(This comment has a science fiction aspect: namely the adoption of
new technologies. Of course, I do manage mostly to stay away from the
overt reasons for this list ... )
On 16 Jan 2005, Erik Reuter wrote
The current account deficit in 2004 will be about 5.7% of GDP,
almost all of it due to the trade deficit trade deficit (5.2% of
GDP). This is not sustainable.
The question is when does it stop being sustained? Perhaps the
precautionary effects of money moving to a relatively safer US will
counterbalance the deficit for years to come.
I can see different futures.
What probability do you attach to each of these following futures,
over the next year or two? (I think the US current account deficit
has a nearly 100% probability of being destroyed within 15 years; but
the next year or two is a different matter.)
In several one to two year futures, the dollar rises:
* Chechen insurgents shift strategy from attacking people to
attacking Russian gas and oil export pipelines. They damage them.
This leads to a rise in the dollar as Europe suffers.
* Anti-infidel forces attack oil-loading terminals in the Gulf, in
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, or in western Africa, in Angola or
Nigeria. The attacks cause a sufficient reduction in
international oil (a 2 or 3% reduction in internationally traded
oil) to influence the price dramatically. This leads to a rise in
the dollar since US is less damaged by a reduction of
international oil sales.
* The Chinese government further acts to reduce excessive and
wasteful investments in steel, cement, and real estate. To avoid
a possible loss, investors move what funds they can to the US or
Europe as a precautionary flight. This leads to a rise in the
dollar since US is a good precautionary destination and offers
higher interest rates and less geo-political fear than Europe.
In other futures, the dollar falls:
* A consortium of French, Swedish, and Finnish companies offer
reasonably safe and less expensive nuclear power plants to eastern
Europeans and Chinese. The plants are safer than before on
account of newer sensors and equipment and because their parts are built
under one roof and transported to destinations on rivers and
oceans, either on barges or as barges which are kept as
foundations at the destinations.
In addition, I think that all fuel reprocessing should take place
inside of the reactors' containment vessels. This would, I think,
make the reactors more acceptable politically and may well be
safer, too.
Using current technology `pebble' reactors, it might be possible
to reprocess fuel within the containment. I do not know whether
reactors can be designed with a liquid fuel in which reaction
products are separated using appropriate filters. I think the
latter idea (or even a gas-based `lightbulb' design, as for
nuclear thermal rockets) would have lower incremental costs and be
somewhat safer.
Such reactors could burn plutonium.
In such a future, the euro rises and the dollar falls, since
Europe becomes more independent.
* Europe reduces the possibility that global warming will lead to
the end of the ocean's thermo-haline circulation, stop the
Gulf Stream, and cause it to freeze.
Europe or Russia or China, or all of them, do this by using
shaped-charge (Monroe effect) hydrogen bombs to dig tunnels less
expensively than otherwise. This reduces the fresh water flow
from Siberian rivers into the Arctic Ocean. It is this fresh
water flow, in part, that is expected to stop the thermo-haline
circulation. Increased flow comes from global warming and has
been measured.
I have been told, but am not certain, that US designers have
created shaped-charge hydrogen bombs that can dig long tunnels.
The tunnels would carry water to dry central Asian countries.
Perhaps the Caspian is refilled. A side effect would be to
increase Russian influence on them, which the Russian government
wants. Perhaps the tunnels also carry water to western China,
which the Han Chinese government would like.
I do not know how much radiation goes into the water, nor how nor
whether it is removed.
The European, Russian, and Chinese militaries will all support
nuclear explosions in which they take part, since the explosions
will serve as tests.
Moreover, these are the kinds of big projects that appeal to
certain types of leader.
These two previous suggestions do not require technological progress.
The next does, but not too much:
* Hydrogen bombs may also be able to drill tunnels deep enough to
extract large quantities of geo-thermal heat. Just aim the tunnel
down. The other end goes up; presumably the explosion end is less
directed and the impulse shorter. Otherwise the explosion breaks
the surface and releases a great deal of radioactivity. Perhaps
the first tunnel is nearly horizontal and the next tips down more.
In any event, the tunnel has to be wide enough that with a
reasonable flow, enough heat is picked up. The flow needs to go
in a circuit.
Perhaps the deep fluid, most likely water, is kept liquid by
putting an oil cap over it. In any event the deep fluid is
probably contaminated, if not with radiation, then with whatever
comes out of the fractured rock. That water need to be separated
from the water used in the electric generating (or other heat
processing) plants. Heat can be transferred through a heat
exchanger. Since such a heat exchanger cools the deep fluid, it
will flow around the circuit.
More advances are required for the following:
* Some organization invents and innovates the biology that enables a
plant to convert solar energy to bio-mass 10 times better than
now, that is to say, with a conversion efficiency of 5% rather
than 0.5%.
It does not matter whether the plants are algae, the equivalent of
water hyasinths, or the equivalent of jojoba. However the latter
already produce a useful oil. Jojoba plants would also be a good
investment for desert countries expecting a drop in their
production of fossil oil.
* Some organization invents and innovates a practical and not too
expensive `slow' fusion device (not a bomb, which is an existing
`fast' fusion device). Preferably the device fuses boron and
hydrogen, a reaction which does not give off neutrons.
Unfortunately, most current research is on tokamaks, which cannot
produce the temperatures necessary for hydrogen-boron fusion.
Interestingly, the primary actions that I see leading to an increase
in the value of the US dollar are `bad futures'. The actions that
could lead to an increase in the value of the euro are `good futures'.
The main `bad future' that leads to an decrease in the value of the US
dollar is a large terrorist attack in the US, such as a nuclear
detonation in a Texan port.
Futures beneficial to Europe require that the previously waring states
of Eurasia cooperate economically. What appears is a `Eurasian
Alliance'. We can already see this prefigured in the deals that both
China and India have made with Iran, that China has made with Russia,
that the west Europeans (but not the central Europeans) are making
with Russia, and which we will see if Europe drops its weapons embargo
against China.
Such an alliance gains political legitimacy, in dictatorships as well
as democracies, by being opposed to the US. Also, although I doubt it
will happen, my proposal for a `three chamber legislature' with
considerable `states rights' could lead to popular consent and not
cause too much trouble for despotisms.
However, technological futures take a long time. Nonetheless, the
time might be short enough to prevent Europe from becoming swamped
demographically by immigrants from other cultures.
In any event, financial changes might take a very short time. Once it
looks as if a Eurasian Alliance, even a weak one, is established, once
it looks as if Europe will become less dependent on Russian or Moslem
oil and gas, once it looks as if Europe will avoid freezing, then
suddenly it becomes a good destination for money.
Note that if a good biological or `slow' fusion future were invented
and innovated in the US, and if the results looked quick, the prime
benefactor might be the US. (I do not think that even large present
values will lead American investors to think really long term;
otherwise, they would already have invested billions in asteroid
mining.)
As for a US government investment: hydrogen bomb induced geo-thermal
energy extraction might well benefit the US as well as the world.
(The same shaped charge technology might also provide water tunnels
for the US west and for Mexico.) But the current US government favors
fossil fuel extraction. I rather doubt the US government would
support a mechanism that could lead to geo-thermal energy extraction,
except as a PR gambit to enable it to test nuclear weapons that could
drill down to deep bunkers.
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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