Israel Defeats the Entire Middle East

Yesterday I had one of those oh-my-God moments, the kind where I thought I could see the future. It started by reading some articles about the lack of a serious energy policy in the United States. The problem is that our politicians believe, probably correctly, that they can’t get elected if they propose an energy policy that could work.

Then I stumbled across an article about two Israeli companies that have allegedly made huge breakthroughs in solar power. As with all of these breakthrough stories, you have to assume they are more hype than substance, but take a look:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/04/solar-power-breakthroughs-sunrgi-7.html

The oh-my-God moment came when I realized that Israel can destroy all of its local enemies by inventing solar technology that makes oil uneconomical. Such an invention would do more harm than any military attack. And it’s all legal and moral. The politicians and business people in Israel have all the right incentives times a thousand. Their very survival is at risk. Israel is one patent away from crushing every oil producing country in the world.

So that’s my prediction. Whether these latest announcements are real or hype, I think Israel will eventually create the technology to make oil irrelevant to energy production.

Comments

[Bloodboiler]

To all those who think that killing oil industry is impossible because US economy depends on it.

News flash. No amount of world policing can stop most of the world from abandoning oil the second we can get cheaper and better alternative. Sure ruining US economy has global short term consequences, but thats nothing compared to long term boost that clean and cheap energy could create. Now that your economy is in trouble anyway would be a good time to make some global changes.

[WhyNotMe]

say Fcu% the doubters... I'm investing heavily in Israeli Solar Energy Stocks... and battery companies too.

[Matt]

Well done, sir. Best post here in months. You actually blew my mind a little.

[reality]

That's all nice and dandy in some other reality - if there was such a thing. However, if Israel invented something that made oil worthless then there would be not a single reason for America or any other country to back Israel.

Israel was created and exists only to keep the Arabs in line and pumping oil.

Why else does placing millions of jews back into the middle east - where they willing left in the first place - make more sense then giving them some part of South America as originally planned.

Around the end of World War I is when the need for a lot more oil became obvious; and not just by industry. It is also when oil was discovered in the Middle East. Lastly, Zionism also started taking hold around this time.

Put all three together and you get:
The modern boundaries of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan came about from western (Britian and US) backing/planning.

All of the above is publicly referenced/available on Wikipedia for those who seek truth.

So we can safely say:
No Oil, No Israel. Period.

[J.R. Mooneyham]

There's already a staggering multitude of alternatives to the present energy situation. Many of them requiring nothing more than existing off-the-shelf technologies. The only real sticking point is that the powers-that-be prefer the current status quo. Israel can't change that fact, no matter how good their technology might be.

For details and a plethora of references from sources like AP, Reuters, Washington Post, Businessweek, NYT, MSNBC, CBS, Forbes, Economist, Financial Times, Scientific American, and more, check this page:

There are NO absolute shortages of living space, materials, or energy: the foundation commodities which ultimately determine the costs of everything else;
America's de facto domestic and foreign policies of artificial scarcity and institutionalized poverty (part two)
http://www.jmooneyham.com/artificial-scarcity-institutionalized-poverty-in-america-2.html

[Fuzznsmoo]

I always talk about the curse of natural resources. The flip side are nations like Japan that have none, and so are forced to use human energy to produce things of real value. Maybe Israel could be the next Japan - the tiny nation that could.

[MacFeagle]

Raskolnikov's history is a little weak - the Brits invented radar long before the start of WW2 - but his basic point is good; necessity is the mother of invention and war is the mother of necessity. If the cold war had required the US to invent cheap, oil-free energy then I bet we would have seen it by now.

[jakesdad]

I'm just waiting to hear what the adverse macroscopic (yes, that's MACRO) effect of solar energy ends up being.

burning dinosaurs gave us global warming
ditto for ancient plants (coal) with the additional benefits of acid rain and soot
nuclear power produces nuclear waste (& the occasional meltdown)
hydro screws up downstream ecosystems
wind kills birds which is actually a pretty small price to pay but I suspect we haven't heard the end of this yet and that brings me to me point:

there are no free lunches in physics - every joule extracted from a system has an opportunity cost (how it would have otherwise altered the environment) and when you start scaling up to gigawatts with ANY energy source there's going to be unintended consequences.

[Ian Davies]

It is always a source of amusements when I hear Americans bitching about the price of petrol (gas). At current exchange rates, UK residents currently pay at least $8.80 per gallon.

[KH]

So Israel gets a patent on its invention, starts selling them to the world, the US and Europe cheer, oil prices drop. Saudi Arabia's profits drop severely.

Waves of disgruntled laid-off Saudi oil workers launch vindictive suicide sorties on Israel. A war is fought to occupy Saudi Arabia. An Islamic "Vatican" state is formed around Mecca and Medina, amd the remainder is divvied up to the major remaining oil companies.

As the remaining oil dribbles out, the remaining OPEC nations team up with Iran, Russia, China, and Venezuela to illegally copy Israel's invention and give it away to countries that join their Islamo-Socialist-Russian coalition, a new superpower.

The Eastern and Western superpowers form up around solar power grids. Ally nations are plugged into the grid, and international relations are carried out by turning up or turning down the power. Toe the line or the lights go out.

Unable to dominate each other by controlling the natural resource of oil, the two new superpowers attempt to control the weather, sending overcasts and hurricanes to ruin the other's solar power grid, each weather event might be "natural" or a potential act of war.

Sound about right?

[GLK]

Dude! The U.S. economy is so inexorably integrated to oil that the idea of unhinging that relationship is akin to treason. Viable developments leading to a sudden and palpable decrease in oil consumption would propagate a wave of dire circumstances. Like Kermit said, "It ain't easy being Green." Easier to be "pretend Green" and drive a car that runs on diesel (oil), Ethanol (part oil), or a Gas/Electric Hybrid (part oil). Then drive that oil burner down to Wal-Mart 3X a week to load up on goods made by the Chinese (the worst polluters ever) while feeling proud of yourself. To do otherwise might make life knarly in ways you don't want to imagine.

[Eric M]

I hope so, for my sake, but then whomever owns the pattents will jack up the price ont he "sun" and we will pay them rather than the oil companies........

It's not about the energy it is about who has the power to lord it over everyone else..

[John Bedard]

" Israel can _decimate_ all of its local enemies "

I don't think reducing their enemies by 10% will really do any good. They need to obliterate their enemies.

[HALiverpool]

Why waste all that heat when you could hook it to a stirling engine and generate more power?

-HAL

[RPK]

I'm disappointed, Scott.

This morning I read an article about someone paying $960 for 130 million year old fossilized dinosaur poop, and I immediately figured you would have a blog entry about it.

That's much more blog-worthy than solar cells. How could you have missed that?

[Brett]

Okay so here is the REAL issue. Humans spend too much time and energy moving stuff and ourselves around. If we were just happy with where things currently are and where we are then we'd be fine.

[Cornholio]

I guess nobody bothered to check out the contact details for sunrgi.
I'm pretty sure we can put our faith for the future of human kind in a company based in Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California.....

Scott, please do research better next time.

The final argument is solid, but use some better examples.

[taylor]

Um, Scott, just about everything else is made out of oil. Plastic. Fertilizers. Rubber. The cooling oil in electric tansformers. I'm guessing the market would dip, but not disappear.

[Davis Hipps]

According to the "Left Behind" book series, this is pretty much how the end of the world starts.

[Leora]

You atheists and your oh-my-God moments.

I'll bet you say that at certain...uh, intimate occasions, shall we say...too.

Sorry to give everyone that mental image.

[the wonderer]

Scott, When you say "Oh-my-God" to Whom are you referring?

[Pedant]

Great post, and a nice idea.

BUT - 'decimate' means to reduce by 10%. I think you probably meant something bigger than that.

[dan]

You cannot make oil irrelevant so easily. Energy storage is costly and inefficient, solar power doesn't work very well at night...
And oil is king in transportation for the same reason, its the most efficiently stored easily used energy we have.

If you talk to people in the business they will tell you, every single alternative energy combined will still struggle immensely to meet our energy needs. Nuclear energy is the only alternative to fossil fuels right now with the potential to produce the kinds of quantities of energy required. Right now it takes almost as much energy to produce a solar panel as the solar panel will produce in its lifetime. But even with ultra cheap solar panels, you still need to store the power. At best solar power will contribute to power grids during the day (its too expensive/difficult to store the power).

Only when people are convinced to use mass transit (due mostly to extreme gas/oil prices) which runs off the power grid, will you see a reduction in oil demand.

The demand for energy is growing constantly, even with conservation efforts and increased energy cost, demand still increases, cheap solar power will only help to meet that growing demand, not make other power sources obsolete.

[So, all we need is a patent for better batteries? -- Scott]

[Diana W]

I love it! How soon do you think this will happen. I've already calculated that my salary increase this year won't cover the gas hikes.

A while ago The Daily Show had a clip of Bush running for president in which he said that the $1.30 a gallon gas prices at the time proved Clinton didn't have an effective energy policy. God I miss those days!

[amenot]

It's possible, it's a matter of time. It's the prediction made by physicists/scientists: human will harness energy from the sun and the universe. The sun can provide energy million times more than the earth ever needs, we just dont know how to get it now. Another unlimited source of energy is the sea.