We are building a test bed for robotic gardening, aquaphonics and other roboeconomic techniques. We believe that once it is established renewables afford us to restore ourplanet without limitation, we will set about developing the technology to do so, which will be a mix of information technology and robotics. It will be important especially to speed up the process of replanting and dedesertification, irrigation and maybe even channel building. All this will happen without any fossil fuel input, it has to, you can’t solve a problem with it’s cause. We’ll group this under geoengineering and will start with trying to do some automation on our own indoor garden making it a loos thread along with other topics on this site..
Max has been ranting about the many ways in which banks have created fraudulent credit for themselves and credit has been taken from the public by low interest rates and policies, something we understand to be part of the carboncredit logic. This logic dictates that as available carbon is reduced or shifted elsewhere, liquidity in society has to be shrunk or prices of everything will go up.
These guys take another perspective. They say that if we are to halt burning carbon when we reach 2 degrees (which is diseasterzone) that about 80% of the reserves will remain unused. As this reserves are on the books for credit extention, this book value of reserves has to be cut. What these guys are talking about also makes carboncredit sense, because you don’t want to extend credit when the carbon is not there or prices will go up.
Money, credit or savings are worthless if there is no energy to produce goods when you want to spend it
In both cases the prices are kept stable so people are not alerted to a change of paradigma, and cashflows are protected. The guys are actually protecting the banking system and have Moody’s on their side. Moody’s, Standard & Poor and other rating agencies serve as leaders in the carboncredit system, becuase they determing the cost of credit, so effectively how much carbon a country or company can commandeer to do it’s work.
Pensions
Part of the conversation is about pensions. Pensions are illusions because the money people save in it only has value in a functioning economy, and you never know if that will exist when you get your money from your pension. Pensions need to shrink as hard as possible because the bad news is : Fossil fuel won’t be available to make all the stuff people would want to buy when they get the money. Better then to make sure they have less money. Also businesses and banks make money today, now that there’s still good access to oil (even if oil becomes more and more carbon intensive and complicated to get), so banks and industry will try to trick pensions out of their funds. They are already doing a charade about ‘coverage’ meaning they counted on certain interest on the savings but they didn’t materialize so now the pension given will be decreased. All this is completely understandable in the carboncredit logic.
Because you (still) can’t make anything without fossil fuels, money only buy stuff as long as they are available, and the amount of money people can spend today must match the amount of production possible today
Max and his guests don’t get this far. Max tries to find the road to trade up while ditching oil, and that is impossible as long as all companies use fossil fuels for production. The guests try to make the industry do something preventative it has never done before, but they are backed by Moody’s because Moody’s has as its task to manage the carboncredit balance, it has to cut credit when the carbon supply/access drops.
Our habits, our beliefs about others, when shared and common, invite exploitation. ‘Economics’ gets installed in our elites so banks make profits
It is a truth that even in a world without central control behaviour can be concerted. One of the biggest silent organizers in our world is economic theory, another is our credit based banking system. Both are used and applied without to much doubt, for instance in ‘kickstarting the economy’. Using prices is a reflection of the trust that someone maintains the relation between credit and productivity, and because productiviy depends on the availability of ‘carbon’ fuels that trust means one expects the carboncredit system to be managed.
Targeting ‘Price stability’ is managing the relation between carbon and credit
This is what Bernanke means then he says the Federal Reserve Bank maintains ‘price stability’. It tries to manage the value of one dollar of carboncredit vis a vis US domination of fossil fuel reserves. This process is collapsing for geopolitical reasons, hence the growing poverty and agressive nature of US banks in trying to destroy demand at home and aboad (by crashing the PIIGS).
The Wallstreet banks, in cooperation with the US government, have reduced carbon consumption by reducing liquidity around the world, shifting reserves towards CAUSA industry
What will happen is that Moodies will downgrade oil companies for real, and nobody can be blamed, so banks are ‘forced’ to lend less and more discriminately, more austerity will have to be applied as the dying carbon industry still tries to strangle the growing renewable one because renewables are made using ‘carbon’ fuels the use of which requires credit. This gets the banks off the hook, and allows for expansion of their power as chaos starts to spread in regions without fossil fuels to transition to renewables. Many people will die, as many are already dying.
Two options for the end game :
1. A carbon based plutocracy arises that starts to mine Clathrate gas from the ocean floor, fracking the hell out of every nook and cranny playing locust with natural resources while strangling the renewable industry where possible and creating a total surveillance environment. Mankind’s final moments will be spend in endless wars. Like the oil industry expert below confessed (second allinea).
Banks and the fossil fuel industry have been killing us for more than a century, the people in these sectors are selected to be short term thinkers loyal only to the corporation
2. Governments see that they have to increase the energy supply, and renewables being most easy to create and control shift the use of carbon fuels towards this sector, disregarding economic ideas like kickstarting something, actually focussing on cutting the carboncredit domination by building factories that create renewable energy sources using only renewble energy. This also include adopting a new money system, and abolishing the autonomy of the fossil fuel industry. With those measures the conditions of every living creature on earth starts to improve immediately.
Wealth is a function of Skills, Raw materials and Energy (notice the absence of credit or oil)
The financial/fossil sector will dominate politics as much as it can as long as it can to remain in power. That is the nature of those industries. But these people are always and only bluffing and no match for a determined population. As always though these interests own both sides of the debate, so only a populist that has a clear idea about how to defeat the control by the banks and fossil fuel industry should be supported. The renewable future is the only future and it should be the one you want!
Wetshandhaving in India heeft zijn zwakke kanten, dat is met de recente verkrachtingen wel gebleken. Het land is gigantisch groot en het grootste deel van de bevolking leeft in armoede. Net als Pakistan ‘tribal zones’ kent waar de politie niks te zeggen heeft zijn er in India ook gebieden waar je beter niet kan komen. Kennelijk vallen daar ook kolenrijke gebieden onder. De kolen maffia is zo machtig dat India niet goed bij zijn kolen kan. De regering heeft geen controle over de kolengebieden, de politie is corrupt en medeplichtig. De voorraden worden geplunderd.
We hebben het hier waarschijnlijk over schuldslavernij, net als in andere arme landen, waar het land zelf de gevangenis vormt van mensen die moeten werken om een schuld af te betalen. Kinderarbeid is geen uitzondering, zoals in de docu hieronder "Children of the inferno" te zien is. Kolen ontbranden spontaan als ze aan lucht blootstaan, en branden soms al 100 jaar. Meer over ondergronds brandende kolen.
Hier is iets te doen voor de bouwsector, een manier om luchtverversing en verwarming te realiseren volledig op duurzame basis, misschien zelfs resulteren in een energie neutraal gebouw!
Zou dit voor particuleren ook kunnen, bejaarden tehuizen, ziekenhuizen, scholen? Denk het wel! Dit sluit enigzins aan bij onze eerdere posts over Solar Air heating.
English
Ben Bronsema developed a method for converting buildings so that they do not require airconditioning and become near energy neutral. It is implemented by adapting the roofs and facades so they capitalize on the wind and solar energy available. Then it uses thermal convection and other intrinsic sources of flow to replace energy intensive fans and airconditioning systems. When the hot air is exhausted from the building in summer the heat can be extracted and stored in undergound aquifer or other heat storage tank for use later, or even to heat the buidling in winter.
Applying these techniques (amongst which is solar air heating) to exiting buildings may be a quicker way to drive down carbon consumption than refubishing them with new heating systems. The adoption of these concepts can run into trouble because energy clients and banks don’t like to loos customers or cashflow. Yet it provides a model for future buildings and a way out of your costly airco bills..
"Energieleveranciers maken hun grijze stroom groen door certificaten te kopen. De zogenaamde Garanties van Oorsprong (GvO’s). Dat is wettelijk zo geregeld. Zulke certificaten kun je bijvoorbeeld in Noorwegen kopen bij waterkrachtcentrales. Dat klinkt best groen toch? Maar weet u hoeveel het ons in 2012 kostte om met GvO’s een gemiddeld Nederlands gezin een jaar lang 100% groene stroom te leveren? Nou? €1,44. Eén euro en vierenveertig cent. " (bron)
Wow, hier hadden we nog nooit naar gekeken. Het systeem van garanties van oorsprong leek ons een open deur om te sjoemelen, vooral vanwege het feit dat 1 MW in Noorwegen niet hetzelfde is (en nooit zal zijn) als 1 MW in Nederland. Nu rijzen er een aantal vragen zoals : Wat zou de prijs van de certificaten moeten zijn ? Kan een certificaat systeem uberhaupt werken? Wat doen we met het tekort aan groene stroom (wordt dit nu weer zwart voor de mensen die gezamelijk of individueel groene stroom inkochten). Het leek ook te makkelijk te gaan.
Het certificaat systeem afschaffen lijkt ons het beste. Groen is groen, moet u meteen kunnen zien.
Dit is overigens wel een voorbeeld van transparantie als marketing strategie. Tevens is het een voorbeeld van ‘level playing field’ dwz, bedrijven hebben geen probleem met een uitdaging, zolang de competitie die ook ondervindt. Maar het kan ook zijn dat de NEM denkt :"De mensen kunnen geen kant op, dus waarom die groencertificaten? Dat wordt een besparing als mensen daar niet in geloven." Een bedrijf houdt zich immers in leven door commerciele beslissingen te nemen.
De ‘energie markt’ is in wezen onzin, waarom een markt als je gericht energie duurzame voorzieningen kan aanleggen?
We zien iig liever transparantie en beweging richting beter begrip over hoe onze energiebehoefte wordt gelenigd dan het schaamteloos greenwashing van Mac Donalds en Coca Cola.
The Grvity plane concept is similar to the ocean gliders that have been used to collect ocean data for some time now. It does the same thing, but instead of using air for aqautic boyancy it uses helium for atmospheric boyancy.
Once it’s at altitude it can glide down on wings, collecting some energy from small vawts who’s energy is stored in the form of compressed energy. The speed it develops generates lift so the plane can cover over 500 miles without fuel, only based on the energy to decompress and compress the helium.
The plane is safe because it doubles as an air ship, it floats in the air anyway. It could use a propellor in our humble opinion, or it may float off..
Shipping is a mega pollutor. Even though shipping companies like Maersk are investing in cleaner engines and even in synthetic fuels, sadly the whole point of international shipping is that it monetizes fossil fuels. Long distance logistics creates the economy, it requires money to flow through the banks, it consumes fossil fuels. It makes banks and oil companies rich and important. Whatever you get from china, banks and oil companies get a cut of the produce.
Shipping companies are an essential part of ‘global economy’ trap
But there is an opportunity here. Shipping in the current form will not stay, it is simply too dumb. Europe is going to tax imported solar panels from China, but how will it respond the import of a solar panel plant from China? Way more efficient because there is no real link between Euro’s and Chinese coal imports from Australia anyway.
"Commercial vessels emitted 3 percent of the world’s carbon in 2007, and that may increase to 18 percent by 2050 as global trade increases and fleets expand, said the UN’s International Maritime Organization." (source)
Shipping can clean up, by starting to use wind power directly (using kites) or to make fuels, by starting to farm algae for biofuels at sea, by converting to Ammonia (NH3) altogether, but of course that would overturn the link with the fossil industry and the banking sector, which now makes the whole enterprise possible (ships get cheap almost unrefined fuel). For the shippers there’s only the desire to keep doing what they are doing though, so there is hope.
Above video should be part of the media campaing where Maersk announces it’s first clean energy driven service. Slowsteaming is a speed that dolphins can keep up with, so they where seen playing in front of the bow. Pitty that bow bellows out poison a few hundred meters further back. Opportunity knocks.
Billions of gallons of fuel for the taking
Richard Branson is on this as well, as he owns Virgin Atlantic. He tries to make ethanol fuel from flared CO using mircobes, so maybe ships can even do this at sea or in port, doubling the utility of the fuel!
P.S.
Ampex Power, a startup of Shell and Nuon, does exactly the same thing as Skysails, but with a rigid wing instead of an inflatable kite. The system uses 1/20th of the materials for an equivalent turbine. This may work better, it will at least be cheaper. It seems the kite is actually a better solution because it does not require a runway. Why Ampex had to try and succeeded in getting 100.000 crowdfunding is a mystery, oh, no, because banks don’t like renewables, and Shell and Nuon don’t have cash!!
Secretly both Ampex and Skysails are VAWT, vertical wind turbines, that have always been cheaper and easier to build.
This extrinction will have no name, at least not for those that will study it in about 4 million years or so, the time it usually takes for some sentient lifeform to recover from scourge of toxic gasses produced by oceans, dead because of global warming. It may take a lot longer.
"Climate change is expected to have significant influences on terrestrial biodiversity at all system levels, including species-level reductions in range size and abundance, especially amongst endemic species" (source)
But it is happening, and the numbers are not mild, even without assuming this H2S toxic onslaught. The higher temperatures and changing weather conditions are enough for a pretty serious cull. This then of course is not the end of it, just the beginning.
57±6% of plants and 34±7% of animals are likely to lose ≥50% of their present climatic range by the 2080s.(source)
On the other hand, if we take action the results will be different. We can’t read the full article but of course once we are focussed on mitigation and reversal of the damage (using abundant renewables and perhaps liquid energy produced using the sun in f.i. the North African desert), then the outcome will be much better:
With mitigation, however, losses are reduced by 60% if emissions peak in 2016 or 40% if emissions peak in 2030. (source)
We still don’t know if that will be the end or just a slowdown. We can confirm that with a will to expand renewables and store carbon we will see a pickup at the point renewable energy is starting to drive the expansion, theoretically enabling us to catch more CO2 then was ever released since the start of using fossil fuels.
Check out Greenseaupwelling about how to use the deep ocean water to increase fish stocks and capture CO2 and cool the atmosphere
Cooling our planet is a big factor in retaining plant life as long as we don’t have a way to make a concerted effort to exit carbon. Models of growing algae in our oceans show that method would work to catch significant amounts, but it’s main effect would lie in the cooling of the air, bennefitting plants on land..
Good video on the ins and outs of passive houses, houses that get most of their energy from passive sources. Maybe it should be called ‘comfort houses’, because their comfort is more intrinsic than in conventional houses.
Morocco already has a parabolic trough solar thermal plant, and it has been courted by Desertec to do more, to become a power producer for Europe. But it turns out it will work with Saudi developer ACWA Power to build the biggest solar plant on the planet, and rightly so!
It is the first of a two-phase project, due for completion in 2020, that is expected to cover 3,000 hectares and have a generation capacity of 500 megawatts, enough to met the electricity needs of Ouarzazate’s 1.5 million residents.
The project to generate electricity is slated to cost 420,- Euro per power consumer. That either means it is intrinsically extremely profitable or that it makes electricity progressively cheaper. We see the latter in Germany where electricity prices drop when the sun is out or the wind blows (see how well they balance each other here). The third way, which is our roboeconomic way, is to create money based on the market value of the energy so that it can be traded, sold, and used, without disturbing the larger money supply system (which is carbon based, we call it the carboncredit system).
Solar Trough Thermal Power Plant – Aïn Beni Mathar
">Soon Morocco will realize its lands hold limitless bounty, and the dryness and unihabitable nature of it may become a thing of the past. Let’s hope by then there’s no ban on increasing rainfall or clouds, to maximize the output of the solar plants.
