12.1.2K7: Study says we are better off conserving

"Keep America Beautiful." "New Deal." "Manhattan Project." What do these things have in common?

All of them were U.S. programs that unified the country around a vital cause. And all of them are now buzz-words in the discussions to get the country behind a push to conserve energy and find new energy sources.

A recent study by McKinsey & Company, released before a United Nations climate conference is to convene in Bali, states that sensible, practical measures, most of which have been known for over 20 years, could be enacted in U.S. homes and businesses today and save the nation 35% in energy usage. The report further suggested a nationwide education and encouragement program, similar to the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign of the 1960s, to raise awareness and public unity on conservation and sensible energy use.

Charles Cooper, a regular colunmist at News.com, invoked the Manhattan Project when he discussed the need to get the country behind a new push to remove oil from its place as the fuel America needs to survive.

And attorney Van Jones, who wants to make sure low-income and minority communities can take advantage of the green revolution, is only one person who has used the phrase "New Deal" in describing his plans to enable inner-city energy conservation and conversion measures.

Powerful phrases, invoking powerful and important programs, to be sure. Unfortunately, what is missing from these programs is the person to sell them... the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Reagans... the influential, charismatic and persuasive presidents who stood before microphones and charged up a nation to get behind them. Leaders, with a capital "L." Without those Leaders, America ends up with... well, with its latest toothless energy bill, another in a 30-year string of them, designed to prop up our biggest polluters and provide lip-service to those who could improve things.

We also need a Congress that is not afraid of doing the right thing, even if it means only one term in office. Our Congress today refuses to take the hard line in anything, because they are too concerned with getting re-elected (which never made much sense to me, considering the incredible pension and benefits they get, for life, from serving a single term, guarantees a comfortable life when they leave). They are also too beholden to lobbyists and special interest groups, who clearly do not have the nation's best interests at heart, and who use the system (or work around it) to buy their congresspeople's votes.

Of course, these government officials are elected by the people... which means it's our job to put the Leaders in office, to make sure lobbyists do not have undue control over them, and to make sure they understand how vital it is for them to take appropriate steps to improve our future. Until we have those Leaders and brave congresspeople, we will probably have to wait until we have a World War III with China over oil before we do anything about conserving or kicking the oil habit.

12.10.2K7: Arguing with fanatics

It's been a painful week for me. And it has nothing to do with my office bowling Christmas party, or the bathroom rebuild I just finished.

I have spent the past week on the MobileRead forums, arguing about digital theft and e-book piracy. It seems that there are still plenty of people out there—and no, they're not all kids—who believe that anything they can get to from a computer should be free. This includes, to them, software, pictures, video, music, and e-books. And they have clearly spent a lot of time rationalizing their attitude, for they manage to come up with numerous logical arguments, illogical arguments, scenarios, observations, points, homilies, and quotations asserting their position.

It kind of reminds me of trying to argue with a religious fanatic.

Yet, in all of their arguments, none of them seems to have an answer to the most important question: How, in a world where digital content is taken for free, do the creators get compensated for their efforts?

Generally, their responses are excuses, dancing around the issue: Creators get money from others, so it doesn't matter if they don't get my money; Creators charge too much anyway; Creators on the web are already rich; I tell others about the creators, and they get their money; If the creators don't like it, they can quit, and others will do it for free; Creators should understand that creations want to be FREE.

None of which puts food on a creator's table.

This attitude is almost understandable in children, who largely do things in school, or for their parents, without monetary compensation. However, once they are mature, and experience what it means to earn a living, you would not expect them to say that they deserve every dollar of what they earn (if not more), but creators who put their wares on the web don't deserve a penny.

Still... I logged in, and there it was.

I argued with a few zealots on one thread, until I simply got fed up, and checked out. Then another thread tended in the same direction, with a new cast of zealots joining those who jumped over from the previous thread. And it's always the same "This is God's will, because God is God, and his ways are mysterious." In other words, the same circular and meaningless comments, over and over.

It can be very depressing to be faced with viewpoints like that... especially if it concerns your livelihood (or lack thereof), and you worry whether there are too many people like this to allow you to make a living, much less a profit. Fortunately, the same thread that entertains these anarchist viewpoints, starts with a poll. The poll asks, quite simply, whether the new Amazon Kindle will spark e-book piracy. The choices are:

• Yes, book piracy will get a boost thanks to successful Kindle sales
• On the contrary, since it's now even easier and cheaper to purchase e-books
• No, there won't be any change.

It is heartening to see that the voters who selected the first choice are outnumbered, 4-1, by the votes for the other two.

So, despite their insistence, they are not in the majority. There is no mandate for online content to be free. Creators can still make a living. Once again, real life has defeated fanaticism. Of course, the poll results are right there for everyone to see. So why do they continue to argue for free content?

It's simple: Once a fanatic, always a fanatic.

12.12.2K7: Shell dumps solar

Shell has been ever-so-quietly selling off its solar assets in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines. Citing lack of profit, the oil company has apparently decided that it's not so great to be green after all.

They have not reported any intention to reinvest in any other form of solar technologies, some of which analysts believe have a greater potential than the silicon-based old technologies that Shell was supporting. Instead, they seem to be concentrating on the development of biofuels, essentially pouring a different liquid into the same gas tank. However, biofuels don't pollute significantly less than oil, so our global warming dilemma is still with us.

This reversal comes on the heels of Shell's signing a commitment paper before the Bali energy summit, a paper that was supposed to present each company ratifying it as a supporter of renewable energy and green initiatives. Last summer, Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer stated publicly that Shell had no confidence in renewables, suggesting that they signed the pre-Bali paper for PR purposes only, and are solely dedicated to the status quo.

This move makes it harder for producers of solar energy systems to get them to an American market, now that their big connection to the USA has pulled out. This in turn will make it harder for Americans to kick the oil habit by going solar, as thinner distribution channels will mean less solar panel stock coming to America. It seems the oil companies are doing their best to cut off our supply of solar power, leaving us beholden to their oil for the forseeable future.

12.19.2K7: Fed energy bill passes the buck... again

Hot on the heels of forcing the Bali Global Warming conference to give up on its efforts to force the U.S. to meet specific targets to improve its energy efficiency and curb pollution, the U.S. government has passed an energy bill that only makes long-term suggestions, still subsidizes oil as usual, coal-generated liquid fuel production, the non-starting nuclear industry, and inefficient ethanol production, and virtually ignores alternative energy sources like solar and wind.

Possibly the worst single offense the bill takes is to mandate a CAFE standard of only 35mpg for auto fleets, with a pathetic 22mpg for light trucks, and giving automakers until 2020 to comply.

There is no doubt the combined forces of Big Oil and Big Auto got their hands deep into this bill's mouth, and ripped out every tooth it had with extreme predjudice. Meanwhile, the government proclaims this bill as a triumph. "With this legislation," said House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, "we will move toward real energy independence that results in a stronger economy."

Then he made ready to fly home in time for Christmas.

12.26.2K7: SciAm's road to U.S. energy independence

It's right there on the January 2008 cover of Scientific American. Entitled "A Solar Grand Plan," the article describes a roadmap that the U.S. can follow that will have the country running on primarily solar power by 2050.

The authors aren't surprising: Zweibel is the president of a solar company, and Mason and Fthenakis head two solar research centers. It's also not surprising that their program depends on certain not-yet-attained solar efficiency milestones, which they claim will be reached by 2020.

What is surprising, however, is that those solar cell efficiency goals—a rate of 14 percent by 2020, up from the current 10 percent—are very realistic, and in fact are already within reach at some research labs. They also point out that the area of solar cells needed to achieve their plan, roughly 46,000 square miles (up from our present 10 square miles), is less than a fifth the area already available in southwestern U.S. lands, mostly arid, unused, government-held land. They top off their roadmap with other alternative sources, such as concentrated solar heat, windmills and geothermal systems, various proven and unproven storage technologies, such as pressurized-air and molten salts, propose a higher-efficiency DC power grid to channel the power where needed, and continued shifting from gas- and oil-fired power systems to electricity and hydrogen.

They also mention the fact that every energy source generated by alternatives besides oil and coal is a source that does not have to expend additional energy to clean up its emissions, saving us net energy. And finally they touch on the fact that cheaper solar cells can be added to individual rooftops, thereby decreasing the power load that must be supplied by the national grid.

That's the good news.

The bad news is, of course, the need for the federal government to back such a roadmap with legislation to drive and support it, including $420 billion in subsidies to get it started (less than the current U.S. Farm Price Support subsidies, but still not a figure to sneeze at). Though the report points out that Japan and Germany had already reached the conclusion that government subsidies were the only way to push the process forward, and have proven very successful in their solar conversion programs, the U.S. still has Big Oil to deal with. American oil interests have already demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice alternative energy progress to keep their pockets well-lined, and are unlikely to change their minds anytime soon. As long as they don't, they will continue to "persuade" government officials to pass on energy regulations that would cost them business, and maintain the status quo, as the recent energy bill run through Congress ably demonstrates.

So, how likely is it that the Zweibel/Mason/Fthenakis Solar Energy Conversion Plan will be implemented? Not very, I'm sorry to say... unless and until we get a sea-change in federal politics that finally shuts out Big Oil and makes laws based on the will of the People.

12.30.2K7: E-books 2007: Are we men, or vultures?

This will be my last Techlog entry for 2007. I wish it was going to be a happier one, but after the past few days, I can't say I'm happy at all about the prospect of e-books' future, because I've been talking to the people who will be instrumental in bringing it down. On various threads at MobileRead, I and others have been discussing such concepts as piracy, copyright infringement, rights, and morals, as they pertain to e-books. Paramount in these discussions involves what constitutes theft, what constitutes property, and whether authors/publishers should be duly compensated for their work.

One thing has become abundantly clear in these discussions: People do what they damned well please—especially when they're damned sure they won't get caught—then use whatever semantics, suppositions, philosophical arguments and incomplete logic they can apply, to convince others that they were justified in doing it. In terms of e-books, this is reflected by their belief that they are justified to take that they want without paying anything for it, and if someone offers something in any way other than the way they believe it should be offered, they are justified to steal it.

In many ways, this is expected. Just as people speed when they are sure they are not being watched by the police (and you know those people, because they're the first to slow down when a cop comes in sight), people sitting anonymously at their computers will download anything, regardless of whether it is anyone's intention that they should have it, and find some way to rationalize their actions afterward. Indeed, many of these people have come to rival religious zealots, in their ability to concoct scenario after scenario that seems to justify their beliefs... and to steadfastly ignore any counterpoints offered as pathetic and pointless non-sequitors.

But in every way, this is simply sad. These are people who are ignoring the very foundations of what society is built on... in fact, they go out of their way to avoid acknowledging it. They are turning their backs on morality itself, even insisting that it doesn't really exist. When morality is put forcibly before them, they quickly change the subject and debate economics, practicality, legality, philosophy, physics and politics. And when these other subjects begin to access morality—for, after all, all of them, even physics, were originally conceived with morality as their central tenet—they veer off again, and fall to rote statements and "what if?" arguments tailored to take morality out of the equation. They make every attempt to cloud understanding with wordplay and confusion, turning others' words against them, and dancing deftly around the issue. They are denying the validity of society.

Society is based on agreements. Agreements are based on common understandings about the way the world works, and about the way people should work in the world... this is morality. Without morality, there are no agreements. Without agreements, there is no society... there is anarchy. Anarchy is about people doing whatever the hell they want, and is the antithesis of society... in fact, it reduces humans to the role of vultures, scavenging what they can and spending their lives living off carrion.

I've just spent too many days conversing with vultures who think the way of the vulture is the way of the future. What is most stupifying to me is, these vultures weren't raised in poor hovels or barren plains... they were raised in the households of the premier countries of the civilized world, given love, supported by families, taught right and wrong, shown how to earn a living, and sent off to be productive members of society. And despite all of that, they regressed into vultures... clever vultures, verbose vultures, but vultures nonetheless.

And the bad news is, there are far too many vultures out there... we are inundated with them. These vultures make every aspect of society more difficult, because of the incredible energy that must be expended to make sure they do not reduce society to useless scraps. And worse, they tempt us, because their constant irritation forces society to consider bending its own rules... abandoning morality itself... to justify taking extreme measures, and wiping them off the face of the Earth once and for all...

But then, society manages to step back... take a collective breath... and move on. We'll deal with the vultures. But we'll do it the moral way. Because if we do not, we will be no better than the vultures we seek to be rid of. We'll let them have the rotten meat, we'll let them have our scraps. And someday, when we use all of our meat, and leave them no scraps, they will die off. And become the scraps of the vultures that will succeed them. We are society, and we will outlive the vultures, because we can survive without them... but they cannot survive without us.

Here's hoping 2008 proves to be better for society than for the vultures.