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74 comments on Adam Smith on Globalization

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ericy on December 21, 2005 - 8:08am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

By "biomass" you must include whale oil which is what was used for lighting before petroleum or gas was used for lighting.

Not that I think we would slip back that far either, but there were practices back then which we couldn't revert to today.

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Engineer-Poet on December 21, 2005 - 11:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Solar panels, batteries and CF lamps are far better than whale oil.  If you couldn't manage that, I suspect that properly ventilated mantle lamps fed by biogas or wood gas would serve reasonably well even if much less conveniently.
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Leanan on December 21, 2005 - 3:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And that is key.  That is why after a "catabolic collapse," society may take hundreds of years to recover, or never recover.  All the resources are converted to waste, making it much harder to support a society than it was before.  
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Magnus Redin on December 21, 2005 - 4:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Exept at least metals. There a millions of tons of steel, copper, aluminium, etc for any post collapse society to pick up from the ruins.
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adamdschneider on December 21, 2005 - 5:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I have always thought that Savinar, with his "the metals are all gone" line, has ignored the scrap market which could end up being a big deal far past peak.
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74 comments on Adam Smith on Globalization

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