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  4. Catherine,
    I’m wondering why you appear to think that the falling price of solar panels will make solar a viable energy source. I think there are several technical problems that far out-weigh the cost problem. One is that solar energy is too diffuse and unreliable a source of energy for on demand electricity. SW deserts may have plenty of sunshine, but the rust belt does not, for example. Night is sort of a big problem, too, which is a smart alec way of saying that the energy storage issue hasn’t been solved–the most obvious problem–despite many years of attempts at cracking that nut. The weak link in solar systems is not the cost of panels, nor their poor solar gathering capability, but the batteries. Looking to the grid for storage doesn’t make any sense either, since the grid is not a battery.

    Which leads me to another problem, which is that the grid is set up for centralized rather than distributed electricity generation. I suspect that a significant amount of re-engineering of the grid would be required to deal with unpredictable and distributed electricity sources, such as solar–and wind, too. How would that be paid for?

    Another problem with solar panels is that they are–at least I’m pretty sure this is still true–a net energy debt. That is, it takes more energy to make a solar panel than the panel generates in its useful life. (Maybe some one of your contacts can verify this is still true. It was true several years ago.) If this is correct, then clearly solar is not a viable technology.

    I just don’t see solar substituting for coal in any efficient manner. I’m not convinced that it can be done at all, but to try would only lead to higher cost energy and concomitant economic problems. Are you for some reason downplaying these technical challenges? Or are you saying that tptb will ignore them and shove solar down our throats anyway?

    Thanks for your time.

  5. C. Douglas Dillon

    Here I am at age 57 and just now I’m starting realize that the famous guy (no relation) with my name (C. Douglas Dillon) is a bankster at close to the highest-level. Although a Republican he served as secretary of the treasury for two democrates (Kennedy and Johnson) and, according to Wikipedia, went on to RUN (!!!) the Rockefeller foundation.

    Could you take a moment and profile this gentleman and his role in promoting the central-banking warfare anglo-ameriican hegemony (empire) that dominates most of the world?

    Thanks much,

    Douglas M Dillon, 240-383-6846

  6. Here’s some ask Catherine for next week’s PMR:
    (1) The Indian government’s attack on gold has not been covered much by gold perma-bulls. There’s no telling how low the price of gold could fall were the Chinese, for example, to initiate a similar attack or were the western governments to raise gold capital gains taxes, etc. What are some reliable sources for tracking gold news developments that are profoundly bearish? For bullish news all I need to do is tune in King World News.
    (2) It won’t take much for the mainstream propaganda machine to paint gold-owners as either dangerous, proto-terrorist nut-jobs, tax cheats or drug-money launderers and to use this as cover for the government really putting the screws to the buying and selling of gold. Does this, combined with the pervasiveness of NSA eavesdropping, security cams, etc. and the effectiveness of the Indian G-Man regulations cutting gold imports put into question one of the fundamental arguments for gold? Specifically, that in a pinch it allows one to drop out of the system or side-step government tyranny. I’ve long concluded that it is not a “silver bullet” for these things but am now thinking that it is even less protection than even a non-true believer like myself thought. Will the effectiveness of government tyranny, propaganda and market-control diminish the long-term fundamental case for gold either in reality or in the minds of the current gold-investing public?

    Thanks much,

    Douglas M Dillon, 240-383-6846

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