Topic awaiting preservation: - The Phoenix Project - (Page 1 of 1)

This is pretty interesting, I thought some of you might like this.

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The Phoenix Project - The Phoenix Project is the only realistic 5 or 10-year plan that would allow the U.S. to shift from fossil and nuclear fuels to wind-powered hydrogen production systems, which would include modifying every existing vehicle - including aircraft - to use hydrogen fuel.

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What are the chances of this actually happening? I would bet against it, considering the fact that so many people, including the US gov't, are highly invested in the oil business, but who knows.


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GN: This kind of thing is what we need to do asap but I suspect there are too many vested interested to go down this road

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

I completely agree that there are too many vested interests to make this happen ASAP. This will happen when this technology becomes cost effective. Of course, if Emps is correct, it will be too late to matter.

I agree with you bugs, except one thing -

This will happen when it becomes profitable, not when it becomes cost-effective.

I'm no economist but I thought profitable factored into cost-effectiveness. Either way, your point is well taken. There is no motivation for providing a product if there is no profit potential.

Well...this could actually go another way too...they'd provide it only if, not that it was profitable, but less unprofitable than any other solution

[This message has been edited by Skaarjj (edited 12-09-2003).]

Well, it definatly will be profitable to the guy who owns the company, and perhaps he is
some sort of get it done no matter what sort of guy like Bill Gates, and this will happen.


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Yup... the reason we won't be seeing this anytime soon is the same reason we don't (and probably never will) have a universal cure for AIDS. Sad, but true.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

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perhaps he is
some sort of get it done no matter what sort of guy like Bill Gates, and this will happen

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The problem is that in order to accomplish something like this, you are battling over a century over established imperialistic corporate practice by multiple powerful nations that has kept the middle east in turmoil and war in an effort to keep the profits of the oil industry rolling.

The mechanisms that can keep that level of control over numerous nations and compete on global levels is a *bit* harder to tackle than the average (or even the above average) business aversaries.

Considering the alternatives i think it might be possible for something like the Phoenix Project to be implemented in the next 10 to 20 years, and possibly even on a larger scale then the US only.

For many people economy is undergoing a change in its fundamental value set. An economic profit is not neccesarily defined as how to make most money in the shortest possible time, but more a measure of how well balanced and long lived an investment will turn out.

Sustainability is a key issue in developing a healthy economical system. In this regard many sound principles can be gathered from enviromental systems. Building in accord with the world that surrounds us, both on an enviromental, psycholigical and economical basis, is a principal that we may very well see recurring frequently, and eventually integrating itself into large companies and governments.

In the end its more a matter of change in the people that constitute our buisnesses than changing our econimic systems. The last follows from the first.

But it could be very interresting to see a system developed that took into account all these issues, building a model for a future econimic and social/political system that would make a bit more sense than the one we are living in.

Well..... i'm too hungry to concentrate, must go make food - i hope there has been a minimum of coherence in what i wrote, and would love to elaborate.

For some very interresting/catching reading on, among many ohers, the subject above, i reccomend the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson... This is a book that can definately change the outlook on the future, sculpting in our idea space some very beautiful possibilities. Definately worth reading.

Now; FOOD!

Welcome, Salva It's a very interesting point of view you offer.

DL-44, how can you blame the turmoil in the ME on anyone but the nations of the ME? Outside nations have worked with the turmoil to keep the oil flowing but hardly have caused the wars themselves.

. . : slicePuzzle

I find the prospect of the Phoenix Project interesting. I remember just after President Bush's State of the Union Address this year reading an article about FreedomCAR and FreedomFuel (cheesy hyper-patriotic names, I know) I found it noteworthy that the administration was willing to put $1.7 billion into R & D for automobiles and infrastructure development to begin within the next 5 years. Now I recognize that compared to the defense budget and everything else that $1.7 billion is a drop in the hat. But considering that a lot of the technology to make this work already exists and is viable, I can see maybe where that amount might be enough.

Some discussion has evolved around the topic of vested interests getting in the way of the development for such an important alternative fuel source, primarily regarding the oil companies. Tell me how much business sense it would make for them to only rely on oil as their profit making engine? They know that oil is a finite resource. Most companies that I know are in the business of staying in business. I think it would be incredibly short-sighted on the part of these companies to not have invested in many alternative fuel sources simply for the sake of staying in business once oil becomes too scarce to profitably market. The people who run these businesses may not be the nicest people in the world, but I can hardly call them stupid.

Hydrogen technology is like every other new technology. It starts out expensive and not as efficient as it could be, but as time passes (ususally not very long periods of time) it grows and develops into something more affordable. Computers, DVD players, the automobile itself... they have all had their evolution. Granted, I think 5 years may be a bit overly optimistic for widespread use of hydrogen power, but I can certainly see 10 not being out of the question.

Here are a couple of articles regarding existing technology:
Article 1
Article 2

Now that I've just spent the last few paragraphs lauding the efforts of the drive towards hydrogen power, I have one question to pose: The main focus of greenhouse gases has been Carbon Dioxide as the primary culprit in global warming, however water vapor itself is a much more effective greenhouse gas. In our search for a "cleaner" energy source, could we be condemning ourselves to a much warmer future?

[edit] By the way: Welcome Salva! I'll have to check out that book by Kim Stanley Robinson. I just finished another book by the same author, The Years of Rice and Salt Very thought provoking, but that is a discussion for another thread... [/edit]

[This message has been edited by Moon Dancer (edited 12-11-2003).]

Thanks for the welcome, Moon and Bug

Very nicely put Moon. Companies are in the buisness of staying in buisness. This I think, on top level management, is a very important maxim. Although, as regards major changes in technology and infrastructure i dont think that there can be any doubt that all the big players on the international scene, are going to 'milk the cow dry' for as long as it is possible at all. As long as there is still a couple of hundred (thousand?) billions to be made from a standing technology, i'll be damned if they would release it's replacement (Or they will be damned?? ). So i would belive it necessary that in some way there must be a slight change in buisness ethics before we are able to see new technology/infrastructure appearing on the scene when it is actually needed, instead of when it is economically viable. And what it takes to reach this is a complex matter .

Moon - i'll look into Years of Rice and Salt

Bugimus - it's very clear that, although there has always been turmoil in the Middle East, first the European powers in the late 19th/early 20th century, and then Russia and the US somehwat later, have overtly, blatantly, and very intentionally fostered war and strife in the region.

I have to say that, with the facts available, this can't even be called "opinion".

The british and the french seized everything possible after the Ottoman empire was pushed out, and broke the region up in small slices between themselves, each with their own puppet kings....encouraging dictatorship and monarchy rather than the democracy they carried on about so much at home.

We've set up and supported such governments ourselves, and always for our own financial benefits.

Peace for the middle east is bad for business, quite frankly.

I don't really see how peace in the middle east could be bad for business. It would seem that if there was peace, it would be cheaper and easier to get a larger quantity of oil and they could still sell it for the same high price, thus increasing their profit margin.

Very simple: if there is peace, there is no reason for foreign governments to have a militray presence there, and little possibility for such powers to control the area through puppet kingsm and therefore control the flow of oil.

If peaceful and unified democraices were set up, with nations being fully self sufficient and not dependent on foreign aid, they could control their own oil and dictate the prices to the rest of the world.

If you have a hard time grasping that, just take a look at our own country.

How insane are the price increases that have taken place over the last few decades?
Quite simply, we ahve - by and large - exported our lower class. We buy things far cheaper over seas, because American workers demand too high a wage for many things to remain affordable.

We prosper because we rely on nations that do not.

Note that I am not passing judgement on these issues. They are simply the way things are. Opinions of them are another matter....

I see. As you can tell, I'm not to into the economics of politics.

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We buy things far cheaper over seas, because American workers demand too high a wage for many things to remain affordable.

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So basically we demand higher wages so we can afford nicer things, and the nice things we are buying for such high prices, cost the businesses little to produce, so the rich get richer, and the middle class man stays middle class. Not making enough money to push on to the upper-class, and continuing to buy useless expensive stuff that is made for cheap.


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[This message has been edited by Gilbert Nolander (edited 12-11-2003).]

More or less. With, of course, a great deal of room for variation and exception.

Now, as a little further discussion of the issue of US/French/British/Russian control of the area, take a look at the events in Iran in the 70's/80's.

Iran was legitimately in danger of becoming a self-empowered quasi-democratic nation. Things were good for the Iranians, and prosperity had a real possibility of showing it's face.

They were beginning to control their own destiny, having overthrown the puppet of the hour.

Things were getting a little hectic for the US, and the Iranians, unfortunately for them, made the threat of forgoing existing economic arrangments in favor of an 'alliance' of sorts with Russia.

I think the rest is well enough known that I don't have to repeat it....

DL-44 is right - it is alot like Hydralic Kingdoms...we could call it Hydrocarbon Kingdoms...

This won't end, until the Oil is gone...because, like it or not, at this point in our history, Oil is the source of our Energy. Therefore, He who controls the flow, controls, period. If the Arabs ever really threatened to cut off this flow...what do you think would happen?

To keep such from happening, divide, and conquer.

Don't you think the Middle East would be aware of this,and realize that the best way to defeat the US would be to unite and create peace through out the region? I mean, you would think that they could over-come their religious differences at least to the point of creating some sort of business union.


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Often, the people of these nations are kept relativbely ignorant of such issues through government control of education.

Quite often you have some very opportunistic people who push their way to the top and negotiate deals that keep them rich, to the detriment of the common people.

You are thinking very idealistically, and ideals have little place in such struggles.
As John Galsworthy notes - ?Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.?

YoU have a lot of people suffering, and many of them don't know why.
You have a lot of people profiting, on both sides of the fence. It's good to be king. And a lot of people are willing and eager to enjoy the benefits associated regardless (or sometimes even because) of what it does to other people.

In that regard, you can certainly say that the people of the middle east are at fault for the strife in their own regions.

But is very often the result of a select few who accept the deals offered them by foreign nations, selling out the people for a taste of luxury. These same people often push (or allow to be pushed) strict religious dogma on the people, maintaining the cycle of violence and submission.



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 12-12-2003).]

I can see better where you're coming from on this, DL-44. I agree with a fair amount of your last post. But there are some things that don't quite sound right though.

For instance, it would be far cheaper and better for us in a purely economic and security sense for there to be a stable and peaceful Middle East. In fact, that is exactly what we want but is also exactly what has not been possible due to the Middle East itself. We, foreign powers with our selfish economic interests primarily oil, have accepted the reality of the Middle Eastern political situation and have worked WITH it instead of forcing societal change in the region. This is quite often the only thing that can be done because you cannot simply change an entire culture's mind set no matter how hard you try if the mindset is so deeply entrenched.

You are absolutely right that the governments of the region keep the people down with a heavy secular hand often couple with a viscious religious idealogy. I'm thinking that Saudi Arabia is a perfect example of this. The Saudi royals are basically secular and powerful and they only maintain power because they have made a power deal with the Wahabi leaders that breed much of the terrorist mentality we see the manifestations of today.

(Wahabi -- Puritanical Saudi Islamic sect founded by Muhammad ibn-Abd-al-Wahab (17031792), which regards all other sects as heretical. By the early 20th century it had spread throughout the Arabian peninsula it still remains the official ideology of the Saudi Arabian kingdom.)

But take the Iran/Iraq war. We did not start that war no more than the Soviets did. We both supported each side of that struggle as it related to our Cold War priorities. But the war itself was fought between the secular creep Hussein and the religious creep Khomeni.

No. We want stable democratic trading partners just like Japan and Germany are now. We do not want turmoil and extremely expensive troop deployments overseas. But the Middle East is such a huge complicated mess once you factor in the Israelis and all the history involved that I really don't see anything close to a real solution for many years to come. But what has begun in Iraq is a start in the right direction no matter how flawed the impolentation is as we get bogged down in the reconstruction. (Yes, I know we have a thread devoted to Iraq but it is very pertinent to this discussion as well)

Its some very interresting subjects this is broaching on.

I agree that the middle east confilict is mostly to be blamed on the middle east itself. They could try harder, they could agree on things, cooperate, eventually unite. If Europe/US are to be involved in this conflict, it can hardly be said that we did much more than "rustle the embers, and the flames sprang up again" (sorry; lacking a proper metaphor). There is no doubt that people in the ME as in the west are equally opportunistic, and profit from suppressing growth in some weird fashion.

It all comes back to economy in a sense (economy as a gauge for power)
One of the most profitable buisnesses in this world is war. Huge amounts of money are spent on war, and for some parties there is a definate interrest in keeping the world(countries in the world) in a state of possible conflict.
I once met a guy (a middle aged american war vet/patriot ) who opened my eyes to a level of international economic manouvering i hadnt thought of before. He told me that the best interrest of any development country / 3rd world country was to go to war with the US. This would result in the country being bombed to smitherenes and the government being overthrown. Then they would be given a huge amount of money to rebuild and have a democratic government take over, thereby becoming a part of he western civilised world... (he was a real fart in my eyes). Apart from the death of many people it actually sounds like a viable solution... untill i realised that the money they are given to rebuild are a LOAN. Thus they are introduced to the international economic system. They owe us money, so we are allowed to pressure them to participate on an entirely different level than before. In essence, we own them, just without occupying them (for too long).

A bit scary i think. Please note that this is not an anti american attitude, more like an anti economic. The US is merely a tool in such a ploy. Also please note that this is not a theory that comes with direct evidence. It is merely an observation on the mechanics of economical behaviour in warfare, something that can be traced back a long way. For most people this wont be news, rather it is so obvious that it is easily forgotten.

So, to actually try to get to a point. We can always blame individuals/groups for the happenings and the misery going on in specific places, but we must never forget that there is more than one game being played. For some people it is going out into the street and shoot somebody you have been taught to hate, for others it is making another couple of billion bucks from people you have been taught to not really care about. In the end we must be able to see as much of the whole picture as possible to be able to say what is going on, and to be able to do something about it.

Oh well......

just one thing

DL-44:

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As John Galsworthy notes - ?Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.?

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tell that to a palistani - or an isrealite - i would judge them quite idealistic.... if i understand you right.

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and have worked WITH it instead of forcing societal change in the region

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What we have worked with is the existing conflicts created by the carving up of the region by the british and french at the end of WWI. We have played puppet regimes against each other.

To say that all we did was "support" iraq, and russia "support" Iran in their war against each other is plain silly, IMO.

Our hands are so deeply into that whole scenario, and our weapons, our puppets, our interests so much a part of it, that it can be called war by proxy in all reality.

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such a huge complicated mess once you factor in the Israelis and all the history involved

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Another prime example of "western" interference that helped perpetuate ware and strife in the region.

When talking about this issue, I think that it is essential to take things back to worold war one. Things started before that, but that was a very decisive point in all of this.

To say that we want to avoid "expensive" troop deployments missews the point, I think. Yes, it costs the taxpayers money, but war makes a great deal of money for corporations. And to think that anything other than corporations own the majority of politicians is plain dangerous.

To say that the people of the Middle East bear the blame for their situation is to deny the involvement we as a group of nations (the same 4 I've mentioned before) have had in installing and supporting the governments that have kept the people ignorant and bred hositility.

By 'idealism' I personally (can't speak for the author of that quote) refer to the "why can't they all get along" train of thought that seems to pervade popular opinion.

They can't all get along, in large part, because they have been pushed around, displaced from their homes, murdered, etc by a variety of people, and left in a situation where violence is constantly around them that a lot of them don't have the luxury of looking objectively at the situation from afar, saying "well, gee, they should just stop".

When you are fighting for your right to live in the land that is yours (whether that assumption is real or imagined), the ide aof just giving up and not fighting isn't as viable as it seems from elsewhere.



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 12-12-2003).]

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To say that all we did was "support" iraq, and russia "support" Iran in their war against each other is plain silly, IMO.

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Why is that? By support I mean everything we did by way of weapons, intelligence, money, etc. I just wanted to use one word instead of spelling it all out.

But again, I'm seeing a clearer picture. You are going back to the end of the colonial age and the slicing and dicing after WWI. Yes, there is certainly a great deal of problems created that can be blamed on western powers in that regard. You are not getting an argument from me on that point.

I am willing to acknowledge any and all things that happened in the past that did not help the current situation and in some cases spurred it on. But I have to continue to stress that no one can make the nations and peoples of the ME hate one another. That is something they have direct control over and it is the main reason there is unrest there.

I can't help but see a parallel in what we're discussing here. In the US, we are very familiar with Affirmative Action and the Great Society programs that were instituted as a direct result and effort to make up for past injustices primarily perpetrated against the African slaves and their offspring. I think it was justified to spend millions upon millions of dollars in reparations to those former slaves and their children. But that is compensation for the damage that was done.

In no way shape or form is monetary compensation equivalent to healing or repairs of the actual damage done to the victims. That can only be done by the victims themselves. Once the shackles have been removed, the oppressor can say sorry and pay damages but he cannot repair the psychological, physical, emotional, etc. damages.

In like fashion I feel you are making the argument that since we, western nations in general, were involved in the past damages that this somehow shifts some of the responsibility for healing in the region to us. If you want to talk about an international affirmative action plan for the ME, then you just might get my serious attention. This is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about NOT making our rebuilding costs in Iraq loans! But no matter how much money and good will you pour into the region, if the hate and idealogical filth continues in the hearts and minds, it's all for naught.

About the Israel/Palestinian struggle, it was the UN who created 2, yes 2 states in 1948; one Jewish and one Arab. It is the Arabs who have never accepted that AND it is the Arabs who instructed the Palestinians to leave their homes as their tanks rolled in to wipe out the Zionist scum. The displaced Palestinians fully expected to come right back in a short while after the cleansing was complete. This reason this struggle continues to this day is because the Arab world in general has never accepted the creation of a Jewish state in the first place. They are the ones who have made sure the Palestinians remain in a state of fugitive because it helps to put pressure on the world community to pull support of the right of a Jewish nation to exist. This struggle will go on as long as the hatred of Israel burns strong and I do not say the same about Israel because it is and has been ready for a settlement for many years now.

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. . : slicePuzzle

[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 12-12-2003).]

But there's one huge;y important part of this that you seem to be choosing to ignore.

I'm not simply talking about "past damages".

I don't refer to the history simply so that we can look back and say "this happened then".

It was the start of a pattern of western control that has not stopped.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not by any means saying that if we jsut walked away, the whoel region would be peaceful.

There is a great deal of pure ignorance in the region, and long burning hatreds, religious disputes, etc, that aren't going to simply go away.

But without our constant involvement, and our constant support of warfare in the region, and our setting up of dictatorships that have perpetuated the ignorance, hatred and poverty, there is a good chance that by this point, the region would be far more stable than it is now.

It's great that you acknowledge the past wrongdoings, but I think you are in a great deal of denial over the current continuation of our corporate-political exertion of control.

{edit - as for Israel, I'll have to refresh my knowledge of certain things before I can get back to that on any specific basis. To paint Israel as innocent in this is out of the question, however. If we're going to talk about who is "more" guilty, that's very open to discussion.}



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 12-13-2003).]