Dire Times and the New Currency, Energy

We are not living in the best of times.  That may be a huge understatement.  Do I think as a country we are going to fall off the cliff.  I guess if I had to pick yes or no, it would be yes.  The yes comes from our inability to see that times have changed, our position in the world has changed. 

We are no longer the richest country in the world by almost any standard.  And our live style is declining by all standards.  Why? Is it us?  Is it our rotten politicans who clearly work no longer for us but to be re-elected?  Well, perhaps in part. Our addiction to consuming and our politicians self interest makes a hard problem almost impossible to solve. 

Energy, cheap energy to be more specific is a thing of the past.  It is no body's fault.  It was given as a gift to us by mother nature and we have squantered most of it ... well, the part that is possible to pump quickly to the surface anyway.  Saudi Arabia is sit sitting on a gold mine, but it is already shrinking so fast that their next generation of the royal family are not getting the stipens they have grown accustomed to.  Bribes to fix stuff in the U.S. political system are not coming as fast as before.  Economic bailouts to buy American military equipment are down.  And, they are having trouble paying off the terrorists to keep them from turning on the hand that feeds them.   But, that is just one small point on the planet.

Nuclear power seems to be the only short term solution and the democrat party will never admit this.  France now gets 72 % of their energy or similar from nuclear power plants.  They now sell power to Europe.  The risks associated with nuclear waste, which are very manageable from my engineering perspective, are small compared to what is going to happen to our society has energy becomes unaffordable.  With affordable energy, all other economic problems are fixable.  Without it, no other economic problem, including health care, is managable.  Our currency is going to go down the tube to prove this point, since it is based on nothing, it has no Energy, the new currency, behind it.

It gives me on satisfaction to say this problem has been coming for a long time and we have been sticking our heads in the soil.  But, that is the way it is.  Carter, Nixon, Clinton, Bush 1 and Bush 2 all gave great speechs about energy and then did very little.  Obama has spoke waxed eloquent on the subject, but it is not his highest priortiy.  If he has to pick medical or energy problems to address with his popularity, the correct long term answer is energy.  It is the foundation on which are society is based.  Energy will give us the "energy" to address the medical problems.  Until then, some rule changes in the medical field would carry us for a few more years and allow us to address the one problem that will not go away, how to power the world we have created on low cost energy.

Well more later.  When I will try to do better stating the obvious.  A world built on cheap energy quits working when cheap energy runs out.