So I watched this documentary on the Sundance Channel this weekend that I found to be highly enlightening and eye-opening, almost scary but at the same time, it was nothing that I didn't already know, it was just put into a different perspective. The name of the documentary is "Energy War" and one of the main speakers throughout it was a man by the name of Thomas Friedman. He is a highly acclaimed journalist and although I don't agree with every one of his views, he has done some interesting research on the link between Oil and Freedom. From what I gathered, he was able to take the cost of oil by the barrel over the last 50 years and compare that to the rate of growth in under-developed countries, the spread of democracy, economic growth and a myriad of other factors that contribute to the change in "freedom" throughout the world. What was fascinating was that when oil prices are low, economies flourish and develop, democracy has less resistance and countries liberate themselves from dependency. When oil prices are high, starvation, recessions, conservation and in many cases, democracy takes a distant second to greed. We are addicted to oil and we do nothing, absolutely nothing to change it. So many people and economic "experts" talk a good talk, but can't seem to walk the walk. I mean look at our government - we elect actors!!! People who are good at taking a script and reading it, just like most of the politicians in our government today. Friedman also pointed out that in the 70's, when oil prices were on the rise, it spawned huge innovation and changes to technology. We became one of the most energy conserving nations in the world and led the way for many other countries to do the same. Then, oil prices dropped again and we became lazy and complacent about conservation again. Innovation for new energy consumption dropped off in the distance and more energy consuming devices spread like fire. We started buying Hummers and gas-guzzlers like it was a free-for-all. Friedman also made a statement that I felt was dead on - that it isn't the corporations, the governments or the gas and oil companies that are going to invent the technology to remove our dependency on oil, that it will be some guy in his garage that saves the planet. When I heard him say that, I immediately thought of Professor Searl. Every day counts and the more time we spend scratching our heads and looking to the expert scientists of the world, the faster we are heading for extremely dangerous ground - a new Cold War - this time energy being the weapon and oil being the ammunition. Let me explain...
Right now, the most unstable countries on the planet are the ones dictating oil prices and oil supply. They are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria and several others. Between them all, we get about 70% of our oil from them. The truth is, if they decided to cut off the United States, we're finished. We would be in the worst economic disaster ever recorded in history. They have us by the balls right now and there is nothing we can do about it. Now, let's see how this plays into politics... if we need oil, and the rest of these countries have it, who has the bargaining power? Who starts having the say in foreign policy? Who is it that HAS to give in at the end of the day in order to supply the people with enough energy just to meet their basic needs? Granted, we do a lot of trading of goods and services, but that is not the point. Those countries I mentioned before, they all don't like us very much and they are all (for the most part) buddies, sharing in each other's profits. In fact, those countries don't have much of anything else to support their economies except oil, so of course they are going to milk us for as much as they can because they don't have the economy we've built. There are more politics in oil than you think. So what happens when the oil supplies start running out? Keep in mind, you have countries like India and China which, just in the last 10 years, have exploded in growth. That trend is only going to continue. Have you ever been to the park and fed some pigeons? Watch carefully when you throw just one or two pieces of bread to the hundreds that are there waiting.... what happens? They will damn near kill each other to get to that food... and it's survival of the fittest. We are the pigeons, the US and the rest of the oil dependent countries who don't have enough of our own supply and therefore depend on foreign imports. The oil is the food being thrown to us at $90 a barrel, which is still enough that we don't have to fight over it between each other...yet. What happens when the prices double or even triple? Will we do what we need to survive as a country and invade one of these other countries that have plenty of oil? Wait, oh yeah, we did that already. It has already begun with Iraq, contrary to what most think the purpose of the war was, it was for construction costs to big US companies to clean up our path of destruction and for oil rights to share with the "new" Iraq. If you didn't notice, go back and look at the news during that time... one of the first things we did when we got into Iraq was secure the oil fields... now why is that? I thought we were there for freedom and to spread democracy? Yeah... right.
The point here is that with these countries, who at one point were our enemies, only pretending to be our allies when it is in their best interests, control the one thing we need most right now. It used to be the other way around. The United States was the leading car producers, the leading electronics producers and the highest "producing" country in the world. The rest of the world needed everything we had to offer. That doesn't seem to matter much if you can't turn on your lights or drive your car to work, which is what matters today. If we don't find another means to produce energy, we will surely end up in a new Cold War. The only bright side is that even though these countries want to rob us for our hard earned money now, eventually they won't have oil either, and so they are only making the rope a little longer before they hang themselves too. It won't matter how much they suck us dry now, they will ultimately end up in the same boat and that's when I grab an oar and start beating the shit out of them till they fall out of the boat and sink to the bottom of the ocean floor.
If we're going to take the high road once again and show the rest of the world what to look forward to, a better future, we need to start with being the first country to break our dependence completely on the concept that we need to "burn" or "break" something to get energy out of it. Every type of gas we use for fuel, we burn. Through some sort of chemical reaction. When are people going to understand that every single thing in this universe is made of the same thing - atoms! All atoms have electrons... when an electron moves or jumps from one atom to another, we call this electricity when it's in amounts that we consider consumable or observable. Do you have any idea the amount of atoms that are in just the space around you? Any idea how many electrons those atoms contain and how many of them are moving or movable? More electricity is actually available than all of the worlds power creation methods combined, for as long as the earth and the sun exist! Politicians know this, they've heard it from "scientific advisers" time and time again. Those same politicians are the ones who drive Hummers and get free pensions, free medical coverage and can have their entire fortune invested in oil, yet they decide what's best for us?
Wait till you see my next blog on SEG technology....
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