Month: August 2015

If you read this you are interested in climate change, in a possible solution. Like us you can see that progress in dealing with emissions is too slow. You can see that even if construction and implementation of renewables was ramped up, growth would not be big enough. Without emergency actions we will not retain the environment that supports our existence.

This situation has come about because we are human. We are build to crave freedom of movement, we are build to fear changes with unkown consequences. Oil, coal and gas are easy ways to a lot of freedom, and those that now sell it do not want that to change. They have all the resources needed. Slowly this is changing, the capacity of renewables is growing. But this fight of renewables against fossil interests is also slowing down the necessary changes.

A big part of this is human nature. We are weak individuals that first get about 20 years of indoctrination and dependence, then are thrown into a world where money is king. We face organizations that have used fossil fuels to become powerfull, we face other people that believe in economic growth, which is fossil fuel use expansion, because it is based on growth of cashflow (while installing solar panels f.i. reduces cashflow). The economy itself spawns all kinds of initiatives that are designed to make us feel happy while we do absolutely nothing to improve our existence or security (city trips, dance events). We are mostly powerless.

 

U.S. Health Burden Caused by Particulate Pollution from Fossil-Fueled Power Plants
Illness	Mean Number of Cases
Asthma (hospital admissions)	3,020
Pneumonia  (hospital admissions)	4,040
Asthma (emergency room visits)	7,160
Cardiovascular ills (hospital admissions)	9,720
Chronic bronchitis	18,600
Premature deaths	30,100
Acute bronchitis	59,000
Asthma attacks	603,000
Lower respiratory ills	630,000
Upper respiratory ills	679,000
Lost workdays	5.13 million
Minor restricted-activity days	26.3 million

9,720 people are admitted with heart problems every year because of fossil fuel burning powerplants

Starting an organzation to change things may work on a small scale, but when it reaches a level where it can have impact it runs into a number of problems. First : It has to be based somewhere, and for that it needs money. Second : Once it gains a lot of members and it wants to do something effective, it runs into the law, which is made by the pollutors. For example, air pollution kills thousands of people annually, but can we sue Shell, Exxon who provide dirty shipping fuel to logistics companies (who turn out to be more than 25% of the fine particle problem in Holland)? We may be able to lobby for better engines and a slightly different fuel standard, but what if we want to shut them down? No more diesel ships? That hurts the economy. Every old person with a disease that can be traced back to the use of coal, oil and gas, which includes lung disease and cancer should be a nail on the coffin of those industries. You can not sell a toy that kills one in 10.000 children, so why can you sell products that kill 3000 out of 10.000 (if you attribute cancer to fossil fuel related pollution and take the prognosis of 1 in three to die from cancer on average).

Let’s just admit that it is in our nature to construct systems that capture us in relative (short term) security, and that the impulse to build those short term security systems is stronger because it is easier. It is easier to ignore a signal of climate change when it has no direct impact on you, than to respond to it. The number of people choosing to ignore is always bigger than the number choosing to respond, and we are including all people in poor countries, war zones, oppressive cultures etc. We are seeing a response from the christian and muslim communities, which means that the idea of climate action is suddenly introduced in an existing system of thought, this is great and the way to do it. But the most important system of thought, which we call economic thinking, is in its centralized and fossil fuel dependent nature so diametrically opposed to what we need that it is impossible to introduce new elements that would work. Saying we need to conserve or overproduce resources while economics assumes all expoitable resources will automatically be brought to the market, these thoughts can’t be part of one system.

The answer to the above challenge of hacking economics so it is congruent with climate action and the transition to renewables has resulted in two new concepts: 1. The Roboeconomy and 2. Extraeconomics.

Roboeconomics or the Roboeconomy

This is an economy that uses robotics (automation, computers) and renewables to restore the ecology. The resulting economy will have at least a basic income for all. It will not have profit of banks as an incentive because banks don’t exist. Instead all energy producers generate credit (for purchase of their energy if it is available for sale) that is either created in the hands of individuals or organizations depending on how the renewable resources are owned. We assume the state owns a large capacity of renewable energy sources. This leads to a different distribution of production and consumption, one different from the current one that is based on the cost of logistics.

The roboeconomic system will employ automated systems to restore the ecology, it will be in the oceans, so floating installations that farm seaweed, put oxygen in the water, etc. and on land, so dedesertification projects, reshaping landscape so it catches more water and supports more biomass. Other projects that ensure irrigation, vertical farming for food, etc. etc. Of course people can be involved in these operations, but the brunt of activity will be done by automated systems, running on renewables. That makes it possible to restore our ecology much faster.

Extraeconomics

Extraeconomics is a subset of Roboeconomics, in which there is no connection between the roboeconomic operation and the wider economy.  Anything produced in an extraeconomic operation is not sold to the markets. There are no financial ties, no loans. They are enclaves that live autonomously of any fossil fuel economy around it. This autonomy (only relying on renewable energy sources), allows them to be started practically anywhere. It allows them to be unhindered while creating a surplus of resources. It also allows the outside economy to ignore and forget about them. One can think about reforrestation, landscaping for rain catching, fish farming and ocean fertilization, silvopastural (forrest+wildlife) development of regions that could support it.

Any biomass created in an extraeconomic enclave can be pyrolised into carbon and sunk or burried to reduce atmospheric CO2. Other primary goals are increasing biodiversity and buffering water in the air and ground.

Extraeconomic enclaves and exist mixed in normal economic systems or totally separate from them. The potential for extraeconomic development is enormous, but organizing and funding them and disconnecting them from the existing economy is going to be the biggest challenge. Two options make them possible : Private funds and international organizations like the UN. Countries like the US could assign unused federal land (that it has a lot of) for these kind of enclaves. To the economically indoctrinated mind it will however sound hard to defend : Create resources like wood and wildlife without any plan to sell it.

 

 

Zelfrijdende auto’s zijn de hype van de dag. Volgens sommige omdat dat veiliger is, iets dat maar deels een reden kan zijn, want veel ongelukken zijn dodelijk door de aanwezigheid van benzine in auto’s, of hoe ze zijn ontworpen (getuige de grotere veiligheid van sommige modellen). Beide factoren zijn aan te pakken. Zelf rijden introduceert weer andere risico’s, bv. hacking van de dataset (zodat de robot denkt dat de weg rechtdoor gaat bij een afgrond), of de electronica van de auto zelf.

Zelf rijden zou illegaal kunnen worden. Zie ook het stuk van F Hegger

Wanneer we een nieuwe brandstof willen introduceren in auto’s bv. waterstof of ammoniak, dan moet deze duizend keer veiliger zijn dan de reeds bestaande alternatieven (dit is de werkelijke standaard eis). Dit gebeurt dus zelden. Maar als we de bestuurder er uit willen halen mag dat wel. Waarom?

Een logische verklaring van de zoektocht naar zelf rijdende auto’s is tweeledig. Ten eerste is het een mooie testcase voor ontwikkeling van AI, kunstmatige intelligentie. Een systeem dat zelfstandig rondrijdt is een stap in de richting van een dat zelfstandig rondloopt. Ten tweede is er een fossiel belang, nl. dat de rijstijl van een automatische auto zuiniger zal zijn dan die van een auto bestuurd door bv. een man die de motor gebruikt als instrument voor persoonlijke expressie.

De totale investering die gedaan zal worden in zelfrijdende autos kan beter en automatischer openbaar vervoer worden gestoken. Dat zou het aantal verkeersslachtoffers ook doen afnemen (alle mensen die voor autorijden geen geduld hebben van de we), het zou de wegen ontlasten zodat de mensen de er echt van houden deze kunnen gebruiken. Openbaar vervoer is echter schadelijk voor de fossiele omzet, het is socialiserend (mensen zien elkaar) dus het dient de economie niet voldoende. Daarom is het geprivatiseerde spoor niet zo’n succes.

Lijn volgende robot..

De zelfsturende auto vanwege verkeersveiligheid leidt logischerwijs ook tot de zelfsturende fiets or motorfiets. Of gaat dat te ver? Vreemd toch omdat met fietsen en motoren ook veel dodelijke ongevallen gebeuren. Waarom geen verbod op zelf bestuurde fietsen? Waarom geen e-bike route waarlangs je je fiets op automaat het traject kunt laten volgen zoals bovenstaande lijn volgende robots. Wellicht met laden on the go (sleepcontact achter de fiets) ? Waarom zouden we de mensen zelf laten sturen als we met wat simpele electronica deze taak kunnen overnemen. Laat mensen trappen of laden, en verder zittend tweetend en textend of van een goed boek (een spannende video) genietend van en naar het werk gaan.

Google’s motorfiets

Of..het geleide lopen. Het lopen van de toekomst. Niet meer zelf op of omkijken, maar gewoon blindelings voortstappend reagerend op electische stootjes die ons vertellen of we links of rechtsaf moeten zwenken. “Nog 300 stappen tot uw bestemming” want lopen is gevaarlijk. Jaarlijks komen duizenden voetgangers om door geraakt te zijn door ao nog in ontwikkeling zijnde automatische autos.  Nu lopen we gevaar door turend naar het kaartje op onze smartphone door een rood voetgangerslicht te sjokken. Dat kan zo niet langer.

Zelflopende Robot van Google/Alphabet (voorheen Boston Dynamics

De groei van onze automatische omgeving betekent verlies van autonomie voor de mens, en daarmee ook verlies van politieke controle. In de huidige fossiele context bestaat zo de kans van een fossiel gebaseerde Brave New World/1984 (BNW voor de mooie mensen, 1984 voor de lelijke). Een wereld waarin onze vrijheid zich bevind binnen de context van een vooraf bepaald levensplan, en onze wil zich slechts kan richten op vooraf gekozen bestemmingen.

This is an English version even though the video is in Dutch Arabic

There’s a video about a Saudi Arabian refugee (originally from Somalia) that’s gone viral:

She explains that her family moved to Saudi where her father worked for 20 years. When he was fired he and his family had to leave the country and she became stateless. Now she is in Holland and isn’t allowed to become a dutch citizen. This is where the video should have ended, because which country uses the skills and effort of a person for 20 years only to throw him out when he loses his job. This is total asshole behaviour. Also Saudi Arabia has 12 inhabitants per square kilometer compared to 407 in Holland. The country has twice the solar energy to sustain agriculture per square meter compared to Holland, so Saudi Arabia could sustain about 60 times the people it actually does compared to Holland. But they thank a family for 20 years of help by throwing them out.

Solar maps of Saudi Arabia and Holland..

On top of that Saudi Arabia is much bigger than Holland, so there would be no trouble if it had a few more inhabitants, nobody would notice.

These type of roboeconomic considerations you seldomly hear, because we live in a fossil fuel driven economy and money is the determining factor when it comes to sustaining people in a region. This means that if the people managing the money don’t like foreigners or are used to slaves they can use financial arguments to throw people out.

Holland is also a fossil dependent country, very deeply so and our royal family has tight bonds with all middle eastern oil rich nations. Usually royalty is involved in forcing fossil fuel dependence, perhaps because they have a lot to lose. For example in Spain a royal decree will put a tax on solar to benefit gas interests and thus enslave the country which could be mega wealthy because of its solar resources (for as long as the spanish people don’t revolt).

In the video the problem seems that Holland doesn’t welcom Ilhaam Awees, but from the above you can easily draw the conclusion the problem starts in Saudi Arabia.

In the video Ilhaam tells her story, she arrived in Jemen and could follow education there. Then her father died. When admitted to hospital he got no help at first. What was his illness? Work related? Did his 20 years in Saudi expose him and make him sick in the end? Jemen did good by educating her, in many countries you have to pay for any care or get none, a result of fossil scarcity driving politics. If renewables would be used in the total supply chain for medical care the cost would drop dramatically. Also if patent laws where revised to avoid abuse by pharmacuetical companies. Fossil economics however is about increasing cost, which increases cashflow, which increases bank revenue.

Many dutch muslims and non muslims have offered help to Ilhaam Awees since the video got out

She relates that she “ended up in Amsterdam”, from Jemen, which can’t be a coincidence but has to be a choice. Who did she pay to get here? We are not against immigrants, but she clearly chose a desirable country to live in. She is an economic refugee, as opposed to a political one. Some people get killed if they go back to where they came from, this is not the case with Ilhaam, she is not allowed into Saudi Arabia, that’s all. Because Holland has to give priority to people that are in danger of their lives, and because she chose Holland rather randomly she does not get a permit to stay. Now that she is here it seems harsh to not let her in, but consider the roboeconomic factors mentioned earlier, there are many (even European) countries that are better capable of sustaining her and giving her a good life. Economically she could be here, no sweat, but economics is about managing and maintaining fossil credit scarcity and a mild level of despair, although for many years Holland welcomed anyone that wanted to live here.

Deserts can produce massive amounts of food using desert greenhouses

She is now homeless in Holland. She didn’t get offered shelter by muslims or somalians, of which we have many. Some organizations may support her and could get more support themselves, we don’t want people to be homeless and would advise to use renewable energy and sustainable techniques to house anyone that needs a home, for instance with houses made out of cheap strawbales. She is not the only refugee. Arms trade and distorted ideologies, and lack of knowlegde or freedom to use natural resources creates millions of refugees, for instance now coming from Syria into Greeces islands , Kos like you see below.

Syrian refugees arriving on Kos a Greek island

We would argue that when one looks at using land and renewable energy sources, most countries between Jemen and Holland have more space and resources to sustain refugees than Holland. This is also our proposal for african refugees. We are prevented from using land and solar, wind, geothermal by economic factors, for instance banks that want the most out of land prices, or subsidies that dictate land is NOT used like we find in Spain. Roboeconomics views things differently : If you have land, solar, water you can sustain people almost everywhere, even far away from current economic hubs. You can create roboeconomic enclaves where people can thrive and have great lives at NO cost to anyone outside those enclaves.

If we invested in refugee enclaves based on roboeconomic principles along the known refugee routes we would not have a problem, but would instead see more economic activity, healthy happier people. This could even be done in Jemen or Saudi Arabia, and Africa so that people would not have to be refugees to begin with. Instead refugees are seen as an opportunity for the surveillance state to expand its powers along a 1984 trajectory. All this because fossil fuels are scarce. Renewables ARE NOT.

Roboeconomics is about using robots and ecological (renewable) techniques to sustain an economy.

Extraeconomics is about creating 100% economically independent enclaves using roboeconomic principles, mainly to protect them against financial pillaging and allow them to create a resource surplus (for instance wood or animal species) that is not immediatly or eventually consumed by the fossil economic machine.

 

English version here. Eerder schreven we over hoe men door hernieuwbare energie te gebruiken anders kan om gaan met vluchtelingen uit Africa, roboeconomisch zogezegd.

Er is een video van een somalische vluchteling in Nederland die viraal is gegaan, zie hieronder:

Ze legt uit dat haar familie na ontslag van haar vader na 20 jaar werken uit Saudi Arabie werd gezet, en zo min of meer staateloos werd. Hier zou de video al moeten zijn gestopt, want welk land geeft iemand geen enkele bescherming na 20 jaar nut van hem/haar te hebben gehad? Dat is zeer associaal gedrag. Saudi Arabie heeft 12 inwoners per vierkante kilometer, vergelijk met Nederland met 407 inwoners per vierkante kilometer, dus 33 keer zoveel. Saudi Arabie heeft per vierkante meter bijna twee keer de zonneenergie ivm Nederland, wat betekent dat het twee keer de landbouw productie zou kunnen halen tbv de bevolking.

De kaart van Nederland

Bovendien is Saudi Arabie veel groter dan Nederland, dus de totale capaciteit voor bevoling is op zijn minst 60 keer zo groot. Toch gooit dit land iemand die 20 jaar aan de welvaart heeft bijgedragen er zomaar uit. Inclusief vrouw en kinderen.

Bovenstaand roboeconomische overwegingen hoor je zelden, en dat is omdat we in een fossiele economie leven, een waarin Saudi Arabie de brandstof levert en wij deze consumeren. Daarom is kritiek op Saudi Arabie lastig, zie ons koningshuis. Vaak lopen de relaties voor fossiel via royalty omdat deze groep mensen iets te verliezen heeft, zie ook bv. het komende koningklijk besluit in Spanje om de belangen van de gasindustrie voorang te verlenen over die van de individuele zonnepaneel bezitter. Daarover meldden we eerder ook al.

Met bestaande technieken zou Saudi Arabie de somalische familie zonder moeite hebben kunnen onderhouden. Het land kiest ervoor mensen als slaven te behandelen. Daarmee begint het probleem.

In de video vertelt Ilhaam Awees dat ze eerst in Jemen terecht kwam. Daar kon ze studeren, maar haar vader overleed en kreeg in eerste instantie geen medische zorg. Dat laatste zou in Nederland niet gebeuren, maar dat is een verworvenheid van onze fossiele economie. De kosten van medische zorg zouden ook verlaagd kunnen worden door het aanpakken van patent misbruik, door gebruik van hernieuwbare energie in de hele productie keten van medische hulpmiddelen. Ze had in Jemen kunnen blijven lijkt ons, maar dat heeft ze niet gedaan.”Omstandigheden brachten haar in Nederland”. Van de 240+ landen in de wereld kwam ze naar ons land. Wie heeft daar aan verdient?

Het gaat er hier niet om dat we tegen immigranten zijn. Maar wel om de perceptie dat Nederland iets fout doet die uit de video spreekt. Ik alle landen tussen Jemen en Nederland hat Ilhaam kunnen (proberen) te blijven. Maar dat deed ze niet. Hier in Nederland mag ze niet blijven, want ze is economisch vluchteling, dat is wel duidelijk, en er zijn ook politieke vluchtelingen die vermoord worden als ze geen asiel vinden, en die gaan logischerwijs voor. Dat ze in Nederland asiel aanvraagt is haar keuze, ze kan het ook elders doen. Dat Nederland haar assiel zou kunnen verlenen is ook helder, maar Nederland heeft wat dat betreft kennelijk quota en dat is ook weer niet onterecht te noemen gezien hoe dichtbevolkt ons land al is. Dit is geen eigen volk eerst argument, maar strikt kijken naar de draagkracht van een stuk land.

Woestijnen kunnen prima voedsel voortbrengen

Nu is ze dakloos in Nederland. Dat laat zien dat ze weinig steun krijgt uit de moslim gemeenschap of die van Somalie in Nederland. Ze zal wel steun krijgen van hulp organisaties maar daar kunnen wij hier weinig aan toevoegen, behalve dat deze organisaties door zelf organisch te boeren en hernieuwbare energie te gebruiken zelfs in Nederland veel kosten zouden kunnen reduceren.

Voor ons telt hier dat in een fossiel gedomineerde wereld, waar banken landprijzen zo hoog mogelijk maken en elk aspect van ons leven een prijskaartje krijgt, het gebruik van natuurlijke hulpbronnen lastig is. In Saudi Arabie waar men naast zeer onvriendelijk ook door de eigen olie export niet snel van de eigen zonnepotentieel gebruik zou maken (ja in 2050, whatever), zou ze prima kunnen leven zonder iemand tot last te zijn, Saudie Arabie zou een grote oase kunnen zijn door toepassing van de beschikbare zonneenergie.

[IMAGE HERE WAS REMOVED ON PENALTY OF COPYRIGHTAGENT.COM

THEY WILL COME AFTER YOU FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WITH FINES]
Vluchtelingen arriveren op Kos

In alle tussenliggende landen zijn de politieke en economische omstandigheden zo dat de regeringen hebben besloten om asielzoekers minder snel te verwelkomen, of men heeft al zware vluchtelingen druk en moet de echte vluchtelingen voorrang verlenen, zie momenteel Kos en Italie. Men zou Nederland ontlasten (ook al gaat het om economische vluchtelingen) door net als we voorstelden in Africa ook in Europa langs de vlucht routes roboeconomische groeizones te creeren, door het neerzetten van een zonnepark in combinatie met een fabriek of boerderij, waar vluchtelingen kunnen werken en zich nuttig maken en de locale economie zo stimuleren zonder deze te belasten. Met zonne en wind energie kan dat op veel plaatsen, zeker bv. in Griekenland.  Een investering in roboeconomische enclaves zal zich terugbetalen terwijl fossiel krediet in Nederland uitgeven aan het huisvesten van deze asielzoekers dat niet zal doen.

We zijn niet in staat of bereid de natuurlijke hulpbronnen te benutten als dit botst met de belangen van fossiel/bankaire economische systeem waarin schaarste noodzakelijk is. Er is echter extreme overvloed als we wel gebruik maken van de zon, wind en het land en daar had voor Ilhaam in Saudi Arabie al de hemel open kunnen gaan, en lijkt het ons dat we langs de vluchtelingenen routes richting Europa haltes zouden kunnen ontwikkelen waar de relatie tussen de draagkracht van het land en de levens die zich ermee voeden weer wordt erkend en de balans hersteld.

Roboeconmische oplossingen gaan uit van gebruik van hernieuwbare energie en robotica ter herstel van de ecologie en het mogelijk maken van economische activteit. Dit maakt dat economische en ecologie herstellende activiteit overal kan plaatsvinden waar genoeg solar, wind of geothermal energie is, en dat is overal. Extraeconomische activiteit is activiteit die geen enkele relatie heeft met het internationaal financieel systeem, geen schulden en ook geen handel hiermee drijft. Dit kan in veel gevallen helpen om activiteiten die goed zijn voor de ecologie te beschermen tegen plundering door het financieel systeem/banken, dat zich richt op het genereren van fossiele consumptie tbv eigen cashflow.

We read about climate change and that it’s going to cause problems, so

I looked into it and it looks more serious than what I read, why?

Because scientists already think temperature rise is going to be 4+ Celsius, and

I also read that more than 2 Celsius means runaway warming, and

I also read that warming of the oceans can kill life in them, and

I also read that dead oceans make toxic gas, and

I also read that that toxicity will pollute the air with H2S and kill life on land, because

That happened before about 250 million years ago (killing nearly everything alive), and

I don’t want to die or see mankind go extinct, so

I want to stop/reduce CO2 emissions, and

I know that fossil fuel burning is a major source, and

I know there are all kinds of alternatives to fossil fuels, and

I can read about how cars can go electric, people can go without meat, houses can be CO2 neutral etc. etc. but

It is not happening fast enough, because

investment decisions are largely in the hands of investers of banks, and

investors and banks usually look for profit, and

profit just means you extract more money from circulation than you spend on fossil fuels, meaning

you actually increase demand for money which banks like, so

I see that resources are pumped into all kind of nonsense that is making the situation worse, so

I want to see laws that restrict investments to things that reduce the increase in CO2 and the pressure on natural resources like trees, ore etc, but

the ruling political parties don’t want that, because

they consist of people selected for not wanting to mess with fossil fuel or banks, so

politics is a tool of those that poison and effectively kill us, and

whoever tries to argue with them finds that their arguments don’t even have to make sense, they don’t even care, so

I want to have a movement that does want to see a fossil fuel exit, and

I don’t think we can allow fossil fuel producers to choose whether they will cooperate, because

They wont and they will slow things down and try to corrupt my movement, so

the only way is to be stonger  and independent through the use of renewables and from that base move against fossil feul companies, because

Then they have no power over me, but

perhaps this is naieve, because

In Spain fossil fuel interested banks force a royal decree to tax solar panel owners, so

there GAS interest are in direct war with solar, and

the people of Spain need to stand up against this, because

Solar in Spain is an amazing resource much better than gas, and

GAS people think Spain should remain poor and dependent so as not to compete with Northern Europe or the US, and

it should buy Northern European GAS, so they can deliver goods and services there in return, so

Maybe I need to be a country or an army to fight for more renewables, because

there is barely any time to make things right, and

the most amazing thing is that there is so much more solar, wind etc. than there is fossil fuel, and people would be so much more happy, healthy and peacefull with renewables, it would be such an improvement, so

I am determined to see fossil fuel shut down around the world, and fight climate change, because it is what I think the most valuable thing a person alive today can do.

Henk Kamp wordt gegrild omdat hij voorstelt gas te gaan winnen in de Noordzee (een idee dat hij ongestraft mag aanprijzen bij Jinek). Het is ‘onrendabel’, en natuurlijk een klap in het gezicht van elke klimaatbewuste burger.  Jan Rotmans schrijft een stuk in de FD dat alleen averechts kan werken. Hij snapt niet dat een Financieel Dagblad (DF) lezer die leest “Er is no x miljard kuub gas” niet meer verder leest, maar denkt “Top, halen die zooi!”, want elke FD lezer snapt dat de economie voor een steeds groter deel op gas draait, en dat meer gas dus nog steeds meer banen (en dus meer winst) betekenen.

De tweede typische fout die Rotmans maakt is om ten eerste het woord duurzaam te gebruiken. We hebben het over mensen die op geld lette in het FD en dat het woord duurzaam uit duur (bleh) en zaam (samen, delen) bestaat helpt echt niet (en dat is zeker zo als mensen het uitspreken als duur-zaam).

De laatste is om een van de oplossingen, energie neutraal bouwen, onsignificant neer te zetten, nl 1000 woningen. Er zijn 2300 gemeenten dus dat is peanuts. Op wereld schaal zal het nummer al hoger zijn. Maar ook : WTF, je kunt dus een huis bouwen dat geen energie nodig heeft? En je kunt huizen die dat niet zijn ook achteraf energie neutraal maken? Wie bouwt er dan nog een huis dat niet energie neutraal is? Is het een soort grondrecht om energielasten te hebben?

Een VVDer bedoelt met de ‘Energie transitie’ de Kolen/Olie naar GAS transitie 

Maar ook : Waarom gebruik je als Rotmans die ruimte in het FD niet om het te hebben over de concrete oplossingen. Als het om bedrijven en hun activiteiten gaat wordt natuurlijk melding gemaakt van nieuwe processen en technieken die het bedrijf een voorsprong of unieke waarde kunnen geven. Wat zijn deze voor Gasloos NL BV? Hier een overzicht:

• Besparen is belangrijk zoals hieronder ook via isolatie, maar zonder een push waar het om opwekken van warmte gaat blijven de kosten hiervan hoog. We moeten die industrie op gang brengen, en ten behoeve daarvan fossiel krediet ‘confisceren’ dwz vette subsidie op hoogwaardige warmte oplossingen.
• Bouwen van alleen goed geisoleerde en optimaal van zon gebruik makende en tegen wind beschutte woningen. Energie neutraal danwel met zon of wind of geothermische bronnen gecompenseerd moet de norm zijn.
• Renovatie van bestaande woningen met de beste technieken, dus vacuum glas, vacuum isolatie panelen. Dit in eerst bij de grootse vergieten die nog het langst zullen worden gebruikt voor de niet fossiele economie, dus woningen voorrang geven op bedrijfspanden.
• Gebruik van wind en zon voor warmte. Dat kan nu met twee producten voor zon, nl de NVP en SRB vacuum solar collectors. Dit zijn collectoren die temperaturen tot 500 Graden Celsius kunnen bereiken, en dus zeer nuttige warmte produceren. Als het om proceswarmte gaat is dit het go-to alternatief!
• Hoog vacuum zonnecollectoren kunnen ook voor koeling gebruikt worden, het zijn energie bronnen, en die energie kan voor koeling, aandrijving etc. worden benut. Dus een overslag met allemaal koelcellen kan op het dak de energie genereren om zichzelf te runnen!
• Zoals hierboven gezegd kan een windmolen ook warmte maken. Een windmolen die een warmtepomp aandrijft kan zelfs een veelvoud van de windenergie aan warmte opleveren (onttrekken aan de omgeving). Deze techniek wordt alleen gebruikt door bedrijven die ongezien door banken zijn opgekocht en in financiele stasis worden gehouden. Inderdaad ons bank systeem beschermt de fossiele cashflow. Big surprise!
• Opslaan van warmte in de zomer voor gebruik in de winter. Is een kwestie van de straat openbreken, een vacuum geisoleerde cistern bouwen, waar in de zomer warmte in wordt geladen door collectoren op omliggende daken. In de winter kan de warmtepomp dan starten bij 25 Celsius ipv 10 Celsius, en dat spaart weer electriciteit.
• Gebruik van het gasnet voor vervoer van andere brandstoffen zoals bv. Ammoniak
• Ontmoedigen van slechte investeringen, bv in slecht geinstalleerde warmtepompen en nieuwe gas infrastructuur.

German scientist ‘develop’ material that stores heat indefinitely, four times the capacity of water : Zeolite (already known by the Greeks)

Duur = het Fossiel/Bankair systeem wil het niet.

De kosten van bovenstaande effectieve maatregelen doen niet ter zake. Zoals het nu gaat bepalen banken wie onze fossiele energie mag gebruiken door krediet ter beschikking te stellen om deze te kopen. Het fossiel/bankair systeem is een monoliet, het is een en hetzelfde ding, wat ze zelf ook mogen beweren. Zonder fossiel geen banken, en zonder banken zou niemand toegang hebben tot fossiel. Als iets ‘duur’ is betekent dat twee dingen:

1. De banken willen niet dat je het doet en hebben al lang in het productie proces van het ‘dure’ alternatief gepushed voor meer economische integratie en vooral een prijs die ‘markt conform’ is dus niet concurrerend. Dit kan op honderd duizend manieren. Banken kopen patenten, drijven grondprijzen op, maken grondstoffen schaars, kopen mensen uit, maken ideen zwart, doen ze in de media verdwijnen, lobbyen voor regels, subsidie, alles met mooie excuses en verhalen over risico en de economie. (Marjan Minnesma kan hier over meepraten toen ze haar eerste zonnepanelen project deed en van geen enkele bank krediet kon krijgen om de panelen uit China te transporteren, ging om een garantie van 1 miljoen Euro, op een route die dagelijks voor vele miljarden door dezelfde banken wordt verzekerd).

Water tanks zijn vaak goedkoper dan grond opslag.

2. Als iets duur is betekent het dat andere dingen goedkoper zijn, dus Wind versus Gas, Wind is duurder gemaakt, wordt op elk niveau bestreden door de banken. Gas krijgt overheids subsidie en is een van de goudmijnen voor banken omdat zoals we zien het vermoeden van een gasbel al tot torenhoge waarde ramingen leidt, dat is allemaal krediet dat banken gaan verstrekken!! Zelfs als een gasbel waardeloos is zijn banken (zoals bij schaliegas) geneigd deze waarde te overschatten, want het krediet dat ze op basis van deze schattingen (van zichzelf) mogen creeren kan ook aan reeds in de markt aanwezige olie, gas en kolen worden besteeds. Wie oplet zal zien dat het fossiel/krediet bankboekje ver overhelt naar krediet, iets dat we onze zn. ‘schuld’ noemen.

Het is geen toeval dat ik banken aanval als het gaat om het ondermijnen van hernieuwbare energie, want banken en fossiel zijn niet samen een systeem dat zichzelf met alle mogelijke middelen beschermt.

Duur zou moeten zijn : Een zwaardere last op hulpbronnen

Natuurlijk zijn er alternatieven waarbij je voor de ene meer hulpbronnen nodig hebt dan voor andere, bv. een Windmolen die de fossiele investering in 5 maanden compenseert, en een kerncentrale die daar een decennium over doet. Maar dat soort waardering wordt niet door banken gehanteerd, want hernieuwbare energie ondermijnt hun macht : De afhankelijkheid van fossiel.

Gas kwijtraken is dus eenvoudig. Laat zuid europa met veel zonne energie onze zonneboilers en collectoren maken, en laten wij warmte opslag en isolatie serieus nemen (door bv een nederlandse vacuum isolatie panelen fabriek te bouwen) en die Gasexit wordt een banen motor waar we allemaal gelukkiger aan zullen kunnen meedoen.

Kunstmest en brandstof voor tractoren met een windmolen maken? Dat kan

We all know about cryptocurrencies, we don’t usually understand what they are, but the name Bitcoin rings a bell for anyone intersted in economics or finance. Bitcoin is one of the many hundreds of different virtual, cryptography based currencies now circulating and exsiting through the internet. One of their characteristics is that without internet they can not exist.

Cryptography, or the art of hiding information in a cloud of noise, is a growing industry. It is becoming a more important aspect of computing and internet as we desire to trust these systems more. Not only do we change text into unreadable and unreconstructable jibberish, we protect text that anyone can read from being changed by a third party by sending along a thumbprint of it, using an encryption algorithm. This is called signing, and if you check your own computer you can find many certificates that are used by applications on your PC to make sure information that is transmitted over the internet is not being tampered with.

The financial system is quickly learning that it can rely on transactions only if they are send with cryptographic security measures in place. Communication by medical devices, some operations critical control signals in factories, networks in airplanes, even engine part maintenance documentation, all these kinds of data are seen as threatened and requiring security. The growing frequency of larg scale hacking events with millions of credit card details drive a perception the internet is a wild place, and there’s truth in that. The trouble with internet is that signals traveling through them leave almost no trace. They have barely any physicality or presistence. That is why NSA has all these datacenters, to create a visible history of events, messages, visited locations etc. to possibly string together as evidence in the future.

In reality all these security systems boil down to  a single principle : It is highly unlikely a criminal can be in several places at once. Take message encryption. The criminal is not supposed to be able to read your screen, he’s not supposed to be able to read your encryption key pair. Then as the message is send and verified by the reciever he is not supposed to be able to fake the certificate authority that the reciever uses to verify you send the message. It is about places a maliscious person can and can’t be. The ultimate security of any cryptosecurity system is thick concrete walls and distance. There is no other security really.

This type of security works with most possible threats, but of course in the small world of cryptography theats evolve. What about a network of actors to envelope people that know about cryptographic systems. Imagination can run wild. The flip side of this thinking is : What if there is water tight digital security, then what? It is clear that the US does not like citizen or ordinary people to have any kind of truely hard to crack cryptography. All standards are US dictated and have unknown real security! Really. In the cryptographic manuals it is advised to use US dictated hashing and encryption standards. But nobody knows how secure they are. True encryption is a real threat to everyone, including the ‘state’.

In this world transparency is already under threat. It is non-existent in the banking system. It is weakened by media that distract us and tell us outright lies or make us doubt. How about econoic entities that suddenly communicate in encrypted ways, disabling any ability to read the messages. We are already hindered by the complexity of for instance the banking system from fully understanding what goes on there. Now we would be faced with encrypted communications of which the key could be lost, renderinging information unreadable, the basis of decisions untraceable. Worse still, if a system becomes inpenetrable by outsiders, how can it be stopped or interrupted if this is necessary. Our view of the digital world is already very limited, what if we can’t possibly read what is going on between semi autonomous systems.

There are several examples of document contents being changed in transit, from the US congress to the European Parlaiment. You would have people talking thinking they saw the same text, but in fact the didn’t. In the US it is quite common laws get passed, then gutted and changed! What is passed is a black box, and how the texts change can remain a mystery. Here there is serious need for encryption. But if there was this encryption and someone had control over it outside our knowledge, then we would totally lose the plot as to where our laws come from.

Just like the threat of a few terrorists has siphoned trillions into unproductive defence and surveillance instituteds (under who’s control god only knows), the threat of cybercrime can push all of corporate internet behind encryption layers, out of sight of anyone without the necessary computing power. This not only makes our world less transparent, it makes it more inert. How can we stop harmfull practices if we can’t monitor them, how can we know what corporations who evidently lie and fake science and bribe politicans are doing if we can’t read their emails, not even in court. What kind of control do we have over a system that only shows itself to its minions who are carefully selected to be too insensitive to judge the info they are exposed to. Cryptography may become a steel wall around a system that is damaging and a threat to us, as we know the carbon industrialized economy is.

The alternative is to disarm, disband, stand down amries, go local. Go transparent. But this is hard without a source of wealth like land in the hands of those that want to return to a simpler life. The idea is not that there can only be trust on a small scale, the idea is that that trust, when betrayed, does not have consequences for more people that the ones involved. With renewables the local activities of people are plenty to keep them safe and healthy. Why have enormous international financial systems in the first place? Why have world destoying military installations at all. It seems that we are either going to see these systems go dark through encryption or we will discover we don’t really need them if we use renewables to generate enough wealth.

Not knowing what your opponent is doing is only a problem if you have an opponent. Not being able to see what other people are doing can actually create an adversarial atmosphere. Just like Donald Rumsfeld started the cold war by saying the russians had weapons the US did not know about based on calssified information (where did we hear that before). The examples of exagerated threats to fund existing security institutions is endless (Sin Beth for example). It’s a tried and tested method to justify agression to accuse someone of a crime. How difficult will it become when information of those crimes becomes hard to trace, or verify, and we are forced to trust ‘trusted channels’.

If we end up in a Cryptonomy, where we all function more or less with minimal information we get from media and emplyers without being able to verify it, if this is the nature of a financial system that nobody can peek into because all communication is encrypted, if this is the nature of industrial trading systems that send prices that can not be verified through any other channel, or a medical system that makes doctors tell you there is no cure, but in fact you lost in a secret lottery for expensive treatment that could have saved you. The opportunity for abuse in a system of maximal secrecy are unlimited. Not to mention the cost and possible damage when encryption keys get lost.

We should instead work towards robustness based on a 100% sustainable system, with minimal dependence on anything beyond the horizon. The point of all economic activity shifted from keeping the general public alive to keeping the fossil/banking elite alive, since they could leverage its dependency on oil and money. Keeping the general population alive is almost a side effect today. We should not allow this distorted system to consolidate using encryption, because it will steam on even with only robots in factories and peope starving in the streets, and it will be very hard to find a place to start controling it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pretty cool version of an earlier design called the Aptera that got killed by the car industry.

The Rathracer is classified as a motercycle, the Aptera was classified as a car. It seems that the Rathracer has at least as much potential to look cool as the Apteray obviously had.

We are drilled daily to think that economic growth is what we need. It is said to mean more jobs, more wealth and a better world. Lately however we have been able to see that after a century of chasing the economic paradigm our society is not stabile or consilidated at a certain level of wealth. We instead see increased joblessness due to automation, which is of course due to economic pressure on manufacturers. We are told the future will see even more jobs replaced by machines, meaning few people with normal incomes. Ok, now does the economy stimulate jobs or does it cost jobs?

What is economic pressure anyway? It is the need to increase revenue, profit in order to sustain loans made by central banks, in a competitive environment created by the same banks. Not only do companies need to make more money than is necessary to run them, they need more money than all other companies that try to do the same thing. All these other companies are as much in debt as them, with the same banking system. This banking system is itself looking to make a profit, and that is exactly where it all goes wrong.

If you are a bank you make money off of loans. This means you are looking for people that need money. There are two reasons why people need money: 1. They want to do a thing that cost more than they saved. 2. They need money because they don’t have any. In both cases banks ask more money in return than they loan out, so through loans they actually create demand for more loans. With non commercial banks this would be fine, because the interest on the loans would be reasonable, but today banks are commercial, big and costly, so they ask for more money out of society than it would cost to make the loan. In fact they compete to extract as much money as they can. Thus they create their own market, and then some.

Commercial banks extract money from circulation by putting money into circulation. As such they are responsible for a constant need for money in society. They do this for their own profit, and this happens to be ideal for a society run on fossil fuels. As long as new activity requires constant renewal of loans, banks can adapt spending to the availability of fossil fuels so that prices don’t fluctuate too much and people keep believing in this system. It is a carefull game of carrot and stick. You borrow money and enjoy spending it on fossil fuels, then you become dependent on them, then you will need money again as the banks are always extracting as much as possible to maintain their power.

This is economic capture. Spain is suffering from it big time. They consumed gas and are 26 Billion Euro in the hole. This consumption was of course driven by loans. Now they are forced to undermine the growth of solar to ensure that money will still be spend on gas, and banks that set up the investments in them keep the return on investment. A whole nation has to suffer because (obviously foreign) banks demand it. This is economic capture. Spain will do things against its own interest and that of its people. It will keep consuming gas even though it and its people don’t want to.

Economics is the marketing message of the banking system. So many people are now caught in costly lifestyles that force them to 1. Consume fossil fuels and 2. Remain captive of economic factors, more than ever before. This is what was meant at the Davos meeting several years ago, that there was still 100 Trillion in debt load that could be heaved on the shoulders of world citizen, thus turning them into oxen for the banks (who of course pretend they are just doing their jobs).

We wrote earlier about how our money should be split into three kinds, 1. Auro for labour, 2. Euro for fossil fuel and 3. Joule for renewble energy. How the role of banks should be divided between nobody (Auro be a gold coin), the state (who determines who gets to consume fossil fuels) and the people (who produce renewables individually or as a group). This alternative to the current system would deal with this job and environment destoying nature of the commercial banking system, and free us from economic capture.

 

 

The spanish government has 26 Billion Euro debt to fossil energy companies, so it allows itself and its people to become a slave to it.

Solar is a saviour for Spain. It has large solar power plants, solar towers and really amazing potential. On top of that it is hot and dry, it suffers from the higher average temperatures so that it should be strongly against the use of more fossil fuels. However it has shown weakness politically in the past, and has been forced by the banking system to take the actions that sustain the financial sector at the cost of the country and its people. For instance it has been forced to shut down solar power plants as to protect the value of gas based power, in order to repay the cost of building new gas pipelines!

“The situation is naturally upsetting for the utility giants that invested in the plants. According to published figures, they are paying €13,000 per megawatt for operations and maintenance of the facilities, plus a further €24,000 per megawatt in pipeline tolls. But it is also distressing for the rest of the country, since Spain is currently shelling out €1.5 billion a year in capacity payments to have the plants contracted to stay on the grid, says elEconomista.”

So the suggestion is to shut down up and running low maintenance and zero fuel price solar power plants!!

Yes, this energy system is really smart. NOT

Royal decree to protect gas/grid based electricity

Now in another blow to the advent of solar wealth the government has decided to tax energy storage. The motivation is that it interferes with ‘net-balance’. Net-balance is the process of having to match the power delivered to the grid during the day with fossil fuel generated power in the evening, because solar production doesn’t match electricity consumption. This is exactly the problem solved efficiently by storage, for instance in new Tesla Powerwall. People now have to connect to the grid or pay tax.

“With the reform, who install solar will take 31 years to repay it , according to the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF).”

Spain has about 7 million citizens unable to pay the energy bill, so it should work to drive renewables and storage because that is the most cost effective way to generate electricity at least. 4 million spanish people say they can’t keep their houses warm enough in the winter. It also has solar dependent airco demand, just like California, for which solar power plants have been used for more than 30 years now. Instead, now, by royal decree (sounds pretty undemocratic as well) it sends itself back to the dark ages of fossil fuel.

This undemocratic royal decree is fought by the political parties:

“the majority of political parties have signed their commitment to the development of consumption without discriminatory barriers and have pledged to repeal the Royal Decree of consumption currently in process of being approved.” (source)