DrumBeat: December 1, 2007
Posted by Leanan on December 1, 2007 - 10:06am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Lawmakers reach deal on auto fuel efficiency
Congressional Democrats reached a compromise late Friday to boost automobile fuel economy by 40 percent, clearing the way for a House vote probably next week on an energy bill that Democratic leaders would like to send to President Bush before Christmas.The agreement came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reached an accord with Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime protector of the auto industry that dominates his home state, to ease the impact of the new fuel economy requirements.
Fuel efficiency and the American driver
More hybrids. More diesels. Smaller engines and fancier technology. And an initial sticker price increase that could total a couple thousand dollars.Those are the likely outcomes now that Congress has decided to increase the national fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles a gallon by 2020, from the current average of 25.
Fuel costs hit NORSHUKON plans
THE RISING cost of fuel has forced a Shetland/Norwegian consortium of public and private interests to scrap their immediate plans for a passenger ferry between Norway's west coast and the UK mainland in favour of a freight service.
Hyperion wants Union County residents to vote on refinery
On Tuesday, Hyperion Resources of Dallas plans to give the Union County Commission a rezoning request, which, if approved, could lead to a countywide referendum on the company's proposed $8 billion to $10 billion oil refinery.
Dutch horticulture, traffic, key to green future
If the people of Venlo have their way, new buildings in this busy nexus of the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium will generate more energy than they use.This ambitious target has been gaining momentum in the province of Limburg, southern Netherlands, since the airing of a television documentary about the revolutionary concept of 'cradle-to-cradle' living that produces zero garbage and zero pollution yet allows maximum economic activity.
Saudi sees oil demand OK but no signal on OPEC move
World oil consumption will rise as winter sets in but it is unclear if OPEC needs to raise output to meet the seasonal demand, the oil minister of top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Saturday.The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is under pressure from consumer nations to boost supply to lower prices that last week hit a record high near $100 a barrel.
Asked whether he expected demand to increase during the winter, Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters: "That is what it normally does, every winter the fourth quarter is always higher than the third quarter."
Kashagan accord deadline set for Dec. 20-consortium
A consortium led by Italy's Eni and Kazakhstan have agreed a Dec. 20 deadline for finalising settlement of a dispute over the country's giant Kashagan oilfield, the group said in a statement."Good progress" has been made in the talks between the two sides, the statement released on Saturday said, and a new memorandum of understanding has been signed establishing the framework for the settlement.
Gas Prices Hurt Budgets More In The Past
The price of gas is hovering around 3 dollars a gallon. While people complain about how expensive it is to fill up, economists say the cost of gas affected people's budgets more twenty five years ago than it does now.
An Alaska-to-Chicago pipeline?
ConocoPhillips wants to build potentially the world's largest, most expensive energy facility - a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline running from Alaska's North Slope to Midwestern states.
Turkmenistan starts work on north-south rail link to Kazakhstan and Iran
Turkmenistan formally opened construction Saturday on a north-south railroad from the border with Kazakhstan to Iran, a project seen as an economic boon for the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Sea region.
Bio-Fuel: More Poverty, Environmental Destruction and Hunger
The energy crisis, through over use, and the zenith of oil, is giving way to powerful global alliances between the oil, grain, genetic engineering and car industries.
Mexico police drafted into oil state in drug fight
Some 200 heavily armed police landed in Mexico's oil-producing Gulf coast state of Campeche this week, a formerly quiet region that has become the latest front in a war on powerful drug gangs.
Are We Heading for Hyperinflation or Deflation? - At Philosophical Crossroads
For some unfathomable reason, the human mind tends to think in terms of extremes. For example: “Death or Glory”, “Success or Failure”, “Accelerating growth or Collapse”.Thus, the questions being asked in today's financial world seem to be revolving around whether we are facing “hyperinflation or depression”. All of which begs the questions: Why does it have to be at one or the other extreme? Why can't there be something in between? Alternatively, why can't there be a paradigm shift which renders the very question irrelevant?
If Rochester resident Norm Erickson's theory proves correct, American lifestyles 10 or 20 years from now could more closely resemble those of Richie, Potsie, Ralph and the Fonz than those of George, Jane and Elroy Jetson.Erickson, a semi-retired IBM engineer, is what some are calling a "peak-oiler." He is among a growing number of people in the country who believe that world production of oil either has already or will very soon hit its peak. And it's all downhill from there.
ELCA college holds climate change conference
“Anyone [who] says oil production can go on forever is either a mad man or an economist,” joked Kenneth S. Deffeyes, professor emeritus of geosciences, Princeton [N.J.] University. Deffeyes is the author of Hubbert’s Peak (Princeton University Press, 2001) and Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak (Hill and Wang, 2005), which discuss the consequences for the U.S. and the world of reaching the peak of oil production.“While economists want oil to last, we have passed the peak of oil production. ... The price will only continue to rise,” he said. “And we will run out.”
Abu Dhabi, Citigroup, BCCI and more
One more not inconsequential fact for those following events closely in Venezuela. There's much written and said about it, so, I do not need to regurgitate information readily available. However, an additional factor not generally highlighted as to why the US is so opposed to Venezuela's Chavez led government. Chavez has a plan to build an oil pipeline with/across Colombia in order to export to China. Contrary to mythological explanations of scarcity, shortages, prices, peak oil and who supplies the US with oil, the US gets most of its oil both from itself, obviously, along with its two neighbors, Mexico and Canada, some coming from elsewhere, like Venezeula, for example, approximately 10%, I believe, and Africa. The loss of Venezuelan oil can be compensated. But, it's the loss of market share as a supplier for Europe, China, perhaps India, as well, that is THE issue, THE prize, THE economic bonanza.
Pakistan: Complete de-regulation of LPG prices approved
Caretaker Prime Minister of Mohammed Mian Soomro gave approval in principle for complete de-regulation of prices of LPG and directed OGRA to separate the price of LPG from the Saudi Aramco control price.
Oil output boost not on OPEC agenda: Qatar
OPEC ministers will not discuss raising the oil cartel's production ceiling when they meet in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, Qatari Energy Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Saturday.When asked by AFP if an output increase was on the meeting's agenda, Attiyah said: "No."
The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Nobuo Tanaka, had appealed on Thursday for an output increase by OPEC members.
Chavez threatens to cut oil exports to U.S.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he will cut oil sales to the United States if the American government interferes in Sunday's referendum aimed at allowing him to run for reelection indefinitely.Chavez told supports at a rally that the state oil company will halt sales to the United States on Monday if Washington interferes with the vote on the proposed constitutional reform.
Chavez oil threat raises stakes
A threat by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop oil exports to the United States has raised the stakes over a Sunday referendum he has called in a bid to expand his powers.
Iran Holds 138bb of Oil, 28.2t cu. m. of Gas
Iran's oil and gas reserves amount to 138 billion barrels and 28. 2 trillion cubic meters respectively, the petroleum minister announced here on Friday. Talking about explorations, Gholamhossein Nozari told MNA nine billion barrels of in-situ oil and about 70 trillion cubic feet of gas has been discovered.
Massive deep-water oil find in Brazil challenges technology
About 70 percent of Petrobras' oil production comes from deep-water wells, making it the world's biggest oil producer at such depths. But the Tupi deposit is deeper than Petrobras has ever drilled — under 7,000 feet of ocean water and more than 16,000 feet of rock, sand and salt, including a 1.2-mile-thick layer of rock-hard salt.How to tap into the find has set off a technological race, spurred because the potential rewards of exploiting the deposit are so great — especially as the price of oil nears $100 a barrel.
Ex German chancellor sees Russia as dependable energy supplier
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder here Friday stressed that Russia remained a dependable energy supplier amid Berlin's skeptical stance.Schroeder who heads a Russian-German Baltic Sea pipeline consortium controlled by Russian energy giant Gazprom, said Russia is among the most politically stable countries and should not be discredited.
Alaska gets 5 applications for natural gas
Five companies, partnerships and entities have submitted proposals to build a massive pipeline from Alaska's North Slope to bring the region's vast but long-languishing natural gas reserves to markets thousands of miles away, state officials announced late on Friday.
Leaking part of pipeline will go to lab
Tests will focus on why a repair joint failed, spraying fumes and oil that ignited and killed two welders.
Japan firm announces first carbon spot trade
- A Japanese company said Friday it had conducted the world's first spot trade in carbon credits, predicting the nascent market will grow as countries step up efforts to tackle global warming.
"Iran's oil and gas reserves amount to 138 billion barrels and 28. 2 trillion cubic meters respectively, the petroleum minister announced here on Friday"
Why is this news? Is this more or less than previously stated? Sounds like they are producing next max.
Why would we want to attack a country whose oil production has peaked?
No one will attack Iran for x+z reasons...
– its all hot air
One could of made the same statement about attacking iraq but look how that ended up.
Basically just because the region is past peak doesn't mean that target is off the list, there is still allot left to be 'acquired'
I forgot the Y , the equation should state : x+y+z, where Y is “all that new information acquired since they (US army) got stranded in Iraq and Afghanistan”…. That’s a lot of new no-no info IMHO, and the US will get no support from anyone , maybe but Israel
And whatever oil is available in Iran, the US has to just follow the queue, just like the rest of us and keep the monies ready ;-)
But remember, the US is still trying to get the Iraqi government to approve laws favorable to "Production Sharing Agreements" with big oil companies-- http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm
The other thing the US got was a defense of the value of the dollar against the Euro:
http://www.thinkandask.com/news/thedollar.html
The value of the dollar is not well defended. The euro was worth .90 dollars in 2002 and is now worth about $1.46. The value of the euro is well defended by the Europeans balancing their government budgets better than the Americans.
The attack on Iraq in search of WMD's and Alqaeda training camps was a complete fraud. The promises to the Iraqis of freedom proved fruitless. There has been a great loss of freedom and increase in violence since the attack began. Religious militias terrorized the populace more than when the Baathist regime was in power.
Any gains in business for multinational oil companies and Haliburton in Iraq have not been able to offset the deep costs to the American taxpayers. Haliburton moved to the UAE and no longer pays taxes to the United States anyway.
The last time Cheney threatened to launch a preemptive strike on Iran someone brought forth a motion to impeach him. The Republicans have lost much credibility and political power since they lied to the American public about Iraq's actions and intentions.
Question for UK readers.
I periodically check a UK dealer in LEDs to see what new products have been developed and what price points are.
http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/
They currently have a graphic that states "Beat the 2008 Government Ban". What ban are they talking about ?
Best Hopes for Energy Efficiency,
Alan
The comparable USA site I also go to (and buy from) is:
http://www.superbrightleds.com
So many things are being banned it's hard to tell ;)
Could be related to mercury in CFLs, the EU are keen to eliminate mercury. There is also a proposal to ban manufacture of incandescents, but I don't know of a timeframe.
Alan, here you go:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/2007/09/ban_the_bulb.html
Attempts to ban incandescent bulbs from 2008+
wow (0)(0)
Banning Edison bulbs because they're not effecient enough.....
In the US what are they going to do about all those space and radiant heaters that run on electricity? Or electric stoves?
One would hope that oil filled space heaters would take off here in Iowa, given that we have excellent wind resources shut in by lack of long distance transmission lines.
One $2,500 investment would pretty much free us from heating bills and I itch to get this done ...
Not a cure everywhere, but blanket policies are generally not such a good idea. I think the incandescent bulb ban *is* a good thing, as it only troubles the maker of the EasyBake stove ...
Places around my house where I don't use CFL bulbs:
- Inside my kitchen stove (gas): Too hot
- Inside my fridge and freezer: Too cold
- In the motion sensor controlled security lights outside the house: Too cold in winter to provide enough light quickly
- In my photographic darkroom: They give off enough light to fog film for 3-5 minutes after you switch them off due to residual glow from the phosphor
- In various task lamps that right now use 12 Volt halogen bulbs: Not available in that size or brightness
- In dimmer equipped fixtures: even the "dimmable" CFL's don't work as promised; lifespan of less than a dozen hours in some cases, audible buzzing, non-smooth dimming and unequal brightness in multi-bulb fixtures
- In my workshop: they have a strobe effect which sometimes makes things like spinning saw blades and grinder wheels seem stationary or slow moving when in fact they are not. Very unsafe!
Please just tax them lots to discourage use where they are not needed but don't ban them outright. All lighting methods are not yet equal in ways that do matter
Not to mention that they are not inherently worse either. USAGE of the bulb determines how wasteful they are over type. I have seen way to many people get the cfl bulbs only to leave them on all the time.
Agreed
I see misplaced animositiy towards CFLs though from certain conservative quarters as if saving electricity is a sin or something. Most anti CFL people seem to be anti AGW theory too.
All I know is that I replaced all my general lighting incadescents with CFLs and cut my electric bills by 10% this summer. So I like them!
cfl's are great 'only' if your one of those people committed to cutting your light usage as well. i have seen to many people in my area just replace normal light bulbs with them but leave the new ones on all the time thinking that no matter how much you use them they will still always be better then the wast full incondesents.
this is true though. You seem to be confused, the CFL may cost 1-2 $/bulb, but will last 10x longer and with 1/3rd the energy requirement, therefore so long as regular lightbulbs do not cost less than 1/30 the cost of a CFL, you win with a purchase of a CFL (in monitary terms) regardless of the use.
If you are worried about heating, insulate your home. Best investment you can make.
Uh, no.
Let's take a 30W CFL against a 100W incandescent. Assume the CFL lasts 2 years @ $4, and the incan lasts 3 months @ $1, with electricity going for $0.10/kWh.
Assuming you use the light for 8 hours a day - ~3000/yr - the CFL will cost $11/yr ($9 in electricity + $2 in replacement), vs. $34 for the incan ($30 in electricity + $4 in replacement). So the CFL is a huge win in normal use.
However, if you did the silly "keep the light on all the time" thing for a light that was rarely used before, you could certainly end up spending more. If the light was normally used only 2 hours/day, the incan would be $12/yr, whereas the CFL - used 24 hours/day - would be $29/yr.
So usage matters; indeed, usage is practically all that matters - you can see here how little the purchase price of the bulbs matters compared to the electricity costs.
Won't they have to be ethanol-filled space heaters?
/sarcanol
Hi SCT,
Just a note, since I didn't see an address for you. You asked a question on Nov. 27, and I just offered a reply this evening (Dec. 2). (I say this because I took it as a sincere question, and I had some thoughts.) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3293#comment-272124
Well, I see a couple of different perspectives, so a quick overview.
Things are 'banned' all the time in the Europe - and Europeans know any number of ways how to get around the bans. For example, when Telekom in Germany used to license everything hooked up to their phone network, only Telekom approved answering machines or wireless phones could be purchased - unless the unit you bought was for 'export only.' Another way around a ban is all the exceptions which will be written into the law.
However, as for banning incandescent bulbs - their efficiency is poor, and whether this meets either doomer or cornucopian approval, efficiency is going to be a major aspect of how we will be dealing with things for the next several decades. Whether this efficiency will be enlightened (LEDs replacing CF replacing incandescent, etc. - with LEDs being very practical to use in a PV framework) or brutal (the person with a woodburning stove that burns less wood will freeze more slowly than someone with an open fireplace) is a separate issue.
As for using electricity for heating - well, it has its place in terms of using baseload in a practical manner. Generally, electric heating done ovrnight is fairly cost effective, unless you guess wrong about the next day's weather - the German systems I'm most familiar with simply store the heat in bricks. Newer systems use floor heating, but I don't think they are as efficient in baseload terms.
But there is a strange aspect in terms of incandescents - they are part of your heating, the same way a refrigerator is. Essentially, a kilowatt powering the lights is a kilowatt of heat.
This is why efficiency and conservation have to be very carefully considered. More efficient lighting may lead to higher heating requirements, which actually may mean that the efficiency increase is improved, as burning natural gas directly for heat is much more efficient than burning it for generating electricity. (During the first energy crisis, Fairfax County opened its new administration building - which was designed to have the lights on 24 hours a day, as part of its heating system. Obviously, this was seen as remarkably wasteful at the time, but actually, it wasn't that bad - not counting summer, of course - except that having a 10 story building lit up continuously seemed a beacon of wastefulness when conservation was considered necessary.)
But whether such an increase in efficiency can actually be called conservation is another matter - after all, natural gas is still being burned. But using LEDs with a PV/battery system, and adding home insulation, may lead to a reduction in both terms of electricity use and in terms of natural gas use - but in this case, the efficiency of LEDs and home insulation have nothing to do with one another at all. Except for allowing people to live comfortably within a framework which is at least potentially sustainable.
The EU, whose citizens in general have more faith in communal solutions to communal problems, is attempting to change things through regulation, without waiting for people to decide it is their self-interest to do so, or for various industries to approve their profits being reduced or eliminated. And the EU, being run by people, will make its share of human mistakes, which is accepted here. America is different. There, it seems, only government mistakes are considered true mistakes.
As a sidenote - 10 years ago, according to a radio report, the most commonly shoplifted item in Germany was CF bulbs. Which actually makes sense - at the time, not only did they cost a lot, but stealing them would lead to fairly substantial long term savings for the thief. I always imagined that most of the thiefs were grandparents, widows, pensioners, etc.
Some very good points, Expat (as usual)
Here in Portland, we've had, for December 1, an exceptionally cold (20f), Windy and Sunny day, where my house could have been entirely Heated by any of a number of Solar Heating options, like these Solar Hot Air Panels that are under construction in the basement.. as well as a good amount of Windpower, which certainly could have just been directly wired to Incandescents inside, producing both heat and light without the losses of batteries and related circuitry. Even the food we are cooking on our electric range is using the heat twice during this season, making the stove a good bit more economical in wintertime.
Of course, the use of Electric Lighting AT ALL during a bright sunny day is a bit of legacy foolishness that I also aim to dismantle with a system that starts with a Tracked-Mirror atop each of my Three Disused ChimneyShafts, providing a constant beam of nearly full sunlight down through the entire depth of the 3story, 3-Apartment building, wherein each floor can 'dip' a mirror into a designated pie-slice of that light, to be directed into the room along the ceiling to where-ever it is needed, diffused, split, filtered, lensed or reflected into useful forms..
I'm not all that impressed by the light that comes from these solar 'light-tubes' that I see installed here and there. As a Lighting Cameraman, I can safely say that diffusing your light source too early in its path will cost you a LOT of lightcandles down the line, and the Light tubes are often difuse both at the roof as well as at the outlet.. (Don't even talk to me about rediffusing difuse sources, you get bupkiss out the back end!) Tracking a mirror barely takes any energy, and the complexity is pretty low. Like most Alt-energy, just takes initial investment and design-time.. climbing on my roof is gravy. It's as close to an extreme sport as I've got.
http://www.redrok.com/electron.htm#led3x
Bob Fiske
(oops.. sun is down! Gotta get the insulated shades pulled)
What I especially love: Go into any office, and under the desks of many (most?) of the female clerical workers you will find little electric heaters, heating the air that the air conditioners have cooled. . . because the heaters have heated it. . . because the a/c has cooled it. . . because the heaters have heated it . . . because the a/c has cooled it. . . etc.
An endless feedback loop. Kunstler could have a LOT of fun writing about that one.
I don't know. There's talk about strongly encouraging not using filament bulbs by voluntarily not stocking them, eg,
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2007/story/0,,2178187,00.html
but that's not an actual ban and I haven't really heard much about it in the media. (Mind you, I tend to tune it out energy efficiency from bulbs because whether a given illumination bulb dissipates 100W or 9W makes little difference if it's not switched on.)
Alan - since you are talking about LEDs, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a ban on the really bright ones that "trick my ride" types like to put into their car headlights.
LED headlights are great, but too-bright ones are a danger to other drivers, and by a certain time in 08 British police may start writing tickets, perhaps expensive ones, for using them in your car.
I don't think you have to worry about Brit DOT regulations keeping you from buying bright white LEDs.
It's a ban on incandesent light bulbs and at the lattitude and climate of the UK it is totally bizarre, since we mostly need HEAT as well when we need artificial light.
In the non-FF future we will need our energy from alternate sources (wind, wave, solar PV etc) and these mostly create electricity - so we will need to heat from electricity as well.
A very simple, easy to recycle, low cost, non poluting device for heating with electricity, that anybody can service if it fails, is the incandesent lamp - and you get the light for free!
The stuff we will be forced to buy are typically 5 to 10 times the price, complex, difficult to recycle and contain heavy metals such as mercury, and to cap it all, most current designs don't give adequate light since they are not a point source.
Xeroid - better words were never spoken.
A person can make Edison bulbs in a garage workshop. They can be made to last a LONG time too.
In the early days of radio some were blowing their own tubes.
But the new solutions all seem to be complicated, take tons of high-tech machinery and computing power, exotic materials, etc.
My solution lately has been to acquire a used bicycle (and fished another out of a dumpster for parts) and get a small motorbike that gets better mileage than my Prius did.
There's something about our culture that's really attracted to complex, techie, solutions to really simple problems.
Well said. My Prius is a gas guzzler. I ride my bike everywhere despite the strange looks. I'm 44. I substitute one trip a day going by bike.
Today I saw only the second bike at the gym I can remember.
It's so sad.
On a funny note, the Personal Trainer at the gym just bought this huge hummer (redundant) to drive 3 or 4 miles to the gym. It's only 5 miles from one side to the other, but I'll give her a break. It's California weather and the town is completely flat.
It's really sad when you think about it.
Aaargh,#$%@*&!!!, This is a perfect example of the the kind of (take your pick) arrogant ostentation or clueless ignorance that is so prevalent among the citizens of this me, me, me society. I no longer have the link but someone once sent me a series of photos titled "Only in America" one of them happened to be of a gym somewhere in LA with two escalators going up on either side of the stairs to the front entrance. Of course there was no one on the stairs and both escalators had people on them with their gym bags!!!??? BTW I'm 54 years old and actually am able to speed walk 3 miles in about 40 minutes if I run I can do it in a little over 30 mins. you can estimate my 5 mile speed. Ok, I have a girl friend who is in training for a half marathon and she regularly runs 5ks (3 miles) and I often accompany her during training. We also do 15 mile bike rides. There is absolutely no excuse for someone to buy and drive a Hummer for trips to the gym or anywhere else for that matter unless, they have their cephalus inserted really far up their anus.
During the non heating season, the incandescent bulb wastes energy, when you add in the source multiplier for the electrical generation, CFL's or better yet, LED's make a lot of sense.
Just as the common refrigerator
does. ;)
How does the fridge do on the
energy generation calculation ?
Refrigerators have come a long way recently on energy efficiency, thus they generate a lot less heat. I contend that with much more efficient household appliances and lighting we will have to rethink our heating degree day formula of the average daily temperature from 65 degrees F. When doing energy calculations for my own house I use 68 F as the working number because of cfl's and energy star appliances.
fridges are probably #1 or 2 on the electricity requirements for a house. #1 is typically the sum of all powered off devices, and #2 is the fridge or drier depending on the month.
We recently bought a new A+ energy rated fridge freezer. It has a problem: the fridge door occasionally swings ajar.
I discovered this when I came to get out the butter one day which is close to the fridge lights (2x15W). it was melted!
THe fridge door had come open a little and the lights had come on. The 15W lights and the door being open overcame the fridges cooling ability and spoiled the food.
This all got me thinking: Why sell an A+ rated fridge with incandescent lights in it? Whenever they are on they pour heat into the fridge which then has to be extracted at further energy cost.
I unscrewed the bulbs and even when the door occasionally slips ajar, the butter stays cold.
I recommend this treatment of the fridge if you have adequate ambient light to see inside it.
Eventually it occurred to me to fit 2 low power LED spotlights into the mini screw cap fitting. They stick out from the fittings like Shrek's ears and illuminate the sides of the fridge in pleasingly cold-looking blueish light.
Unfortunately the plastic splash cover no longer fits so it has had to go into storage.
I have had plenty of problems with 240V LED lights burning out but I think the ones in the fridge will last a long time because a: lights not used much, b: low ambient temperature reduces the risk of thermal runaway and burnout of the diodes.
The other fridge defect (yes, I think incandescent light in a fridge are a defect) is the self-opening door. I think I might put a buzzer in parallel to the fridge lights so that there is an alarm when the lights come on. Might lean the whole device back a couple of degrees by chocking up the front on wood or something.
If any fridge designers / manufacturers are listening: LED lighting is the way to go in efficient fridges. Fairly obvious I would have thought!
Carbon - Coventry, UK
We routinely use wide masking tape to provide an extra level of insurance on keeping the freezer door of our refrigerator shut. We usually have our freezer section quite jam packed, so occasionally the door wants to top open a crack. The tape assures that this doesn't happen.
Resistive electric heating, whether it is from a baseboard heater, a bulb, or a refrigerator, is very inefficient.
It is far more efficient to run a heat pump or to burn the fuel directly to make heat.
At the lattitude of the UK, when we have the non-heating season the day length is long so we hardly need lighting at all as, when it is dark, we are mostly asleep.
Most of the energy we use in domestic situations is for heat.
The payback time on these expensive lamps and heat pumps is years and years. So, it's much better to spend the limited money available on better insulation, then much less energy for heating is required. It is far more efficient to not need to use fossil fuel at all.
We don't need to reduce electrical use, we need to reduce all fossil fuel use - oil, coal, and gas - this is the government's mistake, they wrongly think electricity is the total energy.
Payback on CFL's is 1 year IIRC.
You are correct with insulation however, it is the biggest saver.
Try "months and months".
The energy savings over the course of one year with a CFL vs. regular is around $30. At roughly $3 for a bulb, the payback time for compact fluorescent is only a month or two.
Heat pumps take longer, but based on this analysis, an air-source heat pump added to either an oil furnace or electrical resistance will take 2-7 years to pay back across a wide range of climatic conditions.
Often true, yes. Both is even better, though, and the economics seems fairly favourable.
True, but converting to electricity can be an effective way to do that, since electricity can be generated from non-fossil sources. That's especially valid in countries where most electricity is non-fossil-derived (e.g., Canada, France).
No, not necessarily.
If you still have to provide the heat that would have been provided by the old lamps than there is no saving in energy at all, so your costings are incorrect - in fact I would guarantee that more energy and exotic materials have been used in CFLs.
If you use a CFL then all you have done is bought a much more expensive and less usable and eventually more polluting way of producing light.
I do use CFLs - the government insists that energy companies give some away for free, there are loads available if you know where to look - but then I have insulated my house (with government financial help) have solar panels for hot water (with government financial help) and heat with gas, which at the moment is much cheaper than electricity - and constantly switch off lights where not required.
Sure...if the building's only source of heat is electrical resistive, and is never off when the lights are on, and is bolted to the ceiling. I'd wager the number of buildings that describes is approximately zero, though.
For a building with any non-resistive heating - whether oil/gas furnace or heat pump - then using light bulbs for heat is simply enormously inefficient in comparison.
For a building where the heat doesn't need to be on constantly - and that's almost every building for months and months, even in the UK - the extra heat from light bulbs is simply wasted.
Finally, heat rises, meaning heating up a small patch of air at the ceiling isn't going to do much to help the occupants of the room. There's a reason heating elements are virtually always low - it's more efficient in terms of how the room feels.
So for 99.9% of buildings, CFL will save substantial amounts of energy and money.
The problem is most people in the UK don't have enough money to insulate their properties properly because limited funds are available despite government grants.
Heat is heat at whatever height in the room it is inserted - the air in the room mixes.
We have got to heat our properties with electricty in the future as other alternatives won't be available - and electricity will likely be in short supply. We have to migrate from FF fast.
Energy reducing expenditure needs to be prioritised as the funds available are so limited - massive amounts of CFL isn't good prioritisation and for most people in the UK probably will not save money, even in the long term.
We hardly have any heat pumps in the UK and compared to adequate insulation their cost is massively more - if we have enough insulation we don't need the complexity of heat pumps at all! They will need replacing/servicing regularly, insulation won't.
In the UK in the summer months we don't need much of either artificial heat or light. We either need both or none.
A Philips SLS25 CFL produces 1,750 lumens of light, consumes 25-watts and has a rated service life of 15,000 hours. The equivalent 120-volt, 100-watt A19 soft white incandescent provides 1,620 lumens and has a service life of just 750 hours. Assuming each of these lamps achieves full maturity, our CFL would theoretically displace up to twenty incandescent lamps.
The SLS25 generally retails for about $5.00 and the cost of twenty 100-watt soft white incandescents would likely exceed this. Our reference CFL would consume 375 kWh over its normal life, whereas the accumulated total of our twenty incandescents would come in four times higher. In my case, the potential monetary savings are $120.00, provided electricity rates remain constant over the life of the lamp.
From a resource perspective, if one considers the amount of glass, tungsten, aluminium, lead and argon/krypton that would be consumed in the manufacture of twenty incandescent lamps, plus the related consumer packaging, shipping materials and transportation costs (both weight and volume), I wouldn't be surprised if our CFL comes out ahead. Given that the operating savings are in excess of 1,000 kWh, this alone should tell us energy life costs are substantially lower.
In the case of Nova Scotia Power, each kWh of electricity results in the release of 11.2 grams of SO2, 2.57 grams of NOx, 857 grams of CO2 and 0.023 mg of mercury. Over the course of its life, this CFL would potentially eliminate up to 12.6 kg of SO2, 2.9 kg of NOx, 964 kg of CO2 and 25.9 grams of mercury from the waste stream. [The amount of mercury released into the environment is almost ten times what is contained inside this CFL, and unlike the mercury within the CFL which can be recycled or securely disposed, the mercury emitted by coal fired plants indiscriminately pollutes our air, soil and water.] There are other savings related to the mining and transportation of about a half a tonne of thermal coal.
Lastly, if each kW of incremental demand costs our utility $2,000.00 or more in new plant and related T&D, each CFL could potentially reduce future capital expenditures by $150.00.
Cheers,
Paul
Hi Pitt,
The NRC analysis is valuable but, unfortunately, the numbers are four years out of date and as you appreciate, a lot has changed in the energy marketplace since then. I think it's safe to say heating oil costs in Canada have increased at a rate far beyond that of electricity. In the case of Nova Scotia, electricity is 28 per cent more expensive than in 2003 while, during this same timeframe, fuel oil costs have almost doubled.
In addition, the minimum HSPF of air source heat pumps has increased from 6.8 to 7.7 and these higher efficiency standards have helped to propel the entire industry forward (e.g., my new heat pump has a HSPF of 11).
Cheers,
Paul
With heating oil currently selling at $0.889 per litre, the pay back on my ductless heat pump is 3.5 years and if my home's thermal losses were higher, the pay back would be even shorter (i.e., higher heat demand would mean my heat pump would offset even more fuel oil).
Even here in Canada, a conventional air-source heat pump will provide two to three times more heat, per kWh, than a standard incandescent lamp. And if the heat generated from the operation of incandescent lamps reduces the run time of my heat pump, my heating costs go up, not down.
Cheers,
Paul
CNN is reporting that Turkey has entered Northern Iraq. The "target" is "Kurdish rebels."
And the kalxon's blare loudly. this is not a drill this is not a drill :P
If anyone thinks this will be contained in Iraq now imho should re-think there position.
Since Turkey is one of our NATO Allies does this mean that we will be sending troops into Norther Iraq to fight at their side? ... :)
That is a correct statement but its not at all funny. Not even a little bit.
OMG is it 1/20/2009 yet? We've hit peak stupidity in terms of foreign policy and I am quite tired of the undulating plateau.
SCT, you have proven beyond doubt that you have no sense of humor, congrats! If you cannot view the mess that this country has become without even a chuckly, then you must indeed be a gloomy-gus to be around. Too bad, laughter is the best medicine.
Right Ho River, and isn't black such a delicious colour?! But where oh where are the Lenny Bruces of yesteryear? ... Maybe in Iraq on burial duty and doing some graveyard shtick or other?
I'm reminded of Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22, taking on contracts to strafe the Allies from the Germans....
A society where everything is a commodity.....
I'm an Or fan there myself ... practising crash landings.
He's one of my heroes too!
He kept on hinting and Yossarian didn't get it.
Too bad!
Carbon - Coventry UK
And there is a certain logic in us bombing Iraq. After all, it is full of terrorists.
yes, how can one look at our country, see the leader of the free world wearing a bozo wig, surounded by a troupe of bozo syncophants, and fail to have a sense of humor
Let’s see ... from this link
Venezuela threatens to cut oil exports to U.S
Say Venezuela completely stopped to export to the US, what would then happen?
My take is this (simplistic version)
Obviously someone else would take that Venezuelan oil, thus “dominoing“ the US to bid for that lost oil elsewhere – and funny enough there would spontaneously be “freed up” exactly the same amount somewhere else .. the only direct and visual effect would be different and longer oil-tanker voyages and more expensive shipments … no?
I don't think it's quite that simple. Oil is not perfectly fungible. Hence the differing prices for Brent, Nymex, Tapis, etc. Infrastructure matters.
Not that I expect Chavez to actually do it. He's just talking.
I agree with you that Chavez is just having a breathing exercise, but as a hypothetical exercise I wondered if that isolated event would spawn any other kind of trouble … in itself - IMO there will be business as usual in some time...
The US still has their Strategic.Res. to mitigate(buy time) for the “new” supply patterns to take place, so to speak.
Obviously Venezuela is 111% dependent (still I guess) on American produced spare parts for its oil production … so.. the outcome from this hot-air is given!
Doesn't China have the demand?
Isn't China quickly ramping up the infrastructure (emphasis on labor)?
Haven't China and Venez met and made agreements?
just saying I wouldn't assume it's all talk.
P.s. Puplava at financialsence talks about China demand in the middle of 3rd hour. Also thought I heard a blip of Jason Bradford interviewing robert hersch.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
Ya, it does seem like China could take the oil and not give any other of it's imports up.
It is not China's choice. If China bids more for the oil, they can get all the oil they desire. Oil if fungible. Whoever has the money gets the oil. It is as simple as that.
It costs Russia very little to ship oil to china because China is one of its closest customers. It would cost Venezuela a whole lot more to ship oil to China because it is so far. The difference in shipping costs between Venezuela and the US verses Venezuela to China would be a lot. Oil from Venezuela to China would have to go all the way around the horn. Why would China pay Venezuela more when it would pay Russia?
Oil is fungible people. If China wishes to absorbe all Venezuela's oil without giving up any of its other imports, that will cost China dearly, not to mention the extra storage they would have to build. Now just why in the hell would China do that?
Ron Patterson
Ron: Yes, in 2007. Down the road, oil is not going to be as fungible. China will need all the oil both Russia and Venezeula can provide and IMO will likely contract to pay the spot price plus a premium for security of supply. The Chinese leadership are aware that oil at $90 is basically free and they appear to be steering the future growth of the Chinese economy with a goal towards economic domination (a stark contrast to the American elite).
Military tension heats up between US, China
A spat over China's denial of port calls to U.S. naval vessels has led the Pentagon to deploy an increasing number of large ships to transit the Taiwan Strait in some of the most sensitive waters in East Asia.
The Taiwan Strait, barely 100 miles wide at its narrowest, is a potential military flashpoint. Mainland China claims Taiwan as a renegade province, and says it has the right to seize control of the independently governed island with its military. It aims more than 900 short-range ballistic missiles across the Strait.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20071201/wl_mcclatchy/2770712_1
Haven't China and Venez met and made agreements?
China absorbs oil Venezuela ceases to sell to the US
Energy relations between Venezuela and China have been flourishing. Despite the distance between the two countries, the need to go through the Panama Canal to take oil tankers from Venezuela to China, and the lack of refineries suitable to process heavy, high-sulfur content crude oil from Venezuela, the Venezuelan state-run oil firm Pdvsa sold China an unprecedented amount of 359,000 bpd in September.
http://www.eluniversal.com/2007/10/22/en_eco_art_china-absorbs-oil-ve_22...
Thanks for those Cid.
Glad to see you sill posting.
Maybe he's been trying to "just stay alive" for the past decade. He's certainly not just talking. And he's been here before.
Seeing what happens in Iraq for oil, how many people get killed for it, he knows just what to expect in Venezuela. Invasion.
does diebold (diablo'd) sell voting machines to hugo ?
maybe that is the source of the sulphur smell.
I seem to remember reading that Hugo has a financial interest in a US voting machine company.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18792.htm
How is this to be done?
In the memo, the CIA proposes the following tactics and actions:
* Take the streets and protest with violent, disruptive actions across the nation
* Generate a climate of ungovernability
* Provoke a general uprising in a substantial part of the population
* Engage in a "plan to implode" the voting centers on election day by encouraging opposition voters to "VOTE and REMAIN" in their centers to agitate others
* Start to release data during the early hours of the afternoon on Sunday that favor the NO vote (in clear violation of election regulations)
* Coordinate these activities with Ravell & Globovision and international press agencies
* Coordinate with ex-militar officers and coupsters Pena Esclusa and Guyon Cellis - this will be done by the Military Attache for Defense and Army at the US Embassy in Caracas, Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO)
To encourage rejection of the results, the CIA proposes:
* Creating an acceptance in the public opinion that the NO vote will win for sure
* Using polling companies contracted by the CIA
* Criticize and discredit the National Elections Council
* Generate a sensation of fraud
* Use a team of experts from the universities that will talk about how the data from the Electoral Registry has been manipulated and will build distrust in the voting system
The CIA memo also talks about:
* Isolating Chavez in the international community
* Trying to achieve unity amongst the opposition
* Seek an aliance between those abstentionists and those who will vote "NO"
* Sustain firmly the propaganda against Chavez
* Execute military actions to support the opposition mobilizations and propagandistic occupations
* Finalize the operative preparations on the US military bases in Curacao and Colombia to provide support to actions in Venezuela
* Control a part of the country during the next 72-120 hours
* Encourage a military rebellion inside the National Guard forces and other components
Those involved in these actions as detailed in the CIA memo are:
* The CIA Office in Venezuela - Office of Regional Affairs, and Officer Michael Steere
* US Embassy in Venezuela, Ambassador Patrick Duddy
* Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO) at the US Embassy in Caracas and Military Attache Richard Nazario
Venezuelan Political Parties:
* Comando Nacional de la Resistencia
* Accion Democratica
* Primero Justicia
* Bandera Roja
Media:
* Alberto Federico Ravell & Globovision
* Interamerican Press Society (IAPA) or SIP in Spanish
* International Press Agencies
man what a wizard’s brew, sounds like some 14 year old playing king in the attic ;-)
I’m not buying this ¤##£??)& , although these ways would definitely promote the ideas of democracy – which is held so dear by both CIA and the Bush
this is what the cia has been doing for years down south.
Castro warns of US assasination attempt against Chavez
Cuban leader Fidel Castro has accused the US of fuelling internal conflicts in Venezuelan and again warned of the risk of an assassination attempt against that country's leftist president, Hugo Chavez.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/151371.html
Either vote is wrong -- just like in U.S.
When presented with false choices and a corrupt voting system, there can be no democracy. Some would say that was intended. Most likely just further working of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" -- Everything human is painted the color of greed.
It's what you get in a society where everything is a commodity. Everything.
US CIA plot to disrupt political process in Venezuela exposed
On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday (December 2, 2007).
The ultimate objective of ‘Operation Pincer’ is to seize a territorial or institutional base with the ‘massive support’ of the defeated electoral minority within three or four days (before or after the elections – is not clear. JP) backed by an uprising by oppositionist military officers principally in the National Guard. The Embassy operative concede that the military plotters have run into serous problems as key intelligence operatives were detected, stores of arms were decommissioned and several plotters are under tight surveillance.
Apart from the deep involvement of the US, the primary organization of the Venezuelan business elite (FEDECAMARAS), as well as all the major private television, radio and newspaper outlets have been engaged in a vicious fear and intimidation campaign. Food producers, wholesale and retail distributors have created artificial shortages of basic food items and have provoked large scale capital flight to sow chaos in the hopes of reaping a ‘no’ vote.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-113007114138.htm
Not a single drop of oil for the United States - Chavez
Chavez told supports at a rally that the state oil company will halt sales to the United States on Monday if Washington interferes with the vote.
"There will not be a single drop of oil for the United States," Chavez told hundreds of thousands of cheering supporters in downtown Caracas. "And if they want to come and take our oil they will face 100 years of war in Venezuela."
"Whoever votes 'Yes' is voting for Chavez, and whoever votes 'No' is voting for George W. Bush, president of the United States," he said.
The Venezuelan leader also said he had ordered the military to protect oil fields and refineries in case of political violence.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-12/01/content_6292193.htm
I think the chance of the vote NOT being interfered with is ZERO. Perhaps Chavez has been looking for an excuse and oil exports to the US will end on Monday. He doesn't like taking US Dollars for his oil anyway. He would rather get Yuan.
now Yuan is still pegged with $ and US is trying to break that peg - give Hugo more reason to go for the Yuan...
hugo apparently gets the same political mileage from the us as bushy gets from iran.
Lenan are you saying that Venezuela oil is very sour (or heavy) so nobody else can refine it, but the US? My understanding always was the less sour oil can always be used in place of sour oil, no (same with heavy)?
From the US's point of view, Venezuela's oil is very fungible. Since it is mostly heavy sour, it can be replaced with oil from most anywhere. I mean it is much easier to refine lighter sweeter oil than most of what comes from Venezuela. Because most anyone can refine the light sweet stuff, but few can refine the heavy stuff, it means that the heavy sour stuff can be easiely replaced.
The US can replace Venezuela's oil with oif from just about anywhere. It would be a useless jesture for Venezuela to refuse to sell the US oil.
Ron Patterson
No, that's not what I meant. I meant that getting the oil from where it's produced to where it's used can be a bottleneck. That's why there are shortages in the midwest, but not in northeast, where gas is actually cheaper now than in the midwest - the reverse of the historical situation. That's why crude oil has gotten so expensive in Asia, compared to the US.
Yeah, I think this is just rhetoric to boost oil prices.
Maybe Hugo has a bet with Robert Rapier? :P
Reports of the genocide of Christians in Iraq by Muslim fanatics has continued. By one estimate 70-80% of Christians in Iraq have been killed or forced into exile since the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.
Genocide of Christians in Iraq
This may sound calious but turns about fare play imho considering what certain sects of christens and jews have been doing to plaistinains for years. not to mention the recent incident of them saying they support democracy but when the people speak and elect the leaders they want they decide to cut off all ties because the election did not elect who they wanted.
You might want to look at who has been oppressing whom (impovershing, humiliating, threatening and often killing) across Arabia and the former Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years with the full sanction of religious law. I'll give you a hint: the oppressors are now the overwhelming majority in the region and in almost every nation in the area, with a couple of prominent (and precarious) exceptions.
AND i don't care because both groups have done equally bad stuff to each other through the centurys. your just focusing on the short term.
Now let me think Engineer-Poet,... Hmmm.... my first guess would be the world corporations, but they haven't been around that long. 2nd guess, the USA but those guys are the friends of Arabia and their Nato buddies the Turks, therefore it can only be the English, they have been screwing that area for centuries, the naughty little bastards.
The English WERE the world corporations. Their joint-stock corporations were the first wave of imperial conquest in America, India, China and Africa. In the Middle East, they were called British Petroleum. That's why you can't educate Americans on the crimes of Britain; as their ideological heirs, we are religiously incapable of ascribing monstrous crimes to entrepreneurs as opposed to governments.
I agree but would further define World-Corp in that it, while world wide, owes no allegiance to any country, it wraps itself in all flags. The British Cooperations were world wide monsters but they did owe allegiance to Britain, I see little of that in modern American corporations or other present day international corporations.
Of course, the ancient Middle Eastern Christians never benefitted from Constantine making Christianity the enforced state religion of the Roman Empire. Have you ever considered the possibility that the disastrous failure of Christian Rome left a mess so big that many of the victims around the Mediterranean WANTED to convert to a militant faith that promised to take action to restore civilization? The Moslems in Egypt, Iraq and other places are the descendants of pagans and Christians.
Islam restored civilization and learning in only a generation. Hardly seems likely if everyone was simply coerced by religious tyranny. The great destroyers of the knowledge of the ancient world weren't Moslems or pagans but the Christian mobs during Rome's decline.
According to War Nerd over at Exile.ru, the last big ethnic cleansing committed by Turks was not by the Islamic caliph, but by the violently secular republic against ethnic Greek Christians in western Turkey in the early 1920s. The same republic that we Americans embraced as a military dictatorship in NATO, and as an Uncle Tom example of how all Moslems must whiten themselves to our infallible standards, until the economy fell apart and the current Islamist party restored genuine freedom for ordinary Moslems.
That is incredibly bad, first that it happened, and second that its being reported. Attacks on believers from the master religion wind up "the base" of the Republican party ... that might be a fact, but its a warmongering one :-(
Am I the only one that finds it funny that George Bush has "the base" and Ossama bin Ladin has "al Queda" - "the base" in Arabic?
The link did not work for me. Assyrian Orthodox Christians?
try this:
http://forums.sulekha.com/forums/coffeehouse/Back-to-genocide-of-Christi...
Excellent link.
The story gets no play because it interferes with
the "good news" about the happy peaceful Kurdish
North.
It would be interesting to know the ratio of suffering Christians to suffering Muslims in Iraq. Perhaps if we knew that ratio we could view the 'Genocide of Christians in Iraq' in proper perspective.
Please do not think that the Christians of Iraq are any different to other Iraqis. They are in trouble because the "Decider" wanted to have a "Crusade".
Few Americans seem to really understand that Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion. Europeans during the Middle Ages had a similar difficulty and hence the multiple crusades.
Jesus was a "raghead" - just like those so belittled by US media and military.
To truly understand the depth of depravity and hypocracy of the USA when it comes to their attitude towards Christians of the Middle East, read the following article by Robert Fisk Holocaust denial in the White House
Anyone reading this article would understand that the Christians of the Middle East are held in very low esteem by the ruling class of the USA - Republicans and Democrats alike.
Your points are valid. Infact, many of the Bible-thumpers I know, believe Jesus had the typical features of a Norseman.
But, I'm sorry to say that I've concluded that to try and argue rationally on these grounds is utterly futile.
I think Nate Hagen's posts are so important because they show how most human arguments are a sublimation of baser desires, which are abetted by the MSM, who are at least nominally human.
The Indian Advaita mystics wrote about all actions and thoughts as being entirely conditioned and the most consciousness can hope to do is simply to cease to identify with the animal it is “riding”.
A few years ago, the Discovery Channel and the BBC collaborated on a documentary about what Jesus looked like. It was speculative, but based on science. They assumed that Jesus must have looked like an average man of the time and place, or there would have been no need for Judas to point him out by kissing him. He could have just said, "He's the tall, blond, long-haired freak."
So they took an "average" skull from the time and place, and created a forensic likeness. Then they aged the face as you would expect for an area with harsh sun, and gave him the typical hair cut and facial hair shown in art of the time. (Male Jews did not have long hair back then, but they did have short beards.)
It came out like this:
It didn't go over well with some. One woman wrote in to the paper complaining, "He looks like a terrorist!"
I forget who said; "The Bible tells us we were created in God's image, but in reality we create God in "our" own image."
Joseph Campbell, perahps?
I would have to dig through my old art history books to verify it, but from what I remember, as the Renaissance moved from the Mediterranean to the Nordic regions, the depiction of Jesus gradually went from dark hair and dark eyes to blond hair and blue eyes.
He was a terrorist. The Romans were appalled by his advocacy for (slightly modified) Jewish monotheism. And against Roman hegemony.
Don't mis-use words - there are many types of anti-establishment troublemakers that are not terrorists.
Yet they end up in Guantanamo anyway.
If only those who advocate the war on terror would take your advice...
If Remsburg and his successors aren't refuted then I think it's perfectly reasonable for Christians to say Jesus had blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect teeth, and spotless white robes.
I mean, why not? There's no sense arguing with faith. I personally prefer to think of Jesus carrying around a surfboard. Why not?
Ha!
He looks like Saddam Hussein al Tikriti!
Don't forget that many Palestinians are Christians, and have suffered along with Moslems. America has covered up how Arab socialists like the PLO and Baath were the champions not only of women's rights but of secular cooperation between the two faiths against white Judeo-Christian invasions. It was America that connived with the Saud dynasty and Pakistani generals to ordain right-wing Islamic extremism over secular socialism as the sole acceptable form of dissent. And Israeli intelligence helped create Hamas to weaken the PLO.
It's almost as if our leaders wanted Arab leftists and Christians eradicated so that they wouldn't complicate the story of a clash of religions and civilizations.
Oddly true. For example, Saddam Hussein's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, is Roman Catholic.
There's a much simpler explanation, which is simply "blowback". The dangerous, unstable elements that were armed and supported to weaken an adversary have not stopped being dangerous and unstable, so now they threaten us.
EIA energy conference April 7/8 2008 in DC
Commemorating "30 years of energy information and ?analysis?"
One session of note to TODers is "Has the World's Oil Production Peaked?"
Daniel Yergin, James R. Schlesinger, and Phil Sharp (Resources for the Future) are listed as speakers, perhaps for this session.
I've found past meetings very useful to attend (of course PDFs are available beforehand), one memorable a couple of yrs ago being PFC Consultants dropping bombshell into the "mainstream" crowd that their expensive review of databases showed non-OPEC flow peaking by 2012. Even Micheal Lynch at that meeting made note. I looked around the very crowded large room at poker faces (no doubt wheels spinning on how to make a quick $).
I encourage TODers to attend, the meeting is open and free (just tell them you're coming so that they can lay on the refreshments), and there are inexpensive eateries nearby. For the first time, the meeting has been extended to 2 days. No detailed program yet.
I would hope that several TODers attend and gives us a blow by blow description of all the speeches and reaction to them. Also during the intermission you could buttonhole the notables and get input from them as well.
The session on "Has the World's Oil Production Peaked" should be very interesting. Will Yergin have an opinion here?
Sure wish I could make it. If I lived within 200 miles of DC I would definitely be there.
Ron Patterson
RE: Are We Heading For Hyperinflation Or Deflation? - At A Philosophical Crossroads...
Why is it that supposedly intelligent, highly educated people, cannot understand what anyone with street smarts can understand? This writer (Brian Bloom) goes so far as to point out in (point 3) 'That our behavorial predisposition towards 'fight or flight' and/or 'power over others' has remained fairly constant (over thousands of years). Then Mr. Bloom suggests that Australians and Americans might suddenly have an epiphany and become fed up with their own treatment of the collective poor of the world and that the well off might voluntairly modify their behavior to the benifit of the poor. Into the bargin Mr. Bloom suggests that gold might be some sort of catalyst for the modification of behavior of the well off. Human nature is what it is...If you want to modify human nature, Mr. Bloom, get out the carrots and sticks for a short term success. Meanwhile, human nature is what it is...Why is that so difficult to understand?
'The immediate issue, in this analyst's mind, is not whether we will see the economy exploding or imploding. It is whether humanity has the wisdom to understand that we are facing an opportunity for an evolutionary leap forward (if we choose the correct path), or extinction (if we choose the incorrect path). I happen to believe we are going to choose the correct path, because the visibility of that path is rapidly emerging.'
"...we are facing an opportunity for an evolutionary leap forward ..."
Evolution? Opportunity? Nature works by killing losers faster than it kills winners. That's the modern evolutionary synthesis.
Iraqi Oil Minister says only Saudi Arabia can increase oil production.
Ron Patterson
Responses to the Rod Dreher article:
Saturday letters: Reaching peak oil supply
The second letter takes on EROEI.
Bloomberg has released 'Update 4' of the continuing saga of Floridas State Fund freeze. The natives are getting restless...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aIyP6ttQFUNw&refer=home
'The Jefferson County school district was forced to take out a short-term loan to cover payroll for the 220 teachers and other employees in the system after $2.7 million it held in the pool was frozen yesterday. At least five other districts also obtained last-minute loans, said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association.'...snip...
'``I should have seen the handwriting on the wall,'' Wilson said. ``But I didn't want to start a run on the pool.''...snip...
'Wilson at Jefferson County said he plans to withdraw the school district's money from the pool as soon as he can, and won't consider investing there again.
``They won't have to worry about little Jefferson County any more,'' Wilson said.'...snip...
'Rejected Option
The newly formed advisory panel rejected a State Board Administration proposal for a survey of affected agencies to learn whether they would accept as little as 90 cents on the dollar.
``The very fact that you're out here talking to us about taking less than 100 percent is in my mind unacceptable,'' said MaryEllen Elia, superintendent of Hillsborough County Public Schools. The county has $573 million frozen in the pool, more than any other school district. ``You need to figure out how to make the taxpayers in Florida whole.''
The Florida board's trustees, Governor Charlie Crist, state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum, will meet Dec. 4 to consider the crisis.'...snip...
What a mess, and we are about to watch it slowly unfold like this all over the country. All of our pension funds and retirement funds etc were funding the building of The Alan's financial WMD.
The Alan said it was necessary to "diffuse the risk" and this is the end result: oridinary People mumbling something stupid like,``You need to figure out how to make the taxpayers in (XYZ) whole.'' "
Mother is pulling Her Teet away and the complacent titbabies are starting to notice... Oh boy...
http://www.peakoilblues.com/blog/
Hello TODers,
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/business/story.html?id=5...
--------------------------
Potash price rises 44 per cent in Asia
Fertilizer prices in Asia spiked considerably in October, with Saskatchewan potash producers in particular seeing the benefits.
-------------------------
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a4HXNNyCy8bw&refer=c...
----------------------------------
Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. rose to the highest in at least 18 years in Toronto Stock Exchange trading after an analyst's report ignited takeover speculation.
-------------------------
Speculation ahead!
If I was General Motors or Ford considering Peak Everything: they could possibly still exist for some lengthy postPeak period by making RR equipment, bicycles and wheelbarrows, SpiderWebRiding equipment, and juicing their profits by a takeover of POT, or other biosolar mission-critical companies. Recall my earlier posting where I think FF/NPK latencies will make NPK-prices rise faster than FF-prices.
Of course, a wealthy FF-exporter like KSA, which is highly dependent upon food imports and desalination, may want to financially takeover POT. Probably can be easily done with cooperation among the Saudi Princes and KSA's Sovereign Investment Fund.
Since the Saudi Princes are probably the least likely people on the planet to want to personally practice humanure recycling and relocalized gardening: if they takeover POT--then they can combo offer [fuel and NPK] to farmers and gardeners only to grow food and clothing fibers-- this would quickly kill the manufacture of all the other useless junk in our global society.
IMO, this makes more postPeak financial sense than the recent huge investment in CitiBank.
Another example: If China takes over POT in a 'hen & eggs' strategy--this could greatly help insulate them from further NPK-price increases. They currently are at the mercy of the two controlling fertilizer consortiums, Canpotex and Uralkali, who probably are more powerful than OPEC.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Dag Nabbit, Bob! What in tarnation do I's be needin' pootast for longaz I cans get some gazzoline for my pickemup? Ya jest gotsta git yo mine on the mportan stuff, Bob...Ya unnerstan? Gazz is whirr itz at an ifin I's be byin pootast I jizz canafort no gazz...an some grozeriezs to...
Hello River!
LOL! Good job of expressing the typical detritovore mindset. I think it is only a matter of postPeak time before people realize that enjoying nightly Olduvai darkness in exchange for continued access to food is preferable to machete' moshpits everywhere.
Many houses in my Asphalt Wonderland are now burning exterior Christmas lights in delusional support of consumptive shopping sprees. I don't think the asphalt, concrete, winter lawns, parked vehicles, and wandering bugs and cats are impressed by these 'bonfires of the vanities'.
Hi Bob, funny post! I especially like 'burning exterior Christmas lights in delusional support of consumptive shopping sprees.' FOMALOL!
Its Dec. 1, and already in the 80s and will probably reach mid 80s here today. The morons that run the large, upscale chain stores here stock the same clothes that are stocked at their outlets in NY, NJ, Conn, etc...The people that do the ordering probably all live in Manhattan. Locals and tourists here are looking for shorts and Ts and instead they find the racks full of wool suits and overcoats...Meanwhile the CEOs make excuses about lower YOY same store sales in climates that are warming noticably. HOHOHO.
Hello River,
I wonder if postPeak NPK-awareness is growing fast worldwide:
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/11/30/afx4390821.html
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Moscow shares rose in afternoon trade on the back of Asia's commodities-fuelled rally this morning, with Uralkali shares surging on rising potash-fertilizer prices.
Uralkali soared 0.649 usd, or 15.45 pct, at 4.85 on the RTS today, as investors bought into the potash-fertilizer producer in expectation of higher prices going forward.
JP Morgan earlier this week forecast that potash prices would rise by 150-160 usd per tonne to 415-425 usd when China negotiates its 2008 annual purchase price later this year.
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If I was a wealthy insider in Putin's circle, and if I knew that Russia's FFs were soon headed into precipitious decline--I would certainly be doing my best Richard Rainwater imitation by buying a farm, stocking it up with biosolar goods, and buying Uralkali 'hen and eggs' for a future guaranteed supply of NPK.
That is a pretty strong % rise in Uralkali stock, especially when you consider that the Russian ruble is rising too.
http://www.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2007/11/12/daily18.html
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Spire Corp., a Bedford-based maker of photovoltaic manufacturing products, reports it has landed a multimillion dollar contract from Russian solar products maker Ryazan Metal Ceramics Instrumentation Plant Joint Stock Co. for a 12 megawatt module manufacturing line.
The agreement calls for Spire to provide Ryazan with a semi-automated module manufacturing line capable of producing up to 12 megawatts of solar cell modules per year.
With the installation, Ryazan, which produces approximately one megawatt of mono-crystalline solar cells using Spire's equipment, is expected to become the largest module manufacturer in Russia, according to company officials.
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Evidently, some Russians think there is more money to be made in manufacturing PV-panels than investing the same sums in FF-exploration.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
If I'm going to invest in a car for the near term, do I get the hybrid and hope my electricity stays on and gas supply continues to run smoothly, or do I get the deisel car with higher fuel ecenomy with relative assurance that Big Transportation will stay intact longer?
Get a diesel which can run on various plant based oils and get 30% better fuel economy over the comparable gas engined vehicle. And the engines last 50 to 100% longer than a gasoline engine. Only drawback is diesel costs 10% to 15% more.
Friend of mine that owns an oil company (sells gas & diesel at 15 gas stations/truck stops) converted all his small diesel power cars and light trucks to run on bio diesel that his co. makes from restaurant grease. Near term trend is for diesels, maybe long term trend is for plug in hybrid with diesel engine that gets 75mpg.
Born Yesterday, I dont believe that 'invest in a car' is the proper turn of phrase...People and institutions buy cars like any other durable goods. 'Invest' (to me) has the connotation that there might be a 'return on investment' involved. As we probably all know cars depreciate and rather quickly. Of course your usage of the car might be a return on investment, especially since there is little alternative to cars in many places. But, I do not believe that cars are investments. Maybe if one can deduct mileage and the auto is completely ammortized...but it still seems a reach. You might be better off to invest in a fruit jar and put it in a safe place for the near term...Till some of this mess settles down...though I am not offering investment advice...just a hunch. I feel sure that some trained economist on the board will prove me completely wrong. Well?
River
Sorry used the term wrong. I'm not looking for a return on my investment. Cars are a cash black hole. Right now, it's my only means to get to and from work in California.
"Right now, it's my only means to get to and from work in California."
Naturally you have it in mind to work on 'that' issue too, of course..
It begs the question so many will be asking.. do you find a new place near the job, or a new job near your place? Which do you expect to be at for longer?
Don't forget to carpool if you can.
I hear Hybrids keep their resale value.
There are also some online groups devoted to absolutely Maximizing their mpgs, if you find you are still going to be using gas.
Bob Fiske
I've been wrangling with the new job or new location issue. I could keep my current underpaid nursing job and move closer to it or change to a better paying job which would be farther than I travel now. Then there's the type of house to get into, the schools for my kids, the preparation. The population in the Inland Empire of Southern California is super dense. I feel like a sitting duck.
Stephanie
Sounds like a good career choice for stability, if not for pay.
"When I first came to this land,
I was not a wealthy man,
So I built myself a shack,
And I did what I could.
And I called my shack, break my back,
Oh, the land was sweet and good ,and I did what I could."
- Justin Schnurbush
Which is to say, I hope you find some land with some fat on it..
My wife has a very good friend who is, I think an NP working around Barstow right now, but she's moving her emphasis towards nutrition, focusing on Weston Price.
Good Luck!
Bob
I think the Inland Empire is pretty much unsustainable on water issues alone - I've seen Lake Mead in recent days - down 85' - 90' from its peak and it is shrinking irretrievably. That isn't something that'll bite the day after tomorrow, but it is coming and no power on earth can stop it.
I could have been doing something well paying in New Mexico ... but I smelled the dry, dry air, eyeballed the distance to my kids, and said "no way".
Last I heard, California regulations were none to friendly to personal diesel cars. May want to check into that before getting too far along in the decision process.
Your mileage my vary.
A standard corolla, civic, fit or yaris will get extraordinary mileage if driven conservatively. However, if you are in a urban environment, and sit at a lot of stoplights consider a hybrid. Also Consider a manual transmission.
Diesel is nice, but the quality of the Volkswagens have not been good lately (according to consumer reports).
I wanted a diesel, but ended up with a used corolla. I get about 35 to 50 mpg depending on conditions.
Also consider getting a scangauge II it really helped me optimize my morning commute.
http://www.scangauge.com/
Also try searching on hypermile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiler#Techniques_used_to_maximize_fuel...
Can you imagine what a plug-in hybrid would be worth in Iraq right now? You'd be able to turn gas into electricity and electricity into transportation amid the erratic supplies of both.
I have been a big fan of diesel for years and have owned and operated both small and large vehicles since the 70's. With the advent of Ethanol and Hybrids, the waters around what was best for the environment became rather murky. The quote below is from an article on yesterdays Drumbeat in USA Today.
I never could quite understand why Latin America, Europe and Asia had so many Diesel Light Duty Vehicles (DLDV)and we had almost none. I bought an DLDV Japanese truck in 1984 and today one cannot buy that same truck here in North America. Apparently in Europe, the use of DLDV has increased to the point, that today many car rentals are diesel unless you specify otherwise ahead of time. They have always held their own on other continents and are now more popular than in the US and Canada by a factor of more than 5 to one and increasing.
The reasons for this difference are mainly due to Gov't policy, driven in large part by the big 3 auto makers. The same auto makers that produce the most inefficient diesel vehicles in the world in the form of a pickup truck. These trucks with diesel engines evolved over the years into monsters that sacrificed efficiency for more acceleration and power. Anyone that has owned one knows full well the costs of maintenance for these DLDV. As the engines are so heavy, that the front ends need to be replaced and repaired more often than with a gas pot. The extra cost in Canada for these engines over a gas one is now more than $7,000. So in reality there is no gain in efficiency, but the sales of DLDV and gas LDV pickups is a huge money maker for the big 3.
Currently I know of only 2 manufacturers that still produce diesels for the US and Canadian markets, but that figure is changing as I write. Mercedes produces their cars and an LDV Van under the Dodge name, and the Volkswagen Line. Not much choice. The one we just lost due to US policy was the Smart Car. It was and still is diesel in Europe, but due to the 2008 entry into the US market, they have now changed it to a gas pot for all North American sales.
I just bought a Smart Car in June, one of the last diesels, and my fuel costs are less than half of what a Toyota Corolla are. The other big unknown plus for diesels, is that a properly maintained engine will last 3 times as long as a gas pot. Although that comparison can vary depending on the manufacturer and type of use. The Dodge/Mercedez Vans claim their engines are million (600,000 miles)Km diesels.
All diesel vehicles have been able to safely use Biodiesel since 1995 when almost all producers started outfitting their engines accordingly. Biodiesel is actually more corrosive than PetroDiesel so more corrosive resistant lines and gaskets were required. It is about 90%less polluting than PetroDiesel as well. With the changing world oil markets we now have more heavy crude, which refineries can more easily use to produce diesel than gasoline. This likely means diesel prices will stay more reasonable than gas in the US and Canada as long as there are so few DLDVs. I wonder if anyone has a good link for percent breakdowns from light crude to heavy crude for diesel and gasoline?
Diesel vehicles have always served me incredibly well and it seems the future may be even kinder to their reputation.
I own a 2004 VW diesel. I have plans to do this: www.greasecar.com
I get 50 mpg and figure I can run half the time on vegetable oil. I know of folks running all the diesel trucks, CDI Mercedes and all the VW's on these type setups. Older the car more viable.
With a tank full of Bio and a tank full of veggy only about 10% of the energy comes from the Methanol to make Bio.
Rumors only but BMW, Honda, Subaru, VW, and Mercedes should be returning with 2008/2009 model diesels. Today you can only get the Jeep and the Tourag with diesel engines, or pickups as noted. (Personally I really like the Honda and it supposedly gets 60+ mpg.)
Buy a used car.
Invest the difference in an investment
I suspect that the "good progress" on Kashagan reported today is simply an agreement to split the difference on the multi-billion-dollar penalty payment. The hard work will be to satisfy Kazakhstan's demands for a bigger share of the field, and an earlier and larger part of the proceeds. But what are the companies going to do -- leave? There aren't many choices in the range of a new, 13-billion-barrel field.
Steve LeVine, author
The Oil and the Glory
http://www.oilandglory.com
In yesterdays's Drumbeat Leanan commented in a discussion that Americans would not be willing to sacrifice their own standard of living unless there was an attack on the Homeland, a Pearl Harbor sort of event.
Leanan, there was one, on the morning of 9-11-01.
For a very short period, Americans were willing to sacrifice, until our rulers told us to go out and buy buy buy.
Leanan, you're a genius but this shows how pervasive the brainwashing is. In America, if it happened more than 5 years ago, it didn't happen. History is Bunk. This is why you have people on the street telling Jay Leno they don't know what year 9-11 happened. This is why you have something like a third of American school kids thinking the US teamed up with the Germans to fight against the Soviets in WWII.
Whether identifying as Liberal or Conservative, formerly anti-war Americans will become pro-war when they realize it might mean walking to work or taking the bus.
And yes, war does not work - which is the main Liberal b!tch against the war, that it's not brought gas prices down! Listen to Air America or the chatter in your favorite coffee shop, listen to liberals, if you don't believe it - it's fairly shocking.
Day Of The Condor was a prescient movie. It's no wonder it can't be obtained any more. Like "They Live", it's too truthful.
'Day Of The Condor' decent flick, got it. 'They Live' decent fight scene, fantasy with some realistic premis, got it. Almost any film can be had, depending on what one is willing to pay. I continue to find lots of good films at garage sales.
'formerly anti-war Americans will become pro-war when they realize it might mean walking to work or taking the bus.'
A generalization but correct for the large percentage. Its that ol bugaboo, human nature...Works every time.
Fleam - it's
"3 days of the condor"
if you go looking for it.
Based on the book "6 days of the condor" (sorry don't know the author) but its a good read.
Note that what I actually said was "a Pearl Harbor or 9/11." It's not I like didn't notice that little event.
If Bush had asked for the draft on Sept. 12, he would have gotten it. If he'd asked for gas rationing, he would have gotten it.
Now, no way. But I think it's as much because of the cynical way Bush has exploited 9/11 as the short memory of the public.
OK whew I was a bit worried there ..... at least you remember it!
It's sad that we "need" ANOTHER attack on the Homeland/der Fatherland to wake people up.
Doesn't this solidify the Bush administration's shadow coup?
I can hardly guess what happens next - too many things swirling around, both in the domestic and international realm.
Speaking of good movies. Got a hard to get(at least you won't see in on tv) movie.
Head Office Comedy.
Jane Seymour
Eddie Albert
Rick Moranis
Danny DeVito
Judge Rhinehart
About Corporate America. REALLY funny. REALLY like it is. MANY MANY Great Quotes.
Get it and watch it, Then read StoneLeigh's roundups on Finance.
buy, consume, marry and reproduce, do not question authority ................................ drive an suv, buy a vinyl sided three car garage house in the treeless burbs..............consume.........consume........consume
A couple quotes for this saturday.
here is a good one:
''The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.''
- Adolf Hitler
A Swiss bank has new a research note out on the banking crisis which stress tests the effects on the banks. No link I'm afraid. Things are not quite as bad as is usually painted on Drumbeat but it’s no whitewash. Here is a brief summary:
They estimate the potential cost of the US subprime-related crisis at US$605bn (including write-downs from LBOs, conduits, and CMBS). Assuming that this cost is evenly shared among financial institutions in the US and Europe, this would equate to 2.2% of GDP. This compares to the 1985-1996 S&L crisis (3.6% of GDP), the 1990-1999 Japanese banks crisis (13.0% of GDP), and the 1998-1999 Asian banking crisis (14.6%).
So while bigger in $ terms, it’s smaller than the S&L crisis as a percentage of GDP.
The authors do not believe in a bank Armageddon scenario – whereby liquidity and capital risks would trigger widespread bank insolvency. There will be some cases of non-core asset sales, reduction in dividend payout and capital raisings (hybrid capital where possible), but they believe these will be isolated rather than systemic.
Another point is about de-leveraging risk:
Once the subprime dust settles and credit markets normalize, global banks may need to shrink their balance sheets as risk is re-priced and underwriting standards are tightened.
My take is that the great credit party if over and growth will be slower (not just the US) but no dieoff.
IMO, the oil price is a very efficient price mechanism with large number of producers and consumers and it does a near perfect job balancing supply and demand. The price is below $90 because the global economy is slowing. Peak oil should manifest itself as an economic event rather than through absolute shortages. Demand will be destroyed as required. We'll only get shortages if/when the government gets involved.
Alan: Other estimates exceed 2 trillion. The other important thing missed is that at least for a while the rules of the game have changed. Until everyone forgets about these scams few will be willing to be taken again. Just one example: how many years until there is a viable business in selling mortgage backed securities again? These were big revenue generators for financial institutions.
Hi Alanis thename, any reason for the lack of link. can you give the name of the bank?
There is no link because it's behind a clientwall. Only clients get access. I had a hard copy so could only pass on a few snippets. Sorry, I can't give you the name of the bank because distribution of research is regulated.
Does this alleged report factor in energy costs, or does it assume steady state in this area while the mortgage scam unwinds? What does it have to say about the environment? I say alleged because without a link its just hearsay.
There will be efforts to stop the slide of the U.S. Strategically it might be good to have our teeth pulled in the view of some, but they can't be drawn without our buying power (behavior?) going with it and that changes the whole world.
what, the government is not involved ? what is the us military doing in the me(and every other damn spot in the empire of debt) maybe you meant to say "....only get shortages if/when the government is no longer involved"
True, governments are up to their eyeballs on the oil supply side but I was trying to make a point about the demand side. So far the only place gas shortages have occurred are in those countries where the government tries to regulate the price of gas.
All it needs is every American to say 'I'll fill my tank tomorrow' and the gas stations run dry. Besides shocks like that I believe the oil price has been 'smarter' than anyone and has reined in demand to match available supply. Now it's getting serious and is taking out parts of the economy to destroy some more demand. That's what an efficient price mechanism does when it's left to get on with it.
So the head of the IEA tells some reporters that OPEC must increase output. Said reporters then submit question to OPEC, who say "no".
Is that really how the IEA operates, using journalists to act as intermediaries? Does the head of the IEA not think it worth getting off his butt and actually going to OPEC, actually talk to some oil ministers?
And how come the IEA don't actually know OPEC can't increase output. I really wonder what these people are paid for.
IEA is acting like a kid!
Lurking in the corridors begging for moe’ lollipops, even after being turned down time and time again.
Kids have a short memory on such matters … “so next time” … it’s the same story all over again ; give me some ice-cream , please… The Arabs et al must think, are those IEA countries completely stupid … don’t they get it ?
What substance inside the brains of them IEA folks tells them; if we can squeeze just ONE MORE MILLION BARRELS out of ‘that’ OPEC, then all oil troubles will be solved for at least 100 years? And as for those PO folks, they were utterly wrong !
BIG Q :
When will IEA grow to maturity and ALARM its participating countries and say; THIS is it, take it or leave it ?
The bigger Q:
Since you are already aware that the answer will certainly be 'They rang the alarm Too Late..' , then What are each of you doing for yourself/community in their stead?
I don't ask this to incite defensive responses, or to accuse everyone (or Paal) of not doing anything. The point is, since the time to act is BEFORE the world accepts that there is any emergency, then what kinds of actions can be useful within the context of 'normal times'?
IF the folks Crying WOLF! are still not being heard, is that any reason not to develop some other actions at the same time?
I got a response from a City Counselor today that my suggestion to create some Solar Power (Electric and Heat) for the roofs of Public schools in our city was being brought forward. Not a greenlight yet.. we'll see, but I know it's one that he supports. I'm trying to rally a few other supporting orgs to the cause, treating it as a 'Greening' project and a school/adult-ed curriculum issue more than to have a series of self-powered emergency shelters and comm's spots in the city.
We've got the President of the Maine Senate supporting new rail up the Maine Coast as well, and I will be getting the Alan Drake materials to her and to the other rail supporting groups in the state. We'll see.
Bob
Public schooling as it stands doesn't deserve sustainability, but I agree with getting the city to spend money on solar-powering school buildings, because I think that those buildings will be put to good use soon, once we can no longer afford to waste money on ineffective education
I'd be simultaneously rallying for the cause of turning public schools into places of job training and productive businesses. The faster that public schools evolve into actual contributors, the faster we pass the point of Peak Stupidity, and that is what drives our waste of resources. We need to make stupidity production fall faster than oil production for the world to begin improving
I recommend people create local Post Carbon groups under the direction of Relocalize.net. That will give them other individuals for help locally and other groups around the world for a network, and it will make the seeds for villages
what exactly do you think is wrong with "public schooling" ? and what do you propose to fix it ?
The root problem of public schooling, the problem from which all others stem, is that it is public. By this I'm referring to the quality it has in common with other public products, which is that it is paid for with stolen money, tax dollars, and it is performed by the stealers of said money, government. Many citizens naively expect that people who steal our money will design public education with our children's best interests in mind. It's naive to expect those who extort us to care for us as equals. For now I won't go into all the ways in which government does not do such, but I recommend John Taylor Gatto, if you can't think of any
The individual solution is simply to homeschool. The societal solution is to stop stealing each other's money, i.e. make peace. We must stop believing the logical impossibility that it requires that we steal each other's money to protect us from others stealing our money. Our governments are the stealers who ran the best scam and became mob boss of the territories in which we live. They are not freely chosen representatives. An essential part of a plan for peace is forming modern villages in which we demonstrate and test out our best ideas for improvement, with more directions at The Village Forum. Planning our own communities will rebuild our sense of proper government. For this to catch on, such villages need to be built around the world simultaneously while networking with each other, with more directions at Relocalize.net.
We should also unite around activist campaigns, of which Ron Paul's is just the tip of the iceberg. He's a long way from the full extension of limiting government. He hasn't recognized that all current governments in the world are fraudulent in that they are coercive of those peaceful people who do not wish to be governed by said system. They use coercion to enforce the obviously false claim that contracts which none of us have signed represent all of us. It's a constant state of war, candy coated to seem like freedom so that the targets do not resist, as the Frank Zappa quote, many posts above this one, referred to as a profitable illusion
And how does the 'education solution' when the mother and father are not involved with their childern?
"And how does the 'education solution' when the mother and father are not involved with their children?"
I assume you are asking how do people get education if their mother and father don't give it to them. Their mother and father would be inclined to give it to them, due to that helping their kids make money. Also, in a society with decent leadership, the mother and father will likely have joined a village, as it would be made clear that communal living offers many benefits over fending for oneself, even in our wealthy society, so there'd be a village to help raise a child. However, if the mother and father don't join a village, caring people like yourself will still have donated their money to creating private charity schools. If it's awfully bad parenting, then the kids can legally run away, or someone can legally become their foster parents
I assume you are asking how do people get education if their mother and father don't give it to them.
Not at all. I'm speaking of the many children who's parents:
See School as babysitting
Are not 'involved' in their child's life
I'm not going to touch the whole 'non nuclear family' arguments of "disfunction". Or a whole other line of educational crap I'm being told about....
Your argument seems to turn about children who have 'families' that 'care' - I'm pondering the ones where the mother/father are "just not into the child rearing" "gig".
That has never been the purpose of public schools.
Anthropologist Marvin Harris wrote a lot about this subject. Public schools were a way to deal with one of the problems of industrialization: young hoodlums roaming the streets. On the farm, kids were kept busy working. In the city, there often wasn't enough work for the kids, and they ended up hanging around in gangs. Businessmen were upset, because customers were being scared away. (A lot like today's businesses support curfews and anti-loitering laws to deal with gangs of teens.) So they supported public schools, and truancy laws, even though it cost them money.
Harris argued that this was one reason population growth slowed. Having to send your kids to school meant kids became an expense, not an asset, and discouraged large families.
As for home-schooling...that would never have worked for me. I'm kind of a geek, and if not for school, I doubt I'd have gained the social skills needed to fit into the working world. Plus, even though my mom is a teacher, she couldn't teach me anything. I wouldn't listen.
However, I know it works well for some. It is, however, a lot of work, especially when the kids get to be high schoolers. It's hard to be a specialist in everything, which is kind of what you have to be by then.
I do think education will be one of the first things thrown overboard when peak oil starts to bite. We're already seeing it, with some schools going to 4-day weeks to save on bus fuel and heating costs. And no, home-schooling won't be the answer. Some parents will do it. Many will be too busy. Especially if education is no longer a ticket to economic success.
Peak oil, I suspect, will also prove to be peak education.
Indeed making a better society for our children was never the purpose for education, but it should be, and it can be now that people have reached this critical time of self-analysis due to Peak Oil. Your version however doesn't tell the whole story, and it is not much of a justification. For one, if the kids are committing crimes, then they should be punished; others shouldn't be punished by having their money stolen(how do you have a legal system without stealing money? it's another reason for joining a village of sorts, or at least a Dispute Resolution Organization, where people pool their money. look up polycentric law). Two, if the business owners want the kids to simply not be out and about, then the money should come from their pockets to give them activities to do. Three, there's no social skills needed to fit into the working world if you can make your own working world
Also, what's better for learning social skills for the working world: gradually in the working world, or gradually in a play-work world of school? Your hungry stomach would get you those social skills, even if it was a world full of meanies who wouldn't help you learn them. It's imperative that people continue to pursue the spread of knowledge and kindness, but you can't spread that by theft just like you can't spread democracy by bombs; it's no coincidence that the same confused people do both. People have spread life-enhancing knowledge in spite of the thiefs, not because of them
Home schooling is easy if you don't have to keep up with some preordained requirements, and if there was no public schooling, then colleges wouldn't have their current standards subsidized
I didn't offer it as a justification.
That's how it started. As Kiyosaki pointed out, that's always how it starts. The tax is only on a few...at first. Then it starts expanding. But the "financially literate" (read "rich") learn how to avoid the tax, and it's the middle class who end up paying.
That was another driver of public education. It no longer became possible for people to "make their own working world." What you're talking about there is subsistence farming; for anything else, you have to be part of the working world. Even if you own your own business, you have to deal with customers.
But it's no longer possible for everyone to subsistence farm. This really started to bite at the beginning of the 20th century, when most of the decent land available via the Homestead Act was already claimed.
Definitely the latter, for me. The thing is, by the time you're in the working world, it's often too late. Children have flexibility that adults don't, and it's not just a matter of attitude. The brain is more pliable when you're young.
If you consider criminal behavior to be "social skills," you are doubtless correct.
It is physically possible for everyone to subsistence farm, and there is plenty of vacant land left in this world, although most of it would need significant fertilization. Government is the only thing standing in the way, and Peak Oil has put government on shaky ground once again, so that merely by waiting out its collapse and having our substitution ready to go(advanced Post Carbon groups) we will soon have the freedom to choose a better life. However, by "your own working world", I mean joining into a business with people who you get along with, working with people in your community you've grown up with, not explicitly subsistence farming, although farming is the foundation of all civilization
As a geek you wouldn't have the social skills to get any job? How is that possible, if you have the social skills to ride the bus to school and go from class to class? Also, I doubt you would turn to crime as a hungry geek, as that takes a lot more guts than to tackle your fear of asking for a job or taking the job your parents offer you, which would be more likely in a world without public schooling. If you did turn to crime, you would learn the social skills in exile or in prison work-camps, or perhaps would just be shot, and I believe it would have been a kind of self-destruction for your own hatred on false grounds of other people that inhibited you from working constructively with them. It's the same self-destruction the world is going through, and the moment of truth is coming when we either choose to ask for the job, or let our hate sink us
I didn't mean to give the perception by saying homeschooling that I merely mean schooling from one family, but also with a combination of families, like in a village, where social skills become highly developed. I'm also for private schools, but I neglected to mention them as most of them currently mirror the public school curriculum
Yet another right-winger who would rather use your tax money for prisons and executions than schools. He wants to go back to the Middle Ages. Oh, but in that wonderful time of no big government or public schooling, the taxes were taken from you by your noble landlord, at swordpoint.
Every time a libertarian talks about working constructively with other people in a "business", I can feel the foreman's club on my back. But that's okay with him as long as the most "entrepreneurial" of us controls the foreman.
At least this one's honest about shooting people who don't fit into the happy whorehouse fantasy. That gives him a way to exterminate the inevitable rebellion of the poor - like the rebellion of the poor in Athens in the 6th Century that turned that landlord tyranny into a democracy. Does he assume that most people are natural, placid peasants, like Stepin Fetchit?
The Middle Ages weren't libertarianism. Anytime someone is coercing as a way of life, that is not libertarianism, but is mafia ballooned into unjust government. I'm not a right-winger, in that I support no taxes. Taxes themselves are the threat to shoot someone if they don't want your services, or lack of them; extortion. Thus, who is more deserving to be shot: the person who tries to steal even though jobs and natural resources are available, or the person who merely doesn't want his just earnings to be stolen from him?
Ideas about just earnings are a topic on which you may hold much in common with left-libertarians such as myself. Left-libertarians hold the idea that natural resources cannot be hoarded, whether they believe in some form of equal distribution of resources, or in personal occupancy and use as the requirement for ownership, or in a tax on use of land, since land is a natural inheritance, like geolibertarians believe, etc. As a mutualist, I am for personal occupancy and use being the requirement, but I do believe in limits on how much can be used, which would be decided by various systems in polycentric law. Stefan Molyneux has some great ideas on this, all of which are based on subscription instead of taxation
I think you are seriously divorced from reality. We cannot all subsistence farm. At least, not long term. Even the Amish are being forced to turn away from it, simply because they have such large families.
I didn't, silly. At least, not at first. My parents took me to school at first, and I stayed in the same class all year. That's the point: school eases you into it, rather than throwing you in to sink or swim.
One thing I've noticed about my fellow engineers: many of them would make excellent criminals. They enjoy the challenge of getting around the law, or around security systems. Many engineering schools have a tradition where students break into each other's rooms to play pranks. It doesn't take a lot of guts to commit property crimes. Look at the computer geeks who run the botnets. They never deal with anyone face to face, so it's "safe," at least to someone that kind of personality. And they steal millions of dollars.
You seem to agree with Hillary Clinton: it takes a village to raise a child. Only you want much smaller villages. :-D
Sounds to me like what you want is a form of powerdown. I don't think it's going to happen. Every child in China learns calculus. They are turning out millions of geologists, engineers, scientists, etc., and will use them to gain a technological, military, and resource edge. Education has become part of the "cold war" that makes powerdown a pipedream.
As Tainter says, the next collapse will be a global one.
Any reason why we can't subsistence farm? We just won't be producing many other economic amenities, but that's a good thing about permaculture, less junk
You are the one divorced from reality if you think public schooling saved your life. So much exists in the world that could ease you into social skills as long as you didn't hole up in your house, which would only be possible if your parents were content with that and didn't send you off to private clubs or schools. Poorly prepared crime doesn't need social skills, but to make a life of it takes some damn good social skills; CEOs, Presidents, etc.
I see two options, both including massive collapse: extreme globalization of authority with a shattered insufficient economic network leading to world war
("As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song,
To the tune of starving millions to make a better kind of gun."), or extreme localization of authority, but with the most effective worldwide economic network ever at getting essential goods to people
Our population is far higher that it was when we last practiced subsistence farming. It's possible fertilizer could help make that up, but I think it would only balance out the soil and water degradation we've inflicted since then.
There was some interesting stuff about subsistence farming in a DrumBeat a few days ago. Basically, it's really hard to grow enough grain to feed a family. And grain is where most of your calories will be coming from. Grain stores a lot better than potatoes. Nobody's going to live off blueberries and asparagus; not enough calories and too hard to store.
Even Cuba didn't succeed in growing all their own food. They had to import staples (beans and rice). And they have a year-round growing season.
Criminals, like any other group, run the gamut. But the smart ones don't get caught. ;-)
I think we'll see both, in roughly that order.
Only I don't think extreme localization will have the beneficial effects you think. Jared Diamond touches on this in Collapse. They found that "grassroots" only works in very small, isolated societies. Basically, a society small enough that everyone feels ownership of everything. "Our land," "our water," "our trees," etc.
Large societies can also avoid collapse, if there's a strong central authority like a king. No one person knows what's going on everywhere; the society is too large. But the king has his people in each region, who report back to him. It's in his interest to protect the whole country, because he derives his wealth from it, and he wants his heirs to do the same.
Middle-sized societies (and, Diamond postulates, large societies with weak central control) cannot avoid collapse. They are too large for everyone to know what's going on everywhere, and too large for everyone to feel ownership of everything. But they are not large enough to support a central government. So they collapse into internecine fighting. People may feel ownership of their own valley, and treat its resources carefully, but they have no such feelings for the neighboring valley, and will do things like raid their neighbors and cut down all their trees.
How would your "extreme localization" model handle the Tragedy of the Commons? Ohio burns coal that creates acid rain that kills crops in New England. Is it just tough noogies for New England? Or Utah releases radiation into California's drinking water. How does the mayor of Sacramento address that problem? And if Canada decides to suck up all the water in the Great Lakes for their tar sands operation - are we just out of luck?
This is the problem I see with localization. It's always been the problem with localization, but it's worse now, because technology gives us the ability to screw up the environment all over the world, and the coming energy crunch will push environmental concerns off the list of priorities.
Cuba is also an island in hurricane alley that lost 50% of their oil production almost at once and were already importing food prior to their oil peak. The population of a full island can't expand into vacant land. They also live in Communism and are under strict embargoes by the US on other resources, so conditions were not ripe for effective adaptation. In the rest of the world, as far as physical limits, population is larger, but technology is enhanced, farming knowledge knowledge is enhanced, usable plant-life options for a farmer are enhanced, and oil isn't gone, just decreasing
The problem with localization is that people did it because they hated each other, and thus they didn't make the most effective choices. It's the problem with everything in life. I suggest you research libertarian takes on private dispute resolution. It can handle problems of the commons as effectively as any organization which taxes, which itself experiences the problem of the commons(i.e. self-interest run amuck), and to degrees that are very devestating to the earth. I've noticed you aren't arguing for government, but merely for hopelessness
Patriotism is rather good at herding people. Put that patriotism behind a good cause and then we can avoid tragedy of the commons; keeping people united in mind. Localization doesn't solve it, but open-minded people localizing while keeping up a global network of trade can, as this is effectively a kingdom, with the king being the recognition of the importance of common good, because without it, war is inevitable. Afterall, the king's only power is people's belief in his power; he who has the most truth will be virtual king. Localized authority means that each one is of equal authority in disputes, not that there is no authority; if three states are pissed at Ohio, Ohio would be wise to cooperate, because everyone is vulnerable to abuse by others including Ohio
That is simply not true. Localization is the way humans have lived for most of their history. The drawbacks are well-known, and I see nothing in your plan that deals with them.
I'm not unsympathetic. I think Jared Diamond is right, agriculture was the worst mistake in the history of the human race. But there's a reason we've gone down this path, and it's not because we're stupid. We were forced down it, driven by competition between increasingly complex societies. As long as that competition exists, there won't be localization. And the competition is only going to get worse as resources get scarcer.
Drawbacks to everything on life? Absolutely. Critical drawbacks. Absolutely not, and I've not seen you present one
Localized authority existed in large part because people hate the other tribes. Otherwise, they would not resist outside collaboration or impose outside force, they would simply join into each other's network and benefit from shared power and knowledge, but they hate each other's customs. They could all have one king, but instead we have war upon war, simply evidence of hate, so it is simply true. That has slowly been overcome by America winning the culture wars, spreading some of its peaceful capitalist economics, persuading for less racism, less religious intolerance, etc. Now if we were to localize we'd mostly be doing it because we want to maximize the sustainability and health of our lives, not because we think the people in our particular locale are of a higher class than others, and we'd be choosing it in the nick of time
I would say "The Tragedy of the Commons" is a critical drawback. It's what's doomed previous civilizations that were too large for grassroots and too small for central control.
Diamond studied sustainable societies, as well as those that collapsed. One thing that struck me about the sustainable societies: they made sustainability their top priority. Zero population was their god. Even if it meant abortion, infanticide, suicide, homicide. (Because population is the key to sustainability, of course. It doesn't matter how light your footprint is, eventually, you'll fill up the petri dish if you keep breeding.)
Another thing that struck me was that his sustainable societies were all fairly isolated, which is what let them make sustainability their top priority. Because, realistically, you are not going to kill your own children or let them starve, if you can raid your neighbors' gardens instead. Once you start down that road, sustainability goes out the window, "defense" becomes the top priority, and the unsustainable technological arms race begins. Societies that don't participate get conquered/absorbed by those who do.
You changed your post while I was replying.
That is simply not true. People fight because there are too many people and not enough resources. Unless that is addressed, the "hate" won't stop.
Uh, sure. Peace is just busting out all over.
Even if what you say is correct, and war is just because we "don't like each other's customs" - why would that change? Human nature doesn't change.
Moreover, I think you're dead wrong. The problem isn't irrational "hate." It's a perfectly rational struggle for control of resources. It ain't going to improve as the population grows and resources get scarcer.
Do you have an example of a war that started because of survival resource shortages, in which trading and reallocation wouldn't have solved the crisis? There are many examples that didn't, every war I can think of. Population growth will become a problem once migration and trade becomes futile, but that point is rarely reached except by fighting first breaking down the trade
Rwanda.
Having a rationale does not rational make. Someone can kill another person for their shoes, giving them a rationale, but not making it rational. Saying Rwanda is the consequences of rational decisions, you are missing about 100 parts of the equation in which they made rational errors and focusing on one thing which was rational, which was being desperate for resources. Indeed they were very poor, but one irrational cultural division hating another enough to slaughter them by the thousands, was not rational, and was highly preventable. If you want to say that people are easier to piss off when they have dwindling resources, I'll no doubt agree that is true. But all these resource shortages have a silent hateful greed that leads up to them, and then a hateful climax where a scapegoat is found and war/genocide is begun, whereas if people had not been so blinded by selfishness, the problems could have been effectively dealt with. In Rwanda, trade could have solved it, and reallocation of people could have solved it. That applies to any war nowadays, because according to the World Bank with just 60 billion dollars we could feed every starving person, and we've spent like 40 times that on just our last war. Rwanda's population has since increased beyond pre-genocide levels. Bill Clinton is regretful he didn't send just 5,000 soldiers, because he thought that could have prevented 500,000 deaths. I realize resources in varying degrees are rationale for wars, but in agricultural civilizations producing abundant goods there is plenty of time to take corrective actions. Governments have had since 1970 to start thinking about Peak Oil, but irrationally they didn't make a peep about it, and I would pin it on many different interactions of hate. They've had even longer to encourage population restraint, and at least in many industrialized countries of Europe and in America something about development naturally leads to population decline(when you count out the effects of immigration). Even in that hypothetical example you gave of raiding someone's garden, the people who should die are the ones who messed up. They shouldn't kill their children, but the adults should take a hint from samurai honor and cast lots for suicide or having to migrate from the village with no food, rationally, as that prevents resources being wasted on war that could go to keeping people alive, and prevents extra suffering from war, and gives the consequences to those who are responsible
Any reason why we can't subsistence farm?
You already GAVE the reason - need of external input in the form of fertilizer.
I don't recommend unsustainable agriculture that needs reinputs of externally made fertilizers every year. I recommend permaculture, with large use of Masanobu Fukuoka's natural farming, which improves the soil's quality every year, returning everything to the soil that was taken away except for the edible portion, and even that is converted into humanure and used as fertilizer. With it, desertification can be stopped and reversed, helped along by initial inputs of organic fertilizer
is this a fact or for a dramatic effect?
is the "resource edge" a natural one or a human one?
Well, perhaps not every single child. I'm sure there are a few that are not capable. But the average person does learn calculus in China, at according to an article I read awhile back. (I think it was in the Times.)
It was about why Americans are falling behind in math and science. One expert thought it was simply a matter of expectations. In China, everyone is expected to learn calculus, just as in the US, everyone is expected to learn how to drive. While here, we have "Math is hard" Barbie.
Just because a tyranny can make everyone learn calculus doesn't mean they would outperform a free market of scientists. By forcing everyone to learn science, they are wasting time on many people who will never become scientists. If they tried to force people to become scientists, their command economy would be insufficient; have you not heard of the collapse of communism? Our problem is that our country forces us to go to school too, but they teach it worse than the Chinese; we do communism worse, because we have mixed interests. For authority to become localized in stable fashion, I and other activists must show what's possible with villages, so that others would not be foolish enough to destroy the evidence of what a good life they could also lead. It would pick up where the culture of freedom in America left off at dominating the world's minds with truthful hope
You can hope to dominate people's minds with the prospect of going back to subsistence farming, but only if you ain't being truthful.
Fact of the matter is that people are (sometimes literally) dying to leave subsistence agriculture, and have been since approximately forever, largely because subsistence agriculture is a generally hard, uncertain, and bleak life. To see that, you need look no further than the tens of millions of rural Chinese who have flooded into the cities despite their lack of city residency permits (without which they are denied certain rights).
If you personally like subsistence farming, then have fun. Just don't be disappointed when hardly anyone else joins you, and don't waste your breath telling us why we "should".
Your flick of the wrist generalization doesn't contribute. Many people are literally dying to be rid of their governments too. By, subsistence agriculture, I mean that people have local farms that meet their necessities, rather than global agriculture dependence. I'm not advocating it completely, merely saying its possible, but it's not necessary nor best to halt all food trade, nor do I advocate powerdown, but solarpower up. But I will take your advice. I already well know actions speak louder than words, I just habitually forget to not waste my time in message boards that aren't based off of local meeting groups
I'd say you have a tendency toward getting in touch with your inner globalization.
What happens if a blight, drought,severe weather or some type of event wipes out crops, and their neighbors choose not to share ( or they too are affected)?
How to we relocate the 100+ million people living in the cities and set them up on farms? How many folks working in Manhatten will agreee to accept your terms? How do you equip, shelter and train these folks to go farming? Once you solve that, then lets talk. Of course after that you sill have to deal with anoth 150+ million living in the burbs to also change. You'll have better luck converting the entire US population into Muslims, or converting all the Moslems in the Middle East into Jews. Its just not going to happen. You're living in a fantasy world if you think the US or the world will go back to an agrarian economy.
If you want to go farm, than do so because you believe its offers you and your family the best future. Trying to convinence the rest of the world is nothing but a waste of time.
You make so many assumptions about what I'm proposing for relocalization. I'm not telling people to be subsistence farmers. Rather than subsistence, I'm talking about local farming. Leanan said that I was talking about subsistence farming, and I told her that is not explicitly what I want, meaning it's not the right name. I claimed that subsistence farming is possible, just because she said it wasn't, apparently because I like to argue about topics that don't matter
What I want is localization. Localization is not the end of trade, not the end of other careers than farming. It means more local trade, so that global trade which takes more resources for transport and regulation is cut to a minimum. Less than 1% of the nation farms. I just want those farmers to live closer to the buyers of their food than they currently do. That is an example of localization, which would be applied to every good. That doesn't mean that people won't continue trading food long distances if their local supplies can't cut it. It just means that people will increase their use of local supplies to boost local economies and conserve transportation resources
Funny, we don't consider it "tyranny" that every American kid is expected to learn how to drive.
I consider it tyranny that every American kid gets to drive on roads from stolen money. Build roads as investments, not with tax dollars, and then the private builders would only allow people they approve, which would encourage public transportation, rather our insane setup now of private automobiles on public roads
if there is a tyranny that can and able to make everyone learn calculus, then shouldn't it be a reason for the "joy to the world"?
is the rise of China in recent decades due mainly to the more advanced training level in science or to the fact that there are hundreds of millions of highly motivated people willing to break their backs to work 12/6 or even 12/7 for the equivalent of 25 cents an hour?
Plus the 85% of rural children who don't go to high school.
Although things are improving rapidly, there's still a pretty substantial difference between rural farmers and (legal) urban residents in China.
Probably. Calculus is on the high school curriculum in many European countries, too, so it's not like it's that difficult of a subject for a science-minded person of that age to learn.
http://www.pamphletpress.org/index.cfm?sec=8&story_id=5
ir antics over the past several years. Under the auspices of the BLO (Barbie Liberation Organization), Mike swapped out the voice boxes of talking Barbie dolls with those of GI Joe action figures and placed them back on the shelves in time for Christmas. Not only did some children have an unexpected holiday surprise--as when GI Joe exclaimed, "Let's go shopping!" or "Math is too hard,"
As the father of a very bright scientifically and mathematically inclined 12 year old currently enrolled in the Florida public school system I can attest that there isolated islands of excellent schools in the system albeit few and far between.
Re your statement: "I'd be simultaneously rallying for the cause of turning public schools into places of job training and productive businesses." This absolutely should NEVER be the function of public education, that is only good for producing exactly the kind of unthinking brainwashed individuals that will blindly follow the powers that be and end up running off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings.
Education has to be about teaching kids to think critically.
By the time the average kid goes through a typical educational cycle that has focused on being productive in a particular business, given the constantly shifting realities of our business environment you can almost guarantee that those skills will be obsolete. We need to be teaching our students to have a broad range of skills in math and science coupled with critical thinking, I'm sad to report this does not seem to be what is happening. Another of my particular peeves is the enormous amount of time and energy being spent on teaching to a particular assessment test such as the FCAT.
I'm not talking about forced employment, if that's what you're thinking. I'm talking about the only thing that I want someone to teach me, which is how to have an income to sustain my life and interests. That is the essential use of knowledge, and a little bit of that is better than a broad range of incomeless knowledge. And if there is no guarantee that the knowledge will contribute to income, it is likely to be forgotten, much less be remembered long enough to become obsolete(including every single word I learned in French I). That broad range of knowledge, because from it is purposely withheld the key knowledge for personal production, helps people become automatrons in business rather than leaders in business
Telling other people what to think, rather than helping them acquire abilities they enjoy for making an income to support themselves, is the opposite of helping them become critical thinkers, unless by critical you mean constantly criticizing the way society screws them over. If you want them to be critical, they have to learn real world skills, which earn them real world rewards, or otherwise the only thing they have to accept as proof of a job well done is whether they have pleased their teacher. That is something like turning education into a religion, teaching knowledge students must have faith in and which only their preachers can use
Yeah, I'm sorry. The solution to Underfunded Public Education that 'Gives us what we've paid for', is not to scrap the idea all together.
I have my issues with some aspects of the public school system, but if you want to see our communities act like villages, one of the BEST places to start is getting the neighbors truly Involved in the schools. They have families from across the spectrum of wealth, race and even local geography, etc.. I think one of the worst outgrowths of 'cheap energy' is that we have been able to indulge that power in order to live in divided little culture-dishes around our communities; and schools have been treated as a place that will 'do the whole job' of education of our kids for us, where instead, the involvement of families would enrich both the school's work, and the community's life.
By all means, participate. However, the best way to fund education is for the education to have quick pay-offs so people can pay for it, i.e. job training. The best way to encourage education is also for it to have quick pay-offs. Do you think that someone needs sixteen years of education before they can start producing value? For all the jobs I've had, I needed nothing beyond a fifth grade education. I would have dropped out then if I had known that, except my parents would have been sent to jail. The main reason education doesn't give quick pay-offs is because that encourages independent living rather than wage slavery
35 MPG for cars by year 2020
2.35 MB/day of Ethanol production by year 2022
These are two key elements of the new energy bill agreed to by US congressional leaders Pelosi and Dingell. Neither will solve the problem of US having 20% less oil because world net exports have fallen 35% by 2020. This ethanol mandate is pure lunacy, as these congress people somehow expect reality to follow their legislation. We don't have the corn, water, natural gas or technology (for cellulostic ethanol) to do anywhere near this number, which is 25% of all gasoline consumed in US.
I heard a caller on the Thom Hartman program mention that there will be a provision in the law that the president can waive the 35 MPG rule if it will be too onerous on the auto industry.
Feh. 35 MPG isn't onerous. My Prius has been getting 50 MPG tanks all year, and it was built in 2004. You want onerous? Gas lines are onerous.
When I read things like this:
I am reminded of a line from Blade Runner:
"Those are the likely outcomes now that Congress has decided to increase the national fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles a gallon by 2020, from the current average of 25."
ROFL!! that is a joke, right?! I guess we aren't going to be facing reality until TSHTF.
USA politics is a fantasy "Reality Show."
It is not reality at all, but a carefully constructed set.
The politicians are players who act quite predictably when one considers that vital information is screened out and delusions are considered the basis for sound public policy formation.
The show is a K Street Production.
Bread and circuses for sure ... the right wing noise machine, the complicit media ... but what happens when they've totally burned their legitimacy? I recall reading on here within the last few days than 80% of adults are inclined to believe that there are hidden agendas and the media is not to be trusted. When that boils over in the form of many people losing their homes ...
Again we find that we are living in interesting times.
Will the frustration of the American middle and lower classes ever boil over? What could possibly precipitate such a thing?
My guess is that by the time any "boiling over" could take place, the government will be firmly set to deploy weapons to paralyze resistance.
The biggest weapon will be the same as is used today, but it will be much more clear: if you are compliant, you have a chance at food, water, and shelter for your family. If you are not compliant, then you get no food, water, medicine, shelter.
The soft, whiny populace has been bred and fed to survive only as slaves. Those who choose otherwise will die fairly quickly.
Those who become activists against the system will be made into examples -- just as is already happening. Everything from Guantanamo, the suspension of habeus corpus, and the no-fly lists are preparing us for the future. Even Code Pink activists cannot cross the Canadia/US border without being detained.
Get real, folks: the corporatists are consolidating power and will not allow a challenge from the American people.
Indeed, we are shaped into the compliant "human resource" to supply the industrial military complex with weapons and ammunition.
Hi beggar try this if you haven't already, Michael Parenti.
http://www.workingtv.com/parenti.html
One neat sound bite from the audio: "...it's about Capitalism in your face."
Beggar;
We've been carefully taught that 'only crazy people boil over'.. Dean Scream, 'Nader is Selfish', Kucinich sees UFOs..
We have to take some risks and 'be crazy people' here..
"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. "
Lenny Bruce
Wow, that's the perfect response to Gov. Huckabee's past comments that Jesus supports the death penalty.
I can´t really understand the reluctancy of many US politicians to increase fuel efficiency. Maybe I´m not the only one...
In just a couple of years time (even more so in 5-10 years), the carbon efficiency of a society is going to be a major predictor of economic success, or rather maybe, maintaining economic prosperity.
And for a low-carbon society or ultra-low-carbon society we´re not talking 35 MPG for cars, rather 100 MPG or 200 MPG (with plug-in).
Unfortunately, the auto industry lobbyists still have a lot of hand in Congress.
I laugh every time I see an interview of a Detroit spokesman saying that they build the cars that American consumers demand from them. Yet marketing is all about creating demand and Detroit's marketing machine continues to roll full steam ahead.
It's time for the Department of Homeland Security to step up and make energy independence their #1 priority.
If you haven't seen Who Killed the Electric Car? yet, take some time and watch it...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5977085690337730430
Buy the DVD and view their interactive site at http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/.
I recall reading (here?) that pension liabilities for the big three are to the tune of $700/vehicle, while the Japanese are closer to the $200 mark.
Why does $500 make that much of a different on something that starts at $10k and the media price is double that? It seems fishy to me ... the drag in operation changes would appear to be a bigger problem. Labor contracts are such that it costs more to shut down a line producing an undesirable product than to keep running it. This somewhat blunts my sympathy for pensioners and union workers in the UAW.
GM spends $1600 in R&D per vehicle.
Honda spends $3000 per vehicle.
As the snow begins to fall in Portland, Oregon...
I had this thought: I just enjoyed a couple weeks in California, on the coast, where it was sunny and warm. Shorts and t-shirt weather. Everyone on the plane home groaned when the pilot announced: "39 degrees and drizzling at PDX."
Is moving to the Pac. NW that great of an idea when all those millions need major heat all winter? Couldn't we just cram everyone into the temperate little strips our continent has - not too cold, not too hot - and save tons of energy that way?
Just a thought, not that people will do what they ought to...
Its cold and rainy now in Southern California.
It's 1:57 PM EST here in the NC mountains.
At 3,000' elevation, the temperature outside is 57F.
The weather folks are predicting snow in a couple of days.
Those of us who have studied climate know that 1 December is the first day of Winter, 2008...
E. Swanson
It's 20F here in Rochester, NY - you know, the northeast, where some people still heat their homes with oil. The next 5 days the highs will all be below 32F.
We've got 6" of snow mixed /w freezing rain here on the Iowa/Minnesota border and it shows no signs of stopping. Isn't truly winter yet because I'm able to wear my hoodie - haven't got the parka out yet :-)
It's all of 8 degrees farenheit in Holland Vt right now and that storm over Iowa and Minnesota is headed this way for tomorrow. But even 8 degrees is not that bad with sufficient clothing. I just finished moving 1.5 cords of wood from my outdoor pile into my basement and at times I was too hot. By the end of the job I had unzipped my over coat and loosened my quilted overalls at the sides. Walking up my road afterwards (for exercise) I saw two of my neighbors out puttering in their yards too. Cold is not that big of a deal if one layers up (and can afford some kind of fuel to keep the house warm).
I don't care how cold it gets ... as long as there is no wind.
I love it when we get ground blizzards - three days of whiteout conditions - climb up the second floor and its like being on a ship, with waves of snow instead of water.
These storms always break around midnight and crystal clear calm air replaces the wind and snow. You can go outside in just a sweatshirt with some light wind breaker as a thermal barrier and as long as you move a little bit you don't get too cold. The snow squeaks like stepping on styrofoam when the temperature is down around -40 ... which is the same on both F and C scales :-0
I don't care how cold it gets ... as long as there is no wind.
SCT,
If there is no wind what is to power those windmills of yours?...
;-)
8.0M/s average ... I don't know what the distribution looks like, but after a 16.0M/s+ ground blizzard the stillness is a relief :-)
Just keep moving that wood, and you'll never have to burn it!
(You might have to convince your water pipes to move some of it, too.)
Bob
Getting down into the mid-40s at night...not exactly arctic temperatures yet...
Cold? I find that hard to believe, unless you are in the mountains.
Bob Fiske from Maine is probably rolling on the floor laughing right now, although Portland, OR does get those nasty ice storms which roll out of the Columbia Gorge.
As for that temperate strip, it's called "California" (OK, along the coast and mostly southern), and it is already rather full.
Perhaps we should just become a migrating species (no fossil fuel involved, just roam like the caribou).
Until then, go buy yourself some more polartec and have a latte somewhere.
JB in Seattle, Cascadia
LOL good one!
Humans traditionally did migrate - from Eskimos to well, everyone else, they tended to move through a yearly "route" over a wide area, according to the seasons and food sources.
It's in the low 50s here, had some tiny hail (not sleet, rain and these teeny hail stones) and it's been very windy. 50MPH plus gusts.
But it's surprisingly warm really, only going down into the 40s overnight.
It should get to normal 50s maybe low 60s in the day and 20s at night in a day or so.
Just south of Bar Harbor Maine, check out the wind chill
Mostly Cloudy
21°F
(-6°C) Humidity: 38 %
Wind Speed: W 15 G 28 MPH
Barometer: 30.24"
Dewpoint: -0°F (-18°C)
Wind Chill: 8°F (-13°C)
Visibility: 10.00 mi
Here in Central NH it never topped 17F today. I don't even want to know what the windchill factor was. Ah well, in another month it will seem quite reasonable :-)
New Orleans
Mostly Cloudy (sunny yesterday)
72 F
Humidity 70%
Dewpoint 62 F (up from 54 F this morning)
Wind 6 mph from the East
Barometer 30.19
Best Hopes for at least one freeze this winter,
Alan
When I lived in Minnesota a few years back we used to get one freeze every year - it started in November and ended in April.
Don, long time no-hear-from.
Still thinking of moving there -- if Texas is going to be any hotter, I'm not sure I want to remain here.
I'm north of Dallas. Tomorrow's forcast is low-to-mid 70's. We used to get an ice storm by Thanksgiving. Last year was 'the year without a winter'. I'm not complaining, just that global warming has become global roasting in the summer around here. Guess I need a place in Michigan for the summer. The golf is real good up there and the yellow perch is delicious.
I'm not trading Maine for any 'Temperate Strip' .. no thanks! But I really DO have to get the rest of that insulating done, and those countless collectors and such built and installed.
The cold today only bothered me because the Sun was SO BRIGHT! I had my exposed windows soaking in what I could get, but a few other bits of glass on the roof and south walls would have been working at full capacity, too!
I'm building a Savonius Vertical Windmill from an ElectricCable Spool and some stovepipe and a treadmill motor, just to see what it can do.. and that puppy would have been smoking today! (Probably literally.. and I'd be at Mom's house around the corner with the girls, checking out my insurance fine-print and weeping softly..)
I'd probably feel too cold in the 'other' Portland. Too moist! (Or is that just Seattle?)
Bob (14degrees at Casco Bay)
Wait until he hears I have had to force my self into the shower on a few recent chilly November mornings in Bangkok.
g2s,
Those are certainly the questions I've been asking, since I'm facing moving to Portland (from San Jose) in the next few months. Thirty years in sunny CA has been wonderful - except for the commute, cost of living, and skin cancer.
The biggest single reason to go North is water. Sure, it's a long-term issue, but just as inescapable as N,P,&K. Nearer term, Portland offers the electrified rail, the community awareness, and the distance from the too-huge, too-dense populations of SeaTac and the Bay Area.
Maybe our ancestors had the right idea, strolling south as the cold deepened each Autumn, then following the blooming flowers back North in the Spring. But it's not an option if you're hoarding a ton of ammo and Spam.
Hi nelsone, We did the same move from SJ to the Oregon coast, Yachats, 1n 2003. Portland is a great city in many ways. It does tend to get windy and rainy, like this weekend's hurricane-force high wind warning. You'll find this link essential, http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/
My feeble two cents: it is a lot easier and more energy-efficient overall to pack people into a house to share heat versus packing more people into a house running A/C, or just fans trying to stay cool. In the olden days in Phx: it was more summer comfortable to sleep outside than to sleep inside.
Bob, IIRC the indigenous peoples migrated out of the valley and up to the rim during high summer [the real "olden days."]
More recently those strange metal boxes still perched on tops of many houses in the older parts of town provided a much better answer than going outdoors. You will know that the people as a group have started to get serious when [or "if"] evaporative [aka "swamp"] coolers start to appear in the newer or better neighborhoods of your asphalt wonderland.
Whether that happens soon enough to make a difference is open to question, but the economics are already obvious for areas like Phoenix with high temperatures and low humidity.
Those of us that were "born to the rain"{native}have no problem with it.This weather is returning to the 20-30 year "wet"cycle that I was raised in.Rain makes things green.Summer is for dry.
Actually, I think winter heating is probably more sustainable in the Pacific Northwest than most other places in the US that have something resembling winter.
In Cascadia, all that winter drizzle and snow is re-charging by far the largest hydropower resources in the US. (The Bonneville Power System on the Columbia and numerous systems on smaller rivers in the Cascades throughout WA and OR.)
Given that normally, it doesn't get REALLY cold (i.e. below freezing) much in Cascadia, electric heat pumps seem like the way to go in this area You get 3x to 4x the heat of ordinary resistance electric heating. The fact that the output of heat pumps goes way down when the outside temp gets below 35-40 shouldn't be an issue in this area, especially if you insulate seriously.
Currently, here in Pasadena, CA it's 44 degs F. My Friedrich "Twin-Temp" heat pump (i.e. reversable window-mount 11,000 BTU EER 14 air conditioner) is keeping this entire small bungalow perfectly comfortable on only about 700W of AC power. That's with lousy typical SoCal non-insulation. If this place was insulated like houses in places where there is actually winter, the heat pump would probably be cycling on/off 30/70 or so in this weather. The funny side effect is that the neighbors are baffled when they hear an "air conditioner" running in this chilly weather....
I have the slightly smaller (and older I think) brother of yours, the 9,000 BTU Friedrich TwinTemp Heat Pump YS09J10, 9,000 BTU and the 11.5 EER was the highest of any window a/c or heatpump when I bought it. Friedrich also makes split ductless systems with SEER of 19, but there is a difference between SEER & EER (EER of 11.9 for SEER 16.5 for example)
The replacement model is YS09L10, EER 12.
Are you sure of the EER 14 ?
What is the model # of yours ?
I keep an electric resistance heater as a supplement for the coldest nights and used it 3 nights last year.
It is very hard to beat these units for economy in mild cold (say 48 F). Their heat output rises as the outside temperature rises.
Best Hopes for Energy Efficiency,
Alan
The poster child for ethanol, the closed loop plant at Mead, Nebraska is filing for bankruptcy. This plant was cited innumerable times as the perfect prototype example of the promising future of ethanol production and they were "planning to build 15 more". The article claims it was all the fault of the contractors and mechanical failures.
"Closed-loop" ethanol plant plugged: E3 BioFuels seeks bankruptcy shelter as it struggles with start-up woes
Thanks for the update !
I've been wondering about E3 and asking my neighbor about them; he's a ruminant tech/grad student at UNL.
Part of his job is to get data from
E3 for plugging into a computer models:
http://www.bess.unl.edu/
He's out of town now, but I'll be seeing him when he gets back - I'm watching his hunting dogs ;)
One for Totonella:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html?ex=13542516...
How did Malawi recover? It's all in the NPK.
Thxs for the link. Hopefully the Malawis don't use this surplus to fuel rampant pop. growth, otherwise they will quickly be back at Malthusian limits of misery again.
OK, gotta go pickup my scooter tire that just arrived--the slow boat ride from the Far East caused it to be on backorder for two weeks. IMO, not a good JIT-inventory sign for meeting growing demand. Hopefully some US investors decide to start making local tires and other vital parts for bicycles, wheelbarrows, and other small machines before the foreign makers cut off our re-supply in a crushing postPeak strategic military move.
Otherwise, imagine a US nuclear aircraft carrier, with every possible location filled with NPK to trade for bicycle tubes and tires, as it makes a desperate oceanic run to try and keep 'murkins efficiently moving back home.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob, I keep almost new tires on my two Harleys and have two sets of new Dunlops ready to go on the bikes...Plus tons of other spare parts. I have been slowly stocking up on spares for a long time. They dont get as many mpg as some of the new efficient autos but I get more spm...Smiles per mile.
Driving through Sunnyvale,CA to pick my son up from school Thursday the white sedan in front of me had a peak oil bumper sticker.
I know it is an anecdotal indicator - but when you aren't looking out for these things and you see them it is some sort of sign of how widespread recognition is becoming.
Unless someone on here was driving a white sedan in Sunnyvale last Thurs...