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If Egypt Is America's Future, Is Italy Its Past? John Taylor Ponders The Oil Scramble Ahead
Oil Scramble Ahead?
February 3, 2011
By John R. Taylor, Jr. Chief Investment Officer
FX Concepts
Studying Italian history forty years ago I learned that the major reason behind the peninsula's decline from Renaissance greatness to its sickly position in the mid-19th century was its loss of economic advantage. Political chicanery and internecine wars played a lesser role to the opening of the Atlantic, which eliminated its dominance in international trade, and to Italy's lack of physical resources. No coal, no iron ore reserves, and no fast flowing rivers meant the industrial revolution passed the country by. According to this view of history, the leaders were overwhelmed by the forces of economic change. On the positive side, the Miracolo Economico, which brought prosperity to Italy after WWII, was driven by the discovery of major natural gas fields in the Po valley. With their coming exhaustion Italy could be slipping back to its old position as an also-ran.
Countries that control more of the factors of production will be dominant. Today, the tables seem to be turning on the West. As education has become almost universal, knowledge, intellectual expertise, and competent labor have become less expensive and less valuable as a result. With the economic distress in the developed world forcing a massive increase in global money, capital has become universally cheap. Developing countries that were starved for capital now must protect themselves from an overabundance. There is a distant parallel here with Renaissance Italy, as its banking, financial, and trading expertise became common throughout Western Europe, devaluing it; Italy's edge was gone. Today the western world is losing its advantage in knowledge, labor, and capital. With communication now global and historically inexpensive, more and more trade, and growth, does not have to pass through developed world ports or phone systems. Because the playing field has become level for the first time in history, we would argue that, at this time in history, the battle has shifted to raw materials. If we assume that today's critical resources are gas, oil, agricultural output, and rare earths, Europe is totally out in the cold and the US is supported only by its strength in food production. Although commodities have played a diminishing role in economic history and, thanks to scientific advances, should continue this long-term trend, the scramble for scarce resources should impact economic cycles and growth in the decades ahead.
It was less than three years ago that oil went to $140 per barrel and the commodity index climbed over 3 standard deviations and 60% above its 4-year average. An extreme like that should statistically occur about once every century, but despite dropping below the 4-year average for half of 2009, we are now about 2.7 standard deviations and 50% above it, and still climbing. This is a big surprise and a big problem for global prosperity. Now, the turmoil in Egypt has lifted the fear component in the oil price as well. Furthermore, a deep political rift between the US, as Israel's protector, and the newly democratic but primarily fundamental Egypt and its allies in the Islamic world is a distinct possibility. Saudi Arabia could come under pressure. The most negative near term result of this split would be OPEC's refusal to increase oil output, despite the rising price, something similar to the situation after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Food, not oil, has been the primary focus of this recent inflation scare, and the trend of climbing prices actually seems to be accelerating. The tight supply status in many critical commodities, plus the recent weather foibles around the world, should keep this move intact until the global economy turns down, dropping demand. The increase in headline inflation should also turn the global economy down. Not only does the cost of food and fuel drop the demand for manufactured goods, clothing, and leisure activities, but it could convince the ECB and other central banks to raise interest rates.
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ok...so you have a choice then.
Live in the stone ages or live with resource depletion. Choice is yours.
Developing Africa to 1st world standards would require depopulating it of africans.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not a fan of the McMansion yeast ghetto culture of the US. This nation ran into a cultural wall in 1969 at the latest.
Puzzling that someone who seems rational has such a giant personality flaw as racism.
Did some black guy bugger you as a child?
racism is rational.
tell me something, do you actually believe that "we are all equal"?
Anyway, I can't even determine what you mean by "racism" anyhow as this epithet is so overused as to have lost any meaning.
But, if you mean that to imply that there is something wrong with me for pointing out quantitative differences in cognitive ability between africans and whites or asians, then you are patently mindfucked.
No, I believe that stupid follows an approximately gaussian distribution regardless of race. You're quickly moving in the direction of proving my point for me.
I know Reggie's an idiot isn't he? His analysis is always so far off and ridiculously simple? :/
wonder what the racial makeup is of the individuals you have intellectually challenged on this blog?
as opposed to what, the other races that are dying of fucking malaria or river blindness?
the usury racket just needs to go...along with the marxist idiocy and the clan that brought them both
imagine how different the world would be if the current resource bases were populated by advanced cultures...the sky would be the limit for KSA's energy endowment, but atop it sits a bunch of arabs. The failed races now sit on what's left
hold on now....if we had all that oil under our feet we would use it, like we did once already.
If it was under,say ,germany, how much cheap oil would we get out of the deal. Or would they use it all. We have been lucky the oil is in shithole countries that we can rob blind. We should culture better relations with said shitholes.
Speaking of which, why is it exactly that we support Israel when they have jack shit of any use to anyone?
Maybe we would have less hell now if we didnt support apartheid in israel/palestine.
Well done...succint
Is there a reading problem here?
If advanced races sat on the PRESENT resource bases, those areas would resemble W. Europe or the USA.
Of course the reason we have what we have is the advanced + the energy. That was my point.
We support Israel because there are a ton of wealthy gd'd jews in this nation and they demand it
It is stupid. The very fact the same places were not transformed to look as the West or Europe looked like now is the evidence it could not be done on the current technology.
no; the populations atop them have no real inclination to reconfigure matter into more useful articles
CNN 4:40 PST - just reported an assassination attempt on the new Egyptian VP. Details apparently to follow as they cut to pictures of the Dallas Cowboys stadium...
He always has salient points. Except re: what emerging world can & can't do. Should've paid closer attention to history there. 5-6-7-10,000 years of history, they call that a statistical pattern I think.
We have to understand that what is going on in Egypt is a civil war, it started as a civil war, it is different than Tunisia, Tunisia was a revolution, it well be more like Irak if Moubarak leaves right away we are doing the same mistake we did when we send Sadam regular army back home. Moubarak is absolutely right; he has to stay for the next few months to transfer the power. It is extremely impossible to govern an Arabic country. We are witnessing how hard it is from Lebanon and Iraq both are democratic.
Iraq (with a q) never had a chance because of US interference.
It's a little different in countries that have more to lose like Egyptian culture. They will be just fine doing it their own way.
I'd love to see you say that to the face of some of the Iraqi Shias' or Kurds tortured under Saddam.
Ok, y'all, I want to point s.th. else out:
oil = food
because no oil = no Diesel = no tractors/combines/trucks
natural gas = food
because natural gas = Haber-Bosch process = ammonia = Ostwald process = ammonium nitrate = fertilizer
So the guy who wrote the piece is BANG ON !
Natural gas supply line is on fire this morning in the Sinai. Arson suspected. Israel's supply so far not interrupted.
Fire up the Zionist submarines to guard the terminal! Nuke the terrorists that put gasoline and match to the pipeline! (snark)
Let's just say that the nuke wouldn't have to travel very far...from Tel Aviv to....Tel Aviv.
Very few understand that important point (s). Good post. Milestones
"Countries that control more of the factors of production will be dominant. Today, the tables seem to be turning on the West."
From ODS-Petrodata 4 Feb 11:
U.S. Gulf of Mexico
Total Rigs in Drilling Fleet 131
Under Contract 62
Rigs Without Contract 69
Fleet Utilization Rate 47.3%
Worldwide
Total Rigs in Drilling Fleet 792
Rigs Under Contract 573
Utilization Rate 72.3%
So how is that whole solar power, electric car, wind thing working out for ya? Bet that really keeps the house warm...
Please tell me you're not using IE 4...
Please tell me you're not using Windoze.
As the years go by and the coming economic tsunami appears on the horizon we will see the US diminish in power and status and possibly as a split up country. Because our people in the US can't be told the truth, they just cant. How do you go to people you've been saying you can have it all and then tell them that not only are you not getting all your benefits and entitliments, what money you have is worthless. they would go insane, truly they would. You know what I'm talking about if your an American, look around. We have people argueing with others and in govt. against things with esoteric and obfuscated theories that are good on paper but can't work in the real world. As an example you have a person fighting for govt. out of healthcare and govt. out of all things but yet they have Social Security and Medicare. Many don't see the disconnect in there argument, others see it but what they really mean is that it's okay for them to have it but no one else.
How can a population of people who are disconnected from simple deductive reasoning be able to handle that they are poor and have no money and won't be getting any benefits. They won't be able to handle it and the govt. knows it. Most everybody is living a few paychecks from the poor house, and whats keeping them together is some type of govt. program or check. We have been dumbed down and turned ignorant, we can't see the horrible problems in front of us because we don't want to.
The kiddies are really going to go berserk when their cell phones get shut off because mommy and daddy can't afford to pay the cell phone bill anymore.
"Dreams Come Due, Government and Economics as if Freedom Mattered", by John Galt, ISBN: 0-671-61159-3
Dated, but still relevant.
Normalcy Basis
Willful Bias and/or Bliss
Intellectual Dishonesty
Faith in God, Gov't, Leader, pick your poison
Perennial Positivity
Pack Mentality (KKK, NRA, Ivey League, School Lunch Line)
Stupidity
DeNile
All of the above are the reason for the disconnect.
BTFD
If oil is soooooo scarce, why does the EPA want containment berms around milk tanks?
How did Libs survive, if Darwin's Law was valid?
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and fresh because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girlie-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor. Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards.
Joe's employer pays the same standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noon and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below- market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by the Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big- government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father has Medicare, lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine- drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
And now that the big government liberal has mortgaged the country to more than 14 Trillion dollars to pay for all these big government benefits and spending officially 1.5 Trillion dollars per year, (who knows what it is unofficially), we now find out the government, aka, the taxpayer doesn't have the money to afford all these goodies. With SS, Medicare/Medicade running deficits, along with the Treasury borrowing money from China and the rest of the world while Prof Benny prints his fun bucks, I guess continuing to pile up debt to provide all these government mandates makes up for the coming collapse. With the states, municipalities and even the Federal Government being crushed by mountains of debt, we can blame the Conservatives for causing the problem in the first place.
I can only ask one question, do you even read any of the articles posted on ZH?
If big government liberalism is the panacea for all of humanities woes, then why is the US Post Office operating in deficit while companies like FedEx and UPS continue to make a profit. If Joe Bloe takes medicine made safe by big government liberalism, then why do the pharmaceutical companies continue to manufacture drugs that kill and maim people resulting in class action lawsuits. If big government liberalism worked as claimed then states and municipalities such as California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Detroit, New Orleans, Los Angeles and others would not be on the brink of default. Why is the public school system failing and placing American math and science students at levels well below those of other countries, and failing inner city kids the most. If big government liberalism is working then why are approximately 43 million Americans collecting food stamps?
The era of big government liberalism is coming to an end. The reason, we just can't afford it anymore. We definitely won't be able to afford Obamacare. All we have to do is look at the Canadian and British systems to know that health care rationing is our future if we adopt Obamacare.
Ugh.. because Big Banking and Big Pharma and Big Agra knew how to scam the system once Repugs repealed all law that opposed monopolies and poured off all the wealth they could into the pockets of TPTB and left only the dregs for anyone else?
IOWA
Maybe because US Post office operates in deficit?
Maybe because the US does not need to educate people in the US as they can poach talents from all over the world? (please watch football, real one, not US football with its rigged competition scene to get a grasp of the requirements of training people)
That is maybe because this is interpretated as a sign of malfunction.
Are you telling that under other forms of whatever, everyone in the US will be able to secure a job that allows to afford living in the US? No kidding.
The only change that can be sold as real is a system where people not being able to afford living in the US without aid will be considered a non issue.
That is no longer a problem and therefore no longer a sign of malfunction.
Water was clean before government. Medications were affordable and aspirin was discoverd before the government intervened. Doctors actually came to your house and did their work for you and your family. My dog gets excellent health care with no insurance. Meat and eggs should be no problem, except for government interference. Joe washes himself with soap. People have done this without government help since the beginning of people. Environmentalists take credit for clean air. I guess they control volcanoes and forest fires, too. Joe does not take subsidized rail. He prefers to drive because it gives him the freedom to leave and come home when he wants to. he is no slave to public transportation schedules and mishaps and dangers. He doesn't want to get stabbed on the bus or trazin or subway...
You must be joking. Please tell me you were joking because I (and not just me) won't be able to take you seriously ever again.
Listen, personally I WANT the republicans to get EVERYTHING they want. This way the collapse will happen much faster and we can start over again.
PALIN 2012!
I thought this was an oil thread.
The crash is happening, now! OBAMA 2008.
Don't know how old you are, but you obviously don't recall what was done to the Great Lakes, Love Canal etc...
We were dumping the carcinogens into the water willy-nilly...
What about all the inflation it has caused in the over the counter price of every thing you speak of due to the massive amount of government money provided to those industrial complexes? Make more government money available and excessive regulations for those things equals the price for those things going up for everybody. And the fluoride rat poison water is still shit.
And here we get a small peek as to why we are now living under a "soft" tyranny. The left always feels we can't think for ourselves and thus we get regulated into oblivion and have to contend with government in every aspect of our lives.
Whereas the "Right" repeals all the important anti-externality laws across the board, doing their best to expose all of us to ruin from sociopathic business run amok.
It's Scylla and Charybdis, people, neither one is your friend. If you think getting eaten by one is preferable to getting eaten by the other, go ahead, but don't drag the rest of us with you.
"Whereas the "Right" repeals all the important anti-externality laws across the board, doing their best to expose all of us to ruin from sociopathic business run amok."
We were about to receive a hard reset, until the bailouts. The left played a prominent roll in this, despite the claims of supporting the worker class.
Yes. Basically, as it appears now, the "right" is the oil/huge real business side (oil, coal mining, agribusiness), and the "left" is the bankster side, although there's a lot of spillover in both directors.
Don't sell yourself short, the GE CEO just got hired as a WH advisor and thus has front row tickets to Ben's money printing machine. Not to mention WH cronies like Al Gore that are making millions on "green" technology that has to be heavily subsidized to be marketable.
*cough* dick cheney, halliburton/kbr, iraq contracts, rumsfeld & trillions "lost" 10Sept2001, multi-generation bush crime family. . etc.
it takes BOTH SIDES to make the monster work, doh.
Read the original post, which was aimed at demonstrating how the left has improved our lives. But to your point, the right is certainly not blameless. Actually, it's more of a 2 headed monster.
And here we get a small peek as to why we are now living under a "soft" tyranny. The left always feels we can't think for ourselves and thus we get regulated into oblivion and have to contend with government in every aspect of our lives.
In a complex society its impossible for people to learn all they can about every single choice they have to make.
I mean just look at how many dumb-ass republicans there are!
"I mean just look at how many dumb-ass republicans there are!"
No argument here. All the more reason not to give the all the added power with rules and regulations to micromanage our daily lives.
The Six Problems With Modern Liberalism
I can cut'n'paste too! I've seen this self-congratulatory BS before. Every good thing that liberals "assume" has been brought forth by a Benevolent "Big Brother" could just as easily been brought forth by a Free Market, it just wasn't happening as fast as the typical "Progressive" wanted it to!
For example, how many people honestly believe that Big Pharma makes more money by continuing to produce bad products that kill their customers? If Justice were truly blind, then unlimited liabilities would soon put such companies out of business. Bark up the right tree!
People displaying their deep knowledge of human nature... Knowing human nature, that is certainly knowledge I'd like to pay for.
Alas, just a scam as so many: human nature is only the traits that people want to push forward to support their point of view.
Why should a company operate only on bad products? Why not depict it as it is, that selling both good and bad products?
The issue is not about companies selling only bad products but whether or not to determine if a company that sells both good and bad products makes more money with this policy than with the policy of selling only good products.
OMFG you quoted Ann Coulter!
Devout, I usually never respond in a negative way, but let me tell you: YOU ARE DEFINATELY A FUCKING MORON.
I win. I have successfully controlled your enlarged right amygdala zombie brain with an inflammatory comment on a right wing blog like a puppet master.
I freely admit that I'm a moron. I know very little about lots and lots of subjects from astronomy to M- theory, and genetics and epigenetics, to histories of ancient civilizations, and mechanics and physics.
I have spent countless hours trying to enrich my understanding of the world and multi-verse that I have awaken in. I'm constantly amazed at the boundless beauty of the earth and the heavens and an horrified by what you hairless monkey's have done to the place.
But the more I learn the more I realize that I don't know squat.
GOOD DAY SIR!
P.S. to ZH: drupal is a terrible platform for the kind of traffic this site generates.
DR,
It's mostly about taking responsibility for your own actions and leaving everyone else alone. Stop nitpicking about every nuanced issue you perceive needs to be fixed with nanny state laws. You will just keep making lots of enemies telling other people how to conduct their lives.
It's really that simple.
Devout Republican, you are not understanding your Milton Friedman and how the free market works. In fact, we don't need any regulations for anything. (I hear the cheers of the RNC as I write this.)
The idea is that if Joe's medicine turns out to be two parts arsenic and one part sugar, so that it kills him, Joe will simply exercise his god-given right to choose another medicine from another supplier that doesn't kill him. In effect, under a purely free-market regime, consumers will be the de facto regulators by voting with their feet. Appreciating the incredible benefits of this unfettered free-market, nobody would even consider trying to enact legislation to prevent the inevitable untoward events, such as someone dying from fraudulant medicine. All would be peace and harmony because the little folks would see the wisdom of the great captains of industry and finance and nobody would need to force changes through legislation. Such is the sheer beauty of the free market. Amen.
DR, you must have a thick skin to write that post on ZH, I commend your bravery!!! lololol.... One of the things I most enjoy on ZH is the diverse opinions expressed. I enjoyed reading your post, good job!
By the way you forgot to mention that big government built and maintains that portion of the interstate highway that Joe drove on his way to see his Dad. Why not privatize it and pay tolls?
Your post is so good I will be copying it and emailing it to my devout Conservative republican friends!!!!
its not peak oil... it is peak lite sweet crude, which equals afforadable / $50bbl oil...
if oil is $200bbl... then the wage arbitraige is 400% off with regard to transpo costs... which mean protectionism / world war is in vogue.
if oil production can not keep up with demand, which it cant.. then how will the world grow out of its debt problems... it wont. 1 + 1 does not equal pink.
Dude, why bother. You can't fix the stupid. It's frustrating and its making you blood thick (with cortisol) which is bad for your heart.
peak lightsweet was probably 10 years ago lol
40% of Italian GDP is black market. Let me break that down for everyone. A free market of buyers and sellers, trading in cash, no banksters, no credit/debt attached, no Govt control.
Everything legal (official) in Italy is in a state of abject bankruptcy. Everything illegal (black market) is doing mighty fine thank you and will hold up during the Depression. There's some lessons here for someone...
Government's always regulate commerce.
The fiction of 'free markets' has never, ever, ever been true. It's an illusion and a myth.
Capitalism requires state help; otherwise, nobody would want to participate in such a crooked system.
No, but it does require honest politicians, which nowadays is few and far between. That's why you try to keep them out of the picture as much as possible, a concept that statists never seem to grasp. We have tens of thousands of laws/reg on the books already, and we need more. And as soon as they create a decent law, they have it modified or repealed. See the "Commodities Modification Act of 2000" that put the investment bankers back into the derivitives business.
Respectfully disagree. Italian cities, like the German principalities, lacked unity against against the national monarchies-Spain and France. Consider also the city states of Greece facing Persia and Macedonia.
Intelligence is nearly always the decisive factor in relations of power: the intelligence to organise efficiently and the intelligence to cooperate.
Italy's difficulty is that of many western countries: the thing they call democracy lacks intelligence.
That's insulting to Southerners.
Awesome:
The Coptic Christian Revolutionaries have announced a mass gathering/worship service on the Square.
The effort made to turn this into a religious thing is falling beneath the weight of its own contradictions.
2/5/11
Israel, Jordan and Syria Pipeline blown up. Oh no.
http://debka.com/article/20633/
Two words: false flag.
i.e., on the Gaza border.
Wouldn't be surprised to see Apartheid Israel to bomb a makeshift hospital in or kindergarten in Gaza right now to change the story.
It's getting closer and closer to 'all-in' time. Cairo can't remain shut-down, economically, for much longer.
Egypt's natural gas pipeline into Apartheid Israel has been blown up (by whom?), causing a temporary shutdown.
Actually the largest rare-earth mine is in Cali. (or was...until it was shuttered)
Not that we really need all of these since wind/solar are a complete waste of time in that all important energy metric (energy flux density). Yes wind/solar is like watching an Alien stick a lighter up the back of his UFO to start it. It's just plain pathetic. So if you think rare-earths are oh so valuable in 'green' products. What happens when these green products aren't made, because their quality and usefulness doesn't exist?
Glass-Steagall
American Credit System
Leave monetarism for the idiots who wish to hold onto worthless debt.
75Tw baking the earth daily isn't enough?
100-320W/m^2 isn't enough?!
How about if we reduce that 'r' in the 1/r^2 with space-based solar?
Do I care as much about "rare earths" if we can make turbines out of ferrous magnets instead?
Go suck an Exxon executive's dick. At least my proposed energy sources aren't set to run out in my son's lifetime, dumbfuck.
The Solar Constant works out to be about 1000 watts / square meter on Earth's surface.
That's all you can get with 100% efficient conversion of that incoming energy. State of th art is about 15% efficiency. All higher numbers you may have heard involve some sort of magnifier that grabs larger surface area of energy and applies it to smaller surface area. Regardless, use 20%, it's a nice round number.
If you move your collection into Earth orbit and magically transmit the power down to the surface with 0% loss, then you're above the atmosphere, and you only gain about 200 watts. The atmosphere doesn't cut much off.
A horsepower is 750 watts. For a modest 400 horsepower John Deere agricultural machine you need 300 kilowatts or 300 X 5 (for the 20%) square meters of solar panel area. That's sqrt(1500) = 39 X 39 meters. (about 120 feet X 120 feet) Tractors aren't that big (120 feet square), just as an FYI. And if you want to run them when it's cloudy, you'll need an enormous battery bank aboard.
Behold the awesome power of oil. This is why you're alive. It is amazing stuff. There is no substitute and never will be.
Green energy resistance is futile...You will be solar collected and absorbed into the resultant bankruptcy...
15%? The mars lander panels were a bit higher, no?
Good thing we're spending all that printed cash to advance solar technology
The solar constant is 1360W/m^2 (give or take depending on the mood of the sun).
State of the art GaAs PVs get ~24.7% efficiency. Multi band-gap materials will get closer to the 30% or so limit. But none of that matters if you look at the AREA which that solar flux is irradiating daily. The biggest limits to solar are material inputs for manufacturing and the lack of imagination of the average human being.
Flywheels could store more than enough energy to run your precious JD tractor...unless you plan on running it 365 days a year for some reason (I doubt it, since I see them parked as I drive up I5 in CA all the time).
It is amazing stuff, but that's no excuse to burn your fertilizers and plastic unnecessarily.
Since it's all make-believe anyway, you can 'link' them to Hamas & the Muslim Brotherhood, too.
So much to gain ...
DownwiththeBanks
It is not a "myth" free markets work superbly without regulation. You've just missed the reality i mentioned of 40% of Italian GDP being black (free) market. Black markets ARE unregulated by Govt. And as I mentioned they will hold up and keep working consistently throughout recession while all Govt regulated markets, particularly banking etc, will collapse.
The free market is a self-regulating mechanism. Go to a car boot sale or a farmers market. No Govt, no regulations, no consumer protection legislation BS, just customers striking deals with suppliers.
The greatest example of the free market today is probably the (illegal) drugs industry. It supplies $Billions of good quality drugs to customers per annum without any regulation or need for consumer protection or drugs control/approval committees. The market mechanism resolves what is and is not successful.
Meanwhile the legal drugs industry is an over-regulated restricted fascist clown show (80% of all overdoses in hospitals are on legal drugs, not illegal). Alcahol (legal) causes more damage than all illegal drugs combined.
The free (black) market in Italy and worldwide in drugs works wonderfully, consistently to high standards and despite persecution by the State is indestructible (unlike regulated legal markets which collapse first sign of recession). Everything Govt touches (and regulates) turns to crap. Next time there's a food riot I guarantee like all previous food riots they are Govt screwed up food prices or supply issues.
The free market works, nothing even comes close
from your bloomberg link'd story:
every other part of Egypt's "story" must include these main points.
It must for people seeking the truth of a situation. But for main stream media it's just weird stupid nonsense. The circus doesn't even work any more. I can't believe I spent a couple hours watching it the last few days.
There are huge natural gas reserves off the coast belonging to GAZA - Palestine. Israel has stated its intention to steal these resources for its own use and export. Also off the coast of Lebanon, same sad story.
By starving GAZA they hope the residents will leave and they can expropiate their resources. In the case of Lebanon, a new war designed to devistate their infrastructure.