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The prevailing challenge facing humanity when confronted with resource constraints is not that we are running out of resources, but how we will adapt and create new and better solutions to meet the needs that currently are being met by what are arguably scarce or finite resources. If one accepts this premise, that we are not threatened by diminishing resources, but rather by the possibility that we won’t successfully adapt and innovate to create new resources, a completely different perspective on resource scarcity and resource policies may emerge.

Across every fundamental area of human needs, history demonstrates that as technology and freedom is advanced, new solutions evolve to meet them. Despite tragic setbacks of war or famine that provide examples to contradict this optimistic claim, overall the lifestyle of the average human being has inexorably improved across the centuries (ref. Humanity’s Prosperous Destiny). While it is easy to examine specific consumption patterns today and suggest we now face a tipping point wherein shortages of key resources will overwhelm us, if one examines key resources one at a time, there is a strong argument that such a catastrophe, if it does occur, will be the result of war, corruption, or misguided adherance to counterproductive ideologies, and not because there weren’t solutions readily available through human creativity and advancing technology.

Energy, water and land are, broadly speaking, the three resources one certainly might argue are finite and must be scrupulously managed. But in each case, a careful examination provides ample evidence to contradict this claim. As we document in the post Fossil Fuel Reality, known reserves of fossil fuel could provide enough energy to serve 100% of the energy requirements of civilization at a total annual rate of consumption twice what is currently consumed worldwide; there is enough fossil fuel on the planet to provide 1.0 quintillion BTUs of energy per year for the next 300 years. In addition to fossil fuel there are proven sources of energy such as nuclear power, and potential sources of energy such as solar, geothermal, and biomass, that have the potential to scale up to provide comparable levels of power production. With these many energy alternatives, combined with relentless improvements in energy efficiency, it is difficult to imagine human civilization ever running out of energy.

Water is a resource that appears finite, and indeed in many regions of the world the challenge of meeting projected water needs appears more daunting than the challenge of producing adequate energy. But water is not necessarily finite. There are countless areas throughout the world where desalination technology can provide water in large quantities – already nearly 2% of the world’s fresh water is obtained through desalination, and for the large urban users, desalination is affordable and requires a surprisingly small energy input. Another way to provide abundant water is to redirect large quantities of river water via inter-basin transfers from water rich areas to water poor areas. Finally, water is never truly used up, it is continuously recycled, and by treating and reusing water, particularly in urban areas, there should never be water scarcity. (ref. India’s Water Future, Arctic to Aral, Affordable Desalination, California’s Water System, Sverdrups & Brine, and Decentralized Wastewater Treatment.)

Being an environmentalist should not require rejecting free market solutions, or accepting global warming alarmism. (Photo: Ecoworld)

The question of finding adequate land for humans is clearly different from that of finding energy or water, since unlike energy or water, land is truly finite. But even here, key trends indicate land is now becoming more abundant, not less abundant. In 2007 the population of humans became more than 50% concentrated in cities, and within the next 25 years this concentration is expected to grow to 75%. Humans, in general, prefer living in urban environments, and this massive voluntary migration to cities from rural areas is depopulating landscapes faster than what remains of human population growth will fill them. This seismic shift in population patterns, combined with high yield crops, aquaculture, and urban high-rise agriculture, promises a decisive and very positive shift from land scarcity to land abundance in the next 25-50 years. (ref. Sustainable High Density, Skyscraper Farms, India’s Green Future, Biofuel Feedstock, and Green Abundance.)

Human population growth, along with increasing per capita standards of living, taken at face value, obviously could suggest we are racing towards disaster. But as noted, resources to accommodate greater rates of overall human consumption are more resilient than is commonly accepted. And, crucially, most of human population growth has already occurred. The welcome reality of female emancipation, female literacy, and increasing general prosperity is causing human cultures all over the world, one by one, to shift from rapid population growth to negative population growth. The demographic challenge we must prepare for is not too many people, but too many old people. Our long-term challenge is not resource scarcity, but how to create robust economic growth on a planet where humans have an ever-increasing average age, and a population in slow numeric decline.

If one accepts the possibility that humanity is not on a collision course with resource scarcity, entirely new ways of looking at policy options are revealed. Rather than attempting to manage demand, based on the premise that supplies are finite, we might also manage supply by increasing production. While, for example, utility pricing might still be somewhat progressive, if we assume resources will not run out, it doesn’t have to be punitive. If someone wishes to use more energy or water than their neighbor, if their pricing isn’t so punitive as to effectively ration their consumption, but instead is only moderately progressive, then over consumption leads to higher profit margins at the utility, which in-turn finances more investment in supplies.

Another consequence of rejecting the malthusian conventional wisdom is a new understanding of what may truly motivate many powerful backers of the doomsday lobby. By limiting consumption through claiming resources are perilously scarce and by extracting them we may destroy the earth, the vested interests who control the means of production will tighten their grip on those means. Instead of pluralistically investing in this last great leap forward to build mega cities and infrastructure for the future – in the process extracting raw materials that can be either recycled or are renewable – the public entities and powerful corporations who benefit from scarcity will raise prices and defer investment. It is the interests of the emergent classes, whether they are entrepreneurs in prosperous, advanced economies, or the aspiring masses in destitute nations, who are harmed the most by the malthusian notion of inevitable scarcity.

Abundance is a choice, and it is a choice the privileged elite must make – in order for humanity to achieve abundance, the elites must accept the competition of disruptive technologies, the competition of emerging nations, and a vision of environmentalism that embraces resource development and rejects self-serving anti-growth alarmist extremism. The irony of our time is that the policies of socialism and extreme environmentalism do more harm than good to both ordinary people and the environment, while enabling wealthy elites to perpetuate their position of privilege at the same time as they embrace the comforting but false ideology of scarcity.

In a briefing last week General Motors reaffirmed their commitment to the launch of the Chevy Volt by late 2010. The primary purpose of this briefing was to discuss the benefits of lithium battery technology as well as the reasons for their choice of LG Chem to produce the first generation of batteries for the Volt. Several points are worth noting:

GM is completing what will be the largest automotive battery lab in the U.S., and they intend to maintain in-house manufacturing capacity to integrate the battery cells into modules and complete battery systems. This gives GM more flexibility to choose cell suppliers for their 2nd and 3rd generation extended range electric vehicles, and lets them have complete control over how the battery interacts with the power management system of the vehicle. The fact GM is keeping 100% of the battery integration in-house illustrates the centrality of the battery in electric vehicles.

Another interesting point made was the reusability of the battery cells. Apparently these batteries, which are designed to last the life of the vehicle, can be reprocessed and recycled for use in a new battery in a new vehicle. One question not answered during this briefing was whether or not lithium resources globally are sufficient to supply these batteries for a global automotive fleet. So we did some digging:

According to a 2006 study by William Tahil of Meridian International Resource entitled “The Trouble With Lithium,” there are 13.4 million tons of lithium extractable from various raw minerals, primarily lithium carbonate. According to R. Keith Evans, in a March 2008 study entitled “Lithium Abundance – World Lithium Reserves,” there are 28.4 million tons of lithium extractable from known reserves worldwide. In the Wikipedia entry on Lithium, 30.0 million tons of lithium are apparently currently available.
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Lithium ingots with a thin layer of black oxide tarnish (Photo: Wikipedia)

To determine how many vehicles these varying quantities of lithium reserves might supply with battery material, it is necessary to determine how many kilograms of lithium are required per kilowatt-hour of storage, as well as how many kilowatt-hours the average electric vehicle’s battery will require.

According to Tahil’s report, about .3 kg of lithium are required per kWh of battery storage. In an interesting 2009 battery discussion on Seeking Alpha, it is noted that about .26 kg of lithium are required per kWh or storage. In terms of kWh required per vehicle, it depends – the Volt, which is an extended range electric vehicle (containing an onboard gasoline powered generator to supply additional electricity to the motor), only requires a 16 kWh battery. The Tesla Roadster, by contrast, has no backup power system, and requires a 53 kWh battery. Given the Tesla Roadster is a lightweight, two seat vehicle, a larger EV without backup power might require an even larger battery, or live with shorter range. Complicating this further is the possibility of battery swapping stations, meaning that for every EV on the road, a supply of available charged batteries will also need to be present.

Nonetheless, interesting conclusions can be drawn using these various figures. Assume there are 20 million tons of lithium that can be extracted from known reserves, and assume, based on a mixture of extended range EVs requiring smaller batteries alongside EVs depending purely on larger batteries – i.e., assume an average battery storage per EV of 30 kilowatt-hours. Finally, assume .275 kilograms of lithium are required for each kilowatt-hour of storage. If you run these numbers, it appears we can build 2.42 billion EVs before we run out of known lithium reserves.

Not only is this a reassuring calculation for those of us who are enthusiastic about the electrification of the automobile, but it is a static projection, which like all static extrapolations, completely fails to take into account the future potential of humans to adapt and innovate. Should supplies of lithium falter, there are alternative battery chemistries already being developed. Alternatively, the extended range design with backup electricity generating capacity could become the dominant engineering solution for vehicles, meaning the average battery size could be much smaller. There should never be enduring shortages of any fundamental human need, energy, water, food, shelter, or transportation, because our capacity to invent new solutions always exceeds the rate at which we deplete resources necessary for existing solutions.

A global water crisis is expected by 2025 unless economically viable ways of purifying water can be developed.

One of the major threats to water supplies is contamination, from saltwater from industrial waste, from pesticides.

New sensors would help. Research labs are working on sensors specially designed to deal with monitoring and purification problems.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have synthesized DNA to detect trace amounts of lead, mercury, arsenic and other contaminants in water. The DNA sensors can be produced in the form of sophisticated testing instruments suitable for metropolitan water districts or in the form of strips — like a home pregnancy test — for households and other direct-source water users.
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The Water Cycle (Photo: USGS)

And once you know your water is bad, what do you do about it? Urbana-Champaign is helping there as well. Mark Shannon, director of the Center of Advanced Materials for Purification of Water with Systems at the university, and his team have synthesized chemically activated fibers and granules of carbon to remove heavy metals and pesticides like atrazine.

Hudson River Project
A recent report from IBM called Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report says there is a severe lack of data on water even in the world’s capital.

The report cites the Hudson River, one of the most dynamic and diverse bodies of water in the world. It courses 315 miles from the Adirondacks to the western shoreline of Manhattan. It’s used for drinking, heavy industry, fishing, navigation and recreation. And its watershed is home to 5 percent of the people in the U.S.

But study of this vital river system has been limited. That’s a problem. “If you’re trying to manage a system that’s changing dynamically you need to work with data that is equally dynamic,” says John Cronin, director of the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries. “You need to be able to monitor and observe the system in real time.”

To that end, the Beacon Institute is working with IBM to develop the River and Estuary Observation Network, a system of sensors and observation platforms that will feed a constant stream of data to scientists and analysts. REON will measure and monitor chemical, biological and physical data throughout the Hudson ecosystem using a combination of floating platforms, submerged buoys, even semiautonomous underwater robots.

The goal is to understand the river in real time and how it responds to everything from storms to droughts to humans. With that information, a new level of ecomanagement could be done. And that would be one small step in putting sensor technology to work in ways that will help society and businesses better understand the long-term challenges and benefits of managing the Hudson — and water everywhere. –Lee Bruno

HOLLISTON, Mass. (March 2009)— The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has verified the Rypos DPF/LETRU (Level 2 Plus) diesel particulate filter for use on most trailer transport refrigeration units (TRUs) using 2002 and older model year engines. The company is now accepting orders for the new product, which provides the lowest total cost of compliance with the Low-Emission Transport Refrigeration Unit (LETRU) In–Use Performance Standard.

A highly effective self-cleaning diesel exhaust filter, the RYPOS DPF/LETRU active flow-through filter uses an electrically conductive sintered metal fiber medium and electrical power from the TRU to regenerate the filter when needed. It is microprocessor controlled with a backpressure control system, an electrical control circuit, and a backpressure warning indicator. For compliance information related to the TRU Airborne Toxic Control Measure visit http://www.arb.ca.gov/diesel/tru.htm. Rypos is also the exclusive North American distributor for the Proventia FTF, a passive flow-through filter that uses engine exhaust temperature to regenerate the filter and which is currently CARB verified to LE standards for use with Thermo King TRUs. As Rypos has a CARB verified product for both Carrier and Thermo King TRUs, mixed fleet operators can now retrofit their fleets with a single supplier.

“The RYPOS LETRU active exhaust filtration systems and the Proventia FTF passive flow through systems are the most cost efficient and effective means to meeting the California TRU emissions regulations on the market today,” comments Peter Bransfield, CEO of RYPOS.

For more information visit www.rypos.com or to place an order call (508) 429-4552.

About the Company–RYPOS Inc. (www.rypos.com) is a privately held company with operations in Holliston, Mass., and Long Beach, Calif. Founded in 1996 by a distinguished group of scientists and entrepreneurs, RYPOS has spent the past several years developing, testing, and bringing to market advances in diesel particulate filter technology. RYPOS’ pioneering efforts have led to the creation of proprietary control circuitry, four U.S. patents, and one pending patent application. The company’s leading edge products for diesel exhaust filtration utilize patented electrical regeneration strategy and technology. The flexible and scalable designs have applications in on-road, off-road, stationary, and marine markets.

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Available in a range of mobile prefabricated carbon steel, or stainless steel tank configurations capable of treating flows from 7,000 to 125,000 gpd, or in concrete tanks for applications in excess of 1 MGD, the PuraM Membrane Bioreactor features significant improvements over comparable systems for small flow applications using an enhanced air scour flat plate design.

The PuraM system utilizes ultrafiltration membrane technology to achieve high quality effluent that meets water reuse and stringent Total Nitrogen standards within a greatly reduced overall footprint. The pre-engineered solution is designed specifically for the decentralized municipal, community, and commercial markets that require greater reliability, reduced operational input through extended periods between chemical cleans, ease of maintenance, and less complexity than other systems by eliminating back pulsing, onsite chemicals and permeate pumps.

Systems can be located above ground or in-ground with a range of screening and pumping packages. Add-on packages for phosphorous and/or enhanced nitrogen removal are available.

Rent or lease systems can be provided.

Customers interested in learning more about the new PuraM system should visit www.bnm-us.com, call 1-800-787-2356 , or email info@bnm-us.com.

View the PuraM Process here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsf6Azauhzc&feature=channel_page

With over 600 references the MÓNASHELL Biofiltration System is a sustainable, low maintenance and low operating cost alternative to traditional carbon or chemical scrubbing systems and exhibits many advantages over other biofilters.

The reuse of waste shells as media maintains a neutral pH, allowing for highly effective biological treatment of odorous sulfur compounds in wastewater and industrial airstreams without the use of chemicals or nutrient addition.

The waste airstream is directed into recirculating water within the MÓNASHELL unit, allowing contact between selected micro-organisms and odorous compounds. The harmless bacteria reside on the shell media, which contains high levels of CaCO3 and neutralizes acid byproducts of sulfide oxidation.

The MÓNASHELL system is designed to deliver significant, environmentally responsible benefits for wastewater pumping stations, wastewater treatment works, sludge-handling, municipal solid waste and composting centers, as well as various industrial facilities included VOC reduction.

MÓNASHELL is very effective for treating a broad range of compounds and high levels of H₂S and Organic Sulfides. MÓNASHELL provides a very low whole life cost solution, uses a smaller footprint than conventional biofilters and its offsite or onsite modular construction allows ease of installation.

Customers interested in learning more about the new MÓNASHELL system should visit www.bnm-us.com, call 1-800-787-2356, or email info@bnm-us.com.

For decades, California has epitomized America’s economic strengths: technological excellence, artistic creativity, agricultural fecundity and an intrepid entrepreneurial spirit. Yet lately California has projected a grimmer vision of a politically divided, economically stagnant state.

California has returned from the dead before, most recently in the mid-1990s. But the odds that the Golden State can reinvent itself again seem long. The buffoonish current governor and a legislature divided between hysterical greens, public-employee lackeys and Neanderthal Republicans have turned the state into a fiscal laughingstock. Meanwhile, more of its middle class migrates out while a large and undereducated underclass (much of it Latino) faces dim prospects. It sometimes seems the people running the state have little feel for the very things that constitute its essence — and could allow California to reinvent itself, and the American future, once again.

California’s beautiful Salinas Valley. Can the dream survive? (Photo: EcoWorld)

The facts at hand are pretty dreary. California entered the recession early last year, according to the Forecast Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is expected to lag behind the nation well into 2011. Unemployment stands at roughly 10 percent, ahead only of Rust Belt basket cases like Michigan and East Coast calamity Rhode Island. Not surprisingly, people are fleeing this mounting disaster. Net outmigration has been growing every year since about 2003 and should reach well over 200,000 by 2011. This outflow would be far greater, notes demographer Wendell Cox, if not for the fact that many residents can’t sell their homes and are essentially held prisoner by their mortgages.

For Californians, this recession has been driven by different elements than the early-1990s downturn, which was largely caused by external forces. The end of the Cold War stripped away hundreds of thousands of well-paid defense-related jobs. Meanwhile, the Japanese economy went into a tailspin, leading to a massive disinvestment here. In South L.A., the huge employment losses helped create the conditions conducive to social unrest. The 1992 Rodney King verdict may have provided the match, but the kindling was dry and plentiful.

This time around, the recession feels like a self-inflicted wound, the result of “bubble dependency.” First came the dotcom bubble, centered largely in the Bay Area. The fortunes made there created an enormous surge in wealth, but by 2001 that bust had punched a huge hole in the California budget. Voters, disgusted by the legislature’s inability to cope with the crisis, recalled the governor, Gray Davis, and replaced him with a megastar B-grade actor from Austria.

Yet almost as soon as the Internet bubble had evaporated, a new one emerged in housing. As prices soared in coastal enclaves, people fled to the periphery, often buying homes far from traditional suburban job centers. At first, it seemed like a miraculous development: people cheered as their home’s “value” increased 20 percent annually. But even against the backdrop of the national housing bubble, California soon became home to gargantuan imbalances between incomes and property prices. The state was also home to such mortgage hawkers as New Century Financial Corp., Countrywide and IndyMac. For a time the whole California economy seemed to revolve around real-estate speculation, with upwards of 50 percent of all new jobs coming from growth in fields like real estate, construction and mortgage brokering.

As a result, when the housing bubble burst, the state’s huge real-estate economy evaporated almost overnight. Both parties in the legislature and the governor failed miserably to anticipate the impending fiscal deluge they should have known was all but inevitable.

To many longtime California observers, the inability of the political, business and academic elites to adequately anticipate and address the state’s persistent problems has been a source of consternation and wonderment. In my view, the key to understanding California’s precipitous decline transcends terms like liberal or conservative, Democratic and Republican. The real culprit lies in the politics of narcissism.

California, like any gorgeously endowed person, has a natural inclination toward self-absorption. It has always been a place of unsurpassed splendor; it has inspired and attracted writers, artists, dreamers, savants and philosophers. That’s especially true of the Bay Area—ground zero for California narcissism and arguably the most attractive urban expanse on the continent; Neil Morgan in 1960 described San Francisco as “the narcissus of the West,” a place whose fundamental asset was first its own beauty, followed by its own culture of self-regard.

At first this high self-regard inspired some remarkable public achievements. California rebuilt San Francisco from the ashes of the great 1906 fire, and constructed in Los Angeles the world’s most far-reaching transit system. These achievements reached a pinnacle under Gov. Pat Brown, who in the 1960s oversaw the expansion of the freeways, the construction of new university, state- and community-college campuses, and the creation of water projects that allowed farming in dry but fertile landscapes.

Yet success also spoiled the state, incubating an ever more inward-looking form of narcissism. Even as the middle class enjoyed “the good life” — high-paying jobs, single-family homes (often with pools), vacations at the beach — there was a growing, palpable sense of threats from rising taxes, a restless youth population and a growing nonwhite demographic. One early expression of this was the late-1970s antitax movement led by Howard Jarvis. The rising cost of government was placing too much of a burden on middle-class homeowners, and the legislature refused to address the problem with reasonable reforms. The result, however, was unreasonable reform, with new and inflexible limits on property and income taxes that made holding the budget together far more difficult.

Middle-class Californians also began to feel inundated by a racial tide. This was not totally based on prejudice; Californians seemed to accept legal immigration. But millions of undocumented newcomers provoked fear that there were no limits on how many people would move into the state, filling emergency rooms with the uninsured and crowding schools with children whose parents neither spoke English nor had the time to prepare their children for school. By 1994, under Gov. Pete Wilson, the anti-immigrant narcissism fueled Proposition 187. It was now OK to deny school and medical services to people because, at the end, they looked different.

Today the politics of narcissism is most evident among “progressives.” Although the Republicans can still block massive tax increases, the predominant force in California politics lies with two groups — the gentry liberals and the public sector. The public-sector unions, once relatively poorly paid, now enjoy wages and benefits unavailable to most middle-class Californians, and do so with little regard to the fiscal and overall economic impact. Currently barely 3 percent of the state budget goes to building roads or water systems, compared with nearly 20 percent in the Pat Brown era; instead we’re funding gilt-edged pensions and lifetime guaranteed health care. It’s often a case of I’m all right, Jack — and the hell with everyone else.

The most recent ascendant group are the gentry liberals, whose base lies in the priciest precincts of San Francisco, the Silicon Valley and the west side of Los Angeles. Gentry liberalism reflects the narcissistic values of successful boomers and their offspring; their politics are all about them. In the past this was tied as much to cultural issues, like gay rights (itself a noble cause) and public support for the arts. More recently, the dominant issue revolves around environmentalism.

Green politics came early to California and for understandable reasons: protecting the resources and beauty of the nation’s loveliest landscapes. Yet in recent years, the green agenda has expanded well beyond that of the old conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt, who battled to preserve wilderness but also cared deeply about boosting productivity and living standards for the working classes. In contrast, the modern environmental movement often adopts a largely misanthropic view of humans as a “cancer” that needs to be contained. By their very nature, the greens tend to regard growth as an unalloyed evil, gobbling up resources and spewing planet-heating greenhouse gases.

You can see the effects of the gentry’s green politics up close in places like the Salinas Valley, a lovely agricultural region south of San Jose. As community leaders there have tried to construct policies to create new higher-wage jobs in the area (a project on which I’ve worked as a consultant), local progressives — largely wealthy people living on the Monterey coast — have opposed, for example, the expansion of wineries that might bring new jobs to a predominantly Latino area with persistent double-digit unemployment. As one winegrower told me last year: “They don’t want a facility that interferes with their viewshed.” For such people, the crusade against global warming makes a convenient foil in arguing against anything that might bring industrial or any other kind of middle-wage growth to the state. Greens here often speak movingly about the earth — but also about their personal redemption. They have engaged a legal and regulatory process that provides the wealthy and their progeny an opportunity to act out their desire to “make a difference” — often without real concern for the outcome. Environmentalism becomes a theater in which the privileged act out their narcissism.

It’s even more disturbing that many of the primary apostles of this kind of politics are themselves wealthy high-livers like Hollywood magnates, Silicon Valley billionaires and well-heeled politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. They might imagine that driving a Prius or blocking a new water system or new suburban housing development serves the planet, but this usually comes at no cost to themselves or their lifestyles.

The best great hope for California’s future does not lie with the narcissists of left or right but with the newcomers, largely from abroad. These groups still appreciate the nation of opportunity and aspire to make the California — and American — Dream their own.

Of course, companies like Google and industries like Hollywood remain critical components, but both Silicon Valley and the entertainment complex are now mature, and increasingly dominated by people with access to money or the most elite educations. Neither is likely to produce large numbers of new jobs, particularly for working- and middle-class Californians.

In contrast, the newcomers, who often lack both money and education, continue in the hierarchy-breaking tradition that made California great in the first place. Many of them live and build their businesses not in places like San Francisco or West L.A., but in the increasingly multicultural suburbs on the periphery, places like the San Gabriel Valley, Riverside and Cupertino. Immigrants played a similar role in the recovery from the early-1990s doldrums. In the ’90s, for example, the number of Latino-owned businesses already was expanding at four times the rate of Anglo ones, growing from 177,000 to 440,000. Today we see signs of much the same thing, though it often involves immigrants from the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, Mexico or South Korea. One developer, Alethea Hsu, just opened a new shopping center in the San Gabriel Valley this January — and it’s fully leased. “We have a great trust in the future,” says the Cornell-trained physician.

You see some of the same thing among other California immigrants. More than three decades ago the Cardenas family started slaughtering and selling pigs grown on their two-acre farm near Corona. From there, Jesús Sr. and his wife, Luz, expanded. “We would shoot the hogs through the head and sell them off the truck,” says José, their son. “We’d sell the meat to people who liked it fresh: Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans and Hispanics…We would sell to anyone.” Their first store, predominantly a carnicería, or meat shop, took advantage of the soaring Latino population. By 2008, they had 20 stores with more than $400 million in sales. In 2005 they started to produce Mexican food, including some inspired by Luz’s recipes to distribute through such chains as Costco. Mexican food, notes Jesús Jr., is no longer a niche. “It’s a crossover product now.”

Despite the current mess in Sacramento, this suggests some hope for the future. Perhaps the gubernatorial candidacy of Silicon Valley folks like former eBay CEO Meg Whitman (a Republican), or her former eBay employee Steve Wesley (a Democrat), could bring some degree of competence and common sense to the farce now taking place in Sacramento. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who’s said to be considering the race, would also be preferable to a green zealot like Jerry Brown or empty suits like Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or San Francisco’s Gavin Newsom.

But if I am looking for hope and inspiration, for California or the country, I would look first and foremost at people like the Cardenas family. They create jobs for people who didn’t go to Stanford or whose parents lack a trust fund. They constitute what any place needs to survive: risk takers who are self-confident but rarely selfish. These are people who look at the future, not in the mirror.

This article originally appeared earlier this month in Newsweek magazine and is republished here with permission from the author. Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. He is author of The City: A Global History and is finishing a book on the American future.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA and SHANGHAI, CHINA–(MARKET WIRE)–Mar 18, 2009 — Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing USA, Inc. (OTC BB:WEMU.OB – News), a U.S.-based China manufacturing company specializing in products for customers in the industries of solar energy, aerospace, wireless telecommunications, medical equipment and automotive, today announced that its solar division, has a backlog of $52 million in solar module contracts. To date, Worldwide has signed approximately $90 million in new contracts, the majority of which are expected to be recorded during the 2009 calendar year.

Worldwide Energy’s Chief Executive Officer Jimmy Wang stated: “Our solar division continues to obtain new module contracts from new customers as well as existing customers demonstrating our ability to retain customers as well to gain new customers in the renewable energy market despite of the temporary downturn on the worldwide demand for renewable alternative energy consumption. We are very encouraged by the achievement we have made and anticipate another triple digit growth for our solar business this year. We will continue to expand our market share in the solar sector as we have become one of the fastest growing companies in the clean-tech industry.”

About Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing USA, Inc.

Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing USA, Inc. (“Worldwide”), headquartered in South San Francisco, California, is a 15-year-old engineering-oriented firm specializing in PV panel, mechanical, electronics and fiber optic products manufacturing. The company’s worldwide customer base includes the industries of solar energy, wireless telecommunications, aerospace, automobiles and medical equipment. Subsidiaries include: Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing Ningbo (Solar factory) Co., Ltd, Shanghai Intech Electro Mechanical Products Co. Ltd., Shanghai Intech Electronics Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Shanghai Intech Precision Mechanical Products Manufacturing Co. Ltd. And Shanghai Intech Electric and Electronics Co., Ltd., located in Shanghai and Ningbo, China.

For further information please visit the Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing USA, Inc. website. You may register to receive Worldwide Energy and Manufacturing USA, Inc.’s future press releases or request to be added to the Company’s distribution list by contacting John Ballard.

Forward-looking statements:

The above news release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, and include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company and its management. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performances, and are subject to a wide range of business risks, external factors and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

It would be an understatement to say we’ve been accused of taking controversial positions on environmental issues – smart growth, global warming, government reform, fossil fuel and nuclear power, to name a few. The problem, however, is these positions are not adopted out of some pathological need to be contrarian, they spring from genuine conviction based on substantial research and thoughtful deliberation.

To keep all this contrarianism in perspective, there is a quote from Mark Twain worth repeating, he said “a cynic sees the cost of everything and the value of nothing.” And being mindful of this quote we respect those who adhere to the conventional wisdom on many of these issues. It is ridiculous to suggest there is no value in the concerns they express, or the policies they advocate. The challenge is to attempt to express the other side of these issues when the other side doesn’t lend itself as easily to emotional appeals. The challenge is to continue to espouse a contrarian point of view despite being easily typecast as having no concern whatsoever for these values that seem so easily fulfilled by following the crowd.

For example, urban planning is an area that truly encompasses many of the values of environmentalism. And in the name of “smart growth,” urban planners have succeeded in creating policy that has drawn lines around our cities, “urban service boundaries,” which make it nearly impossible to initiate new home construction outside these lines. While the purpose of these boundaries is ostensibly to protect open space, farmland and wilderness habitat, not only are those goals only marginally fulfilled, but other negative unintended consequences abound. Consider:

(1) Creating these greenbelts of protected open space mean instead of leapfrog development, you have super-leapfrog development. People who want to get out of the city now build and purchase homes on the other side of the greenbelt. Instead of suburbs on the perimeter of cities, you have exurbs, entire new cities, constructed just beyond the protected areas.

(2) Homes within these cities are concentrated onto tiny lots in order to get as many people into each new development as possible. Often these new developments are imposed in the middle of semi-rural suburbs where the way of life for the people already living there is destroyed.

(3) These dense new neighborhoods are designed to be “pedestrian friendly,” but what they really are is car unfriendly. There is no room to park, inadequate roads, and super expensive light rail that most people can’t make practical use of.

(4) The winners in this smart growth are not the people who want affordable homes, or the environmentalists who want open space. The winners are those land owners lucky enough to have property within these arbitrary boundaries where growth is permitted, and the public sector employees who keep development within their jurisdictions, and collect property taxes and fees on artificially inflated home values.

The original “smart growth” community, the township of Soweto in South Africa.

As we have calculated countless times, the impact in California of unrestricted suburban growth is not nearly as dire as it sounds.

California, for example, has 40,000 square miles of farmland. If California’s population were to grow to 50 million in the next couple of decades – something that is certainly possible – and if every one of these 13 million newcomers were to live in a new home on a one acre lot, four people per home, it would only consume 5,078 square miles, or about 13% of Calfornia’s farmland. That is an absolute worst case, and extremely unlikely. California’s total area is 158,000 square miles, meaning if every new household were on an acre, disbursed randomly, these 13 million people would only use up 3% of California’s land. Urban sprawl, at least in California’s case, is a myth.

Moreover, most people don’t want to live on an acre. Most people actually seem to prefer high density living. Urban planning and zoning has put far too much of a premium, however, on enforcing “smart growth” in the form of urban service boundaries instead of market driven development.

Often the point is made by the smart growth crowd that it is unaffordable to build the infrastructure for large suburban development. This is only partly true. First of all, retrofitting the energy, water and sewer service to semi-rural suburbs that suddenly have ultra-dense new neighborhoods imposed on them is much more expensive than starting from scratch on raw land. Secondly, the resources and the labor to build new roads would be far less expensive if environmentalists would stop blocking development of new mines and quarries, if government permits weren’t outrageously expensive, and if “prevailing wage” laws weren’t raising the cost of labor to prohibitive levels. Nobody is against paying decent wages – but the current system awards extremely lucrative jobs to a privileged few, while millions of additional construction jobs are financially infeasible and willing hands find no work. And of course, homes are now completely unaffordable. The idea that infrastructure to unclog our roads and bring home prices down to earth is too expensive is also a myth.

“Smart growth,” California style, if anything, has even smaller yards.

Finally, there is the notion that “greenhouse gasses” will be increased if people live further from the urban centers. There are several ways to debunk this concern.

First of all, a growing number of us are realizing there is less than meets the eye with respect to “greenhouse gas.” But even if this concerns you, consider how much less emissions occur when cars aren’t stuck in traffic, idling for hours every day, by the millions, because we piled everyone on top of each other in ultra-dense “smart growth” communities, and built light rail that hardly anyone uses instead of widening our roads and allowing suburban growth. Also, consider how rapidly the automobile is becoming ultra efficient and clean. The idea that automobile use is unsustainable and must be curtailed is perhaps the most cruel myth of all.

The two images in this post are telling. One is from Sacramento, and is taken from a model “smart growth” community. The other is from Soweto, once the poster child for the most chilling, brutal warehouse for human beings on the planet. Other than somewhat larger individual homes, with presumably better amenities, can you tell them apart? Is this the only affordable option you want left for you, if you want to live in a detached single family home? This is the brave new world we are building in the name of green, green, green uber alles. Perhaps nuance, contrarian views, property rights along with collective zoning, individual freedom along with social imperatives, less planning, more chaos, even that horrible toxic thing called a “free market” is not such a bad part of the political puzzle, after all. With even our most cherished beliefs, there is value in balance, value in seeing the other side of the story.

Related posts:

Principles of New Suburbanism
Lower Density, Please?
Why Homes Aren’t Affordable
Leapfrog Infill
California’s Land Fight
Infill Extremism