StateofConfusion

Silver Unmasked

If you predict something long enough it may come true. The end of the world has been predicted for about 2000 years. The last time was going to be the millineum (was it year 2000 or 2001?).
Right now the world would stop if the US dollar became worthless. Just look at the recent recession. I'm not against owning some silver or gold but if the dollar goes to zero, it better be in a spendable form and you better have it in your back yard. I'm not sure even that will be of much use. Why not just buy a lot of freeze dried food and keep it in the basement. You can also trade food as well as eat it. Coins may be of use for a few other things. Of course life may not be worth living anyway.

Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V)

Mark, I think you have the wrong time scale for modern humans surviving. We have not been surviving for millions of years and all other similar species have gone extinct. The analogy of fish eggs where .0001 % survive makes me pessimistic. We have gross over population yet the U.S. continues to allow high levels of both legal and illegal immigration. Latino groups want to bring in more to increase their power and religious groups both here and in Islamic countries promote population growth.

Cold or hot fusion might eventually save the smaller world but it is not likely to help with oil depletion, only fisson can contribute to that. Solar energy in the form of thin film should have low production costs but central solar farms that use concentrated light for heat and generation may be cheaper to build.

Mark W makes some good point but I will disagree on a minor point. If you have almost unlimited heat from fission then it doesn't matter too much that you go thru energy state changes like described. This just part of the efficiency equation. PVs are not very efficient so who cares that they produce power directly. They still must go thru a conversion process to make AC, this is around 95% to 97% efficient at best.
I'm all for PVs and they will contribute to distributed power, we will need all forms of generation. Two major kinks will be power storage (for non base load sources) and distribution system which are not keeping up.
Without population control, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Maybe China doesn't use as much as we do but they also live at a much lower standard.

Investing in a Resource-Constrained World (Part III)

What China needs is a community property law, like we have in many (U.S.) states. That would create demand destruction when the men figure out that marriage is mostly a farce to supply women with money. Of course most men here have not yet figured that out either.

Silver: The Last Great Thing - For Now

If someone owns a bag of silver quarters bought years ago, would it be better to just keep them or possible sell when silver gets above $22/oz ? They have some "currency' value in an emergency.