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Energy Feasiibility Comes Before Alternative Choices

Before You Get Excited by the Energy Alternative and "Green Energy" Resources Band Wagon You Need to Know About Economic Feasibility Lex Loeb Contributor Network . Economic feasiliby is the reason why most alternative energy resources schemes will eventually end in failure. Economics is the study of scarce resource allocation. Energy resources is the ultimate study of economics because Energy is interchangable with human labor or work. It is possible to convert energy sources like gasoline and electricty into horse power to drive much larger vechicles and do it faster than a number of horse. Energy thus is also a substitute for human labor in an economy. The more work that can be done with an energy source that costs less than having workers do the same amount of physical labor to make machines run, the easier life is for human beings. Just a thousand years ago Vikings were still using oars to power thier ships though water. The entire Roman Empire was designed to run not just on the power of animals doing work but the power of people to turn the wheels of machinery of the time. Yes the Romans had discovered some uses for Water power and the even more ancient Greeks had been using steam power on a limited basis. By The time the renaisance was going on the power of fire arms was discovered as well as the use of fire works rocket but human and animal power was still the main means of industry. Until the industrial revolution happened, Energy was much more scarce than it is today. It really was not scarce because in a real sense these ancestors of ours had not used any of the energy resources we now put to use or they only used them for very limited purposes. Energy was much more expensive back then then it is now with the exception of work done by humans and animals. The value of men's lives as energy sources was such that economic growth was severely limited. The sustainabity of a labor intensive human / animal energy source was much too high for much too long in history. Using human and animal labor to produce most of the energy used for industry and agriculture severely limited the wealth of nations and it also cheapened the existence of human life on a massive scale such that a very relative few could reap the benefit of the toil of hundreds and thousands. In ancient Roman times the value of a common laborer slave was possibly not as high as the value of plantation slaves in 19th century America's souther slave states. Supply and demand regulated the cost and value of slaves on the market. In ancient Rome the supply of slaves was as large as the number of new territories that could be conquered. Slaves had costs associated with them including feeding them. Serfs and slaves were found to be productive enough in agriculture as to provide enough food for their own continuued existence as their master's with some excess product to sell on the food markets. Roman Slavery produced less food than required which made the conquest of The Nile Delta one of the most important slave plantation centers of the ancient Roman empire. Food resources from the Nile delta fed everyone including Roman Imperial classes, the plebosite citizen clases , general and agricultural slaves as well as slaves being worked to death in less luxurious industries like mining. Efficency of turning agricultural land into food required to maintain the entire population of Imperial Rome in the whole meditaranian basis required most of the population and a very large number of work animals that could do things like pull plows or carts to facilitate harvest. The Agricultural dimensions of Ancient Rome were far more populated than the major cities just as post revolutionary America was an agricultural society with more than 98 percent of the population working the land and less than 2 percent of the population living in cities doing something else other than agriculture. Ancient Rome could barely sustain it's urban populations without the counter balance of very large enslaved populations doing energy intenstive work. The economic feasilbity of slaves is what sustained Roman imperial power for 500 plus years. The Romans knew what tar was and they saw surface petroleum resources in the middle east and elsewhere but never realized the economic fasilbility of replacing slaves with those alternative resources Romans heating their homes in northern climates would have had to employ X number of slaves to collect sufficient fire wood and keep it burning or non salve owners they might have to collect their own to stay warm. The economic feasiliby of collected fire wood compared to alternatives set the costs of winter living as it did the market price for slaves able to preform the service of collecting, cutting and transporting firewood where needed. The Romans invented raised interor floor such that they could burn wood under subfloors as they did in their baths under northern latitute homes. This gave Romans radient heated floors long before the 2oth centry versions became available. The cost for heating a northern latitude home then is a combination of what ever fire wood cost including the services provided by slaves, maybe not their own. Having a centrally heated roman home as such was probably generally more expensive than what we today spend as very few Romans were wealthy enough to have homes with central heating systems nor large enough for the imperial classes. Economic feasiblity limited the Romans to what really worked to heat their homes at a reasonable price just as it does for us today without having to factor in the cost of slaves or slave labor. The phenominal power our energy sources gives us 40,100, and thousands times the horse power of just a horse often for less money than maintaining a horse. Consider the energy in just one gallon of gasoline. A 4000 pound automobile can be propelled to over 120 miles per hour, faster than any single horse can run, for more than 30 miles per the gallon and a gallon only costing $3. Roman Green sustainabilty is thus completely put to shame not to mention their completely unnecessary enslavement of people to do work that can be done practically for free. The cost of having slaves pull a 4000 pound carriage 30 miles might include feeding more than 10 slaves and getting them to drag a car 30 miles might taken them a number of days. The Roman economic feasilbity worked for them getting something moved but it was not as economically feasible as just putitng $3 of gasoline in a car and having it move itself by itself plus alllowing passengers to ride inside perhaps even letting the slave take the ride. The lesson then is that economic feasibility is key to choosing your energy sources if you don't want to turn people into slaves unnecessarily. The more efficient the energy source is the less slaves or animals you should ever need to get any work imaginable done. Adding slaves to the economic feasiliby comparison chart is what is now being done talking about measures designed to give us green jobs with alternative energy resources. You have to look at the fine print. . Close

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