COP21, Paris, 2015

You might be interested in watching my video of Dr Hermann Scheer which I recorded at the Retech conference in Las Vegas in February 2009 https://youtu.be/w_KZ01ps6gI , especially from 3.00 to 3.12. This also remains my view. Whilst the COP (Conference of Parties - a government "how can we work together to solve the climate crisis" conference) conference is important, the world remains at a loss because its expectations are too high. We are, after all, at COP21.

Our minds have become muddled and polluted and the environmental pollution and climate change and "global weirding" (Thomas Friedman) are visual representations of what is going on inside us. I was very interested to see Prince Charles say something very similar to this in an interview this week. I think that the establishment is finally catching up with what us "weirdos" have been saying for decades. But that is the nature of the world.

I agree with Dr Scheer that the COP conference will never create the simultaneous world wide revolution that people expect. However, if you look at the huge exponential growth in renewables over the past 15 years and at graph such as the one below you can see that the revolution is actually happening without COP.

More here: 7.7 GW of PV installed in 2015, up 24% on 2014!!

Social Capital in an African Energy System

My second presentation at the SAEE (South African Energy Efficiency) Conference

12 November 2015

In order to have growth we need infrastructure, "base load" and very big power stations. But finding trained staff for coal and nuclear power stations, for their build, operation and maintenance is proving difficult.

Renewable embedded energy & storage as part of an integrated, smart, energy efficient, grid

Waste, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and SmartGrids.

My presentation at the SAEE (South African Energy Efficiency Conference) on 11th November 2015.

Dealing with "dumb" centralised "push" grids vs smart decentralised "pull" grids. Also dealing with energy waste and spinning reserve and what we can do with this.

Has our education system failed us and let to mass overconsumption and pollution?

The educational debate. Someone just asked me to comment on an article about bringing modern education to everyone on the planet via using the internet and home schooling, and this is my response.

Dear Hermann.

An excellent article and thank you for asking me to comment on it.

This article assumes that rural Africans and other Africans without adequate education (definition to be discussed) and also others in the world without access to our historical educational grids, should have access to the same kind of education that we had.

Recently I have been doing a lot of research in "Social Capital" in an African educational system. Last month, I spoke at a conference about this, and next week I am speaking about it at the SAEE (South African Energy Efficiency) conference in Joburg. (See http://mypowerstation-sa.blogspot.co.za/search?q=social+capital)

I don't believe that our earth can continue to sustain the kind of education that we have historically forced on our children. This has led to the mass consumption and pollution that we see today.

Instead, I see that cheap and reliable renewable energy + cheap and reliable internet bandwidth from anywhere on the planet + getting people to want to remain in their communities rather than migrate to the cities (because they can access the cities from their communities) + an educational alternative which encourages rural town development and rural wealth creation by using permaculture principles enhanced into bringing people into the internet and energy internet age, will solve our mass education problems. I see a return to city states, but enhanced to the point where everyone is "rich", ie has access to the kinds of amenities that we have today, ie fresh potable water, hot water, flushing toilets, energy efficient housing and buildings, readily available clothing and quality, organic, food, electricity, the internet, and educational resources that enhance their current lifestyles, rather than trying to make them like us.

In my opinion, our system is failing us, as it moves more and more resources to centrally controlled units (clouds), and instead of making us interdependent, is creating a culture of dependence which is getting worse and worse.

We need to test our assumptions and ensure that we want the best for other people, and not try to make other people like us.

Regards
David.