"No, We Can't?" by Dave Cohen (ASPO-USA)

[IrateCitizen]

No, we can’t?
by Dave Cohen

The policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder
— Richard J. Daley

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who will guard the guardians?)
— Juvenal

What is the biggest impediment in 2009 to mitigating the harmful effects of energy problems in the 21st century? The answer may surprise you—it is insolvent zombie banks and our entrenched FIRE economy (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate). Allow me to explain....

Two clear and mutually exclusive paths lie before us in 2009. I am sorry to report that as of March the Obama administration is going down the wrong one. In my example below I will focus on energy investment, but my remarks could just as easily pertain to health care, manufacturing or education. I’ll use a round number to make my point—I think $10 trillion dollars will do very nicely. We might ask how some of this money would be best spent in the energy arena.

* Yes, We Can! — spend the money on reducing oil consumption and transforming the power grid. This would include large expansion of public transit in metropolitan areas (electrified light rail, trolleys, buses), an expanded system of long-haul railroads for both freight and passengers, direct financial support for troubled American-built PHEVs and batteries, wind and thermal solar farms to replace coal-fired base-load capacity, long distance power transmission lines to hook those farms up to the grid, encouraging reorganization of work & living patterns to decrease energy consumption, etc.
* No, We Can’t! — spend the money propping up insolvent banks like Citigroup or insolvent insurance companies like American International Group (AIG), the very institutions whose irresponsible risk-taking wrecked the global financial system. Merrill Lynch’s John Thain approved an “accelerated pool” of $4 billion in bonuses at the same time that Bank of America (which acquired Merrill) was in Washington begging for an additional $20 billion in bailout money. What energy-related projects could have been built with $24 billion in funding?

READ THE REST HERE, it's well worth it.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Right on!

[Nihil]

2. K & R

> What energy-related projects could have been built with
> $24 billion in funding?

:wow:

[GliderGuider]

3. Peak Oil and the financial crisis are classic examples of interlocked, mutually amplifying problems.

1. The financial crisis prevents the deployment of new forms of energy because of lack of capital.

2. Economic recovery in a Peak Oil scenario causes a sequence of events:
-- first the stored oil reserves and oil in the ground are drained to fuel the recovery because fewe alternatives are available.
-- When the reserves are drained and demand exceeds supply, the recovery is smashed back to the mat because there are no alternatives to switch to.

It's a nasty little scenario, and it doesn't even take into account the ecological bind we're in.