PBS Forum

[In the most recent journal of The Austrian (Vol. 8, No. 5), a publication of the Mises Institute, author Alex Epstein was interviewed about his book: Fossil Future - Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas - Not Less.  There were some very interesting quotes in this article and another one in the same journal.  Here are just a few.  Bern.]

"Since 1980, the percentage of humanity living on less than $2 a day has gone from 42 percent to under 10 percent today.  This wondrous development is the result of increasing and expanding productivity, which is driven by the increasing and expanding use of fossil-fueled machine labor and the enormous amount of mental labor it frees up.  But there is still far more progress to me had.....  Expanding fossil fuel use will enable everyone, especially the world's poorest people, to become more productive and prosperous. AE."

[The World Population Clock is currently reading 7.98 billion people. So, something on the order of 800 million people are living on the purchasing parity equivalent of $2 a day or less.  This is an appalling statistic IMO. Bern.]

"By our standards, the world is extremely poor, including energy poor, and one point I make in the book is that there are 6 billion people in the world who by our standards use a totally inadequate amount of energy, less electricity than one of our refrigerators use.  We live in a world that is energy deprived, and then you learn that fossil fuels provide 80 percent of that energy and their use is still growing, particularly in parts of the world that care most about low cost reliable energy.  It is insane to talk about phasing them out rapidly. AE."

"There are something like 3 billion people on Earth that don't consume energy.  Aren't we being neocolonialists in the West if we try to thrust our anti-fossil fuel mentality on them? JD."

[Good points all of them.  Reading statements such as these helps me gain some perspective on the current energy situation people face in America and Europe this winter. Bern.]

"William Nordhaus, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the economics of climate change, is arguable the top economist in this area.  His own model shows the 1.5 degree Centigrade cap on global warming would be so economically destructive it would be better if governments did nothing. RM.]

[Hmmm....... Comments anyone? Bern.]

I read a book several years ago titled: "The Long Emergency."  It dealt with subjects like peak oil and other future shock type events that will confront humanity in the near future. The author has also used the term techo-narcissism to describe the responses he got while giving talks on his book at corporations in Silicon Valley.  There's an energy crisis?  No problem.  We'll use technology to fix it - some kind of IT or AI.  A farcical example of techno-narcissism would be that you could download the Greenhouse Heating App from Google Play to your cellphone, and when you activate it, voila! - your greenhouse heating issues are resolved.

I'm not recommending the book, but I do commend the phrase "The Long Emergency."  All of us now are living during it.

I wonder if shortly there will be an App to increase the cucumber supply from the NL?

I've been in touch with my contact at the International Euphorbia Society in the Netherlands.  Here's a snippet from his email to me. I've added a few corrections to help out Google Translator.

"Yes, heating costs are keeping us busy. I isolated (insulated) my greenhouse last week. I hope it will work and safe (save) the usage of gas. The other week I spoke to an elder couple with three greenhouse. They used 9000 m3 gas last year. This costs now about € 30.000 a year. I am not sure what they will do this winter."

So, now there is another idea about how to save energy for your greenhouse this winter.  It is possible to insulate your entire greenhouse, perhaps with bubble wrap along the walls and the roof.  I remember seeing photos of a greenhouse where someone had done this many years ago.  It was the interior of the greenhouse that was lined with bubble wrap, not the exterior. 

And the other solution was by CG 100 who is making a cloche inside his greenhouse.  Effectively, he's making a smaller greenhouse within his larger greenhouse.

It's good to see that people are using their creativity and ingenuity to find ways to keep their plant collections snug and warm through the coming winter.

Good luck to the couple with three greenhouses.  I wonder what the price of 9000 m3 of natural gas cost last year in the Netherlands?  30K Euros this year would be a a lot of money for heating. 

Many thanks to CG100 and his generously detailed response to heating the bench in his greenhouse as opposed to heating the entire greenhouse.  This is the first comprehensive response to my original post about heating greenhouses during a time of potential energy scarcity.  I will probably copy CG100's write-up and send it along to the President of the International Euphorbia Society who expressed concerns in his letter in the April 2022 journal of the IES about energy costs and heating greenhouses.

So many kudos and thanks to CG100.  Good going and good luck with your project and your plants!

CG100 wrote on October 6th:

"As for heating the plants - I am not heating the greenhouse this year - I have constructed large bubble-wrap "cloches" over the benches and I am only heating those, not the entire greenhouse."

This is an excellent idea of a way to save expenses on utilities while keeping your plants healthy and alive in your greenhouse this winter.  How do you heat the area under the bubble wrap and control the temperature?  Do you use a large seedling heat mat with a thermostat and heat probe?  Do you have a small radiant heater(s)?  Do you use LED or fluorescent grow lights during the winter as well?  Do you ever have trouble with excess humidity inside these enclosures during the winter?

Do you have photos of your bubble-wrap enclosures that you would like to upload and share?  I'd be interested in seeing them.

I've been thinking of setting up a bench in my garage for some winter growing South African bulbs.  I'd have to use grow lights and a bench sized seedling heat mat for sure, but it had never occurred to me to enclose the entire bench with bubble wrap or a thick plastic wrap. I'm interested in hearing about your experience with humidity inside the enclosures during the winter.  Perhaps a warm, well lit, and more humid enclosure in my garage might be suitable for some of my more temperate and even tropical plants that I could keep growing during the winter instead of an enforced dormancy inside the house. 

Thanks for responding.  Great idea!

"Germany Needs To Slash Natural Gas Consumption To Avoid A Winter Emergency"

Here's a headline that sure to grab your attention.  It's from a website called oilprice.com.  It's your go to source for non-green energy news and commentary.  Here's the link.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Germany-Needs-To-Slash-Natural-Gas-Consumption-To-Avoid-A-Winter-Emergency.html

I've been watching the gyrations this week for the US 10 year treasury yield as well as the US stock market. When the UK government recently did an about face on their tax cut for higher income households, the US 10 year yield plummeted and the US stock market skyrocketed.  Meaning, of course, that inflation has subsided and the FED, BOE, and the ECB can go back to buying bonds and monetizing the debt.  That is, until yesterday when OPEC announced a cut in oil production.  Oops, inflation is now back and the central banks can't monetize the debt just yet. Today, predictably, the US 10 year yield is rising and the US stock market is falling.  Oil and natural gas prices are rising and the prices can be seen on the dashboard on the main page of oilprice.com.  Anyway, this site might be decent source of energy related information this Autumn and Winter.  It's too early to tell, of course, but it might be a tad better than the MSM.  Time will tell. Finally, today the FED publishes their weekly graph on the average 30 year fixed mortgage rates for US housing loans.  I'm sure it will be another up week. 

I've never heard of a write-in candidate winning an election in the US.  I'm fairly sure my neighbor will get only one vote.  I'm not even going to tell her what I did so as not to unsettle her.  I'm sure she would have anxiety about a parliamentary or other official showing up at her door asking her questions about her political intentions.  There was a genuine independent candidate on the ballot and I considered voting for him.  However, after reading his bio, I deemed that he could be just as unsuitable as the two candidates from the established parties.  I considered voting for a cartoon character like Minny Mouse or Elmer Fudd, but I wanted to be more serious about the situation and to vote for a real, living person.  In this way the ballot will be counted and it will not be discarded as "spoilt."  Write-in candidates are allowed and there is a place on the ballot specifically for them.

It's interesting that you were able to find a reference to actual legislation allowing (mandating?) the censorship of internet sites.  I'm sure there is similar legislation in the US.  Then there is the voluntary censorship of content if it is deemed inappropriate according to corporate policy.  So what may seem to be a case of mild free speech can be censored as extreme or hurtful, etc. according to corporate standards.  And when all else fails, it now appears that there are secret laws as well as secret courts with secret rulings and mandates, at least as I understand some of the Edward Snowden revelations, that can force compliance if necessary.  Are you aware of similar secret laws and courts in the UK? What about in the EU?

The congressional elections in the USA are upcoming and will happen on November 8th. However, here in Old Dominion and hotbed of rebellion against the Crown, early voting is allowed.  So, today I dodged the raindrops to cast my vote. The polling location was not crowded; it was staffed by enthusiastic and competent volunteers; I was in and out in ten minutes. For years I've been voting for the lesser of two evils, but I've finally awakened to the fact that this approach is not working well.  So, today I cast my vote with a write-in candidate.  I choose my neighbor.  She is intelligent, honest, trustworthy, diligent, thrifty, competent, compassionate, kind, witty, charming, and so on.......  All of these fine qualities make her totally unelectable under the current state of affairs. Nevertheless, that is exactly what I did. Sometimes you have to take a stand, even when the tide is manifestly against you.

Russia Today, Pravda, and the Kremlin websites were all removed here shortly after the Ukraine war started.  I visited them to see what the Russians were saying about the war, but either Uncle Sam or the ISPs had censored them.  Is His Majesty's Government doing the same thing in the UK?  I wonder if the EU is blocking them?

Here's the URL for Pravda.

https://english.pravda.ru/

Here's the site at the Kremlin for the President of Russia.

http://en.kremlin.ru/

It's too bad you couldn't get RT.  The comments made me think that people were paid to write them - I think they're called trolls in internet lingo.

The week ahead will be interesting with the Ukraine war, sanctions, energy crisis, inflation, currency issues, and stock market meltdown all teed up for us to experience. 

I'll be bringing many of my plants inside for the winter this week as it is unusually cold and very wet for this time of the year.  I've enjoyed another good growing season.

Russia Today (RT) was taken offline at the beginning of the Ukraine war and I found today that it is back.  Here's a headline from them about the utility bill protests in the UK.

Britons burn energy bills to protest soaring prices (VIDEOS)

https://www.rt.com/news/563897-uk-energy-price-protest/

There does not appear to be major participation in these protests.  The comments from "ordinary folk" that appear below the article might bring you some amusement. 

Headline from article in the UK Guardian. 

Britons to burn their bills in weekend wave of cost of living protests

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/01/cost-of-living-protests-burn-energy-bills

This is an interesting occurrence in the UK this weekend.  It's difficult to get a good idea about how large and extensive these protests were.  Were they well attended?  Are similar protests occurring in Germany and on the continent?  I find it very difficult to get decent news here in the US about what's going on in Europe.

Reuters pipeline news article.  Until now I had not known that both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 had been damaged.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-spy-chief-says-moscow-has-evidence-west-behind-sabotage-nord-stream-2022-09-30/

I agree completely that the destruction of the pipeline was no accident. And I also agree that we will never know for sure who was responsible.

The Financial Times had the following titles for some of their online articles this morning.

"Eurozone inflation hits record 10% as energy prices continue to soar"

"UK government bond tumult ripples into US and European markets"

Earlier this week Hurricane Ian chased me out of Miami Florida a day early. Today, the remnants of it will drench the area wheri I live with between 4 and 6 inches of rain.

We live in interesting times.....

I just read that there's been an incident with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea that renders it unable to supply natural gas to Europe. This alone seems assured to raise heating bills this winter and make heating greenhouses and regular abodes more expensive.  Who is responsible for this? Did NATO do it?  Did the Russians do it?  Was it an accident?  Does it matter anymore?

It appears that the Bank of England stepped in today to try to defend the GBP from falling by purchasing UK government bonds in an attempt to squash the rise in long term interst rates.  Will this affect the cost of energy in the UK this winter by making it less expensive? Will this move by the BOE be successful?  Will the GBP come under pressure again soon?  The US stock market loved the news and US stocks rose today and the 10 year US treasury yield fell. I think that this is transitory and it will start to erode fairly soon. Can David or anyone else in the UK opine on what is going on with the BOE's action?