Petey's
Pipeline E-zine
Issue #28
April 3, 2006
Contents
Business
First Reclaiming Wasted
Energy
Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings
Addiction Affliction – Part III
Write Thinking Improve Your
Spelling (Rule #6)
Business
First (Editorial)
Reclaiming
Wasted Energy
by Phil Hanson
Imagination
plays a vital role in starting a new business. Usually, any
business idea that shows potential for simultaneously solving
problems and fulfilling needs while making a profit for its
owners and investors has an excellent chance of succeeding.
So,
what kind of business, in this age of impending energy shortages
and fitness-obsessed people, could possibly succeed? Well, how
about a business that generates electricity while it helps people
stay fit?
Such
a business requires only an unfettered imagination and the innovative
marrying of two existing technologies so that each technology
continues to serve its original purpose, but, in its new configuration,
serves a third purpose as well.
Sounds
complicated, right? It's not. Let me lay it out for you.
On
the one hand you have energy companies that are hard pressed
to meet increasing demands for their product. On the other hand
you have health spas and physical fitness clubs where members
expend vast amounts of energy for no purpose other than losing
weight or staying in shape.
When
a net energy producer combines resources with a net energy absorber,
their common goal becomes one of capturing and using previously
wasted energy. By mating electricity-generating devices such
as alternators to energy absorbing devices such as stationary
bikes, treadmills and rowing machines, the two partners in an
energy recovery enterprise can easily reach their shared goal.
The
permutations and possibilities are endless. Bowflex Westinghouse,
Nautilus General Electric, Gold's Gym and Electric, and Portland
General Electric and Exercise Company are but a few of them.
How many more can you name?
We
have the technology. Now all we need is the will to use it.
Copyright
© 2006 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
Addiction
Affliction – Part III
by Phil Hanson
As
we've already learned, convenience food and pharmaceutical industries
are two of the most prolific advertisers of consumer products
to which Americans have become addicted. Automobile manufacturers,
whose products are as ubiquitous in American culture as Big
Macs, telephones, TVs and computers, round out the top three.
Let's
face it! We need our cars so we can get to our jobs so we can
earn the money to pay for the cars, for the insurance for the
cars, for the licensing fees, maintenance costs, fuel, and highway
tolls and taxes, all for the cars.
We
need our cars so we can run down to the corner grocery to buy
another six-pack, or to drive halfway across town to save a
buck on a carton of cigarettes. We need our cars so we can get
to the fast-food joint because our jobs have stolen our time
and sapped our strength and we don't have enough time or energy
left over to cook a meal from scratch. We need our cars to make
those routine trips to the discount drug store (you know, the
one that drove your neighborhood pharmacy out of business) to
pick up whatever pharmaceuticals we depend on to keep us in
good enough physical and mental health to make it through another
week. Finally, we need our cars for the ritual weekend getaway
because we haven't yet learned how to live in, and enjoy, those
outrageously expensive homes we work so hard to pay for.
Does
all of this seem as crazy to you as it does to me?
Cars—and
the cheap oil needed to run them—made possible the expansion
of industries that might never have survived without them. Affordable,
accessible transportation made it possible for the employees
of many companies to live in neighborhoods far removed from
the places where they worked, and for employers to draw from
a workforce scattered over hundreds of square miles.
As
car ownership proliferated into all areas of American society,
the practice of travel as cheap entertainment became a cultural
norm. It was no longer enough to have transportation to and
from the workplace close at hand; once people realized that
a car was synonymous with freedom and mobility, multi-car families,
traffic congestion and eventual gridlock were absolute certainties.
Not
only does dad have a car, but mom does, too – as do each
of their 2.4 children when they reach driving age. Forget "a
chicken in every pot, a car in every garage." Now, it's
a 10-piece bucket of KFC chicken, a car in the garage, two cars
in the driveway, and two more parked on the street.
Our
cars are status symbols; they reveal our personality, define
our character, reflect our social standing in the community,
afford mobility with a degree of anonymity, and ensure our independence
and autonomy. Lacking an overriding incentive to break our car
addiction, the addiction will continue.
If
Americans are addicted to cars, then it stands to reason they're
also addicted to oil – or, rather, the gasoline made from
the oil. Cars need fuel to run, and, so far, the fuel of choice
is gasoline. However, this may be about to change. Gasoline
is no longer as cheap as it once was, nor affordable oil as
plentiful.
Higher
gasoline prices, an emerging environmental awareness, and an
awakening social consciousness will force us to seek out and
adopt saner, cleaner, healthier alternatives.
Renewable
biofuels will first offset and then replace fossil fuels, but
not before fossil fuels become cost prohibitive. Fortunately,
that day is not as far away as most people would like to imagine.
The
day is rapidly approaching when there will be fewer cars, not
more of them. Future cars will be smaller, lighter, more fuel
efficient, and their cost will reflect the price of the energy
used to make them, as well as the impact they have on the environment.
It's a global tragedy that environmental costs have not previously
been factored into a car's retail price.
Most
people overlook the fact that the global, free market, laissez
faire capitalist economy was founded on the false assumptions
that unrestrained growth was sustainable and that cheap, abundant
energy supplies would remain cheap and abundant.
Cheap
energy fueled an explosive growth of technology, to which we
soon became addicted. Our addiction to technology begot us an
addiction to gadgetry of all kinds; cell phones, iPods, Blackberries
and MP-3 players, not to mention the ubiquitous computer, replete
with a full complement of peripherals, accumulate on or about
our persons. And if this weren't enough, throw in a pager and
various remote-control devices, including TV controls, garage
door openers and remote-controlled automobile door lock openers.
We
rely on cheap energy to heat our oversized homes, power our
oversized cars and SUVs, and to fuel our motor homes, cabin
cruisers, motorcycles, jet skis, ATVs, snowmobiles, lawn and
garden equipment, and all the other energy intensive devices
to which we've become addicted.
We
covet laborsaving devices such as electric shavers, electric
can openers, electric carving knives, electric mixers, electric
toothbrushes and electric nose-pickers to make our lives easier,
then gladly work our asses off, through overtime or a second
job (overtime without overtime pay), to pay for them.
Stuff
accumulates. We buy the latest doodads, gizmos and gadgets because
they're cool, use them until the novelty wears off or the next
iteration comes along, then consign them to garage sales or
relegate them to storage in ever more crowded basements, closets,
attics or garages.
It
seems no convenience is too impractical for us. Lexus advertises
a model with a windshield so sensitive that it reacts to a single
raindrop by turning on the windshield wipers. But for Petey's
sake, how many dry wipes across a dirty windshield does it take
before the scars render it opaque? Do we really need conveniences
that do our thinking for us?
Power
windows? Power seats? Power door locks? Hell, why not power
everything, as long as we don't have to use any of our own muscle
power to achieve the desired results? Gasoline isn't so expensive
that we can't afford to haul around a few hundred extra pounds
of non-essential electrical gadgetry so we don't have to exert
ourselves.
Things
aren't any different with household appliances. True, they're
more energy efficient than ever, but we're using more of them.
Rather than saving energy in each household, we're using more
of it. Consider, too, the growing number of households needed
to serve a growing population.
But
that's okay. If we need more electricity, we can always spill
more water over the dam, even if it means driving native salmon
to extinction. We can always build more nuke plants, never mind
that we still don't have a suitable place—or plan—to
dispose of existing spent fuel rods, let alone any new ones.
We can always burn more coal, never mind that carbon in the
atmosphere is now at its highest level in 65,000 years and global
climate change is an imminent threat.
At
some point, we're going to have to admit that our addictions
are killing us. At some point, we're going to have to take whatever
steps are needed to break our addictions.
Soon,
we must awaken from our blissful stupor and realize that survival
of our species is more important than individual comfort and
ease, more important, even, than the acquisition of energy-consuming
possessions.
Our addictions are symptomatic of the fatal flaws inherent in
capitalist consumer culture, not the causes of them. But, if
we fail to break the brutal cycles of our addictions, then what
we stand to lose can be summed up in one word: Everything!
Copyright
© 2006 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
