Turning Point For Civilization-The Borderline Of The Global Energy System

[chlamor]

It is well worth the time to read this article in its entirety by Hermann Scheer. For all those who are awake and aware of the impending energy shortages I urge you to take concrete steps in your locality to keep putting this message out into the public. It is important for us all to ensure that misperceptions about the coming energy shortages are avoided so as to come to terms with the serious nature of this problem, to avoid the politicization of the issue and to examine honest and ecologically sane solutions. The media will not cover this in depth or honestly. Our corporate government will not take on the responsibility and possibilities of a renewable energy system and a green economy. You are the answer.

The article begins:

"Albert Einstein, one of the most famous physicists of all times, once concluded his life experience in the following sentence: “It is impossible to solve a problem with the same means that caused this problem.” And Max Planck, another famous physicist, concluded: “A New scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die out and a new generation grows up familiar with it.”


"The truth is: civilization faces a turning point, because we are at the existential borderline of the present global energy system – due to the following reasons:"

1) The conventional fossil energies are running out.

2) The nuclear option can only fail. The permanent disposal of more and more radioactive waste for more than 10,000 years is irresponsible.

3) The burning of biomass without immediate replanting – as it is the practice in many Third World regions – erodes the soil, initiates desertification.

4) The curve of cheap fossil and uranium reserves and therefore its supply possibilities will decrease. On the other hand the curve of energy demand will increase. Only Renewable Energy can avoid a crossing of the two curves of demand and supply in the near decades.

5) The future option of atomic fusion is a non-option. No supporter of atomic fusion is asked and speaks about the costs, which will be three to ten times higher then for atomic fission.

6) Because Energy is the basic need of life, it is a short-sighting and dangerous economic rule to leave the basic decisions for future energy supply only to market forces based on actual energy costs.

7) Conventional fossil/atomic energies have multiple negative macroeconomic side-effects - such as the increasing need to protect the globalized power lines against attacks; the high water consumption for mining, extractions and for heating power stations, the currency-costs for importation; and the environmental and health damages.

8) Only with Renewable Energies we can come to real energy efficiency. In the global conventional energy chain from the mines and wells to the customers, sometimes over distances of more than 10 000 miles, there are many energy losses.

9) The global energy demand increases faster than the introduction of Renewable Energies.

10) Conventional energies are politically privileged everywhere in the world by large amounts of public money for research and development, by military protection costs, by 300 billion Dollar of subsidies annually and by the energy laws tailored on them.

"The result of all these facts: Renewable Energies are much more than an additional option to the old energy system. They are the alternative, the general solution, able to cover all energy needs. To promote them must become the primary strategy everywhere. Since the problems and dangers of civilization are on Earth and not on the Moon or the Mars, Renewable Energy promotion is more important than space programs. Since the dependency on fossil energy makes all nations vulnerable, abolishing it is the top security question and more important than new weapon programs."
<snip>

"We have to enlighten our societies about the unique opportunities that Renewable Energies are offering. It is impossible to convince the people only by developing good technologies and practical instruments. A new strategy without philosophy is like a church without religion."

"The turn to Renewable Energies is a spiritual and cultural challenge. The practical challenge is to develop policy and financial instruments for the transformation of the macropolitical, macroeconomic, and macrosocietal benefits into individual advantages and benefits. To convince people requires to speak not only on monetary benefits, but about life benefits."

Read entire article at:
http://www.energybulletin.net/4549.html

[CrispyQ]

1. Thanks for the link to a great website!

I've read part of the article & will finish later. Lot's of good articles on this website! I look forward to checking it out more closely.

[dbt]

2. Before the flamers arrive to save us all from our delusions, it bears

pointing out that Tesla was talking about free (zero point) energy about a hundred years ago. In addition to the Renewable sort, it seems to me that we ought to look further into what he was getting at.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Wonderfully put

I'd love to lock our Misadministration in a room and make them read this until --I hope -- at least one of them gets the idea.

[mattclearing]

5. I think they get the idea. That's why they want to bury it. n/t

[OxQQme]

4. Glad to see this thread

My image of the future includes energy 'receivers' that we can buy at our local appliance store, sitting next to the fridges and chest freezers. A life span similar to other home appliances. Recycle-able and repairable by your local 'Maytag' repairman if needed. Enough energy to supply a 'modern' home with maybe a little more than needed, feeding the extra into the existing circuitry infrastructure to help out a neighbor in need.
Maybe have to be more exotic than a microwave and more expensive initially.
I've read that such devices are being used in most space vehicles built by NASA contractors using our taxes, and have always wondered, "Where's the trickle down?"