One of my predictions is that the world will increasingly be
following Croatia before
the collapse. Among other things, that means increase in corruption, absurd, irony
and spin.
Increase in mocking and joking (generally part of
democratic capitalism and at a very
high level in countries like Croatia) among politicians, is also,
evidently, part of this agenda.
As noted before, a lot of new technologies are announced every week, but hardly any leaves the
laboratories. And if you want to bet which one might come to life, it's certainly not the one that
will make your life easier in the long-term.
It's the technology with great potential for absurd, irony and spin.
A great example is a new polymer membrane that allows for
energy-efficient
fractionation of crude oil (distillation into diesel, gasoline, petroleum, ...). Typically, oil
fractionation done at refineries requires high temperatures and uses fossil fuel energy but this
new method accomplishes the same thing with much lower temperatures and thus lower
energy - hinting that, instead of fossil fuels, renewables could be used to power the process.
Sounds like it should be less expensive and could thus result in cheaper gasoline. It is interesting
that this membrane was in development for decades (at least that's what they claim), but it
is
now ready for public.
It was developed by KAUST (University in Saudi Arabia) that has former Saudi oil minister
and OPEC leader in the board of directors.
Since we know that big oil companies are investing heavily on new fossil fuel projects and betting
on world's reliance on oil in future - could this be one of the technologies they're counting on?
I have predicted previously that oil will get cheaper while renewables get more expensive, making it
harder and harder to abandon fossil fuel energy.
But look at the irony and spin potential here! I can already imagine a company called "Green oil"
building oil refineries powered by renewable energy.
And if this technology indeed does come to life, one could ask if there's some [natural or
unnatural] selection here. New batteries, as everyone knows by now, have been in development
for decades and announced many many times but have never left the laboratories.
On the other hand, I don't remember if development of new fossil fuel technology was ever in the
news during this time - suggesting that many are working on new batteries and not many are working on
new fossil fuel technologies. And yet I don't have a feeling we're going to get new batteries
before we get
green refineries...