Schokkende ervaringen met Schaliegas in de VS. Voor meer redenen om niet aan Schaliegas te beginnen klik hier.
Month: May 2013
We don’t know how far we can carry our initiatives, we get no financial support. But the cost of a website is low, and this site has about 220.000 unique visitors this month, it should be possible to mobilize some interest or at least inspire some action based on what we present in this post (search tag 7projects01). Seven projects, one each day, practical things, two business cases for the Brandson Challenge. Let’s see what we got..
1. Bambooya (making bamboo islands to grow all kinds of things on)
2. Solar melting of sand into glass
3. The Niebuur Concept building
4. Zonleningen (crowdsourcing renewable investment)
5. Roboeconomics (development of the ideas)
6. Heliostats, digital gardening, hydrophonics and other hacks.
7. The culture of renewables, climatebabes.com
Eesha Khare just won $50.000 for developing a nanorod ultracapacitor able to store several times the amount of energy of common ultracaps. This is a big thing, she should actually het millions for the breakthrough because it has serious commercial value. It means you can quickly store much more energy than possible today for cars, wind turbines, phones and all kind of other stuff, using relatively cheap materials.
"Capacitance of 238.5 F/g compared to the next best alternative supercapacitor in previous research of 80 F/g"
To understand what this all means we need to understand capacitors and ultracapacitors a bit. Common capacitores store energy by creating a barrier for electrons. In a wire electrons will flow but if you put a barrier or a cut in the wire the electrons will accumulate on one side. The electrons stay in place for two reasons, one is that you are putting a charge on the cut wire, the other is that the negative electrons on one side ‘see’ the positive holes on the other side of the cut (so called electric field effect), and are attracted by them. If you increase the surface of the ends of the wire you see more electrons accumulating, if you put the ends of the wire closer together you also see more electrons accumulating. So engineers made little devices that where cut wires with big end plates and called them capacitors, mainly because this accumulation of electrons turned out to be usefull in electronic devices.
More about how they work here..
normal capacitors, the don’t conduct electricity, but store electrons
The development of capacitors has been to make the thickness of the barriere less, the surface area of it bigger, and recently adding a thin layer of electrolyte in which electrically charged molecules can move, storing energy in the tension that is created by electrostatic attraction of the two sides. It holds the middle between being a battery (which has a chemical reaction) and a normal capacitor (without electrolyte). The last form turned out to be a big improvement, justifying the name ultracapacitors for the new class it enabled.
An ultracapacitor has both plates and electrolyte, but no chemical reaction like in batteries
Ultracapacitors are used in electric vehicles to store the energy from batteries, brakes or hydrogen fuel cells quickly, as a buffer to protect those devices from the stress of dealing with the dynamic demands of driving. They charge and discharge super quickly and can hold a lot of energy.
Activated carbon is very cheap to make so one would have very cheap ultracaps
For a while we have expected improvements in ultracapacitors because they did not have the maximum surface area, which if increased increases the amount of charge that can be stored. The room for improvement was understood to be in using active carbon electrodes. Active carbon has an increadible surface area up to 500 m2 per gram! Of course the carbon has to conduct the electrons so it has to be one structure all the way from the electrode to the place the charge ends up. These type of ultracaps are actually made by Power2G.
Ultracapacitor bank
Other means to boost the surface area or structure the way electrons can interact are also promising, like creating a nanorod structure as Eesha Khare did. Nanorods are little pillars that come about by a chemical or etching process. They stand on the electrodes and reach into the electrolyte and the results are fantastic. Almost three times the charge can be stored in nanorod ultracaps than the best type to date. This means we can quickly store and use a lot of energy with a small device.
Nanorods..
This resulted in excellent energy density 238.5 F/g, 20.1 Wh/kg, comparable to batteries, while maintaining a high power density of 20540 W/kg.
It seems progress if seven beter already with other scientists topping Eesha Khare with even more storage capacity, actually using her type of nanorods as a scaffold for MnO, Magnesium Oxide, nanorods. This resulted in a capacity of 912 F/Gram, almost 4 times more, possibly resulting in 80 Wh/kg energy density and 80 kW/kg power density. So this would put the new MnO capacitor in the same class as NiMH batteries and way beyond lead acid, while being much faster charging and prehaps cheaper to make.
| Battery Type |
Cost $ per Wh |
Wh/kg | Joules/kg | Wh/liter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lead-acid | $0.17 | 41 | 146,000 | 100 |
| Alkaline long-life | $0.19 | 110 | 400,000 | 320 |
| Carbon-zinc | $0.31 | 36 | 130,000 | 92 |
| NiMH | $0.99 | 95 | 340,000 | 300 |
| NiCad | $1.50 | 39 | 140,000 | 140 |
| Lithium-ion | $0.47 | 128 | 460,000 | 230 |
Ultracapacitors are not batteries, they don’t wear from being charged or discharged. As a result they last a really long time, and if they break down they are usually fully recyclable. They don’t have to contain much toxic chemicals and have no moving parts or fumes. They need some management electronics but are pretty robust otherwise. So for home storage ultracaps look like a good option, also because it doesn’t matter if they take some space (put them on the roof, in the ground or basement).
We hebben een tragisch leiderschap tekort in ons land. Ons economisch beleid wordt gedicteerd door de fossiel industrie, in het belang van olie krediet, carboncredit, ten koste van onze maatschappij. Er vindt geen streven naar verbetering plaats, slechts een naar aanpassing aan de fossiele energie realiteit (dwz groeiende tekorten).
Tijdens de informele energieraad van 23-24 April jongsleden lukte het onze minister Kamp te pleiten TEGEN een feed-in tarief als markt gerichte aanpak:
"Het zogenaamde feed-in tarief systeem valt daar niet onder omdat dit kan leiden tot negatieve prijzen."
Ok, wacht even. Je mag de ‘vrije markt’ zijn werk laten doen tenzij dit leidt tot overschot van energie en dus negatieve prijzen. Energie moet een prijs houden want anders? Een negatieve prijs is toch ook een prijs? Je krijgt betaald om het af te nemen, dat betekent werk aan de winkel, kan de vrije markt prima mee omgaan!
Wie raakt in de problemen bij negatieve energie prijzen? Er zijn twee partijen:
- De banken die geen betalingen over hun investeringen ontvangen. Die kunnen we negeren, want geld is fossiel krediet en schuld is dus een fictie (aangezien niemand deze werkelijk kan terugbetalen, want wie maakt fossiele energie?).
- De energie bedrijven die geen reden willen zien ontstaan om meer energie op te slaan, zoals dat nu in Duitsland op gang begint te komen. Een overschot aan energie trekt bedrijven aan die daar wat mee kunnen, of die deze opslaan of omzetten in gas oid. Het gevolg is minder vraag naar ‘base load’ capaciteit.
De banken en de energiebedrijven samen met de leveranciers van de energiedragers (fossiel) vormen het carboncredit systeem dat zichzelf in stand probeert te houden.
De ‘vrije markt’
In plaats van de meest effectieve stimuleringsmaatregel in te voeren mogen we van Henk Kamp gewoon binnen de ‘vrije markt’ blijven. Het is per definitie waar dat die vrije markt geen weg biedt naar de door hernieuwbare energie aangedreven economie. Het economisch denkkader, waar Kamp zich waarschijnlijk aan houdt, biedt geen oplossing voor de situatie waar de kosten van energie naar nul trenden, waar handel krimpt omdat men zelfvoorzienend is, waarin banken hun krediet moeten weggeven zonder eignaar or rentenier te worden. Waarin problemen worden opgelost in plaats van uitgemolken. Kamp ziet niet dat achter de wal van zwarte kolen en walmende olie een groen landschap gloort.
Roboeconomy
De zn. Roboeconomy is een economie waarin de meeste productieprocessen zijn geautomatiseerd en met behulp van hernieuwbare energie plaats vinden, dus zonder verplichtingen en schulden naar derden. Met die automatische op hernieuwbare energie draaiende processen kan ook de ecologie worden hersteld en economisch verkeer worden gefaciliteerd, primair door het energie overschot aan iedereen (in de vorm van krediet) uit te keren in de vorm van een basis inkomen, zodat mensen door deze energie aan producten en diensten uit te geven uiting kunnen geven aan hun smaak en voorkeur. Deze economie is in Duitsland aan het ontstaan. Hij is schulden vrij, want er is overschot aan hulpbronnen en banken zijn niet langer de kredietverstrekkers. Alle energie producenten zijn krediet verstrekkers geworden, met de overheid als extra partij die een groot deel van de energie via het basisinkomen verdeelt.
Duitsland ontwikkelt als eerste een Roboeconomy, door problemen op te lossen ipv te laten exploiteren
Als Duitsland de reeds enorme hernieuwbare energie capaciteit complementeert met energie opslag, dwz. batterijen (vele malen efficienter dan Power2gas, dus voor de meeste situaties de voorkeur genietend) dan ontstaat het tegengestelde behoefte patroon dan wat in de brief van Kamp wordt geconsolideerd. Internationaal energieverkeer en behoefte aan het grid neemt af, want energie komt uit lokale opslag. De markt lost een fundamenteel probleem op in plaats van er van te willen bestaan. Cashflow is niet langer een temaximeren grootheid. Inzicht in eigen gebruik wordt steeds minder belangrijk omdat mensen genoeg stroom hebben, dus who cares?
Besparen hoef je alleen als je een tekort hebt
In plaats van het probleem op te lossen wil Kamp het in stand houden door de machtsstructuur die daarvoor nodig is te ondersteunen. Dit is vanwege zijn prijs afwegingen en economische inzichten. Maar hij snapt niet dat dit economisch verkeer ook bij een veel lager prijsniveau kan plaatsvinden, of misschien ook niet, maar dat het altijd beter is om te zorgen dat Nederland er warmpjes (warm warm, niet veel geld op de bankrekening ‘warm’) bijzit dan om het de kans te geven te blijven rennen voor de resterende gas, olie en kolenvoorraden.
Governments are under increasing pressure to deal with tax evasion. The biggest brands on the planet all use tax evasion constructions to pay less or next to no taxes. Holland has many music royalty deals for music companies that are located elsewhere, mailbox companies that only serve to make it legally true big income streams touched ground in Holland.
Orange, Amazon, Starbucks, Ikea
This is unfair competition. If it is Starbucks, Ikea, Mac Donalds or even Google, it means these brands do not have the same costs as any company of smaller size that does not have the KPN tax consultants, that can not make the undisclosed tax deals. Every country seems to be in a race to the bottom to attract companies with tax reductions, but how about their own population? How about jobs?
Formula : Take something basic everyone does everywhere, make a global franchise and outcompete everyone through tax evasion
If Starbucks had never been able to cut its tax burden in comparison with other coffee selling bagelshops, would it have become the global brand? How many jobs where lost to local economies by the unfair push of Starbucks? Without wanting to be indiscriminate one can pick any other global brand and assume they did the same, make tax free profits helping them to outcompete anyone else in their market niche. You can basically call it a staple commerce landgrab.
Global brands depress local initiative
This is all not very green. It is more efficient if you look at the production side, but it means less people have meaningfull jobs, less variety, less local culture (although with diners and coffee shops this may not be a problem). The large scale of every part of the operation of global brands means lots of reasons to cut corners and pollute. This apart from the logistics and possibly unsustainable sourcing of materials.
Global brands are part of US global cultural domination, which reduces the interest people have in local initiatives, a commmercial version of celebrity worship. We all know how depressing places look if they are only designed to generate the highest yield from consumers. The world a shoppingmall, with it’s global brand outlets.
Consumers are not supposed to pay for, not participate in all the processes that keep them alive and happy
Payback
How to solve this? First of all, stop with the tax evasion. This is simple by requiring all companies to report their income and tax it 100% in the country where the revenue is generated. No international transfers of funds. But more interestingly maybe we should open the brands. We should set a decent standard for a Starbucks outfit, which can’t be difficult, and anyone that can meet that standard can use the brand, without paying for it! This is to compensate for the years of unfair competition. People are clearly brand loyal no matter what. The value of these companies lies in the behaviour they have conditioned in us.
Allow anyone making a decent cup of coffee to carry the name Starbucks
Allow anyone makeing furniture top carry the name Ikea
Allow anyone selling books to carry the name Amazon
This is not so easy with Google or other brands that make a specific product, but for those companies one can require full representation in any country they operate in, so sever parcs in Holland for Google.nl searches. For services rendered online another way of dealing with it is to tax a cut from the revenues that is proportional to the client base the company has in your country. If consumers are the reason why taxable revenues are flowing, then surely the country ‘providing’ them should be rewarded.
This is a somewhat shortened translation of a post from 2011 in Dutch
The Carbon/Credit system is the system by which carbon fuels are distributed through the extention of credit (our money). Credit is used to enable production because it allowes owners of machines and vehicles to buy energy. Say a manufacturer wants to make a new product. He writes a business plan goes to a bank that creates the credit. With the credit he can buy the materials and resources to make his product. Then he sells it and makes a profit. Almost every step in this proces requires energy in some form, and this energy he buys with the credit he got from the bank, and later with the credit he gets from the customers. If he would not be able to purchase any form of energy with his own or his customers credit he would not be able to run his business. His ability to buy energy, especially fossil fuels, is no accident, it is possible because there is a well managed relation between the amount of credit in circulation and the amount of fossil energy for sale. This is what we (I) call the Carboncredit system. It’s main challenge is to maintain price stability through the management of credit vis a vis (fossil fuel) energy supply.
Fuel cartels
Throughout history there have always been fuel cartels, either for wood, coal, peat. These fuels where used for baking and heating homes. When the steam engine was invented however the fuel started to be used to produce, Increasing amounts of products where produced using coal, and the amount of goods that became available to be traded became proportional to the amount of coal that was available, not to the amount of workers like before. This meant that instead of money supply proportional to the amount of workers (which would be pretty constant, making gold and silver well suited) one needed money in circulation proportional to the utilisation of carbon. This need formed the basis of economic thinking, which has as its core purpose : Maximizing the utilisation of fossil fuels. This meant people got more money than before, there was more to trade wealth was increasing in the industrialized zones of the world which ran the fuel cartels.
Gold and silver where replaced by fait money to unleash the productive power of fossil fuel
This became a problem for traditional credit based on the loaning out of gold and silver, because that supply of money could not expand with the supply of fossil fuels, which turned out to be in pretty limitless supply. When oil started to be used the gold and silver started to end up with the suppliers of oil. They (Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.) would eventually have all the gold and silver no matter how low the price of the fuel would be. So banks decided to create a new money system, the ‘Carboncredit’ system. It was the system in which fiat money was used to distribute fossil fuels. Worthless paper was made able to buy valuable coal, oil, gas is if they where good as gold. The gold standard was later abandoned, and a powerbase in the Middle east we know as Israel was established to police the supply of oil to the UK and US (under Nixon) and their allies. Saudi Arabia always chose to serve the cartel, other countries wanted more independence, but usually didn’t have it for long. Oil is like a hot young woman stuck in a mining town, sooner or later she has to choose her man or get raped, like Iraq, Iran, Lybia and other oil/gas rich countries.
Credit as we know it is only possible if it means immediate access to productive capacity. That means you have to have energy reserves, and the type thats ideal is fossil fuels.
So this is how the petrodollar came about, a term that neatly translates in carboncredit, with the distinction that all fiat currencies are carboncredit but there is only one petrodollar. The strength of the petrodollar is being guarded, meaning noone is allowed to trade oil in other currencies directly, or was. When the petrodollar was 100% secure this meant the US could always afford oil and other countries had to trade with the US in order to get oil. This situation has weakened now and China and Russia and other countries trade oil in their own currencies. This means the US has lost control over these two countries as well as its own wealth. Maybe soon we will need to get Rubbles to buy oil. This is the reason for the current military instability, because it is the armies that secure the wells that provide the oil that backs the carboncredit.
Why oil dominates
Oil is stinking gue, it is toxic. For thousands of years it was barely used, bitumen was found in the ancient Iraqi batteries for insulation but (lucky for us) engines running on oil are only very recent. It took a while and the invention of the steam and later the internal combustion engine to make oil a usefull material, the initial users being ships of the royal navy, boosting englands military might. In the beginning when money was gold and silver and middle eastern rulers had few engines using fuel, cars, planes, etc. They simply accepted the gold and silver from the westen banks for the oil. Later more force was used to secure the (essentially free) supply to the west.
Today the tables are turned. Oil companies are in charge. They don’t need money to get the oil out of the ground. To do anything with machines you need fossil fuels, so as long as oil companies have a stash of diesel somewhere they can continue drilling, and whatever they get out of the ground they can trade for what they want or convince a bank to print money to sell. So carbon is leading the financial system, and the financial system needs carbon. If you know carbon will be for sale, you can extent credit to the person buying it. The Rothschild bank tried to achieve such an ideal situation through participation in the Indonesian coal reserves, but kicked out when they staged a ‘coup’. As a result the Rothschild are withdrawing from Asia. Banks and oil/coal and gas companies are always cooperating even if they will swear they are not.
Everything is carbon
The carbon credit system works as long as the supply of carbon fuels is there. Its distribution is easy to control through banks and fossil fuel markets with one price for large regions. Because of the myths of economics people don’t realize this interdependence, especially because the price is kept almost marginal. This makes people follow economic principles without needing reinforcement. The ‘installed’ economic belief system controls people without them even being aware of it. People think they are clever when they ‘get’ economics, there’s an element of magic to it because for a long time the economic system worked as advertised. But if the fossil fuel supply collapses or gets seriously interrupted no economic theory or principle holds anymore, because the credit becomes worthless, and new credit only results in inflation.
Destroying Credit
Credit (the majority of it) constantly flows through the system, is created and destroyed. This allows banks to make sure that the amount of credit that can directly buy fossil fuels (at the gas station or in the factory, logisics chain etc.) is under strict control. To release more credit when fuel is plentifull banks use bubbles and talk about a positive economic outlook. They simply start valueing objects higher to distribute more credit. Then when fuel supply can’t meet demand they retract credit and say ‘it was irrational exhuberance’, you lost at the stock market, the bank needs to increase liquidity (the BIS makes sure that happens so nobody can say it’s to control fossil fuel consumption). The cycles give them ever increasing control over assets, as their owners predictably default. At any time though banks can come up with an excuse to retract or extend credit reduce or increase ‘liquidity’ so that prices remain stabile (and banks don’t have to change all their contracts, loans and mortgages). The goal of price stability links fossil fuel dependent production with the amount of money directly able to buy fossil fuels, it defines the carboncredit system.
The only real incarnation of debt in our society is the extra CO2 we find in our atmosphere, other than that it is just a tool
Debt in this system is just a tool, not a real thing. The fuel that was bought with the credit that we owe has been burned, noone can repay itl. People that owe debt are caught in the illusion they can somehow repay their creditor, but they can’t. Nobody makes fossil fuels nobody has a workshop that churns out oil. This is a fact and banks know it. They know we buy fossil fuels with the credit we get, and will have to be rescued by new credit (debt).
Debt is however very usefull because it allows banks to control the amount of carboncredit in circulation (meaning the amount of fiat currency). And as fossil fuels become more and more scarce, debt helps the banks to cut the supply and make people agree. Having debt is shamefull, and being poor because of it is just.
Today if one creates credit without making fossil fuel available one stokes inflation, if one makes fossil fuels available without credit one stokes deflation. To retain stabile prices the amount of credit must be managed vis a vis the amout of fossil fuels
Our carbon based economy has been developed to increase the power of banks, to secure their position. The more carboncredit flowed, the more they held the reigns of society. Economics has been the belief system that was propagated and used to justify and lubricate this process. The whole thought matrix of competition and scarcity was created because it provided a decentralized way to ensure expansion of the utilisation of carbon fuels. People think economics is a neutral theory, it is not, it is a marketing strategy for fossil fuel, an ideology.
The growth in wealth around the world as a result of the use of fossil fuel is incredible. Of course with so much stored sunlight to release productively the effect has been highly positive. The ability to achieve so much for so many people has been a major benefit of the petrodollar and carboncredit, it created a disciplined planet where major benefits where shared because sharing it caused more utilisation of fossil fuels than hoarding it. This system must however be dismatled now because it threatens our lives and futures, primarily because of wars over fossil fuels, secondarily because of climate change caused by their use.
Carboncredit Capture
Now we are in a phase of carbon credit ‘capture’. As the supply is shrinking the amount of credit circulating has to shrink. This is the economic crisis that started in 2008. Together banks are trying to put on a play that somehow the amount of credit is a problem. What they are doing is hiding the fact the amount of fossil fuels is the problem. They hide this relation because if people would know why things are slowing down they would bypass the banks and demand rationed and targeted use of the remaining carbon reserves towards the transiton to renewables. Banks behave like diving instructors running out of oxygen about 100 feet under water deciding to just keep going to not lose control over the other divers.
The way to untangle us from the carboncredit system
There’s three aspects to the system,
- The debt structures, which are about ownership and control of assets.
- The real economic structures, which are about keeping people alive and happy.
- The carbon power structure, which is the fundamental control over oil, coal and gas.
At the moment the three are entangled in a loose kind of way, they operate on the basis of habit and trust in the stability of relations. Money is respected in the market. Once things come apart or are taken apart this will change, and the complexity now providing security to all may be replaced by simple rules that are easy to enforce.
The fundamental problem without any intervention is that we depend on oil, yet our exit from oil is prevented because the credit system depends on oil. If we manage to replace oil by local renewables, we free ourselves of the banking system. We must therefore first take control of that system or take control of the resources directly. Both steps can be responded to by the financial system with a crash, basically a strike of services. As long as it is not understood the whole credit system is the opponent, no governments or group of them will be able to go through that phase without political damage.
The recognition of the carboncredit system is urgent because left to itself the strugling banks will drive the population into poverty and war while wasting fossil energy needed for any transition. So before society starts to polarize and break apart, one needs to find a way to install a government that wants to take the necessary steps. If this isn’t possible it creates the basis for a revolutionary movement, which may lead to chaos and can even be hijacked by the banks. The best option is to start moving on the solution which has to do with finding alternative energy sources.
If we clear our minds of any history and look at reality we know that to survive we need to somehow extract what we need from our environment. If we are not going to use fossil fuels we have to use renewables. Luckily we have industrialized so if we have access to energy we have machines to multiply our productivity, we have all kinds of technology to enhance our chances of survival. So the solution to the downward spiral described above is renewable energy, preferably the easiest most useable form.
The strategy would be to use any remaining fossil fuel resources to build a renewable energy base as soon as possible. Once we have enough renewable energy sources we can make new ones with renewable energy, creating a consolidating positive feedback loop leading to renewable energy abundance.
In the mean time instead of using fossil based technolgies we can shift to renewable based technologies, in farming but everywhere else. In cases where that transition is to expensive we can consider sticking with fossil equivalents, like synthetic methane for cooking in Holland, so called Power2Gas.
Of the three aspects above only the real economic structure counts. The debt can become managed by the government, and cancelled if the owner of the debt does nothing interesting in the real economy. Banks own mortgage debt, but don’t do anything usefull with it (they use it to shrink carbon consumption), so if it’s a burden on people then it can be reduced (of course houses remain valuable). Primary consideration should be : Are we flexible enough to make the transition.
The carbon power structure should equally be put under control of an organization with the goal to replace the use of carbon, in tandem with the approach to debt above. Society can deal with not being able to drive for a while, as long as it is clear what’s the plan. But the sovereignty of fossil fuel companies will be out of the question.
To transition we propose to use three currencies instead with specific value types in terms of energy. The Auro for manual labour, is a gold/silver coin that made in proportion to the actual workforce. The Euro is pure carboncredit in the classic sense, and can only be extended by government to power the transition. The Joule is the new energy currency for renewables and is extended by local management of the power sources or government in the form of a flat living wage to every citizen. These currencies have their intricacies that require further rules to be set, you can read about it in “The Euro, Auro and Joule”. The creation of storeable energy sources like gas, ammonia, biofuels will enable a lot of normal activities to continue.
Ultimately the world will emerge from its carboncredit domination and know how to keep itself alive for eternity using the sun, the wind, waves, geothermal energy. Of course eternity can turn out to be a flash if we don’t also deal with climate change. So that will be the concurrent task, to fight climate change using renewables. There really is no other option because climate change makes our oceans so toxic we won’t be able to breath eventually. All the real damage is still avoidable and reversible. You can see the CO2 respiration of Earth every year, so CO2 levels can go down, the Earth can cool down (it does every night) and things can go back to normal or even beter, go forward to a greener cleaner, healthier world than was ever known. This is what we call the Roboeconomy, the world in which robots will restore the ecology and form the basis of the economy.
The way to streamline this transition without touching the current economies would be to develop so called extraeconomic initiatives. These are strickly renewable based development initiatives in remote areas. The objective is not to mix with the existing economy at all, but to build ecological and climate change mitigation projects that sustain their own growth while keeping the participants alive.
Climate change is a major challenge to life on Earth. We are dealing with more CO2, less O2 in a positive feedback loop due to higher temperatures, forest fires and the dying oceans. This has happened before and has caused major extinctions. The reason we are around is because some species survived. They where adapted to the changing environment and created offspring.
EU proposed to make standard seeds mandatory
Evolution as Charles Darwin presented it is not survival of the fittest, as many believe, but survival of the just good enough. The process hinges on variety in species so that a changing situation creates an opportunity for some of the population, even if others, or the majority can’t deal with it.
Evolution is a proces of survival of those species that can cope with their environment, not necessarily the optimal or strongest
The EU is now preparing to make use of certain seeds mandatory, standardized seeds. This means lots of legacy seeds will disappear and the plants we really need will have next to no variety. It also means seeds become money, because these will of course be patented modified seeds, which are ‘better’ than other seeds.
Variety in species is the best way for life to deal with changes in the environment
We should be weary overharvesting.
This strategy which is only motivated by economical motives, by desire to control and own, is the biggest diseaster for our environment and our chances of suvival on Earth. This risk taking behaviour has never a problem for the industry ingeneral as it has driven fossil fuel use for a century in which the effects where well known, and sigarets, and DDT, and nuclear power. Danger means you become dependent on them. The main concern is power and control excerted by a few.
Allowing the motivation of control to force us into an evolutionary niche is a mistake
We need not less variety in seeds, but more. The maximum, so the plants can adapt. Life on Earth lost the battle during the Permian extinction and then it had thousands of years to find a ‘solution’. We now give it a couple of hundreds of years. Better not mess it up for ourselves..
Psychologen weten dat als we iets nieuws zien we het begin en het eind het makkelijkst onthouden. Men weet ook dat de emotionele lading van iets dat wordt gepresenteerd bepaald of we er vaker aan denken, emoties bepalen onze beslissingen (ook al denken we graag dat we rationeel zijn). Het is ons opgevallen dat promofilmjes voor duurzame ideen vaak beginnen met enge, dramatische of beklemmende muziek. Dit zorgt voor een associatie met rampspoed, defaitisme en de dood. Hieronder een paar voorbeelden:
Bedrijf zoekt buur, over een manier om regelingen handig te gebruiken zodat je zonnepanelen een stuk goedkoper zijn (alleen via de website trieste piano muziek)
We zullen andere voorbeelden hier toevoegen..
Europe is going after price fixing by oil companies. They should not stop there, because what about price fixing by banks? Don’t banks fix prices if they create more money or absorb it from society? This is our carboncredit perspective of banking. Banks are managing prices by observing the energy markets, which dictates how much money they are able to print (credit) without affecting prices. This is what the fed does.
Shell is organizing the Eco-Marathon in the Ahoy in Rotterdam. Hundreds of teams from around the world are competing to have the most fuel efficient car, or one that reaches the highest speed using solar, batteries or hydrogen. Below some pictures, first of the kids exposition.
It seems hard to be negative about this event. It is not at all. It’s a blatant propaganda show for fossil fuels. Yes you see some solar panel and a wind turbine, but most of the exhibition is about gas, nuclear and lots of cars, cars, cars. Kids love cars. Apart from cars they can see a plan for their future where "75% of people live in cities".
Shell tells you there may be climate change, but that biomass burning in poor countries also adds a lot of CO2. All the more reason to stop their business.
Shell remains in the conditional mode regarding climate change. CO2 "has the potential". It’s very predictable, their business model and ambitions include getting gas from the ocean floor apart from hunting for shale gas in South Africa. They don’t learn they are a mere supplier of energy they find around Earth, only theirs because they bribe (or kill) most people that oppose them. This has been going on since the late 1800’s.
A ripoff of the strangled Aptera
The Eco-Marathon challenge is interesting, today many teams seemed to have their complete workshop moved to the Ahoy hall. Categories are solar, batteries, gasoline, hydrogen. It’s an involved activity, students will feel like they are really cool and active, which is what they should be much earlier in life (in terms of responsibilities).
The creations remind one of the first cars, (many of which where electric by the way until Ford came along). It’s a great way to make people aware of their maker skills. We say Wealth is skills x materials x energy, so these events are good for any economy, not only the Shell inspired (destined to cause our extinction) fossil fuel based one.
Russians, of course working on a gasoline car