Gled deg over lave renter så lenge du kan!

Dagbladet hadde en gladnyhet på forsida i dag om at nordmenn kan juble over historisk lave renter. Hva de neppe tok med, jeg har selv ikke lest artikkelen, er at denne gladnyheten har en hake ved seg. Gail Tverberg presiserer:

As far as I can see, the only way we can get fossil fuels out is through a debt based economy, because debt (1) allows prices to be high enough for those doing the extraction to do the extraction (2) makes goods affordable, and (3) makes the intermediate infrastructure, such as factories and roads, affordable.

It is a given that once our current debt bubble collapses, the fossil fuel economy needs to end. What has allowed it to go on as long as it has, is the shift toward ever-lower interest rates. It is hard to see that any upturn in interest rates can possibly work.

Så en liten trøkk i trynet for alle som tror på en myk overgang til fornybarsamfunnet:

The “catch” is that you don’t just have to pay back the fossil fuel energy. You also have to pay back the human energy that went into the system. Then there is the rest of the system–the balancing that is needed. In addition, if PV is going to work on a stand alone basis, it must be productive enough that it can support the user in paying taxes for the various services needed to install and service the PV. It certainly cannot expect an ongoing subsidy from fossil fuels.

What we need is something that is cheap to use, including all costs including taxes. In fact, cheaper than coal (r cola-fired electricity) would be the ideal. - Gail Tverberg

Everyone wants what is the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. “Renewable energy” by its name sounds like it might represent a perpetual motion machine, giving us unlimited energy forever. Hydrogen sounds like it would be almost a perpetual motion machine, if a person can hide all the details of where you get the energy to free up the hydrogen molecules in the first place. Also how you store them until they need to be used, how you transport them to be used, and how you prevent the tiny molecules from escaping before they need to be used. There is the additional detail of keeping the hydrogen from exploding and burning: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Hindenburg_disaster

I have written a number of articles on renewable energy including:

• http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/11/18/eight-pitfalls-in-evaluating-green-energy-solutions/
• http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/04/23/eight-energy-myths-explained/
• http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/01/21/ten-reasons-intermittent-renewables-wind-and-solar-pv-are-a-problem/
• http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/03/20/renewables-good-for-some-things-not-so-good-for-others/ 

- Gail Tverberg