Floating Photovoltaic-driven Electrolysis Device – 2017

December 27, 2017

Researchers at Columbia University have developed the first demonstration of a practical, floating, membrane-free and pump-free photovoltaic-driven electrolysis device. The device consists of platforms of solar-powered electrolyzers floating on the sea to generate hydrogen fuel. It uses electrodes made of sheets of titanium mesh suspended in water. A platinum catalyst coats just one side of each sheet. When a mesh electrode is negatively charged, hydrogen bubbles develop on the side coated with the catalyst. The mesh electrodes are each placed at diagonal angles in the water. When the bubbles of gas grow large enough, their buoyancy makes them detach from the mesh and float upward unimpeded. On one configuration, hydrogen bubbles can float into one set o chambers and oxygen into a separate array that vents it out into the atmosphere. This simple design requires relatively few parts that should lower the materials and assembly costs. Future work could refine the design for more efficient operation in seawater.

Based of buoyancy-induced separation, the simple electrolyzer design produces hydrogen up to 99% pure. This simple design, without membrane or pumps, makes it particularly attractive for its application to seawater electrolysis.

This design is ideally suited for protected, natural bodies of sea water such as Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and Turkey’s Sea of Marmara and artificial that could be created by flooding natural below-sea-level depressions such Death Valley and neighboring dry lake beds, the Dead Sea, the Qattara Depression in Egypt, and the Laguna del Carbón in Argentina. As a bonus, flooding these vast areas would mitigate rising seas threatening low-lying coastal cities worldwide.

Speaking Of National Security Strategies

December 25, 2017

Background

President Trump did not cause America’s decline; it’s been many years in the making. Once the preeminent surplus nation with a strong manufacturing base, it has morphed into an alarming case of perennial trade deficits and a (growing) $20.1 trillion national debt, the worst in history.

Facts

The President is not wrong about everything: a sovereign nation has the right to pass and enforce any immigration legislation it wishes and to seal its borders if it so chooses. As for the economy, it definitely needs to be revitalized.

However, that will happen only when the wealth of the middle class grows at a rate equal to or higher than the top 10% of the population; when the low job participation rate is substantially improved; when progressive taxation equal to or similar to the Eisenhower years (a much respected Republican) is restored; when the housing crisis for everyone but the wealthy disappears; when real estate prices become affordable for at least 90% of potential buyers; when our public universities are free or nearly so, as in 1949 , so the mass of our youth can be trained in STEM careers so they can lead or at least hold their own in research and development, as the President wishes, when the cost and quality of health care for the non-wealthy is at or near the median cost in other developed nations ; when we as a nation start heeding President Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex; and when nuclear weapons are universally abolished before –as President Kennedy put it- “they abolish us.”

Divergent
Unfortunately the President’s strategic vision, speeches and tweets –reportedly official policy- on how to tackle these and other critical problems are the very antithesis of what’s needed to reduce –let alone eliminate- them.

While adequate campaign fodder, his oft-repeated mantra of “America Great” has isolated and dissolved any remaining good will for the U.S. among non-vassal nations. Only when one substitutes “hegemonic” for it does the true meaning become crystal clear:

• A balance of power that favors the United States
• Our task is to ensure that American superiority endures
• The United States must preserve our lead in research and technology;
• We will embrace America’s energy dominance because unleashing abundant energy resources stimulates our economy.
• When American does not lead, malign actors fill the void to the disadvantage of the U.S.

Analysis
A balance of power that favors the United States requires a new costly arms race, this time against China and Russia combined. As a result, it requires the government’s continued ability to borrow and increase the national debt without restraints, predicated on the belief that the 2018 tax reforms will flood Wall Street once more with the lion’s share of the world’s surplus capital. That would finance our twin deficits, preserve the dollar’s privileged position as the premiere reserve currency of the world, and successfully compete with China’s growing economic, political and military challenge.

These expectations are unrealistic. China’s economy bears no resemblance to the defunct Soviet Union; the former is growing at a rate at least three times faster than ours and its customer base is four times larger. As a result, its tax revenue will at some point surpass ours, and from then on the gap will grow by orders of magnitude. As for Russia, while not in the same economic league as the U.S. and China, its vast natural resources, strategic geographic location and advanced defense and aerospace industries gives it sufficient leverage to engage China in a quasi symbiotic relationship. The sheer weight of China’s growth rate will trump any attempt to contain its growing mercantile and financial influence. Proof of that is that already every major ally of the U.S. has already joined, over Washington’s boisterous initial objections, the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Germany, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, are resource-poor countries whose economies depend on perennial trade surpluses. By default, they’ll gravitate toward the Chinese and (increasingly) Indian markets. The U.S. market, with fewer customers, will become less influential.

American costs are (still) higher than China’s. Accordingly, the U.S. government is compelled to pay more for comparable weapons systems, a disadvantage compounded by the fact that every dollar spent on weapons is a dollar withheld from much needed investment in other sectors of the economy. This of course will only magnify the growing disparity between Chinese and American infrastructure and contribute to our inability to create well paying jobs in the U.S., a necessity to substantially improve the job participation rate.

American Interests
The President has stated, but not defined, “American interests to be the true North Star.” As with all undefined policies, an ounce of specificity would go a long way: he could spell out what they are and explain how they affect the plight of ordinary voters, the overwhelming majority.

Trade Imbalances
“We will insist upon fair and reciprocal economic relationships to address trade imbalances.”
There’s no question that America cannot continue to have perennial trade deficits. The solution is simple. Let American workers –native born and immigrants but not robots controlled by artificial intelligence- make our clothes, manufacture all consumer goods, put a tariff on all foreign-made products. With such an abysmal job participation rate, it should not be hard to fill these positions if workers are paid what they used to earn in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation. Can’t have a trade war and win? Then come up with an alternative, because the status quo will perpetuate the deficits. If nothing is done there’s a danger that at some point China might demand payment for the goods they manufacture with an exchange medium other than fiat paper currency. It did precisely that just prior to the Opium Wars: it demanded silver.

Energy
The President has pulled the U.S. out of COP21 and adopted a policy of exploiting our coal, oil and gas reserves as much as possible. It should be noted that all these activities are largely automated. Giant machines strip mine the coal, and electric pumps supply the gas and oil. As a result, the number of actual jobs they create is relatively small. What this policy does do is protect the shareholders of these industries, a small minority since most shares in America are owned by a small percentage of wealthy individuals. It also unabashedly continues to release more carbon in the atmosphere in total disregard to a mountain of painstakingly researched warnings from renowned scientists that anthropomorphic climate change is actually worse than previously believed and that the concentration of carbon particles in the air is increasing.

Conclusions
The message conveyed by the President’s National Strategic Strategy is that the ruling elite believe the best way for the United States to hang on to its wealth and power is by overpowering China and Russia, the two countries specifically named by the President as adversaries. This way of thinking is not a consequence of self confidence; rather it is raw fear that if we lose our hegemony we’ll inevitably suffer the same fate of decay and irrelevance that afflicted all other empires including Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Great Britain. There is some truth in that but the transition to a multi-polar world can be gradual and imperceptible, not sudden and cataclysmic. We should cooperate with China and India to help them develop by supplying them with as much hydrogen as possible so they can use it to generate electricity and manufacture pure water at sites of their choosing. If we do that we’ll correct the trade imbalance, create an avatar income stream for American homeowners to compensate them for the coming massive layoffs due to robots and artificial intelligence, and clean up the environment. Yes, shareholders of fossil fuels, nuclear fission and utilities will lose some of their wealth. But since it would happen gradually, they would have an opportunity to invest at ground level in a new solar-hydrogen-gravity economy, the only way we’ll ever stop dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Eisenhower’s Warning

“…This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Income Inequality Report – 2017

December 16, 2017

On December 14, 2017 renowned economists Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty published a comprehensive and exhaustively researched World Inequality Report. Here’s a summary of what they found.

Income inequality has increased in nearly all world regions in recent decades, but at different speeds.

In 2016 the share of total national income by the top 10% income share was

61% in the Middle East
55% in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and India
47% in US-Canada
46% in Russia
41% in China
37% in Europe

Of particular interest:

The bottom 50% income share decreased from more than 20% in 1980 to 13% in 2016.
Since 1980 the global top 1% earners has captured twice as much of the growth in global income as the 50% poorest individuals; nevertheless the latter enjoyed important growth rates.
The global middle class (which contains all of the poorest 90% income groups in the U.S. and the European Union has been squeezed.
Income growth has been sluggish or even zero for individuals with incomes between the global 50% and top 1% groups. This includes all North American and European lower and middle income groups.
Since 1980, very large transfers of public to private wealth occurred in nearly all countries, whether rich or emerging. While national wealth has substantially increased, public wealth is now negative or close to zero in rich countries: governments have become poor.

Their recommendations to tackle the growth of inequality:

Pass progressive income tax reforms.
Combat tax evasion and financial opacity.
Create a global financial register recording the ownership of equities, bonds, and other financial assets.
Achieve more equal access to education and well-paying jobs

Increase government investment, particularly difficult since governments in rich countries have become poor and heavily indebted over the past decades.

Ice-Breaking Apocalypse

November 26, 2017

Background

Once again a study, in this case ice-breaking, has the scientific community in emergency mode. It turns out that two of the largest glaciers in Antarctica may actually trigger the disintegration of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet in a mere 20 to 50 years. That’s barely enough time to mitigate the effect of the catastrophic sea level rise that will follow –assuming we start now. To put it into perspective, a 2 meter rise would partially or completely submerge many coastal mega cities throughout the world, including New York, Houston, New Orleans, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City.

A Solution

One solution –albeit partial- is to flood with sea water uninhabited or sparsely populated below-sea-level depressions throughout the world. Among the most promising sites are Death Valley and its neighboring dry lake beds in California and Nevada, the Dead Sea in Israel/Jordan, Laguna del Carbón in Argentina, and the Qattara Depression in Egypt. Not only would their combined volume serve as a giant holding tank to mitigate sea level rise, they all have abundant sunlight that could be used to mass-produce hydrogen, the one element that when combined with oxygen in the atmosphere produces pure water and energy. The water crisis will start hitting us in earnest in tandem with the aforementioned ice-breaking event because the world’s great aquifers on which billions depend on for drinking water and agriculture are inexorably drying up. In some critical areas like the American Southwest, parts of China and India, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the rainfall cycle simply isn’t enough to satisfy current or (much less) future demand. Only hydrogen can simultaneously halt the production of carbon dioxide (by replacing nuclear fission and fossil fuels), mass-produce water with oxygen already in the air, boost food production worldwide to satisfy the growing demand, and create much needed jobs in new industries that cannot be outsourced and largely impervious (at least for the foreseeable future) to robotics and artificial intelligence. The Earth has all the physical ingredients to solve the problem. All we have to do is contribute the political willpower to overcome the powerful objections and resistance of those who stand to profit from the status quo, organize on a scale never before attempted, and get it done in record time -before it’s too late.

Climate Science Special Report – 2017

November 4, 2017

Here is a classic case of bipolar behavior. The Trump Administration withdrew from COP21 on the belief that it hurts the economic interests of the United States. Today however, over a dozen agencies of the very same government jointly released the congressionally mandated Climate Science Special Report. In it, hundreds of scientists conclude “based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20^th century.” Here are some consequences of climate change:

Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.0˚C (1.8˚F) between 1901 and 2016, the warmest period in the history of modern civilization.
Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and atmospheric water vapor.
Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise in the next 15 years and by approximately 1 meter (1-4 feet) by 2100. A rise of as much as 2.4 m (8 feet) cannot be ruled out.
Heavy rainfall in the Northeast of the United States and in some areas globally is increasing in intensity and frequency and is expected to continue to increase.
Heatwaves have become more frequent in the United States since the 1960s, while extreme cold temperatures and cold waves are less frequent.
The incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Alaska has increased since the early 1980s and is projected to further increase in those regions as the climate changes, with profound changes to regional ecosystems.
Annual trends toward earlier spring melt and reduced snowpack are already affecting water resources in the western United States and these trends are expected to continue. Under higher scenarios, and assuming no change to current water resources management, chronic, long-duration hydrological drought is increasingly possible before the end of this century.
The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally. Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 5˚C (9˚F) or more by the end of this century. With significant emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 2˚C (3.6˚F) or less.
The global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm), a level that last occurred about 3 million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today. Continued growth in CO₂emissions over this century and beyond would lead to an atmospheric concentration not experienced in tens to hundreds of millions of years. There is a broad consensus that the further and the faster the Earth system is pushed towards warming, the greater the risk of unanticipated changes and impacts, some of which are potentially large and irreversible.
The observed increase in carbon emissions over the past 15–20 years has been consistent with higher emissions pathways. In 2014 and 2015, emission growth rates slowed as economic growth became less carbon-intensive. Even if this slowing trend continues, however, it is not yet at a rate that would limit global average temperature change to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels.

The report does not estimate the cost of climate change to the United States, nor does it compare it with the cost of leaving fossil fuels in the ground, which is what it would take to stop the flow of CO₂into the atmosphere. However the losses from the recent (and future) furious hurricanes, forest fires, drought, and the inexorable depletion of aquifers in the Great Plains and California, the source of much of our food, are a clear and present danger to the nation’s very security. First we lost our manufacturing base; now we’re on track to lose our ability to grow our own food. Along with the growing threat of thermonuclear war, these issues should be the talk of the town, but they aren’t. Instead, people who aren’t even born yet will face the music –and curse us for our irresponsible greed.

Highest Concentrations of CO2 and Methane

October 31, 2017

The World Metereological Organization (WMO) has issued a report. Essentially it says that CO2 average levels in 2016 reached 403.3 parts per million, and methane emissions have spiked. All told, if present trends continue, the optimistic targets reached at COP21 simply will not be met. The technology to do so exists. What we don’t have is a global political consensus to make the targets mandatory with enforceable sanctions. We’ll pay anyway for the consequences of natural disasters -higher insurance premiums and taxes for emergency responses, etc.

Mass Production of Hydrogen Needed

October 21, 2017

Rapidly melting glaciers in northwestern China and throughout the world are expected to disappear completely within the next 50 years, a global catastrophe in the making. They are in some cases the principal source of water (the other being groundwater which is also being rapidly depleted) for many cities and vast agricultural concerns worldwide. Simply stated, no water equals desperation, mass migrations and increased competition, even war, over other (already over-stressed) water resources in neighboring regions. If nothing is done, food production will decline steeply just as the world’s population reaches 9 billion. Clearly the world is going to need more food, not less, and nothing is being done anywhere to address the situation.

The magnitude and scope of the problem requires a coordinated global effort to nip this problem in the bud before it reaches an unmanageable point. The United States, though ideally suited geographically, geologically and financially to be a primary contributor to humanity’s common cause, has chosen instead to walk away from COP21. But the rest of the world can and must mass-produce hydrogen from seawater to make fresh water (and generate electricity) to replace the glaciers and actually expand irrigation to even the most inhospitable areas worldwide. This is an unprecedented opportunity on a scale the likes of which has not occurred since Homo Sapiens materialized. If we miss it we’ll get what we deserve.

Dawn of a New World Order

October 12, 2017

Over the last forty years China spectacularly lifted hundreds of millions from poverty, a stunning achievement by any measure.

In contrast, during the same time frame the United States created more billionaires –it has more than any other nation- and plunged the middle class into or near poverty. Today’s lack of well-paying jobs and job security for the working and middle classes –men in particular- has created a sense of hopelessness and despair, with alarming consequences.

For the first time in American history life expectancy for white people is declining due in no small measure to the ongoing deadly opioid epidemic. New construction of single family homes and condominiums priced for young, low and middle-income single buyers, who are burdened with enormous non-dischargeable student loans, is practically nonexistent. And that’s just for starters. Our infrastructure –dated and in disrepair- urgently needs to be upgraded and modernized. We have no bullet trains, and with the exception of New York’s subway –not the cleanest or safest in the world- mass transit in most of the country is, to put it mildly, primitive. And then there’s health care, a for-profit industry, not a constitutional right. Americans pay far more and get far less than comparable societies. Suffice it to say that the Clark County Commission Chair in Las Vegas had to set up a website asking for donations to help the victims of the recent horrific events that took place in that city pay for their emergency medical costs.

For better or worse climate change -unstoppable and unrelenting- will transform the world over the next two generations. Already the Yuan, backed by gold, is being used by countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela to pay for oil, and several major countries –including China, India, Germany and France- have announced they will ban gasoline and diesel-powered automobiles. This spells trouble for oil-dependent economies, particularly the U.S. The dollar, no longer in great demand, will lose its status as the preferred reserve currency of the world. Investors will severely curtail or cease buying Treasuries at low rates and the government will have to compete in the open market for the funds it needs to finance its perennial deficits. If it resorts to printing money with abandon as it previously did, inflation will spike. In any event, it simply will not be able to spend on the same scale as in the past, with grave implications for the military.

Ironically, China –a country believed ruled by a Communist Party- is already infected with the same strain of inequality that has decimated the middle class in the U.S., and the contagion is spreading. It already has the second highest number of billionaires and the situation will likely get worse as robots and artificial intelligence eliminate more jobs than they create. Accordingly, if China wishes to avoid the divisive, dangerous consequences currently afflicting America, it must find a way to redistribute its wealth in a more egalitarian manner.

It all boils down to one’s point of view. If the ruling elite believe they are unassailable come what may, they will continue to do whatever they must to maintain the status quo –their wealth and power. On the other hand, if they conclude that their best bet to survive is to introduce Aristotelian democracy –the rule of the majority- throughout the world and to create a system that guarantees without preconditions a minimum universal income to every human being everywhere, then there’s hope.

As noted in a previous essay, one way to do so is to make the production of hydrogen a universal means to acquire SDRs’ (Special Drawing Rights) the quasi currency currently set to become the de facto global trading medium. Low-grade technology that cannot be monopolized by a small minority of the population exists that would allow even the smallest, most indebted nations to emerge from poverty. Thus, they too would have renewable income to consume manufactured goods from surplus countries, to everyone’s benefit.

The North Korea Saga

September 24, 2017

As with Dracaena cinnabari’s labyrinthine, spiny canopy, the ramifications of North Korea’s nuclear program reach everyone on this planet. In fact, it threatens to bring to a boil the simmering rivalry between China and Russia on the one hand, and the United States, NATO (notably, Germany does not support war) and Japan on the other, a system of alliances and ententes reminiscent of pre-World War I Europe. Both sides have staked their positions. The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper, stated in an editorial what China’s policy would be should war break out between the United States and North Korea, and President Trump’s U.N. speech was equally blunt. As neither party can afford to be perceived as weak or less than courageous at home or abroad, it is wise to take them at their word.

Meanwhile President Putin weighed in saying that North Korea views its nuclear and missile program as its only means of self defense. His logic makes sense, but there’s much more to it than that.

Proliferation of Weapons

A simple fact: thorough research reveals that historically the proliferation of weapons has been the rule, not the exception. For that reason it borders on the naïve to believe that the proliferation of nuclear weapons can be permanently prevented. It might be possible for a finite period of time –years or decades- but not permanently.

The first countries to arm themselves with nuclear weapons were the victorious powers of World War II and veto wielders in the Security Council of the United Nations: the U.S., the Soviet Union (and its successor, Russia), China, France and Great Britain. Since then countries that either did not exist or were not then independent –India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, in alphabetical order, have acquired them. No wartime leader is known to have foreseen that these specific countries would one day be armed with these weapons. By the same token, it is impossible to predict who else is going to have them or something worse in the future, including non-state militias.

A Changing World Order

The ongoing festering of the Korean crisis has coincided with three events that herald a new world order. The first is the recent introduction of the gold-backed petroyuan. Russia, Iran, and now Venezuela have begun selling crude to China, the biggest importer of oil in the world, in yuan rather than dollars.

One immediate consequence is the decline in the value of the dollar; another, not yet fully manifested, is the effect all those unused dollars will have on the U.S. money supply when they are repatriated. They will fan the flames of inflation and spike interest rates, the worst possible outcome for the housing market. The federal government, saddled with a mountain of debt and perennial current account and trade deficits, will likely find it impossible to do much about it. That will trigger a cascade of events, none pleasant.

The second is that China, France, Britain and India have decided to stop sales of gasoline and diesel automobiles. China did not announce a target date, but it is pressuring automakers to speed things up. France and Britain will do so by 2040, India by 2030.

The third event, boycotted by all nuclear powered states and their vassals, is the adoption by 122 nations of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. According to Costa Rica’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, fully 129 nations signed up to help draft the treaty, two-thirds of the 193 member states. While nuclear armed states do not recognize it, the message from the majority of the world is unmistakable. It is a rebellion against the established world order whereby a handful of nations hold the entire world hostage at their pleasure. North Korea, recognizing that nuclear states are not about to renounce them, reserves the right to arm itself with them to deter, in their eyes, an attack by the United States. The obvious danger here is that the nations that adopted the new treaty will at some point in the future get discouraged by the refusal of nuclear states to adopt it and walk away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty a la North Korea. That alone explains why the U.S. and China agree that they will not accept North Korea’s premise. They must make an example of it so that no other country will dare do the same thing.

Convergence of U.S. and Chinese Interests

China’s currency is on the verge of displacing the petrodollar. Given the inevitable decline in the demand for oil that will occur as the world switches to electric cars it is in China’s interest to wait patiently for that event on the assumption that it will collapse the American Financial System. If and when that happens the U.S. will find itself unable to spend on the military as much as it has been since the end of World War II. In other words, China can accomplish this long term goal without firing a shot. Conversely, the U.S. operates on short term objectives, the most pressing being to convince its Persian Gulf allies that it alone can protect the dynasties from extinction by selling them expensive weapons and deploying the navy in exchange for pricing oil in dollars. Neither China nor the U.S. want war, however their strategic objectives are not congruent.

A Face-Saving Possibility

Here is a series of steps that could be taken to defuse the crisis.

China would guarantee North Korea’s existence, not with words but with deeds. It would deploy fighter jets, AWACS, tankers, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft ships, and submarines to guard the approaches to North Korea.
North Korea would immediately cease firing missiles of any type and detonating nuclear bombs.
Subject to verification, North Korea would move all its nuclear missiles and bombs to China. The U.S. would reciprocate by not deploying nuclear bombs and missiles in South Korea, also subject to verification.
The U.S. and South Korea, and China and North Korea, would sit down –without preconditions- to negotiate a permanent peace treaty.

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