In the Editors Blog, Ode's editorial staff members provide an intelligently optimistic take on the news—and write about what's not in the headlines but should be.
Don’t worry about oil
Don’t worry about oil. With oil and gas prices at all time highs, that seems a strange thing to say. Yet, we really shouldn’t worry. Solutions are available and well under way.
Around 1880, visionaries in Paris painted a bleak picture of the future. If our city continues to grow at this rate, they argued, carriages couldn’t ride our avenues anymore in the near future. They will be stuck in mounts of horseshit. The respected elders of their times didn’t see that the solution to the problem was already coming. Henry Ford was about to introduce the automobile to the world.
Today’s media are full of contemporaries of these Parisian visionaries. We read about peak oil and about the disasters waiting to happen when the last drop of fuel hits the pump. Even the nuclear industry sees an opportunity for a come back for unneccesarily dangerous power plants.
In the meantime, profound change is coming from another direction. Do you remember when you first bought your first cell phone? I bought mine in 1997. In the past decade the cell phone industry has completely transformed society. It’s hard to even think about that world without cell phones of not so long ago. Society has been decentralized. People work from home or from wherever they are.
And nobody saw coming what came. All the great technological revolutions happen much more quickly than even the experts and enthusiasts predict. The forecasts for the spread of mobile phones and information technology were all overtaken by reality. And exactly the same is going to happen–is already happening–with the upcoming renewable energy economy.
As we speak, in the same Silicon Valley that launched the IT revolution, many venture capital firms are funding dozens and dozens of startups that are going to deliver the clean renewable energy of the future. These venture capitalists are driven by the one motivation that they all understand: To make money. Clean green tech is going to be bigger than the Internet, they know. John Doerr of one of the leading venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, Kleiner Perkins, estimates that the global energy business is worth 6 trillion dollars per year. No other technology market even comes close. As Doerr has said: “Energy is the mother of all markets.”
Last year Silicon Valley invested 1.1 billion dollars in clean energy technology. That was almost 100 percent more than in 2006. That’s the rate of growth that built the Internet boom. That’s the rate of growth that will transform society once more. Venture capitalists see opportunities to reach the ultimate goal–energy that is cheaper and cleaner than coal or gas–in just a few years. Why? Because that’s the timeframe they need to give a real good return to their investors.
But wait a minute. Didn’t that nice Internet boom end in a painful disaster in 2000 when many many people lost a lot of money? Yes it did. But despite their losses, the foundations for the digital infrastructure that is driving today’s world economy had been laid. Our wealth today was substantially made by the Internet boom.
Investment booms–and busts–have changed the world ever since the tulip mania in The Netherlands in the 1630s. In the 19th century, many people made and lost a lot of money in building the railways that provided the necessary infrastructure for the subsequent industrial revolution.
Exactly the same thing is going to happen again. We will see astonishing investments and growth in clean tech in the months and years ahead. And, yes, there will be a likely bust in the end. But by then the world of oil will be a thing of the past. As an inspiring T-shirt says: “40 years of oil left. 5,500,000,000 years of sunshine left.” Don’t worry.
Under our drug laws, even the growing of cannabis hemp -- the nonspyschoactive variety of the plant--is outlawed in order to enforce the marijuana laws.
Hemp has many economic uses. It contains the longest fiber in the plant kingdom and is one of the strongest and most durable. It can be used for commercial and industrial applications, including insulation, textiles, clothing, and rope. The fiber and pulp can be used to manufacture nondeteriorating paper using a relatively pollution-free process. The plant can also be used for biomass applications. Its seeds yield oil similar to linseed, which can be used in many commercial and industrial applications. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the seeds have been used for human consumption.
"Hemp. It's marijuana's nonspyschoactive sister," writes Ed Rosenthal. "You couldn't get a buzz if you smoked a bale of hemp, but it's still illegal to grow it in the United States." Industrial hemp is legally grown in over thirty countries. For thousands of years, people grew hemp and prospered. It flourishes without pesticides. Thomas Jefferson considered hemp so vital to America that he risked his life to smuggle hemp seeds out of France. George Washington grew hemp and instructed his caretaker at Mount Vernon: "Make the most of the hemp seed. Sow it everywhere."
Industrial hemp was first grown in Kentucky 250 years ago. It is currently grown in other countries across the globe, including France, England, Canada, Australia, China, Hungary and the Ukraine. Industrial hemp has virtually no THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. It cannot be used as a drug. None of the countries that allow industrial hemp production have experienced any drug problems relating to the crop. Using modern processing techniques, hemp can be used in place of petrochemicals. Instead of synthetic plastics made from oil, we can use natural fiber and processed bioplastic derivatives. Plastics and polyester rely on foreign oil, while cotton consumes enormous amounts of water, fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides.
Industrial hemp is very clean, easy to grow and is one of the most environmentally sound sources of industrial fiber in the world. Environmentally friendly detergents, plastics, paints, varnishes, cosmetics, and textiles are already being made from it in Europe. Industrial hemp can meet our fiber needs while also revitalizing our struggling rural economies.
Hemp is already being used in place of trees for pressboard, particleboard, and core concrete construction molds. Paper made from hemp is acid-free, stronger and lasts far longer than paper made from trees. Hemp fabrics are far stronger and more resistant to mold than any other natural fiber. Builders in France and Germany use hemp for construction material, replacing drywall and plywood. Hemp can be used to manufacture plastic plumbing pipe, replacing such toxic materials as polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Hemp fiber is already being used in place of glass fiber in surfboards and snowboards. Hemp could also provide the resin itself.
Hemp requires no herbicides or pesticides and needs much less water than cotton. It is an extremely vigorous annual and high yielder, producing up to five tons of usable material per acre. Hemp seed oil is a nonpolluting drying oil that can be used for paints and varnishes. Some of the world's greatest oil paintings were made with hemp-based paints. Hemp oil is valuable as a lubricant.
New research shows that hemp oil is also a premier oil for human consumption as a source of essential fatty acids missing in most other oils. While activists and patients battle with the government over medical marijuana, an even bigger health issue may be at stake. Scientists have discovered that hemp oil, the nonpsychoactive oil from marijuana seeds, may hold the key to fighting many common diseases. Andrew Weil, a Harvard-trained doctor, regularly prescribes hemp oil for his patients. Here's why:
"It has a remarkable fatty acid profile, being high in the desirable omega-3s and also delivering some GLA (gamma-linolenic acid) that is absent from the fats we normally eat. Nutritionally oriented doctors believe all of these compounds to be beneficial to health. Hemp oil contains 57 percent linoleic (LA) and 19 percent linolenic (LNA) acids, in the three-to-one ratio that matches our nutritional needs. These are the essential fatty acids (EFAs)--so called because the body cannot make them and must get them from external sources."
Weil reports his patients show marked improvement after using hemp oil, noting that their general health and energy improve, as does their appearance.
For ideological reasons, the federal government refuses to allow farmers to grow hemp despite the fact that industrial hemp is currently grown legally worldwide. The current Bush administration took anti-hemp policy to a new extreme, attempting unsuccessfully to ban the import of hemp foods and cosmetics. Erwin "Bud" Sholts, director of the Wisconsin Agriculture Department's marketing division, said hemp "is the most value-added, prolific fiber crop man can grow." Sholts acknowledged that hemp is an emotional issue, but points out that "other nations with drug laws as tough or tougher than ours have overcome this hurdle."
The U.S. is the only major industrialized nation that prohibits the growing of industrial hemp; anti-drug hysteria should not blind the public to the commercial and industrial applications of hemp.
posted by vasumurti on 10/ 7/2008 2:25 pm