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Thxs for responding. Simple Denial of the obvious again. Consider the people, practising common sense, who took advantage of early weather reports to leave Nawlins ahead of Katrina, same thing as with those Europeans that migrated to America before Hitler consolidated his control.
Those that have been googling Zimbabwe, or reading the AlasBabylon[AB] postings are getting an early heads-up on what will eventually spread here. 99.999% of the people never seek out forums like TOD, or read books like Matt Savinar's, "The Oil Age is Over". They will be blindsided and confused WTSHTF, but will nevertheless expect the Milgov to bail them out, only decreasing net energy will necessitate the Milgov to TAKE THEM OUT instead. Simple curve matching of population Overshoot to the Hubbert Downslope--Jay Hanson's Thermo-Gene Collision. Here is an excellent condensation of the hundreds of pages of Dieoff.com by the Master himself from the files section inside AB called "Why Dieoff?":
-------------------
WHY THE HUMAN POPULATION OF EARTH WILL DIEOFF
by Jay Hanson - June 20, 2003
I can simplify over ten years' work down to two sets of physical "laws". These laws place harsh limits on what is possible for us: #1 ENERGY LAWS, and #2 BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION LAWS. For purposes of sustainability, nothing else matters.
#1 ENERGY LAWS
Once I was able to understand Odum's "eMergy" metric (actually very simple, but difficult for old minds), I realized that there are only three relevant principles concerning energy: the First Law of thermodynamics (no creation), the Second Law (always a loss), and the "Net eMergy" principles ("net energy" converted for "quality") [1].
Once one understands the three simple principles outlined in the paragraph above, then one understands that the only way our society could actually be "sustainable" would be to continuously reduce our aggregate energy footprint -- less consumption AND fewer people - until the global population level is back to a couple0a-hundred-million people swinging through the trees. This is also Georgescu-Roegen's conclusion [2]. That's the easy part...
#2 BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION LAWS
Human nature is much more difficult to understand then energy laws for two main reasons: it's not taught, and we are genetically biased against self-knowledge. In other words, teaching human nature to someone is like teaching a dog not to bark [3].
I will reduce several years' research on human nature down to the essentials: A COMPUTER ANALOG and A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE. For purposes sustainability, everything else about human nature can be ignored - it simply doesn't matter.
a. A COMPUTER ANALOG
Computer software cannot function before it is enabled by the hardware. In other words, functioning hardware MUST precede functioning software.
Human thought is "algorithmic" (not mathematical) and analogous computer software. Any particular conscious thought (software) cannot precede the neurons, dendrites, neurotransmitters, etc. (hardware) that make that specific though possible. Like all computers, human hardware is the physical prerequisite to human software - but that's where the similarity with everyday computers ends.
Human brains are much different than the stored-program, digital, binary, single-processor PCs we use every day. Instead, human brains are wired (not stored-program), analog (not digital, not binary), multiprocessor (not single processor) "state machines" (program logic may permanently modify itself depending upon the data). A human cannot have a specific thought unless it has been enabled by earlier brain "wiring" (e.g. pre-programmed, formal education, reflection, critical thinking). Moreover, older brains are much harder to "wire" than younger brains.
Brains are mostly hardwired by age 25. By middle age, people may need two or three years of hard work to understand something completely new (grow the brain hardware required to think the thought).
The human brain comes from the factory with a set of empirically designed pre-programs that have historically (over a billion years) tended to maximize "inclusive fitness". One of these pre-programs was specifically designed to inhibit self-knowledge with respect to social issues. By remaining unaware of our true motives, we are much more effective at deceiving others. We evolved this was because the more convincing liar has the advantage in sexual competition (e.g., Bill Clinton).
In short, people cannot think a thought unless the brain has been previously "wired" to think it. This is why civilization after civilization runs out of energy and collapses [4]. This is also why we are presently running out of energy and hell-bent for collapse.
b. meat by-product: consciousness
Contrary to the received wisdom, people do not consciously reflect and then act. They act and then rationalize (literally!). [C.f. Gazzaniga, 1998]. Consciousness itself is a product of the hardware (somewhat like a movie) that appears, say 500 ms after it is produced. New data from the environment is routinely plugged into existing mental hardware (like entering a number into a spreadsheet), which is then followed by an appropriate thought. Since people have no wiring for "peak in oil and gas production", news of the present energy crisis cannot generate the appropriate thought. Only prolonged reflection can grow the required mental hardware to place this critical piece of news in perspective. Unfortunately, few people can invest the thousands-and-thousands of hours necessary to see both the energy and evolutionary aspects of the human condition clearly.
c. A SOCIAL PRINCIPLE
Individuals come from the factory pre-programmed to seek inclusive fitness in ways that have actually worked in the past. In modern society, economic growth serves as a proxy for increasing fitness. This is why we "feel good" when we make money, buy a new SUV, and so on. Unfortunately, when our pre-program determines that inclusive fitness is best served by violating social norms, we will violate those norms and seek a fitness advantage. This explains the higher crime rates in our lower income populations and why nations go to war.
Societies can remain reasonably stable as long as their economies continue to grow - continue to serve inclusive fitness for the majority. But when economic growth becomes physically impossible - as it must - societies will disintegrate into anarchy and war while individuals and groups seek advantage over the rest.
CONCLUSION:
Once one understands the three simple energy principles outlined in this paper, then one understands that the only way our society could actually be "sustainable" would be to continuously reduce our aggregate energy footprint. Put differently, energy laws will force us to continuously reduce our aggregate footprint whether we choose to or not.
Once one understands human nature as outlined in this paper, then one also understands that continued social stability requires us to continuously INCREASE energy use, which we now know is physically impossible! It should not come as a surprise that we have been pre-programmed to overshoot and crash just like other animals [5].
There are absolutely no humane solutions available to the ruling elite because it is impossible to solve the problem of human corruption (i.e. the genetic pre-program to violate the norms and seek advantage).
Unfortunately, the best the poor can hope for is a painless death.
REFERENCES:[removed them to help condense this posting--BS]
-------------
Jay Hanson will be returning to open the forum Yahoo:Dieoff_Q&A in a week or so. If you wish to join, please read the homepage-- he will not tolerate fools!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I apologize if I went too early--feel free to condense if required.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I, too, would like to see you use links to the articles that you quote.
For example, your post above could have simply included:
"Jay Hansen summarises the die-off argument in the article WHY THE HUMAN POPULATION OF EARTH WILL DIEOFF
There are several reasons for this:
- Including the whole article is a waste of internet bandwidth because you are duplicating the content
- If you condense it without a link, then I can't go and look at the full article (ala the REFERENCES above)
- The link adds authenticity to your quote (you may have made up the entire quote and put Jay Hansen's name at the top)
- I may not be even slightly interested in what Jay Hansen has to say
In fact, I went looking for the article you quote and could not find it on dieoff.org, so I am already suspicious of it's source. I did find the article on oilcrash.com (hence my link above).I'm sorry if I'm sounding critical, it's just there's such a lot to read on TOD, and I don't want to have to scroll past large amounts of irrelevant material (which is found elsewhere) that I'm not really interested in.
I do hope you keep posting, because everyone has something to contribute. Just let us go off and read your quoted articles at the source.
I assure you that the file exists inside AlasBabylon [not on Dieoff.com], but I don't know how anyone could just link to it unless they joined AB first, that is why I posted the whole thing. I did not know the same file exists on other sites that I could have linked to so everyone could share. Please bear with me, but I gladly accept new instructions--Keep 'em coming! Thxs Again.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast? Maybe I am not--LOL!
If you wish, you can currently join his group to participate in his current poll, and browse the archives. Just no new postings till he opens the forum again.
I 'lurked' for some time before I finally first posted. 'I have had my ass handed to me a couple of times' by Jay for not being coherent at his level, but that is just 'my phrasing' of me composing a sloppy post [I belatedly deserved his non-emotional rebuke]-- He is generally unfailingly polite, using pure facts to slay incorrect theories. His 'dry' sense of humor is hilarious too.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Perhaps you should have told Jay that he's wrong - we're not running out of energy... we're just running out of oil : )
We will never "run out of oil".
Our straws will just keep making harder and harder sucking sounds as we wind our way down into the gunkier, less liquid, and less concentrated pockets of the stuff.
One other thing we will never run out of is the ability of we humans to delude ourselves. We are so good at this.
human behavior is more like a computer's firmware, it's a mix between genetically coded behavior and stuff the person learned at a early age from their parents and the early years of school. stuff learned after this point can be considered software, it can override firm-ware but it take allot of effort.
firmware in the computer world is mainly like a bridge between hardware and software.
I thank you for the explanation though because it helps me understand that not all of the reactions that i attributed to just blunt shock were not such.
Boneup on Darwin, mix it with your firmware theory, cook into a careful posting, then serve it to Jay at Dieoff_Q&A. He was a computer geek and coder of some reknown back in his day. My guess is that he is still interested in computer-brain comparisions, but I don't dare presume to speak for Jay. If you browse the archives-- you might get an idea if this topic was previously discussed. I do recall posts on truth tables, flip-flop transition and design, AI loop limitations, etc. The guy is no slouch!
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
personally i am not as highly educated as some of the people here. i am just someone who went to school for network administration and some computer repair and graduated right when everyone was outsourced. i found out about this a couple of years ago via wolf at the door and life after the oil crash. unfortunately i can't much of anything except keep on top of the information and the news.
"the only way our society could actually be "sustainable" would be to continuously reduce our aggregate energy footprint"
What about renewables like wind, solar, tidal, etc.?
If you have 100 PV solar panels that generate 1MW of power, you can use that power to make more PV solar panels, which can then be used to make more solar panels, etc. etc.
That seems like energy growth to me!
The earth gets bombarded by incredible amounts of solar energy every day and a lot of it is just reflected back out into space. That energy loss can be captured by us and used here on earth.
So it is ridiculous to say that our energy use is restricted by the second law of thermodynamics.
He's saying that for our society to be sustainable, we must be continuously reducing the amount of energy we are using.
That is a ridiculous statement to make.
Eventually we will reach a more sustainable equilibrium where our renewables can match the energy we use. Now whether we need to drastically reduce our population to get to that point, that's another issue.
My gut feeling, based on a long, slow oil squeeze with much belt-tightening and efficiency gains, is that we should not have to endure massive die-off to get there. Although a die-off in the US would certainly help us out in the rest of the world! ;-)
It just angers me when people use ridiculously false statements as the basis for their whole argument.
You may disagree with Jay about the exact number that's sustainable, but he clearly understands the concept of sustainable equilibrium.
I always wonder how people can claim to know what an equilibrium population should be. I've seen a number of posts citing the second law of thermodynamics (which, strangely enough, doesn't tell us how many people the earth can support) which are then followed by a statement that there are too many people.
I can accept the statement that current growth rates in energy consumption and population cannot be sustained indefinitely, or perhaps, for even much longer, but I'm pretty skeptical of anyone who claims to know where the equilibrium actually lies.
I mean, "swinging through the trees"? Since when do humans, no matter how low their standard of living, swing through trees?
I think the Law of Diminishing Returns applies here as we go PostPeak. Most renewable strategies: localized permiculture[food & water], agro-biofuel industries, and earth-energies [PV, wind, tide, etc] need tremendous initial fossil fuel and mineral inputs to just get jumpstarted, then gobs more to support further growth and efficiency refinements of all this new infrastructure. So even if the population could be held steady-state, it is entirely possible that we might run out of 'ancient sunshine' before we successfully transition to a pure 'daily sunshine' infrastructure.
Maybe if we had continued an Energy Manhattan Project that Pres. Carter jumpstarted back in cheap energy days of the late '70s-- we might have had a chance for a peaceful transition to a daily sunshine lifestyle somewhat similar to our present hi-tech Energy Fiesta. Now I fear it will be extremely difficult for the now required 'all hands on deck' effort to paradigm shift, especially since most people are not practising Powerdown, or are still in Denial, or believe Energy Fairies will magically solve our Problems. I think we are way behind the 8-ball, but I have no idea how to statistically prove it. Maybe the TOD data freaks can come up with some charts to prove or disprove my assertion.?!
And each day we fall another 24 hours behind and have 85 million barrels less of exactly the stuff we need to accomplish the Goal. Now when you add the continuing stress from our ever growing population, then you can understand why Simmons and other luminaries are so worried about our future. It is really difficult to do any research, or build the postPeak infrastructure if your family is starving, freezing, or fleeing a warzone.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
We have incredibly large amounts of energy wastage in today's society that can give us a long time frame for powering down.
If you look at our lifestyles today and compare them with the lifestyles of people in the 1950s, then our modern lifestyle looks like the rich and famous of the 1950s!
We don't need a TV in each of the kids' rooms, we don't need playstations, we don't need computers on 24/7, we don't need two showers/baths a day, we don't need three cars in the garage, we don't need that little fishing boat, etc. etc. These are all luxuries. They certainly were in the 50s.
For example, in the last six months, with no hardship, my family has reduced our electricity monthly usage from about 1000 units to 400. And that's before the solar water heater and wood-fired wetback take over our water heating. It's not hard and it certainly isn't rocket science, but for some it will be scary because they will be losing their 'entertainment'. Truth is, life can actually be much more entertaining without this stuff.
Instead of a die-off in our future, I actually see our past. We will need to step back a few decades and re-evaluate what are the essential elements of life on this planet. We need to recognise that we have become addicted to luxuries in the pursuit of happiness!
Our lifestyles are not non-negotiable. In the process of avoiding die-off, there will be lots of negotiations!
I agree with your statements as related to how things should be. If we could "soft land" by going back to behavior patterns of the 1950's before becoming even more sustainable, we certainly wouldn't need to worry about an imminent new stone-age.
While I, or "we" perhaps don't need the things you mention like tv in every room, playstation, etc., there seems to me to be an omnipresent entity which needs all these things and even more of them next year to sustain its existence: Capitalism.
Is it not true that capitalism fundamentally depends upon growth to continue functioning? I do not see how the mechanisms of our economic system allow reverting to 1950's lifestyles now. Capitalism is a one way street.
It seems to me it will accelerate until it hits the wall of no further growth possible, and we will be left with no economic system apart from our local agreements of how to trade with our friends and neighbors.
Questions I have....
Is the debt system inexorably tied to a system of perpetual growth to sustain itself?
How will capital satisfy its desire to grow as the amount of real energy in the global system starts to decline?
As an engineer I guess I should qualify the above as Power, vice energy, since the Alberta tar sands (supposedly) contain a Saudi Arabia's-worth of energy. But the rate at which you can use that energy is a small detail to consider.
What we need is s horrific oil price shock, then production back in a few weeks but knowledge of peak to have created a different political landscape to powerdown in an organised way.
Even in the liquid fuels category, Americans are going to surprise us with how much can get squeezed out. The other night at my girl's soccer game I suddenly realized that at least 5 of us drove nearly 15 miles from the same small area; one just down the block from us!! As I was busy kicking myself for not thinking the transportation thing all the way through, the other parents were visibly wondering why I was even concerned at all. I guarantee that they will just as easily adopt a more sensible car-pooling strategy when the time comes.
Unfortunately, I also believe that many Americans won't make any changes until they have to. So I guess my take is that 1)We are going to burn through the hydrocarbon reservoir as fast as possible; and 2) I expect to see surprising amounts of elasticity on the other side of the peak.
". . . surprising amounts of elasticity on the other side of the peak."
That is an interesting idea and I have a hunch that I understand your meaning but am not sure. In economics "elasticity" has a strict meaning (actually, it has three different meanings--income elasticity of demand, price elasticity of demand, and (price) elasticity of supply), but my impression is that you are using the term "elasticity" as a synonym for "resilience."
If that is your meaning you are surely correct; humans are pretty good at adaptation--at least those who survive are pretty good at it.
Note that some economists have greatly overstated the ability of markets and relative price changes to "solve" energy problems. Nevertheless, the principle that markets have much power to adapt to change and to encourage investment in appropriate technologies is valid.
Economists see substitutes everywhere--even where they may not exist, unfortunately. But your big point seems to me 100% correct. As a sociey Americans are hugely profligate of energy, and to reduce energy consumption by fairly large amounts (say up to 30% or 40%) need not mean that our way of life crumbles into a Mad Max scenario. For example, this winter I cut my consumption of natural gas for heating by about 50% by the simple expedients of wearing long underwear, shutting heat off from unused rooms, burning more wood, and getting a small space heater (600 watts of coal-fired electricity) to warm up just the small room I was in for much of the day. Instead of driving my car every day, at first I drove it only every other day and am now down to twice a week. When it becomes more pleasant to ride bicycle, I won't need my car at all, though I'll probably use it a few times a month to visit children or go sailing on lakes beyond easy biking distance.
After all, Moses did not come down from the mountain and put in as one of His Commandmants that we should each day sit behind the wheel of a car for hours a day commuting to work all by ourselves. With jitneys and car pooling we could quickly and drastically cut gasoline consumption and traffic congestion. I think gasoline at $5 will do the trick. Bring it on!
Yes, I do mean 'elasticity' in the sense of 'resiliance'. I am an engineer by training, and I do value technically correct use of terminology. My 'Economincs IQ', however, is just a bit above room temp so my use of economics terminology is therefore imprecise.
My two greatest concerns going forward is 1) the climatological response to the forcing functions (increased CO2 primarily) we are imposing on the ecological system, and 2) the economic system's response to decreasing energy supplies.
#1 could kill the host
#2 could really suck
Sorry to be such an optimist this morning!
Is debt inextricably tied to a premise of unending, infinite growth? How will 'growth' be redefined and redirected when the traditional notions and expectations are found to be invalid?
As I said in an earlier posting above, Capital will not go away meekly. I'm seeking to understand the nuances; the second- and third-order effects. I get that the size of the pie stops growing so rapidly, and indeed at some point will likely shrink. Increased energy efficiency will play a role. We will also eat into other folks' slices, albeit not without a struggle. But what are the practical steps that individual business managers and corporate boards will inevitably take?
If this doesn't make sense, it may be due to my econ IQ. Or maybe the java hasn't kicked in yet.
Economically Challenged in NW Florida
P.S. Bugs are going to be horrid this summer. We effectively did not have a winter this Winter.
I'm not sure why should debt be necessarily or inextricably tied to overall growth. Even in a steady-state economy with no overall growth, I would still think that future values would be discounted as compared to present day values and hence debt (and, correspondingly, interest on savings) would continue to exist, and make sense financially.
Indeed, I have found that engineers pick up economics as easily as a duck takes to swimming on water.
I know a several meteorologists and one prominent climatologist who has a top position at a major U.S. Labratory that examines Antarctic ice cores. From listening to these people with care, it seems to me that they are far less convinced of extreme outcomes than are less qualified people. One item that the fearmongers sell is positive feedbacks, positive feedbacks, positive feedbacks in spades. Well, there is no denying that there are huge and powerful and (somewhat) well understood positive feedbacks in carbon dioxide and methane forcing. However, there are also powerful negative feedbacks, such as a fairly likely major increase in cloud cover as global temperatures increase. When you start guessing at parameters and doing the math (which involves such lovely problems as the physics of turbulence, complexity, and perhaps mathematical chaos), the most knowledgeable and most responsible and most experienced scientists simply refuse to stick their necks out to make predictions. Yes, a sudden glaciation could happen, but it is unlikely. Yes, a sudden and large [on a time scale of 500 million years] temperature increase could happen, but it is unlikely.
Note that it seems to be a rule that the most extreme predictions come from those with the thinnest qualifications in earth science research.
As one who has studied the history of science for half a century and who has had close contact with a number of eminent scientists in various disciplines, I fully understand why the most qualified people are very cautious about making forecasts: They know more than we do.
As an engineer, you live and die by Murphy's Law. It is possible that "lots" of things can go wrong at the same time. It is, however, unlikely.
From my perspective, the technological problems related to making the transition away from fossil fuels are substantial and expensive but not especially intractable. Far, far, far more difficult to deal with are the political, social, legal, economic, income-distribution, and cultural problems related to changing our lifestyles. If we solve the problem of organization and also the problem of population growth, then humans can flourish indefinitely. Unfortunately, I see no sign of a solution to either of these key problems.
For the immediate future, I put international and domestic financial collapse followed by hyperinflation at the top of my worry list. BTW, capitalism can work in the absence of debt, but some kinds of debt (for example, to invest in renewable energy or much more efficient vehicles) make good sense. Most consumer debt and much government debt is strictly analogous to heroin use.
A.) When things can go wrong they will go wrong.
b.) Things will go wrong at the worst possible moment in space and time.
The collerary of which is,
When one system goes down, the next system will soon follow.
This collerary corraborates the observed behaviors of a series of complex systems all failing within seconds from a single isolated root cause of failure occuring in only one of the subsystems.
Speaking of things going wrong, I'm an expert after having crashed 3 ultralight airplanes. (2 things a pilot can never have enough of, the altitude above him and the runway ahead of him.)
British Gas commissioned a high-level study (once supposedly available on their website, but I never couldn't find it.) to quantify the probability P of something going wrong. Dr David Lewis, a chartered psychologist; Dr Keylan Leyser, an economist and business consultant; and Philip Obadya, a mathematician, were charged with devising an equation. They found:
A(U + C + I)(10 - S)
P = --------------------
200(1 - sin(F/10))
where U, C, I, S, F are coefficients between 1 and 9 representing, respectively, the urgency, the complexity and the importance of the task in question, the skill of the operator and the frequency with which the task is performed. The aggravation coefficient A was set by the committee, rather arbitrarily, at 0.7. Apparently adapted from the account by Ben McGrath in the "Talk of the Town" section of the October 25 2004 New Yorker magazine, where it was applied to the Red Sox (P = .74) If you have access to this article, I'll pay.
Gets It,
The corollary, IIRC is that things will not go bad until the most inconvenient moment.
There are "reasons" for that.
The inconvenient moment is that time when we can't patch things over any more. Things are actually going wrong all around us all the time.
But we humans are delusional.
So we patch things over and pretend it didn't go wrong.
Once you accept that there is this basic "blindspot" in the human psyche, you will see that things are constantly going wrong in plain sight and we pretend with each such wrong that it is an abberation, a "fluke", an anomaly, it will never happen again --I promise.
Car accidents happen all the time. Some traffic locations are magnets for the accidents. But we don't change the situation until there are 10-100 dead bodies piled up and finally we can no longer deny it anymore.
Same is with OIL.
Oil is going wrong right now. Our vulnerability is exposed by the terrorists attacking key link facilities like Abquaiq (Saudia Arabia). But we deny the fact of it. Oh no, it was an anomaly, it won't happen again.
Question: How many times did the terrorists hit the Twin Towers?
Answer: Two. Remember? Remember?
The first time, 1990, we said it was an anomalous "crime". (And what were they stealing? Pocket books (purses) from old American ladies? Our problem is that we hardly ever see problems. We are delusional.)
Typical Aircraft Accident
1.) bad weather occured,
2.) pilot proceeded in landing attempt, without recognizing his/her training and experience was inadequate for that particular weather condition and failure to divert to another airfield.
BP Texas City Explosion
1.) level controller failed,
2.) tower design procedure.
If either the controlling mechanism having a failsafe provision, or the tower had been designed for full load, the accident would not have occured.
Not sure about the remaining points you're trying to make. I didn't say there are not a multitude of reasons why things happen "according" to Murphy's Laws, nor did I say I didn't understand why thay seem to follow Murphy's law when they do happen. Even Murphy did not state the reasons why he found it necessary to write up his "laws", or why they happened that way or didn't happen that way. He just described various states and conditions he observed in the process of failure. I don't argue that people don't see what they don't want to see, although there are standard procedures to correct those things. For example, the traffic intersection example problem you mention could be discovered by a very simple statistical analysis of traffic accidents in your example city. When that particular intersection has more accidents/vehicle passing through it than the average of all intersections in the city, it should be flagged for further study to identify any unusual conditions that caused that flag to pop up. When the traffic engineers get out there, they will undoubtedly discover that someone has placed a large billboard within the right-of-way that blocks drivers view of the intersection. If that policy was followed, instead of letting 100 people get killed at the same intersection and waiting for some brilliant sole to finally realize all died at the same intersection,the problem could have been corrected much sooner. Would it not? I try to avoid problamatic conditions from ever occuring through hazardous operation studies and continuous monitoring of safety procedures and investigation of industrial accidents and should an unusual pattern or some unforeseen condition develop that hasn't been covered in the study or previous work method statements, I correct them and insert a new procedure that (if followed) will prevent it from happening again, but then not everybody is really ISO 9001 compliant, are they?
As for Abqaiq, seems like the defense mechanism worked more or less as expected. No damage occured to the facilities. I'm sure they're reevaluating defense hardness to see if they can't prevent injury to the guards when the next incident happens, which is also probably expected. I don't think anybody is sending the guards home or anything.
As for Twin Towers 1990, seems like the defense mechanism worked more or less as expected. No damage occured to the facilities. I'm absolutely sure "they" [whoever they are] are reevaluating defense hardness :-)
As for Murphy's basic law, it's just another way of expressing the law of large numbers for probabilisitc systems.
IOW, given a finite P that things will go wrong, repeat it often enough and it will go wrong
"IOW, given a finite P that things will go wrong, repeat it often enough and it will go wrong". I agree there is a high probability of the occurrence of your event, if you refer to the customary definition of dependent or independent events and do the experiment "a sufficient number of times", however I believe Murphy Law, "Things go wrong at the worst possible moment in space and time", also implies the inclusion of another factor that attempts to describe an observed increase in probability of occurrence of sequential events (Things; plural) that are thought to be completely independent of any KNOWN logical connection to a given primary event, other than there being nothing more than a simple coincidence that event 2 happened sequentially to event 1. In other words, he was attempting to account for often unknown relationships, feedback loops between systems with forcing functions that were impossible to describe analytically, to account for the dynamic interactions between complex systems. Now, if we can agree that the worst possible time for system 2, 3,... n to fail is immediately after 1,2 or n-1 has failed, I think its adequate to assume Murphy has dynamic complex system interactions nicely included.
But go one step outwardly in the horizontal plane (time is fixed here) as well as down the vertical integration plane (where time advances to reveal a sequence of events). Suppose in each horizontal plane there are N things that can go wrong during that one instnce in time. Not all of them go wrong, maybe just one. But that one now cascades its effects into the next time slot. We then see a sequence of events going wrong.
Think of the more recent space shuttle disaster. Anything could have gone wrong during launch. The one that did go wrong was the tank foam (or the O-ring in the earlier disaster). That cascaded into the next thing going wrong, and the next one.
Good analysis.
Thanks for your discussion.
The storm hit at an "inconvenient" time when the emergency tank was out. Suddenly there was no way of patching over the problem with the pulling out tanker.
Thanks for sharing this.
Can't argue with you math. Numbers are irrefutable; we all know that;-)
In regard to Murphy's Law, the reason so few planes crash and so few ships sink is that, in general, things do not all go wrong at the same time: There is a huge amount of reduncancy built in. Dirty little secret: It is never (or almost never) the case that everything is working exactly right on a big ship or big airlplane, because they are so doggone complicated. The pilot or skipper makes the safety call, knowing that certain instruments are malfunctioning or that engines have been poorly maintained by scab mechanics, in the current case of NW airlines. For example, in the recent case of the NW Airlines plane being forced down due to fire from (I think it was) an oil or hydraulic leak, nobody was hurt. In other words, in an ideal world, we do everything right. In the real world, sometimes the Shuttle takes off with a faulty O-ring in cold weather, but to bring down a modern air liner, in general you need either a bomb, a cannon, a rocket, or an incredible amount of general stupidity and carelessness.
In regard to your flying ultra-light aircraft . . . um, I can recommend some medications to help you to deal with this form of mental illness. Why not take up soaring in conventional airplanes? Safe, fun, and not expensive, if you join a club.
Thanks for informing the flying public out there that in real world airplanes, things are always going wrong.
So true.
I used to work in aero-engineering, so I know. But the public needs to know that aero-enginerring standards are basically same as MIL spec. The boxes have to be rigourously tested (shake and bake tests) before they go on board a plane. Aero-engineers are trained in Murphy laws and they design in the redundancy or fail-safe systems so that, despite the fact that things are always going wrong, the plane continues to fly and appears as if everything is "normal" .
Our social systems are NOT designed that way. The founding fathers were not engineers. They did not put in enough, redundant levels of checks and balances. They did not put in a fail-safe design. So our ship of state is not sailing as well as a well-engineered boat may.
Hydroelectric dams are an obvious exmaple, but also railroad improvements like tunnels and electrification, Los Angeles's "Subway to the Sea", and myriad other transportation examples.
Wind turbines have an "issue" in they are expected to last 20 years. Currently, rapid advances in technology/size means that worn out WT infrastructure (except access roads) has little reuse. So a "medium life" asset that has to be completely recycled.
However, since the limiting factor on the size of road access WTs is mobile cranes to eract and do occasional heavy maintencance, the next replacement generation in ~2027 is likely to be the same size and can use the same towers (a major cost component) and produce no more electricity (preserving the electrical infrastructure).
Hydroelectric sites were evaluated in the 1920s to 1950s based upon the economics of that day. Storage was essential and almost no "run-of-river" schemes were developed. Hydro had to compete against lower capital cost coal, oil and natural gas powered electricity plants. In a new environment, the calculations of what is worth developing will change. Hydro has superb EROEI, it is just that the payback takes decades, but they last centuries.
Grand Coulee, Hoover, etc. have long since paid back their massive investments and continue to be ideal energy sources today and post Peak Oil. But what of a 380 kW bulb turbine on that local stream with a small dam that runs, perhaps, 37% of the time ?
Low return on capital invested, and some occasional maintenance (a guy to pull out trash accumulated on the trash rack), but a good EROEI !
There was a great streetcar building era in the US from ~1895 till WW I. Some before and after, but these were the peak years. Roughly 20 years of rapid building.
In an early post-Peak Oil era, the resources to repeat this should be available and I am working, as best that I can, to promote this concept.
In the seond half of the 1800s (and early 1900s) some massive investments were made to improce the efficiency of railroads (tunnels, bridges, straightened lines, double & triple tracking, etc.) and much of that remains. However, changes (mainly electrification and adding back lost track) are good investments in a post Peak Oil world.
Homes could become better insulated, better windows, sidewalks added, etc. All very long life improvements.
Industrial processes also present many opportunities for improvements. Solar preheating, more efficient processes, all specific to the industry in question.
So, "growth" may come in increasing the amount of renewable energy and the increasing the effiency of energy used as we experience dwindling oil supplies.
I see the first political hurdle as MUCH greater support for urban rail and freight rail electrification (my reason for joining this forum was to promote these concepts) and taking money from highway widening and building new highways.
Do the math.
Total annual human energy consumption: ~400 quads, ~4.2e20 Joules.
Power delivery from the Sun: ~1360 W/m^2 * 1.28e14 m^2 = ~1.74e17 J/sec
Time to deliver a year's human energy consumption via sunlight: about 40 minutes.
Total available wind power world-wide, areas class 3 or greater: estimated 72 terawatts (2150 quads/year).
Average US electric consumption: 450 GW (3,954 terawatt-hours per year)
Average insolation on a square meter of ground in mid-Kansas: 1150 kWh.
Typical PV panel efficiency: 13%
Area of Kansas required to meet 100% of US electrical consumption with PV: 2.64e10 m^2, 26400 km^2, 10,200 square miles.
Total area of Kansas: 82282 square miles.
We are literally awash in energy that cannot run out as long as the Sun exists. The problem is engineering and building the systems to get it.
I would add a little observation. Folks, when you talk about how hard it will be to get along with less, please look around to the past and to other people right here and now for examples. I remember the '30's, with almost no electricity and lots and lots of work, but a good community spirit and plenty of the things we really needed- food, shelter, companionship, entertainment. And then I think of the Japanese truck farmers I knew just south of Spokane in the '50's, growing astounding amounts of produce with a lot of personal attention. And that fish pond in Bangladesh that produced so many fish from all the vegetation the farmers tossed into it daily. People have done it, and can do it. And of course, the Cubans, the Chinese for 3000 years, and so on.
The "two billion" figure that is oft-quoted is, near as I can tell, from scientific work done in the '90s on the nitrogen cycle. They calculate how many people could be supported by the amounts of nitrogen that are available without synthetic fertilizer, and estimate the sustainable population that way. IIRC, it came out to be 2 billion for the world, and about 200 million for the U.S. Hence, the conclusion that we are in overshoot.
The other way is the way Stanton did it. He simply looked back at history, and estimated how many people had been (barely) supported with solar energy alone (wind, water, but mostly "biofuel" in the form of agriculture).
There were roughly a third as many people in the U.S. back in the '30s. That, I think, is what Hanson is worried about. Even in the U.S., our population has exploded, and it's even worse for many other countries.
This is undoubtedly true, but which way it skews the numbers is open to debate. Stanton calculated the barely-subsistence-level, up-against-the-Malthusian-limit number, then took 1/3 of that to get the number of people who could be supported at a "decent" standard of living. IOW, he thinks a high standard of living will require a lower population.
I suspect he is correct, simply from our history, and our experience with animal husbandry. It's a lot easier to maintain a lower population.
I calculated the nitrogen which could be made from the gasification of corn crop wastes; it's several times as much as required to fertilize the corn.
Which implies that we can't make better use of wind and solar tomorrow than we did 75 years ago. It should not be necessary to point out how preposterous this is.How do you make the solar panels with no fossil fuel inputs?
Solar panels need silicon and to 'grow'(google silicon production to find out more) silicon you need allot of electricity. Thus to make the amount of solar panels required would increase the amount electricity used. While the first set can be made via electricity produced with other fuel sources, such sources are in decline so you would over time need more and more solar panels to keep up the electricity loads for making more panels. Thats a nasty positive feedback loop.
Have any answers to that?
Why is it that we are the first civilization to develop such advanced technology? It's because we're the first that didn't have to rely solely on solar energy.
In a solar-powered world, glass and steel are extremely expensive, because of the amount of energy they take to make. There are some SCA types who try blacksmithing the old-fashioned way, and it takes an insane amount of wood or charcoal to forge, say, a sword. Glass windows and steel blades were for the elite only, and I suspect solar panels will be as well.
Since this is just a crude estimate, double all those mass numbers. Then report back on what you get.
And while you're at it, look up the percapita energy use of the average US citizen in 1930 compared to today..
I believe the payback is seven months doubling time either way. Doubling time is the time to make the entire installation in energy. That is, you need to pay back the cost over a short period of time, like seven years for a ten percent per year municipal bond. That means that if you need seven months to pay back the energy cost, then you need six years and five months to pay back the labor and equipment cost. Labor cost is much higher than equipment and energy and land cost for a solar plant. All kinds of solar plant.
Energy cost of a solar or wind plant is not a problem. We already can deal with that. It's labor cost that's a problem. Construction is expensive.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
No alternate power source has been proved to be viable without the input from the current fossil fuel system at a level that would not only prevent a die-off but provide room for more growth.
I even think it's a valid debate to talk about the idea that maybe some of the alternatives, if scaled past their current levels would hasten the decline.
And they end up with a mix of geothermal, hydro (run of river & stored) and wind that varies between 30 GW and 70 GW (average ~45 GW) plus 10s of GW of low pressure/temp steam for process heat ?
Add massive windfarms on Greenland later, along with some hydroplants.
Perhaps they expand to the Falklands and other Artic islands.
A massive infrastructure of renewal energy and heavy industry with a small skilled labor force is clearly sustainable. This base alters the equations of doom and sustainable equilibrium.