Great interview, Bari. I love how you come into these with a good set of respectable, on-point set of questions that steer to the central issues of the topic. I do have one frustration though about the discussions about ‘where are we going, is trouble inevitable’. That is that we COULD grow out of this hole by restarting United States’ e…
Great interview, Bari. I love how you come into these with a good set of respectable, on-point set of questions that steer to the central issues of the topic.
I do have one frustration though about the discussions about ‘where are we going, is trouble inevitable’.
That is that we COULD grow out of this hole by restarting United States’ energy production and letting the industries ramp back up! They would then do a combination of: a) backing down the horribly costly use of “renewables”, and b) back down both our own importation of foreign energy sources or more significantly allowing us to supplement our allys’ energy - thereby freeing up their domestic production of products we all need.
This isn’t small at all. Energy is the engine of our lives. It has been since cave men learned how to make fire. We can’t make products without energy, we can’t produce fertilizer for our crops without it. We’re starting to get what I’ll call “GDP anemic” and it’s going to be more and more painful.
Don’t let the self confused double think that the John Kerrys blurt that “carbon offsets” fix global warming: every barrel of oil burned releases the same amount of CO2 whether it was drilled in USA, Saudi Arabia, etc. (and Natural Gas makes much more electricity for every molecule of carbon fuel burned than any other).
Finally, NO we can’t escape the need for energy production by transforming to an Information only economy. That can make things more efficient - and should be pursued- but the production of goods then just shifts to elsewhere and the energy gets consumed over there.
To get energy for production without reliance on fossil fuels, we need the innovation in new processes (and trust me, the final answer will be hydrogen fuel cells just based on the basic science). That innovation can come if keep our economy alive to develop it, but to stall here in ongoing financial overload because we refuse to run the GDP engine is suicidal (we frankly need to run this “all of the above” energy sourcing). The Chinese know this and they’re not letting the limitations of today’s technology stop them from developing the solutions for tomorrow.
Great interview, Bari. I love how you come into these with a good set of respectable, on-point set of questions that steer to the central issues of the topic.
I do have one frustration though about the discussions about ‘where are we going, is trouble inevitable’.
That is that we COULD grow out of this hole by restarting United States’ energy production and letting the industries ramp back up! They would then do a combination of: a) backing down the horribly costly use of “renewables”, and b) back down both our own importation of foreign energy sources or more significantly allowing us to supplement our allys’ energy - thereby freeing up their domestic production of products we all need.
This isn’t small at all. Energy is the engine of our lives. It has been since cave men learned how to make fire. We can’t make products without energy, we can’t produce fertilizer for our crops without it. We’re starting to get what I’ll call “GDP anemic” and it’s going to be more and more painful.
Don’t let the self confused double think that the John Kerrys blurt that “carbon offsets” fix global warming: every barrel of oil burned releases the same amount of CO2 whether it was drilled in USA, Saudi Arabia, etc. (and Natural Gas makes much more electricity for every molecule of carbon fuel burned than any other).
Finally, NO we can’t escape the need for energy production by transforming to an Information only economy. That can make things more efficient - and should be pursued- but the production of goods then just shifts to elsewhere and the energy gets consumed over there.
To get energy for production without reliance on fossil fuels, we need the innovation in new processes (and trust me, the final answer will be hydrogen fuel cells just based on the basic science). That innovation can come if keep our economy alive to develop it, but to stall here in ongoing financial overload because we refuse to run the GDP engine is suicidal (we frankly need to run this “all of the above” energy sourcing). The Chinese know this and they’re not letting the limitations of today’s technology stop them from developing the solutions for tomorrow.