Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: axial who wrote (32033)	11/11/2009 2:00:28 PM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Trig, happiness wasn't invented with the steam engine though the invention of the internal combustion engine and especially the Otto cycle engine was the Prozac of the day which accelerated swarms of maniacal young men [and their passengers] to their doom. Yes, the industrial revolution and machinery fed on the reservoirs of oil and coal for 100 years and that won't continue for 1000 years. It can easily continue for another 100. As we have seen, a lot can happen in 100 years and since it always has, it certainly will again, especially with 6 billion kilograms of human brain interconnected in a globalized world with cyberspace supercharging it. In the first 9 years we have had major changes. Google alone is a very very big deal. The Crusades are underway to throw back Mohammedanism yet again. China is a major economic entity after 10% growth for a couple of decades. The A380 now flies. Globalstar's first constellation has been and gone [mostly]. Qualcomm's Snapdragon, Gobi and Android are on the rampage. Zenbu is underway. 100 years ago, humans were still mostly rural, tribal, territorial, alpha male, warring, found-wealth hunter gatherers with agriculture. The USA was not long out of a civil war, World Wars I and II with a Great Depression thrown in were unimagined. Travel was months by sea. On land it was mostly by horse or walking. Communications around the world were by writing on squashed trees or traveling to talk. The contraceptive was invented. That changed everything. No longer was there necessarily Malthusian genocidal conflict for limited resources and found wealth. Now, we are seeing populations declining for the first time ever due to choice. In 2037 Peak People will be a fact [unless it's brought forward by H5N1 or some other catastrophe]. Peak Oil will probably occur at the same time as Peak People. Look, my old company BP's biofuels efforts bp.com There's no shortage of fuel, it's just a matter of what the most economic source of it is. The price of energy isn't on a permanent upward trend. We have already seen the peak for today's economics and it wasn't very high. The sun is a hefty source of energy which isn't going to run out any time soon. The cost of turning sunshine into vehicle movement is already so low that it's an economically attractive option and people are investing in it. Yes, various oil fields fizzle out and dwindle to a trickle. But that's not the end of vehicle movement. Oil prices have already got above the price needed for alternatives to be produced. Incidentally <Humans and technology cannot defeat thermodynamics > Yes we can [to coin a phrase]. Thermodynamics is for Newtonian physicists and the 19th and 20th century. We will be able to produce energy out of nothing - not me or you, but when 'they' figure out how to run black holes backwards, they'll have cosmic amounts of energy available. We can already see from cosmic processes that it's doable. Now to just miniaturize it and pop one in the boot. . Cold fusion was on the right track but was a silly electrolysis process with hydrogen soaked into some metal I forget [Google would know]. Palladium? Yes, it was: psc.edu Meanwhile, there is so much coal and bituminous goop we'll be running out of people hundreds of years before we run out of buried carbon even if oil dwindles. Mqurice

To: axial who wrote (32033)	4/4/2011 4:23:26 PM
From: axial	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 46821

"That is, the rising cost of energy begins to marginalize larger portions of the population." --- [What's interesting is that the Fed's take sidesteps the issue of energy inputs required for food production including plowing, harvesting, fertilizer production, transportation, storage and drying. So there's a self-reinforcing cost escalator at work in energy and agriculture -- compounded by the allocation of agricultural land and water to corn production for ethanol. Who suffers from a world where people value transportation fuel above food? We all do - but those at the lowest end of the socioeconomic spectrum suffer most. When will this affect you? It already has.] Food, Energy Prices Hit Lower Incomes Hardest frbsf.org Jim