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Thriving in the Age of Collapse, Part I
Dmitry Orlov, LATOC
..My premise is that the U.S. economy is going to collapse, that this process has already begun, and will run its course over a decade or more, with ups and downs here and there, but a consistent overall downward direction. I neither prognosticate nor wish for such an outcome; I just happen to see it as very likely. Furthermore, I do not see it as altogether bad. There are some terrible aspects to the current state of affairs, and some wonderful aspects to the post-collapse environment.
Since such a scenario might seem outlandish to some people, I would like to sketch out why I find it entirely plausible. There is an ever-increasing amount of mainstream media attention being paid to the looming energy crisis. At this point, very few people still argue that there is not a problem with the energy supply, immediately for natural gas, eventually for oil. ..
I feel qualified to write on this subject because I had the opportunity to observe an economic collapse firsthand. I did some of my growing up in the Soviet Union, and the rest in the United States. I have visited Russia repeatedly, on personal trips and on business, during the years of Perestroika, the ensuing collapse, and the lean years of the 1990s.
(Nov 2005)
Just released from behind a paywall.
Sharp sees solar power costs halving by 2010
Georgina Prodhan, Reuters
BERLIN (Reuters) – Japan’s Sharp Corporation, the world’s biggest maker of solar cells, expects the cost of generating solar power to halve by 2010 and to be comparable with that of nuclear power by 2030, Sharp’s president said.
“By the year 2010 we’ll be able to halve generation costs,” Katsuhiko Machida told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. “By 2020 we expect a further reduction — half of 2010 — and by 2030 we expect half the 2020 level.
“By 2030 the cost will be comparable to electricity produced by a nuclear power plant,” said Machida, speaking on the fringes of the IFA trade fair in Berlin, the world’s biggest consumer electronics fair. Asked how the costs were likely to compare with those for producing electricity from fossil fuels such as coal, Machida replied: “Fossil fuel resources will be totally out by then.”
Solar electricity currently costs about $0.50 per kilowatt hour to produce, more than eight times as much as that produced from fossil fuel. The market is growing at a rate of more than 30 percent per year but solar power still produces just a small fraction of one percent of the world’s energy. …
(31 Aug 2006)
Emphasis added.
Conveniently, we’re seeing the hard truth
David Waters, The Commercial Appeal
President Bush thinks our biggest threat is global terrorism. Used-to-be-the-next-President Gore thinks our biggest threat is global warming. What if they’re both right?
I realize that would upset the delicate geo-political balance on cable TV and AM radio talk shows, but I think it’s time we consider the probability. After all, both Election 2000 winners agree on what’s behind each threat: our national addiction to oil. ..
And yet every time I buy a gallon of gas, I not only cut into my youngest child’s college fund, I make his world just a little bit worse. Every time I fill up my tank, some of the money I spend ends up in the hands of terrorists or regimes that support terrorism. As many people have pointed out, American citizens are funding both sides of the war on terror. How stupid is that? ..
(20 Aug 2006)
Contributor Carol Rambo writes: There is very little going on in Memphis, TN, regarding “peak oil.” The term is not used in this article but this is the first thing I have seen locally which spells out how oil “floats” our whole system.
The End of the Oil Era Looms
Alexander Jung, De Spiegel
Five minutes before he was scheduled to speak, leading geologist Marion King Hubbert was summoned to the phone. His employer was speaking, someone from the headquarters of the Shell corporation. …
And yet there are serious answers to the central question: “How much longer?” They aren’t easy or simple answers – they vary from one resource to another — and they are far from conclusive. How long a resource will last isn’t decided by fate. It depends on human action.
The most reliable predictions are those about petroleum supplies — thanks to the discoveries of geologist Hubbert. The picture that is emerging is worrying even to the sober-minded observers at Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), which is based in Hanover. “We’re closer to the peak of resource extraction than we would like,” warns geologists Peter Gerling, an expert on fossil fuels. ..
(24 Aug 2006)
