Subject: Re: Energy Systems

From: [email-masked] (Don Bowen)
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 07:45:51 -0800

>Historically, the energy situtation has worked against
>homesteading.  Internal combustion engines and automation
>encouraged large efficient farms, packaging, and distribution
>systems.  The cost of energy was low, so products were
>shipped around the world and it was more efficient to have
>large equipment and large fields.  But two developments may
>change things:
>
>   1. The cost of developing oil reserves will start increasing
>      at some point in the future.
        The cost of development is already high.  Look at the cost of the
north slope and the north sea.  New fields are being found but depth,
location and politics are continuing toraise the price and this does not
include such things as gulf wars.

>   2. New energy systems using wind and solar power are starting
>      to compete with oil.
        So far oil is still cheap in the short term because the technology
and dilevery systems are well understood and amortised.  Photo voltaics
still are net energy losers but that will change sometime in the near
future.  They are a good way to ship energy with greater transmission
effiency than installing lines.

>These are facts.  Some people say oil will not run out
>anytime soon.  But they can not deny it will happen.  Solar
>power is already cost effective in heating homes and water.
>Solar electricity still has a way to go, but the industry is
>growing very fast.
        There will always be oil as long as you are willing to pay the
price.  How much will the last tankfull cost?  The real problem is not
shortages but cost.  Cost of drilling ever deeper in the ocean floor, cost
of building roads into ever more sensitive areas, the cost of dealing with
ever more greedy governments.  Even the strongest laws can be rewritten,
what do you think will happen to the Bob Marshall Wilderness when it is the
last oilfield and the Navy wants oil or when the elites want it?

  Donald E. Bowen           [email-masked]
  Valley Center CA.         [email-masked]

  Software Engineer, woodworker, historian, beekeeper, farmboy
  model railroader, 1936 Farmall 12, 1966 Corvair CORSA 140 convertible
  1 wife, 3 kids, 2 acres, 2 cats, 2 dogs, ? projects,  no TV, 24 hours