Regarding productivity I often think about the missed opportunities, considering all the tech driven productivity tools that have been made available over the years. Excel, Word, email, video conferencing, the list goes on. A lot of this goes to waste because we have added unnecessary and wasteful activities and lots of extra red tape. Imagine doing what we did 50 years ago with the help of today’s tools …. What a productivity explosion …
The tremendous amount of Western resources going into renewables is both raising the cost of energy and siphoning away resources from productive uses to the unproductive. If one is convinced of the climate crisis thesis, a more rational approach would be to design a modular nuclear plant that can dispatched across a range of its output. It would be mass produced off-site, with all the regulatory/safety variables accounted for.
Well, I am a HUGE fan of nuclear energy and in particular small modular reactors and molten salt reactors. We need to build more of them and as fast as possible to have a reliable energy source.
But where I disagree with you is renewables. Renewables are already the cheapest form of energy anywhere in the world (In the US, onshore wind in the Texas Plains is the cheapest energy source in the country and so cheap that Exxon uses it to power their shale gas pumps).
Also, outside the US, renewables together with nuclear are the best way to energy independence. Don't forget that in Europe, we don't have our own oil & gas and are dependent n countries like Russia and now Qatar. So if we want to be independent from these suppliers, we need renewables.
First of all thanks for your newsletter. Top!
Regarding productivity I often think about the missed opportunities, considering all the tech driven productivity tools that have been made available over the years. Excel, Word, email, video conferencing, the list goes on. A lot of this goes to waste because we have added unnecessary and wasteful activities and lots of extra red tape. Imagine doing what we did 50 years ago with the help of today’s tools …. What a productivity explosion …
Agree, and I will have a post on this in a couple of weeks' time.
The tremendous amount of Western resources going into renewables is both raising the cost of energy and siphoning away resources from productive uses to the unproductive. If one is convinced of the climate crisis thesis, a more rational approach would be to design a modular nuclear plant that can dispatched across a range of its output. It would be mass produced off-site, with all the regulatory/safety variables accounted for.
Well, I am a HUGE fan of nuclear energy and in particular small modular reactors and molten salt reactors. We need to build more of them and as fast as possible to have a reliable energy source.
But where I disagree with you is renewables. Renewables are already the cheapest form of energy anywhere in the world (In the US, onshore wind in the Texas Plains is the cheapest energy source in the country and so cheap that Exxon uses it to power their shale gas pumps).
Also, outside the US, renewables together with nuclear are the best way to energy independence. Don't forget that in Europe, we don't have our own oil & gas and are dependent n countries like Russia and now Qatar. So if we want to be independent from these suppliers, we need renewables.