The Oil Drum | The second quarter of the year is normally quiet

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Cherenkov on March 20, 2006 - 4:14pm

What is in a name?

I guess I am a doomer. Physics is not the tooth fairy. You cannot escape that reality.

There are some Christian lunatics who feel either God will take care of them or that God will accelerate the apocalypse. They are arguing from the nut-job seats.

Then there are the techno worshippers. They feel that growth is unlimited with the right cool gadgets. Surprisingly the techno worshippers are often the least versed in simple physics. They are interested in the management of micro situations -- i.e. building underground air tunnels to heat and cool untenable desert habitation. They fail to look at the entire situation. It is analogous to remodeling their stateroom on the Titanic. A homeowner in Phoenix still needs work, food, water and energy to get to work. Holistically, Phoenix is a town that will collapse even as that house remains comfortable.

There are the other easily dismissed lunatics; free marketers, economists, the drill-as-fast-as-you-can group, the abiotic oil crowd, et. al.

To me the main problem seems to be the lack of global vision. Most of the arguments here revolve around people's pet theories or technologies. My favorite is the perennial hydrogen economy freak who envisions the limitless growth era through hydrogen. Most people here will agree that this fantasy is laughable at best, and dangerously diverting at worst. What many of those people, who do not see hydrogen as a viable option, do not see is the underlying reality of limited growth. Growth will stop. Population growth will stop. And when that stops ALL other growth dependent on population growth ends. PERIOD.

The problem is oil has allowed us to extend our natural footprint to cover far more of the planet than ever allowed under a natural checks and balances, thus resulting in human overshoot. Oil has allowed us to degrade the checks and balances of nature to such a point that systems we had once relied on to support us pre-oil are being and are degraded, though, due to cheap energy, we are able to ignore that serious problem. Once the cheap energy life support system begins to degrade, no amount of technology, religious BS, or Pollyanna hoohaa will save us from the completely natural end result of overshoot.

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PaulusP on March 20, 2006 - 4:31pm

Cherenkov,

As a geographer I couldn't agree with you more. they call us doomers but we have a vision at least. I think that peolple are extremely adaptive and human communities will strive in the far future. Only much less people, and much less comfortable. Malthus was no grazy man.

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vermont on March 20, 2006 - 6:10pm

Sadly, your description of various factions sound a lotlike the philosophical underpinnings for future neocon energy policy. It's hard not to be cynical...

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Johnny on March 20, 2006 - 6:35pm

Cherenkov.

I also agree. An excellent analysis. You are on my list of favorite posters here. Thank you for your contributions.

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Engineer-Poet on March 20, 2006 - 11:50pm

I guess I am a doomer. Physics is not the tooth fairy. You cannot escape that reality.

Among the realities of physics are the facts that the Sun delivers humanity's annual energy consumption to Earth in roughly 40 minutes. That's about 36 times a day, every day of the year. Another reality is that there's something like 72 TW (that's TERAwatts) of wind power potentially available in the world; that's enough to give each member of a world population of 9 billion more energy per capita than the average European - as pure electricity, no conversion losses. That doesn't include available energy and materials from e.g. waste biomass.

Physical reality does not compel the doomer conclusion; you have to postulate massive human screwups. That's why I've gotta ask all of you: what side are you on?

Arguing that e.g. Phoenix and Las Vegas will become ghost towns is quite tenable. We've seen towns and even whole cities be abandoned, partly or entirely; the exhaustion or destruction of the physical basis of their existence is a darn good reason. People abandoned "rustbelt" cities when the jobs moved south. But the whole world? That scenario requires the same conditions to apply everywhere, and I have not yet seen anyone do a good job of arguing that it's so.

The claim that we're going to collapse because the supply of oil will start to slide is based on the inefficiency of current petroleum-fuelled systems. That inefficiency is an artifact of internal combustion engines, which are currently dominant but no more guaranteed to remain so than horses were. We've got a heap of technologies capable of replacing the ICE for most purposes (including transportation), and a number of them are much better converters of fuel to work than pistons or turbines. For example, the direct-carbon fuel cell appears to have a potential efficiency of 80%. We can't run the USA on bio-ethanol using engines that get 20%, but it looks almost easy with bio-charcoal and DCFC's which eke out 80%.

Of course, none of this allows infinite growth. Technology can't make something from nothing, it just looks that way to people who don't look at it closely enough.

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JLA on March 21, 2006 - 12:31am

Good points. Just because we will be screwed with our energy situation for an indeterminate period of time (10, 15 years?) doesn't mean that we are terminally screwed. We're in for a very interesting transition, but I don't expect that transition to include, for example, Kunstler's fantasy of something resembling a return to the 19th century in America.

Climate change and the general ecological damage we are wreaking are going to present more challenging issues in my mind, and will have a bigger impact on the quality of life for our children / grandchildren.

Here's a bold prediction: Everyone who is smart enough and rich enough to read this blog will be just fine in the long run (i.e., you might lose your job but you won't starve or go to war with a neighboring cul de sac).

The people who won't be fine are the few billion out there without the means to adopt new technologies and restructure their economy around the innovations (organizational and technological) that emerge from this mess.

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PeakPlus on March 21, 2006 - 3:57am

The real problems will BEGIN in 10 to 15 years time. And probably last a lot longer - at least a generation.

IFFFFF we don't solve them quickly, we will have missed the historical chance to use our planet's oil and gas riches to move to the next level of energy exploitation.

IFFFFF we do solve them, then we will be able to move into the next level of growth. There are always limits to growth, but I doubt that Cherenkov knows where they are.

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Luis de Sousa on March 21, 2006 - 4:00am

Hi Poet.

All of what you say is pretty good, and in the long run energy is still arround, we'll just have to learn how to use it.

But, if Peak Oil is coming in the next 5 years, you can't tackle it with technology that will be ready 20 years from now (at the best). I think you are familiar with the Hirsch report, so I don't have to tell you this.

Beyond this there's a much deeper problem with agriculture. In the XX century we lived with high intensity single-crop systems based on Oil. That will not last forever, someday in the (near?) future we'll have to go back to multi-crop systems, and it is highly doubtfull that 9000 million or even 6500 million people can be sustained that way.

Just because there are solutions to a problem it doesn't mean that there isn't one.

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Engineer-Poet on March 21, 2006 - 7:12am

if Peak Oil is coming in the next 5 years, you can't tackle it with technology that will be ready 20 years from now (at the best).

True, but IIRC tech like molten-carbonate fuel cells (of which direct-carbon fuel cells are a variant) is nearly commercial already. The USA can handle things in the short term by scrapping SUV's, and companies like Rentech are already building coal-to-liquids stuff.

Beyond this there's a much deeper problem with agriculture. In the XX century we lived with high intensity single-crop systems based on Oil. That will not last forever

Chemically-fixed nitrogen needs can be supplied from crop wastes, at least in maize. I've seen no analysis for phosphate, so I can't say. Rentech is converting an E. Dubuque nitrate plant from n. gas to coal; we're not going to see any near-term collapses there either.

we'll have to go back to multi-crop systems, and it is highly doubtfull that 9000 million or even 6500 million people can be sustained that way.

I calculated that we could support a great deal more than that (on far less area) using aquaculture.

Just because there are solutions to a problem it doesn't mean that there isn't one.

Um, what?

Take your time clarifying your response - I'm going away for 3 weeks, so there's no hurry.

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Luis de Sousa on March 21, 2006 - 10:09am

Hi again Poet.

IIRC tech like molten-carbonate fuel cells

I don't have a clue of what this might be. I googled it and it return 8 results. One is your blog, another is this thread. Small results for a nearly commercial technology.

Can you tell us what this is? Maybe you can put in your blog?

I calculated that we could support a great deal more than that (on far less area) using aquaculture.

Very interesting, I'm pretty much into this subject myself, I'm trying to calculate the Planet's carrying capacity using multi-crop systems like Norfolk. How did you made your calculations?

As for chemicals, from what I learned its main function is to make crops grow faster, that's the way you support more people with the same land area. Using other nutrients (from animals or crop waste) the crops will grow but slower.

I know a hydroponics freak, I've discussed with him about this issue a lot. What I learned from it is that you can't grow every crop that way.

In my last sentence I tried to say this:
You have a problem - Peak Oil
You have a major solution - Solar
But still you have a problem to solve. It won't solve itsef.

Poet, you seem to have large knowledge about theese issues. Have you heard of the Beyond Peak Competition? Are you thinking of participating?

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stranger on March 21, 2006 - 6:09am

the Sun delivers humanity's annual energy consumption to Earth in roughly 40 minutes. . . there's something like 72 TW (that's TERAwatts) of wind power potentially available in the world; that's enough to give each member of a world population of 9 billion more energy per capita than the average European - as pure electricity, no conversion losses. That doesn't include available energy and materials from e.g. waste biomass.

When you say 'no conversion losses', does that mean you did or didnt calculate for conversion losses. Does that include losses from making,implementing,and maintaining the infrustructure? Im curious how much metal(silver, platinum, copper etc.) it would take to capture enough of this wind/solar energy for everyone. How much arable land would be used? At what point would we run out of these things?

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Engineer-Poet on March 21, 2006 - 7:01am

When you say 'no conversion losses', does that mean you did or didnt calculate for conversion losses.

It means that the 72 TW is electrical power out, not thermal power in (which is what's used in the "400 quads/year" figure for total human energy consumption). To get effective thermal power in, multiply by three.

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neuroil on March 21, 2006 - 9:17am

The problem with peak oil as I understand it, is not only that energy production will peak. That is the first step in gathering this concept. The global problem is that this will mean that the most valuable asset of world economy is going to disapear. Our whole system is based on the growth of oil supply which is an asset because it is :

- an energy "source" (in fact is solar energy stored for the long term)
- a prime matter : for fertilizers, pesticides, medicines, solvents, plastics, ...

If you believe that segmentation in that way of the peak oil problem will solve it, I must say that you should look more at the intricacies of the oil economy. An example : look at the price of all the other prime matters and energy sources (like uranium). Think about it : why does your bank lend you some money ?

Of course, there are substitutes for a lot of applications, in theory. We can imagine another world with new paradigms in which we can take care of 6 000 000 000 human beeings. But this will require :

an unprecedented effort in informing people, just everybody. This will mean, repower our schools, bring back the lust to learn and to teach. Begin yesterday.
to increase the number of researchers and engineers by 100 or better 1000 times the actual number
to create a new philosophical and economic system

I for myself believe in human ingenuity. I don't believe that the economy will solve this on its own. History teaches us that if you want to resset the entropy of society, you need a huge shock. This could be the first time that we could change on our own, with conscious behaviour through information. An incredible powerful tool exists : the media. Could we, humans, for once be more intelligent than yeast ?

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Engineer-Poet on April 13, 2006 - 7:43pm

... increase the number of researchers and engineers by 100 or better 1000 times the actual number

While a more educated and scientifically and economically literate population would be a good thing (and so would a society which had far less use for lawyers), I think you're exaggerating just a little there.

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wkwillis on March 21, 2006 - 11:51am

I believe that a city in India was abandoned because it was built in an area with only limited supplies of water that didn't recharge quickly, so they had to evacuate it. Some capital of the Moghuls. No citation. It's still there because no one lives there.

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