Note exchange from a friend that goes back to the 1970’s and who traveled with me to Mexico a couple of times. He is an engineer by education and was a corp executive with two very large companies. I detailed the following in Chapter 7 of Mexico-Path To A Failed State? When he walked down the Elamex computer assembly line in Juarez with me, I think it was about 1985, he shook his head and said “that is 20 year old technology that the American side is sending to Mexico for cheap labor and to get a few more years out of the equipment. It will be totally replaced in 5 years and this factory will not have workers trained for the next technology.” The line was making 51/4 floppy-read heads!

Mike:

Dr. Morgan’s latest is attached.  It seems to me that the only argument against his thesis is the miracle energy breakthrough (e.g., hydrogen from sea water via a low energy process, etc.), which is probably not something I need to worry about in my lifetime.

Hope your summer’s going well.

Bill

I replied:

I agree with Morgan’s argument and your perspective. We drove in May to Santa Fe through west Texas and eastern New Mexico. Wind farms are now along much of the 700 mile route. From what I read Texas generates about 6 percent (updated from this 2011 estimate) of its energy consumption from solar (wind and panels). Transmission lines from west to east is part of the challenge and those take plenty of steel and copper. But unlike wells and mines the infrastructure is long lasting.

I am more concerned since I released my book with the growing waves of people coming into Texas from Mexico. Part of the migration comes from the energy challenge as higher fuel costs have increased food and housing costs. Couple that with innovations in manufacturing and the last thing a nation needs is more people and people that lack high levels of education and technical skills. Most of the media and most of the politicians call for more immigration and even those that oppose immigration don’t understand the limits of physics as Morgan bases his writings.

Energy limits and the higher cost of energy pushes daily food costs in many parts of the world to 40 or so percent of daily earnings. Morgan makes very clear that the cost of energy is an independent variable in determining the cost of food. There is probably some trigger point here and the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia that was heralded as an “Arab Awakening or Spring” and a revolution for democracy were misunderstood by politicians such as Obama. Corruption, drought, media focus, etc. are additional variables. The greatest and enduring variable with the discontent yielding revolution and immigration is energy and will increase as energy prices increase.

Mike