.
While I still remain skeptical about the actual likelihood of success for this iteration of the process of creating contained nuclear fusion at Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility (NIF), I am also hopeful that this will help guide our research.

Lasers, lasers, and more lasers. And amazing amounts of instantaneous energy. Wow. Maybe a little scary too.

I'm just thinking of all the good we could do with all the energy nuclear fusion could provide us. We wouldn't have to bat an eye about the high energy costs of desalinization. We could power an energy grid that could mean we have clean trains running from every city on each continent, and we could even power boats and individual transit eventually once we get the battery technology up and running. Of course, sadly, there's probably also a lot of bad we could do with that energy, and I'm not going to devote my own energy toward considering it. But what awesome/awful wars we could have with that much energy! But all sardonic attitude aside, with all that energy, we'd have a surplus of it, and energy wouldn't be a scarce resource. Without scarce resources, the reasons for going to war are greatly diminished.

chant/prayer/mantra: Let there be light.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: astrophysics, desalinization, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, renewable energy, technology

OK, I'm really not much of an organizer, but I just had an idea, and I hope an organizer picks up on this one. I have been reflecting on the nature of labor, investment, and reward in the U.S. culture, and have come up with this. The people who do the work get the least reward. The people who own the resources upon/with which the workers work get first dibs on the reward.

That is nothing new, and it takes a fool not to notice that. That is not the idea I am speaking of.

The idea I am speaking of is the direct application of the above when it comes to today's situation. It comes from seeing what happened with Enron, and seeing what happened with that Madoff guy recently and his execution of the latest Ponzi/pyramid scheme. With the U.S. government pouring tons of borrowed/taxed dollars into banks and such, where it is not fully accountable and being siphoned off, the government is looking to be the greater fool.

And ultimately, that leaves the people holding the bag. The taxes we paid, and the money borrowed that we will have to pay to God knows who, are being invested in the pockets of pillagers. These pillagers include those at the top/inside/beginning of the stock market game, and the CEO's still receiving exorbitant sums, after their companies received a part of the $700 billion bank bailout.

In short, any government money that is being borrowed from the future, and not being invested in our future -- in the infrastructures of:

• good mass transit (trains, ferries, and electric busses)
• clean and renewable electricity (solar (both centralized and decentralized), wind, tidal, etc)
• a system of refueling stations for electric cars
• r & d for clean battery technologies
• an intelligent and extensible educational system, using both democratically-influenced mass media and community involvement in local schools and recreation centers
  
• desalinization and fresh water control systems
• sustainable agricultural systems and a return to healthy environmental practices and a re-empowered EPA system of oversight
  
• overhauling failed systems such as the abhorrently wastrel military budget and the prison complex
  
• healthy families, living at or above poverty
• i'm sure i missed a few, but the above are all very important and should be near the top of the list...
  

Any money being invested elsewhere, further afield than that related to our real well-being, and the people who are putting it there are criminal. We the common citizens of the U.S. will be left holding the bag, without real investment in our country's future, while the folks in the Senate with a country club sensibility and nary a clue of what it's like to be out in the cold, and those with the tightest connections -- they will be (are) the first to cash in on the economy as the true value of this U.S. company becomes more clear. With our tax dollars ending up in somebody's pockets, it will be really difficult to get it back.

We the people had our money invested over the last eight years (and many prior) by "mutual fund managers" who did not have our interests in mind, or had the singular interest of maximizing money, not in responsible investment. When their investments failed because of unsane monetary policies such as the outrageous overextended ratio allowed (or unregulated) for fractional-reserve banking newly-constructed credit default swap market, the investment (put into things that had low value anyway) has gone sour.

One REAL rule for investors: Put your money in things that you want to see saved/thrive. It's not difficult. It's only difficult if you treat investments as if it's gambling. Put your money in what needs to thrive, and you will see it pay you back in ways well beyond those seen in dividends, stock options and monetary ROI's.



lyrics: No his mind is not for rent to any god or government.
-Tom Sawyer, by Rush

colors: green, as in money. and green, as in environment.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Capitalism, changing the prison paradigm, desalinization, economics, environment, paradigm shift, politics, USA

Hey there, desalinization is something that has been high on my public priority list for quite some time, so I just thought I'd mention it, and post a link to this article for myself and any other interested parties.

Also, during a read of the first chapter, I'm noting that if it takes ~7000kWh/AF (acre-feet*) of energy to desalinate sea water, that means if 7,500 AF/yr is about 7.16 million gallons/day, another approximation yields 1AF/yr ~~ 1000 gallons/day. This means that to make 1000 gallons per day would take 7000kWh. To make 1 gallon per day would take 7kWh, or the equivalent of 70 100 watt lightbulbs going for an hour. That's not as good as I'd hoped. I'm wondering if my figures are correct. This blurb from the article pretty much affirms my estimates:

For example, an estimated 50 million kWh/yr would be required for full-time operation of the City of Santa Barbara's desalination plant to produce 7,500 AF/yr of water. In contrast, the energy needed to pump 7,500 AF/yr of water from the Colorado River Aqueduct or the State Water Project to the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California is 15 to 26 million kWh/yr. These energy requirements may be compared to the energy use of a small- to medium-sized industrial facility (such as a large refinery, small steel mill, or large computer center) which uses 75,000 to 100,000 kWh/yr.

In any case, since lots of the places where desalinization could happen are on the ocean coastlines, and many have volcanos and hotsprings, the power for these operations could come from harnessing the tides, and from geothermal....
*Also after more research on acronymfinder and comparing measures, 1 acre-foot is approximately 325,000 gallons of water, and that's why one acre-foot/year is close to 1000 gallons/day.

Also, I updated my mediareformlinks blog the other day with some good info. Check it if you want to have some good talking points on why media reform is important, or if you want to find out which major corporations own which of the mass media vehicles.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: desalinization, media