The levelised cost of energy (LCOE) is a measure of energy cost used to help decide energy projects.
Assume equal costs and an equal amount of output each year. The Levelised Cost of Energy approximates to:
LCOE = Total Cost divided by the total output.
Total Cost = Capital Cost + Cost of Interest + Cost of Operations
Total Output = Sum of the kWh each year.
When a community borrows money from outside the community, the calculation includes the Cost of Interest. The interest adjusts for the time difference between incurring costs and producing electricity. Costs today have more…
Stranded Asset Compensation
A common approach to compensate for the loss of an asset is the asset swap. This proposal suggests a swap of the investment dollars coal miners have sunk into coal mines and not recovered plus the funds required to close the coal mines and reclaim the land. The swap is to give coal mines investment dollars if they invest the money in community-owned renewable energy using inflation-indexed community loans. The export coal-miners can invest in clean green hydrogen from solar power and water to sell on export markets. …
Community Loans are used to purchase or build community assets for the benefit of the community. The community owns the assets, and community members become custodians of a subset of the assets. For example, some local community members may decide to pool their resources to purchase and maintain the dwellings in which they live. Another community of businesses might decide to collectively own the shop and office space where they conduct their businesses. The community group (be it a company or a cooperative or a trust) becomes the assets owner. …
Capitalist — a person who has capital especially invested in a business.
A definition from Merriam-Webster
Capital can take many forms. An ancient form of capital is custodianship. Custodianship is the obligation to look after capital and gain a benefit from its use. Community loans is a way for consumers to obtain capital over which they have custodianship.
Capital in the form of payment for future use is economically efficient and typically provides twice the investment value for long term assets compared to individual ownership of assets. Community capital
- removes the need for expensive financial products,
- uses the efficient payment…
The mechanics of the financial and monetary systems dominate economic thinking. Gross Domestic Product or the cost of buying and selling goods and services measures wealth. Value equates to price, and money can earn more money simply by existing. Today the transfer of money and its derivatives is thousands of time more than the transfer of value of goods and services. Money is the measure of wealth, and it isn't easy to equate non-monetary benefits with cash.
The result is a system that values the production of money as much as the production of goods and services. It means an…
Covid19 diagrams show the capacity of the health system to handle the number of cases created by the pandemic. A problem with Covid19 is that without intervention, there is an exponential growth in cases that overwhelms the health system. To solve the problem, we have to reduce the growth rate of the infections so that the capacity of the health system can meet the demand.
Global debt has been increasing at an exponential rate, and there is a direct cause and effect link between global debt and greenhouse gas emissions. The emissions created by humans is outstripping the natural systems…
Market economies need low-cost ways to allocate investment funds, make payments, and handle credit. The financial system, with three different methods for achieving these three functions, is expensive to operate. However, the payments system, on its own, is low-cost and ubiquitous. Modern internet technology can incorporate investment and credit systems as part of the payments system and reduce the costs of operating a market economy. It can do it incrementally, one loan at a time, leaving the rest of the investment and credit systems intact. …
Economics is a predictive science. It predicts that the planet will become unsuitable for human survival — if economic activity continues in its current form. The attempts to solve the problem piecemeal with greenhouse gas emissions targets, bio-diversity targets, reafforestation, banning of plastic use, is not working fast enough.
We need a fundamental shift in the way economics operates. Reforming Economics provides an approach and Outcomes of Economic Reform outlines how the approach changes parts of the economy. The capital released by the reforms is used to address global issues by coordinating local groups to give consumers a greater voice…
The article Economic Reform outlines a way to reform economies by modifying the way we transfer the value of long-lasting, productive assets. The change reduces the cost of asset transfer and provides an alternative way to allocate assets where assets are income-producing artefacts or capital. Asset allocation is equitable, transparent and efficient.
The reform preserves the market economy in goods and services. But, it moves an economy from being measured by consumption to an economy with increased emphasis in asset maintenance and production.
The following scenarios illustrate the effect of the change.
Community Wealth Building
In most communities, a person has wealth if…
The Global Financial Crisis and now Covid19 has revealed the fragility of economic systems. To address these crises we need economic reform that is quick and easy to implement at scale. It can be easy because a financial system is an invention of humans and is software. We do not need to construct any new artefacts or invent any new technologies. We can do it by modifying the existing soft monetary system.
One way to do it is to introduce a change that reduces the cost of capital and spreads capital accumulation more broadly. A variation that achieves this is…
