[lutherquick]

A simple analogy to ENERGY.

Like bugs flying around a light at night, this is the future of human civilization....
For years our cheap OIL made our lives like it was day time in the tropics, plenty of everything.

As peak oil bites harder, and as the power down steps in, you will see the strongest economic activity nearest energy sources. Governments of energy rich countries need to stop exporting that excess energy capacity. I say excess capacity, as in relative to their own consumption, not globally. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Russia (to name a few), each have plenty of spare capacity, relative to their own consumption. Exporting is a waste and is done only for unsophisticated business thinking... Strong and aggressive business oriented energy exporting countries will yank the exports.

The new paradigm in global economics will be that the highest level of economic activity will be nearest to energy sources. The highest standard of living will be closest to energy, not the currency printing press (dollar).

US foreign policy knows this. And it is why delusions of wmd or the war on terror are propagated. The US will continue to annex energy, you know? for democracy. But it will fail. Moving that light source is allot more difficult as it dims.

To that end, move your business where energy is plenty, and the local economies are diversified. Future modern governments need to wake up and mature their societies to consume that energy locally, not transport it across the world.

Like various tax free International Trade Zones, or technology parks, governments reduce taxes and give out free rent, do almost anything to attract businesses for creating local jobs. Bet your ass that any capable government will give "free or cheap energy" to those multinationals that want to move closer to the light source.

Like bugs, we will go, move, and travel toward the light source, like swarms. Currencies will be and are being marginalized.

"Energy is everything" (as Richard Heinburg said).

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lutherquick', 'E')xporting is a waste and is done only for unsophisticated business thinking... Strong and aggressive business oriented energy exporting countries will yank the exports.

[lutherquick]

seldom_seen,

With all that energy in SA, and there is plenty of land to erigate with water made with that energy.... better to bring the food companies to SA, but offering cheaper energy...

[Rufoman]

Isn't there that problem with sand? Namely it needs nutrients added to it to make stuff grow? This usually leads to the cost of the fertilisers and so forth making the end-result food more costly, it ends up cheaper to import food.
We have a similar problem here in Australia, few places with fertile soil se our things like wheat and fruit are quite high-price, so it's cheaper import food rather than spend all the extra money on growing it, or so I've been told.

[gnm]

not neccesarily true if you can import a greater volume of food from a place where it grows easily for volume X of oil in trade than you could grow using volume X of oil on your own crappy sand dunes...

-G