Solar Particles In The Stream

A very surprising view of energy use in Canada.

“To most of us, portable power is a constant worry - remember the last time your phone battery died? But to some, a fully charged battery pack represents much more than just a convenience. It allows a soldier to communicate, navigate and return to base safely. It allows first responders to remain in the field longer to assist victims of natural disasters. It also dramatically improves the quality of life for stroke victims, amputees, and others who rely on power-assisted medical devices to get around.” Read More -And Read More Here

We begin with a man, sitting on his porch in the morning sun. He relaxed, drinking coffee and storing up some solar energy. There was a smoky haze on the northern horizon and the unmistakable smell of burning wood in the air. A bird of some unknown provenance struck a note against a grinding industrial sound in the distance. Though his mind was momentarily calmed he knew he would soon have to jump on to the grid; that stream of energized activity, which flowed past his door into the wider world and became the increasingly shrill clatter of human endeavor. His job in the city required a daily commute.

“…when the price of oil has increased as dramatically as it has over the last ten years going from $20 a barrel to into triple digit range you don’t just change the speed at which you drive your car, you change the speed at which your economy can grow. Just like people require food, economies require energy.   …no matter how you move yourself or goods around the world …you’re basically burning one fuel and one fuel only and that fuel is oil.”

Just then a helicopter flew up the river and on the regional fire center frequency that he monitored on his scanner blared a communication with the chopper. Some words were exchanged about a fire location in the northwest and air traffic including a water bomber. He thought about what might happen with wildfires if the price of oil became prohibitively high. In Canada one in every seventeen Canadians is employed in the forest industry and millions of dollars are spent every year in protecting the trees. A peak oil situation would likely mean that most fires in northern Canada’s less populated regions would be allowed to burn much like they do in large tracts of Russia’s boreal forests.

Many people scoff at the prospect of the world running out of oil and there is no shortage of studies suggesting there are huge untapped reserves. This may very well be true but Rubin’s ideacity comments once again come to mind:

Every major global recession that we’ve seen in the last 40 years has oils fingerprints all over it … the difference between those recessions in the past and what we’re dealing with today is that in the past someone has closed off the spigot, today the supply of oil has not been restricted, it is flowing and right now the spigot is wide open and 90 million barrels a day are running through it but the difference is we can’t afford what is running through it … peak oil isn’t what you can drill, peak oil is about what you can afford …the worlds never going to run out of oil in the geological sense, the only problem is the kind of oil prices needed to extract that oil translates into oil prices that take millions of drivers off the road, worse than that it causes oil economies to keel over and die.”

He wondered if knocking down the oil economies and limiting growth would be such a bad thing in light of environmental devastation that was paralleling economic growth worldwide. Which of the evils was worse? Sustainability concerns are all tied up in a wrapper of continued growth of economies and world populations but the lobster like pincers of environmental destruction and population increase actuated by economic growth have us in their grip. Something has to give.

Rubin has also been quoted as saying that without growth there can be only one end to the European debt crisis: default. The consequence of default on this scale is well beyond the scope of this writer’s insight but needless to say will be a game-changer for our market economy.

The man watched the fly he had released as it walked along the window ledge, slowly becoming accustomed to its newfound freedom. Abruptly it took flight narrowly missing a spider’s web and disappeared into the morning sun.

Ron Young is a Renewable Energy professional operating the earthRight store in Williams Lake, BC selling and installing RE systems. A series of articles on the basics of off-the-grid solar can be found at his website: www.solareagle.com

Copyright Ron Young 2012

Here is the final article in my Off-The-Grid-Basics series. Stay tuned for an upcoming series by Prof. Stumblesnore of Solarwarts.

The full series of articles originally published in The Green Gazette are available from my website: solareagle.com

PART 10 - MONEY FOR ‘NUTHIN & SOLAR FOR FREE

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Here are two new articles in the continuing series: 

PART 8 - OFF-GRID WATER PUMPING

PART 9 - ON-GRID SELF SUFFICIENCY

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(Source: solareagle.com)

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