Total Real Wealth Formula

 

Prospects for cheap and abundant energy.

 

Hypothetical: Say I discovered cold fusion and worried about how to execute. What are the political, technological, economic ramifications to consider?

In reverse order, the economic ramification will be paradigm shifting to a remarkable degree if it is of sufficiently high EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested). This is because energy is basis of all (and I mean all) economic activity and a high EROEI will ensure abundant and cheap energy to be universally available. This in turn will result in real prices of all goods and services to collapse. Now in terms of real prosperity, there is no real disparity between increasing real wealth in a society and decreasing real prices. General prosperity will increase exponentially, and the wellbeing of the world’s population will be improved to unprecedented levels. Of course, countries and companies that depend on energy production and sales will lose a lot if not all their revenues but will make up for it by having access to cheap energy to help them diversify from their expensive energy sources. The rest of the world will benefit from this Godsend in increased living standards, and it will be a net benefit to the world economy.

With abundant and cheap energy, the availability of world resources will exponentially increase, and more will be made available for research and development in science and technology resulting in incredible and unthinkable breakthroughs for the benefit of mankind. Solutions will be found for intractable problems in the environmental and ecological spheres and mankind will explore and colonise the solar system within a few decades and be a spacefaring race in a couple of generations.

From a political point of view, vested interests who benefit from scarcity of energy supplies and the resultant ever escalating soaring prices will fight tooth and nail to keep competing cheap energy sources such as cold fusion from becoming exposed. They have been allegedly known in the past to resort to threats, intimidation, bribery and if nothing works to even resort to murder of inventors, promoters and entrepreneurs in breakthrough and viable alternative energy technologies. Historically this has been a major impediment to progress in this field and from a conventional point of view appears to be insurmountable. However, from an unconventional point of view thanks to the internet and modern communications a would-be inventor in this field can simply release all the pertinent information, including technical diagrams, the science and theory and instructions for making the prototype of the device on the internet with as many links as possible on as many forums as possible. This way maximum publicity is generated, and the relevant information is in the public domain and thus renders the vested interests impotent to carry out their nefarious plans! The only remuneration for the would-be inventor of this would be having a Patreon type of donation system supplemented by sponsored advertising. Also, universal fame (and fortune) will follow by going through this route of getting this technology safely in the public domain.

A more detailed reasoning can be found at the following link:

World of Free Energy

The true, intrinsic, and fair value of gold and silver.

The true, intrinsic, and fair value of gold and silver.

 So how do we get the true, intrinsic, and fair value of gold and silver in the modern, scientific, and technological era? We must do so regarding the following in conjunction to the available stocks of gold and silver:

 1.Previous, current, and future valuable commodities.

 2.Present and future currencies and size of economies.

 3.Future scientific and technological breakthroughs and consumption of gold and silver.

 4.Cost of mining and production and quantity produced.

 1. Previous, current, and future valuable commodities.

Back in Roman times, pepper was said to be almost worth its weight in gold! This resulted in all the gold (and some of the silver) of Rome being traded, over 4 centuries, with the eastern producers of the spice. Mind you, most of the silver of Rome ended up in China in exchange for its valuable and most sought-after silk (But that's another story.) Of course, this situation can't be repeated now because the current stock of gold which is estimated to be 200 thousand tonnes can't be reconciled with the current annual world production of pepper which is over 250 thousand tonnes per annum. In fact, current pepper prices are approximately $3200 per tonne compared to a gold price (2016)  of $1200 per ounce! That's a factor in gold's favour of 12,056 times. 

Current commodities that could compete with pepper of ancient times are of course the illegal drugs cocaine and heroin which are currently worth approximately their weight in gold. However, this high price is only sustainable if the two of these remain illegal and are currently facing rising competition from so called 'legal highs' as well as increased production. It is in my opinion that these commodities will eventually face the same fate as pepper as time goes by. Future commodities manufactured by natural or artificial means that could be highly valued are DMT (Dimethyl Tryptamine), Soma, the mythical potion used by the ancient Hindus and of course the Elixir of Life itself. DMT is called the divine molecule and is produced naturally in the Pineal gland of the brain and is supposed to give one an experience of the afterlife and divine heaven. Same with Soma but with soma it is claimed one is imbued with supernatural powers whilst under its influence. The Elixir of Life (known as Amrut in ancient Hindu civilization) itself may be the most valuable commodity of all time because it will enable one to achieve the ultimate quest of Humanity: Immortality itself! These three future commodities could be the future peppers of the world but would still be subject to over production and competition and could thus lose their parity with gold on a weight-by-weight basis. 

The above mentioned are commodities that are organic (carbon based). What about non- organic based commodities? Well metals like Rhodium, Platinum, Palladium and Copper will always have some value in relation to Gold and silver and on account of their  rarity and utility may even be more valuable than gold and silver but will probably  not have a universally acceptable monetary value. Silver will of course have a value based on a proportion to that of gold and may fluctuate widely based on both its investment and industrial demands. However, this essay is only concerned with the value of gold and its relative value with respect to silver may be calculated proportionally. 

The only other future non-organic based commodity that comes to mind is the much talked about 'computronium'. This can be described as anything that delivers computer power in Megahertz (million instructions per second) per unit cost in gold. Take the 1970 IBM mainframe computer that delivered 12.5 Megahertz and cost 132,000 ounces of gold equivalence.. Cost per Megahertz = 10,560 ounces of gold. Compare it with the modern 2014 Intel based PC which delivered 4 Gigahertz and cost 0.4 ounces of gold. Cost per Megahertz = 0.0001 ounces of gold. In other words, in 44 years, the cost of 'computronium' decreased by a factor of 105.6 million in terms of gold! If the same rate persists for the next 44 years, which is highly likely if present trends in computing continue, then an ounce of gold will be valued at an unbelievable rate of 11.2 thousand trillion Megahertz of computing power!!! This is how valuable gold can be against an industry that is at the vanguard of technological progress!

 2. Present and future currencies and size of economies.

 Gold is currently priced in 'fiat' Dollars. What backs the Dollar? Nothing, you would say. Well not quite. The Dollar, or the Petro Dollar, is backed by oil! The current (2014) rate of oil versus gold is approx.: 12 barrels of oil to 1 ounce of gold. Have you ever considered the value of gold in terms of energy? Well 1 barrel of oil is equivalent to 5,800 cubic feet of natural gas or 1.7 Mega Watt Hours. Or in terms of Joules, 1 barrel of oil is equal to 6.1 Giga Joules (or 6.1 billion Joules). Thus, one ounce of gold is currently valued at 69,600 cubic feet of natural gas, 20.4 Mega Watt Hours or 73.2 Giga Joules. So what are the current energy resources available on the planet? According to Wikipedia, as of 2009, proven energy reserves in Zetta joules was as follows:

 Coal       19.8

 Oil            8.1 

 Nat. Gas   8.1

 Total       36.0 

 A Zetta Joule is IO²¹ Joules or 1000 billion billion Joules. Now we are not including Nuclear energy but would like to mention the total annual energy from the sun to the Earth is 3,650 Zetta Joules! Also, the total geothermal energy potential of the earth is 10 million Yotta Joules, where 1 Yotta Joule is IO²⁴ Joules or 1 million billion billion Joules.

 So just the proven energy resources (savings, as it were) is equivalent to 491.80 billion oz. of gold. And the annual energy from the sun (income, as it were) is equivalent to: 49.86 trillion oz. of gold. And the total geothermal energy of the earth is equivalent to 136,602,739 trillion oz. of gold. But there is only approx. 170,000 tonnes of above ground gold in the world i.e. 5-466 billion ounces! Thus, in purely energy savings terms gold is theoretically worth 548.8 Giga Joules of energy or 89-97 barrels of oil per ounce. But in terms of purely annual energy income, gold is theoretically worth 55,638.8 Giga Joules (or 55.6388 Tera Joules) of energy or 9,121.12 barrels of oil per ounce. And in terms of geothermal energy gold is theoretically worth 152.435 million Tera Joules of energy or 24-99 billion barrels of oil per ounce!!! Incredibly, the annual energy income from the sun is worth 101.38 times the puny energy savings of fossil fuels accumulated over millennia on the planet and the world's geothermal potential is worth 277.8 million times that figure!!! Let's just ignore the vast geothermal energy of the earth and just concentrate on solar energy. Now to get a fairer and more realistic value of gold in terms of annual energy income from the sun, one must multiply this sum by a factor of at least one hundred. This is because one can't expect the world's gold stock to be valued against simply one year's energy income. This gives a theoretical figure of 1 ounce of gold is worth 5563.88 Tera Joules (or 5-56388 Peta Joules) of energy or 912,112 barrels of oil!! Now how big can the world economy be with gold worth 912,112 barrels of oil per ounce? Well, it would obviously be on a gold standard with annual gold production (and thus income) being about 3,000 tonnes a year (about 97 million ounces). That is equivalent to 88.47 trillion barrels of oil a year or in 2014 Dollar terms 8.847 Quadrillion (8.847 thousand Trillion) dollars. 

 The current banking system is electronic, and the velocity of money can be at the speed of light if real time settlement is universally enacted in it! So, each gold money unit and subunit can flow potentially at the rate of millions of transactions a year through the system. This can happen if every account has an automatic program to instantaneously transfer debits and credits (for an exceedingly small and negligible fee) when they come due if an account's credit balance and future cash flow allowed for it. But let's just say for arguments sake it flows at the rate of 1,000 times a year, per gold unit, and therefore there is no need for fractional reserve lending (the banking system simply facilitates transfers of debits and credits, for an for the above mentioned  fee). Thus only 97,000 ounces of gold would be required in the whole banking system to support a world economy of 8.847 quadrillion Dollars! The rest of the gold can go into government or personal savings. Notice this does not take inflation into account because it is all equivalent to gold energy conversion. As the value of gold increases, over time, as increased energy resources are utilized, less and less of it would be required in the banking system and its value increases in a positive loop until its value becomes incalculable!! Of course, this scenario is feasible only if the technology to convert base metal to gold is technically and energetically not possible. If it is feasible, then the cut off point for the value of gold will be its nuclear syntheses value as shown below in 4. But what if we consider the sun's total annual energy output and ways of Mankind tapping into it? One conceivable way envisaged is by building vast solar panels surrounding the sun and then beaming the energy to where it is utilised. The total energy involved is of an order of magnitude of 10 billion times the above figures for annual solar energy! Based on this scenario, would-be future currencies like bitcoin would not stand a chance in the marketplace because who would be willing to be paid in an unbacked crypto currency when gold is available. Even a bitcoin-computronium combination would not stand a chance because of computronium's massive devaluation visa-vis gold as shown in 1. above.

 3. Future scientific and technological breakthroughs.

 Science and technology advances by leaps and bounds annually, by breath taking paradigms in decades and by unbelievable, unimaginable, and uncontrollable ways in generations! No matter what the breakthroughs, availability of new goods and services vastly increase in the marketplace and conversely prices rapidly come down. This manifests truly in a gold standard economy where gold has found its true, intrinsic and fair value and where prosperity is universal. With the growth of automation and robotics, increased longevity, and a society of leisure for all, education and consumption will be the only driving forces in the economy. What happens to the value of gold in this scenario? The value will increase exponentially with time against all manufactured products and services as shown in the computronium example in 1. above. Because only a tiny fraction of available gold would be required in the banking system (and an ever-lessening amount over time), all new sources of gold will simply be saved and accumulated as true wealth. Periodically, with increased energy resources coming online, gold will be revalued upwards against energy. Thus, prosperity will be universal and finally Utopia will be within Mankind's reach.

 4. Cost of mining and production and the quantity produced.

 Cost of mining gold will be miniscule compared to its true, intrinsic or fair value. It may even be feasible to mine gold deep in the earth's mantle as well as extracting it from seawater. It may be also feasible to mine the asteroid belt for the possible quadrillions of tonnes of gold. No matter how large the quantity produced, if it is cheaper on an energy returned on energy invested basis, (E.R.O.E.I.) the value in terms of energy per ounce of gold will not differ substantially. Those massive quantities of gold produced may not affect the price, because if one is on a gold standard where wealth is defined as amount of gold held and accumulated then it is simply viewed as an increase in humanity's wealth! Because the amount required for banking and commercial purposes will be tiny, all newly mined gold will go either into savings or investments, with mining companies distributing dividend payments in gold!

Gold is produced in nature by nuclear reactions in a supernova explosion of a star which releases energy equivalent to all the energy of an ordinary star like our sun throughout its entire lifespan of 10 billion years. The daily energy output of the sun is 10³² Joules. Thus, the energy output of the sun (and that of the supernova explosion) in 10 billion years is 3.65x10⁴⁴ Joules. Suppose that produced, in theory, 170 quadrillion tonnes of gold (1 trillion times the current above ground stock of gold) we can calculate the cost of natural production of gold in terms of energy as 6.68x10²² Joules per ounce of gold or in barrels of oil equivalent to 1.09477x10¹³ or 10.9477 trillion barrels. In other words, in 2014 Dollars 1 ounce of gold costs 1.09477 quadrillion (thousand trillion) Dollars to produce in nature!! !! The exact cost in terms of energy can only be calculated when future astrophysicists will determine the exact quantity of gold production in supernovae explosions. Of course, the exact energy cost of producing one ounce of gold by nuclear synthesis can be calculated, but that is a job for the nuclear physicists! This has been calculated by the American physicist, Dr Glenn Seaborg, as costing (in 1951) approximately one quadrillion Dollars per ounce of gold produced!!

 However, the energy equivalence of an ounce of gold can be calculated by the famous formula

 E =mc², where E is energy (Joules) m is mass (0.0311 kg) c is the speed of light (299-793 million metres per second). This is equal to 2.795 x10¹⁵ Joules, equivalent to 458,197 barrels of oil, or 45.82 million Dollars (2014). This is still a huge figure and can be taken as the fair value of gold if the technology allows for it to be accomplished. Obviously, the intrinsic value of gold and silver lies in its ultimate storage of value vis-a vis with energy. In short, it is obvious that gold and silver  is currently vastly under-valued visa-vis both the Dollar as well as oil. It is only a matter of time before the world wakes up to their  true, intrinsic, and fair value. When it does, the above-mentioned utopian scenario will happen. 

 Posted by Future Man at 09:21 " border="0" src="file:///C:/Users/abcd/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /> The true, intrinsic and fair value of gold.

The Dandelion Effect

The Dandelion Effect

06 March 2019

02:46

We all remember as children picking up dandelion seed heads and delightfully  blowing them up in the air. We used to jump with joy watching the seeds floating with their parachutes , usually flying some distance before landing on the garden  patch or the roadside.

Have you thought of negative, unforeseen and unintended consequences of our momentary burst of joy?

Here are some of them:

1. The hundreds if not possibly thousands of needless "weeds" sprouting from the seeds will  require maybe hundreds of manhours of manual labour by gardeners to remove. Some of the seeds will potentially fly hundreds of kilometres before landing.
2. In order to save on labour, the ecologically unaware worker will use herbicides, which may or may not be carcinogenic, to eliminate the rapidly growing dandelion plants . The poisonous herbicide leaks into the potable water systems and 20/30years later cases of cancer arise in the population.
3. The cancer cases cause extra burdens on the public resulting in personal bankruptcies or in case of socialised medicine, huge cuts in non-oncological health budgets.
4. If the water supply has been compromised to a large degree a vast proportion of the public will be affected leading to labour shortages on the one hand, and budget shortfalls due to reduced tax receipts on the other. Inevitably, the country's finances will deteriorate to such an extent that a financial crisis will occur.
5. Furthermore. bees and other insects will be adversely affected by the herbicides which will result in vast damage to the ecosystem.

 

Modern industrial societies have literally thousands of "Dandelion Effects" where simple pleasures or conveniences result in negatively life changing or even nation changing results. It is  possible previous civilizations collapsed due to unforeseen consequences of similar effects. It is generally surmised that one of the reasons for ancient Rome's collapse was due to the introduction of lead  for piping drinking water.

Those are the negative effects. The following are positive effects:

 1.     Dandelion roots have medicinal properties. If they can be harvested commercially, they can be foraged by the  public. Similarly, other medicinal plants and herbs can be literally  spread around the meadows, the flowers of which can provide sustenance to our insect friends.

  2.    The deserts of the planet, after due diligence, can be seeded with various drought resistant weeds which after several generations  will generate the required topsoil for agriculture use.

Thus positive Dandelion Effects should be sought after and negative ones eliminated from society . 

Utopian future of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

http://marshallbrain.com/second-intelligent-species.htm

http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/aad67f70b7b43ddc.pdf

http://jonathanmehtala.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/capitalism-automation-and-role-of-state.html

http://jonathanmehtala.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-end-game-of-capitalism-transition.html

http://jonathanmehtala.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/capitalism-in-world-of-automation-and.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html


Suppose a thousand people got shipwrecked in a desert island in the near future after an apocalypse which destroys the rest of the civilised world.  The only possessions they had were, apart from the clothes on their backs, were a thousand multipurpose, general super intelligent robots which had access to the combined knowledge of the civilisation of the time.

How do you think they would cope, survive and possibly prosper?

For a start, the people would get organised and get the robots to scour the island and discover and record all the natural resources on the island. Of course the food resources would be given top priority and the robots would harvest them on a self sustainable basis first. Secondly, resources that were needed for immediate and temporary, albeit rudimentary shelter would be utilised.

The above should not take more than a week assuming the robots were working day and night. The next priority for the robots will be to utilise an energy source which is both renewable and sufficient to power the future requirements of both the robotic workforce as well as the emerging civilization on the island. Only two immediate energy sources come to mind. The first is wind power and the second is geothermal energy. Solar power could be ruled out because of the relatively small size of the island.  Suppose the robots divided themselves into  four groups of 250 each tasked with the following work loads: The first group carries out the mining, smelting and manufacturing, through automation, of the parts required for the wind power stations and the geothermal plants. The second group assembles the parts for the third and fourth groups which actually build the power plants. Remember, these robots are super efficient and super smart and thus be able to accomplish the task of attaining self sufficiency and sustainability  in energy production for the island within, say a week or two at the most.

Once the energy requirements of the island have been met, then the robots would turn their attention to raising the quality of life for the island inhabitants by designing and constructing the most efficient, durable and luxurious residences for them together with self maintaining gardens and orchards. The inhabitants would lead a leisured existence of  acquiring knowledge, pursuing arts and hobbies such as crafts, fishing, surfing and sailing. This could conceivably be achieved in about three to six months.

The next challenge for the nascent island civilisation would be to have a surplus of energy so that the robot population can be doubled and quadrupled by automation production lines so as to cater to the growing needs of the naturally expanding  human population. Initially the islands wind generating capacity would be fully utilised and the geothermal energy would be greatly increased by the robots reaching ever greater depths in the earth's mantle as well as towards the hotter magma, but the limits would be soon reached as far as efficiency is concerned. Simultaneously some of the ever increasing numbers of robots produced would be working on cold fusion and other esoteric energy sources and thus the island would soon have a virtually unlimited energy source.

Soon the islanders, together with their robotic workforce, would be building ships and planes to explore and colonise the rest of the planet in order to cope with the growing population. Thus within a generation, the islanders would have brought an advanced civilisation to a decimated planet thanks to robotics, automation and artificial intelligence.

The above is a thought experiment.

If the above envisioned Utopian future can be realised with just a thousand humans with a thousand general purpose artificial intelligent robots, can you imagine what can be accomplished with ten billion humans of the Earth with an equivalent workforce of an initial ten billion of the same robots!! At the least the solar system will be colonised and Mankind will be a star faring civilisation in a generation or two!!

So what is holding back humanity from this future Utopia?

Only two things really. The first is a morbid fear of automation and robotics by the general public which fears massive unemployment and thus destitution. The second is the market mechanism which will never tolerate an ever escalating energy surplus which will naturally result in eventually free energy for both the robotic workforce as well as the free human beings who will enjoy the benefits.

What is the possible solution to the above impediments?

As far as  unemployment is concerned, the only solution is a Guaranteed Basic Income for everybody in order to cope with meeting the supply from the ever escalating production capacity of robotics and automation. As the production capacity increases, so does the Guaranteed Basic Income until everybody lives the life of leisured billionaires.

As far as the market mechanism on energy is concerned, it should be universally understood that energy is not just a resource but the very basis of life and its evolutionary progress of humanity. Thus it should be treated as the Open Source movement treats software and should be freely available universally.

Once these two criteria are met, the above mentioned Utopian scenario is guaranteed for humanity.