Re: What "might happen" with the Japanese Nuclear plants?
Which is a good thing!
IMO, putting our energy eggs into a few giant eggs at a few locations is asking for disaster or attack. Worse, it puts us at the mercy of giant corporations who would be glad to meter a natural resource.
Over the last 30 years there has been taking place a depopulation of the rural areas of the MidWest as small 320 and 640 acre corn farms become uncompetitive against giant 6,400 acre, and larger, corporate farms. The equipment is getting larger so that more rows of crops can be processed in a single pass, and operations run 24/7 during certain parts of the growing cycle. Whole towns which once held hundreds or even a few thousand people have almost disappeared. With 2 or 3 farms, or more, on every section of land the support industries (farm implement businesses, barber shops, grocery stores, auto sales and repair facilities, entertainment, etc...) flourished. As the economy worsened in the 1980s farmers were encouraged by bankers to farm from the edge of the road to the edge of the road, but that wasn't enough to stave off collapse in an industry where corn prices were determined by commodity price manipulations by the giant agri corporations. Just about the time farmers were hauling their freshly harvested corn to their coops, the agri corporations would start dumping millions of bushels of their stored grain onto the market to depress prices. Farmers had to sell because the bankers held their notes, which had due dates. They sold at barely a profit or none at all, as the corn prices remained around $2.45/bu for several decades, while the agri corp's corn flakes boxes rose in price from below $1 a box to over $3 per box, and the boxes got smaller. Forced to sell out, the agri corps or their subsidiaries bought the farms. Fences were torn down and gravel roads plowed up to increase the planting areas.
It would be nice if some still existing rural bankers financed 10MW Solar Power Towers, or similar systems, on a section of land still owned by small farmers. The farmers could switch from farming corn to farming electrons. Most are already mechanically and electrically trained or inclined, and the technology is not rocket science. Ancillary support would build up around the SPT's just like it built up around the John Deer tractor. SPTs could revitalize rural communities and move populations back out into the country, where small truck farms could appear and feed produce to the city markets.
Originally posted by Detonate
IMO, putting our energy eggs into a few giant eggs at a few locations is asking for disaster or attack. Worse, it puts us at the mercy of giant corporations who would be glad to meter a natural resource.
Over the last 30 years there has been taking place a depopulation of the rural areas of the MidWest as small 320 and 640 acre corn farms become uncompetitive against giant 6,400 acre, and larger, corporate farms. The equipment is getting larger so that more rows of crops can be processed in a single pass, and operations run 24/7 during certain parts of the growing cycle. Whole towns which once held hundreds or even a few thousand people have almost disappeared. With 2 or 3 farms, or more, on every section of land the support industries (farm implement businesses, barber shops, grocery stores, auto sales and repair facilities, entertainment, etc...) flourished. As the economy worsened in the 1980s farmers were encouraged by bankers to farm from the edge of the road to the edge of the road, but that wasn't enough to stave off collapse in an industry where corn prices were determined by commodity price manipulations by the giant agri corporations. Just about the time farmers were hauling their freshly harvested corn to their coops, the agri corporations would start dumping millions of bushels of their stored grain onto the market to depress prices. Farmers had to sell because the bankers held their notes, which had due dates. They sold at barely a profit or none at all, as the corn prices remained around $2.45/bu for several decades, while the agri corp's corn flakes boxes rose in price from below $1 a box to over $3 per box, and the boxes got smaller. Forced to sell out, the agri corps or their subsidiaries bought the farms. Fences were torn down and gravel roads plowed up to increase the planting areas.
It would be nice if some still existing rural bankers financed 10MW Solar Power Towers, or similar systems, on a section of land still owned by small farmers. The farmers could switch from farming corn to farming electrons. Most are already mechanically and electrically trained or inclined, and the technology is not rocket science. Ancillary support would build up around the SPT's just like it built up around the John Deer tractor. SPTs could revitalize rural communities and move populations back out into the country, where small truck farms could appear and feed produce to the city markets.
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