There is a paradox between the building of cultures in place - through 'restanza', an Italian concept of 'staying in place', and growing deep roots into the land, that bear the kind of wisdom we value in indigenous cultures - and 'clean travel'. Clean travel is a sail boat, or a horse, or a bicycle, or your feet. The frictionless but wholly destructive global travel of today erodes cultures of place - who wants to be the authentic peasant culture when you can dip in and out and rinse that dirt out of your hair with a power shower, in the aircon on your private jet, or electric powered train cabin? Travel is the antithesis of culture, which should not be confused with nomadism, which is firmly 'in place' and rooted in seasonal land wisdom. There is alot we will have to leave behind.
TravelLING to meet communities in place that are connected with your own community in place, to take gifts and bring back experience is a different matter that will be helped by the adventure of the relative difficulty of getting around.
That nuclear energy favors an abundance where “everyone has as much as the next person“ with “high energy lifestyles for all” is questionable. So far, the nuclear lobby was always an expression of a big monopolistic concentration power in the hands of few financial groups (and did the opposite of building a “society blooming with love,” just let’s not forget how Yakuza mafia embedded in Japan’s nuclear industry resorted to forms of modern slavery to clean up Fukushima’s mess.) The myth of the magic (and powerful) wand that will deliver limitless energy for all and forever is a fantasy that has no rational basis. An ‘equitable abundance’ can come only come if we finally accept the mathematical fact that an exponential growth and consumption forever, let alone a fair one, is a delusion. A fair distribution of wealth can come only within a civilization that bases its energy budget on limited, renewable and clean resources, and by accepting, once and for all, that the dream of an unending growth with unlimited energy is a vain chimera. And even not a desirable one. While a ‘love-based society’ can’t be built neither with nuclear energy nor with renewables, but because of an inner energy that can emerge only if we nurture discipline, restrain and a love for nature.
“There is so much else we could redefine as energy. “
Money is energy. It is the social energy through which we direct the time and attention of individuals and institutions towards some activities, and away from others.
How the social energy of money is made to flow shapes the enterprises that shape the technologies that shape the choices that shape the economy that shapes society that shapes our hope for a dignified future quality of life, or not.
Today the social energy of money is being made to flow towards Growth through Creative Destruction as the special pleading for the special interests of capital markets professionals who are expert at knowing what shares to buy and when to sell to time and ride the booms and busts in market clearing prices for incrementally liquid commodity shares of ownership in large scale, long-dated financing agreements for supplying money aggregated from savers to enterprise for its use for a time, at a cost, on terms, in markets for maintaining market clearing prices on such shares through volatility and growth.
We can change the way the social energy is made to flow, to shape the right economy for shaping the right technologies for shaping the right choices for shaping the right economy for shaping a cohesive society and keeping it ongoing in hope for adaptively evolving a dignified future quality of life, by shifting Pensions & Endowments out of Ownership Equity and into Stewardship Equity negotiating agreements for equity payback to a fiduciary cost of money, plus opportunistic upside, from enterprise cash flows prioritized by contract for suitability, longevity and fairness across all six vectors of enterprise cash flow (fairness to suppliers [Fair Trade]; fairness to communities [Fair Engagement ]; fairness to Nature and Society [Fair Reckoning ]; fairness to workers [Fair Working]; fairness to customers and competitors [Fair Dealing ]; and fairness to savers [Fair Sharing]) as the special pleading for the special interests of the Prudent Person as an avatar for our shared common sense of care (prudence) and caring (loyalty) as reasonable people who take the time to make the effort to acquire knowledge and experience relevant to choosing the new beginnings we need to choose to fit the changing circumstances of the changing times.
I'm confused as to why you're confused about Simon Michaux?
Reading Simon Michaux’s 1000 page PDF is like listening to someone argue that it is impossible to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge - because you would JUST HAVE to build it across “The Gap” (between North and South Head) and you would JUST HAVE to build it out of gold! But wait - no there’s a problem - there isn’t enough gold in the world to build it!!
Seriously - it’s that bad. Michaux wants us to build from the wrong starting place and out of the wrong stuff. But let me explain.
THE WRONG PLACE
Michaux cherry-picked studies about a hypothetically isolated German grid to maximise and over-emphasise the problem of getting through winter. I have heard him assert “No one thought about winter!” countless times across many Youtube channels. But it’s just not true!
There are many studies into German winters going back many years. Yet it’s not really even an issue for most people, as 3/4 of the human race live in the “Sunshine Belt” which stretches from the equator north and south to the 35th parallels. Only a quarter of us live as far north as Germany and beyond. Michaux takes German winters as “normative” when most of us live where winter's impact is minimal or non-existent!
Then he forgot about super-grids. Modern HVDC powerlines only lose 1.6% of their power per 1000 km. We could hypothetically run a base at the North Pole from solar power on the equator and only lose 16% of the electricity.
That means NO major trading nation lives outside the reach of the “Sunshine Belt”.
Professor Andrew Blakers is an Australian solar cell designer who won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for inventing the PERC solar cell (now in 90% of all solar panels). Blakers developed plans for Australia, and warns that if each State tried to build their own grid they would REQUIRE 5 TIMES MORE STORAGE than if we linked the whole continent in the one super-grid. But a connected Australia only needs 2 days storage for each city! https://reneweconomy.com.au/solars-stunning-journey-from-lab-curiosity-to-global-juggernaut-wiping-out-fossil-fuels/
Australia is in the Sunshine Belt - and if WE need a super-grid - how much more does cold dark GERMANY? Germany is also 21 TIMES smaller than Australia! Michaux could not have picked a more ridiculous paper to analyse than an isolated German grid trying to get through winter on their own!
It gets worse. In REALITY (somewhere Michaux pretends he owns) Germany and the whole EU is actually in the ENTSO-E super-grid! This monster grid spread across 35 countries and 532 million people. https://www.entsoe.eu/ The area is a THIRD LARGER than Australia!
This means they can trade abundant northern wind with abundant southern solar. This means they can almost forget winter! Northern wind and southern solar complement each other providing VERY high penetrations of LIVE renewable power - radically reducing storage.
Michaux’s demand for a MONTH of storage for Germany to get through winter on their own is utterly ridiculous. It's starting in the wrong place with the wrong assumptions, like building the Sydney Harbour Bridge across “The Gap” instead of starting at Milson’s Point.
THE WRONG MATERIAL
Asking us to believe we must do GRID STORAGE with top-of the line EV batteries is like asking us to believe we must build the Harbour Bridge out of gold.
NMC have the highest performance - but also use the most Critical Minerals and are the most expensive and also the most likely to explode into flames! Which is why the market is moving away from them. The EV market is moving to LFP - and is already 30% there. LFP are cheaper and thermally stable. They use NO Critical Minerals other than lithium itself - and the USGS says we have 22 million tons of reserves - twice what we need for 1.4 billion EV’s! https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/michaux/
But the grid doesn’t even need these! GRID batteries don’t have to be compact, but can be big and clunky. But they do have to be cheap - and sodium batteries are 30% cheaper than lithium grid battery packs. They don’t use ANY Critical Minerals - even copper - and can be made from sea-salt and agri-waste. AND we only use them for an hour or so because then other storage will take over - probably off-river pumped hydro.
Andrew Blaker’s Atlas famously debunked Michaux’s claims that there were not enough sites for pumped hydro - simply by looking OFF-river. His satellite maps show the world has over 100 TIMES the potential sites it needs! Look how many are ocean pumped hydro - and do not even use fresh water! https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/pumped_hydro_atlas/
Summary:
* Most people live in the Sunshine Belt where there is no winter - or have neighbours that live there that they can trade with.
* Super-grids reduce storage down to maybe 2 days for each region.
* Sodium and pumped hydro (and a dozen others coming) are all made from super-abundant materials.
PUNCHLINE: MICHAUX'S OWN PAPER shows we have enough minerals and enough time to mine them if we just swap out his NMC batteries for the sensible alternatives. I did the math here. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/michaux-sans-batteries/
There are many other errors - but the WRONG STARTING PLACE and the WRONG MATERIALS are enough for now.
There’s more - every OTHER technology in the Energy Transition, from wind and solar to EV’s to electric motors - ALSO has alternative brands that simply DON'T NEED CRITICAL MINERALS.
They are mainly made from silicon, aluminium, iron, fibreglass and resins - all stuff that is super-abundant and super-recyclable. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/materials/
I don't know how many times I've heard Simon assert that the Energy Transition is "Just not going to happen!" and then push his extreme localism manifesto - much of which I empathise with (as a New Urbanist myself who actually HATES cars.) But misinforming the public like this and spreading anti-renewables lies to alt-right news channels like Sky News is just not acceptable behaviour in a time of climate crisis and biosphere loss. It's time to admit the truth. Renewables can and will do the job - better and cheaper than fossil fuels - on vastly LESS energy!
The stuff mentioned in the penultimate paragraph is where humanity needs to start looking.
The predicament concerning energy, resources, the expression thereof in finances, and all the rest of the shit we're embroiled in notwithstanding, what people need to do is redefine their raison d'etre. The level of luxury people enjoy in the West is way beyond anything any creature needs to live a comfortable life. People got to realize that the mad quest for more and more makes them no happier. On the contrary, people are slaves to manufactured urges that make them crave for more and more useless shit and spend their entire lives slaving away to make money to buy it. The more advanced a society is, the more people are fucked up in the head.
We're not primarily facing an energy problem. We're primarily facing a cultural problem. People have become spiritless zombies, lifeless consumers without a purpose.
Pointing out to people how useless their lives are, how the rat race is ridiculous, how meaningless their lives are is probably the best way of instigating change. Arguing that resources are dwindling won't change a thing if people don't change their thinking.
How to travel cleanly? ... the same as we have done for centuries - wind/sails. No energy cost, no heat.
For some reason, today, we think of travel as being 'somewhere we go', not the actual movement between places. And with jet travel, it's as good as instant destination, like so many other things in this current time, instant gratification. The quick hit.
I mentioned heat for a reason. We seem to be so purposefully(?) distracted by greenhouse gases and not using fossil fuels and how the climate is changing for the worse that we've almost forgotten that our predicament comes from the planet accumulating extra heat. If you look around, we have soooo many sources of extra heat in our lives. Almost all of our electricity generation produces waste heat, industrial production - waste heat, all of our common transport - waste heat (yes this includes EVs).
I think it's nuts that we are so oblivious to it. CO2 is not the problem - HEAT is the problem
Aggggh.
Edit (increasing CO2 & methane, ozone depletion, etc, aren't helping, I know)
Cease Nuclear today please, Earthlings, please. Stop using energy. Walk and Wonder at Life we Destroy in someone else's country all over the world while we live how ? On screen. Under Wifi. 5G 4G fields of Harm. They want Energy for AI. Robot future. Then they don't have to pay anyone. Can make Lots of Money then. And control us. Well isn't that the plan.
And Wake Up Rachel. Cease and Desist Solar Farms I call Heat Islands, too large that will HARM next Generations in to the time they don't. They'll burn us in Australia, a Dry Continent. I need Nikola Tesla back here and INTELLIGENT but not open to Money. He had it ALL worked out. Free Energy. Free. No-one wants Free do they. Don't make Money if it's Free. In Aus here they come and Will take Over Our NAtion. REnewables will. Ban them NOW. All of them. Killers of Life they are, criss crossing everywhere. Go back to Coal and Use it MINIMALLY, and Stop taking plane rides , eh. Love your Own Land. It's multicultural isn't it ?
For a different perspective on atomic energy and its relation to Earthkind altogether please check out references to the book Atomic Suicide by Walter & Lao Russell.
the problem is that unlimited energy has enabled us to drive every one of the components of the life supporting capacity of the planet teetering on the edge of collapse, the only hope for humankind is way way less energy. Creating unlimited energy is ecocidal (luckily impossible) distraction
So which is it? There's so much regulatory capture that energy companies (coal, oil and later gas) can get governments to ignore CO2 emissions yet cannot get them to defacto ban nuclear energy, a competior to said industries?
Africa running on solar? Sure...only in the daytime. Or when only looking at with the fraudulent LCOE method of energy cost calculations. But to industrialize? Like India and Vietnam are doing, like China did? Like Mexico did in the north and is expanding into the central and even southern parts? Solar/wind will be in the mix...but not a stand alone baseload supply in itself. Not until storage tech improves - which it probably will (mass poduced graphene/buckypaper supercapacitors?) just not fast enough for most people
Coal is king followed by gas now. There are large shale deposits in the world other than North America that haven't been exploited purely because of politics. One of them is in eastern Germany. Another almost as big as the Permian is in northern Argentina. Those will be exploited eventually.
Despite all that, net energy use globally is going to plateau or even go down. But because of demographics and the collapse of globalism, not because we will run out of sources. Example: The deindustrialization we are currently witnessing in 'Dying Europe' (Donald Rumsfeld coined the term, remember him?) was always in the cards, the war just has sped it along. China is next. Yes, China as we have known it all our lives is toast. China. Inc. has maybe 8 years (tops) left before it makes what happened to Japan and currently Germany look like a walk in the park.
So don't worry. Folks like Simon Michaux are both right and wrong. You are correct in that we will all be adjusting our lifestyles...but the collapse of non-productive FIRE dominated economies will have more to do with that than resources. AI/automation may be interrupted by hits to the fragile, globalized supply chain (chips) that 'fuels' it...but will march on after that is fixed.
The world is not doomed. It just will change.
Of course, as a North American I am a tad bit biased by how spoiled rotten we will have it in the emerging deglobalized/demographically collapsing world order. Comparatively speaking, we have it really good. Well, except maybe Canada.
Beautifully put. To your last question, as to how to build an infrastructure that fosters love, I would say we already have that in the natural world, that we don't need to build a new infrastructure, but to defend and restore what's left of the natural infrastructure that remains, which provides not only clear water, clean air and a moderated climate, but the beauty that moves us to love.
excellent take on the nuclear discussion if only everyone could loose the icbm fears that were welded onto anti-nuclear electricity production. the system cripples energy availability and locks us into grid waste for profit. the "green tech" revolution has preferenced technology advancement to find some new secrent instread of a steady state based on reliability, local conditions, and proven safety. always chasing the profit while the earth burns is not my preferred path to extinction.
There is a paradox between the building of cultures in place - through 'restanza', an Italian concept of 'staying in place', and growing deep roots into the land, that bear the kind of wisdom we value in indigenous cultures - and 'clean travel'. Clean travel is a sail boat, or a horse, or a bicycle, or your feet. The frictionless but wholly destructive global travel of today erodes cultures of place - who wants to be the authentic peasant culture when you can dip in and out and rinse that dirt out of your hair with a power shower, in the aircon on your private jet, or electric powered train cabin? Travel is the antithesis of culture, which should not be confused with nomadism, which is firmly 'in place' and rooted in seasonal land wisdom. There is alot we will have to leave behind.
TravelLING to meet communities in place that are connected with your own community in place, to take gifts and bring back experience is a different matter that will be helped by the adventure of the relative difficulty of getting around.
That nuclear energy favors an abundance where “everyone has as much as the next person“ with “high energy lifestyles for all” is questionable. So far, the nuclear lobby was always an expression of a big monopolistic concentration power in the hands of few financial groups (and did the opposite of building a “society blooming with love,” just let’s not forget how Yakuza mafia embedded in Japan’s nuclear industry resorted to forms of modern slavery to clean up Fukushima’s mess.) The myth of the magic (and powerful) wand that will deliver limitless energy for all and forever is a fantasy that has no rational basis. An ‘equitable abundance’ can come only come if we finally accept the mathematical fact that an exponential growth and consumption forever, let alone a fair one, is a delusion. A fair distribution of wealth can come only within a civilization that bases its energy budget on limited, renewable and clean resources, and by accepting, once and for all, that the dream of an unending growth with unlimited energy is a vain chimera. And even not a desirable one. While a ‘love-based society’ can’t be built neither with nuclear energy nor with renewables, but because of an inner energy that can emerge only if we nurture discipline, restrain and a love for nature.
“There is so much else we could redefine as energy. “
Money is energy. It is the social energy through which we direct the time and attention of individuals and institutions towards some activities, and away from others.
How the social energy of money is made to flow shapes the enterprises that shape the technologies that shape the choices that shape the economy that shapes society that shapes our hope for a dignified future quality of life, or not.
Today the social energy of money is being made to flow towards Growth through Creative Destruction as the special pleading for the special interests of capital markets professionals who are expert at knowing what shares to buy and when to sell to time and ride the booms and busts in market clearing prices for incrementally liquid commodity shares of ownership in large scale, long-dated financing agreements for supplying money aggregated from savers to enterprise for its use for a time, at a cost, on terms, in markets for maintaining market clearing prices on such shares through volatility and growth.
We can change the way the social energy is made to flow, to shape the right economy for shaping the right technologies for shaping the right choices for shaping the right economy for shaping a cohesive society and keeping it ongoing in hope for adaptively evolving a dignified future quality of life, by shifting Pensions & Endowments out of Ownership Equity and into Stewardship Equity negotiating agreements for equity payback to a fiduciary cost of money, plus opportunistic upside, from enterprise cash flows prioritized by contract for suitability, longevity and fairness across all six vectors of enterprise cash flow (fairness to suppliers [Fair Trade]; fairness to communities [Fair Engagement ]; fairness to Nature and Society [Fair Reckoning ]; fairness to workers [Fair Working]; fairness to customers and competitors [Fair Dealing ]; and fairness to savers [Fair Sharing]) as the special pleading for the special interests of the Prudent Person as an avatar for our shared common sense of care (prudence) and caring (loyalty) as reasonable people who take the time to make the effort to acquire knowledge and experience relevant to choosing the new beginnings we need to choose to fit the changing circumstances of the changing times.
Hi Rachel,
I'm confused as to why you're confused about Simon Michaux?
Reading Simon Michaux’s 1000 page PDF is like listening to someone argue that it is impossible to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge - because you would JUST HAVE to build it across “The Gap” (between North and South Head) and you would JUST HAVE to build it out of gold! But wait - no there’s a problem - there isn’t enough gold in the world to build it!!
Seriously - it’s that bad. Michaux wants us to build from the wrong starting place and out of the wrong stuff. But let me explain.
THE WRONG PLACE
Michaux cherry-picked studies about a hypothetically isolated German grid to maximise and over-emphasise the problem of getting through winter. I have heard him assert “No one thought about winter!” countless times across many Youtube channels. But it’s just not true!
There are many studies into German winters going back many years. Yet it’s not really even an issue for most people, as 3/4 of the human race live in the “Sunshine Belt” which stretches from the equator north and south to the 35th parallels. Only a quarter of us live as far north as Germany and beyond. Michaux takes German winters as “normative” when most of us live where winter's impact is minimal or non-existent!
Then he forgot about super-grids. Modern HVDC powerlines only lose 1.6% of their power per 1000 km. We could hypothetically run a base at the North Pole from solar power on the equator and only lose 16% of the electricity.
That means NO major trading nation lives outside the reach of the “Sunshine Belt”.
Now that wind and solar are 1/4 the cost of nuclear (LCOE) we can afford to Overbuild their capacity across vast areas. Back in 2015, Scientific American showed how super-grids radically reduce storage requirements. This is not just in rare peer-reviewed papers - Scientific American puts it in popular culture! Michaux writing about energy SHOULD have known about super-grids. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/renewable-energy-intermittency-explained-challenges-solutions-and-opportunities/
Professor Andrew Blakers is an Australian solar cell designer who won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for inventing the PERC solar cell (now in 90% of all solar panels). Blakers developed plans for Australia, and warns that if each State tried to build their own grid they would REQUIRE 5 TIMES MORE STORAGE than if we linked the whole continent in the one super-grid. But a connected Australia only needs 2 days storage for each city! https://reneweconomy.com.au/solars-stunning-journey-from-lab-curiosity-to-global-juggernaut-wiping-out-fossil-fuels/
Professor Blakers summary youtube: 25 minutes. https://youtu.be/BIcwaXRN1Hs?t=105
Australia is in the Sunshine Belt - and if WE need a super-grid - how much more does cold dark GERMANY? Germany is also 21 TIMES smaller than Australia! Michaux could not have picked a more ridiculous paper to analyse than an isolated German grid trying to get through winter on their own!
It gets worse. In REALITY (somewhere Michaux pretends he owns) Germany and the whole EU is actually in the ENTSO-E super-grid! This monster grid spread across 35 countries and 532 million people. https://www.entsoe.eu/ The area is a THIRD LARGER than Australia!
This means they can trade abundant northern wind with abundant southern solar. This means they can almost forget winter! Northern wind and southern solar complement each other providing VERY high penetrations of LIVE renewable power - radically reducing storage.
I have to ask - did Simon even read THE WIKI on super-grids? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_grid
Michaux’s demand for a MONTH of storage for Germany to get through winter on their own is utterly ridiculous. It's starting in the wrong place with the wrong assumptions, like building the Sydney Harbour Bridge across “The Gap” instead of starting at Milson’s Point.
THE WRONG MATERIAL
Asking us to believe we must do GRID STORAGE with top-of the line EV batteries is like asking us to believe we must build the Harbour Bridge out of gold.
NMC have the highest performance - but also use the most Critical Minerals and are the most expensive and also the most likely to explode into flames! Which is why the market is moving away from them. The EV market is moving to LFP - and is already 30% there. LFP are cheaper and thermally stable. They use NO Critical Minerals other than lithium itself - and the USGS says we have 22 million tons of reserves - twice what we need for 1.4 billion EV’s! https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/michaux/
But the grid doesn’t even need these! GRID batteries don’t have to be compact, but can be big and clunky. But they do have to be cheap - and sodium batteries are 30% cheaper than lithium grid battery packs. They don’t use ANY Critical Minerals - even copper - and can be made from sea-salt and agri-waste. AND we only use them for an hour or so because then other storage will take over - probably off-river pumped hydro.
Andrew Blaker’s Atlas famously debunked Michaux’s claims that there were not enough sites for pumped hydro - simply by looking OFF-river. His satellite maps show the world has over 100 TIMES the potential sites it needs! Look how many are ocean pumped hydro - and do not even use fresh water! https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/pumped_hydro_atlas/
Summary:
* Most people live in the Sunshine Belt where there is no winter - or have neighbours that live there that they can trade with.
* Super-grids reduce storage down to maybe 2 days for each region.
* Sodium and pumped hydro (and a dozen others coming) are all made from super-abundant materials.
PUNCHLINE: MICHAUX'S OWN PAPER shows we have enough minerals and enough time to mine them if we just swap out his NMC batteries for the sensible alternatives. I did the math here. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/michaux-sans-batteries/
There are many other errors - but the WRONG STARTING PLACE and the WRONG MATERIALS are enough for now.
There’s more - every OTHER technology in the Energy Transition, from wind and solar to EV’s to electric motors - ALSO has alternative brands that simply DON'T NEED CRITICAL MINERALS.
They are mainly made from silicon, aluminium, iron, fibreglass and resins - all stuff that is super-abundant and super-recyclable. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/materials/
I don't know how many times I've heard Simon assert that the Energy Transition is "Just not going to happen!" and then push his extreme localism manifesto - much of which I empathise with (as a New Urbanist myself who actually HATES cars.) But misinforming the public like this and spreading anti-renewables lies to alt-right news channels like Sky News is just not acceptable behaviour in a time of climate crisis and biosphere loss. It's time to admit the truth. Renewables can and will do the job - better and cheaper than fossil fuels - on vastly LESS energy!
The stuff mentioned in the penultimate paragraph is where humanity needs to start looking.
The predicament concerning energy, resources, the expression thereof in finances, and all the rest of the shit we're embroiled in notwithstanding, what people need to do is redefine their raison d'etre. The level of luxury people enjoy in the West is way beyond anything any creature needs to live a comfortable life. People got to realize that the mad quest for more and more makes them no happier. On the contrary, people are slaves to manufactured urges that make them crave for more and more useless shit and spend their entire lives slaving away to make money to buy it. The more advanced a society is, the more people are fucked up in the head.
We're not primarily facing an energy problem. We're primarily facing a cultural problem. People have become spiritless zombies, lifeless consumers without a purpose.
Pointing out to people how useless their lives are, how the rat race is ridiculous, how meaningless their lives are is probably the best way of instigating change. Arguing that resources are dwindling won't change a thing if people don't change their thinking.
Super enjoyed reading that, thanks Rachel :)
How to travel cleanly? ... the same as we have done for centuries - wind/sails. No energy cost, no heat.
For some reason, today, we think of travel as being 'somewhere we go', not the actual movement between places. And with jet travel, it's as good as instant destination, like so many other things in this current time, instant gratification. The quick hit.
I mentioned heat for a reason. We seem to be so purposefully(?) distracted by greenhouse gases and not using fossil fuels and how the climate is changing for the worse that we've almost forgotten that our predicament comes from the planet accumulating extra heat. If you look around, we have soooo many sources of extra heat in our lives. Almost all of our electricity generation produces waste heat, industrial production - waste heat, all of our common transport - waste heat (yes this includes EVs).
I think it's nuts that we are so oblivious to it. CO2 is not the problem - HEAT is the problem
Aggggh.
Edit (increasing CO2 & methane, ozone depletion, etc, aren't helping, I know)
Perhaps the water basin, the bioregion, is the infrastructure around which a society of love can grow.
Cease Nuclear today please, Earthlings, please. Stop using energy. Walk and Wonder at Life we Destroy in someone else's country all over the world while we live how ? On screen. Under Wifi. 5G 4G fields of Harm. They want Energy for AI. Robot future. Then they don't have to pay anyone. Can make Lots of Money then. And control us. Well isn't that the plan.
And Wake Up Rachel. Cease and Desist Solar Farms I call Heat Islands, too large that will HARM next Generations in to the time they don't. They'll burn us in Australia, a Dry Continent. I need Nikola Tesla back here and INTELLIGENT but not open to Money. He had it ALL worked out. Free Energy. Free. No-one wants Free do they. Don't make Money if it's Free. In Aus here they come and Will take Over Our NAtion. REnewables will. Ban them NOW. All of them. Killers of Life they are, criss crossing everywhere. Go back to Coal and Use it MINIMALLY, and Stop taking plane rides , eh. Love your Own Land. It's multicultural isn't it ?
For a different perspective on atomic energy and its relation to Earthkind altogether please check out references to the book Atomic Suicide by Walter & Lao Russell.
There life-times work can be found here:
http://www.philosophy.org/founders.html#
the problem is that unlimited energy has enabled us to drive every one of the components of the life supporting capacity of the planet teetering on the edge of collapse, the only hope for humankind is way way less energy. Creating unlimited energy is ecocidal (luckily impossible) distraction
So which is it? There's so much regulatory capture that energy companies (coal, oil and later gas) can get governments to ignore CO2 emissions yet cannot get them to defacto ban nuclear energy, a competior to said industries?
Africa running on solar? Sure...only in the daytime. Or when only looking at with the fraudulent LCOE method of energy cost calculations. But to industrialize? Like India and Vietnam are doing, like China did? Like Mexico did in the north and is expanding into the central and even southern parts? Solar/wind will be in the mix...but not a stand alone baseload supply in itself. Not until storage tech improves - which it probably will (mass poduced graphene/buckypaper supercapacitors?) just not fast enough for most people
Coal is king followed by gas now. There are large shale deposits in the world other than North America that haven't been exploited purely because of politics. One of them is in eastern Germany. Another almost as big as the Permian is in northern Argentina. Those will be exploited eventually.
Despite all that, net energy use globally is going to plateau or even go down. But because of demographics and the collapse of globalism, not because we will run out of sources. Example: The deindustrialization we are currently witnessing in 'Dying Europe' (Donald Rumsfeld coined the term, remember him?) was always in the cards, the war just has sped it along. China is next. Yes, China as we have known it all our lives is toast. China. Inc. has maybe 8 years (tops) left before it makes what happened to Japan and currently Germany look like a walk in the park.
So don't worry. Folks like Simon Michaux are both right and wrong. You are correct in that we will all be adjusting our lifestyles...but the collapse of non-productive FIRE dominated economies will have more to do with that than resources. AI/automation may be interrupted by hits to the fragile, globalized supply chain (chips) that 'fuels' it...but will march on after that is fixed.
The world is not doomed. It just will change.
Of course, as a North American I am a tad bit biased by how spoiled rotten we will have it in the emerging deglobalized/demographically collapsing world order. Comparatively speaking, we have it really good. Well, except maybe Canada.
Beautifully put. To your last question, as to how to build an infrastructure that fosters love, I would say we already have that in the natural world, that we don't need to build a new infrastructure, but to defend and restore what's left of the natural infrastructure that remains, which provides not only clear water, clean air and a moderated climate, but the beauty that moves us to love.
excellent take on the nuclear discussion if only everyone could loose the icbm fears that were welded onto anti-nuclear electricity production. the system cripples energy availability and locks us into grid waste for profit. the "green tech" revolution has preferenced technology advancement to find some new secrent instread of a steady state based on reliability, local conditions, and proven safety. always chasing the profit while the earth burns is not my preferred path to extinction.
How true!