HaHa said:
What is with the Philippines? Would someone who is familiar with life over there comment on the very high energy efficiency?
It looks like RP finally arrived and has provided us with an answer from the P.I. viewpoint.
RP said:
A great deal of work is done manually because of low availability of capital to buy machines and use more BTU's...Also, our electricity here is second only to Japan for the highest cost in the world, so the average American would have a real problem getting used to moving from the cheapest to the most expensive.
So Nords was on the money - the guy supplying the power is charging high prices.
RP said:
IMO the US's biggest problem is the government's insistence on oil as virtually the only energy solution. The average alternative energy article in the news media parrots facts from 20 or 30 years ago ... solar is not cost-effective, wind isn't efficient enough ... geothermal is too hard to harness, etc., etc. great strides have been made in alternative technologies but the oil companies still by massive amounts of TV time to brag about how they are searching for new places to drill ... and the past few administrations (both parties folks, I'm nor bashing Red or Blue) have effectively done nothing to promote anything except oil, oil and more oil.
Things are changing here and there. I travel several hundred miles down Interstate 10 in Texas on a regular basis, and starting several years ago I noticed trucks hauling giant windmill blades toward the West. I eventually got curious enough to find out what was going on and learned that Texas has mandated that 5% of all electricity used in the state come from wind power (with proposals to increase it to as much as 20%).
Reliance of petroleum as a primary energy source is not going to end anytime soon. The worldwide demand for energy is increasing.
When I look at the chart I posted back in September, I see a lot of countries that very productive and are also major importers of petroleum. Some more efficient than others in how they use it, but the major developed countries are all pretty close to each other. Then there are all the unproductive countries, some who are oil exporters (and very inefficient users of energy) or they can't afford very much energy.
You might be particularly interested to notice that China and India will become huge users of energy in the next two decades, as demand around the world continues to grow. Where is it all going to come from? I'm not going to predict the future, but I think it's very interesting to note that both China and India will have aircraft carriers in their fleets within just a few years. They both have homegrown versions in various stages of planning or development, but both have bought carriers at the Russian's yard sale that they are refurbishing.
Aircraft carriers do one thing very well - project power and influence far from home shores. I think both countries are concerned with securing oil supply routes on the seas.
All that means that the Phillipines needs to get to work on developing some alternative means of energy or be stuck with an economy that is marked by low productivity.
