284 comments on The End of Fossil Energy
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The problem of PO (or in my view, the problem of Global Warming, which is more pressing and more systemic than the possibility of PO) is simply this:
- we have too many people, and too advanced a civilisation, to tolerate 'going backwards'. What we have to do is figure out how to 'go forwards' by using the energy we do use with much greater efficiency and lower carbon emission, and at the same time finding new sources of energy (which are in fact very old sources of energy: wind, solar, tidal, geothermal have all been used by humans since the dawn of civilisation in one way or another).
To the extent that 'back to the land' is aligned with that, great. But most people on the planet no longer have the ability to live that way (too many people for the available land and food).
- we might get lucky and discover commercial nuclear fusion tomorrow. But more likely we are going to have to do this the long, slow, hard way- -rebuilding our physical capital for a low CO2 emission world.
An example: the Germans have a house design that only burns 800 watts a day, and has no external heating source. It relies on passive solar and the heat and light generated by its inhabitants. Rebuilding all our housing stock on that basis would be hard, but it is doable (Germany, Japan, Russia all lost 60%+ of their habitable structures 1939-45, and rebuilt them within 15 years).
- no man is an island. If we really are going off a Peak Oil cliff, or if Global Warming is anywhere near as bad as the leading climatologists are predicting, the response has to be societal. There won't, by and large, be rural communities that will somehow be insulated. Or at least that way of life is not practical for most (New York can't go and live in Vermont, and India certainly can't go and live like Wisconsin).
"the Germans have a house design that only burns 800 watts a day, and has no external heating source."
Watts is a unit of power. Watt-hours, kilowatt-hours or something thusly is a unit of energy... "800 watts a day" means nothing, unless you mean watt-days which would be a weird unit. The [Rocky Mountain Institute www.rmi.org/] is also superinsulated and uses passive solar heating and uses no fossil heat. I think they even have a greenhouse that they grow bananas in...and they're located in a place that gets really cold.
"It relies on passive solar and the heat and light generated by its inhabitants."
I've never seen glowing people before :)
"The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine"
burning 800 of him a day could be considered another holocaust.!
I presume they mean the house runs at an average of 800W which seems reasonable. That would be 19.2 KWh per day or about £1.80 per day where I come from.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/07/300whr_a_day_th_2.php?a=0
http://www.passivhaustagung.de/Kran/Passivhaus_Kranichstein.htm
couldn't find the actual power usage for the house on the site, and my German isn't good enough to translate all of that graph.
http://www.passivhaustagung.de/Kran/Passivhaus_Kranichstein_15Jahre.pdf
there as an interesting piece in the New Yorker a couple of years ago, pointing out that RMI is an environmental disaster compared to a couple in a 1 bedroom flat in Manhattan, in terms of energy consumption. The difference being the cars and the amount of living space.
Do you have a link? It would seem a little unfair to compare a commercial business building with something like 40 employees to a residence of 2 people. I doubt, even with the extra space, that a Manhattan flat could even come close to matching the RMI in terms of fossil energy used...the RMI doesn't even have a heating system, it relies on passive solar and the heat generated by the occupants and computers/lights/etc inside. Now the cars thing...that you could get them on.
The key was the driving (or lack thereof).
Unfortunately the New Yorker archive is not online in any form that I can find.
flag top right.
The energy use in the Passive haus Kranichstein (Passivhaus)
the diagram to the right at http://www.passivhaustagung.de/Kran/Passivhaus_Kranichstein.htm gives annual (final)energy consumption per m2.
Heating 10.5 kwh
Hot water 7.2 kwh
Electricity 14.7 kwh
total 32.4 kwh/m2/year
This translates into approx. 60-65 kwh/m2/year in Primary energy ( energy at the source).
At the moment some 6000 passivhouses have been built in Germany as single family homes, row houses, schools, highschools, sport halls etc. So the Passivhaus concept is going mainstream. The passivhaus it not rocket science, but application of traditional materials in an optimal combination, coupled with good workmanship. The important things are an airtight vapour barrier inside, trible glazed windows with insulated frames, ditto doors, 1-1½ feet insulation - floor-walls-roof and a ventilation with >85% heat recovery. The houses are tested with blower door for airtightness. Costs are +5-15% of ordinary buildings. The passive house principles can be applied to old buildings as well. Solar, PV etc can be added, off course and reduce energy consumption further.
regards/ And1
Certainly energy consumption will decrease in proportion to its availability. Its just basic thermodynamics. If the "free market" is taken to be the entire World System, and since it is obvious that consumption can't exceed availability, then it doesn't matter what fancy economic theories are applied, consumption will go down as availability declines. It is so for yeast, and it is so for man. The question becomes "what will be left of a civilization that is defined by consumption as consumption declines?"
I guess the "liberal survivalist" notion of Peak Oil adherents is the vison that we can go from one state of energy consumption to another in a relatively calm manner -- "no man is an island", "we can all work together to solve common problems," etc.
History, to the extent it is any guide, suggests the opposite. And if you go to FreeRepublic.com or any similar site, you may be impressed as I am with the vitriol that is heaped upon those who believe that Reason and Cooperation are keys to the future.
I guess the test of our survival as a species, or at least as a civilization, will be the extent to which the Peak Oilers can influence the Freepers to develop a saner future.
Political alliance is an identity statement, not a policy statement. So we are talking about emotions and how people organise themselves vis-a-vis the world, rather than intellectual debate.
By nature, Liberals see shades of grey, think things are amenable to reasoned debate-- we see problems and want to tinker with them and fix them. Conservatives see overarching values and principles, which cannot be compromised. They see black and white.
Think Jimmy Carter v. Ronald Reagan. The former reasoned and complex policy prescriptions (a la John Kerry) involving conservation the latter a certainty in positive outcomes, in the abundance of energy and the environment. In the case of GWB, add an unshakeable religious faith, and a conviction of being God's chosen.
I have to say the latter mindset is much more aligned with the self-view of Americans as the optimistic 'country of the future' and with the instincts of the American electorate. I would say the former, slightly wonkish outlook, is more how Europeans tend to see the world. Obviously the West Coast of the US is home to many people of the former view (particularly Northern California, Oregon, coastal Washington) and so is the north east.
Having torn ourselves apart in two World Wars, the Holocaust, the Soviet Purges, etc. etc. we Europeans are by nature less optimistic ;-). Also Europe is a small place with few natural resources.
(I am ignoring religious conservatives in this discussion, which is a different group again-- one of the most interesting developments of the last few years has been the rise of an 'ecological' evangelical movement. Small perhaps, but when you have Pat Robertson saying he believes in man-made global warming, the times, they are 'a changing (I hope)).
On the net, there is a strong libertarian heritage (think www.janegalt.net) which is quite intellectual, but also quite dogmatic (sometimes). Instapundit is a bit like that.
Conversely on FreeRepublic, you get the 'dark side' of the conservative mindset. A degree of xenophobia/ homophobia sometimes creeps in, and certainly a 'kill them all and let God sort them out'.
*When people describe Global Warming as a 'conspiracy against America' one has to understand that, emotionally, they mean it.
Puts the Peak Oil crowd in exactly the same position. Americans (of the conservative stripe) do not, by and large, recognise physical limits on human activity.
I don't think the FreeP types are amenable to reason. What one has to wait for is tangible evidence in the outside world of a need to change behaviour.
* the left wing version of this is some of the conspiracy sites. The 9-11 Conspiracy ones are exemplars of this, to my mind.
what someone said about the Free Republic - if people had trouble getting along when resources were plenty, why do we think they're going to get along when resources are scarce ?
As with others here, I'm interested in learning do you mean either:
800 W-Hr per day average energy consumption
OR
A household energy demand equivalent to 800 W? i.e, functionally equivalent to running 8 100W bulbs continuously.
I've been measuring my family energy footprint closely for most of the past year. Since the Awakening you might say. As an engineering mentor once said, "If you can't measure it, you don't understand it." So I'm very interested in getting other data points.
I can believe 0.8 kW continuous demand, which would be equivalent to 0.8 * 24 = 19.2 kWH per day. On the other hand, if they can maintain a modern lifestyle on 0.8 kWH per day........
Is this because the gas mains don't run into those places?
I would think ground source heat pumps might be a good substitute. I know the Swiss are quite interested in this area (the Swedes have about 350k installed). This fits the Swiss way of life: I think they live in their houses for a long time, and they are (famously) frugal people, so a 10 year risk free payback looks very good to them.
Germany houses are much larger than their UK equivalents, I recall reading. Partly because they have basements, but also the planning/zoning is laxer.
In the UK, more wall insulation is seen as a bad thing-- it makes your house look smaller when you sell it.
the big 'wiring up' of the UK domestic gas sector was in the early 70s I believe, when central heating became almost universal.
I was throwing words around and got sloppy (I am the son of a power engineer, I do know diff between KWhr and KW but that doesn't mean I don't get rhetorically imprecise ;-). mea culpa.
I haven't yet begun to check our power consumption. Living in a 180 year old house where I don't own the freehold there isn't much I can do about our heating and lighting needs.