[p2p-research] Re Energy Standard

Fri Mar 13 11:15:59 CET 2009

Great explanation Chris,

I will publish on the 17th in the p2p blog,

Michel

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 5:03 PM, chris cook <cojock at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  Dear Michel
>
> *Value Standards*
> First, there is a requirement for a Unit of Measure or "Value Standard", as
> I prefer to call it.
>
> This is purely an abtract Unit (ie "One"), but in my opinion it must
> necessarily be something to which people can relate. ie the question is, One
> What? A metre is a Unit of measure of length: a kilogram is a Unit of
> measure of weight, and we need a Unit of measure of Value in order to enter
> into exchange transactions at a price measured in that Unit.
>
> Value, like Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I think
> there are three universal sources of Value.
>
> (a) Location (space) - which has a Value in use, and in fact over two
> thirds of money in existence is backed by the use value of land, since it
> was created as interest-bearing  loans secured over land/location and the
> buildings built on it.
>
> (b) Knowledge - also has a value in use, whether the inherent intellectual
> capital we accumulate over time (ie experience, training, knowledge) and
> which dies with us,or the timeless objectified Intellectual Property which
> we may leave behind us;
>
> (c) Energy - has a value in use, and on the one hand, is routinely invested
> in Location/Land (often in very profligate ways eg cement/concrete) and is
> also the "Unqualified Labour" which an individual may bring to bear, and
> which he uses his "Intellectual Capital" to deploy to best advantage.
>
> I believe that Energy is the Value Standard to which most people will be
> able to relate and by reference to which they will exchange Value objects
> aka "Currencies".
>
> But of course, it's not  a matter of "either/or": people always have used,
> and always will use, the Standard that makes most sense to them, and the
> evolution of a Standard will be an "emergent" process, I think. ie it's
> about "What Works".
>
> *Value Units*
> The Value Standard involves the relationship between Subject (me) and the
> Object - the Value or "Money's Worth" which I exchange *by reference to*the Value Standard.
>
> A Currency is a Value Unit which people regard as acceptable in exchange ie
> it is "fungible". The question then is what is the extent of that
> fungibility.
>
> I believe that the "Global Reserve Currency" will be a Unit redeemable in
> energy value - lets call it an "Energy Dollar".
>
> Energy Dollars will be exchanged by reference to an Energy Standard I call
> the "Petro".
>
> The platform on which this exchange takes place will the "International
> Energy Clearing Union", and transactions will take place on credit terms
> subject to a mutual guarantee.
>
> Both holders of positive energy balances (energy creditors)  and negative
> energy balances (energy debtors) will pay an amount into an "Energy Pool",
> and this Pool will constitute a fund available to make the necessary
> investment in energy savings and renewable energy production to rectify the
> imbalances. This is of course exactly parallel to Keynes' International
> Clearing Union, and his Gesellian approach to the (centrally issued "fiat"
> currency) Bancor.
>
> The "Global Reserve" I am referring to will be an "Energy Pool",
> constituting the Pool of future global energy production, both renewable and
> non-renewable.
>
> My strategy for Iran, and indeed other countries who are (temporarily) rich
> in non-renewables and are profligate in their use, is to monetise this
> energy and issue it as an Energy Dividend to the population.  In this way
> they will have to pay the "Global market price" (in a new global market not
> dominated and manipulated by middlemen) but will be compensated with the
> issue of units redeemable for energy (denominated in Petros) which they will
> be able to exchange for something of value - from anywhere in the world.
>
> Note that these fungible Energy units cover only a part of the value in
> circulation.
>
> There is then a question of "National Reserve Currencies".
>
> As I have outlined  here
>
>
> http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/equity-shares-a-solution-to-the-credit-crash-presentation
>
> I believe that the only viable solution to the Credit Crunch is to
> "unitise" the rental value of property. The effect of this will be to create
> Currencies redeemable in land rental value and the creation of a "Land
> Rental Pool" which may be monetised in order to develop and maintain
> economies. These, of course, have "exchange control" built in, since while
> they may be acceptable in other countries because they may wish to use them
> to acquire godds and services form the issuing country in due course, they
> are *redeemable *only in the country of issue.
>
> Finally, there is the individual as source of Value, and he (individually)
> or they (collectively within "enterprises" defined by a protocol) may also
> issue Units redeemable in Value, being a combination of unqualified Labour
> value (energy again), Intellectual Capital, and Intellectual Property.
>
> So the future as I see it is of a network of  networks of communities
> within which Units of Value are exchanged by reference to a Value Standard
> on a generic International Clearing Union platform (incorporating a
> "transaction engine" -an Apache Money messaging server if you will) and *decentralised
> *"shared transaction and title repositories" - Riegel's "Ledger of
> Ledgers" wherein is accounted who has what obligations to whom, and who has
> rights of use in what.
>
> I believe that it is the Energy Standard to which most people will be able
> to relate.  Moreover, I believe that the Energy Accounting implicit in the
> clearing of transactions using an Energy Standard will give us a simple
> route to transition from a carbon energy economy to an economy based on
> renewable energy.
>
> Key to it all is the "Not for Loss"  consensual partnership-based framework
> - the cross-border legal XML tying together semantically the disparate
> jurisdictions and enterprises instead of hardware and software - within
> which the platform and the participants will operate. There is no "profit"
> and no "loss" within a partnership -merely creation and exchange of value in
> all its forms.
>
> Sorry to have answered your question (if I did!) at such length, but it
> stimulated something of a "brain-dump"!
>
> Best Regards
>
> Chris
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:11:16 +0700
> Subject: Re: FW: Re Energy Standard
> From: michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> To: cojock at hotmail.com
> CC: circ2 at mindspring.com
>
>
> Dear Chris,
>
> I would like to publish your letter here, but it would need some
> contextualization.
>
> As I understand it from Tom, there is a difference between backing up a
> currency with something objective, and merely expressing it as a value
> standard? But I would still be at a loss to explain this myself.
>
> So I wonder if you could introduce this for laypeople, with an extra
> paragraph or two?
>
> Michel
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 12:47 AM, chris cook <cojock at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Michel, Tom
>
> This FYI
>
> Chris
>
> ------------------------------
> From: cojock at hotmail.com
> To: frank_churchill at mac.com
> Subject: RE: P2P
> Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:37:41 +0000
>
> Dear Frank
>
> Indeed there is a need for a global reserve currency and the presentation I
> made in Iran envisages a Unit of energy as what I call a "Value Standard".
> I call it a "Petro" as a working name, and in terms of specification I use
> the energy released from the combustion of 1 litre of n-Octane at 20 degrees
> celsius.
>
> It could as easily be the energy released by the decay of x gms of y
> isotope, or the energy output of the average bloke in an hour when
> shovelling sand. The point is that it needs to be something that people can
> relate to in their everyday experience.
>
> Note that the Petro is not a redeemable Value Unit (ie a fungible quasi -
> currency) . It is the Energy Standard by which exchange transactions
> -whether in goods and services generally, or of "Value Units" redeemable in
> energy or land rental values - are *priced*. The outcome of using an
> Energy Standard is essentially of energy accounting, with which I am sure
> you are familiar
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Accounting
>
> My strategy in Iran (who with Qatar and Russia are the key founder members
> of the Gas OPEC) is to work towards implementation of a global market in
> Natural Gas - using the "Clearing Union" approach - and to "unitise" Natural
> Gas through the simple expedient of introducing Units redeemable in natural
> gas. These will not actually *be *Petros, but they will have a constant
> value expressed in Petros, as will other carbon-based fuels eg gasoline,
> kerosene, diesel, heating oil.
>
> Equally, electricity will have a constant value expressed in Petros.
>
> Now, using the "Energy Pool" approach I advocate, and will touch upon
> tomorrow, it is possible to monetise the energy value of renewable energy
> (by selling production forward) and even energy savings (NegaWatts) by
> selling energy savings forward. Energy economics using energy accounting
> turns conventional assumptions on their heads, because we may obtain value
> now for something which will cost us nothing to redeem in the future.
>
> It also opens the way to a viable policy of a *carbon levy *(as opposed to
> a carbon tax) into a "Carbon Pool" which is used to invest in renewables and
> energy efficiency at nil cost to the carbon user (who receives an "energy
> dividend in "Units" from the Pool), but incentivising reduced energy use.
>
> Where the Technocrats went wrong IMHO is that they ignored the value of the
> exclusive use of location/land  (which underpins some two thirds of the
> money in existence) and of course the use value of the individual's
> "Intellectual Capital" (as opposed to his calorific labour value).
>
> Because there is a great deal of energy value actually invested/embedded in
> location/land, and also because many jobs are underpinned by actual
> energy/work, then I believe an energy standard is in fact the logical
> candidate for the necessary clearing utility.
>
> In particular, I believe that it is only through monetising the *energy
> value* of carbon - as opposed to the complete fatuity of monetising by
> fiat something with no intrinsic value, such as CO2 emissions or carbon
> credits - that we will successfully make the transition from non-renewable
> energy to renewables (and this informed an energy startegy document I
> prepared for Iran's Majlis Energy Commission).
>
> Indeed, nowhere is this more necessary in Iran, where there is monstrous
> waste of carbon-based fuels (and horrendous environmental problems) because
> of the current massive subsidies. The solution I propose solves the subsidy
> problem through the issue of Units redeemable in gasoline/ natural gas (and
> priced against the Petro) which will be generally and equitably issued, but
> will incentivise energy conservation because this *literally *saves money.
>
> Worthy though Bernard's Terra is, I see it as inherently complex, difficult
> for individuals to relate to, and very much more difficult to use to address
> the climate change issue.
>
> Finally, the architecture you have in mind is, would, as far as I can see,
> lead to an intermediated architecture with a Credit Object (eg the Terra, or
> Keynes' Bancor) issued by an issuing authority, which would be all too
> likely to end up as a bureaucracy, or as part of a bureaucracy. The approach
> I am taking entails framework agreements governing bilateral issue, rather
> than centralised issuing organisations.
>
> I look forward to meeting you tomorrow.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Chris Cook
>
>
> ------------------------------
> From: frank_churchill at mac.com
> To: cojock at hotmail.com
> Subject: P2P
> Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:55:18 +0000
>
> Dear Chris,
> Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow.
>
> I've had a chance to look at your slideshows. What you propose is not
> dissimilar to my own ideas, which in turn adopt the WIR/Bartercard model of
> multilateral barter mediated by an alternative medium of exchange (the *
> WIR*, and *Trade Pound* respectively), in which the exchange medium acts
> as a catalyst to trade within a mutual credit-structured network.
>
> One quick question though. Both the *WIR *and *Trade Pound* use their host
> currencies as the unit of account. While this approach has the advantage of
> simplicity and transparency for participants, it's main problem is that it
> makes the medium vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the host currency.
>
> The alternative is to use an different unit of account, such as basket of
> commodities, or a 'reserve' currency such as the *Terra* proposed by
> Bernard Lietaer (http://www.terratrc.org/) <http://www.terratrc.org/%29>.
>
> I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this issue.
>
> Regards,
> Frank
>
>
>
>
>
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Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
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