House of the rising Moonglum

My usual warning bell to ring is Peak Oil, but there are plenty of other issues out there as well. It really just comes down to scarcity, Energy, Food, Water. Energy, and therefore oil, is of course heavily used in manufacturing and distribution of goods. I think that this is pretty well understood. But another commodity that is used in many industrial processes is water. I’ve been running across that more because of the extensive use of water in shale oil extraction. But it is also true in all other forms of manufacturing (and agriculture) too. The BBC News has a neat info graphic and article that shows how much fresh water goes into each item you buy. None of those were too shocking to me, but I bet I would be amazed on things like cars and houses. Need to try to find that chart on the internet.

(IIRC, My wife showed me a site that shows different amounts of water going into different foods a while back. Clearly the higher up the food chain you eat the more water you are going to need, but there were some outliers as well. I’ll post a link to that chart too if I can find it again.)

This is awesome. iFixit just released all their (awesome IMO) manuals as open source. Now we all have free access to this incredible resource. I have used them for years, and only last year got rid of my Pismo, thanks to their manuals. That thing have every single items except for the case replaced or repaired, up to and including the display and inverter. Given that I work in the industry I probably hold on to my tech too long, but it does make me feel like I am at least doing a small part for the planet, not junking it up with more rapid upgrade cycles.

I’m a big proponent of non carbon emitting electricity generation, and a firm believer in using nuke power for base-load. One of the main reasons for that is that I don’t think that any reasonably grid could handle the ups and downs of going to a full grid of more traditional green power. Spain is working hard to change my mind. It looks like the windy weekend allowed them to provide 53% of their power from wind, pushing excess into reverse hydro and selling to their neighbors. Those numbers are impressive for a grid that wasn’t really designed for that kind of behavior. I still don’t believe in base-load wind, but this certainly makes it look like it can be a bigger chunk of the pie than I have been thinking before.

Major companies left and right are fleeing the US Chamber of Commerce because of it’s regressive views on climate change. They have called for the “Scopes Monkey Trial” of climate change. Seriously? I thought that led to evolution being taught in school.

When Exelon leaves because of your regressive views on climate change, you have done something very wrong.

In a shockingly well thought out move, the Department of the Interior is consolidating all its efforts to permit solar power in the US southwest. The plan is to identify the best sites (lowest regulatory risk, highest energy return) for solar power on federal land, and do a bulk analysis of the environmental impact on those sites. This will smooth the process of permitting for any companies looking to build on federal land. Currently there is under 1GW of solar production US wide on federal land, this plan looks to increase that to between 75 and 100GW. By comparison, total us consumption is about 1TW. This is real progress.

And I thought I was a doomer. ABC News is running a special on the end of the world. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to see this, but it is nice to see the mainstream media throwing their hats into the ring. If enough people get concerned enough early enough, we might actually be able to see our way to a new economy and energy reality without losing our standard of living. A decade ago I would have not believed it, but it really does seem like people are starting to understand the depth of the problem. On the other hand, maybe we are just in the midst of a recession and when the economy picks up again this will all fall to the wayside.

Yet another article showing the progress the EPA is making. I can’t say what a breath of fresh air this is. I don’t know how much of this will actually pan out into policies that are good for our national viability and the environment, but it is nice to see it being talked about at the very least.

A friend on another blog recently suggested that there was little difference between what Obama is doing now and what McCain would have done as president. I highly disagree, in tone and tenor much more than anything else. I like having a president that tries to let off the steam of mad populism and stamp it out. Having just read a biography of Washington, and seeing how much he worried about the US revolution turning into the French one, it really drove home the point to me that generating fear to uphold your rule is really only going to produce backlash.

But that is a subtle difference that we can’t really know would have been different, given the other choice. A tangible verifiable difference: The EPA has its teeth back. Three items, first an immediate hold on mountaintop removal coal mining. Second, no more unregulated pollutants in streams. Finally and most importantly: greenhouse gasses have been declared harmful to human life. This means that the new administration is now required by law to regulate the release. I simply don’t see any of those things having happened under McCain.

Here’s an interesting chart that makes it look like the current down market matches the great depression. The problem with this comparison is that if you go back just 6 months in the chart it perfectly matches the other two major bear markets of the past century. “past performance is no prediction of future gains.” That is for sure.

From now on I want my stock charts from 0. Lets see some absolute numbers. I want to know when we are 90% down from the peak so I can buy me some stocks.

Just saying.

An article from the ASPO looks at peak oil from an financial standpoint. (From the living room in rogers park). The interesting thing about this article is that is points out how the US will most likely reach peak oil well before the rest of the world for the simple reason that we use so much more than the rest of the world now and finance our imports with borrowed money. One thing he doesn’t look at is how much the lenders rely on our solvency and continued production (aka energy usage.) Also now that oil prices have dropped due to the falling economy I wonder if some of the aggressive extraction projects in unstable regions will vanish. That would reduce the strength of his argument as well.

Edit to add: Heh, it looks like Kheris already thought of lenders relying on our stability as well.

Detroit is how bad it can get. Apparently you can buy houses in Detroit for $1.

And Obama goes on about his energy policy. *sob* I want him as my president so bad. Someone asks a simple talking point question and he goes on without interruption, about the different viewpoints he has been synthesizing, and much of the fallout of what energy policy impacts across the country, from single point of failure food production to the weaknesses of the cap and trade system. PLEASE COUNTRY vote for him! It has been so long since we have had a president who I can actually listen to expounding on difficult topics.

It really is a great overview of his energy and tax policy and you should read it if you haven’t heard him talk about it before. The best thing in my opinion is that it shows that he understands how intertwined energy is with everything else we do.

A lot of people complain about the peak oil crowd, saying that they are just conspiracy theorists. The financial times is reporting a large measurable decrease in oil production which will continue at a rate of 9% a year without large increases in extraction infrastructure. I don’t know how anyone can say that peak oil doesn’t exist. We already passed it!

At first I thought that having a recession in the middle of the passing of the peak would be devastating. What actually seems to be happening though is that the recession is actually causing a reduction in demand, allowing us to slow production a bit, and potentially stave off the time when oil becomes the limiting factor. Also since people saw the rapid increase in cost it has gotten people interested in alternatives. We might actually be able to make it through this thing unscathed.

I made a post recently saying how Bush’s speech for the bailout was whipping up fear in the country instead of calming people down. Apparently he used a more direct threat with congress:

This is a laughable threat because marital law is enforced by the national guard who is (when they are home anyway) controlled by the states’ governors. Well I just happened across an interesting article in the Army Times noting that a combat brigade began a “homeland tour” on October first. From the article: “But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.” I guess that threat from the president wasn’t as empty as I thought. I will be very interested to see if we make it through the election without some very interesting happenings.

This is the best news I have heard in a while now. It appears that the senate passed with a veto proof margin the senate approved funds for a massive hight speed rail improvement in the midwest. This is the sort of thing that we need to be working on right now as our reliance on cars goes by the wayside. The only sad thing is that this does not include electrifying the rail lines. Perhaps that can be done later in conjunction with a new advanced electric grid.

Greenwald at Salon points out how the bailout follows the normal way things are done in the US government these days. You do not make rash decisions in moments of panic and fear. You take a breath and look at the problem and figure out a solution. I hope this failed vote is the moment of breath and that congress is able to come up with a couple good plans, and hash out the best possible solution. $700 billion on something everyone has to hold their noses for is no good. We are a better country than that.

One really positive outcome of this is that both sides of congress voted for and against the bill. That shows that we have something to work with, and we should be able to come up with an actually good bill, not just one that people hold their nose and vote for.

Just this one. If you already had $630 billion to throw around, why did you need our $700 billion. And if your $630 didn’t do the trick, why did you think $700 would? Just asking.

Looks like the bailout bill is failing. And yes the stocks are tanking, but isn’t it interesting that one bailout already happened? Citigroup buying Wacovia was all private. No taxpayer money needed. The value of Wacovia was low enough that Citi felt it was worthwhile to take on that debt. That they could make some money off of it. The real problem is that the confidence isn’t there for other companies to do the same. We need more transparency to know what skeletons are hiding in these banks closets so that people will be confident again to invest in them.

One telling quote on the bailout though: “With this strong and decisive legislation, we will help restart the flow of credit so American families can meet their daily needs and American businesses can make purchases, ship goods and meet their payrolls,” Bush said.

Really?! Well that right there is what the real problem is. People use credit to meet their daily needs. Credit to ship goods to sell is one thing, you have value to get return on. Credit to cover living expenses? You will never get out of that hole. And that I suppose is how we got into this mess in the first place. Home equity for a nice big TV and car and don’t worry about how you are going to pay for it. For the past two years I have had a home loan, and every time I get a home equity letter in the mail, I get so mad.

The worst offense of this government in my opinion, has been the installation of a lack of sense of cost in the population of this country. There is no need for sacrifice any more. Remeber 9/11? Go and buy. Spend to prop up the economy. Our many years war in Iraq? No sacrifice at home, that’s only for the troops and their families. Keep driving, keep buying. 12:1 liquidity ratios for securities firms? Forget it. How about 36:1 instead. It looks like that payment is coming due. Ugh. So mad. And now there are no good solutions. I’m just glad that Congress wasn’t cowed into forcing this deal through without some real time for analysis first.

Hey Pickens, I know your plan is cool and all, but if you are going to saturate the entire country with ads after the debate telling people to go to your website, you might want to set aside some cash to actually get a couple more load balancing databases.

I guess I’ll check it out tomorrow.