The idea of using solar (or geothermal) energy and seawater to mass-produce green hydrogen by electrolysis, burn it and add gravity to generate a surplus of electricity and freshwater, even far from shore (which desalination cannot do), is feasible, practical and necessary. Indeed, it is a seismic proposal, in more ways than one. For starters, the pertinent raw materials –solar energy, seawater and gravity- are in the public domain, easily accessible and, except for landlocked nations, which have no direct access to the ocean, universally available. As a result, it would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to organize a global cartel with the power to allocate production quotas of hydrogen and to set its price. Gradually the scheme would make nuclear fission and fossil fuels obsolete, dramatically increase the supply of hydrogen needed to build a widespread, reliable network of hydrogen automobile pumping stations, modernize the electric power industry, stop the wholesale dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, end the real estate crisis for the working class, and create millions of non-temporary, well-paying construction and energy jobs that cannot be outsourced.
Since oil is the main support pillar of the value of the dollar and the demand for oil will at some point collapse, it follows that the dollar needs to replace the oil mainstay. Accordingly, today’s essay looks at the dollar in light of the enormous burden of chronic current account and trade deficits and the necrotic inability of our elected leaders to come to its rescue.
BRICS countries don’t have to promote one of their national currencies to global reserve status. All they have to do, when they’re good and ready, is to stop accepting dollars as payment for their goods and services. If China did this by itself in the 19th Century, collectively they might do it too.
To say that this would usher in wholesale chaos would be a gross understatement. For the U.S., it would be an ominous event. And the European Union, which is closely linked to the American market and the dollar, would be dragged into the vortex. In other words, countermeasures must be taken to preclude the global economy from falling into the abyss.
It makes no sense to peg any currency to gold; the supply is finite, there are 8 billion people (and counting) in the world, and it just doesn’t work. Green hydrogen, which is renewable, fits the bill. it’s high time to let it determine the value of all currencies.