[ExI] pentagon wants orbiting solar power stations

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Oct 13, 2007 at 10:28:01AM -0700, Spike wrote:

> Bill, once interest is taken into account, this is a dead loss, no payback

Spike, you took his numbers at face value. The numbers are complete bogus.

> in 200 years or ever.  There are conservation measures which have a payback

If I take interest into account, I'm losing money at 4.5% day account
(I'm only keeping a modest sum there because I can pull it out within hours,
and the bank is reinsured against bankruptcy). I'm losing money because the
real inflation rate is considerably higher than the 2-3% officially reported.

Any higher interest requires committing for longer. Sorry, can't do that, Dave.
The U.S. dollar is teetring on the brink of the collapse, and once the US
economy has tanked (it is currently in the process), the rest of the world 
is very soon to go boom, like a lead baloon.

We used to have discussions here about irrational exhuberance, and the hyperboom
market being the outskirts of the Singularity, etc. Several of us here were warning
it was a bubble. Well, it was a bubble, and many people here took considerable
hits after .bomb. Some people (not necessarily here0 even lost their complete assets 
they saved up for retirement.

Then, we had the housing bubble. It was also quite clear it was a bubble, about
to pop. It popped, and will continue deflating for the next year, or so, until the
regular niveau (slightly above half, or less of peak) is reached.

Okay, I hate to sound like Kassandra, but there is another one coming. 
And it's nasty. Make your preparations.

> in excess of current interest rates, such as installation of solar water

I consider me buying a wood/coal oven, investing in insulation and passive solar
and geothermy an excellent investment, anticipating a giant hike of methane prices,
and quite likely outages. Methane is great, except it comes from a single source,
and you can't store it. Oops.

> heating and in some cases PV panels.
> 
> It is actually a threat to renewable energy sources when investments are
> made which fail to return at least the prime lending rate.  We had that
> situation in the states back in the 70s and early 80s when some state
> governments subsidized solar collectors, most of which were quietly removed
> after some time.

>From what little I know about, the U.S. technology back then was crud.
Solar industry is booming over here (some 300 k jobs there -- this means
a lot in the current economy and the small population size). There's probably
a reason why it is booming. 

I'll make another prediction (hey, these are cheap), and wage that burning
dead dinos will become a rapidly shrinking item in another decade, tops in 
in two.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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