Thomas Friedman on Energy

I am curious about prediction #1. It really depends on the speed that oil is phased out, but oil and its trade are a huge economic engine in the world economy.

If one or more large consumers suddenly cut back in consumption the economic ripple effect could actually be devastating world wide.

However, it really depends on how quickly such a transition takes place.

Energy is the economic issue and always will be. As long as energy is cheap enough to be largely ignored in when calculating the cost of making and shipping products then the world economies trade freely and rapidly.

Cheap alternative energy will cause a lot of economic problems but the cheaper it is the faster we will get to those problems and the faster we get over those problems. The country that manages the coming alternatives best will be the one with the best, cheapest options and the most brain power devoted to developing it.

The problems cheap, clean energy cause won't be any worse than oil price shocks as we run out or various countries start listening to China's demands rather than the US's. The more we fight for oil the worse the economic shocks will be.

Hello, TVP45,

Are New York Times, Meet the Press the web links? If they are, unfortunately, they don't work.

I'm sharing completely viewpoint 2), admitting that "garage workshops" is such a figure of speech.

regards, caramba

The New York Times is a newspaper. Meet the Press, a TV program, should have been written as "Meet the Press". My bad.

Just what I would expect from a CDLH (Crabby Domestic Long Hair).

I generally agree with you. But, we're in the middle of a presidential race that may prove critical. Neither candidate will really address the economy. They say things like "I'll cut your taxes more than.... will." when what I need to know is what their plan is to address our low level of R&D spending, our rate of saving (which I think is now negative), what happens if China floats the Yen against the dollar, and so on.

There are two opinion columnists, Friedman and Krugman, who seem privy to real intentions of the two candidates and, so, I try to read them. They are on slightly opposite sides of center so that I get a more or less balanced view.

I am concerned about Friedman's statements since that approach seems to preclude multi-million (billion?) pilot plants needed for solar. But, I'll watch him for a while and see.

TVP,

I am surprised.

"They are on slightly opposite sides of center so that I get a more or less balanced view."

Can there be a "balanced view" of a system completely given over to a chaotic production of commodities based on one or another producer's view of how much market there will or won't be, how much money he can charge for his commodity or can't charge depending on what his competitors will charge, how cheap a product he can make depending on how low a price he must have in order to undercut said competitor......???

If you are expecting anything rationally related to this economic system...???

j.

Please try to be a little kinder. Try to not generalize people. After all, its not like they are lawyers or salesmen.

I agree with Del as far as the economist's reliability goes.

However I do see economists as being useful. They are the shepherds of society. They convince the sheep which way they should go. And the sheep follow along blithely.

Meanwhile those that can think for themselves figure out how to achieve the best out come based on where the sheep are likely to be heading.

Backyard and garage workshops are unlikely to bring about a total change in our energy system. They may contribute to gains in efficiency but I just can't see the paradigm shift that we need coming from a home garage.

I suspect that the increasing cost of pollution and energy shortages will push the cost of power up to a point where alternative sources become more viable.

If a new power source does become available, such as Cold Fusion, then all the old coal fired power stations become redundant as soon as the new plants can take over the base load.

The increased cost of power and the possibility of a new power source may well be the reason that our state government has been trying to sell of the power industry while it still had some value and wouldn't get the politicians a bad name for polluting and pushing the price up. It would also mean that they didn't have to be responsible for a power shortage due to a lack of additional power coming on line.

How delightfully cynical and accurate. Kinda like those that believe, unquestionalbly, the weather forecasters about Global Warming.....or..or...or is it Global Cooling?

I applaud your comment, but his prediction is soooo general that he can't be wrong now can he?

I'm with you 100% on this one Del.

Have they ever got anything right before the event?

Lets see, does a meteorologist and an economist are they the same?

I believe in the UK they throw darts at a board. Is this not true?

Can you explain that whole Y2K thing for me?

Yeh, like I'm going to develop a new photovoltaic cell, or battery technology in my garage....

Maybe an army of DIYers are pressing on with wind generators and solar hot water...but the biggest progress they are making is in raising public awareness of the possibilities.

Industry is very slow in following up with good cheap commercial motors and generators for electric vehicles and wind generators...and similar good stuff.

Del

Hi Del.

http://www.uqm.com/

milo

I would think that if the motors from UQM are that efficient, then one of the major auto manufacturers will adapt one of these motors as an energy saving means. The problem with this is that currently only the heater/air conditioner fan, and the radiator cooling fans run all the time. So the energy savings from these motors will not add very much to the efficiency of today's design cars.

Where these motors will shine, is in a vehicle that is powered be the electric motor. That will require hybrid or electric cars. Then the question will be will the manufacturer buy the company, and own the technology, or pay for use of the technology by purchasing the motors from UQM.

They are for motive force.not likely to be accessory. They have licensed patents to Japan.

Are working on electric humvees and such for our military.

Didn't suggest them for "today's designs" cars- just to point out that there are some savvy motors being developed,

milo

Great post, TVP45. Statement #1 strikes me as an oversimplication. Energy costs are just one part of the total cost of production. American manufacturing isn't moving overseas because nations such as China are so much more energy-efficient, or better at using alternative energy. It's hard to compete with the Chinese on labor costs.

Ironically, however, American industry's dependence on petroleum may bring some jobs back to our own shores - at least for the near future. It's my understanding that there's been a mini-resurgence in manufacturing in the Cleveland, OH area because it's cheaper to build goods domestically than to ship them in from China. Friedman has a longer view of "the future", of course, but I still believe he's oversimplifying things.

Who is Thomas Friedman???

His Wikipedia entry

All the shortage we face now were predicted in 1975. Will Democracy survive the comming shortage is a greater concern.

Read here : http://www.trilateral.org/projwork/tfrsums/tfr08.htm

Prediction or Plan?

I distrust their motivation.

Brad

That's not a bad summary. A transcript of the interview (by Tom Brokaw) is here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26590488/page/5/

Don't under-estimate the garage mechanics! They are the ones who juiced up the cars of the moon shine runners so they could out-run the cops. Their efforts grew into NASCAR! If we wait for the Federal Govt. to solve the automotive fuel energy problem, we'll be waiting forever. If we wait for GM or Ford to solve it, it might come a little sooner. I am running my '84 Mercedes 300 turbo diesel on used cooking oil with a "Greasecar" kit. I get well over 200 miles per gallon of diesel fuel, thanks to the cooking oil. I filter the used oil in my garage. The Greasecar folks started out as DIYers in their own garage. I have another mechanic buddy playing with water electrolysis units and getting over 25% mileage improvement in several cars he installed them on. The telling fact here is he put one on an older car without a catalytic converter and took it to an inspection station for exhaust testing. They found no hydrocarbons! THAT is where the enhanced mileage is coming from! Catalytic converters waste a lot of energy burning the incompletely combusted fuel in the exhaust to produce totally useless heat. If automakers want to improve mileage, enhancing the combustion process so as to eliminate the converters would be a good place to start. Meanwhile, I'm working with my buddy in his back yard garage.

He said that large companies are seeking long-term market stability (meaning, I think, a price floor on oil) before committing to huge developments.

I found it amusing that the auto makers were announcing huge investments in smaller cars, hybrids, etc., just before the crude oil price bubble burst. Now they are taking a wait and see approach because people may want to go back to their big honkin' SUVs.

Maybe the Auto Industry should have saved a lot of that money instead of handing out huge bonuses to a few for so many years.

They are now seeking a $ 50 billion dollar loan from Congress !!!

We have to give them low interest loans to give us fuel effeient vechiles?

Where is the competition in that ?

The biggest reason why the US auto industry has been slumping and loosing competitively is the cost of union labor, not bonus checks.

ALL THE OTHER CAR MAKERS HAVE UNIONS TOO.

Really? Honda Marysville?

Toyota in KY, I thought that the 2007 organizing drive drive didn't go through.

Nippondenso operations in Tennessee?

"ALL THE OTHER CAR MAKERS" is a pretty broad statement.

milo

GM's incredibly generous pension plan has negative financial ramifications for the next 30 years....maybe more. It was their idea to offer it in order to offset skilled labour shortages.

No Japanese auto company offers anything remotely comparable.

Duckinthepond,

Why do you complain about the cost of labor? Labor is just another commodity necessary to production.

In a market where metals were scarce, and a manufacturer therefore offered more money to secure them, would you complain.

If GM offered a juicy retirement plan in order to get the best of a scarce commodity, i.e., labor, why complain.

Just another factor in a chaotic economic system.

j.

I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not the one complaining.

Just stating a fact that GM employees had it pretty good. I'm also suggesting that those days of social benefits are ending because the cost/profit ratios have changed due to a competition that was less than willing to pay for those same benefits....and still doesn't!

It's unfortunate to see a great company getting run down because they can't factor in the costs of re-tooling.

Before feeling too sorry for GM, consider this story

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10lowenstein.html

So TVP,

What is the answer. Is there supposed to always be a huge gap between the rich few and the poor working bastards that are the source of their wealth.

Surely you won't dispute that the wealth of the few is the result of the unpaid labor concealed in a so-called "fair day's work."

Why should the working person accept being ripped off in a system of concealed theft and slavery?

If, with trade union organization they wrested from the big three conditions better than most workers was that not their prerogative or were they to be forced, at the point of a gun, to work for slave wages. In a free country do they not have the right, individually or collectively, to bargain for what they think is a fair wage and to withhold their labor if they don't like the offer?

j.

Duckin..

Their problems started with the occupation of Japan at the end of the war with brand new, state of the art plants (Automation), being built and the presence of the U.S. military helping keep down organization of strong trade unions, hence wages and benefits.

U.S. workers starting in the forties built very powerful unions. They did so despite the company throwing goons at them and trying to beat them into submission.

Did you ever see that picture of Walter Reuther being beaten on a bridge?

Nonetheless, that is a product of competition, it being cheaper and creative of a better product, to invest in Japan. Didn't take them very long to be turning out the best cameras, at least the equal of Germany, in the world at the same time producing lots of low price garbage products which led to the denigration of stuff "Made in Japan."

Without a war you are seeing the same process in Korea and now China. Anybody that says the Chinese are turning out junk products ought to take a look at machine tools and some other high end products.

At the same time, without extensive foreign investment, there are Chinese manufacturers that with limited capital take the low capital road, i.e., cheap stuff that sells in bulk at low prices. That's the stuff that arrives here in brown cardboard boxes with Chinese printed all over them and products that end up in the five and dime.

My reading says they are about to start producing automobiles for export. Want to bet they won't be cheap stuff but rather, as soon as they get the kinks of start-up out, the best in the world although I find it hard to imagine cars better than the Japanese with 300,000 mile engines?

Of course if they are smart they will take the opportunity to come up with a better engine design, like say the Wankel Rotary with the problems solved.

j.

OK ok.......I humbly retract my last statement as having been said in complete and utter ignorance about GM. Their cars and trucks are crap anyway and they've lost their core market edge. The real kick in the teeth are those who will be unemployed as a result of the lack of foresight on their part..

Don't know about cars but I've seen Chinese made optical instruments that rival the best on the market. Must be all those unemployed Swiss engineers teaching them how to do it.

No it started more early, it is all Commander Perry's fault.

The biggest fault IMHO is that american car companies, lived to long on former glory, and kept making the same gazz guzzlers when the market(world) was changing.

I like muscle cars but i am not john Cena who can own 20 of them.

During the early sixties the US car manufacturers were selling everything that rolled off of an assembly line. To allow a strike was unthinkable. As long as the assembly lines kept rolling, money was rolling in. And if my employer was making that much money, I am going to ask for as much money as I think I can get away with. After almost fifteen years of this, the auto workers were making much more money, with much better benefits than a similar worker manufacturing refrigerators, or large air conditioning units.

There were auto manufacturers that were trying to make more practical autos. But the public would not buy them. Remember Ramblers, Nashes, Studebakers, and Checkers? These manufacturers died during these times. The public wanted bigger, wider, more chrome, and more power.

Given the same set of circumstances, would The Japanese auto industry have been different today? Will it be that way tomorrow? What about Korea, and the upcoming Chinese auto industry?

We, the taxpayer, courtesy of our politicians, have a history of rewarding some purely bone headed actions. We just bailed out Fannie and Freddie to keep the ship from sinking. This ship was commisioned by congress to make loans to people who wouldn't be able to stand the scrutiny of private sector lenders.

Now Detroit wants a bailout. The auto industry needs to be able to stand on its own and the sooner it happens the better.

I think Thomas Friedman would be the first to admit his lack of technical knowledge.

He's doing his best to motivate those WITH technical knowledge to see what he calls ET (Energy Technology) as more than a niche market; i.e., to MAKE it more than a niche market by mobilizing and being part of that industry.

I would agree that it wasn't garage inventors that developed the technology that got us to the moon. The spirit of Friedman's effort is more akin to the proverbial "it was drawn up on a napkin in a coffe shop" idea. If you get enough qualified people seriously involved in looking for energy solutions and/or modalities, it increases the chances of solving the problem.

Thomas Friedman is not an economics reporter, but a very well respected International Affairs journalist for the New York Times. He has a keen insight into the Middle East, having started as a reporter covering OPEC for the NY Times in 1981. Here's a link to his bio on his Website:

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/about-the-author - sorry, link no longer available

His books and articles on the Middle East, Globalization, and International Politics are very insightful and thought provoking. Not saying I agree with him on everything, but have found his articles to be very well reasoned and researched.

I would like to make a comment!

As you said that the country that develops a new alternative energy system will lead the world economy for the future I feel this is true But I have my reservations that it will come from our own country here in the united states.

Because of the mind set of most of the people here meaning the engineers ,power companies and our own Government most of them that I have talked to are very close minded on energy efficency. They do not want to even look at products that may or may not work. Just because some thing in the past did not work does not mean all the new technologies will not work.

I have seen this first hand!

A couple of guy's I know developed a technology and product that will cut the power consumed on home appliances by 5 to 30 percent and sometimes even more. But everytime they try to get some engineers to evaluate this technology before they even see or test the technology out they say you can't do this or it can't be done.

What I would like to know is how can they state that it does not work if they have failed to even evaluate the technology or product. They fail to take into consideration that with the develoment of other technologies like micro chips and other technologies in the past 10 years that it can be done now.

I have personally seen it work and have seen letters from some others that have tried it and they also state that what they see is that it does perform as stated.

These guy's have tried to get different agencies in our own Government and power companies to just evaluate it .But all that happens is they get passed from one person to another with no resolve.And they had a couple of power companies that did test it and they said yes it does work but we can not endorse a product because we are in the business of selling power not conserving it. (What about the new light bulbs) These guys even called the Energy Star Agency and were told that that they could not get thier technology tested because there was not a standard for this technology. Even all these conservation groups that are out there they sent information out to a many of them but recieved no reply these organizations seem to say lets find a way to stop polluting our world but don't wish to hear about someething that can help all they do is talk about is ways they think might help . But when asked to review this technology they get no reply except Please help us and send donations to what ever .How can this help if they are only interested in is getting you to join them and send them money. So this is why I say if we are going to be so close minded on new technologies how can we become a leader in the world in the field of energy efficency.

I truly beleive that the technology that can and will help us is already here .All we need to do is take a real look at what is really available from even the guys who start out in thier garages. And do this at no cost because so many new technologies are lost because of the lack of capital of the guys who develope them.Think of it this way if we just implement the technologies that are available now we can and could reach the goals set by our Government on energy efficency way before the deadline.

We need to find a way to get all the available technologies that are already here and get them tested by a creditable agency at no cost and prove them to be true or false . Then the ones that really work they should be implemented like the new light bulbs that all the power companies are pushing and advertising about .

I really would like to hear your comments and reply.

We need to stop being so close minded and do what it will take to get these technologies in the hands of the reight people or organizations so they won't be flushed down the toilet. We have the minds and knowlege to really make a difference what are we sitting on our hands for and waiting for some other country to become the leader lets show the world what we can do.

Stand up and be counted

The Microman

Well said Microman! Like I mentioned in #24, we'll be waiting forever for the federal govt to solve the problem, and maybe not quite as long for GM & Ford to solve it.I hate when some so called "expert" says some idea is impossible just upon hearing about it. I always want to correct him and say, "Don't you mean, we don't know how to do that YET?" A mind is like a parachute- it works best when opened. Us "Garage Guys" work at the grass roots level. We can tinker and get proto types that prove a technology without a multi-million dollar budget and stage-gate review processes, and that is being done today. I have discovered some interesting ideas that ended up in patents because I didn't know that something wasn't supposed to work.

Speaking of "waiting forever...", has any of you seen any of the inventions featured on either of the two seasons of "American Inventor" as having been (brought to market) yet?...

I suspect that there have been serious issues involving who is going to get how much of a "cut" of the royalties for which the various television (entities...) are still (lawyerizing) over, having been the (vehicles of public promotion) for said American inventions...

What's to say that the home-grown, energy-related improvements, developed by such (garage-guys), won't similarly be (stalled) as well?...

Microman,

Get your friends to put their thing on the table here and let us evaluate it.

You can't find a more diverse group for that purpose.

Talking about something and complaining about it not getting a hearing or evaluation does not cut it because without the thing itself we don't know if the rejections are valid or not.

j.

What you have encountered is the standard, bureaucratic, mindset of, essentially, (don't bother me with work that I have not been directed to do).

What they WILL respond to is directions from (higher authority) to work on (evaluating) it. So, what you need is a higher authority that someone might actually listen to.

Therefore, maybe you should consider trying to contact someone like T. Boone Pickens, before someone in (Asia) can copy it...

I think that engineers are slow to look at some guy's garage invention because they've been 'burned' too many times. Some guy tugs on an engineers sleeve and say's "Hey look what I thought up", and after spending valuable time trying to decipher the guys invention finally realises that it comes down to perpetual motion or something else that is even more inefficient than the system it proposes to replace.

When the first "oil crises" hit back in the early '70's I started riding bicycles and switched to efficient autos, and although I had to give up bikes I have stayed with small cars ever since. I like to think I learned something. It has always amazed me to watch my fellow Americans just forget what happened and go right back to big vehicles.

I've always appreciated doing something efficiently and cleanly.

Sailboats, not power boats. Hang gliding, not airplanes. Although in our society it requires dedication. I truly hope the price of oil goes so high that people will stop using noisy powerboats, I hate 'em.

Thanx for lettin' me rant. steve

My sailboat has an auxilliary gas engine (Atomic 4). Yesterday I filled it up for the first time in three years and it cost me $57.85. I then began complaining until the power boat guy said to me, "you have nothing to complain about, it just cost me $400 to fill up".

My sailboat was on Lake Erie before the former owner brought in to MA. I trust you are on Lake Ontario. We have a lot of sailors from the Great Lakes who sail for the NCAA national championship Boston College sail team out of our yacht club in Boston Harbor. Go BC! Go sail! Power boats are bad!

I have a 21' Sirius on Georgian Bay. It has a retractable keel which allows me to get close to shore ...and a very powerfull 9 horse Merc which gets me up to the blistering speed of 1/2 knot.

I've seen the tupperware cruisers fill up with $10,000 worth of fuel!