Friday Night Musings
My brother and I are having a very abbreviated discussion (due to my inability to read long articles) regarding The Future.
We tend to be fatalists - he says realists. Whatever. Half-empty kind of folk anyhow.
But the issues with subsidies to every millionaire in America - did you know that something like 90% of all monies from farm subsidies end up in Manhatten NY? Big Farma. Meanwhile, his neighbor got rained out of his dairy herd that was about 3 generations in the family, and got a whopping 2400 bucks in subsidies. He ended up selling the herd for meat. Tragic at the very least.
Anyway, subsidies led to energy discussions (along with Medicare costing us 10x what SS does and will due to inability to negotiate prices with Big Pharma).
Corn as ethanol (etoh for those in the know) and the cost upon cost upon cost of using corn - the article he sent outlining this issue very clearly:
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/cooke/2007/0202.html
That always leads to weather issues, other energy issues.
Energy - China is taking the entire earth's coal. The nation can't get enough of it (meanwhile, they're trying to clean the air in Beijing for the summer Olympics - the sun never shines in that city, air is too foul).
This means coal prices go up in North America, making both oil and natural gas more equitable as energy sources for our electric companies. Oil is expected to hit and maintain 100/ba this summer - due to China, global demand increase and the drop of value in the US dollar (which could be dropped as the currency of favor by OPEC, making price even higher). And that makes Natural Gas even more equitable.
If I remember right, NG was around $2/unit wholesale back in 2000. It's sitting right around 8 as of 2/14/08. It hit record highs right after Katrina, which was 13ish, but then dropped back to between 6 and 8 bucks per unit wholesale.
Guess what? If coal is so marketable to China, oil going up to 100 and now NG being the 'final' fuel, ETOH is going to be the 'next big thing'.
Which brings us to the weather. The mid South is in moderate to extreme drought. Corn is a very high water needing plant. They can't consider growing it with how severe their water restrictions are.
The Great Plains are in a moderate drought right now. Water run-off from this winter's extreme snowfall will help, but most of those farmers irrigate from the Great Plains Auqifer - completely unaffected by surface water. And the GPA is running out of water. So, if they don't have the perfect rainy season for corn, they aren't going to do so well growing it. Plus, if the deep south and Gulf Coast has anything to say about it, they won't be able to fertilize they way they are used to and most likely won't be able to grow corn well.
So, corn will go up that much more, making NG prices go up as well. It's that supply and demand thing. Plus, other energy companies are catching on to what Big Petrol has long known - push the market until the consumer backs off buying, and then pull the price back about 10%. Pull back in 10% increments until you find what the market will actually support directly.
What people don't understand is, this affects ALL aspects of life. The graphics in that article are pretty explicit in that. And when the ecomonists discuss "adjusted" inflation - they take out all aspects of the cost of energy. So yeah! Inflation is only 3% or so. But, adjust it back to include energy prices and it's double digit. Last I heard was about 11%. And they wonder about consumer confidence.
I have a saying that most people don't quite get - but hopefully they will very soon:
Wise is the man who recognizes our landfills as our greatest natural resource. (Leslie Holly, 2002)
If we "mined" our landfills - the composting would allow for the return of inches of topsoil. Convert the heavy metal laden compostables into methane. Chip the wood materials for either ETOH or pellet fuel. Reclaim steel to eliminate the need for Japanese steel. ReMine copper so we don't have to go deeper and deeper into protected lands for an ever increasingly expensive metal (25% increase in the last 18 months - being stolen everywhere). Recycle plastics to reduce needs for petrol imports (did you know fleece fabric started out as recycled bottles?).
It can ALL be reused.
We just have to find a way to mine it all. And for the first time - strip mining wouldn't be a bad thing - it would actually RETURN land to the landscape.
Here's a quote:
This is due not only to the machines' increased efficiency but also to plain old supply and demand: Countries such as China are desperate for raw materials and are finding recycled U.S. trash to be a good source.
http://www.wildcatmfg.com/images/E0094901/626good.JPG
This is a picture - and I don't remember my html right now to just post the pic.
But it's of a trommel. A drum sifter basically. You can get different screens for them - and thus, sort by size of object. Place magnets underneath and get all of the smaller steel out. Do you have any idea how much flatware gets thrown out on a daily basis?
Add a sifter that shakes the fill, and the lightest stuff comes to the top - plastic - literally skim it off like those new fancy but stupid litter boxes for cats. Flip it and skim what was the bottom - most likely glass and other metals - and you have the majority of non-compostible stuff out.
Basic sorting can and is automated. Chop the rest and composte it for methane to fuel the sorting machinery or sort it further to compost into topsoil and methane production. Either way will work.
Have you asked what your county is doing about the trash issue? And are we going to let our last 'natural' resource be exported as well?
We tend to be fatalists - he says realists. Whatever. Half-empty kind of folk anyhow.
But the issues with subsidies to every millionaire in America - did you know that something like 90% of all monies from farm subsidies end up in Manhatten NY? Big Farma. Meanwhile, his neighbor got rained out of his dairy herd that was about 3 generations in the family, and got a whopping 2400 bucks in subsidies. He ended up selling the herd for meat. Tragic at the very least.
Anyway, subsidies led to energy discussions (along with Medicare costing us 10x what SS does and will due to inability to negotiate prices with Big Pharma).
Corn as ethanol (etoh for those in the know) and the cost upon cost upon cost of using corn - the article he sent outlining this issue very clearly:
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/cooke/2007/0202.html
That always leads to weather issues, other energy issues.
Energy - China is taking the entire earth's coal. The nation can't get enough of it (meanwhile, they're trying to clean the air in Beijing for the summer Olympics - the sun never shines in that city, air is too foul).
This means coal prices go up in North America, making both oil and natural gas more equitable as energy sources for our electric companies. Oil is expected to hit and maintain 100/ba this summer - due to China, global demand increase and the drop of value in the US dollar (which could be dropped as the currency of favor by OPEC, making price even higher). And that makes Natural Gas even more equitable.
If I remember right, NG was around $2/unit wholesale back in 2000. It's sitting right around 8 as of 2/14/08. It hit record highs right after Katrina, which was 13ish, but then dropped back to between 6 and 8 bucks per unit wholesale.
Guess what? If coal is so marketable to China, oil going up to 100 and now NG being the 'final' fuel, ETOH is going to be the 'next big thing'.
Which brings us to the weather. The mid South is in moderate to extreme drought. Corn is a very high water needing plant. They can't consider growing it with how severe their water restrictions are.
The Great Plains are in a moderate drought right now. Water run-off from this winter's extreme snowfall will help, but most of those farmers irrigate from the Great Plains Auqifer - completely unaffected by surface water. And the GPA is running out of water. So, if they don't have the perfect rainy season for corn, they aren't going to do so well growing it. Plus, if the deep south and Gulf Coast has anything to say about it, they won't be able to fertilize they way they are used to and most likely won't be able to grow corn well.
So, corn will go up that much more, making NG prices go up as well. It's that supply and demand thing. Plus, other energy companies are catching on to what Big Petrol has long known - push the market until the consumer backs off buying, and then pull the price back about 10%. Pull back in 10% increments until you find what the market will actually support directly.
What people don't understand is, this affects ALL aspects of life. The graphics in that article are pretty explicit in that. And when the ecomonists discuss "adjusted" inflation - they take out all aspects of the cost of energy. So yeah! Inflation is only 3% or so. But, adjust it back to include energy prices and it's double digit. Last I heard was about 11%. And they wonder about consumer confidence.
I have a saying that most people don't quite get - but hopefully they will very soon:
Wise is the man who recognizes our landfills as our greatest natural resource. (Leslie Holly, 2002)
If we "mined" our landfills - the composting would allow for the return of inches of topsoil. Convert the heavy metal laden compostables into methane. Chip the wood materials for either ETOH or pellet fuel. Reclaim steel to eliminate the need for Japanese steel. ReMine copper so we don't have to go deeper and deeper into protected lands for an ever increasingly expensive metal (25% increase in the last 18 months - being stolen everywhere). Recycle plastics to reduce needs for petrol imports (did you know fleece fabric started out as recycled bottles?).
It can ALL be reused.
We just have to find a way to mine it all. And for the first time - strip mining wouldn't be a bad thing - it would actually RETURN land to the landscape.
Here's a quote:
This is due not only to the machines' increased efficiency but also to plain old supply and demand: Countries such as China are desperate for raw materials and are finding recycled U.S. trash to be a good source.
http://www.wildcatmfg.com/images/E0094901/626good.JPG
This is a picture - and I don't remember my html right now to just post the pic.
But it's of a trommel. A drum sifter basically. You can get different screens for them - and thus, sort by size of object. Place magnets underneath and get all of the smaller steel out. Do you have any idea how much flatware gets thrown out on a daily basis?
Add a sifter that shakes the fill, and the lightest stuff comes to the top - plastic - literally skim it off like those new fancy but stupid litter boxes for cats. Flip it and skim what was the bottom - most likely glass and other metals - and you have the majority of non-compostible stuff out.
Basic sorting can and is automated. Chop the rest and composte it for methane to fuel the sorting machinery or sort it further to compost into topsoil and methane production. Either way will work.
Have you asked what your county is doing about the trash issue? And are we going to let our last 'natural' resource be exported as well?
Labels: china, compost, corn, ethanol, landfills, natural gas, petrolium, recycle, reuse
posted by Leslie at
10:22 PM
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