[KaiserJeep]

Another dose of reality for you. Recreational surfing in Java, Indonesia, where there is no organized waste disposal, and rivers and oceans are used to carry away garbage and sewage.



E-waste recycling in the Phillippine islands. First you import e-waste by the ton from 1st world countries:



Such as these PC power supplies.......then shear off the gold-plated connectors, scrape off the solder, and reclaim the lead/tin/gold by burning off the plastics and resins.



....leaving yourself a PC chassis which can be used to cook bush meat:



Sometimes we forget that the average welfare recipient in our inner cities is better off than the typical 3rd world resident, and that most people on Earth will never use a telephone.

After you get them solar electricity, then we can give them our obsolete mobile electronics, and they can text one another about where to get food and water.

[Timo]

Thanks T. Thanks KJ.

And KJ, you illustrated the whole purpose of my endeavor perfectly. Muchas gracias!

Actually, i read that in Belgium? or Denmark? or somewhere else in Europe, a couple of guys hooked up a municipal sewage treatment plant with some device that can separate minerals from raw biodegradable sewage, and they get to keep all of the minerals that are collected. Cut to the chase, there is an awful lot of gold in our sewage.

They're now quite wealthy.

From other people's sewage.

What a complete freakshow this world is!!!!!!

[Outcast_Searcher]

Actually, i read that in Belgium? or Denmark? or somewhere else in Europe, a couple of guys hooked up a municipal sewage treatment plant with some device that can separate minerals from raw biodegradable sewage, and they get to keep all of the minerals that are collected. Cut to the chase, there is an awful lot of gold in our sewage.

They're now quite wealthy.

From other people's sewage.

What a complete freakshow this world is!!!!!!

That's interesting, but it's hard to imagine where a LOT of gold in the sewage would come from. Gold is mostly inert.

So there is a little in some people for dental work and certain medical applications (like rheumatoid arthritis).

But unless people are dumping jewelry down the toilet (which should get mostly caught in drain traps), I don't get it. Surely the rare idiot eating gold leaf/flake wouldn't account for that much gold?

...

Well, I got curious, so I tried a web search. Sure enough:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/ ... worth-gold

Metals have long been known to concentrate in sewage, which mixes toilet water with effluent from industrial manufacturing...

So OK. I was only thinking water/waste from toilets. Waste from industrial manufacturing is a whole different kettle of fish.

[onlooker]

OS, I think Timo reference to gold in the sewage is a figurative expression. The actual finds relate to minerals in general. At least that is my reading of it.

[ralfy]

r, I am well aware of the plight of the poorest people in the world. I used to live in the Philippines where our neighbors 'house' had cardboard 'walls.'

You might have noticed that the topic of this thread is 'Centralized Energy.'

Bringing up poverty in this context prompts the question of whether centralized or dispersed alternative energy is cheaper for many of the the worlds poor.

If you are saying that neither will ever be affordable for pretty much any of them, that's fine.

But if you are trying to argue that centralized energy is more affordable for them than dispersed alternative energy, then just repeating over and over that the poor are poor doesn't really do anything for your argument.

Decentralized sources of energy are affordable for the poor only if they involve local materials and resources. These include water mills made of bamboo, animal power, and solar cooking pots. Otherwise, products such as solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric wire have to be manufactured and delivered using extensive supply chains. These supply chains also involve mining, container ships, etc., together with material resources such as iron ore, copper, petrochemicals, and coal. In addition, they will have to be purchased through subsidies and financial support from the private sector as most people who will benefit from these sources of energy cannot afford to buy them.

[dohboi]

If they are far from a grid connection, then connecting to a centralized source of energy may cost them even more. That's all I'm saying.

[Timo]

Dohboi was correct in what I was getting at.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/shortcuts/2015/nov/16/gold-sewers-precious-metals-flushed-drains-extract

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32026636

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-01/how-the-chinese-are-turning-fecal-sludge-into-black-gold-

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/01/20/sewage-sludge-gold-platinum/#.VvaixsoUWig

I still can't find that article that referenced those guys doing this in Northern Europe, but reading all of these articles does give me a new direction for my career. I can't smell anything. Period. So, working in a sewage treatment plant would be fine with me. No smells. No worries. GOLD!!!!!!

[AdamB]

Now please THINK about what I said before you fire back. I appreciate thoughtful commentary, I have no patience for fools.

Bravo! Now stand back and prepare to get the uninformed responses you fear. I must put you on my list of forum experts on the topic of PVs (along with Mr Reserve for unconventionals and Mr Rock for economics).

I pay $0.14/kWh all in, at the top of a tiered system. My comment on your post is that you can keep your California prices, and DAMN with the current glut created by Mr Rockman and his colleagues, it might not even be worth driving an EV in California at the rates you mention.

[KaiserJeep]

Those electric rates I mentioned are state averages I retrieved from the web. My local PG&E does in fact offer a tiered rate system, and I selected it, so that my excess power generation around noon is credited to me at the maximum Tier 3 rate, while I often postpone laundry (electric dryer) until after 11 PM to consume at the lowest Tier 1 rate.

The added retail power cost is mainly from tampering with rates using various surcharges and fees. These are paid by all consumers from new immigrants in rented subsidized housing all the way to the wealthy Hollywood 90210 class, and then rebated to solar power homeowners and electric car owners - if you have a pure EV, you get a subsidized lower than Tier 1 rate reserved exclusively for EV owners. Both EV and Hybrid car owners are also incentivized by HOV stickers that allow these (single occupant) vehicles in the diamond lanes at rush hours - privileges not allowed to pure fuel-burning vehicles, unless they have the minimum number of occupants. The vehicle fuel consumers subsidize the EVs via fuel surcharges - one reason gasoline is so high in this state.

We call it the Nanny Government, and it is truly annoying. I'm looking forward to moving away, once the wife is done with work. She is increasingly bitter at her greedy CPA bosses, hopefully this is the year she can't stand it anymore.

The biggest solar PV incentive at all is a concept called "net metering". Essentially it forces the power utility to credit you the excess power that you return to the grid at the same retail rate that they charge you at. This is grossly unfair to the power company, who otherwise is free to buy renewable energy from Texas wind farms (via an energy company called CALPINE) at wholesale rates rather than at retail rates from consumers. Unfortunately, net metering is not an option in Wisconsin where I will someday move - and their solar industry is tiny compared to California.

Call it interfering annoyance or renewables stimulus, it is actually both.

[dohboi]

https://www.skepticalscience.com/danger ... ought.html

“When you think about statements like ‘coal is good for humanity’ because we’re pulling people out of poverty, it’s just not true”.

[ralfy]

If they are far from a grid connection, then connecting to a centralized source of energy may cost them even more. That's all I'm saying.

That's pretty obvious, but it doesn't counter my previous arguments: coal and oil are still needed to mine the resources needed for components, manufacture them, and ship them to end users. These aspects of the supply chain are dependent on centralized energy, together with governments and private corporations that will have to provide financial support if most end users are poor. And what happens if users' demands start growing?

[ralfy]

https://www.skepticalscience.com/dangerous-gw-sooner-than-thought.html

“When you think about statements like ‘coal is good for humanity’ because we’re pulling people out of poverty, it’s just not true”.

You have to consider the rest of the article, e.g., the need for continuous economic growth which means the need for increasing levels of energy, the need for "massive increases in energy consumption" to "alleviate poverty," etc. Switching to renewable energy will likely not be enough to ensure such. My sense is that even more oil and coal will be needed (probably more than what is economically available) for mining, manufacturing, and shipping of components needed for renewable energy.

[dohboi]

"Switching to renewable energy will likely not be enough to ensure such"

We definitely agree on that, at least.

Certainly the current mainstream economic paradigm insists that limitless growth is an absolute necessity and an unquestionable good. But of course that is total insanity, one we have to get away from as quickly as possible.

I have a feeling we may not end up agreeing on much, but I'm glad we found one phrase, at least, to agree on.

I think I'll leave it at that, on this glorious day of resurrection (that was ironic--I'm not really not religious, in that way at least). Have a happy Easter.

[ralfy]

Repost:

"If everyone lived in an ‘ecovillage’, the Earth would still be in trouble"

https://theconversation.com/if-everyone ... uble-43905

[vtsnowedin]

One question Ralfy.
Once the world population begins to decline will the Capitalists still need growth?

[ralfy]

Capitalists always require growth.

Perhaps you meant "see" rather than "need".

[dohboi]

Growth is one of the themes in the latest Kevin Anderson interview (Thanks to Chuck Hughes a robertscribbler's blog for the link and the overview):

As an aid to navigation, the first 10 minutes or so deal with Kevin’s observations on Ireland’s response to climate change. The next five minutes deal with the aftermath of the Paris Agreement, then he moves to address the growth paradox; then, he deals with his own decision not to fly.

From there, he deals with climate sensitivity and extreme events. Next, he deals with the relative merits of carbon taxes versus rationing. From here, he examines the fitness for purpose of the neoliberal economic and political model.

He also discusses the ‘new normal’ of life in a climate-changed world, where human impacts have already wrought disastrous changes to much of the natural world upon which we depend. The interview concludes by placing a moral framework on humanity’s relationship with the world.

He remains deeply concerned that society, despite the overwhelming evidence of the need to act, that “we will choose to fail”.

http://www.thinkorswim.ie/choosing-to-f ... terviewed/

[vtsnowedin]

Capitalists always require growth.

Perhaps you meant "see" rather than "need".

No I meant 'need'.
In all these rants about evil capitalism and the related fractional reserve banking discussions there is the constant refrain that capitalism has a built in need for growth. For all the centuries that it has been debated there has been a growing population hence a valid need for growth regardless to the validity of the arguments. If we reach peak population and start to contract our numbers there will no longer be that underlying need and the validity of those arguments will finally receive an unbiased test.
How do you think it will go?

[ralfy]

I meant 'need'.
In all these rants about evil capitalism and the related fractional reserve banking discussions there is the constant refrain that capitalism has a built in need for growth. For all the centuries that it has been debated there has been a growing population hence a valid need for growth regardless to the validity of the arguments. If we reach peak population and start to contract our numbers there will no longer be that underlying need and the validity of those arguments will finally receive an unbiased test.
How do you think it will go?

Capitalism requires growth for obvious reasons, and I explained them in the capitalism thread. The gist is that the profits earned by businesses are re-invested in the same or in other businesses, which in turn grow. The same goes for money borrowed from banks. Without growth in production and consumption of goods and service, there won't be any returns on investment.

Growth can stop if markets are saturated, which is why capitalists have to look for other markets, look for new needs or wants or create them, engage in planned obsolescence,etc. That's why even though the birth rate has slowed down globally, a global middle class has been rising:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22956470

And given the amount of resources used per capita in rich countries, this growing middle class will require even more than what biocapacity allows. But for the mainstream this should not be a problem because capitalism is guaranteed to ensure technofixes ranging from "new technologies" to automation to space mining to meet such.

With that, it is likely that the global capitalist economy will fall apart not because population will contract first but because economic output will fall. Output will fall because of lack of resources per capita and the effects of pollution on the environment. The drop in output, in turn, will lead to higher birth rates due to poverty but also higher death rates due to lack of medicine, food, etc. That, in turn, will lead to population contracting:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... g-collapse

[vtsnowedin]

Capitalism requires growth for obvious reasons,

No it is not obvious and you saying it does not make it true.
Let us take for example a (choosing between farmer , factory owner, and laborer,) a factory owner. He invests hired labor, purchased material, and the overhead on his factory in the amount of lets say $1000 unit cost . He then sells the product produced for $1500 per unit. He has had a good year.
Why if there is no inflation in his labor costs and cost of raw material not repeat the same thing the next year for the same price and be satisfied with the result?