Tag: wind energy

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Yet another windy response to “What is Capitalism” by Annieli

I’ve been writing diaries here as a matter of praxis, that is, bringing theory and practice together as dialectically critical action, this is yet another attempt to make the somewhat odious task of understanding the core of marxist thought and applying it to coherent contemporary circumstance. This example shows the fundamental problem in taking an oppositional stance to capitalism as anti-capitalist thinking, how to discuss the alternatives as types of post-capitalism, and what comes afterward in terms of development. One first must understand the materialist approach to history and see capitalism’s place. Human development as cultural/social development laid upon nature’s development is always sets of uneven development even in terms of the prehistoric, knowing that many different versions of humanoids did at some moments live in parallel, some evolving to survive and others not, in a godless ecological struggle. Similarly uneven development exists for each of the historical stages of human social/economic development often described as Modes of production and the Five stages of history. Where it can get complicated is specifying the forces of production.

History can be described as divided into these stages

2.1 Primitive Communism

2.2 Slave Society

2.3 Feudalism

2.4 Capitalism

2.5 Socialism

2.6 Communism

We can still see echoes of more primitive relations even today in the informal economies of barter as forms of primitive communism and the indentured labor of some immigrant labor whether in this country or others. Enslavement exists in many forms in these uneven developments whether as actual human ownership in sex traffic or wage slavery as in globalized mass-market, corporately-owned consumer industries. Socialism or collective ownership of the means and forces of production has been achieved at various historical moments with varied success and failure and always exists as a non-totality in that other historical stages have and continue to exist in an uneven relationship and in various evolutionary forms.

This diary’s example will be of necessity a schematic version applied to the current situation of wind energy production in the United States signifying those uneven stages of historical development

The economy in which these modal stages are situated have three moments: production circulation consumption, which as a circuit reproduces itself. that is. each consuming moment induces a new, subsequent producing moment, much like the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis producing a new thesis.

Writers who identify with historical materialism usually postulate that society has moved through a number of types or modes of production. That is, the character of the production relations is determined by the character of the productive forces; these could be the simple tools and instruments of early human existence, or the more developed machinery and technology of present age. The main modes of production Marx identified generally include primitive communism or tribal society (a prehistoric stage), ancient society, feudalism, and capitalism. In each of these social stages, people interact with nature and produce their living in different ways. Any surplus from that production is allotted in different ways. Ancient society was based on a ruling class of slave owners and a class of slaves; feudalism was based on landowners and serfs; and capitalism based on the capitalist class and the working class. The capitalist class privately owns the means of production, distribution and exchange (e.g., factories, mines, shops and banks) while the working class live by exchanging their socialized labour with the capitalist class for wages.

In order to apply this to wind power, the task is to project those stages as simply as possible. Wind is basic yet necessarily tied to other natural factors of production in terms of marine or terrestrial environment. It appears greater in various locations yet even those quantities are not consistent even seasonally and as a natural resource are difficult to capitalize upon. More problematic is its availability as seemingly costless, yet also impossible to accumulate in any surplus in its natural form, hence its designation as a common-pool resource. If you put up a windmill you are being a primitive communist until the height or appearance interferes with your neighbors. As you derive power whether as grinding mill, water pump, or electrical generator, you accumulate various types of materially transformed surplus. Its subsequent transformation into “wind capital” comes in the means by which power is produced and its relation to the entire productive circuit. In the mercantile or feudal case of grinding grain or pumping water it comes from being one part of producing other goods, whereas as under capitalism it can be not only an industrialized farm but as in the case of mineral exploitation, speculative contracts auctioned off among capitalists over a very long cycle of manufacturing, siting, and operating. These are of necessity coexisting uneven developments whether you have a single subsistence farm windmill in the Southern Hemisphere or a massive industrial wind farm fueling a national energy grid in the Northern Hemisphere. As has been mentioned here and elsewhere in DK, alternative capital accumulating organizations with a public/social purpose, whether organized cooperatively or collectively continue to emerge with varying success to resist the hegemony of capitalist energy corporations. Just as the development of the Cape Wind turbine farm off the shore of Massachusetts is less about the capital and labor needed for construction or the deconstruction of class narratives about environmental hazard or aesthetic blight, than the fictive capital embodied in auctioned speculative leases and their relation to the corporate energy oligopoly of the New England electricity grid. Unevenness occurs in the scale of such endeavors since the NIMBY-ness of small scale backyard wind turbines ranges from the quaint reproduction of historical windmills to the pathological fear of eyesores, noise, and dead birds.

Liar’s Poker Update on Green or Not So Green Germany

So which is true?

Ever since Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a phase-out of nuclear energy over the next decade and pledged to generate as much as 80% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2050, big question marks have been hanging over the future of coal and gas-fired plants in Germany.

Merkel, seeking a third term in general elections on September 22, is a staunch supporter of this hugely popular policy move.

But the turnaround is depriving utilities, including market leaders RWE and E.ON, of massive profits from their atomic plants and turning their gas and coal-fired stations into loss-makers as they are sidelined by rival renewable sources of energy.

http://www.industryweek.com/en…

I don’t expect there are copious tears shed for the utilities with their decaying dirty power around here and surely not in this corner.

But what of this from a now decaying, unloved posting:

The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills…

For many weeks in December and January, Germany’s 1.1 million solar power systems generated almost no electricity. During much of those overcast winter months, solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity. To prevent blackouts, grid operators had to import nuclear energy from France and the Czech Republic and power up an old oil-fired power plant in Austria.

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Without being on the ground with access to all the available data, it is impossible to ascertain the truth of matters.  My bias is that both are true.  A mobile blind man might feel two different aspects of the elephant but still would not know much about the beast.

What we do know is that intermittent power is – umm – intermittent and must be supplemented by baseload power.  Baseload renewable power is far cheaper and more available than all other energy sources.

Ancient inhabitants of North America some 12,000 years ago are known to have cooked with geothermal energy and millenia later, the ancient Romans used the same source of heat for their baths.  Of course fire was discovered much earlier and perhaps utilized by ancestors of humans. Biomass is a new word for the most ancient of all technologies.  There was then no need to freeze in the dark when the distant sun was neglecting earth.

So why do we concentrate on poisonous and haphazard sources of supply of energy?

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. – Albert Einstein

Albert forgot human greed but no one knows everything.

Best,  Terry

Europe Pulls The Plug On Its Green Future

Slowly but gradually, Europe is awakening to a green energy crisis, an economic and political debacle that is entirely self-inflicted.

http://www.thegwpf.org/benny-p…

Indeed the problems are self-inflected but far from the way the article would have you believe.

EU members states have spent about €600 billion ($882bn) on renewable energy projects since 2005, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s green energy transition alone may cost consumers up to €1 trillion by 2030, the German government recently warned.

These hundreds of billions are being paid by ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern European history. Rising energy bills are dampening consumers’ spending, a poisonous development for a Continent struggling with a severe economic and financial crisis.

The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills

The folly is not in going green but in taking the high-priced rich man’s route that guarantees continued enslavement to fossil fuels, most notably solar and wind.

For many weeks in December and January, Germany’s 1.1 million solar power systems generated almost no electricity. During much of those overcast winter months, solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity. To prevent blackouts, grid operators had to import nuclear energy from France and the Czech Republic and power up an old oil-fired power plant in Austria.

The answer is plain enough for the few that will listen – like some of the poorest countries on the planet.

Baseload renewables, primarily geothermal and biomass, are cheaper than the foppery of sometime power, far more potent and plentiful than fossil fuels.

We will learn or we may not survive.

Best,  Terry

On Hole Cards, Or, “Drill, Baby, Drill”? Why? Is Canada Out Of Sand?

In America, today, there are three kinds of drivers: those who look at the other gas pumps down at the ol’ gas station and think: “Oh my God, I can’t believe how much that guy’s spending on gas”, those who look at their own pump down at the ol’ gas station and think: “Oh my God, I can’t believe how much I’m spending on gas” – and those who are doing both at the same time.

Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of “Drill, Baby, Drill” can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?

What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?

To put it another way: why isn’t all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – A Cry for Help

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

John Sherffius

John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)

Manufacturing Monday: Week of 12.28.2008

Greetings folks, I hope your holiday season is going well.  In case you were wondering, there was no Manufacturing update last week, family and health related issues.  This week will be kinda short, my apologies, but I wanted to cut some of the gloom and doom for the holiday season.  We got stuff on solar energy, a new grant system for electric car innovation, milestones on wind, and something for the kids!  But as always, we hit our first section…

Take Action: Wind Farms Can Save Mountain

Do you prefer wind turbines to scarred mountaintops? A new study shows that some mountains in Appalachia are prime resources for wind energy.  During the transitional stage from coal to clean energy, traditional subterranean mining can occur simultaneously with wind farms that provide sustainable environmental and economic benefits not possible with MTR.  

For years, defensive strategies were used to oppose MTR mining. Now we have offensive measures. An environmental group commissioned a study by Wind Logics firm to determine viability of wind farms replacing MTR in Appalachia. Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW) is working with a Coal River Wind campaign to achieve that goal.

There is a mountaintop that would make a great wind farm, but a mining company wants to raze the mountain with MTR, which will preclude wind farms forever.  We only have days to stop this insanity, so we need your help.  

McCain’s Wind Energy Double-Talk Express

McCain has flopped from opposing  wind energy to supporting wind energy. Has McCain really flipped or has he only embraced a pseudo flop to publicly pander for renewable energy votes while he more quietly takes actions to block wind energy progress?

McCain can be very clear and specific when talking about nuclear energy, or coal, or off-shore oil drilling, yet he can not even muster up one “yes” vote out of 8 chances on renewable energy tax credits legislation.  

His actions are consistent with blocking wind energy, which is a competitor for oil industry subsidies and may transform oil barons into barren businesses no longer needed.  

Green Goodness

Hey all welcome to your weekly dose of green positivity!!!

Enjoy the articles.

Cleaner water through nanotech

Could tiny particles added to  water sources help solve one of the world’s biggest problems?

Coated silica particles filter out toxins, pathogens

Tiny particles of pure silica coated with an active material could be used to remove toxic chemicals, bacteria, viruses, and other hazardous materials from water much more effectively and at lower cost than conventional water purification methods, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the International Journal of Nanotechnology.

We can hope the fisherman listen to this guy BEFORE they kill otters.

Despite of this potential conflict, Kai Chan of the University of British Columbia believes there is a way to ensure Canadian First Nations fishers can benefit from the otters’ presence.

“Efforts to restore wildlife populations should not be played out in a win-lose framework that pits conservation against the economic interests of the local people,” observes Chan, who spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Conference in Boston (February 14 to 18).