Saving Life and Limb

In battlefield medicine it is necessary to triage casualties, and to make tradeoffs. First you decide who can be saved, given the time constraints and resources available. Then you decide how much of the person's body and function can be saved. You may need to sacrifice a limb or two to save a life. You may need to sacrifice a lung, a kidney, part of a liver, a bowel . . . even part of a brain -- to save a life.

We are close to the same point for economic decision making in western nations. For market economies, the markets make the hard choices. But we are so far from having market economies anymore -- the economies are so taken over by government functionaries -- that economic triage is happening in mirky back rooms, with the involvement of extremely shady and self-interested characters.

US economic news has been dismal ever since it became clear in the fall of 2008 that Mr. Obama was to become US President.

♦ Revised economic data that show the recent recession to have been the worst of the post-war years.

♦ The slowdown in economic activity in China.

♦ The absence of any long-term plan to rein in the deficit.

♦ The possibility of a “shock” to the world banking system if Greece defaults on its sovereign debt as seems increasingly likely, or if any one of our several states finally drown in their own red ink.

♦ The negative effect of the increase in health care, energy costs, and taxes, the latter planned by President Obama for year-end.

♦ The 2.6 percent decline in already-depressed pending home sales in June, despite record-low mortgage rates.

♦ The 1.2 percent decline in factory sales, indicating that the manufacturing recovery might be stalling.

♦ The pile up in inventories of durable goods.

♦ The widest trade deficit since October 2008.

♦ And, perhaps most important of all, the increasing number of workers unemployed for so long that their skills are atrophying, while economic growth no longer seems to produce very many jobs, causing two-thirds of Americans to believe that the economy has further to fall.

The worse news is that the bad news cited above is only the tip of the iceberg: The lethal out-of-sight 90 percent is a more dangerous threat to the good ship Robust Recovery.

Start with the state of the nation’s finances. The federal deficit remains untamed, at 10 percent of GDP, topping the decade’s pre-Obama high of 3.5 percent in 2004. Given the slowing of the recovery, a reasonable argument can be made that what is needed is continued spending, but only if combined with a medium-term plan for bringing the deficit under control. No such plan is on the horizon, in part because of the political paralysis produced by the impending congressional elections, and in part because “kicking the can down the road” – leaving every problem to the next generation of politicians – has become a durable feature of American political life.

The second longer-term problem is the Obama-created imbalance between the private sector that creates wealth and the public sector that depends on that wealth. A recent analysis by USA Today, based on government compensation data, shows that federal government employees earn, on average, twice as much as private sector workers. That’s a result of the recent stagnation in private sector compensation and a steady rise in the pay of public sector workers. This situation was exacerbated earlier this week when Congress decided to spend $26 billion to prevent lay-offs of teachers and other state employees, funded in part by higher taxes on U.S. corporations that do business overseas. Teacher lay-offs, of course, are used by politicians to attract sympathy and bail-out money, rather than fire less useful workers in their over-manned bureaucracies.

Then there is the perverse incentive created by a badly structured tax system. A small businessman in New Jersey took to the op ed pages of the Wall Street Journal to point out that it costs him $74,000 to pay an employee $59,000 per year, when taxes and benefits are factored in. But when the employee pays her taxes, she is left with only $44,000. So the gap between his cost of hiring and her incentive to work is substantial. Not a prescription for full employment.

_TWS

It has become clear that Mr. Obama and the Pelosi Congress are burdened by many obsessions when it comes to the domestic economy, the energy sector, and foreign affairs. One of their obsessions is reviving the dead ghosts of past manufacturing and manufacturing unions. But basing policies upon ideological obsessions and special interest paybacks can create problems.

When politicians pick winners and losers, they interfere in the natural economic process and invariably cause harm. If members of Congress believe they recognize profitable opportunities better than the market does, they should retire from Congress, start businesses and grow rich.

If they’re really successful, they might even be able to afford a great vacation in Spain. _Bloomberg

For Americans who value the US Constitution and basic freedoms of individual and group action, the upcoming US national elections present an opportunity for a re-calibration of government behaviour -- a turning back toward constitutional norms. But is that a realistic hope? Some American traditionalists are hopeful:

“The problems stem from allowing Congress to tax incomes from whatever source,” says Randy Barnett, professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington. The 16th amendment represented “a major change in the federal government’s relationship to the people” and should be repealed.

...Efforts at tax simplification, such as the implementation of two flat rates (14 percent and 28 percent) and the elimination of many loopholes in 1986, tend to be short-lived.

Why? For the simple reason that Congress likes using the tax code to dispense favors. Lawmakers may disagree over whether political spending by corporations constitutes free speech (the Supreme Court says it does), but they let money speak to them loud and clear. We must stop them before they kill (the economy) again.

A constitutional amendment is probably the most difficult remedy, but also the most enduring. Congress can propose amendments to the Constitution on a two-thirds vote by both Houses and must call a constitutional convention on a petition from two-thirds of the state legislatures (Article 5).

The chances of lawmakers depriving themselves of their tax- favor status are about as good as their voting themselves out of office by enacting term limits. _Bloomberg

The author then suggests going the route of state legislatures to create a constitutional amendment which would hold the US Congress' feet to the fire, and enforce fiscal discipline and fairness. That is where a truly monumental battle of ideas could play out, if the anti-statist forces are disciplined and ingenious enough.

For it is abundantly clear that the US Congress, the US Executive, and probably the US Supreme Court along with the Federal Judiciary, are all corrupted beyond redemption -- without radical triage. Without an iron-clad constitutional guarantee of Congressional discipline, transparency, and fairness in budgeting, the truly grisly job of radical triage passes beyond the government into the nation at large.

The trigger for such radical triage may be a large scale power grid collapse, a massive and deadly epidemic, a natural disaster of epic scale, or simply the culmination of the ongoing descent into Idiocracy. The wealthiest and most prepared persons will remove themselves from danger if they can, keeping their escape routes open. Most of the rest will have to make compromises and sacrifices in order to survive. Triage is never pretty, and is often delayed too long.

It is time to consider your contingencies.

Intrinsic Injustices In Obama's America -- The Unstable Society

At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.

Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.

The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year. _USAToday

Public sector workers are becoming the wealthy masters and tyrants at the expense of hard working and productive persons in the private sector. Working together as collaborative unions and associated groups, public sector factions use taxpayer dollars to support politicians who support their cause -- an ever stronger, larger, and better compensated public sector. Even if it kills the goose that once laid the golden eggs -- private markets.

"What do they produce besides deficits and debt?" asked Nicholas Bavaro, president of Bavaro Benefit Advisors in Modesto, when we talked to him. He's also a former member of the California Citizens Compensation Commission, a state panel that determines the salaries and benefits of California legislators and constitutional officers. "They don't produce any product that consumers purchase. They don't invest. They don't create jobs."

As to the "high level of skill and education" of the federal workers supposedly managing all that contracting-out, Mr. Bavaro responded, "There's no comparison" to private-sector managers, who "are at-will workers. If they don't produce, they're gone. They live by the standards of their company. You can't do that with federal, state or local government employees" because of union contracts that make it nearly impossible to fire them. "That's why we're in the mess we're in" with the national economy, he said. _OCRegister

Bonus chart from EscapeTyranny:

The Obama Pelosi regime generously gave another bailout to union supporters -- this time to teachers' unions. Public sector unions are well placed politically, in the increasingly impoverished and unstable Obama Pelosi world. Not only can these taxpayer supported groups campaign for and vote for politicians who will keep the corrupt scam in operation, they can also enlist the services of a large network of "community organisers" and quasi - organised crime auxiliaries to squelch and harass public assemblies of the opposition, while making sure through the use of force that opponents are unable to stage peaceful counter-demonstrations anywhere in the vicinity of public sector union rallies. If you doubt the reality of all of that, you are not paying attention.

Pension Tsunami is a website that carefully follows and documents this massive and growing injustice in Obama's America. As Obama Pelosi proceeds to provide generous payoffs to its supporters, the underlying economy of the US continues to shrink. Tax revenues continue to decline, even as munificent benefits to public employees continue to grow beyond logic or justification.

Public sector workers are the new royalty. Perhaps they should wear crowns and display identification decals prominently on their motor vehicles, lest any commoners show disrespect out of ignorance of their relative status. More: Pampered Public Employees

Remember that antiquated document, the US Constitution? Don't worry about it anymore. It's history. We are almost back to where we were before all of that nonsense started.

Oil From Ancient Seas: Where Ahoy?

Oil was formed in warm, ancient seas, from microscopic organisms which thrived in a high CO2 environment. The first photosynthetic micro-organisms evolved around 3.5 billion years ago, which provides a great deal of time for hydrocarbon formation through the eons. Modern oil companies are scooping up the most recently formed crude oil, from deposits formed just a few dozens or hundreds of millions of years ago -- from the ancient sea-beds and former sea-beds which were easy to locate. But where will we find the multi-billion year ancient seabeds -- the really big oil fields? It will require a great deal of patience, detective work, and advanced technological tools -- some of which have not been invented yet.

If you want to go prospecting in history for likely locations of super-giant oil deposits, look for the ancient sea-beds. The Wikipedia reconstruction of Earth's tectonic history should give you a rough idea of where the ancient seas may have been. The YouTube video below provides another look at the dynamic ballet of continents and plates. Pay careful attention, insert a bit of creative extrapolation and interpolation, and draw your own conclusions.

If you look down below at the Wikipedia clock representation of Earth's time scale -- far back into the pink -- you will see where photosynthesis begins, around 3.5 billion years ago. Then travel clockwise all the way through the pink and yellow to get to the blue and green, where the seabed locations of modern oil formation opened up to provide ideal environments for oil formation. What happened to all of the oil from the roughly 3 billion years between the start of photosynthesis and the generation of modern oil, originating from all of those wildly reproducing photosynthetic microbes?

If you watch the undulations of the tectonic plates, and the constantly opening and closing of sea basins over the 600 million years pictured in the YouTube video, you can see that the perfect windows for oil formation were constantly opening and closing. No sooner would a perfect warm sea open up for oil production, than the tectonic plates would shift and cover it up.

All the while massive vulcanisation was taking place within and around the sedimentary basins where rich oil deposits from past ancient seas were sitting in the boiling heat deep underground. What happened to all of those billions of years of deposits?

Some must have escaped as gas or volatile hydrocarbon, migrating to upper layers of the crust, or into the atmosphere. Some of the oil would have likewise found its way to upper layers of crust, trapped by impermeable layers -- or escaping as seeps to be metabolised by oil-munching microbes.

But some of it -- perhaps a huge part of it -- is still trapped beneath volcanic rock, beneath moving tectonic plates, beneath billions of years of sediment. Waiting for clever boys and girls to track it down.

More: Recent study of a massive rotational shift of the super-continent Gondwana approx. 525 mya

Growing awareness of rich variety of life beneath the seafloor

Deep open ocean most unexplored part of planet

It should be clear that since 70% of Earth is covered by ocean, most of the planet's treasure trove of petroleum and other fossil fuels is likely to lie beneath the seas. Both polar regions are relatively unexplored in terms of mineral wealth, but the same is true for the open oceans. Although it does not take a genius to suppose that large deposits of oil may lie in the Gulf of Mexico or under the ancient Tethys Sea, it may take a great deal of clever detective work to find earlier versions of these nutrient-fed warm water shallow seas -- and where the sediments may have migrated over the past hundreds of millions of years.

There is a Reason Why the Gulf of Mexico is so Resilient

A 2003 research paper by Kvenvolden and Cooper in Geo-Marine Letters estimated that natural seeps dump 140,000 metric tons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico each year – over one million barrels of crude per year. In fact, the authors estimate that 47% of all the petroleum found in the sea is from natural seeps – the largest single source, ahead of airborne pollution, ground runoff and drilling/shipping accidents. _EnergyTribune

BitToothEnergy

Worldwide seeps can add up to more that 14 million barrels a year, and in the Gulf of Mexico the NRC report suggests that the annual flow from the seabed is around 1 million barrels/year. (Etkin puts the high end estimate at 1,400,000 barrels a year). _BitTooth

Mother nature has had billions of years (approx.) to learn to deal with oil seeps. And mother nature has not wasted her time, either. Micro- and macro-organisms have developed a wide assortment of tools -- enzymes -- which efficiently break down hydrocarbons and many other potentially toxic chemicals in very short order.

The remainder of the natural oil not evaporated each year is broken down by oil-eating bacteria (which did not instantly evolve in the hours following the Deepwater Horizon explosion – more proof that oil is constantly entering the seas) or it is buried in sediments along with other hydrocarbon-rich detritus – both equally scalable processes. _EnergyTribune

The Obama Pelosi government has instituted an oil drilling moratorium for the Gulf of Mexico which is likely to do far more economic harm to the region than any combination of artificial spills plus natural seeps. While Mr. Obama and his fellows may refer, jokingly, to the Gulf region as the "Redneck Riviera", the people who live and work there take their livelihoods a bit more seriously.

But honestly, what is just a little more national economic pain, when compared to the eco-destruction taking place everywhere that Mr. Obama's hand has touched? Mr. Obama may feel that he can always institute a "bailout" to his friends and supporters, causing no harm to anyone that he cares about. In the short run, he may be correct.

Being Dustin Hoffman, as Rain Man

Update 14Aug10: Brian Wang discusses other modalities of brain stimulation which have analogous effects on various brain functions as TMS. For now, we are limited to such crude tools as described, but we are actually not that far away from genuine targeted brain augmentation. Needless to say, we are also not far from targeted brain disruption.

DailyMail
According to scientist Alan Snyder, autistic savant skills are latent inside everyone's brain. But the way to bring out these skills is by suppressing -- or damping down -- normal activity in certain parts of the brain, using magnetic pulses.

... the extraordinary skills of savants are latent in us all and that they can be induced artificially owing to the inhibiting influence of low-frequency rTMS, that is, by turning off part of the brain, not by exciting it. _RoyalSociety

DailyMail
In a recent publication in Royal Society Transactions, Biological Sciences, Snyder elaborated on techniques of artificial production of savant skills using transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Low-frequency rTMS temporarily inhibits neural activity in a localized area of the cerebral cortex, thereby creating ‘virtual lesions’ (Hilgetag et al. 1999; Walsh & Cowey 2000; Hoffman & Cavus 2002; Steven & Pascual-Leone 2006). As discussed below in §4, the LATL is implicated in the savant syndrome for both autistic savants as well as savants who emerge late in life as a result of frontotemporal lobe dementia (Miller et al. 1998, 2000; Hou et al. 2000). _RoyalSociety

Snyder was able to use localised low frequency TMS to induce a number of savant skills, including induced drawing skills, induced proofreading skills, induced numerosity (see graph below), and reduced false memories.

Snyder_RoyalSociety
TMS is applied from outside the brain, unlike deep brain stimulation (DBS). The effect of TMS on the brain depends upon several factors, including the frequency and amplitude of the pulses, and the proximity to particular parts of the brain. High frequency TMS over the frontal lobes, for example, has been beneficial in improving the language memories of Alzheimer's patients. So you see that TMS can be used to temporarily block neural activity, or to temporarily augment neural activity -- in chosen locations of the brain.

There are many approaches to using electromagnetic stimulation for brain research and therapy, which are quite promising "top-down" research approaches. Combined with the many "bottom-up" (example) approaches to the study of brain development and function, the future of brain research is very bright.

Infographic by Smarter.org
You may someday be wearing an electromagnetic cap which can be switched to different settings, depending upon the task you want to accomplish. Such brain augmentation devices will have the ability to simultaneously dampen some parts of the brain while boosting the activity of other parts -- depending upon which mental skills, attitudes, or emotions you wish to emphasise or minimise at the moment. But whatever you do, do not allow anyone else access to the remote control!

H/T Singularity Hub via Impact Lab

Don't Worry, Everything is Fine. Go Vacation in Spain or Greece

Strange Dangers
The Coming Civil War over Public Pensions

Municipal Bond Apocalypse on the way

Case Study: Cincinnati For anyone who ever loved Cincinnati, it may be tough coming to put it in the same class of failure as Detroit. Before this cascading disaster plays out, few cities with more than 100,000 people will escape relatively unscathed. Think of it as an equal opportunity Hurricane Katrina that pays every state and most cities a visit.

At the federal level, things are no better. This PDF report from the CBO offers the merest hint of the underlying decay.

How long can government keep borrowing and spending?

No-money-down mortgages from Barney Frank's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set the stage for another banking crisis down the road. Time for Fannie and Freddie to go?

Well, you see, it's complicated . . . .



Here it is in a nutshell: American taxpayers are wrapped up in so many layers of government and bureaucracy that they cannot sneeze without asking permission first and then paying a fine. They are being sucked dry by a vampire ruling class which extends quite deeply into American society -- from cradle to grave and everywhere in between. The current monstrous, corrupt, and ever-grasping US government has almost nothing in common with the original US Constitution, or the ideas of the founders.

The private sector is shriveling under the incessant demands of the malignant growth of government, and the fat pigs feeding on the bloated perversion.

"Better run, better take cover" . . . Those in government and public service that you believe are watching out for you, are only watching out for themselves and their fat pensions. Don't get caught depending on a mindless bureaucracy that sees you as a means to their own end. Stop believing the lies of the ruling class and its mouthpieces. Act as your own person while you can.

Things can fall apart amazingly quickly.

[pod person transform]
Things are fine, now. Enjoy yourselves and trust in the authorities. They're here to help you and take care of you. Everything is under control in the world of hope and change. If you are feeling the blahs, take another vacation. Don't you feel better now?

Burning Down the House

Source
Americans are living in amazing times. Living under what is nominally a "constitutional republic", they find themselves bumping into limitations and restrictions more likely to arise within a hereditary monarchy or a totalitarian state ruled by a party elite. What is going on?

Professor Anthony Codevilla is a student of government and international affairs who has become quite aware of this phenomenon. He goes so far as to paint a brief portrait of America's Ruling Class, and publish it! That struck me as an act of extreme courage for an academic, until I saw that Professor Codevilla was actually Professor Emeritus Codevilla. He is relatively safe from their vengeance, then, perhaps.

Few will be satisfied by such a brief and teasing look at America's new royalty. They will want a more detailed examination of this phenomenon, and what it may portend. Thomas Sowell in Intellectuals and Society, provides a well-fortified survey of these well connected, often behind-the-scenes lever pullers. According the Sowell, the thing that distinguishes ruling intellectuals from the subservient citizenry, is that intellectuals are not generally held accountable for being wrong. Think about that in the context of real tenure, and tenure that comes from being a "made" member of the group.

Paul Johnson in his Intellectuals, provides the necessary historical and brief philosophical introduction to this central phenomenon of modern public life. Reading the historical portraits of famous paradigm shifting intellectuals provides as many examples of Sowell's "distinction" as one might want.

To understand how a group of well-connected dunderheads could pull off something as audacious as Sowell and Codevilla suggest, take a look at media insider Bernard Goldberg's Arrogance. As I read the continuing saga of the Journolist insiders, I cannot help but recall the many incidents of similar collusion related in Goldberg's book.

Trying to pinpoint an exact date when Americans rolled over and accepted a ruling class of pompous but numbskulled intellectuals within government, media, academia, the judiciary, etc. is futile. From before the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, agents of the old world of authoritarianism were at work chipping away at the ideas that underlay the thinking of the American founders.

But undeniably, they hold the reins firmly in their grips for now. But as I may have mentioned, this ruling class is quite stupid, despite the broad areas that it controls. The seeds of its destruction -- the impending burning down of the royal house -- is inextricably contained within the stupidity of its policies. That, of course, is the fatal flaw for any intellectual. When they finally achieve absolute power and are forced to put their ideas into action. Without having had any experience contending with the unforgiving hand of reality before this point, the ruling class stands helpless before the cascading failures of its ill-founded ideas and prescriptions.

Blaming predecessors and stowaways from the old regime might work in holding off the angry victims-cum-arsonists for a brief time. But eventually, the inner nature of this ruling class will burst forth in the revealing flames of self-immolation.

All we have to do is to learn to take care of ourselves throughout what is going to happen next. The ruling class is going find the appeal of burning down the house themselves to be beyond their powers to resist.

Intellectuals are not meant to rule. They are critics and revolutionaries, not competent leaders. Which does not make the coming pain and hardship any easier to endure. But if you are the type who wants to understand why things have become ten times harder than they needed to be, take a good look at America's ruling class, and how they came to be.

Top 50 Online Resources for Families Coping with Alzheimer's -- A Guest Article by Rachel Davis

Top 50 Online Resources for Families Coping With Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease is so cruel—it robs our loved ones of their senses of self, of their mental capacities, of their memories, of their lives. And it forces spouses and children to become caregivers in ways that most people never imagine. With millions of people each year being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or a similar dementia, and millions more dying from it, it is still possible for caregivers to feel lost, confused, and alone. We’ve searched the Web to find some of the most helpful resources for families coping with Alzheimer’s. Hopefully, this top 50 list provides you with some information, inspiration, and even comfort.

Personal Blogs By Caregivers

These blogs have been written by children and spouses of Alzheimer’s sufferers.

1. The Yellow Wallpaper : A heart-rending account of a daughter and mother’s story of love and loss to Alzheimer’s disease. 2. Alzheimer’s Moments : A son chronicles the life of his mother in a nursing home for residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia. 3. The Zen of Caregiving : An artist struggling with her own bipolar disorder journals about her daily life caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s. 4. Early Onset Alzheimer’s Adventure : Chuck D’Onofrio has been blogging about his diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease since 2006. 5. blog.fadingfrommemory.info : Compelling blog about a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease when both parents were diagnosed. 6. Dorian Martin’s SharePosts : Dorian Martin cared for her mother with Alzheimer’s from 2005 to 2007, upon her passing. Her blog shares the ups and downs of being a caregiver. 7. “had a dad” Alzheimer’s Blog : Gereva Bert Piedmont writes this blog as a way to share memories of her late father and to support others going through the struggle with Alzheimer’s. 8. All Your Blogs Are Belong to Us : Heart-wrenching stories from a man who has lost his mother and two brothers to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. 9. Alzheimer’s Support : Sandy shares stories of her mother and provides links and resources to families dealing with this diagnosis. 10. caringformary.blogspot.com : This blogger relates her story of the Alzheimer’s diagnosis of her mother and the last stages of her life. 11. Never Goodbye : A woman relates the story of her father’s diagnosis, treatment, and death from Alzheimer’s. 12. The Mom & Me Journals dot Net : An amazing body of work from a daughter who became her mother’s end-of-life companion in the year 1993 until her death in 2008.

Information About Alzheimer’s Disease

13. Alzheimer’s Disease – Symptoms Treatment and Care : Articles about Alzheimer’s disease and other resources are included here. 14. holisticnutritionandneurology.blogspot.com : Doctors discuss the connections between nutrition and neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s. 15. EverydayHealth.com : Everyday Health provides suggestions and contact information for various Alzheimer’s support organizations. 16. The Tangled Neuron : Mona Johnson provides the latest updates on Alzheimer’s research, written in a way that families can understand. 17. Alzheimer’s Association : The Alzheimer’s Association provides excellent resources on their website. 18. alzheimers247.wordpress.com : There are several good articles about Alzheimer’s Disease on this blog. 19. PBS.org: The Forgetting : This is a wonderful companion website to the gripping PBS documentary,The Forgetting, which originally aired in 2008. 20. Partnering With Your Doctor: A Guide For Persons With Memory Problems and Their Care Partners : This excellent online brochure is provided by the Alzheimer’s Association and helps patients and their caregivers know how to work with the doctor. 21. Alzheimer’s Reading Room : This is the #1 blog online in the category of Alzheimer’s and Caregiving. Over 1,500 articles deal with topics from anxiety to behavior problems. 22. AHAF : You can order free brochures from the American Health Assistance Foundation on this site devoted to Alzheimer’s research. 23. Brain Today : Two doctors and a medical professional blog daily about news in the world of neurosciences and Alzheimer’s Disease. 24. About.com : Coping With Alzheimer’s : About.com has many excellent articles about ways to cope with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease. 25. Dementia News : A British website that combines many different resources about the effects of dementia, including Alzheimer’s. 26. Mayo Clinic: Alzheimer’s Disease – Coping and support : The Mayo Clinic offers advice to both the Alzheimer’s patient and the caregiver. Subscribe to the free newsletter. 27. Coping With Daily Life and Alzheimer’s Disease : Alzheimer’s patients who are still aware of their condition and that they are losing their mental capacity have many questions as they wonder how to cope with the disease.

Survival Skills For The Caregiver

28. Tips for Traveling With An Alzheimer’s Patient : Alzcare.net provides excellent tips for traveling with an Alzheimer’s patient. 29. Alzcast.org : Alzcast.org is a website designed for doctors, nurses, and caregivers. The site features podcasts from different experts on all aspects of dealing with Alzheimer’s. 30. Medicare For Caregivers : Anyone who is caring for an elderly relative will appreciate the resources available on this site. Learn all about Medicare coverage and the benefits that are available to your loved one. 31. The CareGiver : Bob DeMarco uses this blog to discuss the many issues that concern Alzheimer’s caregivers on a daily basis. 32. Wego Health : Dementia Support at Wego Health includes many helpful links to online support resources. 33. Activity Ideas That Work : Gina Salazar writes about activities that are appropriate for Alzheimer’s patients. 34. Helpguide.org : Helpguide.org provides well-researched information on Alzheimer’s and dementia, providing resources for caregivers. 35. The Nursing Home Administrator : Insight into the world of the nursing home administrator, someone who may become an important person in your life if your family is dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. 36. Caregiver Support Page at Caring.com : Interact with other caregivers at Caring.com and read many good articles about ways to cope with Alzheimer’s disease in a loved one. 37. Alzheimer’s Caregiver’s Corner : The Alzheimer’s Caregiver’s Corner is provided by the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation. It has links to many articles about being a good caregiver. 38. Exelon Patch: For The Caregiver : The makers of Exelon provide helpful resources for people dealing with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. 39. The Unforgettable Fund : The Unforgettable Fund was begun by the McNally family after losing their father to Alzheimer’s Disease. 40. Medicare Florida : This blog combines many different resources for families coping with Alzheimer’s. 41. 1,2,3: Steps 4 Family Caregivers : This free online brochure reminds caregivers to take care of themselves, reach out for help, and believe in themselves. 42. 10 Tips for Communicating with a Person with Dementia : This is a helpful article from the Family Caregivers Alliance. 43. Take Care of Yourself: 10 Ways to be a Healthier Caregiver : This is an excellent checklist that gives caregivers easy strategies for improving their own health. 44. Life Without Memories : This page was created to help support Alzheimer’s patient caregivers and spread news about research developments. 45. Caregiver Relief : Donahue Vanderhider is a gerontologist who specializes in helping caregivers manage stress. 46. bigtreemurphy.com : Beverly Bigtree Murphy, author of he used to be Somebody, provides amazing resources for people who wish to take care of an Alzheimer’s patient at home. She cared for her husband for 14 years after his diagnosis. 47. Caring for a Person with Alzheimer’s Disease: Your Easy-to-Use Guide from the National Institute on Aging. : 48. Dementia, Caregiving and Controlling Frustration. : This page has a great article about dealing with the frustration that so many caregivers face. 49. CareGiverUnderGround : Linda has taken her experiences as a caregiver as well as good outside resources and put them all together in this original blog. It’s designed to give caregivers support and inspiration. 50. KnowItAlz : KnowItAlz, an online community just for Alzheimer’s caregivers, provides a wealth of resources and support.

This guest article comes courtesy of Rachel Davis at Radiology Degree.com

Recent Advances in Developing Artificial Uteruses -- Guest Article

Recent Advances in Developing Artificial Uteruses

by Kathy Wilson

One of the biggest miracles we see every day is the ability to create human life – the conception and birth of a baby is a wondrous happening that the human brain will never be able to completely replicate artificially. Even so, great strides have been made in boosting fertility and aiding conception through advances in the medical field, the artificial uterus being one such pioneering effort. We’ve all heard of assisted reproductive techniques like artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization and even other more complicated procedures like ICSI and GIFT. But an artificial uterus is a relatively unheard of concept, one that is only just gaining steam.

It’s only a prototype now, but a working one that shows promise and possibility. Scientists and researchers at the Cornell University's Centre for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility have succeeded in taking cells from the endometrium, the lining of the womb, and growing them in a lab using hormones and other growth factors. Tests have already been run using fetuses not used in IVF procedures, and they have shown that they’re able to attach themselves to the lining of the artificial womb. Further trials will prove the viability of this concept, but for now, the researchers are limited by IVF regulations.

Ethical aspects raise their ugly head and threaten to prevent progress in this field; on the one hand, you have abortion issues – while women are permitted to undergo an abortion legally now because the fetus is within their bodies, when they’re outside and growing in an artificial womb, will abortion amount to murder? Also, artificial wombs when combined with cloning technology are conceptually capable of allowing reproduction without involving the female factor. How far will people go to exploit this if it becomes a reality?

Artificial uteruses benefit women in more ways than just helping those with damaged and faulty uteruses conceive and take home children of their own genes – they aid professional women by allowing them to continue working without having to take time off for the pregnancy, and they are deemed to be safer environments because they are not affected by any adverse reactions (like stress and side-effects caused by drugs and alcohol) in the mother’s body.

But then, what happens to the concept of motherhood as we know it? Is the bonding of mother and child not important at all in the larger scheme of things? Artificial uteruses are ok for women who cannot conceive because they have no uteruses or damaged ones; but for the rest who are looking for a “convenient” pregnancy, ethical questions must be raised and answered before they’re allowed to do as they please.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Kathy Wilson, who writes on the topic of x ray technician school programs . She welcomes your comments at her email id: kathywilson1983@gmail.com

Brian Wang Live Blogs Techonomy from Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe
Brian Wang of NextBigFuture is currently blogging the Techonomy Conference in Lake Tahoe. The conference brings together some exceptional visionaries, researchers, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists in an attempt to frame a new vision for the future.

Brian live-blogged the conference all day yesterday, when speakers discussed re-inventing intelligence, re-inventing the economy, and re-inventing infrastructure, and is presumably up and ready to take in today's feast for the mind. On Friday, Bill Gates presents the closing talk: "Reinventing Capitalism: How to jumpstart what the marketplace can’t". It looks to Al Fin as if Techonomy is about generalities and quasi-Platonic idealism.

This weeks events at Lake Tahoe will prime Brian's liveblogging skills in preparation for next weeks Singularity Summit in San Francisco. The Singularity Summit focuses on artificial general intelligence as a trigger for "the singularity" as the takeoff point to an infinite future.

You will probably find more practical singularitarians -- who are willing to get their hands dirty in implementing the subject matter -- than techonomists and similar abstract, clean-handed futurists at parallel gatherings. But even singularitarians can become stuck on the head of a pin with millions of angels, and find it difficult to get back into the real world.

It is not unusual for wealthy and gifted men and women to feel an obligation to the masses of those less fortunate than themselves. Such meetings as the Techonomy Conference allow them to mingle and discuss their latest ideas for saving the world and redefining humanity. But how much good actually comes from such gatherings and forums? Did most of the participants, for example, back the disastrous Obama Pelosi regime that is currently on a destructive rampage through national and international economies and relations?

Practical competencies and realistic perspectives can often be difficult to find among those whose wealth and/or postion isolates them from the mundane life or death concerns of most persons. Given that isolation, how can their ideas improve the existences of the masses of people whom they profess to care about?

The most good that entrepreneurs and venture capitalists could do is to bring about new and useful enterprises and industries at all scales of the economy, and to stop financing the very people and organisations which are destroying the future of humankind. We need more distributed productive enterprise and less parasitic bureaucratic infrastructure.

It is important to dissect our institutions and cultures in order to find ways we might improve our existences and futures. But between the present and the abundant future, lie a number of deadly obstacles that must be confronted. It is not clear that the participants of most of these organisations are concerned about these obstacles -- which are far more dangerous to the future of humans than the phantoms of climate catastrophe or peak energy.

When very wealthy, gifted, and powerful people pour their assets (and the assets of society) down rat-holes, most onlookers will not give it a second thought -- such waste is most common. But it would be better for mankind if such wealthy, gifted, and powerful people turned away from monolithic bureaucratic centers of redistribution, and put their excess assets into well-conceived, interlocking, scalable, future-oriented, profit-making enterprises which create opportunities for individuals.

Ancient Geologic Upheaval Still Hides Most of Earth's Oil

NYTScientists have known for quite a while that most of Earth's oil came from vast numbers of oceanic microscopic organisms -- rather than from dead dinosaurs. From diatoms to micro-algae to cyanobacteria and more, these microscopic life forms thrived on warmer seas and higher levels of atmospheric CO2 than are presently available to sea life. Many of these sea creatures are capable of converting gaseous or dissolved CO2 directly into oils and hydrocarbons of various types, and would cheerfully welcome much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans, if only they could get it.

Geologists scour the planet for the sedimentary basins of ancient seas, in order to find the vast deposits of oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons still waiting to be discovered. Humans may have used perhaps one tenth of exploitable oil deposits, but Al Fin engineers reckon we have used only about one one hundredth. Not that oil is an ideal energy source. Far from it. But we should know that we are quite far from running out -- even while we are discovering how to grow these tiny organisms for ourselves, to produce a wide range of materials, feeds, and fuels at the time and place of our own choosing.

Some of the ancestral waters that made the planet’s oil still exist, like the Gulf of Mexico, while others have long vanished, like the ocean that produced the massive oil fields of the Middle East. The bodies come and go because the earth’s crust, through seemingly rigid, actually moves a great deal over geologic time, tearing apart continents and ocean basins and rearranging them like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

The secret of the oil story turned out to be understanding how the bygone oceans, ancient seas and smaller bodies of water produced complex environmental conditions that raised the prevalence of microscopic life and ensured its deep burial, producing what eventually became the earth’s main oil reservoirs.

The clues accumulated over more than a century and included discoveries from geology, chemistry and paleontology. An early indication was that petroleum discoveries were always associated with ancient beds of sedimentary rock — the kind that forms when debris rains down through water for ages and slowly grows into thick seabed layers.

...The process typically starts in warm seas ideal for the incubation of microscopic life. The sheer mass is hard to imagine. But scientists note that every drop of seawater contains more than a million tiny organisms.

Oil production begins when surface waters become so rich in microscopic life that the rain of debris outpaces decay on the seabed. The result is thickening accumulations of biologic sludge.

...“The organics got buried quickly because of the heavy sediment flow,” Dr. Tinker said. “So they didn’t get biodegraded as quickly. You preserved the organic richness.”

He said the flow was so heavy that the growing accumulations keep pressing the lower sediment layers deeper into the earth, forcing them into hot zones where the organic material got transformed into oil. The process involves a long series of chemical reactions that slowly turn life molecules into inanimate crude.

“The gulf has miles and miles of sediments,” he said. “So that gets the source rocks down into the kitchen where they cook.”

The standard temperature for oil formation is between 120 and 210 degrees Fahrenheit.

...Many countries and oil companies are now racing to exploit the geological happenstance of deep coastal waters. Hot spots include offshore areas of Angola, Azerbaijan, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Libya and Tanzania, while countries like Canada and Norway, which have long pursued offshore drilling, are pushing ahead with new plans. Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm, estimates that global deepwater extraction could roughly double by 2015, the output rivaling what Saudi Arabia produces on land. _NYT

The new offshore oil fields coming on line will rival Saudi Arabian production -- even if the Saudis decide to ramp up their production even higher than at present.

But many more giant fields await discovery until geologists develop better tools to find ancient ocean basins lying beneath subsequent overlaying deposits of seismic and volcanic upheaval. Earth's warm water sea floors have been turned around a great deal over the past billions of years. It is likely that we have not yet found the richest fossil fuel fields.

For most of the planet, geologists simply do not have a clue what lies beneath. They will need far better tools than the primitive seismic, electromagnetic, and other tools which currently limit their vision. But those tools are coming. And those vast unknown deposits will be found, if they are ever needed.

Previously published at Al Fin Energy

How the Well Was Killed

BP via BitToothEnergy
It is likely that the Macondo bore has been put on its deathbed, with virtually no likelihood of recovery. Here is the narrative of BP's static kill from Kent Wells:

...let me move to the static kill and yesterday. We did have a brief call yesterday, shortly after the injection test. The injection test was very helpful. It gave us a lot of confidence going into the static kill. We were confident we could pump into the reservoir at very little pressure above what the shut-in pressure was, and that was good.

So we did pump the static kill yesterday at five barrels per minute. We were able to watch as we pumped the mud in. We were able to watch the pressure continuously and gradually decline. We were able to watch as the – if you remember, I mentioned the word we injected for the injectivity test, base oil. We were able to watch as the base oil and then the mud actually hit the reservoir. We were able to see it pressure up, and then we were able to see that pressure come back down.

And these were all very encouraging signs. And then what we kept doing is we kept injecting it as five barrels a minute, injecting more of the oil that was in the casing and actually mud, and continued to inject it into the reservoir for a period of time to try to get – make sure we'd cleaned out all of the oil that we could out of the casing.

And so we pumped for a number of hours. And then as we got confident that we'd actually got the well into a static condition, we actually increased the rate up to 10 barrels a minute, and then ultimately 15 barrels a minute, and we did that to give ourselves confidence that, if we chose to go ahead with the cementing procedure, that we could actually pump at higher rates, because that will give us a more effective cement job. And so that went well, as well.

So we spent some extra time yesterday pumping more fluid in, just to give ourselves more information and confidence. So by the end of the whole process, we had injected about 2,300 barrels of mud, and a lot of that was actually designed at just cleaning out the casing and making sure that we could move forward with the cement job with confidence, if we choose to do so.

So that's where we stand at the moment. The science teams and our teams are conversing about all the different options we have, different methods that we could use to do the best approach to – how to move forward with this well, considering cementing it from the top, looking at the relief well, cementing it from there, and we should make a decision, hopefully later today on that, and move forward with the best possible plan. _BP.com PDF

It reads almost as an anti-climax. But when the well is really and truly killed by concrete above and below, and signs of oil are nowhere to be found above or below the surface, onshore or offshore -- the hysteria will still be found in newsrooms, courtrooms, academic meetings and classrooms, in congressional committee rooms, and anywhere else that people of limited practical skills and competencies meet to make other people's lives less productive and more miserable.

Meanwhile, the necessity for offshore drilling continues to grow, as the billions in China and India set their minds upon greater personal wealth and consumption.

Just as BP seems to have killed the Macondo well, Obama has killed the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico with his absurd and arbitrary moratorium, at least for now. Once the oil rigs are called away to work on other projects it could be years before they return. Whether Obama's economic destructiveness is based upon ideology or whether it is simple ineptitude, the suffering of the unemployed and their families will be as great.

Saving the World by Eating Closer to the Earth

More than 1,000 insects are known to be eaten by choice around the world, in 80% of nations. They are most popular in the tropics, where they grow to large sizes and are easy to harvest. _Guardian

ImpactLab
Insects can provide an excellent source of high protein food almost everywhere in the world. After reading a bit more about the wisdom of eating insects, study the nutritional table at the bottom. Think of all the human beings who have starved throughout history who might have been saved through a smarter use of the food chain.

Being cold-blooded, insects convert plant matter into protein extremely efficiently, Van Huis says. In addition, he argues, the health risks are lower.

... Locusts and crickets are calcium-rich and 90% of people in Laos have eaten insects at some point, he says.Durst says the FAO's priority will be to boost the eating of insects where this is already accepted but has been in decline due to western cultural influence.

He also thinks such a boost can provide livelihoods and protect forests where many wild insects are collected. "I can see a step-by-step process to wider implementation."

First, insects could be used to feed farmed animals such as chicken and fish which eat them naturally. Then, they could be used as ingredients.

Van Huis adds: "We're looking at ways of grinding the meat into some sort of patty, which would be more recognisable to western palates."

...LOCAL TREATS

Thailand Dishes include fried giant red ants, crickets and June beetles

Colombia "Fat-bottomed" ants are a popular snack, fried and salted

Papua New Guinea Sago grubs in banana leaves are a local delicacy

Ghana Winged termites are collected and fried, roasted, or made into bread

Japan Dishes include aquatic fly larvae in sugar and candied grasshoppers

Mexico The agave worm is eaten on tortillas, and grasshoppers are toasted

Cambodia Deep-fried tarantulas are popular with locals and tourists

South Africa Locusts lend interest to the staple dish of cornmeal porridge

Australia Witchetty grubs are a traditional part of the Aboriginal diet _Guardian

Nutritional Value of Various Insects
Per 100 Grams

Insect	Protein (g)	Fat (g)	Carbohydrate	Calcium (mg)	Iron (mg)
Giant Water Beetle	19.8	8.3	2.1	43.5	13.6
Red Ant	13.9	3.5	2.9	47.8	5.7
Silk Worm Pupae	9.6	5.6	2.3	41.7	1.8
Dung Beetle	17.2	4.3	0.2	30.9	7.7
Cricket	12.9	5.5	5.1	75.8	9.5
Small Grasshopper	20.6	6.1	3.9	35.2	5.0
Large Grasshopper	14.3	3.3	2.2	27.5	3.0
June Beetle	13.4	1.4	2.9	22.6	6.0
Caterpillar	6.7	N/A	N/A	N/A	13.1
Termite	14.2	N/A	N/A	N/A	35.5
Weevil	6.7	N/A	N/A	N/A	13.1
Beef (Lean Ground)	27.4	N/A	N/A	N/A	3.5
Fish (Broiled Cod)	28.5	N/A	N/A	N/A	1.0

Source

If you are thinking about getting into the insect farming business, here is a vast resource of information about the worldwide phenomenon of insects-as-food.

As part of their food foraging training, members of the Society for Creative Apocalyptology are expected to demonstrate the ability to harvest insects and grubs from the wild, and prepare them for eating. Such a skill when combined with the ability to forage wild plants, mushrooms, and small animals for food, could keep a small group alive for an extended period of time on just a few acres of apparently "useless" land.

Under Obama Pelosi, the US economy has not been doing well. In fact, thanks in large part to Obama Pelosi, an enormous pension tsunami is threatening to bankrupt several US states. Should that happen, the chain reaction of consequences will reverberate globally....Considering that virtually everything the Obama Pelosi government is doing will have further devastating effects on the US economy, you may want to seriously consider learning to enjoy the idea of eating grasshoppers.

Your Lives are but Bits on Chips: Watch Them Flicker Out

How much of your lives is stored on digital networks? Bank accounts, medical records, educational and employment history, electronic communications and social networking, and more. All of that, plus power grids, financial networks, critical defense systems, air traffic control systems, corporate data files and online backups -- everything connected to the internet or a communication-accessible network -- could be taken down over a period of a few minutes, given sufficient planning and setup.

Cyberwar is an all-out attack on the digital data-underpinnings of modern life. The more reliant we become upon digital networks ("smart power grids" etc), the more vulnerable we become to cyberwar. US National Security Agency (NSA) veteran Charlie Miller has mapped out a comprehensive cyber-attack plan against the US. Miller implies that his plan would satisfy enemies of the US such as North Korea or China. And it would not be terribly difficult or expensive -- considering the devastation it would cause.

Miller explained that he had actually been asked by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia to play general in the theoretical attack scenario.

He shared his results at a NATO briefing in that country in June.

"I already knew it was easy, but now I know in detail how easy it would be," said. "We are certainly very vulnerable."

Miller described the 100-million-dollar price tag as a bargain compared to how much money is spent on cyber defense.

He crafted a broad strategy to target smart grids, banks, communications and all other aspects of a nation's technology infrastructure.

The cyber army would number about a thousand soldiers ranging from elite computer commandos to basic college trained geeks, according to the plan.

A key to success was stealthily breaching networks and establishing beachheads in computer systems during the two years before the main cyber invasion.

...National Security Corporation president Mark Harding recalled graduating from officers school in the Navy having completed a thesis on how unprepared the country's military is for cyber war.

"There are people I know who have indicated they can take the entire Internet down and they can," Harding said. _Source_via_BrianWang

A relatively primitive belligerent nation such as North Korea has little to lose by bringing down the world's financial and defense networks -- the global internet and all its vital dependent networks. North Korea is minimally networked. Even China or Russia could take precautions to protect themselves, during the two year setup period before the final attack.

But these are old ideas, and it is quite possible that most or all of the setup has already been done, by someone, somewhere.

A cyber-attack would be more effective if combined with multiple parallel and simultaneous attacks, such as EMP and ABC -- atomic (including dirty bombs), biological, chemical. A clever nano-attack would be potentially more effective as an adjunct to cyberwar and EMP, but the technology for a massive and devastating nano-attack may still be decades away -- if we are lucky.

Consider the destruction from the cyber intrusion as the spearhead of a coordinated and fairly comprehensive attack. North Korea might be the nominal, putative villain -- a cat's paw. Which means that North Korea may receive whatever counter-attack the US was able to muster after the networks and power grids go down. But could you tell the difference between pre- and post- nuclear attack for a country already as devastated as N. Korea?

Meanwhile, China and Russia (assuming they were prepared in advance) would be in a perfect condition to move into the US as part of an international relief mission -- in the absence of an effective US government -- meant to relieve the incredible hardship being suffered by the American people. History will never say anything different from the above -- no matter what the underlying truth.

Should the electronic infrastructures of your lives collapse in a nano-second, what would you do? No electric power means no transportation fuels could be pumped. No supplies of food or medicines would be brought to your city to replace the supplies looted from gutted and burned out stores. No clean water would be pumped to your house. No electric lights, no air conditioners or electric heat, no showers. Your lives, as you currently think of them, would dissolve in a short time.

Think of it as an interesting problem which no one can solve but yourselves. What do you do?

Can We Survive Without the Sun?

Ring of Fire
We like to say that life on Earth could not survive without the sun, but that isn't actually true. Without the sun the surface of the planet would freeze down to a certain depth, but the amount of energy contained in the molten planetary core could provide ample heat and electric power to maintain human civilisation for hundreds of thousands of years or longer.

From the western US to Australia (Queensland and Victoria), Indonesia, the Phillipines, Kamchatka, Alaska, and New Zealand, the Pacific Ring of Fire makes thermal energy available to much of the world's population. Similar "rings of fire" over the rest of the Earth extends this ample fund of energy to Europe, western and central Asia, and parts of Africa.

Jefferson Tester: The figure for the whole world is on the order of 100 million exojoules or quads [a quad is one quadrillion BTUs]. This is the part that would be useable. We now use worldwide just over 400 exojoules per year. So you do the math, and you know you've got a very big source of energy.

How much of that massive resource base could we usefully extract? Imagine that only a fraction of a percent comes out. It's still big. A tenth of a percent is 100,000 quads. You have access to a tremendous amount of stored energy. And assessment studies have shown that this is thousands of times in excess of the amount of energy we consume per-year in the country. The trick is to get it out of the ground economically and efficiently and to do it in an environmentally sustainable manner. That's what a lot of the field efforts have focused on. _TechReview

If you drill far enough down into the Earth, you will find hot rock. Circulating a heat exchange fluid into the rock allows you to utilise the heat to drive a heat engine to generate electric power. Using both the heat and the electricity obtained from below ground, life on planet Earth could be maintained under large domes for millions of years, even without the sun. Add the energy you can get from nuclear fission and fusion, and human civilisation could go on even longer.

Since the sun is likely to go on for another billion years or longer, what we are talking about is two things: 1. geothermal energy as supplementary, baseload energy for parts of the world where nuclear power is not practical or safe, and 2. human settlements on molten-core planets which are too far away from a star for conventional star-powered photosynthetic life cycles and atmospheric heating.

Geothermal is expensive, and is a low-grade form of energy. But it is 24 hour a day baseload energy which can also be load-following power. Enhanced geothermal requires deep drilling and regular maintenance. And there is the fear of earthquakes:

Using EGS, producers drill deeply into hot rocks and pump surface water to them. The heat is transferred to the water and it is pumped back to the surface with geothermal energy that is used in a standard geothermal power plant. Much heralded until recently, EGS began to garner controversy when its deep fracturing of geologic structures seemed to be associated with increased seismic activity, first in Basel, Switzerland, and later in California.

..."The thing is, you've got to address it," Gawell said. "If you've got major slip faults in the area, you don't do a project there. You simply stay away. When somebody permits a geothermal project in Basel, Switzerland, the site of the biggest earthquake in European history, you have to wonder whether they did any screening or thinking" beforehand. _GreentechMedia

But think about it: Earthquakes come from faultlines where plates are pushing and sliding against each other. The best way to prevent a large earthquake is to trigger multiple small earthquakes to relieve the pressure that is building over time.

The hysteria over EGS-caused mini-quakes is misplaced. The danger comes from not relieving the pressure.

And so massive quantities of baseload energy goes untapped, because for now it is cheaper to use other forms of energy -- such as coal, gas, oil, hydro. How does geothermal compare to wind?

According to Tantoco, the company may spend as much as $3.5 million to produce a megawatt of geothermal power through its greenfield facilities, and about $2.5 million per megawatt for its wind power project. [EDC Philippines] _BusinessInquirer

But geothermal is 24 hour baseload and potentially load-following power. Wind power is intermittent, with a capacity factor of 0.3 or less -- and essentially unpredictable! Wind machines often break down within 5 to 10 years, whereas geothermal can last for several decades or longer.

No one is saying that geothermal is better than small modular nuclear reactors in terms of portability, versatility, efficiency, or affordability. But for demographic reasons, some parts of the world are simply not safe places to put nuclear plants -- even SMRs. If geothermal energy is available, it represents a better alternative, for those particular places.

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin Energy