The effect of supply-and-demand on oil price will prevent economic recovery forever

 

   "The problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them." 

   Albert Einstein

Here is Jeremy Rifkin's summary of oil market dynamics: 'As soon as economic recovery begins, the cost of oil rises and kills the nascent recovery.' 

Rifkin's more detailed argument (in the following Diane Rehm interview) is both global and cogent; even more cogent for being global. 

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-10/jeremy-rifkin-third-industrial-revolution-rebroadcast

Rifkin performs a great service by focusing Germany's "solar experience," simultaneously discussing the financial arrangements - both public and private – that have enabled Germany to take the world's alternative energy lead. 

Currently, 20% of all German energy production is sustainable. That number will rise to 35% within 9  years. 

The U.S. figure is a little over 11%, although this number was gleaned from a Wikipedia article that included hydroelectric energy which, in turn, is responsible for 69% of the U.S. total. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States

Notably, Germany leads the world in solar energy production.

Of equal note is that North Carolina receives twice as much solar energy (from the sun) as  Germany does. 

Are you familiar with Person County's Solar Park? It's a remarkable undertaking - all the more so for being situated in a rural backwater - http://www.carolinasolarenergy.com/pcsp  /// http://solar.coolerplanet.com/News/8310901-person-county-solar-park-makes-best-use-of-solar-power-and-sheep.aspx - 

Rifkin concludes his interview with Rehm saying the United States leads the world in its ability to embrace sudden, swift transformation - assuming, of course, appropriate decisions have been made...

To be fair-and-balanced, it must also be said that recent national experience points to America's "exceptional" ability to “lie low” and behave “oppositionally." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_disorder

Hopefully Yankee ingenuity is dormant, not dead.

It's time for neo-troglodytes to quit their caves.


                                                                                                                                    ***

Jeremy Rifkin: "The Third Industrial Revolution"

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-10/jeremy-rifkin-third-industrial-revolution-rebroadcast

Monday, October 10, 2011 - 11:06 a.m.

U.S. economist Jeremy Rifkin the founder and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends (FOET) speaks during the 23rd congress of the Socialist International at the Lagonissi Grand Resort, about 40 kilometers (25miles) south of Athens on Monday, June 30, 2008. Close to 700 participants from 150 political parties and organisations from 120 countries will attend the Congress of the Socialist International from June 30 to July 2.

In the nineteenth century, the first industrial revolution brought together print and literacy with coal and rail. In the twentieth century, a second industrial revolution combined the telegraph and telephone with oil and nuclear power. Jeremy Rifkin says we’re now on the cusp of a third industrial revolution merging internet technolgy and renewable energy. He’s president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and an advisor to the European Union on climate change and energy security. He joins Diane to discuss how this new economic vision can create millions of new jobs and transform society in the twenty-first century.

Rifkin is author of "The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World"

 http://www.amazon.com/Third-Industrial-Revolution-Lateral-Transforming/dp/0230115217/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1