from one year to the next, which happened in investment banks.
Again, I am making no claim that banks are good, that bankers aren't overpaid, or that more of them shouldn't have been laid off.
The original comment said that bankers had been buffered or protected from the impact of the crisis, which is not accurate.
I don't think that those who work in those industries saw their earning cut in half from one year to the next, which happened in investment banks.
Say, arn't you the same guy who was claiming it's OK to take 100% of the value of actual Carbon reduction projects because the cash flow is less than 1% of the total money being pulled in by the investment bank.
Way to pull together as human beings to save the planet!
Again, I am making no claim that banks are good, that bankers aren't overpaid, or that more of them shouldn't have been laid off.
And when pointed out the jobs have no actual risks, ya back off of that statement.
The original comment said that bankers had been buffered or protected from the impact of the crisis, which is not accurate.
And your position is tragically flawed as I can point to TARP. Government bailout of banks sure does look like a buffer.
Re: Climate change is no threat-Czech president
This article includes an interesting comment:
I think there is an error in this sentence. A change of 56 F would be rather obvious, and 56 F is not equal 13.3 C. Perhaps the author picked the actual average temperature, not the temperature change or messed up the conversion from C to F. Oh well.
Of course, the author does refer to comments by Vaclav Klaus about the long term cooling over 10,000 years, which misses the point about the most recent time period, for which the data indicates a warming trend (provided one accepts the scientific data). And, he doesn't appear to understand that there is a long lag time associated with the warming of the world's oceans, thus the warming of the past few decades is not fully reflected in the atmospheric data...
E. Swanson
13.3*(9/5)+32 = 55.94
Black_dog was making the point, I believe, that the way the sentence reads it infers that land temperatures were 56F over and water temps were 1.24F over.
Interpreted that way, he is correct, as a *difference* of 56F is not equal to a difference of 13.3C.
I suspect its bad editing of the article. The sentence was probably meant to read more like this:
"In the first four months of 2010, land and ocean temperatures averaged 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13.3 C). This is 1.24 F (0.69 C) above the 20th century average, making the year 2010 the warmest on record in U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data."
Sadly, the grammar in the press these days often requires 2 - 3 readings to decipher what the author actually meant.
"...the warming of the past few decades is not fully reflected in the atmospheric data."
This statement undermines your point.
Better to say, "...if current models are accurate, the warming of the past few decades is not fully reflected in the atmospheric data."
Much of planet could see extreme drought in 30 years: study
I think that the "could" reflects the uncertainty of models, not uncertainty about how much greenhouse gas emissions will occur over the next 3 decades. The later are pretty well baked in.
The article is saying that the average temp over the firt four months of 2010 was equal to 56 F (which is equal to 13.3 C), and that this average temperature is 1.24 F (or 0.69 C) above the comparable average over the 20th century.
Record US holiday spending on gadgets: CEA
Plenty of Xboxes and PS3s will sell, I'm sure the Military loves the FPS (first person shooter), and related games. Gives the kids plenty of practice for the next "Big War".
Me, I gotta get an XBox or somethin' by the time you're well into your fifties, you've accumulated enough PTSD to at least shoot things legally...:)
I've read that the army is having trouble finding recruits who meet the physical fitness requirements. So while video games may be making or children psycho-Nazi-youth-ready killing machines, they'll probably be unable to haul the hardware around to do the job.
And they'll want to know why there are no giant robot suits.
Lloyd
Safety in Numbers for Bicyclists
More information that as the number of bicyclists increase, the accident rate stays flat.
The article does not mention New Orleans, but the same phenomena is apparent here. As bicycling picked up in response to the collapse of public transit post-Katrina.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-11-theres-safety-in-numbers-for-cyc...
Best Hopes for Oil Free Transportation,
Alan
The accident rate here in Cambridge, UK is low by UK standards. A quarter of the adult population cycles on a daily basis.
I saw a guy cycling on the A14 the other day. I had to do a double take. Much as I'd like to cycle around these parts, I'm still wary of some of the other road users given the close calls I've had in my car around Huntingdon. On a bike, I'd be a little more vulnerable than in my Fiesta.
Sadly, the last time I saw a cyclist on the A14, it was with an ambulance in attendance.
It is the only road I know in the UK with a 70mph speed limit, and permissible for cyclists. Not a good combination.
Ok, tis a while since I was in the UK. When I used to live there all dual carriage ways used to have a 70mph limit and allowed bicycles unless they had a lower speed limit imposed or were motorways.
NAOM
That is still the general case. The only blanket ban on cyclists in the UK is on motorways. You can normally cycle on dual carriageways even if they have a 70mph limit. However a lot of (mainly urban) formerly 70mph dual carriageways do now have lower speed limits
This reminded me of an experience I had last week.
I live and ride in Toronto. In the city core, with it's dense traffic, I am quite at home; I know that all the drivers would like to kill me, but the rules of engagement are explicit, and to run me over would be bad form. Also, the speed differential is less than 50% in practical terms; most of the streets I use are 40KPH, and I can do 40k (for a while...). I am not an obstruction to traffic.
The ride in question was to visit my dad in Mississauga. I had hurt my knee on a friend's boat, so I took the subway to the city limits to rest my knee, rather than my usual route along the lakeshore.
This put me on Dundas Street, a trip I hadn't made in at least ten years.
I did not see another cyclist in the entire 20 kilometers.
While I was not in a state of panic, I was continually aware of my own mortality, which is not the case downtown.
It was a thoroughly unpleasant trip. I went home by my usual route on the Lakeshore.
Part of this is because of Mississauga's geography; the need to cross the Credit River has concentrated traffic onto a few East-West routes, of which Dundas, I now realize, is the busiest. The speed differential is also higher than downtown, with sustained stretches at a legal 70K.
In the case of Mississauga (and by extension all of suburban North America), if a fast cyclist with 35 years experience in city and back-road cycling is uncomfortable on the roads, who will ride on them?
It's kind of like going over the top in the trenches during World War One: It's especially scary (and dangerous) to be in the first rank. And there are some battles that can't be won.
Lloyd
I thought the accident rate or the number of accidents per cyclist went down. Unfortunately, we have a lot of people around here who just see cyclists as a nuisance. "What are those damn cyclists doing on my road?"
A great site to monitor the progress of urban cycling is www.copenhagenize.com
1st German off shore wind park produces as much energy as was consumed to build it. (In German)
The Alpha Ventus wind park, located north of the german island Borkum, needed less than a year to produce the amount of energy that was needed to build and run it, says a report of researchers from the university of Bochum/Germany.
All CO2 emissions from its construction included gives an equivalent of 30 grams CO2 emissions per kilowatt hour, much better than all other forms of energy generation (Usually the rate is 670 grams CO2 per kwh from conventional generation.)
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending October 15, 2010
Doesn't that just frost you? A program to promote inovation in renewable energy with micro-loans to startups, is passed by Congress in 1997, but given no funding for the next 11 years while hundreds of billions are pissed away chasing oil in the middle east. I realize the party line issue is complex, but that just stinks of right-wing "anti-government" type nutsi-ism.
Also, if one reads the article carefully, that projected 40% saving appears to be compared to producing silicon wafers by slicing them from solid ingots. Evergreen solar has been producing such thin PV cells by extraction from a silicon melt in a continuous ribbon, starting some 15 years ago. It would be interesting to see a comparison between the costs of the two processes, especially as Evergreen has a new plant up and running. Not to mention the fact that even lower cost PV panels appear to be produced directly by thin film processes...
E. Swanson
Comparisons will surely be made, and will be appropriate.. but I'm still heartened to see that there are various approaches happening out there to skinning this cat. It just improves the odds that 'Artificial Selection' will help reveal the various advantages of the better approaches wherever they emerge..
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPA-E it was authorized in 2007. Note that Clinton would have been president in '97.
I must say that that poking around the 1366 Technologies site after reading the article left me more optimistic about our future then I have been in a while.
As Ron Swenson said at one point during the ASPO Conference.
As a lifelong environmentalist, I think the shift from fossil fuels to solar powered, decentralized electricity along with a major reduction in our level of consumption could actually make North America a much better place to live in the future than it is today.
There's just this little rough patch during the transition. ;-)
Jon
"There's just this little rough patch during the transition. ;-)"
Transition? What transition?
Got PV?
Ahh, the joys of the northern Wisconsin sand.....
Nice picture!
A little off-topic, but I'll mention it anyway: watch out for grass fires! If I interpret your photo correctly, I see a south-facing sandy slope (read: dry,dry,dry) full of tall warm-season grasses under a lot of $$$$ worth of PV equipment, with a few conifers thrown in for good measure. It has fire vulnerability written all over it; a wayward spark could really ruin your day.
It was actually taken last winter. Green and lush most of the year. All mowed now, but I'm getting ready to plant liriope (monkey grass) under all arrays so I won't have to mow but once a year.
When my windows guy actually manages to get a simple aluminium extrusion (weeks in the process) I will be putting together my first panel. Glass - check, cells - check, battery - check, lights - check, frame to actually put the thing together and get it working.................................... :(
NAOM
Dont worry oil prices are back up above $80 bbl again. China didnt stop the march.
"Oil jumps after smaller-than-expected inventories rise"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/crude-futures-bounce-after-china-slide-...
I do not know how much US debt the Chinese hold, but if we assume it is 1 trillion $ at 3%, that is $30B of interest so it pays for
~1 Mbpd of their oil imports at $80 per barrel.
Canuck - I don't recall the exact numbers but I did the math about a year ago. The Chinese only needed to spend about 75% of our interest payments to them to cover the cost of 100% of their energy imports.
". . .about 75% of our interest payments to them to cover the cost of 100% of their energy imports."
That's a brutal alarm clock to wake up to. Seems to be a self winding one as well, in favor of the collector. I've seen your work with more complex problems during the GoM mess and they seemed quite solid. God, I hope you suck at elementary math!
8-o( - g
The talk I gave at ASPO included some material on discourses, the long running conversations that govern our species, and at the end I gave some examples of some constructive conversations. These are going to compete with the conversations I'd like us not to speak to each other, including the "we should enforce Christian laws" (which leads to a theocracy) and other unpleasant ones (at least to me).
I just caught this story:
British budget cuts to include nearly 500K job losses
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR201010...
And noticed that the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer used one of the conversations I had suggested in my talk:
I had suggested "we get through this together." The other two suggested ones were "embrace contraction" and "transition."
aangel
I have much appreciated your explanation of 'conversations / discourses'.
I tried your thesis on a few on people without engaging them with PO.
Several agreed that it was the norm at work or socially, and that trying to explain data that was out of synch with the current discourses meant that one was simply not heard.
With regard to current 'UK speak': 'fairness' is another leitmotif of Osborne as is constant reiteration by all members of the coalition government that the reason (blame) for all this happening is the mess made by the previous government. Neither is a true account, but both discourses are being expertly pushed. The previous government made serious errors and shared the universal lack of foresight, but was not much more responsible than any other for the crashes of 2007 - 2009. However, 70% of our population have apparently 'bought in' to the blame 'discourse'.
phil
Phil, I'm glad you are finding it useful.
The "fairness" conversation seems to be a very old one, too. Of course it exists only as a function of language (you can't point to "fairness" in the physical world) and thus has no real physical support under it, which makes it a very interesting conversation to study. It's not immediately obvious what keeps it in the network.
As far as I can tell, we are taught the "fairness" conversation while very young and are trapped by it for the rest of our lives. It's not uncommon to hear a child yell, "That's not fair! He started it!" or similar and that conversation doesn't really change no matter the age of the speaker. The conversation for "justice" is a variant of the fairness conversation when it is used in the sense of equity. However, "justice" can also be used to mean "revenge," which is how it's mostly used, in my view, while people try to hide that fact with lofty rhetoric: they mostly just want revenge and punishment, usually.
In any case, "fairness" is a very powerful conversation for our species and our natural inclination to feel slighted will produce it with just a snap of the fingers. Why we feel slighted is another interesting study and deals with binary logic and the human inability to see that it (the universe as expressed through language) is all made up. Thus we think that there truly is such a thing as "right" and "wrong" when in fact they are simply concepts or more appropriately viewed as labels on circumstances expressed through language.
Take away language and most of the world of human beings disappears.
Heidegger had it exactly right:
With just a few words, the being of a human can flip instantly from loving and generous to mean and vindictive. The words happen first so we know that the causality is going in the right direction: we are run by words, formed into chains called conversations.
I'd be wary of allowing the difference between "discourse," in the Foucaultian sense, and the use of particular words or catch phrases to narrow too much. Sometimes the same words are used in quite different ways by those on either side of a cultural discourse.
Yes, that's true but I don't see the problem you're pointing to in my post. Maybe you're just urging caution?
I think it is a bit more than that. Experiments have shown that other primates have a concept that resembles "fairness". Doubtlessly some primative concept of "fairness" has been wired into our brains. Beyond that you are correct. But the propensity for certain sorts of concepts can be prewired into our brains by evolution. A thousand generations of socially mediated selection leaves an imprint.
Experiments have shown that other primates have a concept that resembles "fairness".
So do dogs.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97944783
As do cats. I use 3 place dishes per 2 cats. Cat in question eats 1/2 the centre place then snarfs his end place leaving the rest to the other, 1/2 and 1/2. Most defer to kittens leaving them to eat their fill.
NAOM
Fair enough...but I was referring to the word "fairness" and the concept itself. There certainly is some pattern of electrical impulses in the brain backing both the word and the concept — a pattern that both responds to the world and is shaped by the world.
That doesn't change that it exists only as a pattern.
Is a pattern the same thing as a physical thing?
In essence all things are merely patterns of energy of varying density.
An idea is as real, and can be as deadly, as a bullet in skilled hands.
Of course, as someone who works with mere patterns of electricity all day, I may be biased here.
True, but in practical terms if I drop an anvil on your toe, you will know that pattern in a very different way than the concept "fair."
That anvil is totally unfair.
Yet recent research has shown that people feel emotional pain similarly to physical pain. So while the physical pain may be due to the intersecting magnetic fields of other energy patterns trying to intersect our own, the pain from idea patterns intersecting our own is just as real to the intersectee.
An awkward way of saying: if I subject you to blatant unfariness it's likely to hurt just the same as an anvil on your toe, even if you don't end up with any obvious physical injuries.
Feelings are real. Chemicals course through the body of the person doing the feeling, electrical impulses jolt sensitive neurons into action. Thoughts are guided, reactions considered, china and anvils tossed.
I don't have to believe in the reality of feelings (either other people's or my own) to be hurt by them, therefore they pass my personal test of reality.
Fairness is just a particular pattern of emotional responses to outside stimuli. It is sufficiently useful that it appears to be hardwired in to social mammals. Even if you deny it, running afoul of it can still hurt you.
aangel,
No doubt you are struggling to come up with an understanding of the human brain, given your "discourses" theory and all.
Modern neuroscience has demonstrated that we all run many "models" in our heads: a model of yourself (who "you" think "you" are and why you just behaved the way you did), a model for each important other person in your life, models for other people in general, models for how the various people models are "supposed to" interact with one another.
This is all very important for social interaction. At the end of the day we are all very social herd animals.
When observed behavior does not match with your internal models for how the various people models are "supposed to" interact with one another, the "you" model inside your head will say, Hey that's not "fair"! (And the real you might say it out loud while thinking it's only doing a movie monologue )
The models are very real physical things (kind of like microcomputers executing in the background in your head all the time)
Aangel, I loved the talk and slides you gave at ASPO. I found them in line with my thinking. I think your description of the stair step decline to be by far the most likely. And you had a slide showing the unemployment rate going continually up. That is exactly what I have been saying will happen.
One of your slides read: "The current discourse will not change until more and more people are unemployed for longer and longer." That may very well be true but I really don't think it will help very much. That is people will believe it because of events, that is more and more unemployment, and not because of any argument we make. That has been my argument for years, reason, logic or arguments change only a tiny fraction of minds, only events have any effect on the vast majority of people.
So we can talk until we are blue in the face but it will make no difference. However when the unemployment gets to 30 percent or so then people will start to ask why. And they will blame the government... or someone... for not warning them sooner.
Ron P.
I agree, and I suspect there will be no shortage of those willing to supply targets of anger as well as plans for returning us to glory.
Hi, Ron. Glad you liked it.
I think we're saying the same thing about discourses namely that the fundamental ones of "growth" and "progress" will not change until the arrangement of circumstances changes i.e. more people are unemployed and for longer. Right now 80% (approx.) of the work force who wants to work is working. Until that decreases significantly, not enough people will question the current model.
This will create room for a new discourse to arise in the network. However, right now the immune system of the current discourse is on the verge of sending out its shock troops — in many areas of the world quite literally.
The human brain does not actually "see" the world outside of it.
Instead we see only what are pre-programmed to "see" based on the models and frames we have running in our heads. Plato was sort of right about the shadows on the cave wall. However he did not have benefit of modern scientific tools.
Basically we see only what we expect to see.
Try this simple experiment on yourself.
(1) Drive by a basic strip mall that includes the usual McDonalds, Cold Stone Ice Cream, etc. (or ride your bike, take a bus if that's your thing).
As you drive by, visualize the "Happy Meals" and other goodies you have been pre-conditioned to "see" thanks to modern advertising technologies.
(2) Drive by the same basic strip mall again.
Only this time, focus on the chimneys coming out of the roof of the McDonalds house and think of (visualize) the now dead, factory produced cows/chickens whose remains are fuming out as remnant smoke from that gas chamber. Focus on the electric power wires going into the mall buildings and think of (visualize) the coal being burnt at a far away power plant and of the sooty smoke pouring out of that plant. Feel the smooth asphalt roadway beneath your tires and think of the tons of crude goo that were need to make that asphalt experience happen.
Same place, but a whole different experience. Yes?
All because you are modeling it/ framing it differently.
I`m not sure you`re right that they will blame the govt for not warning them sooner.....I don`t think people will really grasp that energy is the problem even when things are much worse. People always write the narratives of their lives with themselves as the active center: "Oh I shouldn`t have paid so much for a house" "I shouldn`t have moved here" "I should have taken that other job back in 2000" No one wants to see themselves as a victim of smarter/more powerful people, even if that is what they were. Deep-down maybe they will realize they were essentially hoodwinked....but they will also understand that they would have done the same exact thing had they been the ones in power.
That may be a Japanese response. Over on the other side of the Pacific people seem to blame government (mainly the current batch of politcians), or for some -the whole concept of government. But that is for the present circumstances, best described as a balance sheep recession. Such recessions even without looming resource constraints are said to take a decade or longer to work through, but blame sticks to the current holders of office.
Unfortunately the British example had a large cause in policies that basically just threw money at issues without requiring results. Public programs that spiralled in cost without benefit. Big cuts became essential due to spending way outside of ability to pay in any sense of public accountancy. It is hard to extract the cuts caused by things like peak oil vs the cuts caused by run away spending.
NAOM
In the prepare kids for a different world ahead article.
It mentions that college used to be where a skilled in many things person got polish, learned the classics and such. Well that is exactly what I did for the first several years of going part time to my local University. I took any class I wanted too, paid for it out of funds I made working, and living with my parents still. I was 24 before I left home the first time. I had already learned in highshcool how to Plan, Cook, serve, and clean up, for 500 people/meals that I helped prepare and arrange.
I was already a bread baker, home canner and had won local awards in the state fair for my canned goods. I had 10 years of growing a garden, and planning on how to use the produce of it under my belt. Plus I knew wood working, and other general skills in maintaining a home.
College was just a place to learn the stuff I could not get from my dad's skill set, it was not a career gaining effort.
Then the career goal bit me and I hassled through 4 more years of taking more classes on topics related to that goal, never getting that hunk of paper, which would have done me no good after all.
I still can't fathom how people have gotten so far out of whack these days, all I hear about is babies need to be adults at 4, or before 4 if possible.
Geesh, where did people ever get that silly idea from, kids should be left to their own devices sometime and not forced into the patterns that mommy and daddy want them to grow up to be, movie star, or sports hero.
More people need to see that movie that was out recently "Babies". Maybe they will learn that kids learn more on their own than people thought they did, after all, most people over 50 got along just fine without all the bells and whistles that some current parents have been throwing at their kids.
And no one really knows how advanced or pushed back we will be in 20 years, getting that well rounded practical and book knowledge can't hurt.
Charles,
BioWebScape Designs for a better fed and housed world, Fall greens in a salad fresh after yesterday's rains.
"Maybe they will learn that kids learn more on their own than people thought they did, after all, most people over 50 got along just fine without all the bells and whistles that some current parents have been throwing at their kids."
Parents won't let the kids go out and play any more. I grew up on a farm with heavy machinery, hidden trap doors in haymow floor (they got me twice that I remember), and large animals that could be dangerous, or just accidentally get you.
Also woods with climbable trees and an unfenced creek. Once I had a bike, I was all over the countryside. And no cell phones in those days either. If you got hurt it was up to you or a friend to drag you back to help. I survived it all, learning all the way.
I will grant you though not every one did. I am short one cousin from a farm accident, and lost a friend in 6th grade from another adventure far away from adult supervision. Not to mention the long list of broken bones, dislocated shoulders, and the frequent need for stitches.
Pain is the best teacher. Where to make the tradeoff between pain and learning is the issue.
It is not a prefect world, death of kids, and teens from things they do, and things they can't control happen, as they do to adults.
I got lost once as a kid, in the middle of huge park in West Germany, while my dad was stationed there. I was in firstgrade, so was 5 to 6, and the trama of that made me a little more cautious later on in life I guess. But I still climbed rocks and did a lot dangerous things, I just tended to watch how I did them so as not to fall to badly, I also learned to roll onto my back if I was falling forward.
But I digress, teach your kids how to be watchful, and then let them go on about life is my rule, though I don't have children of my own, I have had several step kids over the years, and when I was there teaching them, that was the rule.
We shouldn't kill the child in them, just to get them preped to be an adult, I still look at the world with the open eyes of a child, or at least I try too. Not an easy task with all the filters that can be built up over time.
Charles,
BioWebScape Designs for a better fed and housed world.
Lets make ice!
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26181/
On the article up top, Why you can have an economy of people who don’t sweat.
You can't read the whole thing unless you register, but the quoted passage is enough to make one throw up:
This is just NONSENSE.
And:
Wiki.
I hate liars.
and gathers their own fuel,
Don't gather fuel. Build/buy things to use sunlight.
Remember, you don't need to cut, split and stack sunshine.
Well the other thing is that the author doesn't understand declining marginal returns on complexity.
Just more techno-optimist, utopian, "end of history" nonsense peddled by people who don't know anything about anything.
"If everyone grows their own food, and gathers their own fuel, it takes them most of the day."
As someone who does exactly that, the writer is correct. But, then he follows it with this bit of unadulterated propaganda:
"There is little time or energy left for conversation, entertainment, trading derivatives or inventing new goods."
I have far more time to do these things than anyone doing a full time job. But then the global system requires the workers to keep their noses to the grindstone otherwise the global system couldn't exist. Propaganda is an essential function within the global system to keep people fully engaged and working for its goals, rather than their own.
Where would we be if people literally worked for themselves rather than for the global master? Writers, such as the one writing the stupid article above, would have to get off their useless asses and do some work, perhaps, even causing them to break into an "oh!, so uncivilised!" sweat. And the World may actually be a better place because of it ;)
I don't think he's a liar. Just misinformed. The beliefs he expresses are those of the average Joe (at least, the average Joe who has never taken an anthropology class).
I saw those falsehoods and meant to post, but you beat me to it. We don't have song and dance only today in our industrial world, people who had to gather their own foods and make their own homes, have a rich social culture, lots of entertainment, tons of singing and dancing and parties and feasts.
It is when you have a ratrace day and have no time to spend with the family, that you get stressed out.
One thing that I loved about my family is, We stuck together a lot, played games as a family went places as a family. My parent's hardly ever went anywhere that they could not take us( my brother and me). So friends in college and even around here, who saw our parent's had this desire to have themselves get adopted by them. I didn't have a lot of going over to someone else's house as I grew up, I thought everyone was like my family, boy was I surprised.
Making music is almost as old as eating food is amoung humans, so that blows the "little time for conversation and entertainment" meme out of the water. Me thinks this guy who wrote that piece is not talking to his kids or wife as much as he should and is just pushing his wasteful life onto other's, he needs some more classes on Cultural Anthropology.
Charles,
BioWebScape Designs, for a better fed and housed world, so we can spend more time making music and having parties. lol
Indirect Land Use Change disproved in study requested by CARB:
http://domesticfuel.com/2010/10/20/iluc-from-corn-ethanol-minimal-to-zero/
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/partner/growth-energy/news/artic...
Good to see the Dr. Kathy McMahon article posted ("A climate, oil and economic crisis looms: Will we avoid or adjust?"). I'm hosting her for her Seattle visit this weekend, and wanted to call out her two public talks for any Seattle folks reading, which has been publicized via SCALLOPS and Transition Seattle. I'm also hosting a private sustainability leaders brunch.
She's a very engaging and direct speaker, with a great sense of humor.
This is, of course, a classic attention getting overstatement.
Colleges will not become relics, but some college places may well become unaffordable and unjustifiable, and thus wither.
Even now, it is smart to think carefully about which education direction to spend on.
Perhaps a poor metaphor, as the Internet is very cheap to operate, and may prove invaluable as finite fuels kick in.
TOD is an example of the Internet, and social connection, that consumes very little Finite fuels. (well, less than a trip to the mall)
I think you're wrong on that.
Maybe you don't use a lot of electricity when you turn your computer on, but think about the infrastructure that makes it possible. The server farms, some with their own power plants. The mining and manufacturing and shipping, to make and distribute the computers and other hardware. The people who must be educated and trained to support all this.
I think it's quite possible that the Internet will prove too expensive to maintain...especially when it can't be supported by advertising any more.
I think about that all the time, every day and I'm actually seeing ways that I can personally adopt and also help others implement, solutions that might keep the internet functioning with minimal environmental impact and as much renewable energy as possible.
Here's a company that has solar powered and rain cooled server farms.
http://www.aiso.net/news-videos.html?vv=1&v=netapp2
Yes, but it still takes a lot less energy to keep the network up compared to many other activities. For example, how much energy does it take to manufacture and distribute sugar drinks/bottled water/junk food? It is still so cheap that even the poor can afford it. We will abandon many other things before we abandon our communication networks.
Run the numbers: The power budget for the Internet itself, is in the noise floor, relative to national Heating, Lighting or Transport power numbers.
Some figures I've seen, have even the power of the local modems/routers, being above the Server power. Servers connect to a LOT of users.
200KW to 200,000 users, is 1W each.
Also, the Personal power needed to internet connect, is falling rapidly.
It used to need a Desktop (which has falling power use), but now a Phone or iPad or NetBook can connect, bringing your local power to under ~10W, if you want it.
Your towel rails alone, will swamp that.
Sure, if total social collapse occurs, the internet will stutter {as everything else folds}, but remember, even the 3rd world has the internet.
The important feature the Internet brings, is it can displace many miles-traveled, and at a much lower cost than the alternatives.
If countries want to slash VMT, the internet is going to be important.
The third world has the Internet, but it probably wouldn't without the developed countries.
Some bandwidth heavy sites (video sites) block Asia and Africa, because they suck up bandwidth but don't pay for it by buying stuff from their sponsors. It's not worth it to them.
That's the vulnerability, IMO. How do we pay for it? The content on the web is provided by corporations dependent on ad revenue, and/or people who have a lot of free time and resources.
Without that content, the net becomes much less valuable. And so people have even less reason to pay for it.