However, on that same Discovery Network show I saw a segment with a commercial enterprise in the US, start-up funding from a government grant — who was developing and already had running in pilot form a system that burned up all municipal waste by means of ion fusion and gained energy in the process. Their figures indicated a municipality that spent $95 a ton to dispose of waste now could actually switch to a $15 a ton profit on their trash.

Obviously, these are the sorts of efforts that _do_ require “invention/development” funding, but geothermal can actually be a single-family do it yourself project, given the right geology.

Energy independence is much like an alcoholic who keeps drinking for years, even when he knows he should quit. The first step of any successful program is to stop drinking .. overpriced, environmentally senseless oil, or alcohol … both are harmful wheh they become addictions.

I saw a news item the other night about London City Council’s attempt to reduce carbon emissions by 60%. They hired a guy from Woking City who had designed a system of energy production that made Woking self sufficient i.e not reliant on the national grid.

Anyway, the major point made by the London City people was that we cannot rely on national governments to solve the energy problem and so the city authorities must act indepedently and devise their own solution. As the major cities of the world use most of the world’s energy, these cities may well be able to solve the problem whilst the national government politicians continue to dither.

My view is, certainly keep at least enough gold to pay your way back to the US or some other destination (this is nothing more than a few necklaces or such). That way no matter what tricks banks might pull out of their sleeve, you’ll never be trapped.

Gold cooled off there for a while but its now making a little run. I was hoping that it would pull back to $780 or so … but no such luck.

The beauty of geo is, zero pollution and near zero impact on the environment. I saw a nice peice on Discovery the other night from the US a geothermal plant in a western state had been built and then shut down … economically unfeasible … meaning the oil and coal fired industry dropped prices Wal*Mart style until they had to close the doors. Well, when oil hit $200 a barrel, guess what just became economically feasible

@ Tom, thanks for that article, I’ll look it over. I know a lot about the gold industry here, I have a brother in law who has been a mining engineer here for 40 years or so now. There is still a _LOT_ of gold and other precious metals. Funny thin\g is, gold companies are hurting because the International Mining Exchange in London which actually sets world prices is US Dollar denominated, so real prices have dipped badly this past year.

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moriarty/moriarty052308.html