cryptogon.com news – analysis – conspiracies

December 19th, 2006

Stories like the one below, from the BBC, reinforce the nagging fear I have that Peak Oil just isn’t going to be the kill shot that many of us think it’s going to be. Don’t get me wrong, Peak Oil seems real to me (if engineered to happen), and, in preparation, my wife and I are using hand tools to accomplish as much of the work that we do as possible on our farm. But, more and more, it’s going to be clean, green fascism, with the alternative energy buildouts taking on maco scale proportions, “sustainable” Walmarts and industrial-organic pHood. And we won’t even have to put microchips in our chickens, for now! Ahh, freedom!

Oh yes, if the band plays on, it will be a weird, organic hemp hacky sack, zero emission SUV and fair-trade espresso tinged tune. The “environmentalists” will be making free love with the diabolical, earth murdering criminals at Shell Oil – Renewables Division. The jittery savants at Google will marvel at their solar powered propeller beanies; proof of their Earth-friendly credentials. Can you feel the love? Hillary 2008, man!

Meet the clean, green fascists. Same as the old, polluting fascists.

There will be viable alternative power, as long as it’s centralized and benefits the usual suspects.

If you think this is a bunch of crap about a few barefoot hippies with some solar panels and all the dope they can smoke somewhere in Northern California, friend, think again.

How does a wind farm, capable of powering one million British households, grab ya?

Where will all the disposable diapers, plastic tampon applicators, and mostly empty insect poison canisters go, from these clean, green powered homes? Who knows? Dump it all into the sea, around the wind farm, maybe…

Collapse via Peak Oil?

Maybe. Maybe not.

This wind development will supply only 1% of total electricity used in the UK, but it demonstrates the type (and scale) of things the Megamachine can do to survive. AND it’s not even really against the wall yet. AND they’re only using decades old technology so far. This is the problem with all the Peak Oil theories about how “renewables” will never be able to make much a difference to the energy situation. I’d ask the people pushing those theories to consider the stuff in the secret government crypts and quasi covert, corporate labs—with connections to the Pentagon—that are just starting to unfurl…

Is Peak Oil just another faith-based collapse theory?

Look, there’s no shortage of energy. Even assuming no decades-old, taxpayer-funded .mil innovations, energy generation is a no brainer. Take your pick. Individuals are building their own wave power generators for Christ’s sake. That thing scales to megawatt class systems and is based on nothing more complicated than permanent magnets and copper coils. (And it’s a continuous power source, unlike wind and solar, which are intermittent sources.) While there’s plenty of energy available from ocean/tidal, solar and wind sources, what we don’t have is a way of storing the energy in any form that approaches the energy density of hydrocarbon based fuels. Technologies like that eeStor thing, however, have the potential to change the whole damn show.

Even assuming an energy storage solution, Peak Oil fundamentalists will smile (smugly) and say, “Plastics, my son. What about plastics?”

First of all, how much plastic can you keep choking the oceans with if the Hummers started running on super capacitors? A lot. I don’t know how many decades worth. Besides, if you have the energy, which is clearly available from the braindead simple approach of bobbing those magnets up and down through induction coils, for example, just about anything can be turned into oil (for plastics or anything else) with a process called thermal depolymerization.

So, is Peak Oil going to be a crisis? Only if They want it to be.

Via: BBC:

The green light has been given for two offshore wind farms in the Thames Estuary, one of which will be the world’s biggest when it is completed.

The government said the schemes would produce enough renewable electricity to power about one million households.

The larger London Array project covers 90 sq miles (232 sq km) between Margate in Kent and Clacton, Essex.

The second wind farm, called the Thanet scheme, will cover 13.5 sq miles (35 sq km) off the north Kent coast.

The Â£1.5bn London Array scheme will have 341 turbines rising from the sea about 12 miles (20km) off the Kent and Essex coasts, as well as five offshore substations and four meteorological masts.

The consortium behind it is made up of Shell WindEnergy Ltd, E.ON UK Renewables and Core Ltd.