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Guest Post: Coal And Ethanol Are Not Alternative Energy Policy
Submitted by Andrew Smolski of OilPrice.com
Coal And Ethanol Are Not Alternative Energy Policy
The domestic alternative energy policy in the US seems to rotate on semantics and adding words to other words to make it look like something is going on. However, the truth of the matter is, energy policy is as defunct as ever and on most fronts the US is lagging far behind. Mostly it is a disregard of what the economist Herman Daly has pointed out about the macro-view of the macro-economic system. His idea is that the ecological system is closed and finite, not infinite created by God for our own personal use, which needs to be included into economic models. As pointed out by this author in, The Need For a Real Domestic Alternative Energy Policy, the US will need this Energy policy to spur growth, create jobs, and remain competitive going forward. Yet, with words out there such as “clean coal” and “corn ethanol” as our savings for the future, it seems that the US gets further and further from the ability to save the economy and closer to suicide.
First, let us make the argument for alternative energy, because in the end if it has no argument, then it has no point to have a policy. Can the world be powered by alternative energy? Well, let us think about this in terawatts, terawatts being a million megawatts, and humans on this Earth of ours generate and utilize 15 terawatts per year. Solar energy from the sun per year produces 101,000 terawatts on Earth, the majority of which is not captured and utilized by us for energy, but it hasn’t been lost on the plant life the importance of that statistic. Wind is producing roughly 72 terawatts of energy in only the United States, once again above demand. And of course, with advances in conductors and decentralizing through not having large electric plants, energy loss could be cut down from the 6.5-7.5% annually that we have now. Therefore, it is not “do we have the capacity,” we very much do, but do we have the political will to make this happen. That is in order to save our country from a possible Japan-style lost decade or complete financial collapse.
Secondly, “clean coal” just does not exist, it is not an alternative, but a new name for an old game. It is stating that some how by adding scrubbers to a factory along with other minor updates that it then becomes environmentally sound and efficient. Yet, it is still a centralized plant losing power on the grid, it is to small of a retro-fitting to be of importance to long term production of labor intensive goods, and as pointed out by Joshua Frank, “coal-fired power plants in the US produce approximately 140 million tons of fly ash, scrubber sludge, and additional combustion waste.” This is not an argument stating not to mine the coal, which we can sell to China who uses it to for upwards of 70% of its energy needs. Rather, that it is not going to be an alternative and renewable energy policy. But, who knows if China will continue on the coal route when they are leading in new additions for solar, wind, and new capacity investment. As of 2010 they had already led the US for solar energy production and wind power.
Although, the US is not the only one on the block following the “clean coal” mantra, and at least that gives the US time to redirect its energy policy. Australia has gone the same route with a $150 million dollar investment by the Queensland premier creating a “clean coal” fund, however then moving $100 million AUD into a fund for solar energy after a change in policy. This change left only $50 million AUD for the “clean coal” fund, but depending on elections and the opposition party’s support of only “clean coal” it seems a battle will continue to be waged on developing energy policy in that specific country. Even corn ethanol is an incredibly idiotic idea, being that it is fossil fuel intensive in order to create the ethanol, which in the end means not offsetting fossil fuel usage. One should not have to get that information from Fidel Castro, but he did write an article relating all of those facts as an open letter to the US. In reality, corn ethanol is only hiding fossil fuel usage underneath the label of alternative energy policy by utilizing a food source, which then raises food prices.
It seems as though the US policy has been back tracking over the years on its utilization of renewable energy to produce electricity. It is useful then to utilize a 2007 report by the International Energy Agency in order to bring to light this back tracking and its effects. In 1990 11.8% of the electric supply was produced from renewable energy sources, while in 2005 it was only 8.9% a reduction of almost 25% of renewable energy sources. It should be taken into account that there was a 22% increase in energy demand in the same time frame and that from 2005 to 2020 energy demand is expected to increase another 24%. If this is the case and renewable energy sources are decreasing, it looks as if there has been actually no proper investment in the sector. If this trend continues then energy dependence of the country which has been producing domestically 70% of its energy will decline and raise prices over time. All of this points to what should continue to be reiterated, that it is not a should we or not, but an imperative that is done, the creation of a real domestic alternative energy policy.
Alternative energy is the future, that is the cold hard truth of the matter, because in the end the process of extraction and production, geopolitical struggle, and the high environmental costs make it an imperative to be the future. The US can decide to lag behind countries such as China on this frontier when it has closed down factories and many people are out work, but that would be plain insanity. National security is not wars out there anymore, it is the war of ideas here in the US. If the argument continues to be centered on “cap and trade” or climate change, then it will never get traction. The need for the policy has to be based on the facts that show it can and could provide the US a way out of its economic dilemma with normal government fiscal policy. “Clean coal” and ethanol just are not that policy, nor will they ever be, they are a charlatans game.
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Nikkei just opening... -4.56% for starters... it's gonna be fun.
Lowlands, swamps and wetlands can be used to cultivate high yielding plants like cattails, whicn are considered a weed. Blume says that cattails can be used inexpensively to treat sewage and that the "yields of starch and cellulose from cattails can easily top 10,000 gallons per acre. If all the sewage in the US were sent to constructed marshes, the 3141 counties would need only 6360 acres each to fulfill all of our foreseeable transportation fuel needs, both gasoline and diesel, at 200 billion gallons per year. This equals 1.4% of our agricultural land". No irrigation or chemical fertilizers would be needed. Additionally, they provide a profitable way to clean up rivers, streams and oceans by detoxifying chemicals and removing heavy metals like mercury which is evaporated out through the leaves.
Blume says that cellulose can be used as a fuel source and that the US has 30 million acres of lawn (this is about 40% of the total acreage used for corn), and it isn't counted as cropland or farmland. Grass clippings alone could generate over 11 billion gallons of fuel per year. This doesn't even include green waste from landscaping that could be added to the cellulose totals in each county. Ethanol can also be extracted from the ocean while cleaning it! Dead zones are areas near coastlines with decreased concentrations of sea life due to elevated levels of nitrogen, usually caused by chemical fertilizer and industrial waste. The nitrogen causes a population boom in microscopic algae and then it decomposes. During algae decomposition, the oxygen in the water is consumed and kills off the concentrated sea life. There is almost 8000 square miles of dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and dead zones also exist along the Oregon, Washington, California and and Eastern Sea coasts. Kelp is made up of brown algae; in China and Norway this kelp is dried to produce fertilizer. Blume recommends that the US adopt this strategy to eliminate the need for polluting chemical and petroleum fertilizers. He further advocates fermenting the kelp first to make alcohol and then fermenting the leftover mash a second time for methane. The California coast alone could yield almost 90 billion gallons of fuel. The remaining 2/3 of the energy as methane would provide all the alcohol plant process energy plus a huge surplus of gas/electricity for business and residential use. Combined with the other dead zones, all transportation fuel as well as the majority of natural gas could be replaced without using a square foot of farmland. Blume says that the top four US crops are rice, wheat, corn and potatoes which are 75% starch and he suggests that malnutrition is a protein deficiency as opposed to a caloric deficiency. He advocates increasing protein production by cultivating oyster mushrooms that can be grown using just 25% of the grain straw that is annually burned off of fields as the fungi can efficiently extract the protein from the straw. Blume writes, "So if we really wanted to feed everyone, even without using a single animal as a food source, it would not be difficult". The US uses 87% of its corn crop as animal feed; when alcohol is made from the corn, which removes the starch, the protein, fat, some of the cellulose, vitamins and minerals along with the yeast from fermentation remains. The remaining substance is called distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and is about one third of the volume of the original corn after the starch is removed. DDGS is a far superior animal feed that eliminates huge health problems in cattle because they cannot digest the starch in corn. Of course Blume, as an organic farmer, shuns GMO products. Blume tells a fascinating story about his organic farm with less than 2 acres of uneven land in San Francisco that produced enough food to feed as many as 450 people. He converted the organic content of the soil from 2% to 22% and the adobe clay soil was transformed from 1 inch of topsoil to 16 inches of topsoil. His little patch of land produced over 100,000 pounds of food per acre. Blume's book covers how to convert your car to run on alcohol. If you have a flex fuel car, you're good to go. You can also purchase a conversion kit from his website for $400 to $700 (depending on the size of your engine). The kits are made in the US and allow you to burn straight gasoline, E85 or 100% ethanol. Alcohol fuel conversion kits have been used successfully in Brazil on over 50,000 cars over the last 20 years with no reports of of engine damage resulting from the kits or running on ethanol. Small 2 stroke engine problems are preventable by using a lubricant and the proper grade of alcohol. Rockefeller foisted 'prohibition' on the US in order to create a fuel monopoly with gasoline; Ford's Model T originally ran on alcohol that people could grow and distill themselves. America is abundant and is still full of opportunity! We must think for ourselves and stop allowing big corporations tell us that the only source of energy is from that which they derive a profit. If we work with nature, we could feed and fuel the world in addition to massively reducing pollution.Another disaster in the making.
Thank you for sparing me from reading the entire article.
"His idea is that the ecological system is closed and finite, not infinite created by God for our own personal use, which needs to be included into economic models. As pointed out by this author in, The Need For a Real Domestic Alternative Energy Policy, the US will need this Energy policy to spur growth, create jobs, and remain competitive going forward."
What is wrong with you people? On one hand you seem to GET IT -the system is finite- and then on the other you COMPLETELY CONTRADICT yourselves- "spur growth."
Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways. This is stealth (if even that) lobbying for a techno-growth fix.
If you don't get it then quit fucking telling everyone else how it shoud go, OK?
exactly...even those who recognize limits don't want to accept their implications.
The PO denier idiots had rested everything on nuclear and then Fukushima happened and now they just put their hopes on unicorns
What frightens me the most is the thought that I might end up thinking just like these morons- the more I read this shit the more I smack my forehead (and think that the human race is utterly fucked), which is likely going to cause permanent brain damage down the road (and I can be just like them! :-) )
Not me. And nat gas held up well. Fact of the is we have a glut of electricity and the very notion of the grid might be a thing of the past. Sure the birds and squirrels won't like it-but the economy will breathe an immediate sigh of relief.
The only thing threatening the electric supply is the EPA
What does oil have to do with nuclear power? Oil is refined into fuel for gasoline and diesel engines. Nuclear power provides electricity for homes and businesses.
His idea is that the ecological system is closed and finite,
Another great example of the US style "perception commands reality"
How is this "his idea"? His observation, maybe but his idea...
In this US driven world, ideas are worth their value in the propaganda system so...
So... include yourself in with that list of "charlatans!"
WTF happened to TAN and the solars...
We need a solar-based energy policy - GO SOLAR or DIE
Nature is the most efficient at utilizing solar energy. If it doesn't provide you with enough them perhaps it's trying to tell you something?
Humans have had a solar policy since the very beginning... (god's only sun)
Why don't you go solar first and let us know how it works out
Just a reminder ... the United States derives 99.99% of its energy from the sun. If you don't believe it then guess what would happen if the sun were to stop producing energy. I guarantee the surface of the earth would be 4Kelvin within a month.
Even if you don't believe the ethanol is energy neutral, it is consuming an irreplaceable resource, topsoil, that took the grasslands of the plains several thousands of years to produce. Using irreplaceable fossil fuels to destroy our limited topsoil using GM corn is so......
+1 for topsoil
It never ceases to amaze and infuriate me that America hasn't developed Thorium Reactors. You can't make nuclear weapons from the process, if the process is interrupted it can't contaminate the surrounding region or hemisphere and the waste product has a dangerous life span of a couple hundred years versus the 10,000 year Uranium/Plutonium cycle.
India and China have initiated Thorium development recently.
America had an operational one in the 60's...
For forty years American Presidents have declared,"... reduce our dependence on foreign oil ..."
What, we gotta buy Thorium Reactors from India and China? Pfffft.
http://energyfromthorium.com/
[/rant]
look, just because you can imagine something doesn't make it a technical fait accompli, ok?
And, even if it's possible it STILL doesn't mean that it SHOULD be done.
Energy is only part of the equation: without resources to apply that energy to it's pretty meaningless.
No need to imagine. It was already done. Ten times cheaper than conventioal nuclear reactors btw.
http://energyfromthorium.com/msrp/
Edit-1: http://www.youtube.com/user/ThoriumAlliance#p/a/u/1/eU3cUssuz-U
Edit-2: http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/ThoriumSite/portal.html
If it works so well then there would be dozens of thorium reactors already. Do you think the power companies don't want to make money hand over fist? There is obviously a problem that we don't know about. The same with biodiesel. Why aren't Warren Buffett or Bill Gates dumping a few billion into those ventures?
Number one reason why Thorium Reactors aren't in use today? You can't make nuclear weapons from the LFTR or MSFR processes. Besides, GE is the big boy in nuclear energy. Why would they want to build lots of safe cheap reactors that can solve peak everything when they can construct obtusely bloated structures that menace and threaten the populace in heath and finance. Akin to an energy mafia of sorts, a perpetual shakedown and preservation of corporate interests - not humanity.
Besides, if it worked so well, if we had a free market AND IF we had forward thinking governments there would be a Thorium Reactor in every neighborhood on the planet. Thorium is up to six times more abundant than Uranium in the earths crust and requires far less toxic treatment for cycle preparation. There is so much Thorium in America that the .gov buried 3,000 tons of it because they couldn't figure out what to do with it. A bowling ball of Thorium has the power equivalent of a ton of Uranium (citation required, too lazy to link).
Because there is big problems with it. Google Thourium and U-232 Gamma radiation.
Cool, thanks for the heads up. I now remember this being an issue but I also seem to recollect a work around for this. Gonna dig when I am more awake and not at work.
How about just regular old coal you central planner!
Or thorium reactors that are a proven concept..
Or even Nat Gas plants everywhere..
But please, DECIDE for us and tell US what to do.
So, you blast this guy for making suggestions and then YOU make suggestions (also poor ones)?
I'm with you though, let's just fucking get it all over with and burn up all the coal and natural gas so that we can finally get to the bottom line: and show all the fucking idiots that we DON'T have enough to last forever...
Energy policy.
Environmental policy, climate change policy, recycling policy, tire pressure policy, etc.
Farm policy, corn policy, wheat policy, poultry policy, peanut policy, etc.
Transportation policy, mass transit policy, rail policy, bicycle path policy etc.
Tax policy, corporate giveaways policy, student loan policies, earned income tax credit policies, Alternative Minimum Tax policies, etc.
...On and on with all the endless parade of proliferating governmental policies.
Exactly! Policy is just a synonym for government intervention.
The best "policy" is get the hell out of the way.
You clearly have not lived near either a coal mine or coal fired plant...
You do know that, just getting out of the way led to the financial shitshow that is still culminating...
Government intervention led to the shitshow. It was Fannie and Freddie buying up nearly half of the shit mortgages. Without the buyer pushing down prices, there is no market for shit mortgages. Interest rates would have risen and kept a lid on housing prices. Cheap credit from the fed fueled the credit bubble. Fake demand from the federal government pumped it up. People will always be greedy and take gambles. The government should not encourage or subsidize it.
You are putting the cart before the horse...you simply don't get what happened do you?
But... my view (which is never associate with any group- I detest group-think) is that such travesty wouldn't happen if govt subsidies were occurring. I believe that many (I'm not saying everyone!) in the "small govt is better" camp just want less interference so that they can manipulate the machinery (of govt); little do they understand that it's govt's hands that actually keep them propped up. So, I say the best way to fix these problems is pull the entire fucking carpet out from underneath it all: there goes govt (even small govt), and there goes big ugly coporations. Unfortunately everyone still wants SOMETHING, in which case they'll embrace govt even if it results in getting strangled.
The way government is thought and implemented in this US world order points this direction indeed.
US citizens want a reduction of government, except the governments part that maintain their position in the US world order.
Too bad you can't sue them for screwing over your property. It's policy for you to shut up and take it.
Wind turbines are a joke. Natural Gas fulled Gas Turbine generator sets take over when the wind is too slow or too high. On a yearly basis the turbine engines burning copious volumes of Natural Gas feed the grid 90% of the time while the wind turbines provide just 10%. Maintenance costs for the Wind Turbines far exceed the costs of maintenance of the Gas Turbine generators. A Wind Farm in Scotland has shutdown Wind Turbine operations completely as a cost saving measure and operate the Gas Turbine system 100% of the time. As for Solar Panels, each one contains 20 grams of Silver. $36 an ounce Silver causes the construction cost of Solar Panels to become unacceptable for all except satellite construction in the USA. The Russians use tiny Nuclear Power modules in their Satellites. So called Alternative Energy will never replace conventional energy such as Coal and Oil.
I agree that wind power is a joke. Bang for buck - its a farce. But my shop gets lots of free tooling and manufacturing magazines and there is always articles and ads spewing the upside of wind energy. GREEN GREEN GREEN GO GREEN Yeah right, the effort of machining, installing and maintaining is a lose-lose situation.
Perhaps what we really need is a plague. One that wipes out roughly twenty percent of the global population.
They've been working on it... But, Mother Nature will cook up the remedy herself, and TPTB won't be able to escape (as they currently believe they can).
How about we let nature take its course and stop feeding those who keep breeding? The population of Ethiopia has nearly quadrupled since 1980 despite several severe famines. They've gone from 25 million people in 1980 to over 90 million today. If they keep reproducing at the same rate, they will have 1.5 billion people in 50 years. Anyone see a problem with that?
I get your point ST, but let's think in terms of energy consumption. I don't see many Ethiopians driving SUVs, cranking their thermostats down to seventy degrees, and watching energy hogging sixty-inch flat screen TVs. If their entire population was wiped out tomorrow, I doubt it would even make a dent in the world's energy consumption.
P.S. It's pretty sad that energy threads receive such little attention on ZH. Gold hits a record nominal high and the thread blows up - energy, not so much.
There are is quite a bit of breeding in the USA, mostly by unproductive and wasteful people.
Come on dude. Aren't you being a little hard on middle-aged white guys who sit around all day staring at a computer, gambling investing and posting on financial news websites?
Another great US way of thinking.
Alas for you and your gang, reality has it that unproductive people consume less because the human activity known as production is only production in the eyes of US citizen human kind. For the rest of the world, it is what it is: consumption.
I don't see many Ethiopians driving SUVs, cranking their thermostats down to seventy degrees, and watching energy hogging sixty-inch flat screen TVs.
And they do not have an elaborate economical system resting on the fantasy that "some produce more than they consume", the "producers class" or stuff like that.
Work is a drain on resources. Outsourcing allows to keep that dimension under the rug as consumption associated with the outsourced activity transformed into work is also exported.
China higher and higher consumption does not come mainly from Chinese consuming more. It comes first because they are producing (and production is consumption) more and more for the others.
I doubt it would even make a dent in the world's energy consumption.
Ah, but it will. Not in the direction US citizens wish though. Once Ethiopians wiped out, they are going to be replaced with people apter in the consumption game. Not hard to figure out because Ethiopians are at the bottom in the consumption and nearly anyone else is apter at the consumption game.
Instead of declining, the consumption bill in the Ethiopian area is going to increase.
"The population of Ethiopia has nearly quadrupled since 1980 despite several severe famines."
Hmmm... No food....no booze...mud hut is a mansion...cardboard box is a single family home... piece of tin over your head is a condo... what to do, what to do????
Fuck.
Even locusts eventually exterminate themselves. It's just the damage to the crops in the interim.
There is new solar panel technology that does not use silver, does not involve high temperature silicate treatment etc. We are moving to cheaper and more efficient types of solar panels.
Any specific examples to cite?
no policy would also be a policy.
i'll take clean energy for three hundred, alex. funding Saudis and vaporizing innocents for expensive dirty oil is just getting old.
As I said before: When a civilization grows its food to produce fuel, they're truly suicidal.
Corn to Ethanol is our very own version of the Easter Island logging industry....
Their trees were sacrificed for the worship of stone statues. Our soils will be sacrificed for the worship of SUVs... (nothing says "fucked up" like subsidizing the burning of food in subsidized Hummers)
Whatever happened to switch grass? Probably doesn't have the lobby that corn does, though.
75% of continental US is either agricultural or forestry. The other 25% is infested with the desert tortoise. Switchgrass/corn ethanol/solar panels just delusional when the daily energy consumption numbers viewed...
SO called green energy will just hasten our coming bankruptcy. We needed to start working on this problem 30 years ago. The DOE was created for this purpose.It failed ...
It didn't fail... no one liked or wanted to hear the answer.... big difference
the DOE came up with (cue trumpets) 'The Answer' ...(cue red carpet roll out for Mr Retarded the Politician with his scroll on devine truth/intervention) which was??
Hydrocarbons were not sustainable. Nuclear was a bridge to Solar. Serious conservation measures were necesary...
Edit:
Along the way they did a lot of basic research on ICE efficiency, smart grid tech, solar films, issues for fusion, basic inputs on material properties that go into the Engineering handbooks etc... It also became apparent that there was going to be no magic bullet that would solve problems....
People have to understand the logistics of these things...
The processing just doesn't magically start in a "factory" and then you have the "product." Imagine the bazillion acres where this grows, then imagine collecting it all up and trucking it to the factory (and imagine it all piling up because it's pretty hard to process volumes of material that we're talking about). Think of those open-pit mining operations multiplied by a 100, but hauling from much greater distances: open-pit is three dimensional, switch grass is two-dimensional (strewn along the surface).
It makes for great fantasy (and shallow thinking).
Are you trying to say that you actually need liqid fuel to move the stuff and that it doesn't just magically appear?
...but...but... I thought oil was evil. I thought everything would change magicalistically! I thought we would all ride unicorns and have fluffy bunny slippers.
This is not hard, people.
We have millions of illegal immigrants, millions of people in jail, millions on the dole and millions out of work.
Put them to work doing something useful now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=putUnFJ6fDU
We could feed them switch grass!
No Bob, you veered off course on us. But way to be assertive.
soylent switch gras...ah, nevermind
Funny enough indeed.
When US propagandists come to terms with their low quality in propagandizing?
Work is a drain on resources. Working consumes much.
The 'solutions' provided by US citizens are appealing and reveal the deep culture of death that is deeply ingrained in US citizenism.
First, you have pointing fingers at people who are down the consumption game, people who consume so little they cant even support themselves on biological terms and are starving.
Lets kill starving people, they are far way too numerous, their death will free resources.
Secondly, you have the great idea of 'hard work', put more and more people at work so it shall reduce consumption, because work is production and production is the inverse of consumption, right?
This is the kind of incredible statements that can be thought by US citizens.
In this US driven world, it is amazing to witness how the remedy to a deficiency appears so often to be more of the deficiency.
Solving a debt issue? More debt.
Solving guns issue? More guns.
Solving a consumption issue? More consumption.
That is the way US citizens are driven to think in this US world order.
what's your issue with consumption? Don't you like eating? ..or shopping?
Wealth (productivity) is generated by mans knowledge of Earths resources, putting 1 + 1 = 42 (energy plus iron ore = Car). Knowledge is infinite therefore wealth and production is infinite therefore so is consumption
it is the abuse of productive people by Govt and the consumption of wealth by the political and corporate parasites of society that is a limiting factor and primary reason for our recessions/Depressions and unemployment
Only the peanut brained pickled in paranoia juice greens, socialists and fascists don't get productivity, but they never got anything in their vacant lives (except a worthless State education which put precisely zero between their ears)
For the muppets above that say we have enough solar to power the planet we already use all the solar we need, we let our plants harvest the suns energy for us.
For our other needs we use the high power, low cost oil, coal and gas and we've not discovered anything else that comes even fuking close to their bang-per-buck (ie. all other efforts are utterly bankrupt which is why only societies big retards, the Govt, subsidises them to keep the dumb ideas afloat)
Govt policy is little more than a protection racket for vested interests (big Corporations and favoured local crony businessmen/farmers) ...politicians can't leave it to the free market or they'd be out of their job with nothing to piss away your money on and no power to wield... They HAVE to have a policy on everything when in fact the free market does not need ANY POLICY to work in our best interests
The free market does everything for free, no waged moron robbing our pockets with taxes and making false promises required
My issue? It is not a personal issue. It is a matter of what is and what is not. It exists outside of my self.
Knowledge is not infinite. The capacity to innovate is limited and innovation is finite. Some fields have already matched this fact.
The story about infinite knowledge and all is a subproduct of the western tale of a part of humanity that has been thriving better than others because it had overcome their environment. This and IP drivel mercantile stories.
Nothing but tales.
It has little to do with government actually.
It is all the result of expansion.
Expansion naturally comes with a rise in the cost of security. It is good to recall this because of the mention of racket.
We are nearing the point expansion as a process is no longer possible. Government or no government, security costs are going to ramp up.
People in the business of security will find the exploitation of this trend delightful as people are going to be compelled to securize what they have and no longer hope to get through expansion.
It is always the same trick: diminishing return or even negative return.
The guy who stole his way up to the top has some day some where to face the fact that he is about to fall victim of his own success. When this guy owns 85 pc of all the chips, theft can no longer be glorified as it was in the good old days of expansion, because he is going to be the guy who is to be stolen from. And as he climbs up the ladder through theft, the cost of security to fight off theft attempts is going to rise and rise.
No government involved.
Well, actually a lobbyiest game, from both directions. "Clean coal" adds a huge cost to power production. Ethanol production costs more BTU than are delivered.
Thermodynamic Truth, babe.
- Ned
"Who could believe this?" St. Jerome was born around the year 340. He came to Rome and was baptized there around 360. He devoted the rest of his life to scholarly pursuits and the translation of the Bible into Latin. He died in 420. He wrote the following observations describing the devastation of the Empire around 406:
"Nations innumerable and most savage have invaded all Gaul. The Whole region between the Alps and the Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine, has been devastated by the Quadi, the Vandals, the Sarmati, the Alani, the Gepidae, the hostile Heruli, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, and the Pahnonians. Oh wretched Empire! Mayence [Mainz, Germany], formerly so noble a city, has been taken and ruined, and in the church many thousands of men have been massacred. Worms [Germany] has been destroyed after a long siege. Rheims, that powerful city, Amiens, Arras, Speyer [Germany], Strasburg, - all have seen their citizens led away captive into Germany. Aquitaine and the provinces of Lyons and Narbonne, all save a few towns, have been depopulated; and these the sword threatens without, while hunger ravages within.
I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse, which the merits of the holy Bishop Exuperius have prevailed so far to save from destruction. Spain, even, is in daily terror lest it perish, remembering the invasion of the Cimbri; and whatsoever the other provinces have suffered once, they continue to suffer in their fear.
I will keep silence concerning the rest, lest I seem to despair of the mercy of God. For a long time, from the Black Sea to the Julian Alps, those things which are ours have not been ours; and for thirty years, since the Danube boundary was broken, war has been waged in the very midst of the Roman Empire. Our tears are dried by old age. Except a few old men, all were born in captivity and siege, and do not desire the liberty they never knew. Who could believe this? How could the whole tale be worthily told? How Rome has fought within her own bosom not for glory, but for preservation - nay, how she has not even fought, but with gold and all her precious things has ransomed her life... Who could believe that Rome, built upon the conquest of the whole world, would fall to the ground? That the mother herself would become the tomb of her peoples? That all the regions of the East, of Africa and Egypt, once ruled by the queenly city, would be filled with troops of slaves and handmaidens?
That to-day holy Bethlehem should shelter men and women of noble birth, who once abounded in wealth and are now beggars?"
References: This eyewitness account appears in Robinson, James Harvey, Readings in European History (1906); Duruy, Victor, History of Rome and of the Roman People, vol VIII (1883). How To Cite This Article: "The Fall of Rome" EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2007).
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
"Nations innumerable and most savage have invaded all America. The Whole region between the Apalachins and the Rockies, the ocean and the Mississippi, has been devastated by the Zetas, the Russian gangsters, the Aztecas, the MS-13, Al Queda, remnants of 101st and 82nd Airborne and more. Oh wretched Empire! Miami formerly so noble a city, has been taken and ruined, and in the church many thousands of men have been massacred. Atlanta has been destroyed after a long siege. Houston, that powerful city, Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, San Diego, all have seen their citizens led away captive into Mexico. California and the states of Nevada and Arizona, have been depopulated; and these the sword threatens without, while hunger ravages within. I cannot speak without tears of Denver, which the merits of the holy Bishop Exuperius have prevailed so far to save from destruction. Colorado, even, is in daily terror lest it perish, remembering the invasion of the Aztecas; and whatsoever the other provinces have suffered once, they continue to suffer in their fear. I will keep silence concerning the rest, lest I seem to despair of the mercy of God. For a long time, from the Pacific to Atlantic ocean, those things which are ours have not been ours; and for thirty years, since the Rio Grande boundary was broken, war has been waged in the very midst of the American Empire. Our tears are dried by old age. Except a few old men, all were born in captivity and siege, and do not desire the liberty they never knew. Who could believe this? How could the whole tale be worthily told? How America has fought within her own bosom not for glory, but for preservation - nay, how she has not even fought, but with fiat money and entitlements and all her precious things has ransomed her life... Who could believe that America, built upon the glorious liberty of man, would fall to the ground? That the mother herself would become the tomb of her peoples? That all the regions of the East, of the South and California, once ruled by the queenly city DC, would be filled with troops of slaves and handmaidens? That to-day holy DC should shelter men and women of noble birth, who once abounded in wealth and are now beggars?"
So goes expansion.
It is always the same and it is quite surprizing people nowadays expected another scenario...
Lets just use coal and let the industry evolve if it can, but use the savings from using cheap coal and oil to convert to a viable technology. the auther makes a good point -- the envirowackos are actually counter productive to their cause and making the Earth worse. By driving cheap energy to China by giving them a pass, but continuing to hound the much cleaner USA into shutting down energy sources altogther, they are making the planet worse by making fossil fuels even cheaper for China to use, so they will never change.
The stupidist things I think I hear people say is that they want to shut down anything that crinkles their pristine little noses, when we have no viable alternative, and will never have one if we don't use the cheap bad stuff now to pay for the cleaner energy down the road. Again, it's counterproductive to green objectives, but they don't get it and they don't care.
You can't turn off the easy, cheap stuff unless you have a viable replacment. It will shut down the economy and you'll never be able to pay for the many years and trillions of $$ it will take to convert to whatever it is they want to convert to. Burning bridges isn't good for the environment either.
Change is good, smart change is better.
"Lets just use coal and let the industry evolve if it can, but use the savings from using cheap coal and oil to convert to a viable technology."
Coal and oil only appear to be cheap because of the subsidies and externalizations that the extraction and processing of it enjoys.
The REAL issue (for those that really think) is the existing infrastructure. The "green technology" is just a perpetuation of the existing infrastructure/paradigm, the one that allows TPTB to rule, the one that WILL fail (based on endless growth).
We already have "clean" energy-> sun (and its byproducts). Problem is that we want MORE, but when our fossil fuel bank accounts run out (deplete to the point of being meaningless) we ain't going to get it.
First, easiest and best 'alt energy' is conservation. Like it or not, conservation is coming: stock market/economic crashes are 'conservation by other means'.
Second, the premise of 'cheap, abundant' energy supply is a marketing approach invented by John D. Rockefeller to create the Standard Oil monopoly. It's not an act of god. Building the economy around expensive energy would work better than following the loss-leading Rockefeller model (into the toilet).
Our economy 'works' with very expensive gold, silver, diamonds and Picassos. Very expensive crude oil would not be wasted, we humans would do something else with it. We would be forced to add value rather than simply 'burn it up'.
Third, our current economy fails on its own terms: fuel waste does not now nor has it ever made a profit for anyone: fetish objects are created that become collateral for loans. Business profits are borrowed, debt service falls to customers and workers. This is why the US carries + $100 trillion in debt and why 'growth' can never repay or even service it.
All the industrial countries are in debt: 300 years and no country has ever made an organic profit which is the 'why' of fiat money and bond markets, currency exchanges and devaluations.
A real energy policy would require an entirely new kind of 'husbandry economy' which ties money supplies to resource capital in hand rather than measuring the 'burning rate of capital' process we have now. Ironically, a non-waste economy would resemble the highly deflationary hard-currency models while limiting resource throughput.
Americans won't appreciate such an economy: no cars no Internet, no push buttons no remotes, hard work but other rewards: think 15th century Europe or pre- Meiji Tokugawa Japan: like it or not it's coming so we better start thinking about ways to adapt.
And there you have it!
Let's pass on to future generations the understanding that growth does not solve ANYTHING.
Steve you see things clearly
Yes and an average life span of 40 years. I'm oh so excited and can't wait for your future.
Conservation in this US world order?
Nah. US citizens can not self limit. All they can play at best is an attrition game, that isconsuming others' resources faster than they consume their closed at hand resources in order to achieve hegemony. In other words, the limitations do not come from within, it is imposed by the exterior.
Conservation ahead.
What is coming up is the impossibility of consuming as much because of physical impossibilities. It is not conservation.
A US citizen who eats all the content of her fridge to observe she can no longer eat once the fridge is empty is not a person who conserved.
That's a person who consumed everything that was possible to consume and is facing the direct consequences of her actions.
EROEI.
That is where it is at folks. Trying to grow your diesel in fields? Check out what the EROEI of those projects are. Makes tar sands refining look like a good deal.
So you dont think I could make money planting Sunflowers for Bio-diesel..Im kidding..
Water will be the next big thing before to many more years...
As long as energy policy is shaped by profit motives, energy policy will bring the highest cost solutions.
Uranium / plutonium reactors are way more expensive to build and operate than thorium reactors. That's why thorium was rejected 50 years ago.
Yeah All those self-less power companies prefer to blow billions on Commerical light water reactors, just so uranium miners can get rich off them!
Thorium has serious problems.
First we all put solar water heaters on our hot water heaters in our houses. That's low-tech solar (alternative) energy.
And we insulate better.
Second we tell our electrical power companies (that we own stock in) to run the water that goes into all the power plant through a farm of black pipes sitting out in the sun before they run that water into the boiler in the power plant. The black pipes can get the water temperature up to just below boiling on many days , and the hotter the water is, the more energy it has, and therefore the less fuel they have to burn to get it to make the steam that turns the generator that makes the electicity. Still low-tech solar (alternative) energy.
Third we trade our Hummers for Vespas and bicycles. Bicycles, of course, are alternative energy.
Fourth we grow some tiny garden (Victory Garden) of food in our yard. That saves trips to the store, and therefore saves energy. Saving energy is as good as creating energy, and therefore counts as alternative energy.
Lots of stuff we can do. Think outside the power-plant-box.
Excellent points, Adah! However, they all require sacrifice and that's something that most Americans won't tolerate.
I'm afraid this whole topic is a moot point. We'll stay on our crash course until mother nature and/or wars dictate who gets to use what. Sorry for the pessimism, but I just don't think we'll "get it" before it's too late.
Thank you. Sometimes I think homo sapiens is doomed unless it can change. One way, the use of nanotechnology, was presented in "The Forever Peace", the book which was the sequel to "The Forever War". Maybe another way would be genetics - although I can imagine that ending up in two species, the ruler species and the slave species, which of course would be even worse than what we have today.
Most pointedly agree
no woodstove for heat source?
Fifth reqire employers to let employees work at home whenever possible. Big energy savings.
Good point, I'm a big fan of showering together to conserve energy as well :)
2/3 of the world's population lives on $3/day or less. Anytime someone proposes something they need to view the big picture.
Check out Jevons Paradox for an understanding of how the notion of making things more efficient fails. (Remember: intent is one thing; application is another; and, keep in mind human nature- concentration of power is always prey for the unscrupulous, who, rather than do real work, spend their energies on obtaining the reins of power to ensure that they can continue to do no real work).
Thanks for the tip re Jevons Paradox - good read. Even if the energy issue was solved, we'll still have food and water issues in coming years. I guess we're back to population reduction via plague.
Does this guy work for GE or Boone Pickens? What a bunch of drivel. I wish that they would get it through their central planning heads that alternative energy will never be adopted until it's economically competative. Once peole can no longer afford to do what they are doing then market forces will take over and some sort of alternative will fill the void. Until that time comes they can try to force it on the market all they want but it will never succeed.
By the way that goes for all central planning. We shouldn't have oil subsides and We sure as hell shouldn't be turning food into fuel. It's not only immoral, it also destroys precious topsoil which I would argue is more important than cheap energy.
You just contradicted yourself. You said "alternative energy will never be adopted until it's economically competative." but then you said, "We shouldn't have oil subsides", (implying that we do indeed have oil subsidies). So then if the oil subsidies were removed wouldn't that make alternative energy competitive? It already is once you remove all those subsidies. Just ramp up mass production of EV's and the alternatives are already cheaper than oil.
And not all central planning isn't bad. If it is done by scientists and engineers who are studying the real word impacts of our screwed up consumption patterns and trying to internalize the negative externalities that those create, that's not only good, but it's essential to the future of our species. On the other hand, I would agree that central planning done by Fed economists is a very bad thing...
First of all I didn't contradict myself. Even without the subsides oil is much cheaper. There are also subsides for alternative energy, they should go as well. . All subsides should go and the market will (as it always does) determine which route we should go. As far as your central planning scientists go they are all subject to group think and confirmation bias. Not to mention the fact that they will arrange to come to the conclusion the central planners want them to come to. This insures their job security and funding.
You better push all of your corn cobs down the fuel tank entry port. CCTV cameras are watching you, non-conformance will result in a $200 fine with 6 month imprisonment sentence.
/sarc
The whole business model might be irrelevant. Governments love the grid because it gives them an on/off switch right to your home. Not true for nat gas. Power to the people. Literally.
I can't believe you wrote this line. No one is building coal fired power plants faster than China. As well, no one has done more harm to the solar industry than China by subsidising the construction of low quality solar panels and flooding the market with them, crushing those companies building higher efficiency cells.
Downward spiral bitchez!!!!!
The most important thing that needs to shift in the economic community is the idea that growth is good, it is something to strive for, and that it is even possible. It doesn't matter how "alternative" your energy systems are; perpetual growth violates the laws of thermodynamics, and nothing can do that.
Keynesian economics is based on imaginary money and imaginary resources. Austrian economics is based on real money, but imaginary resources. Mainstream economics is a strange hybrid of the two. Thermo-economics is the solution, it is based on real world resources AND real money.
I'm an engineer and ecologist and I am quite proud of my recent work which still needs a bit of tweaking, but I have managed to bridge together ecology, energy, and the economy together into a grand theory, with great help from Chris Martenson's Crash Course. It is 40 pages but it explains things in a way I have not encountered yet, ie it actually explains how energy works!
http://markbc.wordpress.com/thermodynamics-for-economists/
Again, someone who SEEMS to get it, yet blows it! In your earlier posting you mention that we should ramp up the production of EVs. That's all part of the paradigm of growth (transportation meme).
Food, Shelter and Water. No "transportation" in that equation because... we were born with FEET! Yes, this from someone who currently relies on the transportation meme: but I at least fully understand the realities, I don't wear blinders or rose-colored glasses.
hey, no, the thing is that I understand the political reality: we have billions? of miles of roads built on this planet. There is not a chance in hell that us eco freaks are going to be able to convince people to voluntarily NOT use those roads. Ending the manufacture of new vehicles is simply NOT going to happen, until oil goes to $500 o barrel. Therefore, we should be ensuring that as many of thosethat are being built right now as possible are EV's. Don't get me wrong -- I agree that we should be minimizing the amount of new cars being built. I say that we should maximize the proportion of those cars that are EV's, and the best way to do that is to ramp up production NOW to get the advantage of economy of scale ASAP so as to get the ICE powered cars off the lots ASAP.
I don't believe that you are thinking on quite the right track still. Roads are there so they have to be used? Come on. Ask your nearest army unit what they can do about road access denial. It's really really easy and really really cheap.
Secondly, you are of course aware of how much energy goes into creating the steel, plastics, refined battery metals and other items which go into an EV. Or even a standard new car. What I would say is not to minimize builds it is to FULL STOP.
Using existing vehicles until they die and get taken off the road is by far more energy efficient than building new cars.
Thirdly, what proportion of the US population can even afford an EV?
btw I think the thermodynamics approach to economics is definitely the way to go. Good job.
"His idea is that the ecological system is closed and finite, [...] which needs to be included into economic models."
Keep on trying! The Club of Rome failed miserably...
Coal is the energy of the future. The thorium in it will power america for 200 years at least. Its a shame, China is going to beat us to it.
And where does this 200 number come from? If we increase out energy consumption twofold we'll still be able to go 200 years? Do you see a problem with this logic?
Seer suggested: "Check out Jevons Paradox for an understanding of how the notion of making things more efficient fails."
I have an alternative explanation for Jevon's Paradox in my link above, and I'll paste it here:
Ironically, the more efficient labour becomes at “producing” things, the more resources must be taken from the natural world. In other words, the better we become at using resources to make products for our economy, the faster our economies MUST grow. How can this be? It seems totally backwards. Isn’t the point of technological efficiency to allow us to maintain existing goods and services, but use fewer resources to do so? Yes, that is a nice idealistic dream, but in the real world, the result of these efficiency improvements is that unemployment must go up, all else being equal. If labour increases its overall productivity by say, 10%, then unemployment would also go up by 10%, since our current economic system is designed to siphon excess wealth away from the working class (you only get money if you go to work). That efficiency leverage also works the other way so that if the amount of goods and services produced by the economy doesn’t also go up by 10%, then so will unemployment! So then to avoid rising unemployment from these efficiency gains, we would need to have an offsetting increase in economic output (growth) in order to suck up that unemployment, to give those displaced workers new jobs in construction, rather than in farming (otherwise they will just go on the dole, and that is communism, and it doesn’t work). Therefore, more natural resources must be taken from the planet in order to maintain the new more efficient (but larger) economy, than was required for the old inefficient (but smaller) economy! A totally backwards, counter-intuitive result! And the further this progresses, i.e. the greater the proportion of the workforce that’s diverted into construction activities, the faster the economy must grow and the worse it gets!
This is called the “Jevon’s Paradox“, and my explanation is slightly different than what is typically encountered. The common explanation is that as efficiency improves, costs and prices drop. This promotes more consumption, or more waste, because the lower price shifts the position on the supply / demand chart. As price drops, demand increases. However, only in highly elastic markets would demand increase at a greater rate than the efficiency improvements. In inelastic markets (for example, gasoline for commuting to work along freeways every day), total demand would obviously drop as efficiency improves. This is because if you commuted every day on clogged freeways, you are not going to voluntarily go out and spend more time driving simply because it becomes cheaper due to efficiency improvements. I think the typical explanation for Jevon’s Paradox places too much emphasis on price signals (and in a world of depleting resources, improving efficiency often does not even result in lower prices — it just delays the inevitable crunch). What I think these explanations miss is the point that unemployment is a critical factor in Jevon’s Paradox as I have explained above, that increased resource consumption does not simply happen because people decide to buy more things when they are cheaper, but it happens because our economic system requires it to go up, to avoid rising unemployment and to satisfy our monetary requirement for perpetual economic growth.
Our current economic system is a ridiculously futile hamster wheel that prevents the benefits of efficiency improvements and wealth “creation” from being realized by the people who actually do the work to bring about that wealth.
Ladies and Gentlemen.... we have a winner.
Thanks for posting - I'll read your blog when I have more time.
Isn’t the point of technological efficiency to allow us to maintain existing goods and services, but use fewer resources to do so?
Not in this US world order. Goods and services are constantly improved. There is no standard needs to calibrate the system.
It is not about maintaining, it is about improving.
This is the way it is in this US world order.
Did you factor in the need to repay interest bearing debt as one of the fundamental drivers demanding 'growth'?
Expansion is growth. Expansionists solve their issues by expanding.
That story about interests on debt is just extremely secondary. It just makes expansion more appealing as for one unit of expansion, one is promised one unit and more in return.
Just a trick to quicken expansion and make it more desirable.
A non interest system could have just led to the same point, just probably less quickly.
Debt with no interest does not guarantee debt is repayable.
Harsh collision with reality for US propagandists or should I say US citizens as they are propagandist by nature.
Monetary system is charlatans game!
Alternative energy implementation is lagging because there's no BIG money in it.. as much as in fosil fuels.. to the last drop.
Stop blabbering about wage slavery. Time of jobs has passed, we need new answers.
ROFL wind and solar are charlatans too
Fusion is the future, and we need to start NOW.
It's impossible without Glass-Steagall, just like economic collapse.
Google neutronicity and get back to me, kay?
Here's a test for you:
Government health policy: Rape the middle class.
Government industrial policy: Rape the middle class.
Government social policy: Rape the middle class.
Government housing policy: Rape the middle class.
Government banking policy: Rape the middle class.
Government securities policy: Rape the middle class.
Now guess that the government energy policy is!
It's not Government policy, its the policy of the Kleptocrats. And that extends in a network far beyond the puppets in government.
No. No government policy to rape the middle class.
The environment that allowed the middle class to rise and prosper is simply coming to an end.
What does it take to be considered 'clean?'
"Clean" Energy hasn't been defined by the government. Do ya think it may be dependent the amount of carbon produced after the combustion reaction or similar? There's big money to be made from a Carbon Tax put on a society and economy dependent on fossil fuels. You think 'Big Business' friendly Obama Admin is going to subsidize anything that doesn't produce lots of carbon?
As a well-publicly documented environmentalist and registered treehugger, I will tell you 'man-made' global warming is not- if it even exists at all*- an immediate danger. The immediate danger is global poisoning like many have pointed out in the commentary. Deep horizon BP spill, Ft. Calhoun Nuke cover-up, Fukishima and the many towns adversely affected by Hydrofracking for Natural Gas are just a few recent ones leaving communities crippled ecologically, financially, physically and emotionally. Why not fine and jail the fuckers who are doing the poisoning? Instead of hiding behind environmental regulations that 'eliminate' or 'reduce' carbon emissions (?! WTF ?!), why not have LAWS holding the fuckers accountable for damages and clean-up instead of forcing it onto the taxpayers and individuals. Let's make an example out of Monsanto to start.
Consider this gem you left out: Geothermal, Bitchez!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
* This conversation needs the language well-defined and established to avoid misunderstandings.
I'm for a combination of Unicorn horn reactors and pixie dust as a fertilizer to replace the topsoil.
we haven't seen the whole palette of alternative energy being deployed : why? Because the OIL lobby and the Oligarchs + their political surrogates (Reagan and onwards), didn't want it to. The only honest John amongst this crowd was Carter, beieve it or not!
Mr Peanuts had more horse sense than all the others in 1979...but that's old hat now.
So keep your eyes open, as when the pain grows further in the world of being corralled in the Middle East Oil noose, since sixty odd years by the oil lobby, from tightening more and more, the world will have to find Pronto solutions around the corner from the alternative energy store; they be a coming and not necessarily in the US of A... Global Energy Game changer, but who leads is now the question!
But its coming. As we won't paradigm change society without reinventing our thermodynamics lessons which will lead 'new' constrained economics. Jevon's paradox and inelastic demand notwithstanding.
Btw : My historical thesis is that we've LIVED in a centrally planned energy economy created by the very Oil lobby of the country that pretends it hates central planning, aka the USA, since sixty odd years. So saying central planning is BS is like saying US imperial play in ME and Oil lobby rip-off NEVER existed. The whole oligarchic scene today is the covert adoption by the US Oligarchs, ruling the west since 1945, of pseudo central planned strategies, in Oil, in arms, in food, in pharma, now in ZIRP FIRE economy, through Fanny Freddie and AIG, and their WS led bosses (Primary Dealers, owners of FED).
That being the capitalist Norm, that the world is now discovering in this ongoing meltdown since 2008! Where is the so called Ayn Randish 'invisible hand' of the market in all this?
Since 60 bleeding, conniving years! Since the CIA was created and the White house and Truman said "We've lost China!"
How do you lose something that never belonged to you is the question the Chinese now ask the USA! Good question...since Vietnam days we know the US didn't have the answer and still doesn't. Witness Afgh/Pak and Iraq mess; ready any day to blow up in their faces. Globalisation in tatters, but the energy scene will have to redesigned for human survival; whoever be TOP dog tomorrow. Its a lesson for the ages, the global power play that started in 1949, and got us where we are today...USA, USA...brave new world.
US citizens (and by extension the Western world) can not admit their own history. A proper conman never admits anything.
All they can do is to craft propaganda to try to cover their tracks.
But as the world resources are dwindling, it makes less and less sense to spend resources on propaganda since there is less and less to gain in return.
So we are stuck with cheap propaganda, stuff debunked one hundred years ago.
Propaganda has this superior over facts: it is cheaper to produce and faster to spread.
The drawback is that propaganda is produced and therefore subjective to investment returns.
Facts are not produced, only established.
Here are propagandists, unable to craft new propaganda because it grows more and more useless, losing their advantages on facts as facts established a long time ago are now cheaper to recall than producing new propaganda to cover them.
Hence the story of central planning, state and all which were the ways the US has built itself and imposed its hegemony over the rest of the world.
US citizens have come to deny their own existence and the ways they have achieved their own existence.
Nothing sadder than a conman conning himself. But US citizens are non conning themselves as they are duplicitous. They know what they are doing.
They simply hope dumb and dumber so that their cheap propaganda can make it.
Welcome to the matrix. To your right, a blue pill; to your left, a red pill...
You sound like a calm well-thought out Alex Jones- a good thing imho. He has good info and insight but his delivery is often a major turn off.
I appreciate and agree with much of your 'take.'
It's been my experience that most people who tout Ayn Rand haven't even read her work. I have and I think it's very ego driven in a Richard Dawkin's 'Selfish-Gene' way as opposed to a more David Sloan Wilson's Altruistic approach to life. It's the behavior that's drving these globalist: the elitists are getting more power and wealth, the middle class is shrinking and the poor are growing in numbers and becoming increasingly desperate (time for martial law?)It's the ultimate in selfishness. The problem isn't even wealth, it's distribution and the Globalist control it. Ethology is fascinating...and applicable.
ALCOHOL CAN BE A GAS!
Ethanol does not equal CORN ethanol. Take a look at Brazil's sugar cane derived ethanol industry, it is huge, and very efficient. CORN ethanol is boondoggle promoted by the US corn lobby, and seeing its failure has tragically blinded people to the potential of ethanol in America.
David Blume has the answer to the world's transportation fuel needs:
http://www.permaculture.com
Recent interview with him here:
Coast To Coast AM - 29.6.2011 - Alternative EnergyGlobal Elite.rarThere's no corn industry but there is a corn monopoly. Ethanol is made from GMO corn, to be specific, Monsanto's.
The US government encourages it and subsidizes it.
This is an excellent documentary on the business: http://www.hulu.com/watch/255609/king-corn
It used to be available for streaming on Netflix as well.
It's packed with info. While we are at it, just for 'fun' check out this documentary: http://www.livevideo.com/video/BESToftheBEST/8572389162284FFD9468AD17757...
This is probably one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. It's about how the WTO and IMF decimate desperate struggling countries thru economic terrorism. It's excellent!
Economic expansion, turbo charged in 1765 by Watt's steam engine, was precieved as "Good" when there where no "precieved" physical limits to expansion, (God had given man the World to exploit, and God would ensure that there would always be an ever increasing supply of what ever the increasing supply of people wanted or needed), no need to be concerned with finite anything for the suscribers to this belief system, a large part of every belief system is; believing some how makes it so! The powers who were profiting from this system of belief, and that included all elites, industry, military, religious, whatever, had no desire to see anything change to reduce consumption or population growth, (expansion meant ever greater rewards for all), There is no limits to anything in the World of the mind, the physical World is bound by immutable laws which impose their will upon us irrespective of what we wish for, or belief, now that we have come to the end of the infinite expansion model and have to face the fact that, there is only so much of anything, what are we to do? Can we construct another belief system which can "magically" over come the limits which constrain us? I don't know, that is for those who traffic in belief to work on, I hope they can, but I don't think they will be able to demonstrate any success, Reality will always trump belief!
A theme I seem to see woven through the thoughts of many of our posters is the idea that; Man is the author of his own story, I don't believe that is true, (Belief premates everything we do), I think we are just along for the ride, creation has already happened before we are aware of it.
It is a bit contradictory. You started with the results of a belief system, adopted to pursue and achieve goals and you deny the possibility of authoring one's own story. People chose what they want to believe.
The tension is going to be between people wanting to change their beliefs system or wanting to keep the benefits of their current beliefs system.
Your recount is also biased in the way it was more the battle between people who knew that the world was finite and the consequences of it and people who knew it too but also figured out that large profit could be taken by denying the consequences of it.
The last set came with all kinds of rationalization, sold all kinds of false hopes in order to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish.
They had on their side that the profits were real and came on short terms every time. As always with expansion. A successful expansion scheme always comes with real short term profits. It makes expansion much easier to sell.
Bad consequences usually start to be deniable no longer when expansion is forced to a halt.
People knew that the world was finite. They knew it would come with consequences. But quick profits by expansion were there so...
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