Jimmy Carter on the Needs of the Poor

THIS article might really shape my future.

Dear President Carter First of all may I wish God's blessing on you for all of your good intentions and good deeds. I have developed a plan and have support from the Energy Commission of Nigeria, the Florida International University and we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the cooperation needed from and to each of us. We are working for several purposes to be accomplished to include the establishment of the Sustainable Energy Center of Excellence for Western Africa. I wrote a White Paper that suggests how we can uplift the Poor. I need not point out to you that Jesus said what so ever we do for the least of those we are doing toward him. I also feel for the helplessness and want to be a tool for God. They have given me a name in Nigeria that means Servant of God. I am like you Mr. President pleased to make the effort. The growing of feedstock in marginal rural land for Biofuels is the goal. There is and ought to be a demand for renewable fuels that is home grown for the most part and may be a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) product. Switchgrass roots live for years and decades and grow down as far as ten feet sequestering CO2. The grass can grow as high as ten feet and growing sequesters the carbon in the atmosphere as well and emissions from Biofuel. We can uplift the Poor and use the feedstock or products made to include Biomass electrical energy and Biofuels. We would welcome collaborations in our efforts. A note was sent to the Biofuels working group here. Best regards, Sidney Clouston cloustonenergy@aol.com

The Aquatic Species Program Microalgae Biodiesel -- In 1978 Jimmy Carter launched The Aquatic Species Program to cultivate Microalgae for the production of bio-diesel from algae. Carter's research program funded by the US Dept. of Energy, operated over a span of twenty years in search of finding alga specie with large lipid content and thus created 1000 square metre pond systems. Why was the funding to Carter's viable research program cut by Clinton back in 1996? Shana Carlsen

It is inspiring to see political leadership take on the largest issues of our world today. Telling us what we want to hear, the politicians do us the greatest disservice. To a large part, it is up to Civil Society to come up with the solutions. I personally vote for Bio-Lipids production from micro-algae as one of many promising technologies addressing (1) reduction carbon imprint of man; (2) producing renewable energy in the form of bio-diesel; (3) providing an extraordinary feed ration for aquaculture relieving the over-fishing pressure on the oceans, lakes and rivers; and not competing with present food-related agriculture.

My own holistic study of our great modern society suggests that our infrastructure capabilities are not at all what they could be. That our most important and influencing infrastructures which I call collectively distributions are becomming ever increasingly antiquated. That our society is and has been standing on the verge of taking a most wondrous step in the mere management of these processes. A step of merely modernizing them through integrating them into a controlled environment. That will allow them then to take a far greater advantage of technological abilities. Not one exponentially increased efficiency or abbility but a whole host of them applied in a myriad of ways. Rooling up that highway and integrating our distribution processes suggest itself as truly revolutionizing our human abilities. It will convert the high energy and resource consuming properties into a long lived permanent structure. Not more structure but far less structure. One which will allow transport to become accomplished with on grid electric. An energy efficiency potential of 97%. Of course non petroleum dependent and with out its emissions. A fixed rigidly controlled pathway that can be completely accident and congestion free. Utilizing little more than known and proven technological abilities. It appears that we could not only remove the growing concerns over ecological and environmental well-beings but we would as well exponentially increase our own abilities in personal, public and commercial pursuits. Empowering the population with the very things they need. A dramatically reduced cost and unprecedented safety, speeds and ease of use. The very freedom we need in time, energy, and resources required in our pursuits of increasing wel-beings. The population does not lack in its want and willingness to work at achieving ever greater levels of well-beings. Its lack is the very efficient processes whose impacts do not threaten ecological and environmental sustainabilities. Whose energy and resource consumptions are in line with global applications. Sadly this ability seems to visionally exist yet still lays unrealized and supported by the significant interest it will take to bring it to a reality. Id love to share the concept. Anybody interested in ?

Others have commented on the need for infrastructure. Those who think of infrastructure first are long-term thinkers. Unfortunately, much of the world is run by people who are thinking short term - for whatever reason. Thinking short term is what leads to - power-outages because of decaying transmission grids - higher road, bridge and tunnel repair costs due to poor or short-sighted design, and lack of preemptive maintenance - loss of jobs due to poor long-term planning for education, health care and increasing costs-of-living - backlashes against the affluent (and affluent countries) due to the ever increasing separation between rich and poor - spread of diseases and threat of new ones, due to a resistance for spending money on health care at the same levels or even a reasonable fraction, as spent on defense (a disease could do far more damage to a society than a terrorist or even nuclear attack) I could go on. We, as a nation, and globally, need start thinking on a long-term basis, and see beyond the "next quarter's results". Yes, even Wall Street companies should start to think about where their future customers will come from, rather than maximizing profits today at the expense of those same future customers. In a possible future where many large cities will lose real-estate to rising sea-levels (Wall Street itself could be submerged), companies should consider forgoing some profits in exchange for a likelihood that they would still have a thriving business environment much like today's. I also would like to make a point that in the US today, we have lost much "American Ingenuity" to the ugly side of Capitalism. Capitalism is supposed to be about free-markets and letting the best companies succeed (with the best technologies and best practices). Unfortunately, some corporations have managed to divert Capitalism, as practiced, and have created an environment where they get preferential treatment and have gained monopolies. The situation is such that America can't come up with the best new alternative fuels, or the best new [electric] cars, or the best way to handle radioactive waste, or the best way to provide universal healthcare or the best way to provide for space exploration, or the best way to handle terrorism, or the best way to cure diseases.... The low-emission vehicles are alive and thriving thanks to foreign innovators, not because of US car manufacturers. The US energy companies see innovation in renewable fuels as competition and a drain on profits. Universal healthcare is positioned, by health insurance industry, as a threat to better care, instead of what it really could be - better care. Space exploration is stalled due to the huge cost of providing a space station for the aging shuttle to have as a raison d'être, while the shuttle exists to be the space station's excuse. American ingenuity is approaching extinction, greatly due to the fact that ingenuity may threaten existing technology and practices, and that threatens existing mega-corps and their short term profits. That's when profit motivation squashes ingenuity, and America loses. While another country can capitalize on this fact, I believe that the world can benefit if we stop putting short-term profits ahead of innovation and ingenuity. We need a leader who can challenge us to recharge American Ingenuity. A leader who demands the best solutions, regardless of the threat to established corporations.

I have spent much of the last few years researching the reasons why poor countries, with cheap labour, find it so hard to compete with the wealthy industrialised nations, and how engineering seems to be failing to provide solutions in poor countries. Competition between wealthy countries has led to the enormous productivity improvements but at the same time is leaving poor countries far behind. At the root of this there seems to be a fundamental misperception: what appears to be cheap labour in developing countries is often very expensive labour when productivity and the cost of supervision is taken into account. When you think that labour is expensive, you think of solutions like experienced supervision, training, high quality tools and modern materials. These are all things that mostly don't happen in developing countries. For example, my recent research has shown that the real end-user cost of safe drinking water in Pakistan can be 20 to 30 times as expensive as in Australia, measured in dollars per 1000 litres. Engineering education programs are broadly similar around the world. However, the results in different countries are vastly different: through employing engineers in Pakistan and Australia I have learned that within five years of graduation their capabilities are far apart. What we all seem to have overlooked is that engineering practice depends on so much unwritten knowledge, passed on from one generation of engineers to another. This practical knowledge is mostly not available in developing countries, and judging from our recent research, has often not been properly identified. For example, we have discovered that engineers spend much of their time and energy gaining the willing cooperation of other people and coordinating technical work done by them. Yet, this aspect of engineering work does not yet seen to have been widely appreciated. We publish working papers on this as a web site and would welcome contributions. http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/jpt/pes.html.

Dear President Carter, I am an American first. However with the use of Solar cells that can be print cheaply, framed in glass, and a small battery back-up to power an eletric insect trap kill the insects. Therefore were the mosquitoes breed have small solar powered pumps to keep the water ciculating so, the eggs of the mosquitoes can't mature. Find a bird or insect that likes to eat mosquitoes. Try to introduce sterilized female mosquites to reduce the population. Have a great evening. Sincerely WAM

right on tammy, couldn't said it better myself.

more use of the timbers of the world for the use of cars ans trucks in the more affulent nations . Look for another source of fuel and/or energy .with energening skills.