We live in a society where upgrading generally means paying more but also getting more, a logical path in capitalist societies. I am a believer in capitalism because we’ve seen over and over that without some kind of incentive people tend to under-perform- vis a vis the Soviet Union for example. This is not at odds with my stance on stuff because regardless of how idealistic I might be (not very, to be honest) I know that we’re unlikely to be happy living in a cave wrapped in a smelly bearskin.

The paradox is that quality of life is not in any way based on how much you pay, if you take the time to make good choices. As I’ve written about I recently made a move to save some money on housing costs. I looked at a lot of apartments and chose one of five I looked at in the same building. When I made that choice several weeks ago I probably spent all of five minutes in the apartment I picked. I really couldn’t remember a lot of details about it and was keeping my fingers crossed that I had not made a poor decision. Given that I was paying several hundred dollars less than my previous place I expected compromises when I actually saw the place after committing to it.

Long story short, it is much nicer than my last place. This got me thinking about choices when we acquire things. I shop every week at our Public Market on Saturday mornings. It is more than shopping, it’s like a village market day where you know the vendors, familiar faces are everywhere and sitting at one of the cafes means carrying on a steady stream of conversations. Don’t get me wrong- this is not some idyllic West Coast town. Our population is over a million, the market is large and filled with a lot of Chinese container junk in addition to the fruit, fish, flower and meat merchants and the neighborhood where it is located is riddled with boarded up houses- you’d avoid it on non-market days. However the shopping is far better than our local groceries (Wegmans) which are widely heralded as the best in the country, and far cheaper.

Examples abound. A small well-designed and built house can be a better place to live than a MacMansion knocked together by drunken contractors whose only quality criteria is how fast they can work. My 2008 Civic is a better car than my 2004 Accord which was a very good car- and the Civic was $5000 less and gets 6 miles more per gallon, saving me even more money.

Electronics are another example. I replaced a company-supplied top of the line MacBook Pro with the cheapest plastic MacBook when I left that job. I see very little difference except for the screen being smaller and the Macbook weighing a lot less. MacBook Pro= $2600, MacBook= $1300.

So housing, food, transportation and tools can all be had for much less, with zero sacrifice, if you change your perspective about how you make buying decisions. It’s not rocket science and it can be a lot more fun- when is the last time you looked forward to grocery shopping?

From Tom Friedman:

“We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …

We can’t do this anymore.”

“As prices peaked, oil consumption fell by 6 percent in July to its lowest level in five years, while the number of miles driven dropped the most since 1979, according the latest statistics from the Federal Highway Administration. For industrialized countries, which account for about 60 percent of global oil demand, consumption could fall by 1.3 million barrels a day this year, the steepest decline since 1982, according to analysts at Bernstein Research. That would more than offset the growth in consumption from developing nations like China, the analysts said.

“A study of the 1980s reaffirms our pessimism about oil demand in 2008 and 2009,” the Bernstein analysts said in a recent research note. “Recent data suggests we may finally be reaching the point of negative demand.”

Falling oil prices are “equivalent to a new stimulus package for consumers”…

Does anyone really believe that oil will stay down long term? If higher prices mean a real change in how much oil we use, then long term they will help. Right now, economically, I’m glad they’re down a bit.

Scientists at MIT have unveiled what many consider to be the Holy Grail of alternative energy research. They have discovered a simple and inexpensive way to store the energy generated from solar systems. Storage is critical because it solves the night/clouds problem and the battery problem. Their method splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using the electricity generated by the solar source. The hydrogen can be stored and used in fuel cells for virtually any kind of power generation. Until now cracking hydrogen from water has cost more in power than the energy value of the hydrogen. Now, with this system, which the inventors claim is only a few years away from commercial viability, we could have an inexhaustible source of clean energy that can be used anywhere, at any time. It should be noted that the only byproduct of using hydrogen fuel cells is pure water.

While time will tell whether this is the huge breakthrough it appears to be, the reception among informed scientists and engineers is more positive than we usually see when someone makes these kinds of claims.

For me the really interesting local angle of this story is that this research was funded by a ten million dollar donation from a foundation created by Rochester entrepreneur Arunis Chaesonis, founder of Paetec, a very successful telecom based here. Wouldn’t it be great if a breakthrough energy story came out of innovative thinking in Rochester?

One other thing: GM has long had their fuel cell hydrogen car project based in Rochester at a skunkworks operation in Honeoye Falls. The only thing holding back their technology has been a lack of efficient hydrogen production and delivery infrastructure. So this is a double win for Rochester.