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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Ultimate season extension

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Ultimate season extension
  • Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:55:17 -0700


Robert, I thought their season extension was interesting, but to tell the
truth that solar installation had to be financed by thousands in charitable
donations from somewhere. The solar had to cost far more than the
greenhouses themselves. They're a nonprofit, but from a business standpoint
it would be suicide. None of us can repeat their setup and repay the cost
through our sales. Market farming is a slim profit margin business at best
today without a huge investment in solar to pay off. Energy costs are
already putting some farm sectors out of business and it's not just fuel
but the energy going into building machinery, transporting food, plus the
fossil fuels that make pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer. People are
going to be forced to grow without those energy inputs.

The arguments about technology saving our butts have all been answered.
Technology can only increase efficiency, not create energy. I favor wind
power but all the alternatives cost more money than any government can
afford and far more than the public is willing to sacrifice for. The bad
news is most of the cost of solar now comes in the equipment you have to
buy to use it, and these high dollar gems like batteries and inverters
don't come down. Rising demand is forcing prices up already. Few people
have any idea how unrealistic it is for solar to save us from rising oil
prices. Or realize that solar manufacture takes as much energy as building
a car. As the cost of fossil fuel keeps rising the cost of energy to
manufacture solar must rise. There are no alternatives that will let our
civilization keep up our energy standard of living. Hard fact: If anything
else packed as much punch for the cost, we'd jolly well be using it already
instead of oil. So the alternatives will bankrupt us. I've studied this
from every known angle. All this modern "progress" from the Industrial
Revolution on was fueled by cheap energy. Mainstream experts of all stripes
know this and know cheap energy is over. I'd love to have alternatives
because there's no light at the end of the tunnel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1464050,00.html
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2155717

Sorry but I have to disagree with some of those points you made -
historians know it was not the Bomb that ended WW II, and we do not have
the capability or money to switch it all to solar, and Japan has been in
economic trouble for years and is hopelessly tied to our own economic
decline - nor would Japan save our butts if they could.

I wish all of that was a bad dream. Unfortunately most people won't or
can't face facts because of what they'd have to do. Still, there are
millions in this country who need to be more self sufficient in food,
growing more of their own, swapping with neighbors etc. because they can't
make ends meet. Two or three generations ago people knew how. They don't
now. But those who do learn again how to live on the land - without relying
on fossil fuel inputs - will be more secure. I promote that. It's an
individual choice.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 11/30/2006 at 2:23 PM Robert Monie wrote:

>Regarding the Genesis farm in New Jersey:
>http://www.newfarm.org/features/2005/1205/genesis/sayre.shtml
>
> This excellent enterprise of nuns growing their own food recalls the
>legacy of the monastic orders that managed to be self-sufficient during
>the turbulent Middle Ages (see the book Monastic Gardens by Mick Hales).
>I can't help noticing that large solar cell array covering most of the
>good sisters' roof that now provides at least half their energy. If the
>solar cell innovations promised by Honda, GE, Konarka, Nanosolar, Nanosys
>and an increasingly long line of Silicon Valley startups come to pass, by
>2012 an array of similar size and cost could easily provide ALL their
>energy. At least one farmer has already converted his tractor to solar
>using off the shelf equipment--
>
>http://www.motherearthnews.com/alternative_energy/2002_april_may/solar_powe
red_tractors
>
> And two ladies who live in the tiny town of Paradis, Louisiana, drive a
>solar-charged electric car--
> http://www.lses.org/petithome.html
>
> The future is not the past; and the future is going to be different from
>anything the oil economy brought us.
>
> In facing the hard times ahead, we must be on guard against the old
>generals'
> folly of fighting the last war all over again. Solar electricity didn't
>exist during the Great Depression. The atomic bomb didn't exist during WWI
>but it did during WWII and, for better or worse, brought the war to an
>end. Cuba may not have the capability to develop solar technology but we
>do, and this time we have Japan on our side, as an equally powerful
> solar electric developer.
>
>Bob Monie,
> Using an inexpensive Carmanah solar electric system (literally something
>new under the sun) for three years now and finding no bogey-man "problems"
>in it.







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