Are You A Caveman?
A blog series by Troy Helming, including excerpts from the upcoming book Caveman Country
Are you a Caveman (or Cavewoman) or Enlightened?
America's strength has always come from
our people. Starting with brave explorers, pioneers and a hard-working
drive to improve our lives, America is the greatest country on Earth. I
intend for America to never lose that title. The leaders of our great nation
have been, in my humble opinion, substantially influenced over the years by men
who dig stuff up from the ground and burn it.
Cavemen, I call them: short-sighted men
who rape and pillage our mountaintops and lands, scraping, drilling, and
cutting the Earth with little to no regard for the negative long-term
consequences. Just like cavemen, these men (and some women) see only
what's right in front of them: rocks, sludge and gas that can be captured for
money. They are not yet evolved enough to realize that society has
recently figured out how to be civilized without clinging to the Stone Age
methods of our Neanderthal ancestors. Instead, these Cavemen (that
includes cavewomen, too) choose to use physical force to beat the hell out of
Mother Earth, slicing deep gashes in her skin with ever larger machines,
digging out her innards until nothing’s left, and drilling her over and over
again. These barbaric people refuse to evolve to using their brains to
find a better way, and they will soon become extinct.
So I ask you: are you a Caveman? Or
are you an “Enlightened” gentleman or lady?
Because for the first time in history, it
really is just as easy as a choice. Here's why:
1. Solar
energy is now cheaper than new coal, nuclear and natural gas plants, and
cheaper than many (but not yet all) existing nuclear, coal and gas peaker
plants. California, the most populous state in America and the world's
5th largest economy if it were its own country, has added so much solar energy
(on rooftops and on arid deserts or non-farmed pastureland) that it generates
10% of its total electricity needs [Source],
and is well on its way to achieving 50% powered by renewable energy by 2025.
2. Wind
energy is now cheaper than new and existing coal, nuclear and natural gas
plants for the generation of electricity. There are now 9 US states powered by 10% wind or more (with 2
more expected to hit 10% in 2015), and 3 states (IA, KS, SD) at about 20% or more and
wind now generates about 5% of the nation's electricity [Source].
3. Electricity
generated from wind and solar has dropped by 60%
and 85% respectively in just the
last few years. As a result, renewable energy now generates more
electricity in America than oil and nuclear combined (16.63%
vs 13.08%) [Source], and accounted for about 50% of all new electric generating capacity
in 2014 and a significant share (about
40% on average) since 2012
[Source].
4. Even
if oil was as cheap as $40/barrel, electricity is cheaper than gas (or diesel)
to run your vehicle on a cost per mile basis.
5. In
America's history, the US government has subsidized energy for 100+ years.
Powerful cavemen influenced members of Congress and the White House over
the decades to extract over $630 Billion of federal subsidies for coal,
nuclear, oil and natural gas industries. Meanwhile, renewable electricity
generation sources (such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass) have enjoyed a
scant $50 Billion in all that time, with more than half
of that unfortunately going to biofuels such as ethanol [source]. Worldwide, fossil fuels get
$550 Billion per year of subsidies, 4x what renewables get at $120 Billion [source]. Even today, according to the
CBO (Congressional Budget Office), fossil fuels (including transportation
fuels) get twice (2x) the federal
dollars that renewables receive, or 4x what renewable
electricity receives [Source]. Conclusion: America's policies
and direction have been shaped, for too long, by men who dig stuff up from the
ground and burn it (hence this blog title Caveman Country).
a. Reagan
didn't cause the Soviet Union to break up. Cheap oil did. The USSR
got the vast majority of its hard currency and GDP from selling oil to the
world. When oil prices crashed by 50% to $14 / barrel in 1988 [Source],
the Soviets steadily ran out of money and everything fell apart. Despite
many who wanted to heap praise on Ronald Reagan and his SDI & DOD
initiatives, the real story is the transition to a civilized society, away from
cavemen like those in the Russian oil complex.
b. Cavemen
kept digging up dinosaur sludge while the Enlightened in the US and around the
world aggressively switched to other forms of energy and reduced energy
consumption overall through efficiency efforts started during the oil shocks of
the 1970s. The US moved from 17% of our electric generation from oil in
1978, 7% in 1982, 4% by 1988 and only 1% by 2010 (mostly in Hawaii, Alaska, and
US island territories) [Source
and Source]. This reduced demand substantially, while
supply kept increasing, causing the markets to crash. This is one of the
early examples of how the transition from a Caveman Country to an Enlightened
Society wreaked havoc on the Cavemen and created a whole new breed of human
beings: Enlightened ladies and gentlemen who began the Clean Power Revolution.
Sadly, Reagan was a Caveman and cut off the funding and support for the
Enlightened, so they were weakened, but fortunately didn't die.
6. Finite
natural resources cannot compete with technology.
This is because technology rapidly improves while costs rapidly drop
(think flat-screen TVs and the cost of long-distance phone calls, if you're old
enough to remember what a "long distance call" actually is). While
technology also improves the efficiency and yield of physical natural resource
extraction (oil, gas and; coal), there will always be a natural limit in the
quantity of physical resources available.
7. There
is no such limit with solar and wind generation, or energy storage (in
batteries, etc.). Think about this for a moment: the cost of solar panels
continues to drop (solar panel prices dropped over 80% in just 5 years from 2008-2013
[Source
and Source],
similar to Moore's Law of semiconductor cost reduction with manufacturing scale
over time). At some point they will be
so cheap that people will think it quite strange for any rooftop to not have
solar panels on them.
8.
Solar can be ubiquitous placed anywhere and everywhere energy is
needed, to power homes, business, and factories, charge batteries in EVs
(electric vehicles), and charge up energy storage systems. Did you know
that today, in 2015, solar on a home is now cheaper than utility electricity in 42 of
the largest 50 cities in America?
9. Lithium
ion battery costs have dropped substantially in the last 2 years (2013-2015) [Source
and Source] and
are expected to drop even more as a result of the Tesla Gigafactory [Source].
This is due to the same principles that cause the price of technological
products to drop with manufacturing volume and steady Research &
Development efforts by manufacturers competing with one another to become more
efficient and drive down costs.
10.
EVs are already cheaper to operate than ICE (internal combustion
engine) vehicles, due to vastly reduced maintenance costs and fuel costs (even
with cheap oil). Did you realize that EVs have no transmission, no spark
plugs, no oil, no radiator, timing belt, starter, or alternator? With far
fewer parts to fail, they're more reliable, cheaper (and easier) to operate,
and will last far longer than the ICE vehicles driven by cavemen.
a.
I know this, because I’ve been driving an electric vehicle (Tesla
S) for some time now. We used to spend
nearly $600/month on fuel and $2,000/year+ on maintenance for our BMW and
diesel Jeep. Now we spend zero on fuel
and nearly zero on maintenance, and our electric bill has only increased by $80/month. Even with cheaper gas (at the moment), the
savings are compelling over 5 years or more, especially after a few years due
to the steadily increasing maintenance costs of ICE vehicles over time.
b.
Eventually, EV cars will be cheaper than ICE vehicles to buy up
front (that gap narrows each year), in addition to cheaper to operate.
c.
Finally, who wants to drive around in a conveyance that burns a
fuel, dug up from the ground, at such a high temperature inside a metal chamber
that it literally explodes every microsecond? How barbaric!
Only a caveman or cavewoman would feel good about driving around in an
exploding, belching machine that eats sludge found in rocks as its food.
Yuck! Be a lady or a gentleman, not a caveman: drive an EV or PHEV.
To
quote George (not his real name), a west Texas oil industry executive (caveman)
talking about the state of affairs in Texas in 2015, with cheap oil crashing
the oil economy (again) and wind power being the fastest growing source of new
energy in the conservative state:
"We
drilled the hell out of everything and now we're in the shits, and now they're
building the hell out of wind towers to put the coal & gas utilities in
the shits. What the hell is the world coming to?"
Well
George, you're a Caveman, and your kind deserves to go extinct. It's only
a matter of time. Welcome to the new world, where the Enlightened will
rule.
So here's a little
shout-out to Jeff Foxworthy of "You might be a redneck" fame:
You
might be a caveman if...
1. You think filling up at
the pump is good for America (your clan).
2. You're okay with men
& women getting killed or maimed defending access to oil on the other
side of the world.
3. You think the world should
heal itself, and it's okay if you take what you need when you need it.
4. You believe some
"higher power" will clean up the mess we've made of our planet.
5. You think we can just move
to new planet after we rape & pillage the natural resources of this one.
6. You wonder "what's so
bad about the planet getting warmer?"
7. You idle your car on
purpose to help warm the planet.
8. You enjoy burning wood or
charcoal.
9. You like the smell of
gasoline.
10. It doesn't bother you knowing multiple
roughnecks are drilling Mother Earth. Over and over again, until she
trembles (earthquakes) with weakness, gets sick with fever (warms up) and
begins to die (1,390 square miles / 889,600 acres of land turns to desert each
year worldwide).
So again I ask:
Are
you a Caveman or an Enlightened?!
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