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Re: Why this time - it really is different,[ the commodity supercycle ]
What do you grow your maize from after you've run out of fertilizer? The world will run into a shortage of nitrogen and phosphorous that can be used by crops. Further more, energy crops compete for land with food crops. If you want to offset a significant amount of oil imports by energy from crops, the price of food will sky-rocket.
So in short, there's no easy alternative for energy/minerals, at least not on short term. To avert the upcoming resources/energy crisis, rather than focus on alt-e right now, attention should be shifted towards reducing the energy/resources footprint. Some suggestions:
- reduce energy needs for transportation by making people live closer to work, or by increasing teleworking (I wonder what the daily energy uses are of teleworking compared to transport to work btw).
- reduce food consumption to levels needed to sustain a healthy body rather than to become/stay obese.
- improve longelivety of consumer goods. Labour for repair and high quality goods are too expensive compared to the current price of energy and resources. Higher quality of goods can be sanctioned by laws/regulation, labour can be subsidized if it doesn't come down enough due to the current depression.
- change the mentality of society to become less focused on material needs and more towards spirituality? No idea if this can be changed directly or if it is an effect of other factors.
- Shift political thinking to long-term (50-100+ years). I fear that also implies that current worldpowers will start wars over resources and energy in e.g. Africa.
That said, I think there are plenty of business opportunities by selecting waste containing soon-to-be-depleted minerals from western society and storing it until extraction/recycling becomes profitable.
Originally posted by rjwjr
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So in short, there's no easy alternative for energy/minerals, at least not on short term. To avert the upcoming resources/energy crisis, rather than focus on alt-e right now, attention should be shifted towards reducing the energy/resources footprint. Some suggestions:
- reduce energy needs for transportation by making people live closer to work, or by increasing teleworking (I wonder what the daily energy uses are of teleworking compared to transport to work btw).
- reduce food consumption to levels needed to sustain a healthy body rather than to become/stay obese.
- improve longelivety of consumer goods. Labour for repair and high quality goods are too expensive compared to the current price of energy and resources. Higher quality of goods can be sanctioned by laws/regulation, labour can be subsidized if it doesn't come down enough due to the current depression.
- change the mentality of society to become less focused on material needs and more towards spirituality? No idea if this can be changed directly or if it is an effect of other factors.
- Shift political thinking to long-term (50-100+ years). I fear that also implies that current worldpowers will start wars over resources and energy in e.g. Africa.
That said, I think there are plenty of business opportunities by selecting waste containing soon-to-be-depleted minerals from western society and storing it until extraction/recycling becomes profitable.
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