Competition! The dream of the electric ship, or ferry, or something to keep us going on the current course.

What does this ship make you think of? Give me your best, win a big prize.

2bFrank sees this parallel:

 

Im more in this direction..

Anon thinks of this.

Resilience

Wikipedia: Resilience is the ability of a material to recover from a shock, insult, or disturbance.
Its also psychological resilience. We need both physical and psychological resilience in the near future. Another way to view resilience is short-term and long-term resilience. My mother told me about a 1960 short-film describing how the whole of society is hanging in a tread - and that is how vulnerable the society is. Resilience is the opposite to this.

Psychological resilience.
As I have described earlier we have become true believers in progress and a better society (still praying to the unknown God). So if we are meet with the opposite (a crises), most people will react badly to this - denial, anger (especially at the messenger), despair and so on. We need psychological resilience to deal with the crises and we need resilience in dealing with the transition to a carbon starved future.

The Swedish state has a department called Department for psychological defense - www.psycdef.se (this sends you to another URL with a more acceptable name).

The goal of the Swedish PsyDef is;
"The task of the MSB is to enhance and support societal capacities for preparedness for and prevention of emergencies and crises. When one does occur, we support the stakeholders involved by taking the right measures to control the situation".

That sounds very good - maybe the word "stakeholders" is a little strange. Does that mean the citizens or does it mean the institutions, the government?

There is a dilemma when you try to build up the resilience in the country.
One of the most destructive forces that can be unleashed in a country is panic and chaos. Ex. looting can destroy a working society in short time (see Iraq).
To get through the first shock without panic and chaos is vital. Therefore you want the citizens to be calm in a crises and the listen to the authorities.
THEN you want the citizens to have personal resilience and stamina, being able to cope without authorities (for a while). The state knows it can not be everywhere in times of crises and that people have to make it through on there own.
So there is needed 2 sorts of resilience:

• Shock resilience (short term, trusting authorities, centralized)
• Abandonment resilience (long term, self sustaining, localized) 

Shock resilience is mostly needed in case of a war, a great catastrophe, breakdown of the banking system or the electric grid, an outbreak of a pandemic, in the hours and days following the crises.
 
Abandonment resilience is needed needed in the aftermath of war, catastrophes and is needed to cope with slow moving negative changes like rising unemployment, rising prices, shortages, living with the consequences of interruptions in the electric grid, the banking system, in the month following the crises.     

Physical resilience.
This can be translated to sustainability, invulnerability, independence, durability.
Often described as the capacity to keep vital parts of the society functioning (mostly police, hospitals, government, military, banking system, electric power is meant by that). Ideas of self sustainability has long been abandoned and the trend going towards globalism. Ideas of local self independence is not part of any central governments thinking or policy. Some local people think about this, but when it comes to actually prioritize and build resilience in the rural areas there is nothing. The trend since 1960 has been going towards centralization.
Again its reasonable to talk in terms of short and long time resilience in the society.
The development of bigger faster machines and transportation plus pervasive communication technology has greatly improved the short term resilience since WW2, but the long term resilience is since WW2 been greatly reduced. A power-cut will cripple the society instantly and the petrol reserve will last max. 90 days. After 90 days are we in very unplaned territory.
The long term physical resilience is just not there - lack of petrol and lack of spare-parts will grind the current society structure to a halt.

The planing for long term resilience was on mind of those in power after the war, but this focus withered away gradually until it was silently totally gone somewhere in the late 1980s. 
I have found an example of some one of the last long term resilience efforts.
As late as 1980 there was still a university department in Sweden looking in to how the biggest Swedish car manufacture could prepare Volvo cars to run on gasified wood gas if needed. During the second world war more than 1.000.000 cars and trucks was modified to run on wood-gas. It was this effort made it possible to have continuation of the civil society during the war. This lesson was finally lost 1986 and today we are even more vulnerable than 1939 because modern cars can for the most not be modified to run on wood-gas without a major intrusive intervention on the car. Read more on www.gengas.nu och här.

Here is another sad story from Sweden. This story is of now. The expansion of wind power is being hampered by many "stakeholders", one of them being the military. Modern wind turbines are big and they shadow the radars of the military. That means that the military turns down many application for wind turbines. The military do this on the base of national security (and has done for many years). That brings us to question of national security and that brings us to the question of resilience - short term and long term. A more energy independent Sweden would be more resilient and more secure as I understand security - national security. Today Sweden is participation in the "operation" in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is about natural gas and gas-pipelines. I doubt very much that Sweden would be there if Sweden was energy independent - fighting wars in faraway countries is a question of national security and I don't believe its a good solution to our energy dependency (I'm not interested in the moral aspect of the question). Permitting Sweden to become this vulnerable to factors we can not control in countries very far from Sweden is irresponsible to say the least. This policy has weakened the Swedish (and EUs and USAs) national security to a state where we have to be aggressors in order to get the resources we need. This is the result of a very faulted security policy. That politicians have acted in this short-sided manor is not surprising, but how security expert within the military and intelligence haven't protested loudly during the last 35 years is a mystery to me. To build the wellbeing of the society on a dwindling oil resource is more than critical. The facts have been around for 35 years! Even the US military has faced the facts. And again its not me and some other nobodies who think that the peak oil is a fact - Its the IEA, The International Energy Agency. We are prepare for the Ruskies, but not trivial facts of live.

And when it comes to preparing the population for a carbon-starved future the policy's are just as depressing. Somehow the risk of scaring people and thereby damaging the stock marked outweighs the risk of social chaos and shock when the bubble burst. This is VERY much contra to what the whole idea of a psychological defense. The trust in authorities is paramount in times to come and the time has come to face the facts - The stock marked and the financial system can not be saved by optimism. The last bailout was the last bailout and it kept us warm for 1,5 years, but the smile is wearing thin. Trust is a hard won currency. Who is going to listen politicians excusing them self, saying that nobody could have known? The public servants should consider how they can keep some of their credibility in the coming times.    
I'm afraid the only plan is the "don't panic - help will come" and that is not a plan.

Is Open Source Hardware a new movement?

Since I started thinking about sustainable technology and then stumbled upon the idea of Open Source Hardware and began trawling the net for the subject it have become clear to me that I am not alone - far from it, but also that the phenomenon is in its infancy - The information is not connected and people are not connected - YET!
Another strange generation phenomenon has also become apparent - The old school versus new school.
Old school is the now 50+ needs that missed the PC/Software/Internet race and still reads magazines like this or this or what about this one. These old men have a very different way of sharing knowledge - you suck up to those with more knowledge (or more toys or buy some fancy stuff useself so others wants to play with you - knowledge is power and you better start pleasing..

New School is another creature. New school IS about sharing.
Its about helping and getting more people interested in your interest. This has also brought some unlikely groups of people in the realms of electronics. Last week I meet 2 young(er than me) woman and to my surprise we talked about Arduino and electronics for the best of an hour. I am very pleased about seeing more than I expected woman in the forums and behind projects I visit. This might also keep a lit on the "I have the fastest, newest, biggest.." male trend that pester male dominated areas.

Another thought I had was the other day when thinking about why this electronics bug has caught on. Its a reaction to being utterly at the mercy of things that we have NO idea about how functions. Basically its about empowering and New school is coming on strong.

Grid 2.0 (smart grid) - why we need a new power grid.

How the power-grid works today (in principle).

• The grid operator provide power to the grid - with a steady output of 220 volts and 50Hz in EU (110 volt 60Hz USA).
• You turn on eg. a washing machine and draws power from the grid. The onset in power-consumption make the Volt level drop on the grid (very little, but still).
• The grid operator monitors the Volt-drop and orders more output. That increases the voltage to 50Hz again.
• When you turn off the washing machine, the grid voltage rises (very little) and the grid operator adjust the power-output a little down to get 50Hz again.

Thats the way it works very basically and how it have worked since the grid was invented. This way of regulating the grid is working but is really not very efficient. The grid is always counter-reacting to a changes in the grid. The grid is NOT adjusting to the current power-output. That wouldn't be a problem if power-production had a flat-rate cost regardless of the production level or how fast it has to react to changes. But power-production is organized into different categories dependent on how fast it have to (and can) contribute to regulation of grid.

• Basepower output - Do not change output.
• Medium changing power output - Changes output within minutes.
• Eminently changing power output - Changes output within seconds.

Reacting power-production can cost a 100 times more than base power production, so grid-operators go to great length in trying to predict what to power-consumption in the near future in order to be able to count in the biggest changes in power-demand, thereby save money. They look at past statistic, look at the weather forecast, read the TV schedule and predicts the coming need of power to a hight degree - but the are still reacting to changes. That is called regulating by swing-producer.
Power consumption is not ever over the day. Very little power is used nighttime and then BANG - 7.00 - we get up and turn on every kind of electronics we have and use a lot of power. Then it wobbles a bit during the day until we starts preparing dinner in the afternoon (putting on the stove and oven and dishing-machine and washing-machine all within minutes), then turns it all of and goes to sleep.
That means that most of the power-production is idling a large part of the day and that is not very efficient. It also means that grid operator have to be able to call in power supplies to meet demand - something that is not possible with eg. wind power (therefore there is put a cap on how much wind power that grid operators will accept in the total power production). A novel idea is to get demand to react to production - that is called Grid 2.0 or Smart grid.

In a grid 2.0 the grid-operators communicates to the consumer that now is a really good or really bad idea to turn on electronics. The electronics can be made to automatically react to power output or tell the the consumer how the situation are on the grid. A monetary incitement can be given to the consumer to adjust power consumption - cheaper electricity when there is low demand and high when there is high demand. To make this possible communication capabilities has to be build into the washing machine, the freeze, the heating system and so on.

Grid 2.0 will make it possible to produce electricity in a more efficient way. It also make it possible to include more wind power in the total power production.
Denmark is the country with the highest degree of wind power in the power production - 30% of Denmark's electricity is produced with wind power, but Denmark is unlikely to expand that number until a new way or regulating the grid is deployed. 30% - thats it - stop. The rest of the danish electricity is produced by gas and coal power-stations and this a problem Denmark shares with the majority of countries in the world. A sustainable electricity is not possible until the problem of regulation of the grid is solved. Grid 2.0 is one of the solutions and the technology has been there for several years now. Its a question of communication capabilities and (cheap) microcomputers. Communication can be via; GPRS, 3G, Broadband, VHF and direct via the electric cables. And then there has to be a standard and will to implement the technology. I'm pretty sure the biggest problem is the later. Power production has been privatized in most of EU and the Enron case showed clearly that more money can be made from chaos than order. Now Enron did create disorder in order to make money - the private electricity marked is only benefiting from the current faulty market model and statuesque. A Grid 2.0 is a smaller marked - fewer can do the same amount of power with the less disorder in the grid. To let it up to the market to solve this structural problem is irresponsible of the state. A stable and working power-grid for the future is a question of national security not to be taken lightly and left to (friends in) the big companies.
This transition to 2.0 is big and will take many years - it's a huge investment and we should get it started today rather than tomorrow.

Read more about Grid 2.0

PO -& Global warming (or why not just make it easy for your self?)

Why all this talk about Peak oil? Why not say Global warming? - then everybody knows what we talk about.
The cure is the same for PO (Peak Oil) and GW (Global Warming) - use less energy.
So what is the problem (why do you always have to be so difficult (and gloomy))?
My view on GW is this: First things first - Its like triage. Solve the most pressing problems first and GW isn't the most pressing global problem. For me it is not a question about for or against GW. It is not about if GW is real or not. GW is just not the most pressing problem - PO is. The consequences of GW is maybe 50 years away - PO is here and will have severe consequences within 20 years. That makes it easy to prioritize.
And if we solve PO, we have solved GW - even better.

Again if you don't believe me - fine, okay, sure - please prove me wrong.
More info on Peak oil:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.theoildrum.com/

Praying to an unknown God

This summer i read "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" (The Black Swan theory here). Its a tragic story about human deficits when it comes to the seldom seen - It seems like we tend to be optimistic about most aspects in life - these days especially when it comes to technology. For the secularized European God has taken a new form - A total believe in progress; Every aspect of life IS going to become better. Anyone who challenges this believe is met, not with a stone, but with a smile and eyes that shows pity for you the backward, who hasn't seen the light. Progress is measured in BNP and new technology. We WILL become richer and we WILL find a technological solution to every problem vi encounter.
I love technology I do! But lately I have been looking harder at the technology we have around us - Is it helping us? Is it really new? How do we use it? What is value, what have a real value? When I began to look into how I could make energy (and I looked in every corner of the beautiful net of an Internet) - and became very very disappointed. It turns out we really hasn't come up with any new working energy PRODUCING technology the last 56 years. The newest kid on the block is the photovoltaic cell 1954. Any other deployed technology is older and I stress the word deployed. Any other new energy producing technology is still in the making - marked "promising". That includes Fusion, Cold fusion, wave power, green algae.. and for the true believer "Zero point energy".
Any other deployed technology since 1954 has all in common - they use energy. Said in other words - we have invented many many new ways to use energy but very few that generate power.
But here comes the the scary part - That doesn't seems to rock our firm believe that a new solution will come to the rescue. Its either "somewhere someone will come up with a solution" or "the oil company's has the recipe for turning water to oil in the safe - you'll see..". This is a fundamentalist religious believe and when discussing with "them" I have to prove that the invisible "God" doesn't exist and thats difficult - needless to say no prof is necessary regarding the ever evading "God".
The faithful believe do not transcend every part of western society - Most people has an insurance thought nothing has happened, believe we must have a defense without a war, have a fire-department without a fire. But technology is going to save us... Maybe it is this one that is going to save us.. or this one, or this??
You don't believe me? ask Helga..

The idea of this blog and some background

My idea of this blog is to write about natural things to come and natural inventions and tools we need to adapt to a changing world - mostly of an electric nature.
When engaging in a discussion we need to establish a common ground (this is where the troubles begin). I am of no illusion that this is possibly any time soon if ever, changes are happening to fast now and we are left far and apart on the path to the future and our experience of the reality we live in differs enormously. I will try to describe where I believe we are in space and time at the moment.

Convictions.
- Energy.
Energy is our lifeblood. We use energy to live and form our life. This is the law of entropy, nothing else. This is a scientific believe. The energy I talk about is the energy of known and usable sorts: Oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar..
- ERoEI (Energy Return of Energy Invested).
- Finity (as opposed to Infinity). There is a FINITE amount of usable resources on the planet earth.
- Peak oil. We have peaked in oil production and If you don't believe me - read thought this site and then come back and state your case - much to much time (years) have been wasted argumentation against the obvious.
- Energy is "the" money - money isn't energy. Money can be invented, energy cant. If you don't have the energy - money is of no use.