Sa pl e

#1 m

Author & Designer

RAY PODDER (Rahul Kumar Poddar)

ON E

The New Abundant Energy Revolution & The Power of You

(First Edition, v 1.0)

ISBN-13: 978-1468085617

2011, Ray Podder First Published: 1/2/2012

Image usages attributed to their

respective sources and publications with special thanks to Public Domain, Wikimedia & The Creative Commons Arc of Aum Publishing Culver City, California, U.S.A. arcofaum.org

ONE: The New Abundant Energy Revolution and The Power of You by Ray Podder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

for every one of us

We think with the ideas we have. The ideas that form our beliefs, education, science, technology, relationships and policies to shape this world we call our home. The foundational ideas of the modern world are now leading us to an inflection point of divergent extremes. On one hand we have unprecedented exponential advances in technological breakthroughs and on the other we have the most dangerous obsession with material consumption that is depleting and destroying natural resources we cannot replenish. This book is about the ideas beyond the confusions of the day. The next ideas from the wise and the brave of the past and present to help us rethink a future that we can proudly pass on to our children. A future desperately in need of that which is most abundant in the universe yet made most scarce by the ideas of our ancestors. This is about our use of energy. Energy to empower us to make the next leaps forward. Energy that is actually abundant despite what we have been told and what we have been sold. Energy that is soon to be abundant enough to be free of charge and free us from the delusions of our past. Skeptics, enthusiasts, and everyone in between, a most heartfelt thank you for your attention. This is for every one of us.

CONTENTS
Prologue

O UR W O R L D
1

In ThisSample

Introducti on

A D I NN E R F O R TH E D ELUS IO NAL
How an exercise for control from the old energy world order led to realizing the abundant ene rgy revolution

_ _ _ _ _ _______________________________ 17

In ThisSample

Pa r t I

T H E S C A R C I T Y O F S ANITY
In the A ge of Abunda n c e _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __________________________________
ARRESTING OF ADVANCEMENT: Science vs. the Status Quo DESPERATION FOR DEMAND: The Politics of Pollution SCIENCE OF SIMPLICITY: Innovations for Abundance PRAYING FOR PANACEA: Greenwashing the Greed

38

In ThisSample

Pa r t II

T H E Q UE S T F OR E Q UALITY
I n a Ti me of U nprecedented A c c es s __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ____________________ ________________
RU L E S & R E VO LU T I O N S: The Distributing of Empowerment A NEW SOCIETY OF SHARING: The Abundance of Access MORE & MORE WILL NEVER EVER BE ENOUGH Greed & Envy Give In to Global Interdependence 181

Pa r t III

T HE N EX T R E C I PE S F OR R ES O NANCE
Adv anci ng Our Empower m en t
_________________________________________________ ACCELERATING CONVERGENCE: The Availability of Abundance EMPOWERING OUR ECONOMICS: Opening of Opportunities FRAMEWORK FOR FREE: Empowering the Emancipation 254

The Power of You

T H I N K| B UI L D | C ONNECT
People Centri c Possi bil i ti es _ _ _ _ _______________________________ THINK: Deleti ng the De l u s i o n s BUILD: Collaborati on for C r eati o n s CO NNE CT: Compassi on of C o m m u n i ty 364

Epi logue

ONE
____ 393

RESPECTS & REFEREN C E S __________________ ____ 407

We would rather be ruined than changed, we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.
W.H. Auden

Prologue
OUR WORLD

HISTHE PAIN OF HISACHED HEART UNREQUITED WITH

AS ONE OF HIS TEARS DROPPED DOWN

LOVE

ONLY TO DISTURB THE VISION OF HIS BELOVED

The ripples in the pond beneath him still could not convince Narcissus that it was his own reection that he was enamored with and not the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Echo called out to him repeatedly but all he could hear was the faint facsimile of her voice, for Narcissus was too deeply invested in the idea that his reection was real and it was all that mattered. Unable to leave the beauty of his reection, he died. The story of Narcissus 1 dates back thousands of years and you would think that by now we would get wiser to the meaning behind the myth. Sadly, this is not so and history repeats itself again and again in our collective forgetfulness. We, the perceivers of the grand illusion of our existence, accept the myths of our modern reality as it was handed to us at birth and continue to carry it forward regardless of faint voice of sanity that echoes in the background.
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 1

Courtesy: factctionandconjecture.ca

The Industrial Devolution Since the late seventeenth century we have been authoring an unprecedented era of material progress with practical energy and technical skills. The industrial2 and electronic revolutions led by the brilliant minds and fueled by the pioneering spirit of the West 3 conquered countless new domains to improve the quality of our daily lives. Today we eat, drink, move and live with unprecedented ease. However, while we marvel at the advancement of technologies that shrink time and space, deconstruct the building blocks of life to extend our own clocks and demystify the laws of nature to help us rule our physical domain, it seems we are again at an impasse. If we are supposed to be much better off now, than why are most of us working that much harder than our parents just to keep up?
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 2

Historically we have evolved from hunters and shers to farmers, but somehow in the industrial era it seems that we have gone backwards to hunt and sh for survival. We now hunt for jobs, bargains, fame and fortune IPOs instead of growing and sustaining them. We sh in crowded ponds for ideas, opportunities and prospects to sell to and speculate on instead of nurturing their fruits. Everything is a race, every minute is a minute too late. The cheap energy that we thought fossil fuels provided us 4 and boosted human productivity through the roof was merely an illusion. It is proving to be anything but cheap when we consider the rate of depletion5 of our natural resources that we have assumed as income instead of the irreplaceable capital that it actually is. We were lucky to have found stockpiles of dormant energy our mother earth has been saving up for billions of years in her womb in the form of oil, gas, coal, metals, minerals and more. We have been gorging on it without any real idea of how to replenish it. The high speed information networks that run through her veins that we call waterways are getting clogged with the sewage of our gluttony and it is starting to choke the supplies of fresh water we need for life itself. The waste6 from our current energy generation methods cannot be reused as nutrients as in nature. So now the ever growing piles of it have become a huge pollution management problem, with the U.S. on the top of the list in both emissions 7 and toxic waste8 contributing to ongoing environmental and health risks, the true cost of which we have yet to fathom. Meanwhile, the course of progress we enjoy today is directly dependent on a culture of innite selsh consumption that needs to burn oil, gas and coal at alarming rates to keep going. The promises of nuclear energy 9 brings with it even more unmanageable risks 10 now made more visible by recent tragedies like Fukushima; and despite the hype around solar photovoltaics and wind farms, the reality is that the research and
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 3

development spending there is negligible compared to fossil fuels, and they currently account for less than 1% of global energy generation.11 Disturbing fallouts 12 are not just with the industrial waste that is affecting everything from mass extinctions, contamination of food and water supplies, chronic health conditions and ongoing global wars. A more insidious byproduct is still going largely unnoticed. The same productivity boosts that afford us more gadgets and goods per capita13 than ever before are also depleting our humanity in ways that may be irreparable for generations to come. Yet, even though we intuitively know that the systematic mass cultivation of greed and envy to drive our progress is an unhealthy obsession, we ignore it. Much like the smoker who takes a deep drag of black tar and ash knowing full well the impact to her health, we are also aware that the idea of trying to satisfy our innite human needs with nite material things cannot ever be sustainable. The Mechanization of Materialism We are in a catch 22. We want that good life promised to us thousands of times a day 14 with click-throughs, views, downloads, blasts, check-ins, billboards and commercials, but its costing us more and more energy to continue the pace, not to mention the growing abyss of nondisposable waste. The good life remains a eeting illusion for more than many. The gap between the haves and have nots are growing ever wider and if you look at the Robert Setmour: Walking by Steam 1830 faces of those on the losing side, it just may be more cruel and dehumanizing than when people were bought and sold in the pursuit of prot!
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 4

Our creations, especially the one that of the machine deeply fascinates our fancy. So much so, that we have started to dene our humanity by it. We equate our brains to computers, our hearts to pumps, our limbs to levers and our bodily functions to production factories where our DNA are considered the blueprints. We have economic engines, nancial instruments and educational outputs all leading us to the man and machine melding of our dreams. This machine driven humanity is picking up speed now with each turn of the wheels of progress. We reduced the animals and land that sustain us into machines for meat and factories for food, economically viable as long as they are producing protably without any concern for the ecosystems damaged or the life forces imbalanced in the process. Where we consuming automatons are headed now seem as clear as the reection in that fabled pond but how we are getting there is getting murkier by the minute.

The Homogenizing of Our Humanity Scientically, we have discovered that ecological diversity is the key to resilience,15 yet somehow we seem to homogenize the beautiful heterogeneity that is life. We work hard to eliminate competing ideologies, divergent approaches, dissenting voices and visible blemishes that counter our mechanized hyper-competitive self focused worldview. The evolutionary survival of the ttest that applies in local ecosystems for natural selection is now applied globally as if we were all the same, and expecting the same results. Why did the varied approaches to progress we once had locally now reduced to a singular global ideology? How can the expressions and opinions of billions of people be reduced to a handful of opposing political ideologies? Why are we so invested in this idea that we have to routinely create stories of false scarcities and wage wars to defend our
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 5

positions? Is it because we dont want the markets to freak out when spending is down in the coming holiday season? We know that the capacity for production and consumption is a direct factor of materials and energy; and yet we proclaim the latter to be scarce while promoting innite growth and pace of the former. We break perfectly usable things down and blow stuff up so we can create jobs building it back up and call it capitalism, but never question which capitalist would ever treat their capital as income as we proudly do so with natural and human capital. Why doesnt the simple idea of letting people have equity in their creation to drive full employment ever occur to our leaders? Are they that afraid of such sustainable self expression, even when the preaching of individuality is the prevalent mantra? Maybe our government and industry leaders have bought into the idea people are inherently idiots like how Adolf Hitler believed16 physical attributes dened the intelligent and the imbeciles? Maybe they still think we are stupid...

Yet we are still amazing.

Our ability to create something from nothing is unmatched. Creativity is our evolutionary heritage and it never ceases to amaze. We create, innovate, invent, write, compose and make, while we think and we question our existence over and over to uncover better explanations for our reality and new clues to the universal truth. In short, we are because we ask. Life has wised us up to the fact that our ambitions are excellent servants but they are horrible masters. Our ambitions to date have obviously transformed us from savage survivors to global guardians. Each era of our recorded history unquestionably chronicle the tenacity of our survival against the seemingly insurmountable odds with new questions we have asked. Questions to spark the next ideas to outpace the times. So why are
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 6

we not asking more of them now? Dont you intuitively sense that this again is one of those times? Wars, mass extinction,17 pandemics, famine, genocide, nancial and energy decits are not just looming, the sheer scale of the compounding impending damage is unimaginable compared to any other self inicted catastrophe we have ever experienced. Collapse18 and doomsday scenarios are popular during times like these, and now is no different. As always, the authors of the plot that led us here, are arguing about which seat to take while the proverbial bus heads for the cliffs. If we just ignore that inner voice of reason echoing in the back we will be all right...if we just tune it out.... Can we still continue to remodel the garden with a bulldozer and show our pride in the coverage? Can we speak of human potential and transcendental qualities of our souls, when we really mean for those of us who got theirs and conveniently forget the others whom we lovingly describe as The Population Problem or social burdens of the state? We delude ourselves to be cruel enough to pay extra for our latts to be fair to them 19 with no real consideration for the source of their dignity. Our leaders convincingly tell us that we are more advanced than any others before us, yet the examples by which they lead continues their pointless battles of immutable ideologies as the wisest moves forward. Our new god now lives in old ideas considered too big to fail. Even though we understand that real values between people are all in our relationships, our scriptures of value are no longer counted in human terms. Instead they are counted in colored papers and stamped metals where the winner takes all. Our best and brightest young minds no longer aspire to change the world with science, engineering and the arts; instead, they get us to click ads or hone their spreadsheet skills in hoping to become the 1% who control the 40% of the wealth,20 and they happily justify the ends no matter the means.
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 7

We have managed to confuse our innate competitive drive that is natural to genetic selection to global scale mass competition driven by greed and envy as a way of life. Addictions to substances and obsessive habits are ostracized and medicalized for prot as they escalate amongst us, while the addictions to power and prot fueled by growing the inequities between us are handsomely rewarded.21 Those who choose to sober up with genuine heartfelt compassion for our brothers and sisters are viewed as weak idealists. If they want to have secure family lives, their ideals eventually become faint memories by the time they are in their mid lives. The good and the strong were never two different people, but in our world thats exactly who they are. The Development of Dischord It wasnt always like this. For most of our existence on earth, we have danced in harmony with the cosmos, but lately we seem to have lost the beat. Did we make the deal with the devil too soon for the energy that fuels our recent progress? In our ongoing quest for eternal life, we seem to have imagined ourselves separated from not only the stuff of stars we have formed from, but from all the splendor of life22 that permeates us and connects us to this world. For example, we are over 10% in volume in bacteria 23 and most of our bodily functions like digestion would not be possible without them, yet our approach to healthcare is killing all germs at any cost while making us sicker24 in the process. The wise have shown us the signs and yet we chose to ignore them. Singular explanations for anything and everything narrow our options but we spare no expense in pursuing them. Every economist now collects evidence to validate that free markets are the only way forward and every established institution assumes the scarcity of resources to be the only root motivator while alternative views and solutions beg for a slice of our fading attention spans.
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 8

This book is about those stories. It is the new characters and ideas that
can redirect our shared narrative in a direction away from the fate of the famed Dodo. It is about demystifying the last notion of scarcity we have yet to overcome. The scarcity of renewable energy that has somehow been embedded deep into our narrative while science shows us ever more innovative ways to generate it laterally, locally and sustainably. The expensive and inefcient systems of centralized production and distribution of energy that on average loses 67% in the transmission25 not to mention the cost of maintenance and protection must go. Energy security through defense spending has become more expensive than the value the fossil fuel resource itself delivers. For example, military spending in the U.S. in 2010 was 39% of total tax revenue versus only 3% spent on energy, science and the environment.26 Is centralized production really wise, now that we know size and efciency are no longer directly related? Before the industrial revolution, economists considered output to be fundamentally constrained by the limited supply of land. Now we know better, yet our policies and propaganda still constrain us by confusing the true availability of cheap and abundant renewable energy. Shouldnt the upcoming era undoubtedly break us free of those mental shackles, especially now that the technology and the economic and geopolitical conditions to do so are already here? We can be wiser. We have done it many times before and unlike the past; the Internet now helps us forever hold on to our deep knowledge, 27 which can no longer be lost like generations before us. We can now share new ways of doing things, share new ideas that break convention and expose the unbounded potentiality now hidden behind desperate old lies.

We now need new ambitions and a new master.

Prologue | O U R W O R L D 9

There is far more to our world than what is taught in our schools, shown in the media, or proclaimed by religion or government. We do not have to live in a hypnotic trance, accepting the mass promoted dream where natural values are inverted, lies are taken as the truth, and tyranny is accepted as security with survival doled out by the few when it should be our right. Our built-in spiritual immune systems already senses that something does not t, and we need to pay attention to those ripples in the pond. We already know the right things to do, we just need the right knowledge to act on it. We can be better, stronger and more resilient than ever before but we need to shift our perspective outside of the world we understand at the moment. What is happening in the world now is just making the need for a better way to do things more obvious. Looking only to government or corporate charities to bail us out is implausible. How will they know what your risks are if theyve never walked in your shoes? How can people who are concerned with collecting money from old energy world order interests do anything else but keep things as they are? To complain about their betting and borrowing against our childrens future is pointless. We know that it is the only way they can feed the beast that keeps them employed. Sure, there are simply no more imaginary values left to pump up the money supply 28 making the world go around; but isnt debt just built into the design to keep the innite consumption engine going? There is a better way. Everyone in the game now is open to cooperate to see a better future than the one that is currently unfolding. The existing system is incapable of xing the problems by design. We need a better story for a new one with stronger ideas.

Prologue | O U R W O R L D 10

The Reinvention of Our Rising The old energy world order has to give way to something entirely new. Not because it wants to, but because we are running out of available options. How can we count on depleting energy reserves to sustain our increasing demand? Especially since every year it brings with it unprecedented and compounding negative side effects. How can the instigators of this ugly mess still think that it could remain protable? Sick and dying customers were never good for business were they? The question for us now should not be whether we can supplement a small percentage of our fossil fuel addiction with things that look and feel cleaner, but rather how can they propel us further than the last energy revolution, when we learned to pack hundreds of horses under the hood of a single car? How can we generate energy that doesnt create pollution in any form, but only natural waste which can then be recycled into useful energy again? How can we eliminate the gap between the capital investment 29
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 11

and protability? How can we free people from wage slavery or worse because the key component that drives the scarcity mindset of current economics is no longer relevant? The good news is that empowered citizens from the least advantaged to the most privileged locations are now standing up. Organizing, creating and sharing beyond the delusions of the day. Their stories are our stories. They share their solutions with us freely and I will of course feature some of them here. There is now ample scientic evidence that renewable energy can be produced too cheap to meter locally and laterally, giving access to all to usher in a new era of human empowerment beyond the one we have just witnessed by the Internet. Right now we are technologically enabled to be more informed, more creative and more powerful than ever. I sincerely believe that what I am about to share with you here will show you how true that really is. This is not our ght against the powers that be.

There was never us versus them. There is only us.

Historically we have advanced through the connecting and sharing of information to empower each individual. Information=Energy. The explanations for what governs the ow of energy in our universe has been the information we can attribute to it. The information that ows through our communication networks now is an indicator of the empowering dispersive nature of energy, and our independence and interdependence of it with others to follow. Those are the stories that strengthen our reasons for existing in a world where we are at the mercy of mother natures increasingly unpredictable mood and consent. Vilifying the status quo is a waste of our energy now that it is most needed for solutions.

Prologue | O U R W O R L D 12

The few who have been ruling us through manipulation do so because of their belief in the outdated ideas of their ancestors. Those of us who rage against them are not much different. Differences leading to conict are in ourselves and not in others. They are based on ideas from the past that have no place in the next iteration of humanity if we are to survive. People do not always espouse ideologies because they believe in them deep in their hearts. We often only cling to outmoded ideas to either protect what we have, or to get what we feel we deserve. How many of us would really do anything different if we now found ourselves in the position30 of the ruling elite, or how many of our elite would ridicule the protestors if they too were disenfranchised? Exactly. This is about us. We are more creative and powerful than we have been told. We dont need more activism that gets marginalized and politicized for the benet of the ruling class, we need realistic actions that help all of us live better lives including the lives of those who now feel they have to lie, cheat and manipulate the rest of us to keep their status. We need alternate strategies that can practically chart our progress for the mission for true abundance that is rightfully ours:

Renewable energy must be free and made accessible to everyone.

This idea is not a theory. In fact, its not even original. Nikola Tesla said the same over a century ago as did many others. The concept of abundance is a difcult one for any of us to truly grasp because we have had no previous framework for it. Bucky Fuller believed that humanity's seemingly intractable resistance to the idea of abundance is because scarcity has been the human reality for so long, that the zero-sum game is virtually cemented into human consciousness.

Prologue | O U R W O R L D 13

So who am I to take a position that far greater men than me have attempted to communicate and failed spectacularly? I am just someone who happens to live through a time, when the explanations for the coming age of abundance has visible evidence that none of us can ignore any longer. We have run into the natural limits of our progress with ideas that no longer serve our best interests. The question should not be whether we believe that renewable energy can be 100% free of charge and accessible to everyone on the planet is possibly true. The truth is independent of belief. We can't fabricate it, we only discover it when observable evidence leaves us little choice but to accept the newer explanation closer to it that rises above the established ideas of the times. The audacity of this mission does not escape me. I do not proclaim this vision lightly or irresponsibly because I just want to drop another wish in the utopian bucket. I know the hopes dreams and livelihoods of a great number of us are deeply invested in the way things are. So, I state this objective of free 100% renewable energy for everyone in all sincerity having done my homework on the technical and political possibilities.

We have the capacity but we are still struggling with the humanity.
The scientic evidence is overwhelming as you will see when I soon share what I have discovered. It is important to drive the access cost of it to zero because we need to empower more useful productivity not less, and we now have the technical means to do so. The sh does not know that water exists until it jumps, and we now nd ourselves able to make that leap. The clues and ideas for a better world is all around us, we just have to act. For me, I learned about the water I was in by accident. That story is next.
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 14

I hope that and the stories that follow will help you see beyond the current reality you nd yourself in to a new age of prosperity and abundance to follow. We can make renewable energy free and accessible to everyone, and nally power those dreams laying dormant in the dated notions of scarcity as the default human condition. Renewable energy can be abundant, ubiquitously accessible and individually empowering. Todays Occupy 31 movement is simply a reaction to a world that is no longer working for the majority of its citizens. Marginalizing and manipulating them again to another era of mass greed and envy is no longer a viable option. We need new and better ideas. Ideas like a resilient renewable energy economy with an inclusive and empowering new framework like the following: 1. Abundant: Energy is Everywhere Emerging science is making it amply evident that it is easier than ever to generate renewable energy laterally and cheap enough to be free. Energy is the next platform not commodity. 2. Accessible: Flow is Everything We can make the access cost of energy go away much like v a l u e i s created on virtual platforms like Facebook and Google because access is free. We not only have the means, but the proven models and methods already in effect. 3. Advancing: Empowerment is Inalienable Everyone wants to work yet there are always more people now than jobs. The economics of scarce energy cannot continue to suffocate human and natural capital when we already know how to let it ow. The next energy economy can accelerate the advancement for all of us, not just the few who now control it. We also know that good ideas are only as useful as our ability to execute on them. To execute on realizable alternatives to the old energy paradigms, we need to better understand what it is that we are trying to
Prologue | O U R W O R L D 15

shift away from. What the breadth and depth of the true cost of business as usual really are. We need to strip away the illusions that have kept us here, and look at everything from cognitive science to new and better explanations for our physical realities. It is really up to us now to adopt a better story forward. I am condent that we will, because that's how we are here now. Wake up beautiful...its just your reection you are looking at. The world is a far more splendid place and we dont have to kill it and ourselves to enjoy it.

Its our world. Its your time.

Prologue | O U R W O R L D 16

Prologue | OUR WORLD

Section Endnotes
1 2 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

ForeignAffairs.com: How the West won: History that feels good usually isnt: http://is.gd/ kYbxox
4 5 6 7 8 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_depletion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste Nationmaster.com: Environmental statistics by country: http://is.gd/OfJouI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste Greenpeace: The nuclear fallacy: Why nuclear power is part of the problem: http://is.gd/Qs1mPF The fallacy of nuclear renaissance: http://is.gd/l8YTyF Research and Markets: Global Renewables Report Ed 1 2011: http://is.gd/LeBIMS Burning water, contamination and natural gas fracking via pri.org: http://is.gd/pVOLeV The Los Angeles Times: Life has never been so good for our species: http://is.gd/PbRAK4 New York Times: Anywhere the eye can see, its likely to see an ad: http://is.gd/gJCer0 http://www.learndev.org/dl/BtSM2011/Merkel_Resilience_Abstract.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_political_views

10 11 12

13

14

15 16

Prologue | O U R W O R L D

17

Live Science: Humans on the verge of creating 6th great mass extinction: http://is.gd/d4Vcdg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(lm) http://www.adamsmith.org/images/pdf/unfair_trade.pdf Vanity Fair; Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% : http://is.gd/AapvvF Human Nature segment from Zeitgeist the movie. Clip here on Viddler: http://is.gd/TjXq7U Vimeo: The light of life (video): http://vimeo.com/9325052 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_bug_(bacteria)

18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25

Thomas R. Casten and Brennan Downes: Volume 29.1, January / February 2005: The Case for Decentralized Generation of Electricity: http://is.gd/32ws0x
26 27 28 29 30 31

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending Wired UK: Six ways the Internet will save civilization: http://is.gd/0yACkA YouTube video: The American Dream American Nightmare : http://is.gd/eiWmgl http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38295/ Business Insider: Google is now ofcially evil: http://is.gd/Gxaqth http://www.occupytogether.org/

Prologue | O U R W O R L D

Madness in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzche

Introduction

DINNER
FOR THE

DELUSIONAL
Started with tantalizing swirls of a spicy green puree topped with a bed of curly sweet potato slivers with just the right touch of savory garnished my plate, while the most decadent cut of succulent seared imported Kobe beef sirloin I had ever seen, seductively settled on top. A culinary masterpiece that invited a frenzy of gluttonous bliss for the taking and yet I admired its beauty too much to start. On a west coast winters eve in 2009 we were sitting in one of the most exclusive restaurants in San Francisco. The irony of the unsustainable inefciency of this meal when you consider the total cost of water, carbon and transport to put this on my plate is lost on me here. I am surrounded by some of the most exquisite gastronomic delights and expressive libations taxpayer money can buy in this indulgent congratulatory ceremony with my newly formed colleagues.

17

The client was the state of California, and the utility executive with the 1960s style optical frames sitting at the end of the table was picking up the tab. Gathered around the table was a smorgasbord representative sample of whos who of the marketing and advertising industry. A superstar of international branding fame, the quintessential darlings of Madison Avenue pasts pride and joy, a top market research rm president, a world renowned energy expert, a superstar policymaker, a political strategist, a technical architect...and that was just the dinner crowd. Flying in from LA this morning into SFO, I never thought that I was about to do anything more than the sharing of my expertise on how to make web and mobile apps work, but this felt different. I wrote the solution proposal as I had often done to help sell the wares of our digital agency, and this was supposed to be just another project kick off. When I got there though, the thickish airborne hope lingered a bit longer than your average congregation of powerful participants. Earlier in the day the gauntlet was thrown down: We are bringing together the best of the best to collaborate on creating an integrated education and outreach program to empower Californians to become the beacon for energy efcient living in the world. The objective was reaching 100% energy efcient living by the year 2030. Experts from Google, Stanford,1 General Electric and even the federal energy commissions task force were there to conrm that we were in fact the esteemed group to do it. An impressive roomful of scientists, educators, legislators, marketers and technologists congregated around what seemed to be the noblest of causes:

To Deliver a Clean and Energy Efficient Future for Our Childrens Children.
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 18

I remember feeling so honored and proud to be included. I had already established a career of designing and making cool things work on the web, and was looking to transfer my experience to the emerging clean energy industry. The smart grid concept was fascinating to me. I was already doing some work on the web interaction side of smart metering programs. That is designing applications that help power customers manage their energy usage so that their newly to be installed smart meters, or meters that can digitally measure exactly how much electricity you are sucking up from the coal and nuclear powered power plants. Now to be associated with this group with solution ideas that Id actually initiated, it felt like a dream. My mind was buzzing with new ideas for the possibilities ahead. This would by far be the coolest thing Ive ever been a part of professionally, Id thought. This would nally be our time and my shining moment in the start of really making a difference in the world...That is, until I inadvertently made sure that... ...my own delusions were shattered! Over the next year and a half of surviving the meetings about meetings, the multi-committee deliberations and the intra organizational political inghting that it took to launch the much diluted version of this ambitious effort, the reality behind its motives and purpose proved to be something else entirely. See, my approach is and has always been to ask the questions that identify the root of the problem Im trying to solve for and then innovate and collaborate our way to the solutions. This project too should have been no different, except for what I found when I looked past the surface. What I found, or rather what I stepped into ultimately became the reason for writing this. My discoveries seemed harmless at rst.
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 19

Everyone I talked to and worked with on this was good intentioned and shared the latest and greatest information and industry best practices with us. Since the power company was signing our paychecks, the typical control based management indigenous to legacy organizations like them was all that frustrated me. I would write off the frictions in the process as par for the course. You know, like when you get a little push back because of institutional process, budget and committee approvals and you are asked to scale back the effectiveness of your ideas because of logistics? Sure, there were also some evasive tactics when I brought up the issue of accounting for real metrics that would show a direct correlation from our efforts into actual renewable electrical power generation. That too, I dismissed as just bureaucratic ineptitude because seriously, these people with institutional jobs really dont like to work that hard, right? Then I discovered what I had never expected.

A deeper and more revealing encounter with the truth!

I was looking up the origins of Edison International and discovered how Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan suppressed the visionary work of Nikola Tesla,2 Courtesy: Dailymail.co.uk who had discovered revolutionary ways to deliver electricity for free without wires, cure ailments with frequencies and so much more. I dug deeper into the history of coal and oil and discovered Winston Churchills 3 role in discrediting the steam power sterling engine in favor of oil and coal that fueled the mass industrialization of our modern world. When I looked into the proliferation of automobiles and wasteful suburban planning, I discovered Rudolf Diesels engine4 that ran on peanut oil and electric car designs from the turn of the nineteenth century that never saw the light of day!
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 20

Worlds 1st Electric Car 1894

These werent recent innovations, but things that had happened many decades in the past, and in some cases over a century ago. I even learned that there was a hydrogen car business with fuel generated from solar panels and water partnered by Jack Nicholson5 in 1978. Yes, 1978! The closer I looked, the more I realized how deep the dirty energy economy really goes. Did you know that there are 10 units of hydrocarbon energy 6 expended for every calorie of food we consume, or that there are 7 gallons of crude oil required to produce a single tire7 on your new electric car? So then what was this clean energy hoopla all about? What was selling more EnergyStar appliances and electric cars really going to do? Why are solar, wind8 and hydro farms all the rage even though it takes more energy and pollution to produce the industrial versions of them than the energy that they can generate? The more I looked for solutions that would actually realize the energy efcient vision that we were putting out on behalf of the energy companies, the more obvious it became that we were running out of the fossil fuel sources to make that realistically happen in time and in a cost effective way. The political spin campaigns of the old energy world order too were becoming increasingly ridiculous the more I probed. Coal was supposed to be clean against all evidence to the contrary? There is more than enough oil supply when we are spending more and more trying to drill it out from the open sea, squeeze it out of the sand, and spending even more in wars to hold on to the last few precious drops? Come on! Who spends all day searching for crumbs in the cracks of their couch if their kitchen is stocked?

Yet, everything we use right now to keep our world going is all based on oil.9
The fertilizers, pesticides and packaging needed for our mass produced food, the mass market drugs and cosmetics to satisfy our innate love affair with longevity, all those cool must have mobile gadgets we connect to the
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 21

world and each other with and of course the manufacturing of those clean energy promises with hybrids, daisies and windmills. All of these things are now directly affected by the availability of affordable fossil fuel supplies. There is no alternative yet available to offset the cost advantage that oil provides today. So shouldnt we be asking what are the cost effective renewable energy options that are simple and resilient, that we can produce right now to offset our dependence on wasteful and ecologically harmful energy usage like coal, gas, nuclear and oil? But thats not the mainstream clean, green message is it? Instead its as if we continue to buy more stuff like electric cars and solar panels all of our problems of global poverty, famine, pollution and water shortage10 would miraculously go away! Of course all of this was pre Fukushima, and I hadnt yet scratched the surface of why inspectors and regulators in energy industries like nuclear were not keeping up their safety and maintenance practices 11 since most of these power plants were installed in the late 1970s. Hint hint: it has something to do with powerful industrialists who fund the programs for the regulators that are supposed to monitor them...Remember our buddy who was picking up the tab our decadent dinner?

So why this farce?

Why say we are going to change the world when in fact, those saying it the loudest are most directly responsible for the harm inicted on the planets delicate equilibrium? The geopolitics and business as usual of our world has undoubtedly contributed to the mess we nd ourselves in now. Climate change, the mass extinction12 of ora and fauna, contamination of ecosystems from waste that cannot be safely disposed of, the capital intensive centralized generation and distribution of electricity from dirty coal 13 and nuclear power plants we cant wean ourselves from? All the debilitating habits of the old energy world order that keep us bound to our power bills and those wallet shrinking pipes at the pump?
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 22

The convenient answer of course is that its just the way the world works and that its human nature, but that wasnt good enough for me. Like most of us, I too want the beautiful future we are being promised that we can all afford to buy someday. Except I wonder if we needed to continue buying it at all? How will we live longer, experience more, travel faster, earn more and eat better if that wasnt what the old energy world order was showing us? Why are oil company executives getting bonuses after oil spills while politicians complain that teachers make too much money? Why were banks too big to fail but small businesses arent? Maybe I should have just believed that people much smarter and powerful than me would create viable solutions for the world eventually and Id be better off not questioning their motives. Or maybe its my past work experiences with garage startups and my fuck the status quo rebel immigrant DNA that just wouldnt let me. Whatever the reason, just like the minority character who goes into the dark hallway in a slasher ick, I also couldnt help but sense the inevitable, yet I continued looking for answers. At rst I thought it was those greedy corporate bastards behind all of this, and that I would nd justice and redemption with the democratic policymakers. So I looked further into policy and those who make them. What I found there were just as disconcerting as the history lessons. These people were not interested in real change, they were interested in reelection. Period. The simplistic and unproven credos of politicians may win votes but never seemed to solve the real problems. For example, there is no scientic evidence to corroborate, why the rich should not have to pay taxes yet create more jobs, or that the poor will be more productive and self sufcient if given more handouts. Yet in the United States this has been the cornerstones of a two party philosophy on either side of such arguments, both premises of which have no scientic evidence to support
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 23

them. Its as if those supporting either ideology have no other option at vindication other than to continue ghting amongst each other indenitely. So what kind of policies will politicians like these make for a clean energy future? The ones that will keep them in power of course. So if the idea that we will be 100% efcient, or Zero Net, which means that you produce as much energy as you consume can win votes then lets say it. Never mind that the projected dates for these things to actually happen, can and will shift ahead into the future indenitely as the energy industry capitalists manipulate the next candidates and their inconsequential agendas to win the next round of votes. So who was really in charge? Who created the conditions where the policymakers win votes in a system where those who actually make things are squeezed for their efforts while those who manipulate and bet on their success emerge as the winners? Well, of course its the people who own the power companies and the countries that are supposed to be regulating them because they bet on their success. The bankers. The big money players. What was their story? So I started following the money back to who makes this happen and who keeps it from changing for the better. I learned how the bankers 14 who nanced wars for monarchs centuries ago and owned the banking system were more powerful than the monarchs themselves, and what they have grown up to become in the modern era. I learned why the Federal Reserve Bank 15 is no more federal than Federal Express.16 It is a private corporation that exchanges its money with interest for interest free U.S. dollars, making us pay interest on our own currency!17 I learned how these bankers get rich from trading debt based on gold and silver that in most cases is not even there to begin with, yet they could inuence the printing of money against it. You know that thing called at currency?
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 24

I learned how the USA holds their power position in the world because everyone has to buy oil in dollars,18 and that in exchange for the U.S. being good brokers, we get a discount on gas while the rest of the world pays much more at the pump. Now I understood the rumor of how Saddam Husseins wanting to trade in Euros over the Dollar19 is probably true and quite clearly explains the Iraq occupation. Everywhere I looked, it was a history of inequities carried over from generation to generation in favor of prots and power for the few at the expense of everyone else!

WOW! Now it all made sense.

The controlling motives of the old energy world order go much deeper and are much more insidious than just the whitewashed stories of clean technologies we hear about. Its more than just the messages of hope with daisies, windmills and hybrids that keeps the worldwide consumption machine running on oil. It was about the money behind it all. The old energy world order didnt just affect just the sources of where and how our energy is produced, they affect everything we know about our way of life today. This was a revelation! I stopped wondering and complaining about why 1% of the population controls nearly 40% of the worlds wealth20 or why the study of management attracts hoards of hopefuls who keep this massive discrepancy of wealth upwards in place. I was no longer confused about why the recent US government bailouts 21 to banks were more than 700 times the amount of capital invested in the private sector that creates both innovation and new jobs in the same time frame. The confusions suddenly vanished and the concerns crept in...The best way to describe it is kind of like when you realize that your buddy at the wheel is shit-faced wasted and you were too buzzed to recognize it when you rst got in his jalopy of a car. Except that this is just a tad bit more signicant than just praying both of you get home safe. The car is the
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 25

planet and your designated drunk driver is everyone you voted for, and the manufacturer of the engine? Well, that story is enough for a whole other book.

BUT WAIT, HOLD ON...

The history of our progress has always been the history of the dispersion of power from the few to the many.
Modern democracies are the dispersion of power from monarchs to representatives, the smartphone is a distribution of power from the PC which was again the distribution of power from mainframe computers to the desktops of individuals...So wouldnt this new energy world order with clean, renewable emission free power also be on a similar path? Today, we still hear about this thing called distributed generation or DG.22 Interestingly, the ideas for which have been around since the 1970s. We hear about DG now in the context of those of us who want to nance the expensive solar panels on our rooftops and then sell energy back to the grid during peak demands, but why not make this idea more affordable and central to our clean energy goals? These popular alternative energy solutions are supposed to make up around 20% of the total energy mix in the future, say like by the year 2020.23 This is the current estimation of the utilities and the smart grid providers, but why? Why not 100%? Why is going off the grid the last possible option? Why are the technologies that are presented to us now dated24 and so expensive when the hardware and labor cost is sometimes less than 1/20 as in the case of DIY solar panels 25 for example? Why do they require more expensive insurance, state sponsored audits and utility company certied installers to deploy? Why do we even need a physically centralized smart grid when a robust data exchange system called the Internet already exists?
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 26

How complex is the usage of energy information that it not only needs its own fast lane, but an entirely new superhighway called the Smart Grid with private on and off ramps to its dedicated utility owned bridges? How different is this centralized thinking than when centralized computing was rst introduced? Or when centralized telecom 26 infrastructure was the standard? Now that we know how those stories played out, why doesnt it do so for clean energy? Is it really the technical scalability constraints or the politics of power games thats really holding us back? If the Do-it-yourself revolution27 is already making the kinds of machines in garages like electric hot rods and unmanned airplanes, which used to take factories to develop, then what keeps the next Tesla from Tweeting her locally sustainable open source energy innovation to the world? The truth is that the means to do so are already here. From solar powered blade-less micro wind turbines 28 that quietly collect both energy and water, nearly zero friction magnetic motors 29 that can run all our engines, catalyzing hydrogen fuel cells from plain water, using the pressure in your plumbing to power the pumps and heating, indoor food growers that produce twice the yield twice as fast in less than a tenth of the space,30 electricity generated from your sewage system and portable backyard biofuel generators from your trash, biogas fuel cells the size of an air conditioning unit to power a building, solar powered steam making compressed air for small vehicles and so many more...the innovations and opportunities are abundant. So where do we start if we want to make this happen? Is it a revolutionary new mother of all solutions? Is it a bold new legislation that uses a fraction of the moneys spent on wars and protecting the pipelines into renewables? Is it a movement using social networks to rally public opinion? Is it encouraging entrepreneurs with subsidies and tax breaks? Is it raising gas prices and taking fossil fuel vehicles off the road?
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 27

I pondered and researched these questions and more and kept coming up with roadblocks and dead ends. Every strategy had its limitations and every strategy had its roots in serving the interests of the old energy world order. I summoned my experiences and expertise to come up with solutions that would motivate action but none of it felt right. I created a mobile app for the electric vehicle ecosystem that rewarded users with discounts and offers for plugging in at retail locations that were powered by renewables like solar canopies 31 but it just seemed like putting more lipstick on the hairy pig of the real problem. Then something clicked! Information=Energy. Buckminister Fullers 32 realization that you cant fight the existing reality with any success, and that you have to change the model that makes the old reality obsolete suddenly resonated deeply. I started looking at parallel industries and how they overcame past legacies and started getting new ideas. I met and had constructive conversations with brilliant people in their respective elds and my path started getting clearer. It was not about an incremental transition to renewables. Learning that the last technological shift happened because the cost of energy plummeted to less than a tenth with the Industrial Revolution, the next shift could not possibly happen with a more costlier option merely disguised by appealing to our global warming led environmental consciousness.
Courtesy: Ofcemuseum.com

Knowing also that the history of the world has always been about information shifting power to the previously powerless, those currently in power were never going to suddenly inform us do anything more than confuse us into keeping things as they are. So appealing to authority for sane solutions with our special interest owned political leadership
28

Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL

would be insanity at best. No, it has to be about the rest of us. Those of us with nothing to lose and everything to gain. A fundamental shift communicated with stories to help us see more clearly and take our own actions. What is that shift? What are we missing? What are we not considering? After much deliberation and contemplation with the overwhelming evidence of scientic breakthroughs and the political positions keeping them inaccessible, the truth became clear. The following are the realizations that informed the framework for abundant energy for all: 1. Abundant: Energy is Everywhere The supply and demand premise of the current energy generation and distribution model is false. Emerging science and new methods are making it amply evident that it is simpler and cheaper to generate renewable energy than what we have been told. We already know how to do more with less and even eliminate some energy demands altogether by better designed distributed solutions. It makes no practical sense to ignore these explanations when its costing us more and more to maintain the myth of energy scarcity than the access to energy abundance. Energy is everywhere in unlimited quantities, and now we actually know how to sustainably grow it locally and laterally instead of just wishing it. 2. Accessible: Flow is Everything Every shift to have elevated humanity resulted from the reduction or elimination of a prohibitive cost of access. Fuels have reduced the access cost of manufacturing and mobility, signal processing have reduced or eliminated the access cost of global communications, the Internet has eliminated the access cost of information, and renewable energy is next to follow. Our progressive development of production is a direct factor of materials and energy, and the dropping cost of energy delivered the spoils we now enjoy. The next shift has to reduce the cost of energy even further. We can make the access cost of energy become free of charge much like how the free access to information on virtual platforms like Google create value. We not only have the means, but the proven models
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 29

and methods already in effect. Ubiquitous access to unlimited renewable energy exponentially catapults our progress by closer interdependencies rather than divisive disputes. The next opportunities multiply in the ow of energy rather than controlling the production and distribution of it. The democratization of information has only unlocked a fraction of our potential so far. Democratizing access to renewable energy will now explode the possibilities. 3. Advancing: Empowerment is Inalienable No one is going to embrace shifting from the existing model of scarcity to one of abundance without the upsides of making the switching costs vanish. The next solutions must create the next opportunities or we will continue down this destructive path of our polluting past if only to feed our families. Every player in nature engages in full employment that cascades value from one to the next and yet our societies are either under or unemployed. Obviously we are denitely doing something unnatural. The economics of energy cannot continue to suffocate human and natural capital when we already know how to let it ow. This is no claim to solve the complexity of global unemployment, but considering the next insights, information and examples, we can rethink, reinvent and reuse the existing foundations to shift to the next dimensional ideas to accelerate innovations 33 for a brighter future we all deserve. This three pillar framework can profoundly affect how we live our lives in the twenty-rst century. When renewable energy is made free of charge, it starts a positive chain reaction that makes locally relevant sustainable production become cheaper, which makes socioeconomic disparities start to disappear with more people participating in creating value. Value which makes for a resource versus debt based economic system of prosperity becoming available to more people than ever before. We can address our basic needs easily and thus become free to create the next amazing inventions to lift us up, instead of worrying about what we cannot afford and who we have to step over to get ahead.
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 30

It effectively breaks the cycle of the mass corruption of our human spirit currently practiced in the name of progress. These ideals are not new. What is new is the real technical possibilities of making this so coupled with ubiquitous access to knowledge and wisdom afforded by the Internet. This is not fantasy. New models for energy abundance are here now, yet our scarcity based economic conditioning is keeping those options hidden from view. Worse, it is keeping the old inefciencies in place that not only seem increasingly ludicrous considering the new explanations emerging from nano, bio and information technologies; but these scarcity based practices are downright dangerous! They are doing more damage than just depleting our natural capital we have no idea how to replace, they are also depleting the humanity from our societies that we may never recover from if we dont stop and look at all the alternatives available.

We dont have much time.

We have already exceeded certain natural limits and our options are running out fast. The ndings of The Global Footprint Network 34 states that our current rate of production and consumption or Ecological Footprint is over 150% of the acres available on this planet. Thats one and a half planet earths worth of land used at a rate that will require over 250% of the planets resources within the next 30 years! This is not some idealist viewpoint or philosophy, but real science. That doesnt just affect fuel prices, that effects the prices of all essentials especially the price of food! The Egypt Revolution didnt happen just because of an oppressive regime, it had much more to do with their food prices rising over 30% within a year.35

Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 31

Source: Global Footprint Network

This was just the tip of it. Why are using it at this rate? Where is the nonrenewable waste? Who wastes more, producers or consumers? Why are the environmental footprint costs hidden36 by the supply chains that bring us the products we enjoy? Why do we not account for their real cost
Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 32

and try to produce them locally with emerging innovations in local additive manufacturing,37 food production38 and even textile printing? 39 What were the next solutions coming from nano, bio, geo, and information technologies? What about Biomimicry 40 or breakthrough inventions from the past? The world of astrophysics, cosmology and history all offered clues. Memetics 41 or the study of our evolutionary transference of ideas that we think with, offered insights into what is keeping us hooked on dirty energy economics, politics and habits. The more I learned about the awesome innovations emerging now while the propaganda of dated and expensive technologies suddenly made smarter suffocating their rightful airtime, or the suppression of multiple breakthroughs from decades and centuries past, it became increasingly evident that this is the time to speak. Though I was not a pedigreed energy scientist, engineer, economist or academic, I could not hold the silence on the perversion the old energy world order was peddling. My luck just so happened to put me in a unique position to understand the matrix of the current energy scarcity elusion clearly enough to know where and how to unplug from it. So thats how this all started. I had never written a book and I didnt know where to begin but here it is. I hope you will forgive my foolish ignorance for trying to voice what all of us already sense is true. I have done whatever I could to nd reliable facts from veriable sources, spoke on and off the record to those closest to the craziness and drew from the richness of my friends and colleagues to ll the next pages. My personal quest at the expense of an enviable income, upwardly mobile career path and sleepless nights cleared the delusions I had at that dinner two years ago, but you dont have to go that deep or that long to remove your rosy goggles. The next stories are the things I had discovered by chance, but I hope what they reveal will help you act on anything but...

Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 33

Introduction A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL

Section Endnotes
1 2 3

http://www.stanford.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Oil and the origins of the War to make the world safe for Democracy http://is.gd/xbyFhR Biodiesel http://is.gd/ywZ7HG Jack Nicholson hydrogen car http://is.gd/9cftt8 The power of the permaculture http://is.gd/p3qwLa Waste reduction facts: Tires and rubber http://is.gd/SoXIB2 25 Twh of windpower curtailed in 2010 http://is.gd/R6rzre Oil is in everything from shampoo to vitamins http://is.gd/Jbk2Pf http://www.livescience.com/2639-water-shortage-myth.html US Nuclear regulators weaken safety rules, fail to enforce them AP investigates http://is.gd/yEvoyP Humans on the verge of the 6th great mass extinction http://is.gd/ILlfKR World coal consumption increases. Should we be worried? http://is.gd/ECVvRd The power of the Rothschilds http://is.gd/AGtl5O The Jekyll island duck hunt that created the Federal Reserve http://is.gd/I6F9UR G. Edward Grifn: Creature from Jekyll Island (video series on YouTube) http://is.gd/SWfZx4 http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fed_reserve.htm Derivatives, Fascism and the Almighty Dollar http://is.gd/jybMbG Petro Euros vs. Petro Dollars http://is.gd/zU1AQT

4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL 34

20

1% of the global population controls nearly 40% of the worlds wealth http://is.gd/QAuiH4 Adding up the governments total bailout tab http://is.gd/nqIGhW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_generation 20% Renewables by 2020: Is it possible? http://is.gd/7mhnQB The history of solar power http://is.gd/UlTtwB DIY Solar http://www.solarinfoworld.com/ Laying the groundwork: Lessons learned from the telecom industry: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy08osti/43015.pdf Wired: Atoms are the new bits http://is.gd/S5vYr4 Bladeless wind turbines http://is.gd/mpCwcO Thane Heins innity generator http://is.gd/LP2tHN http://www.verticalfarm.com/ New York Times 7/6/2010: The parking lot as solar grove: http://is.gd/gcxvsz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller Solving major global problems with technology and innovation: http://is.gd/siWqGR http://www.footprintnetwork.org Scientic Americn: Are Food Prices Fueling Revolution in Egypt? http://is.gd/qiHizu http://www.ie.unc.edu/erp/resources/Hidden_Energy_Lesson.pdf NYTimes: The future of manufacturing is local: http://is.gd/RApnHa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food Ecouterre: Wearable technology: http://is.gd/W7383I http://biomimicry.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Introduction | A DINNER FOR THE DELUSIONAL

Part One

SCARCITY

THE

SANITY

OF

SECTION CONTENTS
Pa r t I

T H E SC A R C I T Y O F S ANITY
In the A ge of Abund an c e _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___________________________________
ARRESTING OF ADVANCEMENT: Science vs. the Status Quo DESPERATION FOR DEMAND: The Politics of Pollution Sample > SCI ENCE OF SIMPLICITY: Innovations for Abundance PRAYING FOR PANACEA: Greenwashing the Greed

How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!
Emily Dickinson

The Scarcity of Sanity

SCIENCE OF SIMPLICITY: Innovations for Abundance

OR SO HYPER-EFFICIENT, SUPER RESILIENT & HIGHLY DYNAMIC

MILLION
POWER PLANTS GO

EVERYDAY ABOUT HALF A

These systems do not need fossil fuels to achieve the 24/7 energy output that they continuously and effortlessly deliver, they do not need regulatory compliance to keep running and they do not need a design team to conceive their existence. Each unit has about ten trillion interdependent and individualized generators that continuously generate all the energy to keep all of its complex operations running as well as produce enough to assist neighboring units. Each of these units are self replicating, self monitoring and self aware...though the last feature is often up for debate.
S C IE N C E O F S I M P L I CI T Y : In n o v at i ons f or A b und a nce 97

ONLINE.

We may not think of ourselves as dynamic power plants, but each living thing on our planet including us humans are inherently that!
From the time we are conceived, the slightest difference in pressure between our cellular walls generate just the right amount of energy to power each individual cell as well as the system it operates in or integrates with. The rest of us and our cohabitants here on earth also share similar amazing capabilities with minimal use of energy and materials to live, build, give, adapt and thrive. We dont need to be plugged in, manufactured, pre-zoned, emission controlled, waste managed or anything else to resonate with the vibrations and frequencies of the abundant energies already present on our planet and universe. Our hearts for example, only need 0.2 volts, built up by the combination of 70 millivolt charges to regulate 2000 gallons of blood through all 4 chambers daily.1 Its biochemistry is nothing more than potassium, sodium and calcium. This is the same principle that produces an electric charge in the fun classroom Illustration by: Fernando Medina demonstrations 2 where kids Courtesy: fernandoart.blogspot.com mix banana peels and eggshells, and then to everyones delight, they see a positive voltage reading from the goopy concoction!

There are no batteries, no wires and no metals needed.

S C IE N C E O F S I M P L I CI T Y : In n o v at i ons f or A b und a nce 98

So why are we not using this design principle for power stations when nature has clearly shown us a low input, zero mined metals way of doing a tremendous amount of work? Considering that all three elements are present in both seawater and sewage, what is keeping us from inventing pumping mechanisms from materials like carbon nanotubes that use this biochemistry to use that water pressure to generate electricity? How about the friction and heat energy generated when we move about, that we now consider just wasted because we cant see where it goes? The energy present within every vibrating particle of the planet that harmonizes all of life itself ?

Courtesy: Flickr : Vetruvian Man

In Rethinking the Next Abundantly Renewable Generation Options, we now have the collective discoveries, knowledge and insights to tap into the innitely abundant ELECTROMAGNETIC spectrum through LIGHT, HEAT, FRICTION, PRESSURE, and BIOCHEMISTRY. We have deconstructed the mysteries of natures materials at the nanoscale to recreate reality of our imaginations with atoms to bytes and vice versa.
S C IE N C E O F S I M P L I CI T Y : In n o v at i ons f or A b und a nce 99

ZERI (Zero Emissions Research Institute) founding member Gunter Pauli has described some of these ideas and principles in his book The Blue Economy.3 These ideas along with the work of Angela Belcher, the head of the Biological Materials Group at MIT, Dan Li at Monash University in Australia, Stephen Rand and his colleagues at The University of Michigan, The Fraunhofer institute in Germany, Swedish sustainability design engineers, Harald Haas of Edinburgh University, Justin HallTipping, the CEO of Nanoholdings,4 The BioMimicry Institute5 and many other forward thinking people and organizations are now providing us with amazing new breakthroughs. Breakthroughs that reveal new clues from nature at the macro, micro, molecular level nanoscales, and even quantum level sub atomic scales that we can now use to accelerate a new era of innovation powered by abundant access to renewable energy. You dont have to be a physicist, chemist, biologist or engineering genius to take advantage of the basic principles of natural design. The patterns are all around us. A simple example at work is a recent invention for a speaker system for your iPhone that is just a piece of bamboo.6 Thinking about just eliminating our unnecessary power consumption is just the beginning, by mimicking the way plants and wildlife use energy in nature, the possibilities are endless. Natural design principles that we can now use to start rethinking where our energy really comes from and how to get a lot more of it from a whole lot less. Biochemical Applications: PNAS (Proceedings of The National Academy of Science of the United States of America) has recently published a paper7 for something using similar principles. Pennsylvania State University researchers Younggy Kim and Bruce E. Logan have devised a solution to harvest Hydrogen from an inexhaustible source of salt and freshwater through a process of microbial reverse electrodialysis electrolysis cells.
S C IE N C E O F S I M P L I CI T Y : In n o v at i ons f or A b und a nce 100

.. BUY THE BOOK ..

The 528page* Print-On-Demand book BUY IT NOW PRINT ON DEMAND EBook versions are available on The Kindle Store BUY IT FOR KINDLE OR KINDLE APP Apple iBookstore & more very soon Facebook.com/onetherevolution
*With some charts and graphics not available on the eBook formats. One early reader called it two awesome books in one!

S C IE N C E O F S I M P L I CI T Y : In n o v at i ons f or A b und a nce 101

Discovery Fit & Health: How does the body make electricity and how does it use it? http://is.gd/JdmYuT http://www.zerilearning.org/english/students_zeri.php http://www.blueeconomy.de/ http://nanoholdings.com/ http://biomimicryinstitute.org/ Grist: Bamboo iPhone speaker amplies music with zero electricity: http://is.gd/oOiO9P PNAS: Hydrogen production from inexhaustible supplies of fresh and salt water using microbial reverse-electrodialysis electrolysis cells: http://is.gd/CoUsg4

2 3 4 5 6

S C IE N C E O F S I M P L I CI T Y : In n o v at i ons f or A b und a nce 102