With the political turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East getting more dangerous every day, the price of oil is going up. Libya alone is responsible for 2% of the worlds oil supply, and has some of the largest proven reserves out there. Plus unrest across the along Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula is not going to make things any easier either. So now a barrel of oil is hovering just below $100, and some are even well above that mark.
What does this mean for America? The short answer is nothing good.
We were just beginning to see some serious signs of recover, despite rising food and energy costs this winter. However, now with oil once again daring to set record highs with no sign of stopping, we are going to be plunged back into a downturn. What do we do about this? We whine to our leaders and expect miracles from the administration and from the Saudi's...
This past weekend at the National Governors Association meeting, many spoke out against the rise in price. The threat was made clear and worries about the engine of recovery stalling were aired, but no solutions offered. The next day members of congress sprang into action pleading for Obama to open up our reserves and seek aid from the Saudi's, a really responsible move..
To what end are these actions going to save the country? Depleting our strategic and domestic reserves is only going to serve to stave the problem off a few months. Leaving us open to a economic and functional crash once it is all gone. Going to the Saudi's, our favorite oil barons, will add billions to the national debt. Neither option are going to provide long term results. We need some creative, forward thinking, and responsible plans to save the nation from the worst possible outcomes of these events.
So what should we do? Why not lower the price of public transportation? Reducing the fairs on trains and buses, even temporarily, will encourage people in cities and suburbs across the nation to park the car and take public transit. Even if these public operations end up running at cost, there is nothing wrong with operating thusly when faced with the likelihood of there not existing at all. Radio and television ads, on local stations, could advertise routes, times, and fairs to help spread the word. State and Federal transportation agencies could lower the speed limits by 5-10mph, in hopes that the difference in fuel consumption would lead to savings. Our largest glut of oil, shipping and industry, could be required to make cut backs or seek alternate methods of transportation. Already we have seen technology that could make savings in ocean going shipping, we could also stand to ship more by rail.
In the end, it is a little too late to do a lot. The time it takes for the government and for companies to make changes would make any major changes time and cost prohibitive. As Americans and as people who are facing some of the greatest challenges ever faced, we cannot afford to be complacent. We need to begin to take this seriously, start making savings where we can. Carpool, stay home, plan your week to avoid excess driving, telecommute if you can, do whatever it takes. Above all else be prepared.
Showing posts with label post-oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post-oil. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
China and New Nuclear, Looks like we missed the boat again!
Today we take a look at China and nuclear power, specifically their steps towards utilizing thorium fueled, molten salt reactors (or MSRs). China has recently announced a plan to make MASSIVE steps forward in the realm of clean nuclear energy by building dozens of new reactors over the next 20 years, in an effort to wean the country off of coal and towards clean alternatives.
Nuclear? A clean alternative? What? Yes! It can be done, here's how. During the 1960's and 70's the US was obsessed with nuclear energy and figured out many different ways of producing energy from nuclear reactions. However, not all reactor types were created equal, most created hazardous waste and nuclear by-products suitable for weapons, a few others were able to produce energy without the nuclear waste or weapons potential. Obviously a country interested in stockpiling enough nuclear weapons to vaporize the planet twenty times over is not interested in the latter, and plans for such reactors were shelved.
It didn't take long for other countries to recognize the potential of a reactor that didn't create a environmental disaster and that is where these MSR reactors come in. A MSR reactor can be powered with a element called Thorium, which is a cheap, abundant, and SAFE reactant. Add thorium to a MSR and you have a reactor that can do a great many things, namely operate in a much safer and cleaner way than conventional reactors, like the ones found in the US. These reactors are also meltdown-proof, as thorium cores are liquid and not solid, to they can't go critical. Another interesting fact about MSR's is that they can also be powered with existing stocks of nuclear waste, potentially a solution to our nuclear waste storage problems!
So why are nations like China, India, France and Norway on board and not the US? We got a late start, but the President specifically mentioned Oak Ridge National Laboratory (the place where thorium MSR's were first conceived) in his State of the Union Address. So there is hope for us yet... But... If we are not careful and get on with our own R&D we could find ourselves importing this technology back from China, and thus becoming dependent on another foreign energy source after oil....
That is where I draw the line. Importing energy sources or technology from other countries is what put us in the energy choke hold we're in now! We need to start working towards our future and clean nuclear is another perfect technology for Americans to champion. But I'l remind you all again that there is no silver bullet, no singular technology or change in practice that is going to save our hides. Energy has to come from many places such as the renewables; solar, wind, and geothermal, and clean nuclear if we can do it. But we also need to make a paradigm shift in our way of life. Staples like transportation, agriculture, land use, and standards of living, all need to change before we can expect to see great strides forward. And we need to do it together, as Americans fighting to keep America strong in the years to come.
Read the article from Wired.com here.
Nuclear? A clean alternative? What? Yes! It can be done, here's how. During the 1960's and 70's the US was obsessed with nuclear energy and figured out many different ways of producing energy from nuclear reactions. However, not all reactor types were created equal, most created hazardous waste and nuclear by-products suitable for weapons, a few others were able to produce energy without the nuclear waste or weapons potential. Obviously a country interested in stockpiling enough nuclear weapons to vaporize the planet twenty times over is not interested in the latter, and plans for such reactors were shelved.
It didn't take long for other countries to recognize the potential of a reactor that didn't create a environmental disaster and that is where these MSR reactors come in. A MSR reactor can be powered with a element called Thorium, which is a cheap, abundant, and SAFE reactant. Add thorium to a MSR and you have a reactor that can do a great many things, namely operate in a much safer and cleaner way than conventional reactors, like the ones found in the US. These reactors are also meltdown-proof, as thorium cores are liquid and not solid, to they can't go critical. Another interesting fact about MSR's is that they can also be powered with existing stocks of nuclear waste, potentially a solution to our nuclear waste storage problems!
So why are nations like China, India, France and Norway on board and not the US? We got a late start, but the President specifically mentioned Oak Ridge National Laboratory (the place where thorium MSR's were first conceived) in his State of the Union Address. So there is hope for us yet... But... If we are not careful and get on with our own R&D we could find ourselves importing this technology back from China, and thus becoming dependent on another foreign energy source after oil....
That is where I draw the line. Importing energy sources or technology from other countries is what put us in the energy choke hold we're in now! We need to start working towards our future and clean nuclear is another perfect technology for Americans to champion. But I'l remind you all again that there is no silver bullet, no singular technology or change in practice that is going to save our hides. Energy has to come from many places such as the renewables; solar, wind, and geothermal, and clean nuclear if we can do it. But we also need to make a paradigm shift in our way of life. Staples like transportation, agriculture, land use, and standards of living, all need to change before we can expect to see great strides forward. And we need to do it together, as Americans fighting to keep America strong in the years to come.
Read the article from Wired.com here.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Student of the Future
The future is a scary prospect for anyone but this is doubly so, I feel, for the American Student. Students in our modern society have a lot coming to them; guaranteed primary and secondary educations, and a relatively acessable post-secondary education, at the very least vocational training. However how likely is it that these students will need, use, or even have these options, in the future? I believe the student of tomorrow will have to look at educational sucession in a different light and with a greater deal of realism and pragmatism.
Unfortunately for many students currently enrolled or recently graduated from a post-secondary (usually a undergraduate) degree program there are few options open to them for career opportunities. This is a function of the recessing economy and steady instability (haha) of job growth. With unemployment rising, at current, and outsourcing ever expanding what options does the recenty graduated twenty-something year old person have?
Being among those happy few, I know from experience that there are few options out there. One has to be in a very specialized field to get a job. Many of us find ourselves back in our jobs we held in high school, flipping burgers, packing groceries, or, as it is in my case, delivering. The few fields that were formerly safe bets; education, law enforcement, medicine, etc, are currently shrinking instead of growing like we were told six years ago. So many of us with relatively general credentials, such as a english or history degree or even business, are left wanting. What went wrong?
Our high schools, once reguarded as the finest in the world, are failing our students. The world doesn't need another lawyer or doctor or businessman, there are already enough. But what have we lost in the last thirty years? We have seen our workers, the blue-collar man, the farmers and factory workers dissapear. Where did they go? Well many to college and then they went on to the East Side and go their condo apartments or suburban castles. Now what? What happens when the industries that built our nation dont have the pool of workers that used to supply demand? They have sold out, as the remaining few workers demanded more and more from their corperate bosses. Its cheaper to do it in Mexico and China than Detroit and Pittsburg. So if white collar jobs are bloated with excess employees and applicants then why do we sell our production to other places?
If people were told at an early age that it is, in fact, acceptable to be a steel worker maybe we would have a steel industry. The same could be said for farmers and factory workers. Maybe these industries wouldn't have left in the first place, maybe we could rebuild them, maybe we will have to. With our economy out of control, the globalization powering oil drying up, and demand for expansion of domestic American production growing maybe it becomes the job of schools to tell students it is ok to be part of that growth.
So can our schools deliver such an unsavory message to students and parents? Do we really want to say "hey kids, its OK to work on an assembly line or mine coal." Will parents of suburbia allow their children to stay out of college in lieu of a job as an mechanics apprentice? I don't know if it will be acceptable but it seems that if we want to grow those parts of our economy, the ones that once made this country great, we will need to say its OK.
But if we supply workers will industry come back? Do we need to build it before they will come? I think it will be a process driven, of course, by necessity. Any company looking for positive P.R. will want to say it is expanding operations in the U.S.. Many of the Japanese car makers have already capitalized on this reopening or building new assembly plants in the lower 48 in order to supply the volume needed by their customers. Can the same be done with the consumer goods we all use every day? Yes, and it will be cheaper than importing these goods, at least it will be soon. As oil dries up and the battle over the next great black gold intensifies, many companies will have to bring production state side. The great intercontinental processsion of super tankers and container fleets will not be able to be supported. Signs of this are already apparent as some shippers are planning to retrofit their vessels with sails to cut fuel costs and consumption, but this is a desperate action of a dieing industry.
As the switch comes back from white collar, no dirt in my nails, jobs. We need to show our students and young people that a job is a job, and no matter what it is you are sucessful as long as you are happy. If that means putting the dash boards into the next F-150's or assembling solar panels, thats still good. Any domestic expansion is good and should be encouraged. Bring our students back home to the farm and show them how to do it.
Unfortunately for many students currently enrolled or recently graduated from a post-secondary (usually a undergraduate) degree program there are few options open to them for career opportunities. This is a function of the recessing economy and steady instability (haha) of job growth. With unemployment rising, at current, and outsourcing ever expanding what options does the recenty graduated twenty-something year old person have?
Being among those happy few, I know from experience that there are few options out there. One has to be in a very specialized field to get a job. Many of us find ourselves back in our jobs we held in high school, flipping burgers, packing groceries, or, as it is in my case, delivering. The few fields that were formerly safe bets; education, law enforcement, medicine, etc, are currently shrinking instead of growing like we were told six years ago. So many of us with relatively general credentials, such as a english or history degree or even business, are left wanting. What went wrong?
Our high schools, once reguarded as the finest in the world, are failing our students. The world doesn't need another lawyer or doctor or businessman, there are already enough. But what have we lost in the last thirty years? We have seen our workers, the blue-collar man, the farmers and factory workers dissapear. Where did they go? Well many to college and then they went on to the East Side and go their condo apartments or suburban castles. Now what? What happens when the industries that built our nation dont have the pool of workers that used to supply demand? They have sold out, as the remaining few workers demanded more and more from their corperate bosses. Its cheaper to do it in Mexico and China than Detroit and Pittsburg. So if white collar jobs are bloated with excess employees and applicants then why do we sell our production to other places?
If people were told at an early age that it is, in fact, acceptable to be a steel worker maybe we would have a steel industry. The same could be said for farmers and factory workers. Maybe these industries wouldn't have left in the first place, maybe we could rebuild them, maybe we will have to. With our economy out of control, the globalization powering oil drying up, and demand for expansion of domestic American production growing maybe it becomes the job of schools to tell students it is ok to be part of that growth.
So can our schools deliver such an unsavory message to students and parents? Do we really want to say "hey kids, its OK to work on an assembly line or mine coal." Will parents of suburbia allow their children to stay out of college in lieu of a job as an mechanics apprentice? I don't know if it will be acceptable but it seems that if we want to grow those parts of our economy, the ones that once made this country great, we will need to say its OK.
But if we supply workers will industry come back? Do we need to build it before they will come? I think it will be a process driven, of course, by necessity. Any company looking for positive P.R. will want to say it is expanding operations in the U.S.. Many of the Japanese car makers have already capitalized on this reopening or building new assembly plants in the lower 48 in order to supply the volume needed by their customers. Can the same be done with the consumer goods we all use every day? Yes, and it will be cheaper than importing these goods, at least it will be soon. As oil dries up and the battle over the next great black gold intensifies, many companies will have to bring production state side. The great intercontinental processsion of super tankers and container fleets will not be able to be supported. Signs of this are already apparent as some shippers are planning to retrofit their vessels with sails to cut fuel costs and consumption, but this is a desperate action of a dieing industry.
As the switch comes back from white collar, no dirt in my nails, jobs. We need to show our students and young people that a job is a job, and no matter what it is you are sucessful as long as you are happy. If that means putting the dash boards into the next F-150's or assembling solar panels, thats still good. Any domestic expansion is good and should be encouraged. Bring our students back home to the farm and show them how to do it.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Schools Post Oil: What is going to happen to our educational system?
We all love our schools dearly in this country. Every Monday night across countless fields, our high school football teams face off under the lights, with the roar of their frenzied parents and fan fare of the bands behind them. But what happens to them when the lights go out for good?
For the last fifty or so years our nations schools have been suburbanized, centralized, and have downsized on teaching staff and resources. Before the age of the yellow school bus fleets and high school campuses that resemble shopping malls, we had a smaller, less centralized, system. A system that was walkable, flexible, and very personalized for that region. But no longer. Our children get bused from far away to massive buildings, full of thousands of students, where two teachers could work at the same school all their careers and never meet. If you are reading this blog you likely have a good handle on how poorly our schools operate from various angles, such as quality of education or efficiency of resource use, but have you ever considered what would happen if the students couldn't even get to school if they wanted to?
The scenario almost plays out like a charity commercial for a third world country. Students longing to get to schools but they are too far to walk or bike. The roads are rough from even a year of disrepair, and in the winter months the way is simply impassable. The schools are shells, falling down around the few teachers and students that manage their ways in every day. Water supplies are inconsistent, lights are broken or off dew to power outages, and heating and air conditioning systems are inoperable. Books are old and tattered and all the marvelous technological innovations of the 20th century are useless. It is a sad and stark reminder of what we will not be able to accomplish in a world beset by constant oil shortages and/or total oil depletion.
So how will schools need to adapt in the times to come? There are many answers or at least many options. Not every school is the same, nor is the town in which it is located, neither are the places they will no longer be able to serve, and the traditional methods of teaching might not apply from town to town, city to city.
The biggest change will have to be in size and geographic location of schools. Gone will be the day that kids can be bused from miles and miles around. Instead of serving entire districts schools will be forced to serve much smaller populations. To give you an idea of school sizes, the average school district in America serves about two thousand students grades K-12 and this is inclusive of vocational and other schooling. Two thousand students is a very large population for a school system and in a post-oil age it is likely that the average population of an entire district will shrink to a fraction of this. I predict that the average school will serve between fifty and a hundred students, that number may shrink or swell based on geographical location. In some cities it is totally foreseeable for a school to serve a few hundred students, and maybe even a thousand, based on the walkability of cities. On the flip side of this, our rural districts could become completely home schooled or turn into a local communal form of education with neighbourhood families taking shares of the responsibility for the education of their young people. "School" sizes in places such as these could be as small as a couple dozen students K-12.
The schedule of schools will likely stay within some semblance of what it is today. I would imagine since schools would be serving their own immediate localities, each would have their own unique calendar year. But regardless of location schools will likely revert to a more agrarian based school year. Days might be shorter in the harvest and planting months and longer during the winter months. Most schools will likely be directly tied into local economies to the point that weekly decisions about scheduling may be made depending on who is available to teach what or if a local business may provide a learning opportunity to educate students. City schools will be less affected by this change. They inner city areas will probably lengthen their school years and shorten the days. This would not only afford teachers, but students even, the chance to get a part time job on top of their obligations to school. This would benefit the local work force as well as give teachers and students a deeper level of integration within their neighborhoods.
The role of the teacher will change drastically. The traditional teacher will be replaced by a more versatile and multifaceted individual, capable of not only teaching a "classic" subject like history, science, or math, but also more practical skills such as carpentry or farming. Vocational education through internships and work programs might become the new norm for students in their teens, in a time where learning a specific skill to contribute to the common good of your home town trumps individual success. The role of a teacher may become a higher valued position within a community. Parents and community leaders may, once again, look to teachers as the stewards of their future instead of necessary components of a educational industry. College, among other forms of higher education, may revert to a realm for the select, and lucky, few who can afford to leave their local community or have such a resource at their disposal locally.
As I touched on already it is likely that many student will not move on to more than a 8th or 9th grade educational level. This would be reasonable in a world post-oil, at least initially, for a few reasons. First is that a functioning high school may be out of reach geographically for some. Not all rural areas would be able to afford or support such and endeavor. It would be more practical for some students to simply move into the work force at the age of 13 or 14 if the only thing they need to know is how to support their family by living off the land. Certainly the structure of classes, content, and years of mandatory attendance would change but even in areas that are more densely settled than farm areas it will likely be more practical for students to apprentice in their communities in order to learn and preserve trades necessary to their town. Of course doctors, lawyers, teachers and politicians will still be needed but they will be those select few who will go on to higher educational institutions, if they still exist. The biggest worry here is the creation of a more intense class system where select areas of a state or even people of certain professions call the shots. I can see this happening, however, I hope that the feeling of belonging to a community and the sense of responsibility for a persons own people will not be lost on these lucky future few.
Indeed the role of education and the way it is executed is yet to be seen for the future. All that we can do is speculate and prepare for what may come. But the overarching theme needs to be this; that we MUST be prepared for any eventuality. The biggest weakness we will face as the world turns and changes is an uneducated population, especially if that population forgets the lessons of the past. We have ignored those lessons already and, because of that, we face a grim future.
For the last fifty or so years our nations schools have been suburbanized, centralized, and have downsized on teaching staff and resources. Before the age of the yellow school bus fleets and high school campuses that resemble shopping malls, we had a smaller, less centralized, system. A system that was walkable, flexible, and very personalized for that region. But no longer. Our children get bused from far away to massive buildings, full of thousands of students, where two teachers could work at the same school all their careers and never meet. If you are reading this blog you likely have a good handle on how poorly our schools operate from various angles, such as quality of education or efficiency of resource use, but have you ever considered what would happen if the students couldn't even get to school if they wanted to?
The scenario almost plays out like a charity commercial for a third world country. Students longing to get to schools but they are too far to walk or bike. The roads are rough from even a year of disrepair, and in the winter months the way is simply impassable. The schools are shells, falling down around the few teachers and students that manage their ways in every day. Water supplies are inconsistent, lights are broken or off dew to power outages, and heating and air conditioning systems are inoperable. Books are old and tattered and all the marvelous technological innovations of the 20th century are useless. It is a sad and stark reminder of what we will not be able to accomplish in a world beset by constant oil shortages and/or total oil depletion.
So how will schools need to adapt in the times to come? There are many answers or at least many options. Not every school is the same, nor is the town in which it is located, neither are the places they will no longer be able to serve, and the traditional methods of teaching might not apply from town to town, city to city.
The biggest change will have to be in size and geographic location of schools. Gone will be the day that kids can be bused from miles and miles around. Instead of serving entire districts schools will be forced to serve much smaller populations. To give you an idea of school sizes, the average school district in America serves about two thousand students grades K-12 and this is inclusive of vocational and other schooling. Two thousand students is a very large population for a school system and in a post-oil age it is likely that the average population of an entire district will shrink to a fraction of this. I predict that the average school will serve between fifty and a hundred students, that number may shrink or swell based on geographical location. In some cities it is totally foreseeable for a school to serve a few hundred students, and maybe even a thousand, based on the walkability of cities. On the flip side of this, our rural districts could become completely home schooled or turn into a local communal form of education with neighbourhood families taking shares of the responsibility for the education of their young people. "School" sizes in places such as these could be as small as a couple dozen students K-12.
The schedule of schools will likely stay within some semblance of what it is today. I would imagine since schools would be serving their own immediate localities, each would have their own unique calendar year. But regardless of location schools will likely revert to a more agrarian based school year. Days might be shorter in the harvest and planting months and longer during the winter months. Most schools will likely be directly tied into local economies to the point that weekly decisions about scheduling may be made depending on who is available to teach what or if a local business may provide a learning opportunity to educate students. City schools will be less affected by this change. They inner city areas will probably lengthen their school years and shorten the days. This would not only afford teachers, but students even, the chance to get a part time job on top of their obligations to school. This would benefit the local work force as well as give teachers and students a deeper level of integration within their neighborhoods.
The role of the teacher will change drastically. The traditional teacher will be replaced by a more versatile and multifaceted individual, capable of not only teaching a "classic" subject like history, science, or math, but also more practical skills such as carpentry or farming. Vocational education through internships and work programs might become the new norm for students in their teens, in a time where learning a specific skill to contribute to the common good of your home town trumps individual success. The role of a teacher may become a higher valued position within a community. Parents and community leaders may, once again, look to teachers as the stewards of their future instead of necessary components of a educational industry. College, among other forms of higher education, may revert to a realm for the select, and lucky, few who can afford to leave their local community or have such a resource at their disposal locally.
As I touched on already it is likely that many student will not move on to more than a 8th or 9th grade educational level. This would be reasonable in a world post-oil, at least initially, for a few reasons. First is that a functioning high school may be out of reach geographically for some. Not all rural areas would be able to afford or support such and endeavor. It would be more practical for some students to simply move into the work force at the age of 13 or 14 if the only thing they need to know is how to support their family by living off the land. Certainly the structure of classes, content, and years of mandatory attendance would change but even in areas that are more densely settled than farm areas it will likely be more practical for students to apprentice in their communities in order to learn and preserve trades necessary to their town. Of course doctors, lawyers, teachers and politicians will still be needed but they will be those select few who will go on to higher educational institutions, if they still exist. The biggest worry here is the creation of a more intense class system where select areas of a state or even people of certain professions call the shots. I can see this happening, however, I hope that the feeling of belonging to a community and the sense of responsibility for a persons own people will not be lost on these lucky future few.
Indeed the role of education and the way it is executed is yet to be seen for the future. All that we can do is speculate and prepare for what may come. But the overarching theme needs to be this; that we MUST be prepared for any eventuality. The biggest weakness we will face as the world turns and changes is an uneducated population, especially if that population forgets the lessons of the past. We have ignored those lessons already and, because of that, we face a grim future.
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