We’re witnessing a development in car driving that has yet unexplored consequences. It is an example of automation and it should lead to less cost for all, because computing power is dirt cheap and cars will be all electric and freely charged (because sunlight is free isn’t it?).
But an alternative scenario is more likely. It is one in which autonomous driving becomes a service you need to subscribe to. How to introduce it? Through the trusty tool of big everything : Fear.
Already some are comparing the safety of autonomous vehicles to those with drivers. As the security standards of driverless cars have to be higher than cars with drivers the safety argument will be used to push every car towards being autonomous. This opens up some possibilities.
First people will be told they are irresponsible if they drive their dangerous cars themselves, and slowly driving will become a thing of the past, everyone sitting in cars moving from A to B autonomously.
As this happens there will already be quality difference between one autonous car and another. Differences in acceleration, turning, routing, general speed and ability. This will develop in a competition between almost equal systems. This happens because fossil credit banking will create a competitive environment to load each competitor to the maximum with debt. A trick they use all the time.
Driver monitoring station, empty of course, what don’t you get about ‘autonomous’
Because of the ubiquity of wireless, autonomous cars will become centrally controlled by a big computer that models the movements of all cars. This allows predictive driving, anticipating roadblocks and adapting speed to allow optimal interweaving of traffic. All this requires a lot of computing power, in fact, it will be the question if what will be claimed is computed will actually be, because routing problems are NP complete, meaning the time to compute them explodes very quickly and real answers soon take more time to compute than there is left in our universe. Multiply that by a couple of billion cars.
So the centrally offered driving service will never be perfect, and will require real computing power (even if such is not delivered, meaning as a non driver you can no longer oversee whether the car drives a smart route or not). We’ll have bronze driving for suckers in the lowest cost electric cars, then silver driving for workers that need to be on time and feel rewarded, and gold driving for those that don’t need to be anywhere they don’t want to be. All subscription services, monthly fees.
If you don’t work hard to earn enough, your driving will SUCK
Result : Everyone will be paying for their car on a contiuous basis again. Autonomous cars turn out to be a gateway to totally dependent cars.
This scenario nicely demonstrates that it is possible to gain no freedom from automation, especially if it delivers a complex service we can’t perform ourselves. In the case of driving many will be scared away from driving themselves, hoping to live longer easier lives. But all will have to work to earn the money to drive somehow, just like today, while we are seeing a window open where we buy a car and never have to pay for fuel or driving again (Tesla being the most prominent).
There’s a lot more to say about the future mentioned above, but let’s see if the scenario painted actually materializes.
We’ll say it first, with good reason : Prices of renewables will go negative soon. This will be a result of two factors: 1. Production cost will go negative, meaning production can happen without returns 2. Governments will adopt a policy of maximum rollout speed, aided by the negative costs.
How can cost of anything go negative? The first step is to be able to originate the products without help. Think of a well spring which produces water, it has to because of geology and rainfall patterns. Nobody has to buy water to replenish the spring, it flows on its own. The same way solar panel producers will find they have reduced cost in the supply chain to zero, and can go negative. How is this done? By using renewables in every step, renewables owned by the producers themselves.
Negative electricity prices in the US
Paint a scenario in which a solar panel factory has to source its silicon, glass, aluminium from different producers. First it cuts cost by using solar electricity to refine the Silicion (which has to be separated from oxygen and purified in an energy intensive process), this already happens. Then it can cut cost by turning the glass manufacturing in gas based to electrical, and providing the glass producer with solar panels to cover its melting needs (another silicium oxide proces by the way). Third it sources the alumium from iceland, where it is processed using geothermal heat at competitive cost. This is the start of the process of cost reduction, but ultimately the cost will not only be zero, they will go negative. How?
Negative prices in Europe
For a while now we have seen negative electicity costs in the european market. Germany at times produces to much wind electricity, and as storage is being delayed by the fossil credit based economy the market price of megawatthours of electricity can go as low as minus 200 Euro. This has promted a dutch aluminium smelter to restart its operations. How nice if you can melt aluminium when the cost of doing so is zero or negative!
There need to be many changes in the production and logistics chain to get real negative prices, so a bonus for installing solar for instance, but it is an eventuality that seems unavoidable. Not only because it makes good business sense, but also because for instance, energy storage will lag behind the rise in production, so the use of the energy in production processes will become very attractive and stay attractive for ever. The obstruction of storage by the central distributing fossil based producers will bite it in the tail.
Holland will soon have an aluminium smelter, its own silicon refiners and solar panel factories. It can recycle glass with clean energy. It may be the first to produce at negative prices, extraeconomically, if it doesn’t sell to the international market.
Of course governments, as they are being cleansed of climate denier and fossil fuel lakeys, will become more agressive in preventing the catastrophic changes we (as predicted by the IPCC) see unfolding under our eyes. Part of that is not only going carbon neutral, but going seriously carbon negative. It will be come clear that we can do that, so leaders will step up that will do that. Like Paris no longer allows a roof to be carbon neutral, dictating it has to be either a green or a solar roof, governments will dictate there can be no unused space, roof or garden that could catch carbon or reduce emissions.
This possibility of negative prices shows the invalidity of classic fossil credit based economics
But there is another step that will change the game completely. That is the advent of what we call Extraeconomics. Extraeconomics is the framework of thinking about Extraeconomic zones. What are those? Extraeconomic zones are zones that 1. Have no ties with the world economy, 2. Run entirely on renewables and 3. Are dedicated to increasing carbon capture. They will come about because economics is too greedy and to dirty to fight climate change effectively. We have written about this before see here.
The key to Extraeconomics is to aknoweldge two facts : 1. Economics is about exploitation of available resources. Not the creation of them. Using fossil fuels. and 2. Renewables redraw the map of economic viability of our planet. Areas that before looked like they where uninhabitable now suddenly look perfectly capable of sustaining life.
The first fact is what has been getting us into this diseastrous state of near depleted resources, toxic oceans and atmospheres. The reason being that the economic model works like this : You see an opportunity to create a product or service of value? Ok, we give you the fossil fuel credit to bring that about. In return you help us keep money scarce (pay interest) and we can enjoy some of the fruits of your labour.
What this amounts to is :
You : “Hey, a pristine forrest! If I had fuel for chainsaws, trucks and the sawmill, I could sell the wood into ‘the market’!”
Bank : “Ok, here’s fuel credit. We’ll be rich!”
Versus
You : “Hey, these are fertile lands for tree planting. If I plant trees here and wait 12 years I can cut them down and do the same thing as the other guy.”
Bank : “Hold on! That’s 12 years of investment without returns! And how much fuel do you need? Not much huh? Ok, scram buddy!”
The above happens every time when the value to be traded is a result of a long process. This is why resources are being depleted. Oil itself is a good example, it’s “Get rich now” stuff as opposed to waiting 250 million years for plant biomass to fossilize and turn into coal, oil etc.
So there needs to be a separate paradigm to restore and replenish earths resources, and it can not be based on bank investment models (which are designed to run a fossil fuel credit system). Even though one may invest fossil fuels in an extraeconomic project, it will never produce a return to any lender and what is more shocking, it will produce value without bringing it to the market. What it will do is keep the community running it alive and well.
Extraeconomics is about overproducing carbon capturing commodities and not selling to the market
We will see that with the rise of renewables and the dire situation humanity finds itself in combined with the feasibility of extraeconomic projects, these projects will be set up and extraeconomic zones will grow in the heart of Africa, Australia, Chile and other now barren regions. The oceans similarly will become a tool to grow food and recapture carbon. All these things will be possible because renewable energy is so much more abundant than fossil energy ever was, and it is spread out over the surface of earth. It will bring about a revolution from the myopic city oriented visions of the future to one where people live across the globe, connected, productive and happy. One in which ‘classic’ economics is dead, and nobody is mourning.
[Update 8-4: Well, perhaps the below post has become a irrelevant as Tsipras has agreed with Putin to build a new Greek pipeline from the turkish border into Greece (which putin hopes will supply as far as Italy). This sellout means Greece will be a slave nation like Ukraine for the forseeable future. Tsipras can be quoted as “Greece is a sovereign nation” but he obviously is to weak to notice he sold out. Its always easier to negotiate when you’re too lazy to do anything painfull. This move also means that Greece is less protected by the EU countries as long as this stupid antagonism (which started over gas) continues]
Greece is in trouble, it has build up a significant debt with the ECB, IMF and other creditors and it doesn’t generate the money to serve those debts. Yanis Varoufakis explains how the debt Greece has was only a tool for the German economy to allow its exports to grow, so more a gift to Germany than to Greece. He is right when het describes a system in which rich countries circulate money to foreign countries to drive their own economies. To him the predicament Greece is in is just a lack of honesty about this strategy on the part of banks, a strategy that never served Greece. That’s what he’s been trying to make Germany see in the last weeks, with little succes.
The fundamental flaw he points out in Greece is that it can not produce enough interesting products to generate export revenue sufficient to be independent of the (selfish) external cash injections. The idea of loans to Greece (as long as they where not of the Goldman Sachs loanshark type) was to give it the challenge to create enough exportable goods with 100% of the loan to generate income for say 5% of interest payments. That is the basic principle of investments. It didn’t work because in reality they where not investments, they where money to spend on European imports. They did nothing to reduce Greeces lack of export potential.
Yanis’s thinking on Greek debt.
The current fight Yanis has is to get rid of the ‘debt’ in a way that doesn’t drag the country down into chaos, as the banks maintain that the primary objective was never for Germany to help Germany. Why? Because a completely broke Greece still has a lot of value the banks like to monetize on. What Greece lacks is control over these malignant sharks. Also Europe can not afford to break the pretense of these self interested ‘investments’ because the system they are part of keeps the Eurozone together.
Money Greece borrows is spend on fossil fuels, which are burned without leaving anything to pay the interest on the loan
It is easy to see how Greece needs to produce Euros to pay the debts, while it also needs Euros to function. It now rings the doorbel of Russia (and other parts of the BRICS group) and asks for help there, which should not be a big political thing, but what can Greece offer Russia in return that would not ameliorate its problems with Europe? Russia and Europe are in the middle of a rearrangement to reduce the gas dependency of Europe. Greece imagines itself as a hub for Russian oil and gas, and if that happens it certainly can count on financial support from it.
The system Yanis has to demolish is the carboncredit system. He can with renewable energy
The sad thing about all this is that this would not reduce Greeces dependency on foreign cash, it would start to work for Russia in moving the dangerous and polluting hydrocarbons, to be burned into the atmosphere at immense cost down the line. It would perhaps develop gas/oil dependent industries usefull to Russia, but it would stay weak as it is now.
The alternative though is for Greece to literally fight a war of independence. It would have to reorganize itself in a shocking way, to make the greek citizen realize the energy and food potential the country clearly has. It would have to mobilize to create so much renewable energy capacity that it can take care of itself, produce goods and services for itself, without the need of exteral (carbon)credit. (We all know that money is primarily a means to allow the owner to purchase fossil fuels, or allow it to be purchased to support the production/logistics/sales chain).
A destructive too course for Greece also creates European tensions
Of course this state of independence shall -never- be, because Greece is weak and that is pretty usefull to all its neighbours, that is, independence won’t be allowed, it has to be fought. Yanis doesn’t seem to contemplate it now, but he (or his replacement) might have to if the country wants to escape more and more humiliation and depravity.
A Greek currency gives Greece control over the activities of its population
One important step to take for Greece is to get a handle on its own workforce and market. It has to reinstate an independent currency to achieve that, it can stay in the Euro, but part of mobilizing its workforce in more flexible ways is to reinstate a Drachme or perhaps a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was suggested as an Apri Fools measure, but it is not far off. The problem with Bitcoin is that lots of foreigners own it, it has to be mined at great energy expense, and the blockchain servers are few and not in Greece. It would be much easier to simply start a Greekcoin, even using the same ledger system as bitcoin, just without the mining.
Pockets of autonomy would have to be developed, primarily in agriculture sector
Having an internal currency would allow Greece to peel away parts of its economy in which it doesn’t need the Euro. Parts that are more or less autonomous. Those Euro’s can be used to pay of debt and get rid of loans. This would start a ‘mining’ operation to find and develop autonomy in Greeces economy. A major tool in that efford would be the introduction of renewable energy and sustainable farming methods.
Hmm.. not so foolish after all?
The ‘greekcoin’ approach would also enable Greece to mobilize workers and direct activities in its economy outside the control of the Eurobankers. Even if it doesn’t solve the debt, it allows flexibility to implement changes that will reduce dependence on Europe.
We may have entered an era in which no region is ever allowed to develop (economic) independence, for simple security reasons. Most problems today emanate from independend regions and nations.
Introduction of the Drachme is often described as an exercise where the Drachme will be worthless or have some fixed value against the Euro. The key is that Greece doesn’t have to care what its internal currency is worth against any external ones. It can even prohibit the exchange and mandate (similarly to countries) that the Euro is used for some transactions and the Drachme for others. It just needs to use its currency to the best effect for Greece.
The altenative to loyalty to a Greek currency is mobilization and forced labour, or dependence
It seems Greece may not be there yet, it may not be ready yet to put it’s shoulders under such a currency, like it would put its shoulders under a rebuilding of the country after a world war. That is the effort needed from it to become independend, to escape the fossil fuel credit chains. Maybe it finds leaders that can inspire it to move that way, but more likely at this time, as it is not mobilizing and working frantically to reduce it’s dependence, it first has to sink deeper to see the key ingredient to free itself : Renewable energy.
P.S Perhaps Greece should follow through on building the first Rossi e-cat power plants as multiple studies report cold fusion is real.
Update : Asking for war reparations doesn’t solve the issue, although it does create an opportunity for Germany to build and install renewable energy capacity in Greece that can help the country sustain itself. The worst that can come of such a request is increased antagonism in Greek society against Europe and Germany, while the problem is only with the economic policy, not with its people. Those that want Greece to destroy itself will surely polarize whoever they can over this issue.
Below calculations are based on internet advise and rules of thumb. We try to create a real life usable method to dimension a solar battery off grid system. We will check it against experts and until we do we can’t guarantee it is correct.
1. Power need
The calculations must start with how much power is needed. How much appliances need to run simultaneously drawing how much Watt for how long every day. Which loads are continuous and which are only part of the day.
Let’s say we have a mini-fridge that runs all day drawing 100 Watt. Then you have the use of lights at 50 Watt for four hours in the evening. Use of TV and laptop at combined 200 Watt for four hours as well. You also cook for 30 minutes using 1000 Watt cooling plate/microwave.
Fridge = 100 Watt x 24 hours = 2.4 kWh
Lights = 50 Watt x 8 hours = .4 kWh
TV & Laptop = 200 Watt x 6 hours = 1.2 kWh
Cooking = 1000 Watt x 0.7 hours = 0.7 kWh
Total use if 4.7 kWh per 24 hours
Total you need to have stored 4.7 kWh ready to go. You also need to be able to loose 100 Watt every hour from when you stop charging and when you start charging again. Based on this load distribution we can determine the battery size.
2. Battery sizing
By putting the load in a spreadsheet and calculating the hourly use we can see that the ampere draw from the batteries peaks at six in the evening, when the lights are on, we have a fridge running and we cook. At that time we draw 54.16 Amperes at 12 volt. Because the normal current draw from a battery is about 10% of its size in Ah, we would need 540 Ah in batteries charged to 80% to do this comfortably. This 10% is caused by the fact batteries have lower actual capacities if the power draw is bigger. This is the so called Peukert law (named after a german scientist who discovered this). If you take 20 hours to discharge (5% amps) you get all of the charge, if you take 10 hours (like above at 10% amps) you get 78%, if you go faster this drops further to 40% if you discharge 1 one hour (100% amps).
This means we technically could design the system so the 54 amps are drawn from a battery that will just have the capacity to deliver it in one hour. If you do that 40% of capacity is available, so 40% = 54 Ah – > 100% = 135 Ah. But that assumes the battery is fully charged and you want to totally exhaust it. Batteries have to be oversized to take these and other effects into account. We could in theory choose two times the 135 Ah in size and be good, so 270 Ah, but the more we invest in battery capacity the longer the batteries last (a nicely commercial rule of thumb).
We also have a fridge that draws a constant 100 Watt. This is 8.3 amps, so trying to get a battery of 83 Ah would make sense. The battery however needs to be charged during the day which means it has be able to charge at a relatively high rate, a higher rate than the discharge rate. Charging has to be done at 10% of the Ah capacity of a (typical gel) battery, Lets say we take twice the 83 Ah we would need, then we have 166 Ah and can charge at 16.6 amps. But because of charging losses we need to do that for 14 hours! That is 10 for the battery and 40% more for charging losses. We don’t have 14 hours of sunlight, only about say 10 hours. So in those 10 hours the max charging amps can not exceed 10% of the battery Ah, and the total charge must be at least 2.4 kWh (for 24 hours of fridge time) in the relevant season.
3. Panel sizing
The above shows there’s a complex interaction between battery capacity and solar panel size considering the max charging current and varying panel output. It would be nice if we could plot the panel output and charge state of the batteries over the course of 24 hours for different seasons. Add to that temperature effects on both solar panels and batteries. A way to simplify all of this is to take the max load on the batteries (54 amps) and take that as a battery capacity. Then size solar panels to charge it with max 54 amps (10% of battery capacity) and make sure the total 24 hour usage in kWh times 1.5 is delivered during daytime.
So the pack is sized for its peak use at 540 Ah. The panels must be sized to deliver the kWh times 1.5 at a minimum (so in the lowest season). From the 24 hour spreadsheet we see the total kWh = 4.7 per 24 hours. 4.7 kWh times 1.5 is 7 kWh. Using a PV calculator we can size the system for the location to do that, deliver 7 kWh minimum. With a system of 1600 Wp we have more than 7 kWh delivered from march to september, the holiday season. This is for panels with an output of ~38 volt. This site gives you an idea how the output of panels varies. From the 1600 Wp size we can deduce that at its (theoretical) peak this means 1600 Watt output, divided by 38 is 42 amps (1200/38).
Solar system max amps = Wp / Panel voltage
From the max 42 amps the panels deliver we can deduce we need at least 420 Ah in batteries. This is between the 135Ah and the 540Ah we got before. Sounds like we found a sweet spot here.
4. Charger selection
The solar charger must be able to handle the peak current of 42 amps. The more advanced the charger, the more you get out of your system and the longer the batteries will last.
5. Wiring
Wiring needs to be able to take the currents. 42 Amps is a lot of current, so wires need to be thick. Most people are used to high voltage AC that delivers power at lower currents (power is current times voltage). In a 12 Volt system the wires need to be thicker and as short as possible. For a list of wire diameters and ampere capacity look here.
So to recap our above system we have 420 Ah in batteries, 1600 Wp in solar panels and a solar charger that has a 40 amp output. Looking at a charger sizer calculator we can have 3 strings of 2 panels of 280 Wp totalling 1680 Wp. With a max 100 Volt / 50 Amp charger we have a viable configuration. But the 50 amps dictate a larger battery size. An available charger with lower amp output is 30 amps, which is to low. So we need to increase the battery pack to 500 Ah (or shop for other chargers). This configuration should be able to perform the set task.
We will look for a better way to estimate solar sizing as the above is not that satisfactory. Rule of thumb seems to be:
Peak amp usage x 10 -> min battery Ah
Total 24h kWh use x 1.5 for location dictates solar panel size
Charger chosen for max panel output in amps
String configuration (how panels are connected) adjusted to charger voltage needs
Update : Schaliegas gelinkt met hoger sterftecijfer, een duidelijke trend in North Dakota
Update : Aparte categorie? Schaliegas bedrijven liegen en lappen de regels aan hun laars
Update : Schaliegas verhoogt de concentratie methaan in waterbronnen. Metingen aan bronnen in gebieden waar naar schaliegas werd geboord en gebieden waar dat niet zo was werden vergeleken. Bronnen in boorgebieden bevatten tot 17 maal meer methaan. Dus “er was altijd methaan” is waar, en “het boren heeft methaan in het water gebracht” is ook waar.
Update : Schaliegas en borstkaner. Shale gas and breast cancer and violence against women Art 1Art 2
Toxins in Fracking Linked to Breast Cancer (webinar)
Toxins linked to Spontaneous Abortion and Birth Defects,Crimes Against Women on the Rise in Some Energy Boom Towns
Shale oil : “Only skin cancer, with six observed deaths, was in excess, with an estimated relative risk of 4.9 (95%CI: 2.2–10.9).” (bron)
“Elevated levels of stomach cancer incidence in rural areas of Kohtla-Järva district remained unexplainable. In a retrospective cohort study of 2069 workers who had been exposed to oil shale products from 10 to 20 years an excess of skin cancer in females was found.” (bron)
5+ redenen om niet aan Schaliegas te beginnen, of waarom heeft die koe geen staart?
Schaliegas (in het engels shale gas of Fracking genoemd) wordt gepushed in Europa. Er zit veel geld achter. De fossiele industrie wil door ongeacht de lange termijn schade die schaliegas en het verglijkbare koolzoomgas (coalseamgas) veroorzaakt. Maar waar hebben we het over? Wat wordt er gerapporteerd over schaliegas?
Wie niet weet wat schaliegas is, het is gas dat vrijkomt uit klei/leisteen/rotslagen nadat deze met gigantische hydraulishe druk zijn verbrijzeld. Er wordt een gat geboord, en via dat gat worden dmv vloeistoffen (fluids) zulke krachten onder de grond opgewekt dat deze verpulvert, zodat gas vrijkomt. Dit wordt dan verondersteld via het gat te worden afgevoerd maar het kan natuurlijk alle kanten op.
Probleem 1. Fracking Fluids (vloeistoffen gebruikt voor het kraken van de grond en losweken van gas)
Bij schaliegas boringen worden vloeistoffen gebruikt om de gassen makkelijker vrij te laten komen. Deze zijn giftig. Ze nemen ook gifstoffen, metalen e.d. op uit de grond en moeten in veel gevallen worden afgevoerd, iets dat echter zonder enige zorgvuldigheid gebeurt.
Cathy Behr .. was working the day shift when a gas driller
worker, Clinton Marshall, arrived complaining of nausea and headaches.
Marshall had spilled “fracturing fluid” on his clothes .. Cathy Behr, without protection, had
meanwhile spent just ten minutes tending to Mr. Marshall. A few days after this ER visit, Cathy Behr appeared jaundiced and began
vomiting fluid and having difficulty breathing. Behr’s husband took her
back to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with multiple organ
failure, including liver failure, respiratory distress and erratic blood
counts.
Etc. Dus fracking/schaliegas boormengsels zijn zeer giftig, bevatten vaak geheim gehouden oplosmiddelen (oa diesel) bedoelt om het gas vrij te maken door eventuele ondergrondse materialen op te lossen. De vloeistoffen worden tijdens en na het boren verwijderd maar niemand houdt hier zicht op. Soms wordt het ergens anders de grond ingepompt!
Probleem 2. Aardbevingen
Zelfs in ons land wordt nonchalant gedaan over aardbevingen. Onze gasrobot Kamp moest er aan herinnerd worden dat er mensen wonen in de gaswin gebieden die misschien meer waarde hechten aan hun eigen huis dan aan de winst van de Gasunie. In de VS zijn er vele incidenten van aardbevingen ivm schaliegas. Logisch, je haalt iets weg van onder de grond, dan zakt de grond in.
“De minister liet vrijdag weten dat door de gaswinning zwaardere
aardbevingen kunnen ontstaan dan eerder werd gedacht. Hij wil duidelijk
hebben hoe zwaar die bevingen precies kunnen worden en wat daar de
gevolgen van kunnen zijn.”
“Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small
earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of
which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes
occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations
had ceased.”
Probleem 3. Radioactiviteit
Door het kraken van de klei lagen/leisteen lagen waarin het gas zit komen radioactieve gassen en metalen vrij. Deze eindigen in het fracking fluid, het gas en het grondwater.
“All clays are mildly radioactive, and shale is a sort of heat-treated
clay. While Barnett shale is not particularly radioactive, Marcellus
shale, which has recently been the focus of frantic drilling activity,
is.”
“The
shale deposits that have the US gas industry so excited were studied
after WWII by the Atomic Energy Commission and declared to be the
largest uranium resource in the US. ”
Op dit punt is schaliegas al afgeschreven wat ons betreft. Maar mensen laten zich omkopen, de krediteuren hebben daar momenteel in de VS en op veel andere plaatsen geen moeite mee, want lenen kost niks. Zo wordt er overal vrolijk geboord, wat funest blijkt voor het water. Niet voor een jaar oid, maar voor de volgende duizenden jaren. In sommige gebieden voeren de schaliegas bedrijven water aan als voorwaarde om te blijven boren. Maar wat als het schaliegasbedrijf failliet gaat?
“Pennsylvania officials reported incomplete test results that omitted
data on some toxic metals that were found in drinking water taken from a
private well near a natural gas drilling site”
“Toxicology tests on the plaintiffs found the presence of toluene, benzene and arsenic in their bodies, according to the complaint.”
“For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling
and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination
so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire.”
Probleem 5. Het land wordt onbruikbaar
Ook boven de grond is het ongezond. In een geval waar een bedrijf CCS wilde doen, althans onder het voorwendsel van carbon capture and storage CO2 gebruikte om gas uit de grond te pompen, bleek dat CO2 te lekken en stikte koeien in een dal waar het gas bleeft staan. Mensen zijn net zo vatbaar voor de gifstoffen als de dieren die er aan sterven.
“Their findings, published in “New Solutions: A Journal of
Environmental and Occupational Health Policy,” are a harrowing
account of sudden deaths of cattle, as well as reproductive and
neurological problems in horses, cats, dogs and other animals.”
“These farmers are getting out of the beef business, in part
over concern that their animals will become delivery systems for
contaminants.”
“Analysis of birth measures in Pennsylvania, which has a high
concentration of fracking operations, revealed that mothers exposed to
this dangerous method of natural gas extraction are 25 percent more
likely to deliver an underweight baby.”
Conclusie
Reden nr 6 zou kunnen zijn dat de winst vaak tereurstelt. Reden nr. 7 zou kunnen zijn dat veel gas niet verkocht wordt, maar verbrand, dat het afvoeren ervan voor enorme overlast zorgt. Reden nr. 8 de betrokken bedrijven zijn absoluut onbetrouwbaar. Maar wie daar nog over wil kniezen en voor boren is heeft geen gezond verstand of hart. Wat als het gas op was? Wat deden we dan? Dat moeten we dan maar nu al doen.
Nieuwbouwhuizen hebben over het algemeen een voordelig energie label (als ze er een hebben, want deze was tot voor kort niet nodig voor huizen jonger dan 10 jaar). Dit label geeft aan hoeveel GigaJoule per m3 per maand de woning gebruikt. De meeste nieuwbouw zit daarbij tussen de 0 en de 1 GigaJoule (Labels A++, A+, A). Kopers van woningen die onder de 0,6 GigaJoule zitten kunnen door het Lenteakkoord meer lenen, 9.000 Euro om precies te zijn.
Je zou denken dat je die in zonnepanelen of isolatie zou kunnen steken, maar dat lijkt niet de gedachte achter deze regeling. dan zou de toets namelijk zijn dat de EPC boven de o,6 ligt, dwz huizen die slecht zijn geisoleerd krijgen de kans wat extra isolatie te verwerven.
Ook de manier waarop deze 9.000 Euro wordt gegund is niet ideaal. Deze ontstaat namelijk door het verslappen van de inkomens toets. Normaal moet de bank je inkomen in acht nemen zodat je dagelijkse uitgaven niet in gevaar komen door de rente over de hypotheek die je neemt. Kennelijk kan de rente van 9.000 Euro er nog wel bij (er is ook rente aftrek), ongeacht of je dan in de problemen komt.
Deze regeling lijkt dus in eerste instantie gecreerd om de nieuwbouw huizen die voldoen duurder te maken, immers een bank kan tegen een koper zeggen “Dit huis is wel wat duurder dan u zich kunt veroorloven, maar u hebt 9.000 Euro vrijstelling”. En dit alleen voor super zuinige nieuwbouw. Banken lijken er tot noch toe niet veel interesse te hebben. Misschien omdat ze zich liever aan de toets houden.
Eigenaren van nieuwbouw woningen kunnen deze regeling echter gebruiken om zonnepanelen aan te schaffen. Deze hebben een hoger rendement dan de hypotheek lasten, dus ze zijn effectief gratis. Ook isolatie is een goede investering. Huiseigenaren zullen bij hun bank kunnen vragen naar de extra leningen om deze kosten te maken.
Ook al lijkt de regeling bedoelt om zich te vertalen in hogere huizen prijzen en een bonus voor de banken, kunnen slimme eigenaren deze gebruiken om een deel van de hypotheek via zonnestroom te neutraliseren. Zoekt u panelen , dan kunnen wij u helpen 😉 Zie info@greencheck.nl
In ander nieuws : Er komt een regeling voor sportvereningingen in 2016 om de aanschaf van duurzame energie bronnen makkelijker te maken :
Ter uitvoering van deze motie stel ik momenteel samen met de Minister van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport een subsidieregeling op die per 1 januari 2016 effectief zal worden. Onder deze regeling zal een specifieke lijst van maatregelen voor energiebesparing en duurzame energie worden opgenomen, waarvoor subsidie kan worden verstrekt. In de overweging van de hoogte van het subsidiepercentage zal het voor sommige sportverenigingen niet aftrekbaar zijn van de btw worden meegenomen. (bron)
The world can be devided into two groups of countries : 1. Those that have a firm grasp on their fossil fuel supply and 2. Countries that don’t. Strangely amongs the countries that don’t have their fossil fuel access under control we find fossil fuel producing countries. Usually they are able to produce but not refine, or most of their oil is harvested by foreign companies. In other cases the countries are under financial constraints forcing them to deliver their oil abroad. Also the ‘firm grasp’ of for instance Europe and US on fossil fuel supplies is at best shaky. What if large scale war breaks out in the Middle East? How likely is that as Jordans king refers to the fight agianst IS as the “third world war” ?
Fossil fuel tends to drive the world towards an enforced order at high risk, at the cost of lives, which have low value in it’s fossil fuel economy
With that access to fossil fuels comes order. The order in turn allows the governments to keep their grasp on the existing balance of power, or fight to restore or install one. We can observe how Egypt, Syria, Iran, Lybia where all thrown in turmoil because of their oil reserves, how Saudi Arabia and Iraq try to fight oil funded IS. In the background the cold war/BRICSA block defines sides in each conflict.
A second divide could be made in the world, between countries that supply the food to feed their own population and ones that can’t. Right now two factors come into play, one is fossil fuel availability (when farming is intensive) and the other is the weather. The recent riots in Egypt where about hunger, caused by lack of fuel caused by an inflating dollar (the US was printing like mad). But hunger can also result from droughts, as we have seen in the US, Australia and Russia in recent years. Russia in 2010 stopped selling grain to the world market. The droughts in the US are predicted to become annual, or permanent. The ‘Breadbasked’ is moving up on the map. But will it be a breadbasked when it moves?
The threat to order by both a sudden drop in fossil fuels (minus 15% is enough to trigger widespread chaos according to the german department of defence) or food is also a threat to the ability to respond to climate change. As every farmed calorie already costs about 10 fossil fuel calories the threat to order of the two factors fuel security and weather is multiplied.
The danger is that one can no longer respond to climate change and the use of fossil fuels will continue in the fragmented non cooperating regions. Rather than trying to keep going on the brink of collapes the world should be reinforcing life in a non fossil fuel dependent way such that it becomes 100% resilient against any drop in fossil fuel supply. It makes no sense to fight a losing battle, especially when all the means to win another are available. The goal is food security and order, so humanity keeps control over its fate.
The food system is currently dependent on fossil fuels for powering irrigation pumps, petroleum based pesticides and herbicides, mechanization for both crop production and food processing, fertilizer production, maintenance of animal operations, crop storage and drying and for the transportation of farm inputs and outputs. (source)
Add to this powering the shops and supermarket, fuel for cars to go get groceries, fossil energy use in restaurants and kitchens..
The post-fossil-fuel-intensive-farming food gap
One scary consequence of intensive farming is that the farmed land is dead, deteriorated and usually impregnated with toxic compounds to which GM crops are resistent. The soil is carbon poor, it has no fungal mesh which usually carries nutrients to plant roots. It takes years for soil (if it is planted with the right nitrogen catching plants) to become fertile again. This means that if it becomes impossible to farm with intensive methods due to some glitch in the chemical and fossil supply chain, the land will not produce. On top of the chaos from an interruption to the fossil fuel supply one would see a collapse of food production that would not be able to restore itself. On a larger scale this would lead to serious famines decimating the population.
Carbon farming
Carbon farming, meaning farming to sequester CO2 and receive carbon credits, sounds like a good idea. Effectively though it protects CO2 emissions elsewhere, so it neutralizes any beneficial effect to the climate of these farms.
Biochar
It seems that the fossil fuel industry has found a way to remain relevant by producing biochar through pyrolysis (burning with low oxygen). However, the benefits of biochar are contested. It seems the best way to get the benefits of carbon rich soil is to allow plants to inject it. Fossil fuels also need to remain in the ground.
The solution
Ironically the approach that reduces all these risks also reduces the resulting problem of high CO2 in our atmosphere. Puting carbon in the soil throug natural means is a great way to make the soil more fertile.
Guy Webb seems the most sentient advocate of scalable methods of carbon farming. The upside of this farming method is that it is less carbon intensive, as productive and cheaper than current methods (which is to be expected as money is usually used to secure fossil fuels). It also allows the soil to retain more water, so droughts have less effect.
The solution to protect life is to use it so it protects itself. Maximize life!
The switch to soil carbon increasing farming methods is our best protection against threats to order by fossil fuel shortages or food shortages. When adopted widely it is also able to capture a significant amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, almost as much as we put into it in the last century. This in turn will cool the earth and increase the size of the now shrinking farming regions.
To truely fight climate change we need to do more, this however would become impossible if the world is suffering from food and fuel shortages..
The world as it is presented to us is currently trying to fight climate change by setting targets to replace fossil fuels and reduce emissions. This method is inviting people that do not want to reduce emissions to tweak the targets, every step of the way. The most worrying aspect of this strategy is that it doesn’t even adress the problem, which is incredibly high CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere and oceans.
As a financially dependent consumer we are tied to our homes, countries and have to make the best we can trying to earn enough money to pay the bills. As such we are being incapacitated from influencing the path of attack against this existential threat. The motivation to lock society in this delaying death spiral is that people selling fossil fuels and people in the banking system want to keep their jobs.
The first thing that is wrong with this approach is that investments in renewables need to compete with other investments, and other investments usually retain fossil fuel cashflow for banks, while investments in renewables, especially where they are consumed directly, make cashflow disappear.
The second thing wrong with the approach is that it uses fossil fuels. The manufacturing sector still uses fossil fuels a lot and so as we bring forth products that may reduce the CO2 in our atmosphere or generate renewable energy we are actually increasing the CO2 concentration.
The third thing wrong is that our economic system clearly doesn’t care about doing things that are not profitable. Profit means that whatever is grown, build or created needs to extract money from the economy to pay interest in the investment (as far as banks are concerned) and make the activity interesting for shareholders. This limits the range of activities enormously. As banks also sell or lease the land they are not about to do that for free in order to serve the attempt to balance CO2 in our atmosphere. In fact, because of the reasons mentioned before they are dead set agains that. The general instinct of banks is to make things more expensive, because that increases their cashflow and profit. A good example is the selling of ‘right of way’ along the proposed Hyperloop track between Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Everything to stop the emergence of fossil fuel free transportation.
The answer to the question “Can we fight climate change within our economy” has to be no, or at least not effectivly. The fundament of our economy is the enemy we are trying to fight. If we work with the economic system we will have to drag this enemy along all the time. Instead we should take an independent approach something that is hard to do but easy to imagine. The steps are :
Create a manufacturing hub for renewable energy sources that uses only renewable energy.
Use it to remove any fossil fuel involvement in the supply chain, so logistics will be electric, processing electric etc. etc.
Maximize production of this manufacturing hub, accepting money for the products and alway using that cash to 1. make the hub more independent and 2. Increase production.
The resulting increase in renewable energy sources will reduce fossil fuel use at ever lower cost, and allow more regions to immitate the approach. It will also enable us to fight climate change at ever deminishing costs and while reducing CO2 emissions. This approach will put the enormous amount of renewable energy potential at our disposal much sooner than any carboneconomic strategy could.
Negative prices in Europe
