Recently Collapsenet.com, the website focusing on issues of peak oil, climate change, and surviving the coming economic/ecological collapse, featured a trailer for a documentary they’ve been working on regarding Las Vegas, one of the most glaring victims of current and potentially upcoming severe, collapse. On one hand it exists in the middle of the desert with few natural resources, and on the other it’s an energy sucking mega metropolis completely reliant on an enormous amount of incoming cheap energy. Not to mention the idea that the city is essentially “made and sustained by losers”; a business model which relies heavily on addiction and loss.
Signs of said collapse are already present. Shut down establishments, housing bubble bursts, declining tourist turnouts in recent years (though it does appears numbers are being reported as UP in 2012; the real factors of which are unclear, and likely wouldn’t consider off factors such as Nevada’s pot farming tripling in the last few years, and the reality that the American populace have clearly lost their mind, to the point of the absurd):
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) –
A new slogan was unveiled Wednesday for downtown Las Vegas.
“Every City Has a Soul” was the winning tag line of more than 1,200 online votes.
A few years back, a prime-time special on peak oil/resource depletion somehow squeeked by and was featured on one of the main networks (can’t recall the title). It depicted a look at what the near future would look like as cheap energy ran out and collapse took effect. One segment animated a travel through a now deserted, decrepid Vegas, occupied only by rogue gangs looking to hijack passer by’s. Extreme, but portrayals of doom and gloom usually accept a crashed and burned scenario, bringing back the city to it’s desolate desert origins.
Left out of the conversation of course, is the influx of near future Cold Fusion possibilities. Collapsenet’s documentary will likely not include this (we already presented former Collapsenet frontman Mike Ruppert Cold Fusion answers to his alternative energy talking points, which were more or less dismissed…link to follow).
What happens in Vegas, won’t stay in Vegas this time around, as many aspects of Collapse are already occurring worldwide, and likely to worsen. How, when, to what degree the coming age of Cold Fusion will halt, repair, replenish or rebuild the situation entirely is unclear. The thought of Vegas folding it’s hand first, and Cold Fusion appearing second might sound preferable to some, but at the rate things are happening on the Fusion front, and the desperate soul labeling – seems to be somehow slightly working – attempt to hold on to current paradigms will mean the technology gets thrusted towards upholding the loser model.
Of course the Vegas scenario presents a larger question overall on how the technology will be used more for nostalgia upholding rather than new, healthier more fulfilling ways of existing.
It’ll be interesting to watch the completed Collapsenet Vegas documentary, and then fill in the blanks of how the implications of CF may alter the doom and gloom predicted and portrayed.
CollapseNet’s First Full-Length Documentary To Focus On Las Vegas Trailer from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.
Las Vegas is a very good example of unsustainable development. It is also a very good example of economy of scale, where the bigger you are temporarily fuels further growth. Water is obviously the main and obvious choke point for the city, but there are many other factors including increased competition for gamblers elsewhere, decreased business forcing higher prices and cost cutting that makes the location more unattractive causing a death spiral, and decreased market share of individual establishments causing added financial stress resulting in decay leading to catastrophic business failure.
Las Vegas is a good example of a city that ought to jump on the LENR bandwagon, because their very existence depends upon it. It is also a good example of a city in denial.
Brad, I usually agree with your comments; Vegas’ existence does not depend on LENR. They got the Hoover Dam powering much of it and coal for the rest. What would be an excellent LENR demo is for a guy like Steve Wynn to finance a 5MW e-cat power plant to run e.g. the Mirage Hotel. He could make the fact his hotel IS SUSTAINABLE, GREEN, from LANR a “quantum leap in new energy technology.” Hell, make the place the most futuristic hotel on the planet. It would be a showcase – a destination for high tech conventions and innovators the world over.
It will take a huge engineering effort to convert Vegas to LENR. It already has lots of low cost hydro. But for a maverick owner like Wynn – who has vision and a flare for the dramatic (he built Bellagio, Beau Rivage, Treasure Island, etc.) a Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reaction powered hotel – could be a Palladium mine.
The LENR man cometh to Nevada: http://pesn.com/2012/08/18/9602162_My_Visit_to_Inteligentry/
Hope he tools up for the 100 kw Noble Gas Linear Generator (One moving plastic part, no heat).
From Skepticle… et al
People just allow the skeptics to be skeptical, just means bigger embarressment for them in the future. There is too much going on, too many people, scientists, respected organisations coming clean and talking positively about all this for it to still be for lack of a better word, bullshit. My advice is to not let the skeptics destroy those wonderfull feelings us beleivers are having and enjoy the revolution. Cheers
From:http://futureinnovation.larc.nasa.gov/view/articles/futurism/bushnell/low-energy-nuclear-reactions.html#comment-625104044 Comments
Morgan, yes you are correct. And we see H -> He4 confirmed over and again – a hard fix for anything but fusion. The mainstream doesn’t want to admit fusion IS taking place out of shame and embarrassment. They justly fear prosecutions of the scammers who denied it 21 years ago.
Actual discussion is worthwhile… skepticism is not. Cold Fusion Now .org