The Idler, Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Beer on troubled waters

MY MAN IN the US tells me a senator from Iowa has recommended that the yeast supplies used world-wide in brewing beer should be directed to the Gulf of Mexico to fight the BP oil disaster. It seems yeast can break down the oil, the same way it breaks down whatever it does to produce beer.

There are different ways to look at this. The Gulf of Mexico becomes a vast ocean of beer. Good!

But do we need an ocean of beer in the Gulf of Mexico when the Football World Cup is in South Africa?

And would this vast diversion of yeast away from the world's breweries not cause an international beer drought of unbearable proportions?

I think we need to look carefully for double agendas. These teetotallers will stop at nothing.

 

Space solar power

Meanwhile, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, has proposed an answer to the Louisiana oil spill. It's solar energy harvested in space, known in the space community as space solar power.

 

"The timing of the oil catastrophe," says Aldrin, "is a great opportunity for re-evaluating solar energy from space."

 

The information comes to me from Howard Bloom, of the US Space Development Steering Committee.

 

He says we've been harvesting solar power in space and sending it to Earth since 1962, when the first commercial satellite, Telstar, was launched and began transmitting energy harvested by the solar panels studded all over its surface. Today the space solar power harvesting business is a quarter of a trillion-dollar industry.

 

"We call it 'the commercial satellite industry.' That industry uses space solar power transmitted to earth for everything from satellite radio and television to direction-finding via GPS."

 

He says the Japanese space agency, Jaxa, has committed $27 million to space solar power and has plans for a satellite capable of powering 300 000 homes. Jaxa has the backing of 15 other nations in its effort. Russia, China and India are also working on space solar power development.

 

"Space solar power means no more Louisiana oil spills. No more carbon in the atmosphere. No more nuclear waste. No more energy wars. No more nations hogging resources and driving up prices. And no more villages in the hinterlands of Africa and Asia kept in poverty by the cost of running landlines hundreds of miles to reach them."

 

There are currently four American commercial companies seeking capital to make space solar a reality, he says. California's Pacific Gas and Electric utility anticipates being able to begin delivery of solar power from space by 2016.

 

"Take the load off the earth! Drill up not down! Space solar power!"

Visionary

HOWARD Bloom is a philosopher and prolific writer for whom the word "visionary" appears to have been invented. I had some contact with him a few years ago but until now had no idea he was involved in the space programme, though I am not surprised.

Those who enjoy a challenging read should try his book, The Lucifer Principle: A scientific expedition into the forces of history (Atlantic Monthly Press). This essentially explores whether humanity has developed the capacity to escape its otherwise inevitable fate of extinction.

For those who prefer short cuts, here are the closing lines: "Superorganisms, ideas and the pecking order – the triad of human evil – are not recent inventions 'programmed' into us by Western society, consumerism, capitalism, television violence, blood and guts films or rock and roll. They are built into our physiology. They have been with us since the dawn of the human race.

"But there is hope that we may someday free ourselves of savagery. To our species, evolution has given something new – the imagination. With that gift we have dreamed of peace. Our task – perhaps the only one that will save us – is to turn what we have dreamed into reality. To fashion a world where violence ceases to be. If we can accomplish this goal, we may yet escape our fate as highly precocious offspring, as fitting inheritors of nature's highest gift and foulest curse, as the ultimate children of the Lucifer Principle."

It makes ya think.

Tailpiece

HOW DO YOU tell when a bagpipe is out of tune? When somebody blows into it.

Last word

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.

Judith Martin

GRAHAM LINSCOTT