The Mayan Empire

some semi-connected impressions:

Recently I had occasion to visit the Mayan ruins at Lamanai, Belize,
and listen to the enlightened guide of Carlos from "Lamanai Tours", Orange Walk.
(I highly recommend them, if you are down that way...)

Lamanai was one of the longest continually-habitated cities of the Mayans,
located some 8 kilometers from a major stone quarry on the New River lagoon.

Carlos said that when the spanish first arrived in the new world
and found these civilized inhabitants they asked them, in spanish, who they were.
The residents answered, in their own language, that they did not understand.
The sentence sounded like "mayan" to the spanish, and the name stuck.

Carlos explained about 2012 that Armageddon is just a Hollywood fabrication ...
that the Mayans did, indeed, have a circular calendar
and that one of the calendar's units was (is) a 52-year period
that just happens to end again in 2012.
The last one ended about the time of Kennedy's inauguration ....
The next one will end in 2064.
Circles have this quality about them, they just keep going around and around,
they never end ...

Carlos also talked about the devastation
that the spanish brought to the Mayans,
how Pisarro captured their king, held him for ransom,
and when the gold was paid, killed him anyway.
He also told how it was really the diseases of europe,
(among them syphilis, small pox, and tuberculosis)
which devastated their population and civilization even more than the spanish guns.

But what was even more interesting to me was
when he explained that the Mayan civilization actually went into a decline
spontaneously, around 900 AD, long before the spanish arrived.
Their calendar and indeed a whole system of hieroglyphics
had been developed prior to that time but reading and writing fell into disuse
and the whole population and economic development declined.
He voiced the question of modern scholars, "What happened?"

I know what happened.

Same thing's happening here, now.

At a certain point (it doesn't matter where!)
the general population of a civilization will reach a point where,
in their collective imagination,
there is precious little room for the civilization to grow.
There are no new frontiers.
At that point, the civilization will gradually turn from
productive, growth-oriented strategies to strategies
which are meant to defend or secure or hold on to what people have.
And because growth stops, those strategies of just trying to hold onto what we have
are doomed, by the law of entropy, to fail.

Everything in God's world works on cycles,
up and down, around and around.
Nothing stays the same, nothing goes up forever.

From a distance, its not that hard to see.

Coal

I have been saying this, over and over, for years,
and even though it just seems to generate jealousy, resentment and anger,
instead of anyone simply following my advice,
I will say it again:

Over the next twenty or so years,
the USA is going to become the "West Virginia" of China,
meaning that we will become impoverished
and our major economic activity will become the mining and exporting of coal.
Those who do not own it will have to work in the mines.

Here is a wonderfully-written synopsis of
economic events in the USA and the world over the last 30 or 40 years,
written by a Canadian banker ... it is long, very colorful, and worth finishing, imho:

The Power of Zero
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22536643/BMO-CM-Basic-Points-Nov-2009


"Anything which cannot go on forever, will stop."

Addendum, Nov. 23

This from Reuters today:
"the latest official Chinese customs data showed coal imports rose 219.5 percent from a year earlier to 11.14 million tonnes in October."

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idAFN2326566820091123?rpc=44

Wind Electricity Generation

A compendium of facts collected from a wide variety of sources, and my inferences therupon.


The top two commerical wind turbines, by market share:
1 Vestas 22.8 V90 Geared 3,000 kW
2 GE Energy 16.6 2.5XL Geared 2,500 kW
(source):http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/part-i-technology/chapter-3-wind-turbine-technology/evolution-of-commercial-wind-turbine-technology/large-commercial-wind-turbines.html
[note that the figures of 3,000 and 2,500 are the nameplate capacities of those turbines.]

"Capacity Factor: Wind power typically has a capacity factor of 20-40%"
(source):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_energy_source
What this means is, that the nameplate capacity on a wind turbine is the maximum amount it can generate in ideal wind conditions.
The capacity factor is the percentage of its nameplate capacity to expect over a long period of changing conditions.

the installation cost:
"I asked the company Vestas this question. They are number two in the world in producing wind turbines. They told me the answer is based on a thousand factors but that the general rule of thumb is that wind turbines cost 1.3 to 1.5 million per megawatt. "
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_3MW_wind_turbine_cost

USA electrical generation, by source, for 2008:
coal: 1,994,000,000 mWh
NG: 877,000,000 mWh
nuclear 806,000,000 mWh
(source):http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html

"The American Wind Energy Association has reported that wind projects installed through the end of 2008 were expected to generate 52 million megawatt-hours/year (MWh/yr),"
(source):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States.

Okay, now its time for one inference from me.
This is a mere calculation:
If anyone has a stated goal of replacing all of the existing coal-fired electricity generation in the USA
(and assuming, for the moment, that electricity demand does not increase),
2,000,000,000 mWh divided by 8500 hours/yr is about 250,000 mWyr.
250,000 of the largest commercial wind turbines.

If they cost $3 million each, as above, thats a total of $750 billion, or roughly the budget of DOD.
And, after building them, you have to find someplace to put them. Not in my backyard, please.


tomorrow lets look a little closer at coal.


addendum, Nov. 21

I just have to wonder ...
how much coal has to be burned (in blast furnaces) in order to fabricate one large wind turbine.
I imagine that its not insubstantial. There is still no other way to make steel....

Teza

I went to go see "Teza" with my good friend Miss Anne on Sunday.

Anne was raised in a one-room home not too far from here about the
same time that my mother was teething on her silver spoon. She is
doubtless the most gracious and gentle person that I have had the
priviledge to know. I love to share new, special pieces of music or art
with her and here her perceptions.

"Teza" is a low-budget, award-winning movie written and directed by
Haile Gerima. The movie has won awards from Vancouver to Venice.
an arduous project, it took the team 14 years to complete.

"Teza" means "dew" in amarinnia, the official Ethiopian language.
The movie depicts a young man who leaves his village for schooling in Cologne.
He returns to Addis Ababa to work as a medical researcher at the University,
during the regime of Mengistu and the Derg. His best friend is violently
murdered. He is exiled to East Germany. There, a band of white "skin-heads"
beat, lame, and almost kill him. Finally he returns to his village, there to ponder
the meaning of life and to teach reading and arithmetic to young children.

As a young adult Anberber is full of hope, vitality and energy. He
wants to find cures and bring hope against the dreadful diseases which
scourge his people. But he finds frequent dangerous conflicts with
the communist regime in Addis Abeba and its supporters.

The whole story depicts many different incidents of people inflicting
harm and suffering to other people. Anberber's dad had been among
an army wiped out by an invading army's gas attack. A couple of boys from
the village are forcefully captured and conscripted to war; one is returned later,
mortally wounded. A young mother, overwhelmed with the craziness
of her world, suddenly kills her own young baby. Anberber's friend
fathers and then deserts a boy in Germany, who grows up to become
enraged at his treatment as a half-breed. And deeds beget other deeds.
This is a long, long movie and it is not easy to watch. While we are all
busy with the challenges and trials we face as adults, somehow, the morning
dew has all vanished.

As a young man, I was often praised for the intelligence I showed
and exhorted to do what I can for the world and for mankind. I
was trained in aspects of world history and culture and personally
exposed to many, many diverse views. My peers all shared the same
hopes and enthusiasms. Now, as I enter old age, I perceive a culture
that is rotten and mistaken almost to its very heart. I and many of my
companions heartily doubt its ability to survive the onslaught of several
inevitable cataclysms, among them the reduction of cheap, readily-available
energy, the overpopulation on the planet, the reduction of food supplies, and the failure of people to foresee and address the problems.

I married a young Ethiopian girl, awed with her charm, intelligence,
perseverance and wit, thinking that I could perhaps do a little good.
She stubbornly clings to her philosophy that blind hope is far better
than the pessimism of wisdom and experience. And more and more,
she is teaching me to abandon plans and preparation. Perhaps
this very moment is the only one that I have ....

Concerning Al Gore and Me

I am one of Al Gore's important supporters. Please allow me to explain.

Al Gore, of course, is the man who invented the Internet.
Wonderful invention. The most democratic technology to come along since
the invention of the printing press. The whole idea behind it, from the git-go,
was to be able to survive and prosper without the aid of central authority.
My kind of world. But I digress ...
So, we suspect that the Internet requires some power. Its a little difficult
to determine how much, the subject seems to be a sore point among liberals.
But here are a couple of quotes, estimates:

"U.S. business servers and data centers suck up the energy equivalent of all the electricity consumed by color televisions. The industry uses about the same amount of electricity as 5.8 million average American households."
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/527/compression-could-reduce-data-center-energy-use-by-95.html

"according to Dr. Jon Koomey, scientist at Lawrence-Berkeley labs. The actual number is closer to 1.5 percent [of all Us-generated electricity]"
http://www.podtech.net/home/4183/and-how-much-power-do-all-these-computer-servers-require

"Worldwide data center power demand in 2005 was equivalent (in capacity terms) to about seventeen 1000 MW power plants."
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1748-9326/3/3/034008/

Well, after Al Gore finished inventing the Internet, it seems that he had nothing to do. I heard he had some disappointments hanging around Chad. Then he got over it, and helped to make an inconvenient movie. I hear it was a big hit, though I've never seen it myself. I did hear that one of the authors misplaced a decimal point in one of the calculations, accidentally stating that 23 inches might be 23 feet.

Movies, of course, also require electricity to display, but maybe not so very much. In 2007, a careful sleuth determined that Al Gore's electric bill for his personal residence in Nashville, Tennessee averaged over $1300 per month
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1185475433.pdf
(and he forgot to turn off his lights for "Earth Day" ) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/YeasandNays/Earth-lover-Gore-doesnt-love-Earth-Hour-42081362.html

So now, you ask, since evidently Al Gore has never even heard of me, how is it that I can claim to be one of his important supporters? Its quite simple. As you surmise from my blog, I am a private investor, independent, feisty, extremely successful. I do not know how far my reputation goes but there are signs that at least a few people know about me and a few of my ideas. I've been successful ever since George Bush announced that he wanted to invade Iraq, and I made the simple observation that since Osama Bin Laden had never lived there and all Bush's friend were oil men, probably he wanted the oil. So I bought oil stocks.
However, being an equal opportunist, I also bought coal. I've learned while I've earned. I've learned about US coal reserves, uses, extraction, and shipment. Not the least important is that about half of all electricity generated in the US comes from coal, while the electricity that comes from wind and solar panels is, well, not even enough to power the Internet. I've also received immense returns on my investments. I've also freely posted a whole lot about what I know, in different places on the Internet, so that others can share in the profit.
So you see, all this electricity that Al Gore is inciting other people to use (like, to tell everybody about "global warming"), and all this electricity that he is using himself, has to come from somewhere. Mainly, from coal. I'm doing whatever I can to help out. I hope he appreciates what I do, because I sure appreciate what he does.

Same Story, Different Day

from another buddy,
trying in vain to send out the news
through Yahoo to Beijing:


Excerpt:
<Several countries, such as India and China, give financial incentives either in the form of tax breaks or cash payments to companies producing fossil fuels including coal that are major contributors to climate change.
Dumping subsidies could cut global warming by 10% by 2050, according to figures form the International Energy Agency and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the draft. The G20 will discuss possible ways of phasing out subsidies at their next meeting.
"Inefficient fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, reduce our energy security, impede investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change," the draft reads.
G20 leaders will agree to investigate ways of providing financial help to countries threatened by climate change, according to the draft, and "intensify our efforts" to reach a UN climate change agreement at the upcoming talks in Copenhagen.>>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/g20-communique-pittsburgh

I'm a little suspicious as to what exactly is included when they say they want to eliminate fossil fuel "subsidies" in terms of the G20.

Countries like Iran, Saudi, and Ven certainly subsidize consumption but my concern would be that they also eliminate certain legitimate tax deductible expenses for the fossil fuel industry....expenses that are necessarily incurred to carry on in business.

Witness what was done recently in the US with regard to some previously deductible expenses. Are we to see more of the same?

If that's the plan, the effect on new energy supplies will be much more immediate and trump normal geological depletion (which is already a tough hurdle to beat) and put us back to the stone age in no time. Surely, these knuckleheads aren't thinking along those lines while at the same time thinking alternatives can make up the difference on an even more accelerated timeline????

I shudder to think that if such plans are in place how the industry will ever be able to come up with the necessary capital to even come close to meeting our energy needs but is this all part of the master plan?

Are the elites wanting to create energy shortages so they can justify rationing and gain more power over us?

This elite-sponsored govt interference is actually more dangerous than peak oil is because it accelerates the timeline and the speed at which the alternatives need to be ramped up to offset declining fossil fuel supplies.

And there will be no turning back once the industry's capacity in terms of both capital and the necessary skilled human resources is no longer available.

Of course, this would suit the elites who are pulling all the strings in that it would ensure that everybody would have to tow the line and obey govt in order to get their allotment of rationed energy wouldn't it?

I never thought about this before but it makes sense to me now.

In an energy constrained world, we are much more likely to be faced with a more dominant government and that's not a good thing.

Censorship

From time to time, the national news media bring up issues relating to
Chinese censorship on the Internet, often in relation to american companies
such as Yahoo aiding and abetting. As usual, we may have here yet another case
of the shill master trying to divert your attention from what is really going on.

I did not blog about the time I tried to post something on Yahoo about
the seventh planet in our solar system, and the name was replaced with "U)(*&&&%%$".
That was just too funny, but also too trivial to write about.

A friend of mine has been trying all week to post the following post
on one of the (USA) yahoo finance message bases. Every time he tries to
post it, the post is blocked, with no explanation. He emailed it to me
and I tried to post it there under my handle. Yahoo still blocks it.

"I'm not sure I believe the judicial system is all that independent anymore."

Oh yes it is. Don't buy the jive about that.

Yes, the mortgage bag holders know they've got to get the law changed now. They are toast. I suspect most of the states will rule the same way. What the wall street idiots did with the MBSs, or CDOs, or whatever, simply ignored the law. They wanted to turn mortgage lending into a casino.

To do that, you've got to grease the palms of the best gubment money can buy, like they did for years. They were so confident they could buy every Fed. regulator and politician in town they thought they didn't have to worry about the small time state judges. Big mistake.

Obviously, something has to be done. But at this point, I'm not sure what can be done. Obama says no more bailouts. I suspect Ben feels the same way. The recovery of the market takes the CDO crowd's leverage away. And Phil Graham no longer rules the Senate.

And the state court judges don't give a shiess about any of the above.


Bob

Well, lets see if Google will allow me to post it here ...