ALS: thoughts on freedom

The Mises Seminar

Today I attended the Mises Seminar in Sydney. It was organised by new kid on the block The Mises Institute of Australia. The event was very professionally organised, with a well planned agenda, a great venue, a terrific guest list, and brilliant libertarian speakers. As and when they have another such event I would encourage all libertarians to go along and have a look.

I met lots of terrific people. When I mentioned my involvement with the LDP I got an unfortuantely too typically libertarian response which is that people would like to join the LDP and vote for a candidate of the LDP if only the LDP was properly libertarian on policy X, policy Y or policy Z. Ironically many of these same people if in America would vote for Ron Paul who belongs to a political party far less libertarian than the LDP. Strange but unfortunately typical.

I would definitely hang out at one of these seminars again and I support the effort entirely. However if I was to complain about the lack of libertarian purity regarding the event it would be the obsession of most of the economic speakers with the very unlibertarian idea that fractional reserve banking should be illegal. It is the same idea that turned me off the Austrian school of economics when I first encountered it more than a decade ago. Thankfully they had one speaker, Steve Kates, who did not share this obsession. He kind of saved the day for me.

To be clear I do agree with Austrian economists when they say we should abolish central banks. This is a very libertarian proposal.

In summary libertarians can disagree on the details but should still work together where they have common cause and find agreement. So vote LDP and also support the Mises Institute of Australia.

November 26, 2011 Posted by TerjeP (say tay-a) | General | 73 Comments

Techno Optimism II

In March 2007 I wrote an article for this blog called “Techno Optimism“. It was about global warming and technological solutions and it started as follows:-

The prospect of global warming induced by carbon emissions scares a lot of people. There are two reasons why I’m not scared. One is that I think the more alarmist predictions are overblown. The other reason is that I am very much a technology optimist. I think that technological advancement has an enormous capacity to solve most of the problems predicted by the likes of the IPCC.

Before trying to pick some winners I offered two caviets:-

• “Firstly my track record at picking winning technologies is not great.”
• “Secondly very few attempts at futurology prove successful (thats why venture capitalists have broad portfolios).”

In that article I looked at two interesting technologies. One was the thermal Solar Tower technology being promoted by Enviromission and the other was a battery by a company called Eestor. Four years on I’m less optimistic about these technologies succeeding in the market place and even if they do I’m quite sceptical about them offering any form of meaningful solution toward the global warming issue. However always the optimist I have some new tips to offer.

However first I should outline briefly why I continue to discount the hot favourites of wind power and solar power. A lot of subsidies have been poured into wind and solar on the assumption that with scale the cost of production would fall and these technologies would get cheaper. These technologies have in fact got cheaper so the proponents of subsidies can make a respectable case that they have been right. However the problem with this argument is that even as the efficiency of these technologies has improved and the costs of these technologies has reduced there are still scale issues that are in my view insurmountable. Cheaper and more efficient due to the scale of production is arguably a case of global economies of scale. Scale delivers what is known as a learning effect not to mention other cost reduction benefits. However from the vantage point of a single grid there are still massive dis-economies of scale. Converting our grid to 90% wind power will cost a lot more than nine times converting 10% of our grid to wind power. In short dis-economies of scale in grid operation will trump any economies of scale in the production of these machines.

In the last few years I have become quite interested and impressed with nuclear technology. It is a solid proven base load power source that can scale. France get’s over 80% of it’s electricity from nuclear power plants. Despite the bad publicity it has an incredibly good safety record as I discussed in my article here called “Safety and Electricity Production“. The recent events in Japan have done little to dent that view. However in spite of being safe and viable nuclear power contributes less than 15% of the worlds electricity. The issue is cost. Nuclear power remains expensive for a host of reasons.
Read more »

July 10, 2011 Posted by TerjeP (say tay-a) | General | 6 Comments

Homosexual Bashing Christian

Depending who you believe Adelaide has just had some Christians bashing homosexuals, or else some homosexuals engaged in a Christian bashing.

http://www.news.com.au/national/gays-christians-clash-at-protest-rally/story-e6frfkvr-1226055977537

Guys – live and let live. Peace and love. If you want to have a bashing session do it in the ring not on the streets.

May 15, 2011 Posted by TerjeP (say tay-a) | General | 24 Comments

Our Heritage

Fort Macquarie on the banks of Sydney Harbour was built in May 1798, just ten years after the First Fleet arrived. An important part of our heritage it was demolished just after it’s 100th birthday to make way for a tram depot.

The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot was built in 1901. In spite of being an important part of the heritage of Sydney it was torn down in 1958 to make way for a theatrical venue.

Fort Macquarie Tram Depot

Read more »

May 13, 2011 Posted by TerjeP (say tay-a) | General | 6 Comments