Since there are no currently active contests, we have switched Climate CoLab to read-only mode.
Learn more at https://climatecolab.org/page/readonly.
Skip navigation
Share via:

Pitch

Base money on energy. People will think differently about energy, conserving and collecting energy.


Description

Summary

People collect what is valuable. Backing money with energy, not gold, will cause people to gather energy. People will start collecting and/or conserving energy because energy IS money.

The exact value must be set, but as a starting point $.25 a kilowatt-hour (kwhr) is used in this proposal.

Since solar input is about .5 kwhr per square meter per day ($0.50). An energy collection system 20 feet by 80 feet (148 square meters) would support a family collecting about $18.58 per day or about $6,781 per year from a system that would easily fit in their yard.

The right of individuals and small businesses to compete with power monopolies to sell excess electricity is normally referred to as Feed-In-Tariffs or FITs. FITs were introduced in Germany in 2000. By 2011, 20% of electricity in Germany came from renewable sources with 70% of that provided by FITs.

Backing money with energy is a step beyond FITs. Making money and energy the same will shift cultures.

Wampum are beautiful white and purple seashell beads that represented money to the Iroquois Indians when the European immigrants first arrived in America. Gold is a metal variety of wampum that backed the US dollar until 1971.

When money was based on wampum and gold, people found innovative ways to collected them. That will happen if money is backed by energy.


 


Category of the action

Changing public perceptions on climate change


What actions do you propose?

  1. National: Sue Congress for failing to fulfill Article 1, Section 8 duties to “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof....”
  2. National: Sue Congress to capitalize all costs of using fossil fuels into the price of using those fuels.
  3. Local: Ask States to coin money backed by energy.
  4. Grassroots: Create private exchanges and co-ops to define and trade units of energy.


Using a gallon of gasoline as an example of a tradable energy container of energy. The same gallon of gasoline that would have cost 36 cents in 1972 costs $3.60 today. Congress has devalued labor, savings and the dollar relative to the energy required for life.

But the cost of $3.60 is just part of the cost. US Peak Oil was in 1970 at 9.6 million barrels per day (mb/d). National debt in 1970 was $.37 trillion. National debt increased as oil imports increased to $16.37 trillion. Oil-wars have been required to protect access to foreign oil since 1990.

The true cost of a gallon of gasoline to the economy is about $14 according the the Milkin Institute.

 

 

 

 


Who will take these actions?

Contact me to help sue the Federal government, james@jpods.com.

Contact me if you would like help asking your State governments to establish money backed by energy, james@jpods.com.

Everyone and anyone can setup an energy exchange. JPods will give out software for an exchange administrator to manage such exchanges. exchanges@jpods.com.


Where will these actions be taken?

Self-reliance is local. All actions required to become self-reliant, to enforce Congresses duty to the Constitution can be taken locally.

An easy form of energy that everyone can collect value from immediately is to plant a garden. Food is energy.

Planting orchars is something people and communities can do.

Cities that will grant non-interferring access to rights of way over city streets, JPods will deploy solar-collectors over those streets and provide solar-powered transportation. JPods pays the rights of way holders 5% of gross revenues.

DistributedGrid.com will be setup as a collaboration site for exchanges.


How much will emissions be reduced or sequestered vs. business as usual levels?


What are other key benefits?

As energy becomes the basis for money and as many collect energy, there will be an abundance. Because so many will make an effort and few have access to fossil fuels, solar collection will dominate, pushing coal and oil as energy aside.

Many hands make light work.

Life requires energy. More energy, more and/or better life.


What are the proposal’s costs?

Driving a paradigm shift requires a 10x (ten time) cost reduction.

A cultural change must cost radically less than what is currently done. As an example, a ticket from New York to San Francisco in 1865 cost $1,000 (1865 dollars). Four years later that ticket cost $67. The Transconstinental Railroads were 10x.

Railroads were the catalyst for changing energy systems

Cell phones are 10x better than rotary dial telephones.

Changing culture requires 10x.

Two implementing examples are Goal Zero and JPods.

Goal Zero makes a 7 watt solar collector that changes AA, AAA and cell phones. Buying disposable AA AAA costs about $300 a kwhr. The cost of electricity by using rechargable Nickel-Metal Hidride batteries is $4.70. That is a 50x cost reduction.

My guess is Nickel-Metal Hidride batteries will become a medium of exchange over time.

JPods networks deploy solar collectors over the rails to gathter 5,000 to 30,000 vehicle-miles of power per mile of rail per day. JPods cut the cost of transportation by 10x, from 56 cent to 6 cents a vehicle-mile. The Net Energy of the solar collection over the rails is 20:1. This is 6x better than the 3:1 of oil from oil sands or shale.

There are 140,000 miles of freight rails in the US that average 480 ton-miles per gallon. As oil becomes ever more expensive, railroads will be the logistical arteries. There are 2 million lane-miles of urban road that the cost of oil to power has increased 494% since 1998. There is a need for about 500,000 miles of JPods networks to be the logistical capilaries and to compensate for the collapse of oil infrasture.

At $10 million a mile for JPods rails, JPods must invest $5 trillion. By saving $600 billion in imported oil, these networks pay for themselves every 8.3 years.

No taxpayer investment is required.


Time line

Americans face Oil Famine and must cut oil use by 70% by 2020.

When the potato was brought from South America to Europe it supported an expansion of the population. Potatoes grew well in northern climates, produced far more energy than wheat. Population in Ireland expanded with a monolithic dependence on a variety of potatoes. When blight affected that variety, Potato Famine resulted in a 20-25% decrease in population.

The US borrows and prints dollars to buy 50% of the oil energy that is the lifeblood of the US economy. At some time faith in the dollar will collapse. Access to 50% of the oil we are accustomed to may suddenly cease. If this happens at planting or harvest, a growing season of food could be lost. The exact shape of how Oil Famine will snap is uncertain. That Oil Famine is unfolding is as certain as the 494% increase in oil costs since 1998 and oil-wars since 1990.


Related proposals

The concept that money should be backed by energy grew out of a deep study of the Constitution and its ratification in an effort to build JPods networks.


References

The Earth Belongs to the Living, Jefferson Letter to Madison, Sept 6, 1789.

Goal Zero

Kids’ Declaration of Liberty, Enforce the Constitution

In Artificial Markets, Invest in Energy - Life Requires Energy

Wind Works

Peer to Peer Electricity

KW-Cash

Distributed Grid and Personal Energy Servers

Net Energy, the Key to Energy Investing

JPods