The Count Down the Year 2042
Copyright© 2021 by Grey Dragon
'The Count Down' Year 2042
The world is funny but not in a humorous way.
As my readers may recall, I had many divisions working together, and they had been making progress beyond all expectations. As a result, I had been getting updates almost daily and might have thought going back twenty-seven thousand years might not be necessary.
Every division had expanded beyond the Compound; there simply wasn’t room for all of them to grow within it. The critical R&D units were still with me, but the bulk of the manufacturing was done elsewhere.
It gave me nightmares when I thought of the short-sightedness of governments and, indeed, the other families as the coming future was rapidly approaching.
Had the world gone collectively crazy? Truth be known, maybe the signs had been there all along with the long history of global violence and the filth you could find not just in the major cities but even isolated farms and small communities. You simply couldn’t go anywhere without seeing the evidence of human litter.
The Gangs in America translated to tribal conflicts in the middle east. Along every social divide. If not outright conflicts, then the extreme competition between government states and businesses even next-door neighbors.
Needs are seen but unfulfilled. Those that had, perceiving no reason to give to those without. All would benefit, but these were long-term benefits that in a world of quarterly reports and immediate gains seemed to make no sense to those who already lived the good life and were looking toward their next big grandiose purchase or conquest.
My Family was no less exempt from these attitudes. So how had I escaped it along with those that lived within the Compound with me? Was it our trip into the past? No, for me, it had started long before that.
Was that all a part of the odd little man and my grandfather’s planning?
Knowing this, I questioned whether these short-term attitudes would follow us into the past and whether we would be doomed to repeat past mistakes? But, unfortunately, a question for Philosophers, as I was in no way equipped to answer them.
That being said, competition in itself was not a bad thing. Without it, advances in the world would never have happened. Only when taken to extremes, did the shit hit the fan.
It might have been interesting to see what the world would be like if the Buggy Whip makers had the same political lobbying interests as we now see in the fossil fuel industry.
Sadly, that growth did not seem to be welcomed by the outside world. Oh, that is not to say the military was not interested. On the contrary, attached military observers had seen that the weaponized quad-coppers held a distinct advantage against those that didn’t have them. The disadvantage was their relatively low cost to produce and use. If you didn’t consider how they were powered. However, as my Militia was the only force so equipped, it did seem very impressive.
That question being asked was how they were powered. Other than the sound of their rotors, there was no engine noise. And how were they able to stay in the air as long as they seemed to be able to. None of the observers has seen any of them refueled. Was that being concealed from them?
So, while military applications were seen as a good thing even welcomed. Civilian applications were staled and even hindered with pushback. It would seem an unarmed flying car was too advanced for the general public.
As for what powered them, that was another story. It was quickly discovered that quad-coppers were not powered by conventional means and definitely not reliant on fossil fuels. Not only that but it was whispered the power technology could be transferred to other areas.
That did not bode well for the fossil fuel industry worldwide. If what the fossil fuels industry had was no longer needed. If they had no control over the replacement. That meant they would be ruined. Not only losing the monetary income but the political power that went with it. It would be an understatement to say they were not alarmed.
While the military establishment would have more than welcomed these vehicles, the fossil fuel industry lobbies politically prevented them from procuring them.
It was not that the fossil fuel industry saw it as a bad thing. On the contrary, they realized that pumping oil from the ground wouldn’t last that much longer. It was the leverage they feared to lose.
I didn’t think of it as a bad thing as I wanted to leave whatever advances I could behind if they could delay what I still felt was inevitable.
As I said earlier, it gave me nightmares when I thought of the short-sightedness of governments and, indeed, the other families as the coming future was rapidly approaching.
Nearly five years back from our time jump, and with my engineers having working power generators ready to emplace in cities and towns across the nation, they still had not been approved for use on the federal level even after three years of intense lobbying.
We had invited scores of Congressional fact-finding committees to check out our power generators. Inevitably the first question asked had Nothing to do with power generation.
“Why in tarnation was a forty-five-story building being erected along with fourteen twenty-five story luxury condo units when clearly we had over a whole township of land we could spread out on?”
A fair question and one I didn’t really feel like answering. At least with the truth. So, I cooked up a story for the committees that I had already created a research facility along the lines of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Most of it was situated underground, the truth. And for security reasons, we didn’t want our work being spread around.
I had come up with the idea that I would provide the very best in living quarters and recreational facilities. Then, as a result, they would be less inclined to live elsewhere and talk shop with outsiders. But, of course, maybe the biggest draw was absolutely no high-pressure daily commute, with free air travel for wives to any shopping area in the world.
That alone ensured that my brain trust accepted the deal. But, of course, keeping the wives happy was always a plus.
The most annoying was the accusations that I was using nuclear power plants for all my local needs. It was a rather hard bullet to dodge. We had been in the business of building nuclear power plants, which we had to give up as being unable to secure licensing for them.
It didn’t stop the accusations that we were operating without a license. We welcomed them to bring in teams of specialists in nuclear testing, as they could clear up the air about such usage.
I didn’t feel it was necessary to inform them of our developments in shielding that would conceal any such use. But as we were no longer building such plants, it would be a moot point.
After testing, there were accusations of buried power lines and or other means producing Power. Well, another means was how we were generating power. So, the fossil fuel industry just didn’t want to accept we were using a non-conventional means of doing it. One they could regulate.
Even with the advent of trucking in one of our power generators to a site of their choosing and hooking it up to a power grid/testing load, there were still whispers of fraud. I had my people overhear whispers of the supposed representative’s staff telling the elected Congressional members that they would lose the backing of particularly powerful interest groups if this was allowed to continue.
My respect for these Representatives of the People was souring fast. My grandfather had known many of them when they had first run for office. He had even backed a few. I wondered how he would feel about them today.
It seemed that my Power and influence were not enough to overcome the big-money interests of those in the fossil fuel industry. The regulators requiring more testing before approving their use. However, they couldn’t be tested without at least some approval to do so. Even those approvals were being hampered.
It seemed there was only one course of action left to us: to go directly to the smaller towns and states and offer it to them.
I didn’t limit my outreach to just this country. There were many areas where economic development was hindered. A case in point was my outreach to lands that had been devastated by natural disasters. San Juan, Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, was one such site.
For years it had been devastated by hurricanes year after year with the promise of aid from the U.S., Its so-called protectorate. While promises of assistance appeased the general public of the United States, its congress failed to deliver. What relief did was quickly gobbled up by the local corruption.
While I don’t want to go all political and name names, did a past POTUS really think hurricane damage could be cleaned up with a roll of paper towels?
A territory of the United States without representation. Wasn’t that the reason for the thirteen colonies to revolt against the King of England?
Were you aware that giving aid to a territory of the United States required a permit? No kidding, you had to get permission to help somebody in need. I decided to take my chances and give my assistance anyways.
I had gotten several towns powered up with the new grid I was providing. When I got a cease-and-desist letter. It went so far as to order me to rip out the work I had already done. Under the pretext that it had never been inspected, and it wasn’t up to code. Untrue, I had the local inspectors check the work and they had been happy to approve it. I hadn’t even needed to bribe them. I had the paperwork to prove it. I’m guessing that even if I had, they wouldn’t have stayed bribed. For now, they were saying they had never been to any of the sites I had gotten up.
The idea of giving people free power didn’t seem to sit well with some folks.
The communities I had been helping were drawing free enterprise into the area; there were now jobs that had been unavailable to them before.
I had figured it to be a win, win for such areas. So why would outside influences a thousand miles away be so concerned? The answer, as it turned out, was dollars signs. I, for some reason, was seen as upsetting the apple cart giving these people a leg up.
OK, it wasn’t entirely out of the generosity of my heart. I was seeking to gain here. I could build an industry here, and these people would provide the labor for it. Wasn’t that the way capitalism worked.
Well, the short answer was yes, long answer no, not when other interests felt like they were not getting their piece of the pie and hadn’t bothered to contribute. Sort of like taxes, they hadn’t done anything to earn it but felt like they should reap a part of the reward.
Is it any wonder that so many people think of Washington as a den of thieves?
What to do about it? Well, I did what any other ultra-rich American would do, I bought their VOTE. Of course, I wasn’t particularly pleased about it. But it was the only short-term solution that could be had. The long term would be to get my own pocketed politicians. This is not to say I didn’t have any to start with, but clearly, I needed more.
Now back to the home front, I had sponsored different town councils to view the work I had been doing in Puerto Rico. It was interesting, to say the least. While the Power generating was seen as a positive, it was the revitalization of its economy in those areas that were the unintended selling points.
Could the same thing be done with their dying towns? Yes, there was the advantage of cheap electrical power. It would definitely raise the standard of living, but it was the job creation and hopefully slowing and even ending the exodus of young people from their towns that attracted them the most.
The first town to take up the offer was the one nearest the Compound, and they readily agreed that the price was right. It was a smaller town and didn’t need one of the larger power generators, and it was installed easily and quickly. Thus, weaning them off the primary power grid practically overnight. It worked like a charm, and utility prices plummeted for the whole town to the point it was almost free, the costs being the maintenance of the system power lines.
They immediately put out the word that companies looking for a break in their utility bills should come and look them up while getting in on the ground floor real estate wise while real estate prices were still low.
Other cities following with interest the results of this, those towns quickly lined up with requests to do the same for them, which we did our best to comply with. There were more requests than we could undertake. Of course, I can’t say we gave such systems away for free, but our share of the profits made sure we were not operating at a loss. On the contrary, we were winning hearts and minds. The next vote, I was reasonably confident our man would win.
It didn’t take long for the Regional Utility Co-op to realize that a whole town had dropped off the grid, and others were following in quick succession. It was costing them. More importantly, they no longer had a locked monopoly and could see that if not countered, would quickly eat into their market share,
Their first act was to sue, claiming we hadn’t applied for an easement on the use of their poles and powerlines, placing an injunction on a cease-and-desist order forcing disconnection of our power supply to the town’s power grid.
While somewhat valid, they meant the previous Utilities had initially installed the poles and lines. However, it had been done decades ago, and they had long since been deprecated in value. What was now apparent was that the whole of the town’s electrical grid required a significant overhaul, which the Regional Utility Co-op was unwilling to do. The costs of piecemeal repairs were still considered cheaper for the time being. Nobody wanted to be burden with the costs of upgrading, especially those that might benefit the most.
You could say that about most of the nation. So much of the infrastructure was over a hundred years old. No one now alive had paid for it, and generations had used it with no thought that one day it might need upgrading or replacement.
That was the key that we used to fight their orders. It was in the town’s best interests that the power grid be upgraded. As part of the co-op, the town could claim overtime they had paid for such inter-structure and the improvements that had not been done. The power company claimed just the opposite they owned the poles and lines. So, permission to use either had not been given and didn’t need any upgrades. True enough, we had applied and been refused because they would need to study the feasibility. Funny how the electrical load would be no different than it was now. What was there to explore other than the grid was failing as it was?
We (the town) asked about when expected upgrades would begin. The Utilities said it was on their to-do list. When pressed, they had no actual date planned for the work. That setting a date and moving it up would disrupt their planned future operations.
I say we countered again by requesting a list of already completed work. The Utility’s response was that those lists were confidential. Was that some sort of joke? Nevertheless, we took a survey if there was any work to be seen.
We ended up subpoenaing their records. What we got was a mountain of paperwork covering the whole of the Utility’s area of operations. While not telling them about ADAM’s ability to read all that data, we soon learned that they had done even less than we had surmised. It was all organized and turned over to the State Utility Board. That board was very unhappy notifying Co-op Utility that they would be facing massive fines.
I don’t know. Was this a case of any good deed going unpunished?
Realizing the poles would need replacing in any case, we started installing our own poles and wires with the town’s permission.
The Big Power Utilities then claimed they controlled the right-of-way or the easement and the town didn’t.
A check of property records showed that there had never been a transfer of title. The Utilities thus couldn’t claim ownership, and the city was revoking their easement privileges.
It was good that we had the Governor on our side. The Power Utilities couldn’t rightfully stop us from installing our own.
Co-op Utility realized they were going to end up with aging poles and wire that sooner or later. They were also notified that the power pole treatment constituted hazardous waste. As such, be ordered to be removed at their cost as a hazard to the community. Along with hazardous waste disposal that would come with it, they would be responsible for monitoring the groundwater supply that is the poles chemical treatments had received when new had now spread.
They tried to use that argument of hazardous materials against claiming we were treating our poles the same way. That didn’t work as we showed that we were using concrete poles and were allowing others to use our poles rent-free, something that the Regional Utility Co-op had been charging from the Telecommunications companies for decades. It was nice to get them on our side, and it didn’t hurt that we owned several such companies ourselves.
They changed tactics and said we could use their poles and wires if we paid rent on them. Well, we responded, just how much would that be? Their offer was fashioned to make us either refuse outright, or they would actually be making more money than if they had been supplying the Power. We asked about maintenance of the grid, and they slyly said that would be on us as we were the ones using it. So, we politely declined their generous offer.
We installed our own poles, and the town started its own lawsuit against Regional Utility Co-op to remove the poles, wire, and other hazardous wastes.
As we established our own newly upgraded grid. A significant selling factor for us is that we employed the locals to do the work. We were killing two birds with one stone, replacing aging Infrastructure with new, and creating local jobs. Those jobs wouldn’t last, and we knew it. We were already looking for ways to retrain the workforce for other jobs. All helped by the Companies being pulled in with lower costs.
This proved much more straightforward than I first thought. The same economics that proved so beneficial in Puerto Rico was no less so here. This was going to save small-town America. Companies would be pulled in with low costs, and towns would be educated on adjusting to that growth. Of course, it didn’t hurt that there was already a rail line in place to help with transportation.
Utility Co-op in a last-ditch effort to escape the cost of removing hazardous waste materials, as there was no question as to who those belonged to, and they were still responsible for.
They offered to sell them to us at a loss. The Co-op thinking would be a win-win for them escaping the hazardous waste costs. That would have been more significant than removing poles and wire, which they could then turn around and sell at a profit, but not enough to offset the cost of what to do about the hazardous waste. Then turning around and forcing us to deal with the problem since it now belonged to us. So, we, of course, once again declined their generous offer.
It didn’t seem to stop Utility Co-op’s as they went after our concrete and rebar suppliers. Because we were already engaged in a large-scale project, we had already bought a group of them to ensure uninterrupted supply, and we did own our own steel mill. So, they were flustered to find they couldn’t stall us on that front, the same with almost every other aspect of the project.
The big fossil fuel suppliers were watching this intently. So, naturally, they wanted to kill this idea, squashed it, as it represented an end to their stranglehold on the nation’s power usage and, of course, their profits but, more importantly, their political influence.
To the Government, we demonstrated that not only were we upgrading an aging system, but the national security interests were being improved as each power system was independent of the other. In other words, shutting down one local grid would not affect the nation’s network as a whole. Thus, the nightmare of half the country going dark would be a thing of the past.
As another bonus, all the equipment would be manufactured within the country and not outsourced, creating jobs at home putting more people to work. These would be stable jobs as it would likely take decades to complete the work, and as the country was still growing, there really wasn’t an end in sight.
With this town now being used as our test model, we proved our test of concept. Establishing and documenting the necessary proof that it was safe and much less expensive for the communities involved.
We also documented the interference of the Regional Utility Co-op, various fossil fuel conglomerates that had hindered us every step of the way. Again, providing E-mails, internal communications, and other documentation, with the added input and suggestions from other fossil fuel industries on how to block our efforts.
We also brought to light the collusion of the fossil fuel industry, the oil, coal, and natural gas industries, influencing government agencies to prevent our success. But it didn’t end there.
Oil-producing nations also saw this as a threat and were putting pressure on our government to stop us. When we were done, there were calls for investigations into antitrust laws of those and other related corporations. And there was a significant readjustment of so-call allies.
The world watched what was happening within Puerto Rico and what we had done in the United States. As a result, those foreign fossil fuel exporting countries lost favor as other counties seeing the benefits of our new power source. They would no longer be under the heel of importing world polluting foreign fossil fuels and freeing their respective countries of a significant global warming source.
To prove our case, all we had to do was use the old adage of “Follow the money,” looking to see just who was getting the so-called political contributions to those politicians. Actually, I had been gathering such information from the start. Being sandbagged while still in school over a simple school economics project taught me more than one lesson.
Playing in the big leagues, you couldn’t afford to not step up your game. Nick and Adam were both invaluable in this. Those opposing me found that even their meetings on the golf course. Or even within the walls of their private clubs and secure board rooms. None were out of reach of my eyes or ears. Without notice, even their paper trails were uncovered and blocked from destruction by their paper shredders. Maybe they should have checked to see just who owned disposal companies. I wasn’t Volunteering, just saying.
The questions about the merits of my power generation shifted. They now wanted to know just how I had acquired the information. What was now being considered internalized classified Top secret information about the facts uncovered about the blockage of my projects?
Those identities saying that such information must have had been obtained illegally. At the same time, denying any of it was true. As stupid an argument as anyone could have come up with. If something didn’t exist, how could it have been stolen as claimed? It shouldn’t have existed. And if it were stolen, wouldn’t that then prove the accusations were true?
They shifted that all the incriminating documents were fabricated, but by that time, they had already dug a hole so deep it would have been merciful to bury them in it. Nevertheless, more and more evidence was being provided and collaborated.
Numerous CEOs started fleeing the country, but they soon found out they had few places to go. Nobody was interested in harboring them when they had so obviously hindered the one thing that could eventually ween them and the world of importing polluting foreign fossil fuels and reducing the effects of greenhouse gases.
I started with the publicly available information, which was, to be sure, very damaging to individual members of the so-called investigating committees. Then, those members began accusing me of illegal wiretapping and other wrongdoing. I simply asked, do you deny what I have presented is true? Then, of course, they started to refute those claims profusely and categorically. Then how could such information be illegally obtained, I asked?
Of course, I responded, offering irreprovable proof that was a part of the public record of what they were rejecting. Then I got nasty and presented the politicians voting records influenced by various political actions or lobbying groups behind those who had donated the most to influence their vote. To say it got ugly would be putting it mildly.
Did I end up getting their approval? Although not right away. I did manage to get the worst of the offenders removed from the investigating committees and eventually from office. That, in turn, did finally get me the approval I needed.
All that work to provide a clean, renewable power source that would not be running out in a hundred years at our current rate of energy consumption. We all know that those needs would not remain at their current levels, so it would probably be much less than a hundred years. So, just how short-sighted were these people not to care about their own children’s future, let alone their grandchildren?
It had been a battle, hell a war. To be sure, I had made a lot of bitter enemies, just how many only time would tell. But I didn’t give it much thought. THEY COULD NOT FOLLOW where I was going, and I already felt like I had a target painted on the back of my head.
Having won approval to forge ahead, I now had the problem of meeting the demand. Word had gotten out about just how much lower energy costs would soon become. To be sure, while rebuilding the infrastructure, the prices would be somewhat higher, but still lower than what they had been and with the promise that they would get lower even. I had created a whole new growth industry. Admittedly the Family was on the ground floor and had a controlling interest in it.
To avoid antitrust issues, I had the family license out the ability to build units while retaining worldwide patents.
It was amusing to see the fossil fuel industries leasing out the ability to build their own units. I knew they would try to be gouging out their customers. However, that wouldn’t last long as free enterprise competition would neatly take care of that.
It was now something of a new battle to rebuild that Infrastructure, with the Utilities seeking a way to not take a total bath and not lose everything in the process. They would need careful oversight as to not gouge the public with inflated costs in the meantime. It all made you start to wonder just how they ever became known as ‘‘Co-ops.’’ But in reality, I could care less about most of their executives. It had been the stockholders as much as anyone else that had suffered from their greed. From where I stood, these executives were completely unrepentant, showing no shame or remorse.
Thus, behind the scenes, I made it my work to make their lives hell.
Dear reader, I believe you realize just how completely and thoroughly, and I might add, I enjoy taking things away from my enemies. These people were no exception. They deserved to have their life’s ruin, destroyed as they had done to so many others without a care, in many cases, even bragging of it.
I would be educating the public on the advancing technology, whether they acted on it or not was on them. But governments being what they were, would delay it all till they found a way to cut themselves in on the action.
On Wall St., Energy stocks took a nosedive. In fact, it hit the stock market hard across the board but only for the short term. I had divested the Family of its energy holdings well ahead of time. I was even accused of insider trading.
Just how that could be when I was not acting on information not readily available to the public. I mean, really, this fight to get approval had lasted several years, and anyone with any sense would have seen what would happen when I prevailed.
When those stocks tanked to being nearly worthless, I bought up huge blocks so that I now had a controlling interest. While fossil fuels would be a thing of the past, they still held value as a resource in petrol chemicals, so many things were made from them. I didn’t find it necessary to remind people of that.
The challenge now was what to do with the waste. If you have been following my story thus far, I have a solution for that. In fact, maybe for all but the most challenging Radioactive. Though that too would be overcome, it was still in its infancy though I had been assured it would happen sooner than later.
What the future held would be remarkable, but I still questioned would it be enough. I didn’t have the heart to tell the Utility companies that I would be producing household power units within ten years and soon after, if not at the same time, selling appliances that would be self-powered.
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