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Olduvai revisited 2008
Posted by Luis de Sousa on February 28, 2008 - 11:15am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: alternative energy, energy per capita, olduvai, peak coal, peak natural gas, peak oil, population [list all tags]
Foreword My first post at TOD was published by Heading Out about 2 years ago on this same subject. Some rather naïve forecasts were made back then, without exactly addressing the main subject: can Mankind avoid the Road to the Olduvai Gorge? This is a first try in answering that question.
The work on this article started in the Spring of 2007, when Euan Mearns tried to show that Peak Oil does not necessarily imply an Energy crunch. Partly due to my critique, Euan's work would never see the light of day. Sometime later, Euan and I started working together on the work reported here, focusing on Conventional Fossil Fuels (FF). The fact that several studies on future Coal reserves and extraction rates were published in the interim, facilitated our work.
This work would end up being a collective post by TOD:E, Rembrandt kindly provided historical FF data and Chris Vernon would solve some issues with the conversion of primary energy to heat. An important leap towards the conclusion of this work was made during the weekend of the 1st of December, when the TOD:E staff gathered in Paris, kindly hosted by Jérôme.
Introduction The Olduvai Gorge Theory was first laid out by Richard Duncan in 1989, when he observed that world energy per capita had been declining for a decade. He developed the concept of Electrical Civilization, the way of life made possible by widespread and abundant electricity and set it to the period in which world energy per capita is above 30% of its all-time peak. The Theory was postulated it in the following way:
- Industrial Civilization can be described by a single pulse waveform of duration X, as measured by average energy-use per person per year.
- The life-expectancy of Industrial Civilization is less than one-hundred (100) years: i.e., X < 100 years.
Figure 1 - The three phases of the Olduvai Decline. Source: WolfAtTheDoor.
The post-peak period develops in three phases:
- The Olduvai Slope – a period of slow decline;
- The Olduvai Slide – a period triggered by Peak Oil when decline would accelerate;
- The Olduvai Cliff – the collapse of Electrical Civilization with overwhelming decline of energy per capita.
As the years went by it became clear that world energy per capita was in a plateau, not a decline, and in 2005 the 1979 peak was surpassed. Still, almost ninety percent of the total energy used world wide comes from fossil fuels. If such dependence on finite resources remains, the Olduvai Theory may eventually unfold.
Figure 2 - World Primary Energy Per Capita. Population from UN, Energy from BP BOE - barrels oil equivalent.
This work tries to assess how the decline of Conventional Fossil Fuels may unfold and how can Mankind avoid the Road that may take us back to the Olduvai Gorge.
The Future of Conventional Fossil Fuels
In the context of this work, Conventional Fossil Fuels represents the kinds of these resources in production today. These may include fuels usually called Unconventional like the Tar Sands or Coal Bed Methane. It is assumed that none of the Unconventional Fuels Fossil will have a visible impact on the overall world energy production for two main reasons: the volumes produced are unlikely to be significant (e.g. Tar Sands) and the net energy balance of some is doubtfully positive (e.g. Ultra-deep Offshore). The one exception is Coal where in-situ gasification might turn important Resources into Reserves (this issue will be dealt with later).Our approach has been to use what we regard as the best researched and most reliable estimates for future global oil natural gas and coal production. Each fuel is re-based in "oil equivalent". And we use the UN population forecasts to derive a per capita FF forecast. However, the main objective of this work is to develop scenarios for alternative energies (nuclear and renewables) that may partially fill the energy gap left by declining FF. These scenarios are not forecasts but have been produced to illustrate the scale of the energy problem that now confronts Mankind.
Oil For Oil, the forecast made by Khebab using a Loglets Transform, was chosen. This scenario is in line with those of several other researchers: Jean Lahèrrere, Colin Campbell, Chris Skebrowski and Kenneth Deffeyes. Laid down this way, Oil Production peaks by 2012.
Figure 3 - Conventional Oil Forecast (including NGL) according to the Loglets Transform.
Natural Gas
The scenario chosen for Natural Gas is that produced by Jean Laherrère portraying a peak by 2030. This scenario can be considered optimistic to some extent, but takes into account the high degree of uncertainty on Natural Gas forecasting, among other reasons, due to poor data on past discovery and production. This forecast also includes Coal Bed Methane and other Unconventional gas sources.
Figure 4 - Natural Gas Forecast (including Unconventional). Source: Jean Laherrère [pdf!].
Coal
Coal has been regarded as an infinite resource on a generation time scale, but recent assessments imply otherwise. The following graph shows three independent forecasts, by Jean Laherrère, the Energy Watch Group and David Rutledge, all peaking before mid-century. Of these the one made by the Energy Watch Group was chosen, for being at the midst of the three and for the thoroughness involved in its production. This scenario presents a plateau roughly from 2020 to 2040.
Figure 5 - Conventional Coal Forecasts. Sources: Jean Laherrère [pdf!], Energy Watch Group and David Rutledge. Click for large version.
Fossil Fuel Olduvai
When added together these three forecasts present an overall Conventional Fossil Fuels peak by 2018, forming a single cycle which by itself is a notable result. If for instance a higher Coal estimate is used, the peak hardly moves and the only visible effect is a slowdown of the decline.
Figure 6 - Together the Conventional Fossil Fuels are set to peak before 2020 describing a single cycle.
Sources: Jean Laherrère [pdf!] for Natural Gas, Energy Watch Group for Coal and The Oil Drum for Oil. Click for large version.
A population model was developed using United Nations data, to which a single logistic cycle was adjusted. World Population tops 7 billion just after 2010, reaches 8 billion before 2030, 9 billion by 2050 and stabilizes after that to end up in 9.8 billion by the end of the century.
Figure 7 - Population growth model using a single logistic cycle.
Base data source: UN. Click for large version.
The outcome of these models is a Fossil Fuel per capita peak by 2012 in tandem with Peak Oil, although it is maintained above 10 barrels of oil equivalent from now up to 2020. By 2050 that number is below 6 barrels of oil equivalent per capita declining to just above 1 by the end of the century. Led by the Conventional Fossil Fuels, the Olduvai Pulse is interpreted to be much longer than anticipated by Duncan, extending its life for 160 years, from 1910 to 2070.
Figure 8 - Forecast for Conventional Fossil Fuels per Capita.
Sources: UN for Population model, Jean Laherrère [pdf!] for Natural Gas, Energy Watch Group for Coal and The Oil Drum for Oil. Click for large version.
The total useful energy drawn from Conventional Fossil Fuels equates today to more than 300 Twh every day, or the equivalent to 4250 Nuclear power plants working non-stop.
The Scenarios
Henceforth this article tries to assess what actions are required for the current standards of living to be sustained throughout the XXI century. Using again the United Nations population forecast the build up of alternative energy infrastructure is determined in order to compensate for the decline of Conventional Fossil Fuels.Four different scenarios are presented: two in which several alternative energy sources are used to cover the gap left by the Fossil Fuels. And two others where world energy use undergoes a significant efficiency improvement enabling living standards to be maintained on a much lower per capita energy consumption. A fifth scenario, where world population declines significantly is not presented here.
The alternative energy sources considered are the following:
The basic infrastructure unit used corresponds to a 1 Gw plant operating at full capacity.
The basic infrastructure unit used corresponds to a 600 Mw plant operating at full capacity.
The infrastructure units correspond to 3 Mw turbines operating at 30% load for Onshore Wind and to 5 Mw turbines at 40% load for Offshore.
The basic infrastructure unit reflects the average insulation at 40º latitude per Km2 captured with an efficiency of 15%.
These alternative energy sources were compared to the Fossil Fuels on the grounds of the electricity they produce. To generate useful energy, Fossil Fuels generally undergo a process in which they are transformed into heat that is then captured as motion, electricity, etc. With some of the alternative energy sources a similar process takes place (e.g. a Nuclear reactor that heats water into steam that turns a turbine generating electricity).
Figure 9 - Simple schematics of a Carnot heat engine.
Primary Energy refers to Qin, Useful Energy to work done (W). The engine's efficiency is given by W/Qin.
Click to know more.
Given that for most of the alternatives the nameplate generation capacity refers to electricity output, the numbers shown henceforth refer to this stage of energy generation. For the primary energy to heat transformation an efficiency of one third was used. This is a postulated round number that seems representative enough; a combined cycle Natural Gas power plant probably achieves a higher efficiency, while for a Daimler internal combustion engine it will likely be lower. As an example, using this efficiency number, a 1 Gw Nuclear power plant operating during an hour replaces 3 Gwh of primary energy from the Fossil Fuels (approximately 1800 boe).
Before moving on two important implicit assumptions of these scenarios should be made explicit:
- Net Energy – it is assumed that the overall Energy Return on Investment of these alternatives is exactly the same of the overall Conventional Fossil Fuels. That is hardly the case, but the difficulty in assessing Net Energy accurately impedes a sound analysis on this ground. Especially in the case of Coal, that likely has a return on investment much higher that the other sources, this issue could be determinant. Future work will have to address this problem.
- Energy Vectors – it is assumed that all energy vectors are substituted by electricity (the only exception being passive solar use: cooking, water heating, etc). The reasons why will be explained in future work, but it implies the build up of additional infrastructure that is not present in the numbers shown below.
The following curves will show the number of new plants or equipments needed each year to cover the lag left by the fossil fuel decline.
Scenario I – A single energy source.
In this first scenario it is shown how each of these energy sources can tackle the energy gap left by declining FF on its own. In this case, new infrastructure must be deployed starting in 2018 rising fast to a peak deployment rate before 2040 and then slowly easing down. At peak, more than 4 500 Thw must be generated from new infrastructure. By the end of the century this sums up to a 140 000 Twh of energy generated per year from alternative energy sources.
| Scenario I | New infrastructure per year at peak | Total infrastructure in 2100 |
| Nuclear | 90 | 5 400 |
| Coal | 155 | 9 000 |
| Offshore Wind | 46 000 | 2 700 000 |
| Onshore Wind | 100 000 | 6 000 000 |
| Solar (Km2) | 3 000 | 190 000 |
Scenario II – Three simultaneous energy sources.
The second scenario considers the case where three of these alternative energy sources are deployed simultaneously to fill the energy gap. This results in the previous numbers being divided by three, with the following curves assuming that two other alternative energy sources are being stepped up simultaneously. Peak is now at 1 500 Twh generated per year from each additional source, reaching more than 45 000 Twh generated per source per year by the end of the century.
| Scenario II | New infrastructure per year at peak | Total infrastructure in 2100 |
| Nuclear | 30 | 1 800 |
| Coal | 50 | 3 000 |
| Offshore Wind | 15 000 | 900 000 |
| Onshore Wind | 35 000 | 2 000 000 |
| Solar (Km2) | 1 000 | 60 000 |
The Efficiency Wedge
For the remaining scenarios a world wide improvement in energy efficiency is factored in. Presently the world's consumption of fossil fuels is close to 70 Gboe (just over 10 boe/cap/a), while the global GDP is just under 70 T$. This results in less than 1 000 dollars generated for each barrel of oil equivalent consumed. The following graph shows the relation between fossil fuel use and GDP per capita in several countries, both developed and developing nations, excluding the Middle East oil producers.
Figure 12 - GDP generated per barrel of oil equivalent consumed of Fossil Fuels. GDP from Wikipedia, Energy from BP.
World average GDP per capita was calculated with data from more than 180 countries resulting in 10 000 dollars per year. Using the trend in Figure 12 it becomes apparent that such average wealth standards should be sustained with just 5 barrels of oil equivalent per capita per year. This results in an efficiency of 2 000 dollars produced per barrel of oil equivalent, a number that is used as the target for global energy use efficiency.
The trend also shows that higher income countries are those that tend to have lower energy efficiency. So being, a global increase in energy efficiency use would be achieved mostly at the expense of developed nations. Some highly populated developing nations with lower energy use efficiency would likely also need some improvements.
No assumptions are made concerning wealth distribution, it is just set that, on average, each barrel of oil equivalent generates 2 000 dollars of GDP worldwide. Such is already the case in several countries, both developed and developing nations, as seen in the following table:
| Country | GDP(US$)/boe(FF) |
| Colombia | 3 348 |
| Peru | 2 897 |
| India | 2 698 |
| Switzerland | 2 673 |
| Sweden | 2 599 |
| Argentina | 2 451 |
| France | 2 326 |
| Norway | 2 312 |
| Republic of Ireland | 2 210 |
| United Kingdom | 2 207 |
| Austria | 2 204 |
| Hungary | 2 097 |
| Italy | 2 089 |
| Pakistan | 2 051 |
| Denmark | 2 028 |
| Brasil | 2 018 |
| Germany | 1 887 |
| China | 1 730 |
| USA | 1 274 |
| Canada | 1 052 |
| Saudi Arabia | 462 |
Reflecting this relation a model was thus developed in which the fraction of today's annual energy (derived from the fossil fuels) use per capita slowly declines throughout the XXI century to 5 barrels of oil equivalent (approximately 2.8 Mwh of useful energy).
Figure 13 - The Efficiency Wedge model: primary energy needs per capita fall to 5 boe/a (8.5 Mwh/a) through the XXI century.
In light of this model the previous scenarios are revisited. The build up curves are markedly different, showing two distinct phases of growth. At first the alternative energy sources must grow rapidly to fill the gap, but as the efficiency wedge factors in, the build up almost stalls by mid century. Then, as the conventional fossil fuels reach their final days the build up has to slowly increase again.
Figure 14 - With the Efficiency Wedge the build up curves start latter and exhibit two distinct phases of growth.
Scenario III – A single energy source with efficiency wedge.
Scenario III illustrates the amount of new infrastructure required for each of the alternatives assuming that the energy efficiency wedge reduces our consumption by half towards the end of the XXI century . Infrastructure build up now peaks just under 1 500 Twh additionally generated per year, summing 60 000 Twh of energy generated per year by 2100.
| Scenario III | New infrastructure per year at peak | Total infrastructure in 2100 |
| Nuclear | 55 | 2 200 |
| Coal | 90 | 3 700 |
| Offshore Wind | 28 000 | 1 100 000 |
| Onshore Wind | 62 000 | 2 500 000 |
| Solar (Km2) | 2 000 | 75 000 |
Scenario IV – Three simultaneous energy sources with efficiency wedge.
The last scenario looks at three alternatives simultaneously tackling the energy gap with the efficiency wedge reducing consumption. Infrastructure build up now peaks with 500 Twh additionally generated per year, summing 20 000 Twh generated per year by century's end.
| Scenario IV | New infrastructure per year at peak | Total infrastructure in 2100 |
| Nuclear | 19 | 740 |
| Coal | 30 | 1 200 |
| Offshore Wind | 9 300 | 370 000 |
| Onshore Wind | 21 000 | 820 000 |
| Solar (Km2) | 640 | 25 000 |
Conclusion
According to our analysis, conventional fossil fuels are set to peak in a decade or so and following that, decline will open an ever widening gap from today's per capita energy use. Based on finite FF resources, energy per capita is indeed headed towards a cliff, and this may lead Mankind back to the Olduvai Gorge if action is not taken to address this problem. Many of those who have studied this problem in the past have concluded that the journey back to Olduvai is unavoidable.The analysis presented here suggests that it is within the capacity of human endeavor to build new energy gathering infrastructure to substitute for the decline in conventional fossil fuels. By combining energy efficiency measures with the simultaneous expansion of solar, wind and nuclear energy Mankind may secure a civilised existence for the XXI century. A tremendous opportunity exists to build a more sustainable energy future and building this future will provide vast opportunity for economic growth and prosperity.
Figure 17 - Useful Energy from the Fossil Fuels.
The solid areas reflect the useful energy got from the Fossil Fuels according to the data and models used. The dashed lines reflect the total energy needed to maintain current standards of energy use per capita, with the orange line also factoring in the efficiency wedge model.
Click for large version.
The next two to three decades are crucial, where the fastest build of alternative infrastructure is needed, and when the efficiency wedge will have the slowest effect. But the numbers contemplated here are not insurmountable, and should be tackled with the right commitment and timely action.
To all the humans facing the Road to the Olduvai Gorge, Good Luck!
Luís de Sousa
Euan Mearns
TheOilDrum:Europe
Annex
Following is a spreadsheet with the data and calculations involved in the making of this article:Open Document version:
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Olduvai2008.ods [240Kb]
Microsoft version:
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Olduvai2008.xls [660Kb]
Luis - thank you for including me as co-author on this piece of work. I think I need to clarify for all that you have done 99% of this work that has taken many months to produce.
Many, many months ago now I did some data analysis and noticed that the per capita energy consumption from FF was rising. I also observed that gas and coal production may continue to rise for a number of years yet and on this basis concluded that Duncan's Olduvai theory failed the empirical test. Nate sent this to Duncan who was furious. I submitted the post for publication on TOD - but failing to sleep rose at about 3 am and withdrew the work. A year or so later we have this much more refined product from Luis. Richard Duncan's seminal work on this topic still stands - all we have done here is refine the time scale in light of new data and the benefit of time passing. Without VERY urgent action on building alternative energy sources (that exist - they just need to be built) and on energy efficiency Mankind will stroll back down the path towards Olduvai.
This work is an attempt to quantify what needs to be done to avoid this path. Whether or not it is within our capacity to achieve this both physically and behaviorally is open to debate. If we do not rise to the challenge the future is very bleak 2012 peak oil, 2018 peak FF energy.
Getting politicians, policy makers, leading academics and decision makers to grasp these issues has to be a major priority. The fact that this work is being conducted in the twilight world of The Oil Drum is really astounding. Although I am really encouraged by the number of senior academics who contribute to the work presented here. This twilight world will one day very soon be the mainstream.
I would like everyone to note the absolute importance that energy efficiency plays in the path away from Olduvai. Without that we are screwed - TOTALLY. Every action and policy we implement from now on must be based on the premise of energy efficiency - both consumption and production.
Hear hear! Nice work fellas. And Euan, when you say energy efficiency on the consumption side, I assume that means changing the conspicuous consumption paradigm, at least gradually, for if we get really efficient at producing profligate energy wasting toys, what have we done but buy a few extra years? We need it all - more oil and gas exploration, full investment into the highest energy gain/lowest environmental externality renewable sources (meaning there will be sources that should and shouldn't be accepted), smart building and efficiency improvements, and a gradual change away from consipicuous consumption as our cultural carrot. It can be done - but we can't sit on our arses until Olduvai, or something like it, wakes us up.
I know the 'twilight zone' of theoildrum is making a difference, yet am discouraged by how vociferously we debunked corn ethanol for the last 18 months as a waste of time and resources given what we are facing, and still the government went pretty much full speed ahead with ethanol mandates as the major thrust of becoming energy independent. Perhaps in this situation, the US will have to take the lead from Europe, who, though in similar straights, seems to be taking energy descent more seriously.
keep up the good work lads.
Yes, of course and no of course not. I think the efficiency of consumption maybe needs to be broken down into parts. Better insulation in homes, eating more vegetables, more efficient cars are all good things - consumption goes on whilst saving a lot of energy.
The next step would be persuading more people to share a home = less home building; to eat less food and to bicycle instead of drive. All good things as well involving less consumption.
Delivering the former efficiency gains I believe will be much easier than the latter consume less paradigm shift in attitudes. The problem is that hardly any of this is happening right now.
Luis' data on GDP per BOE I think is fascinating and quantifies what we already know. The USA along with Canada and surprisingly Germany and China need to get their acts together. There are likely two main messages in these data:
1. Manufacturing is an energy intensive way of generating GDP - so less manufacturing is good
2. The USA, Canada and Saudi Arabia simply piss away vast amounts of energy - and this will have to stop
I'd strongly disagree with the blanket "less manufacturing is good".
Pehaps we should manufacture better quality more durable goods, what would stand for less manufacture, but not less wealth. Or pehaps we should manufacture more solar/wind/nuclear capcity to fill the gap, what would stand for more manufacturing. Or probably both.
Manufacturing may be more energy intensive than other wealth creating means, but we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today.
"we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today."
As a programmer I find fault with this statement.
As a programmer I find fault with the idea that you find fault with that statement. A simple logical path will lead you to manufacturing no matter what industry you "program" for. Let's start with the manufactured machinery you work upon shall we? Then try and find any service industry that isn't intimately linked to some form of manufacturing. Real-estate would be close to the only one, and even it requires the wealth generated through manufacturing to raise prices (and dare I say it population), as well as the results of manufacturing to produce houses and farm machinery etc etc to make the land worth buying in the first place.
Without the mass-production, specialisation-facilitating society we live in there would be no need for computers, much less programmers.
""we've developed no other way of generating the amount of wealth we have today. As a programmer I find fault with this statement." As a programmer I find fault with the idea that you find fault with that statement. A simple logical path will lead you to manufacturing no matter what industry you "program" for. "
He said manufacturing isn't the only source of wealth, you said that manufacturing is an essential base. Both are true.
He's saying that programming, for instance, isn't manufacturing, yet it is a valuable, productive thing to do. You'd agree, right?
I call the idea that manufacturing (or farming, etc) is the most important thing, and the only source of value, the "garbageman fallacy". In NYC, sanitation workers used to say that they were the most important workers of all, because the city couldn't run without them. We can see the flaw in that, I hope...
Programming cannot be done (for any useful purpose) by just thinking about it. It needs computers and power. Power needs power plants and transmission lines. Ultimately, increasing wealth (economic growth) requires more resources for making stuff or doing stuff.
Hey us programmers need to eat or at least drink beer :)
Last I looked although I work at home don't drive much etc I still use a lot of resources.
Its just that programmers and support could be made pretty green with some work.
Also if programming itself would start advancing again then the number of programmers needed at any one given time could be fairly static or decline quite a bit overtime.
"Last I looked although I work at home don't drive much etc I still use a lot of resources."
That's an interesting question - how does one factor in people's consumption into their work?
My point is that the work itself doesn't require significant energy or materials - 10 cents of electricity per day, and $2/day for computer capital costs (a $1,500 laptop every 3 years).
Of course it depends on the life style but providing fore employees is a fairly static cost regardless of what they do. A large amount of middle class Americans are engaged in paper pushing because others are engaged in paper pushing.
I can see it in programming you have the huge convoluted mess that at its center is caused by a simple problem say one piece of information was not recorded or shared. Or the company has some stupid rule that wastes incredible amounts of time.
From what I've seen most productivity games are a myth. Things are outsourced and look better just because you have a simpler accounting schema. Real productivity is in the toilet. And trust me the overseas worker working for slave wages is not the most motivated person on the planet. All this is hidden in bad business loans in china and pumping debt in the US.
As with anything the shorter the chain of responsibility and the more a person is correctly rewarded for success or failure the better the business. Incorrect accounting practices have managed to hide this basic truth of business.
This rolls right back into energy/resource accounting to determine real profitability and gdp. True growth is increased ownership and no debt.
This give people the freedom to explore innovative business ventures.
Speculation on borrowed money/energy/resources is the root of collapse from the personal level all the way up.
"Programming cannot be done (for any useful purpose) by just thinking about it. It needs computers and power. "
Yes, but it needs very, very little compared to manufacturing. Think smelting, metal stamping, transportation of parts, assembly lines, transportation of finished products, etc. vs.....a laptop, using as little as 50 watts.
Without all that "smelting, metal stamping, transportation of parts, assembly lines, transportation of finished products, etc." there is no reason to have a computer. Computers are not an end in themeselves. They make it easier for people to do the "real" work of making things. Manufactured things are what drives any economy. Services, such as programming, make it easier to make those things and get them to where people can use them, but they aren't really required in the process.
Programming is an example of "services". Services aren't just support for manufacturing, they're a good thing in themselves.
Medical care, art & literature, entertainment, communication.
Arguably, manufacturing is a means to the end of enjoying services. They're certainly not a meaningless support function for manufacturing.
I have been having this discussion with sofistek for months. He is trying to prove that growth per se is bad. I have argued that it depends on the growth. That intellectual capital is different. He seems to deny that services are a real part of the economy even though they are becoming more and more dominant. This whole growth is bad topic is important but not very condusive to rational discussion. It is such an article of faith with that faction.
This isn't logical. It's important, but not useful? Logical impossibility, no? Growth is the very core of the problem you are discussing. If there were no growth, there would essentially be no problem. You'd have a great deal more time to find solutions. Hell, to go back further, neither you nor I would exist. No, we must discuss growth in order to find solutions that are sustainable. By definition, a solution that is sustainable within limits is not sustainable.
If you are going to redesign civilization as we know it, you'd darned sure better pay attention to the future.
Cheers
Sterling, I do not deny that services are a real part of the economy. I don't think you were saying that, anyway, so please don't misrepresent my position or the discussion we had. You were trying to say that parts of the economy that were represented by intellectual capital can grow without requiring more resources. I was pointing out that there is no real value in intellectual capital unless it is applied in some way. That application uses resources and so even that part of the economy would require more resources, if it was to grow in any meaningful way. I was also saying that parts of the economy don't represent the whole economy so, even if you could find part of the economy that can grow without using more resources, it would not the the same as sustainable economic growth overall.
You now try to portray services as the saviour that can allow the economy to grow indefinitely. What services are you talking about? Which ones use no energy or resources in their set up or delivery?
Why is it so hard to let go of economic growth? Growth in the use of resources cannot be sustained. It is not really hard to understand but it sure is hard to accept.
Because your formulation is too simplistic to be useful. Because you lump all kinds of economic growth together, kinds that are physical resource intensive and kinds that are not, you are targeting the wrong issue.
One can easily imagine a situation where you have strong economic growth but declining resource utilization, which is probably what would be best for the world. Let say I write some software that allows people to work at home two days a week and let's say people love it and are willing to pay more for it than they save in gas, etc. You rule that out it because it increases the economic. It is economic growth.
As long as we have people in the world, they have to do something. If the value of what they do increases in value, you have economic growth. Do you just want people to do nothing? They cannot think, write music and imagine?
Sustainablity is another too simplistic concept but I have to go out now. I hope to get back to that later.
Too simplistic? What matters to today's societies is economic growth as a whole. What does it matter that some parts of the economy are less resource intensive than others, if the other parts of the economy are needed for our survival and well-being, or at least perceived as being so? If we eliminate all parts of the economy except those where thought alone is necessary, do you think people would be happy with that?
I don't rule out efficiency gains but you seem to think that if we can be realise economic growth for some short period without more resource use, that means that economic growth can continue indefinitely without using more resources. If we can improve efficiency, that's great, but what is the long term sustainability plan? Without that, we would just be delaying an inevitable collapse.
However, even if you can imagine a fabulous future where no-one uses any more resources than they do now, and population is stable, do you think that would be a society that is remotely like what we have now?
Sustainability is certainly a simple concept but few people seem to realise what it means. Try reading Richard Heinberg's Five Axioms of Sustainability. But there is nothing simplistic about it; if a society is not sustainable, then it will end. Why is that so hard to understand?
Yes, but it matters if it would end before or after the earth is consumed by the sun.
The only level of consumption of a limited resource that is completely sustainable is 0. At current rates of consumption, it is not clear if fission fuel would run out before the Earth becomes unlivable for reasons that have nothing to do with people. So is that sustainable by any reasonable definition of the word? And if we increase the use of nuclear power and I am wrong and Uranium runs out in 5,000 to 10,000 years is that a problem if before that happens we harness fusion?
There is nothing magic about the level of how we currently value everything that people do (the world GDP). There is no reason to think that the current level of consumption of limited resource is OK and that a little more is impossible. It might be that the only way the world can survive is that we reduce our consumption of limited physical resources and that the only way we can do this is to increase the production of intellectual capital in figuring out how to do it. In other words, it might be that we count the value of everything that people do as rising (ie economic growth) but we reduce the things that impact the world in ways that threaten our survival.
Your idea that economic growth of any kind is bad puts you in the position of insisting that someone write a really shitty song instead of a really good one because the really good one would have too much economic value and therefore increase the economic value of everything too much (ie economic growth). Your fixation that the market value of everything that people do has to stay the same undermines the legitimate case that you are trying to make. We should limit the consumption of limited resources, including environmental quality, wild lands and other such intangibles. But economic growth is not a useful measure of how well or poorly we are treating the earth because it mixes high impact activities with low impact ones and people have to do something.
Of course it's not clear, but the reverse is also not clear. Unless one has certain beliefs.
That's a couple of "if"s in there. Which is part of my point.
Of course there are reasons. A good reason would be if the current level can be sustained for, let's say, several centuries without it causing problems, whilst a little more might not be sustained for a century. If we just assume that all of the resources we now consider vital are abundant enough and accessible enough to not worry about it for now, then that could turn out to be a fatal assumption.
That sounds good. I can't see how that could happen without our society becoming very different from what we know today. Do you know if anyone has done any work on how this might play out?
You're caught in the economic growth paradigm, with that analogy. Economic growth is bad because it uses increasing resources and, thus, is unsustainable. If we level out our use, as you suggest earlier, that would be a good starting point and it wouldn't be economic growth.
Again, you are using the paradigm that we currently have. Why must everything have a "market value"? What has to, at least, stay the same is our level of resource consumption. Do you have any comments on the axioms of sustainability that I linked to earlier?
Like I said, there is nothing magic about the current rate of economic growth where the outlook would suddenly change, like in your example, if we increased it by say .1% per year.
So I am in favor of our society becoming different than it is today. Less resouce consumptive. More intellectual capital.
You are the one who is obsessed with market value. The way you measure economic growth is to total up the market value of everything that people do in a year and compare it to the market value of the prior year. If it is greater, then you have “economic growth”. The reason that market value comes into play is that your measure is “economic” instead of “physical” or maybe “destructive”. That is my point.
OK then make that argument. Do not say economic growth has to stay the same. Say resource consumption has to say the same. Or limited resource consumption has to stay the same. I will debate that one with you too but at least there you are starting from a more defensible position.
I have never said that. Nor am I obsessed with market value. What I'd like is to achieve indefinite sustainability.
You appear to be claiming that economic growth (which people appear to need in order to have aspirations) can continue by only growing intellectual capital. I don't believe it, but that would be great because that increasing intellectual capital would never result in anything tangible.
Resource consumption must not exceed the renewal capacity of those resources. This is not the same as saying resource consumption must stay the same, though we will need to get to that point, at a lower rate of consumption for at least some resources. The five axioms described by Heinberg gives more details. That would be a good place to start from.
OK. I am with you for that with indefinately meaning a long time but not forever. I think we can achieve that by switching to a fission, wind and solar infrastructure and have contining economic growth as the economy shifts more to intellectual goods like arts, software and services. There are at least millions of years of fission fuel where the consumption rate is twenty times what it is now and fission supplies 60% of all energy. Well before that the world will almost certainly switch to fusion power, which would be sustainable at least through the time the Earth is consumed by the Sun.
For other limited resources we may have to have rising consumption until we can stabilize the world population since we know that development in the only thing that reliably stops population growth. At that point we will have to reduce consumption of scarce resources to maintain long term viability. But the world economy will continue to grow through changes to low physical resource consumption activities as noted above.
Sterling
Ha, ha, ha ,ha, cough, splutter..........
Verbal sewerage that's all you write!
You are one mentally deluded Richard Cranium.
I think Engineer-Poet would be the only person who would fall for your garbage, why don't you look him up, you can give each other some blog fellatio.
Thanks for the reasoned critique.
Well, there are some whose research shows uranium reserves may only sustain current fission for a few decades. Other fissionable fuel may be available for longer but, at least to some degree, it is wishful thinking that it will enable nuclear generation for centuries, never mind millions of years. That may turn out to be correct but it's a gamble.
Do you honestly think that the world can shift most of its economy to those things that use very little resources? Again, that would be wishful thinking, in my book. The only one of arts, software and services that uses few resources is arts (since anything to hand can be made into art). Software is not an end in itself and there are all sorts of services, with the meaningful ones either being resource hungry themselves (e.g. building services or freight services) or leading to the manufacture of resource-using goods (like houses). Manufacturing and agricultural industries will continue to be very large, especially as we are heading for billions more people.
Your hope that the consumption other limited resources can continue to rise until they don't need to is, again, wishful thinking. It seems that you hope that business as usual (more or less) can continue until nature takes its course, population stabilises and business no longer see profits as a reason to do business.
That takes a lot of believing.
You seem to be arguing something thats entirely academic. The end of sustainability happens well after we've consumed the entire solar system.
Not exactly something thats topical today.
No, we are already unsustainable. That will become obvious not when we have consumed the entire solar system (which is an impossibility) but as soon as the supply of some vital resource can no longer meet the demand. There must be many resources that are vital to our societies, so the chances are quite good that scarcity will hit before too long.
The problem now is that growth itself is a goal. Economic growth for the sake of economic growth is a problem. Economic growth borne of need/survival is going to follow natural cycles. Slowing things down to a non-growth oriented paradigm will reduce the rate of use of resources. This should provide more time for development of technologies that aid this process.
Cheers
Only if the way you reduce economic growth slows down resource consumption. Since economic growth includes both high consumptive activities and low consumptive ones, it matters how you slow down growth. If you killed off all the low consumptive activities you could reduce overall economic growth while still increasing the use of limited physical resources.
People have to do something (unless you want to kill them all off). The economic level is just the market value of everything they do. It is possible to have an increasing market value of all that we do (economic growth) while at the same time that we reduce resource consumption. People just need to do more smart, creative, low resource consumptive things and less of the opposite.
Precisely. Of course certain parts of the economy need to grow. We need growth in energy efficient housing, renewable energy, walkable/ bikeable urban spaces, public transportation, food production systems which preserve topsoil and recycle nutrients, etc. In purely physical terms the growth of this important, sustainable infrastructure could proceed much faster if we shrunk those parts of the economy which are wasteful and necessary (e.g. SUVs, jet skis, plasma screen televisions, etc). We could also free up production resources by putting emphasis on manufacturing long-lived repairable products and eliminating planned obsolescence. We need an economic system which can grow those parts of the economy which need to be grown, shrink those parts which need to shrunk, and maintain with maximum efficiency (i.e. without concern for sales volumes) those parts of the economy which only need maintenance. Instead we have a system of production in which every sector of the economy is striving to grow as fast a possible without any concern for long term consequences.
If it needs resources, then it needs resources. It's pointless wishing that resource use away or saying that it's tiny, compared with some other part of the economy. In any case, programming was just an example and it doesn't happen in isolation, it is done for a purpose and that other purpose may use more resources.
We just can't do stuff without using resources. The more stuff we do, and the more stuff we use, the more resources we use. The key is to figure out how to use resources sustainably and that can't be done with growth.
"If it needs resources, then it needs resources. It's pointless wishing that resource use away or saying that it's tiny, compared with some other part of the economy. "
Umm, no. If something takes very little resources, that's important. If a programmer/artist/writer/entertainer/medical researcher/doctor/poet/therapist/engineer/lawyer can do his/her work with only a laptop that lasts pretty much as long as you want it to, and can be powered by a $200 solar panel, that sounds pretty sustainable to me.
No it's not, because it is within the context of an unsustainable society. Programmers, medical researchers, doctors, engineers and lawyers don't do their work for no end. Artists, writers, poets and engineers do their work to be enjoyed by others, who can afford to enjoy them because of the rest of the economy. And all aspects of our society need to be taken as a whole. Even the aspects you mention add to resource use. Maybe if all parts of the economy could be as frugal in resource use, then our problems would be less. But that is wishful thinking and there is no reason to suppose that any pursuit, just because it is a low resource hog, can continue unchanged in a society that is suffering from being unsustainable as a whole.
There is a large tendency, even among the posters here, to treat aspects of the society in which they live as completely separate. Even the energy issue isn't the sum total of the problems we've accumulated by living unsustainably.
Oh come on you guys. These kind of dramatic behavior changes aren't going to happen, no way. We didn't work so hard for our creature comforts just to give them all up voluntarily. If you think otherwise you haven't studied the human animal enough.
Even I am not going to share my home with someone or bicycle in the winter if I don't have to. I'll deforest the entire area for fire wood before I start sharing my living space.
We're screwed. It's written in our genome. Your time line is probably too optimistic too because declining oil production will lead to all kinds of cascading failures including declining coal and gas production.
I hope you're being sarcastic.
I think that SolarDude makes an excellent point, although perhaps a bit exaggerated for effect.
Middle class people in high occasionally share their houses to make the mortgage, but usually the sharing is done with some modification; i.e., putting together a bedroom/bath suite out of two bedrooms, or renovating a basement. People with less money will take in relatives, or share with a friend.
I would expect that many of today's mansions will become multiple unit dwellings, and that more townhomes and low-rise apartments may be built. However, this will require zoning changes that will come only when people are in pretty bad shape.
I would expect growth in bicycle traffic to occur first in places that are bike-friendly (have trails and vehicle drivers who are not out to massacre bike riders), but in many places, I would expect very small, possibly electric or hybrid, that do not go much more than 50 for around-town. Of course, there are car polling and ride sharing which were common in the '70s.
I think that things will move more gradually and less drastically at least for 10-20 here in the U.S. We have a lot of fat that can be cut in the form of discretionary spending and tolerable adaptation.
I think that giving up one's own dwelling, however small, and covered personal transportation, however small, will be some of the last things to go.
will be one of the last things that most people will do
Yes, but when ppl are screwed and understand that they turn to common sense on the ground. They double up, they share, they car-pool, they trade locally, don’t pay VAT, etc. To mention some hyper contemporary yet minor examples.
They finally do, all on their own, what they were sincerely advised to do 50, 60 years ago in some vague way by scientists, activists, while the pols trumpeted endless prosperity, growth, expansion, consumer Nirvana, domination though caring and humanitarianism, new colonialism, technotopia, human exceptionalism, with a good dose of war and hate to keep the ppl on board and chugging along.
So we are screwed but it is gonna take quite a while.
Could you expand on this? Why was Duncan furious? I have often seen this argument used to "debunk" the Olduvai theory and I have often wondered what Duncan's response was.
Most people don't enjoy viewing what they might construe as a refutation of their work. I'd hope, and expect, Euan's description of it as an update with better data is accurate and would smooth things with the originator of Olduvai.
Perhaps I am being presumptuous on all counts and should let Euan speak for himself.
Great work, guys.
Cheers
PS: I'll hopefully be riffing off this on my blog sometime soon. Let me know if there is any objection.
EDIT: Riff complete.
http://aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.com/2008/02/lucy-were-hooooome.html
The original work I did was pretty incomplete and with a too short time horizon. Duncan has spent a huge amount of effort in quantifying future energy supplies and my initial analysis was admittedly unsound - but it never got published and has led on to this work.
The FF forecasting work presented here is all based on the work of others - so that part we are standing on the shoulders of giants. There is however a huge amount of work that Luis has done re-basing all systems to a common baseline and developing the population and GDP models and the various scenarios.
Duncan on the one hand I know has a pessimistic view of the future while DaveR I know believes that the expansion of new energy systems is well within our capabilities. The objective of this post was to try and quantify the scale of the problem that confronts us. At present I stand with the optimists and believe this is achievable - though ecologists among us will shiver at the thought. I am equally happy to take on board their holistic views about sustainability and build in a desire to have a lower future population on Earth - it makes the energy situation easier to handle.
The main problem we face is the intransigence of governments and corporations - and there is the distinct possibility that Mankind manages to snatch failure from the jaws of opportunity.
There was a documentary on the island nation of Tuvalu on one of the indy channels here last night.
The documentary started with the citizens of Tuvalu expressing their great concern that their island was "sinking" due to global warming. There were numerous shots illustrating the encroachment of the sea and consequent erosion of the island, and interviews describing recent floods beyond any the old-timers could remember.
Then the documentary went on to a $14 million windfall received by the residents of Tuvalu when a group of American businessmen bought the nation's ".tv" internet rights.
Of the $14 million, $1.5 million went for a seat at the UN, where a diplomat from Tuvalu tried to raise international concern about Tuvalu's global warming plight, and basically got nowhere.
The rest of the money went for roadbuilding and SUV's on the dinky island, as well as a small amount dedicated to attracting tourism.
When asked why they were building roads on a sinking island, the islanders asked what else they were supposed to do with the money? Why not make themselves more comfortable in their remaining years on the island?
I think people have very little actual free will and control over their own actions, especially when you get to large groups of people. Give them money, give them access to energy, and they will automatically pursue roads and SUVs. They can't help it.
You see it in the markets all the time. The way the pros make money in the markets is by betting against the hard-wired neuroeconomic tendencies of the masses. It's virtually impossible for the masses to overcome these tendencies, including on energy issues.
They could have build solar powered boats, so that when the time comes they could get off the island in a GW friendly way.
Or even better, they could use the islands while still above water as foundations for a raised platform like Sealand, only much larger, and with plenty of solar and wind - turn themselves into permanent energy islands. With the islands as foundations they could really build the things to be typhoon and tsunami proof. Design the things so that the upper surface is dedicated entirely to solar PV panels, solar water heaters, solar water distillation units, maybe a little CSP for some small scale industry (run a small forge so they can make a few repair parts, for example), and to gardens, orchards, livestock pasture, and recreational parks. All residences, offices, workshops, etc. are located underneath the top surface. They could really do something with this if they put their minds to it.
Oh yeah, I like that better. No sense leaving when you can adapt right where you are. Not to make light of GW and rising seas at all, but with enough money, they could do lots of very constructive things.
They had 14 million dollars, not 14 billion dollars.
I would hope it is obvious anything is possible. That really is not the problem. There are too many instances in history where the setting of the group mind to a goal has resulted in amazing achievements. OR, perhaps more often(and as sort of noted), the setting of rulers' (in all their varied and sundry forms) minds led to the marshalling of resources, by force or otherwise, to achieve things we now view as amazing. The US industrial base and WWII and the Great Wall are two good examples on opposite sides of the spectrum. (However, history is not rife with examples of collapse/decline being avoided.) I think we can safely dispense with what is not possible.
Our real concern is with what is probable. However, that discussion requires going into areas of debate that take us away from the practical discussion of solutions and into, and as far as, the murky world of conspiracy. Even when people are made aware of such things as the Gulf of Tonkin and GM vs. the electric car, they still refuse to acknowledge that there might currently be agendas that are not in line with the greater public good at work. The question then becomes, is it worth going into? If it isn't, how do we deal with the intransigence of governments and corporations which we know to be actively working against the greater public good? (E.g., Exxon/Bush and Cheney vs. Climate Change.)
Our concern then must be turned to the attitude of the average person. Faced with the enormity of Climate Change and Peak Oil in and of themselves, within a context of a civilization fraught with corruption and corporate distortion of governance, how can we reasonably expect people to not just throw up their hands and get on with the mundane or throw themselves into an orgy of living life to its hedonistic fullest?
It is this reality that causes me to espouse the local solutions over the grand global schemes of massive power grids. You ask someone to help their family or the neighbor they know vs. asking them to sacrifice for some Great Other, you are more likely to get them moving. This inertia may then provide the impetus for stitching things together into greater linkages. Of course, it is probably simple common sense to let each level of society do what they are best able to do. I.e., these two levels will almost certainly do as they are doing now: run parallel. Still, we cannot trust the gov't or the corporations to do what is in Joe Average's best interest and should assume we must do this for ourselves. Let the moneyed and the powerful build grids. Meanwhile, let us lesser folk build straw bale homes, homemade windmills and solar engines, etc.
This inependence of power will allow the Joe's to stand in opposition to or support the system that rises or continues from this point, depending on which way we go: Blackwater and martial law or a new Greatest Generation.
The posibilities are wide and, I submit, likely to be in one or the other extreme. The non-linearity of the present/coming change coupled with being in what Kenennedy would call the Acquisitive Age, the final stage before collapse, make this seem quite likely. Interestingly, while all the reviews of his book focus on the issue of balancing military and economic might with regard to the rise and fall of the US, what struck me in the book, and what I remembered, were the four cycles he describes civilizations/nations/powers going through. His description of the final stage perfectly describes where we are now. It is a time when acquisition is all. The excesses lead to ruin. The corrolary is overstretch and/or overconsumption for the wealthy and powerful nations. The problem is globalization has brought the entire world directly into the acquisitive stage. Many nations skipped directly to the final stage due to the influence of globalization. Korea is a good example, but of extreme speed in moving through the cycles, enabled by the global system.
After WWII and the Korean War, the nation was devastated. They first worked collectively towards the common goal. This is akin to the move of civilization to farming and towns/communities. They next fought for survival via miltarism and dictatorship. Next came the industrial development, leading to the ascendancy of ideas/ideals as stability was achieved, then into acquisitiveness as wealth was achieved. (It's been a very long time since reading the book, so my descriptions of cycles may be quite poor.)
The entire planet (or, perhaps better to say the developed or semi-developed parts of the world) has, to some degree or other, jumped straight to the final stage. This leads one to conclude that the next step is a return to the beginning, or collapse, for if we are in the final stage and surrounded by evidence of overstretch, overshoot and the malaise of internal rot bred by acquisitiveness, where lie the strength and resources to deal with the coming Perfect Storm?
Kennedy on the US (and this was 1988!):
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966718-3,00.html
If we accept the extrapolation "As goes the US, so goes the world," coupled with acceptance that we are in the final phase before the fall and then look at the further destabilizing effects of Climate Change and PO, it is difficult not to conclude we are in a world of hurt.
That is huge amount of inertia. I think it short-sighted to think the state can manage this. Chaos tells us discontinuities will come, bifurcations will happen and increase in frequency over time. Systems theory tells us that complexity leads to break down at some critical mass. History tells us cycles exist and that civilizations and nations rise and fall.
No, I don't expect the collective to fix this. I do think it is possible to transition very painfully to some other system, but it will happen piecemeal and largely on the backs of localized solutions that will likely have to stand in opposition to those who do not have the best interests of the Common Good in mind - or, who think the elite/wealthy/politically powerful know best and it is best to let the minions eat their cake and watch their TV sets.
I could be wrong. We may be witness to a Great Molting and Transition through Peaceful Cooperation. History suggests otherwise.
Cheers
Good solid sobering analysis. Thanks.
yes, good post, thanks.
Hi Luis, Euan,
Thanks for a terrific post. I like the time frame. One of the interesting things about your analysis is that the fossil fuels are supply side (production based for oil and gas, and reserves based for coal), while the alternatives are demand side. That makes sense. Alternatives are based on manufacturing, and not subject to exhaustion. And the historical growth rates for wind/solar, which are a factor of ten growth every ten years, are sufficient to provide the amounts that you propose for alternatives.
Dave
I doubt you are correct - there will probably be some Liebig minimum not being considered here that will be the limiting factor.
In order to grow, as well as excess energy, plants require unpolluted air, water, N,P,K, trace elements, a lack of predation etc - and, at any one time, any one of these will be 'at limit'.
There is a similar list of unpredictable requirements for econonomic growth - availability of affordable excess energy is but one important (and completely unpredictable) element and IMO doesn't tell a meaningful story in isolation.
The use of averages like 'conventional fossil fuels per capita' are somewhat misleading - as fig.12 shows, almost no country consumes the average amount! ... and almost no person in those countries consumes the world average amount.
Can you explain this? Don't alternatives require finite resources to harness and have some effect on the environment, especially if they continue to grow?
Would you really expect those growth rates to continue as the absolute quantitative increases become huge?
While the resource side was adequately covered, the analysis forgot the sink side constraints when burning fossil fuels. The global warming problem can be seen as a depletion problem. What is depleting is the CO2 absorption capacity of the atmosphere. NASA climatologist James Hansen has just moved the stabilization goal post from 450 ppm CO2 concentration down to 350 ppm, a limit we have exceeded already 20 years ago.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/RoyalCollPhyscns_Jan08.pdf
We are therefore already in overshoot mode and we need to EXTRACT CO2 from the atmosphere if our civilization wants to survive. I guess the turning point will be the disappearance of the Arctic summer sea ice in the next years (albedo flip)
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/May032006_Dr.WieslawMaslows...
That will wake us up. We have to abandon our carbon based consumerism.
Nature will not allow us to burn all the fossil fuels in the above scenarios.
The conclusion is that building up renewable energy capacities is even more urgent than ever. We need to retool car factories (which will close down after peak oil anyway) for mass production of components for energy PRODUCTIVE renewable systems, not energy CONSUMING goods.
Just take back the vehicles and use them and anything else available as scrap metal to make windmills. 800 million vehicles and lots of electronic garbage would b a big start and could pour into the factories one end and otu the other end as windmills.
"Turn your swords into ploughshares"
Fantastic article. I agree. We need to have a comprehensive plan for wind and solar energy to be built in now.
One point, it seems Europe is already weathering this crisis better than the US.
"One point, it seems Europe is already weathering this crisis better than the US."
Well sure, Iceland(geothermal, hydro), Norway(hydro), Sweden(hydro, nuclear) and France(nuclear) are doing fine. Wind-energy poster-child Germany is falling ever deeper into dependency on dirty coal-power however. Finland is struggling to build more nuclear so they can stop burning coal and pete; denmark is doing quite well with wind power, but they're dependent on Norway for load balancing.
The point is that, for the most part, Europe has been building in renewable energy solutions and efficiencies for years. Automobiles are required to operate at a higher fuel economy standard. Nuclear energy is practically renewable as they don't have the same regulatory hurdles for reprocessing waste that we have and true renewables -- wind/hydro/geothermal/solar provide a substantial portion of energy.
They are ahead of us in renewable/self sufficient energy. We remain much more tightly wedded to the fossil three: coal, oil, gas. It's hurting us and will hurt more as time goes by.
In my opinion, Germany's primary failure is taking nuclear off-line. They should replace coal with wind and use the nuke plants for load balancing. At some point, these countries are going to have to look at storage for wind energy.
Coal, gas, and oil, are only set to become more expensive. This is likely to happen even as renewables become less expensive over time.
Look for solar energy also to make headway by the end of this year with an overbuild in capacity and prices set to fall in both polysilicon and manufactured panels. New thin film solar is also starting to make its way with much lower cost solutions for utility based solar energy.
We might find ways to make cheaper solar PV panels and a lot could change. As fuel prices rise and the availability gets tighter, the more these ideas seem practical. I would like to see the distributed generation nature of PV become wide spread. It has so many benefits that a lot of the energy problems may not seem all that insurmountable any more.
I'm a huge proponent of grid-tied modularity through solar infrastructure on homes and public buildings. I think California is doing a fantastic job currently and the US would do well to follow its lead.
In all, we need more republicans like Schwarzenegger.
Actually, one other thing -- anyone notice oil's pushing $103 per barrel?
Why do you think wind and solar and all your so called “true renewables” will save the world?
Do you have an example of solar panels or windmills being made with renewable energy?
ALL the hard work is done with fossil fuels. Exploration, technical development, mining, transport, smelting, manufacturing, assembly, erection and maintenance.
That does not include food required by people, which enables the whole process eventuate and unfold.
If we had no fossil fuel, there probably would not even be hydro electricity.
The furnaces for smelting ore and making steel and alloys are built run and maintained mostly with fossil fuel, what does renewable energy have to do with that now and in the future?
Is there a plan in place that describes the process whereby renewable power generation is manufactured with other renewables, or are you still under the impression that peak oil only means peak oil and there will always be enough for everything?
What in the future, will have priority for the remaining non renewable energy?
Will it be food? Will it be mining or transport or defence or coal fired power, or emergency services or building construction or manufacturing or exploration or public works (bridges, roads, power grids) or research or maintenance or law enforcement and so and and so on.
If power from renewable sources has to be redirected to reproducing and maintaining renewable energy, there will be less for the public domain. How much less is yet to be calculated as far as I know.
Is any renewable source of energy viable for billions of humans and long term existence, or is it as I suspect, a pipe dream and a pacifier to suck on for the next two or three generations.
Of course I'm not saying that the so called renewable types of energy should not used and developed. They may buy time for a miracle of really true renewable energy generation to be discovered.
Every step in the manufacturing process that can be done by electricity can be done by renewables. I'm doubtful that there are many processes relevant to the manufacture of wind generators or PV panels that could not be powered by electricity. Even steel can be made by electric blast furnaces. It is not an insurmountable design or engineering problem to set up industrial processes for renewables manufacturing that are entirely renewable energy powered.
Your point about needing to account for the energy that goes into building and maintain the renewable energy generation infrastructure is well taken, though. There is an overhead factor that should be taken into account. We're pretty much getting into a discussion of EROI for these systems at this point. I have seen various EROI figures quoted for renewables. According to this article, the EROI for wind averages 24.6 (with a std deviation of 22.3!). Solar (PV in particular) seems to be all over the place right now, according to this study it might be in the range of 10.0-12.0. Overall, it would appear that figuring on an EROI of 10 (and thus allowing for a ten percent "overhead" to cover the costs of making and maintaining the renewables infrastructure itself) would be a reasonable assumption.
The 10 to 1 return on PV is a good example. It is said that the first 3 years of a 30 year PV lifespan go to pay off the energy used to make it. If we have the materials to make these, then it is a good investment of energy. We need that leverage to gain the most out of our fossil fuel usage. There is no denying that it takes fossil fuels to produce renewable resources now, but it is a good use for those fossil fuels.
Your links don't give any indication that renewable energy can be used to manufacture more renewable energy.
It's doable........ but is it achievable? Is it scalable?
EROEI for renewable energy are just guesses. Until a windmill is manufactured and erected from the ground up using renewable energy we won't know if it is practical.
What are we looking at.........a world of electric tractors, combines and crop dusters. Electric trucks and trains. The electric blast furnaces are going to supply the steel required for a sustainable world.
Someone would know how much steel is produced daily or yearly and by what method. Now estimate the cost and practicality of producing all the steel required in electric arc furnaces, which have not even been financed and built.
You expect that we will achieve sustainability simply because it is possible. It is possible to do many things but not practical. In the end all you have is hope.
Ah Bandits, back so soon?
In any case, let's take a look at a few major sectors of the economy that are run on electricity along with some pretty obvious potentials:
1. Automobile manufacturing -- grid based.
2. Electric arc furnaces are available and in use now: http://www.arcfurnace.com/electric_arc_furnaces.html.
3. Now take a look at this quote: "Steel making with an electric arc furnace is also economical. Every tonne of electric arc furnace steel uses about 7.4 GJ of energy compared with about 16.2 GJ for every tonne of BOS steel." Hmm. Looks like it's even more efficient than regular BOS steel.
4. Traditional BOS steel doesn't use fossil fuels at all. It uses oxygen. And the oxygen is produced by refrigeration. All easily done with ELECTRICITY. Very nice! Looks like steel survives peak oil thank you very much.
5. Well I'm sure we could have a world of electric trains, vehicles, and tractors if we needed to. That's the whole purpose of the HV, PHEV, EV build.
6. Electric machinery is widely available now so that's a no brainer.
There's more than just hope out there. There are a number of very powerful means by which to achieve an end. Solar and wind power are sustainable and they are more than just a potential. With each passing year, they will become more and more viable. You seem to think that this is some pie in the sky dream. It's not. Simply put, it's the most practical way to sustain us long-term.
Scale it all up with windmills (renewables) for me.
That was my point but as usual you %#**%$ you make up and read into my post what you feel you can argue.
While you are scaling it up how about factoring some costs for this fantastic power generation.
1300 million tons of steel was produced world wide last year. Would you like to guess how much ore was smelted in electric furnaces.
A typical steelmaking arc furnace is the source of steel for a mini-mill, which may make bars or strip product. The steelmaking arc furnace is generally charged with scrap steel, though if hot metal from a blast furnace or direct-reduced iron is available economically, these can also be used for steelmaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace#Advantages_of_electric...
While you are at it Google "blast furnaces" and educate yourself instead of trying to ply me with your misleading crap.
If you want to dream about electric combines, heavy haulage and airplanes dream on, just don't try and convince me with your drivel.
You can make iron using electricity instead of coke. You electrolyse iron salts, like iron sulfide, one of the most common rocks you can get below a few hundred feet. It's what makes water taste bad in large areas of the country.
I'm not saying this is a good idea, I'm saying it is possible at no more than two or three times the coke oven produced iron price.
You can't use it directly as electroformed metal because it is iron, not steel, and it is contaminated by hydrogen. You have to run it through a steel minimill first and toss in some carbon.
Lots of stuff is available using different technology if you are willing to pay two or three times the current price.
A startling illustration of the scalability and sustainability issues being discussed in this sub thread (though applicable to nuclear rather than strict renewables) is the Olympic Dam uranium mine in Southern Australia. There is a proposal to turn it into an open-caste operation on a scale even larger than the Escondida copper mine in Chile. Turns out that the whole project is on the borderline of viability at best, despite the desperate need for uranium and a decision by BHS Billiton is expected later this year. If it goes ahead (a BIG if) the diesel fuel required to remove a 3 Km diameter x 1 Km deep layer of overburden just to reach the low-grade ore bearing strata will increase Australia's entire annual diesel consumption by over 70% for 4 full years !!! - not to mention the vast requirement for fresh water in a drought-stricken country plus the vast quantities of fossil fuel, nitric acid and other chemicals to process the ore when they finally get to it.
John Busby of Sanders Research has written extensively about it at
http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id...
What desperate need? The market is highly depressed because weapons material dumping has taken so much of it away as has the effective moratorium on building reactors. As of result, there has been very little exploration for new resources because the mining companies have identified plenty (50 years or so) for their short to mid term business needs.
It looks like the producers are going to have to ramp up soon but there is no reason to think they will not be able to. Although there has been so little exploration we know that Uranium is quite plentiful in the crust and that there is at least one trillion tons that can be extracted at reasonably high EROI. After that, there is another couple of orders of magnitude in other fission fuels and more efficient fuel cycles.
That was not the point of my post but, since you raise the matter, I beg to differ. There are good reasons to suppose that security of uranium supply is a potential major constraint on the expansion of nuclear power (Including but not limited to its refined availability being a function of the sort of operations illustrated in the article referenced).
My understanding is that the proposed nuclear renaissance is largely posited on breeder reactors being brought on stream and becoming 'self-sustaining' fuel-wise so-to-speak, on a time frame compressed enough to avoid what amounts to a looming 'peak-uranium' issue. Yes, I know there's enough of it in the oceans to fuel more reactors than you can shake a stick at - indefinitely; but that's not the point. In similar fashion to there being a vast surplus of potential energy from sunlight, the trick is to turn minuscule concentrations of it into usable fuel. Given that to date, the track record of successful sustained breeder reactors is near non-existent, it requires quite a leap of faith start relying on them at this juncture.
BTW, I have no issues whatever with nuclear power per se and have neither a pro nor anti nuclear agenda. I just think that, given the host of uncertainties involved, together with what can only be described as the obfuscating bluster, secrecy and evasions of the nuclear industry itself, it would be the height of folly to assume that it can somehow come to the rescue of our 'non-negotiable way of life'.
It's pretty clear to me that that 'non-negotiable way of life' is on seriously borrowed time and the sooner TPTB find an honest way to come clean about it the better.
We have been debating this Uranium supply issue at TOD for years. I have not seen your UserID before so perhaps you have missed it.
As far as I can tell the case for limited Uranium supply, such as the paper by the Energy Watch Group, all come back to a Uranium mining industry study which estimates Uranium reserves that I think has been misunderstood. From what I understand, reserves are defined as identified resources that can be economically exploited with current technology in current markets. The study in question estimates reserves based on a price of $65/lb and $130/lb. So far the industry has identified reserves that would last 50 years.
First of all, I take issue with this analysis because even though in today’s depressed market they could not sell Uranium for more than that, the correct measure of the threshold price is the price at which Uranium generated electricity would be uncompetitive with alternatives in the market that is expected to emerge over the next twenty years or so. Since the price of oil has risen ten fold in the last ten years and since all fossil fuels will peak in the next twenty years, the correct threshold of viable price would be one where the price of electricity rises as much as twenty fold over the next twenty years. Since Uranium is only 1% of nuclear energy costs (25% of fuel costs where fuel costs are 4% of costs), the price of Uranium could rise 1,000 fold and still be within that viability threshold. So to give us the answer we are looking for, that study should have estimated reserves not only at $65 but also at $650, $6,500 and $65,000/lb.
The second issue is the idea that because the oil industry has worked very hard to identify all oil deposits in the world, that the Uranium mining industry probably has done the same. The question is, why would any industry spend money to create inventory (reserves) far beyond their short to mid term business horizon where there product is so price inelastic? Free Uranium would not sell more reactors since it would only lower the price 1%. Why would we ever expect Uranium reserves to be more than 50 years or so since it takes money to find and qualify reserves? They would just stop exploration, which they did for about 30 years up to recently.
Since mining industry reserves do not tell us anything what do we do? The only other good option is to estimate world resources based on distribution in the crust. This study by Ken Deffeyes published in Scientific American estimates that there are about one trillions tons available at reasonably high EROI.
Don't forget that that is at the current rate of consumption. Nuclear advocates do not envisage current rates of consumption but vastly increased rates of consumption.
I knew it was a mistake to start posting :-)).
TOD is on an already far too long 'must-read' list and posting commitments elsewhere make serious involvement here impossible so my apologies for starting something I cannot finish.
Let me just say this: In all the credible studies of the viability of massive nuclear energy expansion that I have seen, security of uranium supply (ie ramping up the delivery of enriched fuel from the theoretically vastly available but minuscule concentrations of known ores) always figures in the top 2 -3 problems; along with waste disposal/storage and proliferation.
The site you referred to is an interesting addition to my portfolio so thanks for that; but there are many others, equally impressively qualified, which take a far less sanguine view of the viability of massive expansion. There are some very interesting papers here for example:
http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/secur...
and the Sanders Research site referenced in my above post gives a feel for the truly vast quantities of FF's needed to ramp up uranium production.
I will agree that all the studies by the anti nuclear groups do use the same sources and do say much the same thing. I am convince that the ones about fuel supply are just mistaken.
If you do not have time for this debate now just come back in a few weeks. You will not have missed anything because we just go over the same points over and over. No matter how much evidence and logic we present, the other side continues with the same arguments.
The Sanders Research article is by one John Busby, a lean energy advocate who surprisingly enough just doesn't think there's enough uranium (he's fond of claiming that the lights will go out in France in a few years time). His article consists of mainly recursive references to his own doubts coupled with an outright lie concerning the contents of BHP Billiton's annual report. Don't believe me? It's available online, so download it and check to see if there's anything remotely like what he describes within.
The Oxford Research group paper is mainly built on the discredited work of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen. Not surprisingly John Busby's keen on quoting him as well.
Is it discredited or do nuclear advocates like to think it's discredited? Might this turn out to be similar to the hockey stick of climate change which appeared to be discredited because so many people said so, but two separate studies vindicated it within the last couple of years.
If sabretache's story about the BHP Biliton uranium mine plans are correct, then that clearly demonstrates the desperate need and the difficulty. What reason do you have for stating that there won't be a problem with ramping up uranium production, other than the technicality of average crust concentration? Does it rely on wishful thinking (which sometimes works out)?
Do you think those kinds of difficulties would have stopped the oil industry where they ARE facing imminent shortages. They are supposedly spending about $135 billion just to develop the Kasagan field in the Caspian Sea.
There was a recent story about a new Uranium province recently discovered in Africa covering about 16,000 square kilometers. They are going to spend about a million dollars exploring it over the next few years. Wow!
I take that as a no then?
I would tend to agree that we cannot currently use renewables to build more renewable infrastructure.
If peak FF is in 2018, then we have 10 years in which to bootstrap off of FF to develop the needed renewables infrastructure described in the post. If we leave it until post peak FF, then we are, as they say, screwed. Whitewater ride down the Olduvai gorge, here we come!!!
"They should replace coal with wind and use the nuke plants for load balancing."
Nuclear is great base-load, but in most current types of plants you don't want the fuel to go through too many heating/cooling cycles. Only a small fraction of the cost of nuclear power is in procuring the fuel; much of it is actually in building the plant itself and in operating the plant. It makes very little sense to have a nuclear plant generating anything less than peak or almost peak power unless the cost of the fuel goes up dramatically.
"Coal, gas, and oil, are only set to become more expensive. This is likely to happen even as renewables become less expensive over time."
And it's going to become less and less affordable to provide huge subsidies for renewables(e.g. net metering, tax deductions). It's not at all clear that technological advancement will win out over disappearing subsidies.
"Look for solar energy also to make headway by the end of this year with an overbuild in capacity and prices set to fall in both polysilicon and manufactured panels. New thin film solar is also starting to make its way with much lower cost solutions for utility based solar energy."
I doubt PV will get anywhere near competitive on the utillity scale without subsidies for many decades. Producing cheap solar power is a small part of the problem. Either you must figure out a way to store it cost effectively, either as chemical energy or retreivable as electrical power(e.g. pumped storage) or you must pay someone else for having excess generating capacity that they forgo using when you're generating power; this depends on the cost of producing excess generating capacity(e.g. bigger furnaces, turbines etc. than you really need) and how significant the operating costs are and how they vary with load.
I see a little more potential for rooftop PV among individuals if the costs go down. You incur no tax or transmission cost on this electricity and it coincides with AC requirements quite well. If solar PV becomes too popular it will force utillities to balance the increased variability in demand with more excess generating capacity and electrical power provided by the utillities will become more expensive.
I'm a lot more enthusiastic about solar for heating and solar thermal plants.
Denmark is still dependant on coal power with imported coal and will be hurt by rising coal prices and their north sea natural gas will soon start to run out and will probably be repalced with gas imported from Norway.
The ammount of possible wind power in Denmark is limited by the nordic grid to hydro power Norway and northern Sweden. There are significant grid maintainance, reinvestments and new power lines but not enough for unlimited growth in wind power. For that we need greater acceptance for new high tension lines and that the least expensive technology is used as much as possible.
It would help a lot if Norway decided to invest more of their oil money in strenghtening their grid and that would also make it possible for the next generation to use the vast wind and wave power potential along the norwegian coast.
It would have helped a lot if Danish and Swedish "greens" had not gotten the Barsebäck nuclear powerplant closed down since it is sited close to Denmark and perfectly placed in the grid for unloading it from transporting base load and allowing the ballancing of more wind power in Denmark. Hopefully the Danes will change their mind. The small municipiality with the closed down reactors has switched "business idea" from sea front properties to trying to attract the building of four new reactors if national politics would allow someone to invest.
Nuclear power in Sweden has very strong local support in the municipialities closest to the sites. They are dusting off the old regional planning from the 70:s and arguing that the sites are planned for 1-2 additional reactors and that we should start prepairing for the replacements to the current reactors. And Oskarshamn and Forsmark are competing for the siting of the final high level waste repository.
But it is not as the situation in Finland where the reaction to the fifth reactor that now are two years over schedule is three seriously funded competing efforts for building the sixth reactor. One of the efforts suggest several new greenfield sites for 1-2 reactors but I dont know how hard the competition is for getting the investment.
And regarding nuclear investments we have the baltic countries and Poland trying to get a replacment built for the ex sovjet Ignalina plant. And the baltic countries are realy intrested in building strong
HVDC ties to the nordic grid.
All of the nordic countries are investing a lot in biomass power, district heating and cooling, combined heat and power production, heat pumps and efficiency. If those investments continues, we continue the renewable investments and get the nuclear power investmnets done we could within 15-20 years have a northern grid almost independant of fossil fuels with significant CO2 neutral power export to the middle european grid.
And I hope that rock solid power delivery at a reasonable price will attract chemical, mechanical, server farms and other power intensive industry.
Thank you for that review from that part of the world. We in the U.S. seldom get to see what is going on there in that detail, it is beneficial that we do.
Portugal is apparently getting nearly 40% of its electricity from renewables, chiefly solar, wind, and hydro, and one of the first commercial wave power generators. Growth in renewables has been quite fast, with a lot more generating capacity on the way:
http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=93389
A somewhat related article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLJGjEpQ7F1g&refer=home
Let's hope Bush doesn't veto again.
Thanks, Luis!
Very good work - I like the long time horizon from 1900 to 2100!
Excellent work guys, this kind of reminds me of the 30 year update of the Limit's to Growth book i am currently reading. The only discrepancy I see is using the United Nations population data. I honestly can't see population increasing to 10 billion people at the end of the century. I severely doubt that the UN model does anything other than extrapolating current growth trends into the future, much less including increasing scarcity in fossil fuels. After all, the idea of Peak Fossil Fuels is still in it's infancy in mainstream media and government. I think that would cause the barrel per capita figures to be less steep in the 2020-2100 area, only because their are less people.
I think there are going to be too many problems in supporting a population that large especially the way things are continuing with government's polices on growth, efficiency and resource allocation. Water and food are going to be large factors in limiting growth and climate change is sure to wreak havoc with agricultural because the climate region's suited for growing food are going to shift faster than the land's will be able to adapt. Also we can reasonably assume that economic factors due to fossil fuels peaking are going to make it much harder to finance the creation of renewable alternatives such as wind, solar ect. I'm just looking at the dip between fossil fuel availability and alternatives availability in that dip/lag between 2018 and what looks like ~2040. Also from Nate's recent post about I think declining EROEI's are going to put all of our economies in a disastrous state of flux by growth in the energy sectors and contraction in everything else. These factors make these graphs look pretty optimistic IMO.
I agree wholeheartedly, we must build renewables now and as fast as we can if we all want to make it.
Overall a wonderful post and I think we can all learn a lot from this data. This is why I love theoildrum.
-Crews
Thanks for your ideas Crews, some comments:
Unfortunately the work made the MIT team lead by Dennis Meadows doesn't take Energy into account. This seminal work, that still is today one of my major references on this field, only models the flows of mass to and from society.
Population growth is presently evolving along a Gompertz growth pattern with its first derivative having peaked almost 20 years ago. The UN forecasts are quite plausible barring any severe disaster (check this old post by Stuart). And of course the objective of this work was to assess how can we maintain the current path, avoiding difficult choices or realities.
Thanks Luis,
That is a little disappointing, I'm only 1/8 a way through the book and I find they don't take energy into account, sigh.. I would guess that probably means that all of the world3 models talked about in the book are going to all be a little too optimistic. Well, Meadows was quite an optimist by nature.
Thank you for the old Stuart post, I think I'll make going back through the old oildrum post I haven't read a new project of mine.
I really like this post, in the way I think it gives us a pretty good idea of how fast and the extent to which we need to replace our fossil fuel energy sources with renewable ones. Also I don't mean to criticize, I think this article did a wonderful job of fulfilling it's purpose, I just like to throw idea's out their. I am trying to learn more about modeling so I can make more of a contribution to theoildrum than just a few comments here or there. I really appreciate all the time and effort you put into this, Luis, it's a noble thing of you to do.
good luck and best wishes,
-Crews
A tremendous opportunity exists to build a more sustainable energy future and building this future will provide vast opportunity for economic growth and prosperity.
Beautifully said. Let's get to work. :-)
Actually that's part of the 1% credited to Euan.
Amazingly, he managed to have "sustainable" and "growth" in the same sentence and still make sense.
;-)
One of my colleagues looks at how this might play out politically in the US:
http://www.commoncurrent.com/notes/2008/02/whats-rockin-our-world.html
Optimistic, perhaps.
I assert that "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron.
It’s been said that growth on a finite planet can’t continue but some people don’t intuitively see that. They’ve lived their whole life in a context of ever-expanding growth and can’t imagine it any other way.
But it’s true: infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. If you don’t believe that, try the reverse in a thought experiment. Try keeping the economy the same size then continually shrink the planet. See? Equally impossible.
The good folks at the Center for the Advancement of a Steady-State Economy (http://www.steadystate.org) can give you the background math if that’s interesting to you (under ‘Resources’).
I encourage everyone to look at the work of the ecological economists there. Probably their biggest contribution is putting the mathematical teeth behind the assertion that human growth necessarily reduces biodiversity i.e. the number and range of other species on the planet. In a nutshell, as we grow we crowd out other species. This is self-evident to me, but they (the ecological economists) support this view with math.
So please: let's start getting real. The paradigm of growth is ecologically bankrupting the planet. Putting the word "sustainable" in front doesn't, in my view, change the underlying math of human growth == biodiversity loss.
-André
Cultural growth, in the sense of more knowledge and understanding, more artistic and creative achievements, etc., is quite possible in a steady-state economy. But that's about it.
So, if a steady state economy delivers all those things, and presumably the essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, and so on, what more would you want?
“But that’s about it?” Seems like more than enough for any human soul to yearn for. Freedom of creative expression. Artistic expression. Greater knowledge and hopefully greater understanding.
What else would you want from life?
I don’t know where you live, but let me ask you this, when was the last time you could stand in your back garden and see the Milky Way? When was the last time you slept with your windows open and awoke not to the roar of traffic but to the peace of silence?
I have no idea what you want but I’d gladly trade the maxed out, fucked up, self destructive, super sized world we live in for those values to be found in a steady state economy any day. Even if that is all it has to offer.
Innovation can continue. its not bound by energy. Cheaper better longer lifetime lower energy use and probably the big one higher quality. On the human side better service.
On the personal side you would look at higher education with potentially more people exploring the arts then before. To offset this the work force would be more flexible so people could work and contribute but still better themselves.
Next considering that such societies would have to adopt a zero to negative population growth strategy as a simple way to increase wealth on would see personal wealth gains as the population decreases and labor commands higher rates.
I'd guess that this would be offset by extensive use of advanced robotics to replace increasingly more complex tasks. Just about anything that can't be enhanced with a personal presence.
Also of course a move into both cyberspace and real space as a way to expand wealth would greatly decrease the pressure on earths resources.
So I don't see finite energy usage on earth as a hard limit to increasing personal wealth as long as the population declines back to a low level.
Actually, that's fine with me. I live in a small town, and yes, I can and have (recently) stood in my back garden and saw the Milky Way (though still through some light pollution, unfortunately). In the summertime we do sleep with open windows and awaken to birdsongs, not traffic noise.
The more distant I get from the urban rat race, the more utterly ridiculous it all appears to me.
I have a feeling that the original ideal for "big society" was to enable individuals greater access to "creativity", art, music, philosophy, medicine etc etc. Seems we need to stop growing in order to pursue our stated objectives. Let's face it folks, society as it stands today is a petrochemical "drugs and violence" orgy.Bring on the cliff.
Right, after all the orgy of murder and rape at Carthage never would have happened if we hadn't discovered oil.
Dumbass.
aangel - would you accept a lower population, where every individual was much "wealthier" and happier than today as a definition of sustainable combined with growth - not of the whole economy but of individual prosperity?
And with a declining population - managed decline not catastrophic decline - that heritable wealth passing down through the generations may be one way of achieving this uplift in standard without burdening the planet.
I doubt that the "decreased population = bigger slices of the same pie all around" idea will work out that way, though. It might be possible for some countries to undergo a relatively peaceful and benign gradual transition to a lower population. When we look at it from a global scale, though, I can't see large-scale, relatively quick decreases happening without things also happening that will degrade the natural environment and the economic infrastructure in ways that will permanently shrink that pie. In other words, the global carrying capacity will be permanently degraded. Fewer people to share the pie, yes, but with a smaller pie their slices are not likely to end up with much more actual pie on the plates; it could, in fact, end up being a good bit less.
Hi, Euan. Pleased to meet you.
I might accept that but I would ask you to further define what actually is growing. I just don't know what you mean by "individual prosperity." If you don't mean anything close to material prosperity, then I believe you are defining growth in an uncommon way.
For instance, it's still very common to find people assert that it is best to encourage impoverished people to grow their way out of their economic situation so that they also stop denuding their local environment. And they are right when a person is starting below a certain level. When survival is at stake, a person will use every scrap of ecological capital even if it means their future is mortgaged. So having them grow to meet a certain level of material prosperity on the surface looks like a good thing to do.
But what works at the very "left side of the curve" can't continue or their collective material needs and wants rapidly outstrip the ability of the local environment to supply it. When that happens, a country looks to import materials from abroad, preferably from a country that hasn't yet grown enough to require those resources themselves. Fairly soon one has the whole planet of 6.7 billion people trying to live a Western lifestyle, which is easily demonstrated to be physically impossible given just a material flows analysis.
Gandhi could see it even back then: we are stripping the world bare like locusts. And all our proposals will come to naught unless we address the fundamentals: we must sanely reduce our numbers, as you point out. Everything else is just "a fix."
The alternative is ecosystem collapse — if petrocollapse doesn't beat it to the punch.
So all that is simply to ask: could you further define what actually is growing and let's see where that brings us in the conversation?
-Andre'
Andre' you are putting me on the spot, which is fair enough. I am trying to work out which pieces of the jig saw we need. if all we can promise is economic and environmental collapse then this will likely become a self fulfilling prophecy. So here are some thoughts that as yet do not make a complete picture:
I am persuaded by the need for global population to decline. So some how through the course of this century measures to reduce population will have to come about.
Currently we waste a huge amount of energy and any society that wastes so much is inevitably impoverished. Energy efficiency measures will lead to greater wealth.
The FF energy we consume right now is non-renewable and many argue that the 0.7C warming from CO2 produced thus far has resulted in accelerated loss of Arctic Sea ice. Building abundant supplies of alternative / renewable energy sources can secure a sustainable and prosperous environment for mankind.
Rebuilding global energy infrastructure which will happen sooner than many think will generate significant economic activity. There will be winners and many losers. The most conspicuous losers will be the FF companies, auto companies that do not adapt, airlines and airplane manufacturers etc. We will invent less energy intensive ways of entertaining ourselves - substitution of one industry with another will come about.
The internet (or derivatives) will play an important roll. It is already playing an important roll in speeding economic transactions which results in growing GDP. Las Vegas will come to you.
So what will grow is global GDP per capita and GDP per capita per boe. Set against a backdrop of falling population, total GDP may or may not fall. What matters most to investors is to have a part of the economy that is growing strongly. The widows and orphans who leave their money in Exxon, American Airlines, GM and Boeing may be very disappointed.
We will of course have inflation which will obfuscate the true value of what we own.
As mentioned before, declining population results in heritable assets being focussed on succeeding generations.
I lived in Norway for a number of years during the very early days of the oil industry there. The Norwegians were extremely wealthy back then on the back of abundant hydro power and declining population. Heated pavements and and lit ski trails - luxurious living in the midst of arctic winter. I suspect that Norwegians had a higher living standard back then than they do now even though they are now much wealthier. It depends how you measure wealth.
Cheers, Eaun,
I have been trying to see where we are in the ability to produce power by non-fossil fuel means against your scenarios.
It is perhaps too early to expect wind, or even more solar, to be producing a substantial fraction of the outputs you postulate - I would be interested if anyone has the current increment in Megawatts per year for wind to hand though, and I may try to google something up if I have time and no-one else has the figures to hand.
On one of the energy sources, nuclear, it seems clear that we already have around the capacity needed for the lowest case scenario, efficiency gains and splitting the burden of production.
That postulates a nuclear contribution of around 19GW/year.
The biggest bottleneck in the nuclear industry is forgings for the pressure vessel, with only one current manufacturer with a capacity of 12 vessels a year.
If they were used for large reactors of the 1.6GW Areva design that comes out to 19GW, our target figure.
Currently the forgings manufacturer is looking to double capacity within a few years, and two more manufacturers are going through the process of obtaining regulatory approval and setting up production.
This might come out to around 50GW of production capacity within a few years, in any case clearly more than that required in the next lowest case scenario, of all sources sharing in increased capacity but no efficiency gains, 30GW, and near perhaps to that in the case where nuclear alone provided the incremental power but there were large efficiency gains, in which case you would need 55GW.
It is also clear that on the drawing board at the moment there are no plans to meet the 90GW target of producing all the incremental power from nuclear with no efficiency gains, a further round of expansion would be needed to reach this.
Of course, this is only to consider one bottleneck, large forgings, but the time-scales involved perhaps make it reasonable to envisage a similar rate of growth in other factors such as getting personnel trained.
Here is a reference to an expert discussion of capacity constraints and progress in overcoming them:
http://larouchepub.com/other/interviews/2006/3332tom_christopher.html
Industry Rebuilding Its Nuclear Manufacture Capacity
Dave - in 2007 there was 20,000 MW of wind capacity installed. Luis' calculations show at peak we need to install about 50,000 MW per year. I think this clearly shows that 50,000 is easily feasible - in fact it almost seems too easy - maybe I made a mistake. The neat thing with renewable energy is the cumulative build in capacity.
One can see a massive business opportunity servicing wind mills. We would of course run into problems with replacing old plant - but the frames should hopefully be built to last 100 years. Maybe the blades and gear boxes will have to be replaced much more frequently than that.
A poster called Down Under is very skeptical about the longevity of wind turbines - but I think we gotta assume that engineering problems can be solved.
I don't think there will be too much problem re-building our nuclear engineering skills - if the worst comes to the worst we can always call on the Iranians to help us out.
http://www.gwec.net/
By way of contingency we have not allowed for expansion of large hydro here - I'm not sure if that can make a significant impact.
Thanks for the info, Eaun, but is sounds to me as though perhaps that is the old-buggabo of actual capacity vs nameplate rearing it's head - presumably Luis is talking about 50GW actual, IOW around 150GW nameplate, so wee are currently building around an eighth of what is needed - I will check back in the article in a sec, as it is not easy to do when you are writing a post.
Your 20GW is indeed name-plate, I assume?
Large hydro could be regionally important in Africa, but not really on a world basis - I am very hopeful that in tropical regions solar will do most of the job though - it is at higher latitudes where it seems to me not very sensible to hope for much from this source - winters are too dark and cold, and transmission lines from warmer climes darn expensive.
Not sure where you got the 50GW figure from, Euan.
Looking back at the article Luis gives 90GW as the total needed with no efficiency savings at peak and 45GW with - the easy way of seeing that is to look at the case for nuclear power only as that is in nice easy 1GW increments.
If you use mixed power sources you are looking at around 1/3rd of those figures.
OK, the figures as presented are a bit more complicated, due to smoothing and different assumptions for what peaks when, but that is about the size of it.
Using Luis' assumptions of off-shore wind in 3MW turbines at 30% efficiency and off-shore 5MW at 40%, and for comparison with what is happening in the build today just focussing on the on-shore build, because that is what almost all of it is at the moment,
Then to run everything with onshore wind you would need around 3*90 GW = 270GW of nameplate capacity, around 13.5 times present build of 20GW nameplate.
You would need around 90GW of nameplate for a 1/3rd share of the need, so around 4.5 times current.
In the best case for on-shore wind with it's taking 1/3rd share and with high efficiency, you would need 45GW nameplate, around 2.25 times current build.
Even the lowest case sounds challenging, although in practise it would be helped out by the much more expensive off-shore wind build, and to me at least it sounds as though any thoughts of running the whole of society on wind are not on the cards, and that it would be very, very difficult to build even a 1/3rd share of power needs if high efficiency is not attained - IOW it would need high prices and energy use to be severely constrained.
The US has IIRC about 15GW of wind nameplate, and added about 5GW in 2007. Wind was about 30% of new capacity in 2007 (the balance was mostly gas, which has an equally low capacity factor).
Ramping up wind to provide it's needed contribution of 270GW per year would cost roughly $500B, or roughly 1% of world GDP - when you consider the lack of fuel or operating cost, that's not bad.
Solar is more expensive, currently, but PV costs really are falling quickly - this is obscured by prices, which are staying high due to an excess of demand over supply (panel pricing is falling quickly, installation a bit more slowly due to the current immature, retrofit-based, cottage-industry based nature of installation - this will change). The fascinating thing about PV is that it's hard for utilities to control. Once it hits parity with retail peak grid pricing, in 3-5 years, it will grow very quickly. When it falls below retail average pricing, a few years later, it will be uncontrollable.
That's in the right ball-park, as the recent Pickens 4GW wind plant cast $10bn, so that would work out at about $670bn.
The issue I would see though is that it is highly location-specific, and the windiest places aren't usually where you want the power.
Here is a map of wind resources in China, for instance:
http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/stat...
070129_Wind_map_2006.pdf (application/pdf Object)
In some areas it should be very helpful, in others it would be a very difficult resource to use and would require massive line investments.
You also have back-up and so on, and in some places you might need to go off-shore, where costs are around double.
Wind looks to have a big part to play, but integrating it and building the transmission lines and so forth will lead to some difficulties.
Eaun said:
A couple of other possibilities deserve mention, although the decision to exclude them was right as they are too immature, but both have a very large resource base indeed.
I exclude all the variants of Ocean power, as bigGav recently covered that in an excellent article, but would like to mention firstly high altitude wind, which if we can pull it off has enormous advantages over wind turbine technology.
Over around 300 meters at sea and 800 meters on land the wind is a much more reliable and stronger resource - you throw away most of the superstructure, around 95%, and get a resource available almost all of the time and almost everywhere.
There are many proposals for harvesting it, including one, Makani, sponsored by Google, but for those interested in finding out more I will just highlight one, the Kitegen proposal, which has had a 1kw prototype flown and is going up to a 5kw model this year:
http://www.kitegen.com/
Sizes up to 5GW should be possible! -that is rather a lot of wind turbines, and costs should be a fraction of those of other power sources.
Of course, the control of the kites would have been impossible until recently, but we now have a lot of computing power available to throw at it.
A German company recently launched a kite-assisted ship:
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/05/23/belugas-skysail-could-cut-...
Beluga’s SkySail Could Cut Fuel Consumption 30% - Environmental Leader: Green Business and Corporate Sustainability News
So this may indicate that control problems are indeed soluble.
Another alternative is hot dry rock geothermal, currently undergoing trials at Soultz in France and to be tested in Australis.
Here is MIT's estimate of potential in the US:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=517E9954-E7F2-99DF-36C206BCA2...
These are two potential major contributors to low carbon power.
Euan,
I think that would be a very nice outcome (increased GDP per capita and increased GDP per capita per boe) — as long as the world total numbers decline at a steady pace and we institute cradle-to-cradle resource loops everywhere. I think there would need to be some significant modifications to your plan for it to work, though.
For instance, to say that Boeing et al will not provide returns to make widows and orphans happy is an understatement. I just finished reading the Ayers and Warr paper (ACCOUNTING FOR GROWTH: THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL WORK PDF INSEAD, 2004). (Tip of the hat to Gail and David Strahan.) I had been looking for someone who worked out the math behind the relationship between the economy and energy. The furthest I had gotten was that short-term oil shocks reduce global GDP by 0.7 to 1.4% within four quarters of the shock (The Macroeconomics of Oil Shocks PDF, Philadelphia Fed, 2007).
But really it was Ayers and Warr's work that I was looking for. They demonstrate what classical economics fails to do because it does not have an energy input. It addresses capital, labor and resource inputs almost exclusively. It's actually quite shocking to me that it took us collectively until 2004 before someone thought to put energy into economics as more than just another sector of the economy! I think I'm going to create a list of Humanity's Biggest Blunders. So far I've got:
(For those nuclear boosters out there, I think we've got a mess on our hands with over 400 nuclear reactors that have to be decommissioned plus their spent fuel that has to be safely stored basically in perpetuity — while we're experiencing Energy Descent. I am doubtful we will responsibly be able to address this issue.)
In any case, most grand plans that I read fail to include that post peak our economy will be in a shambles and I think that you make the same mistake. The elasticity Ayers and Warr calculate is a perfectly intuitive 0.7 (see Figure 10). That essentially means that as energy declines, the economy declines. Beyond the first year or two where some efficiency might buffer the situation, our economy cannot continue at anywhere near its current size no matter the efficiency brought to bear. (N.B. that curtailment/conservation is different from efficiency.)
That further means that:
In other words, I don't think your vision of rebuilding our energy infrastructure has a chance of occurring before several centuries pass — unless a pandemic wipes a bunch of us out leaving more energy per capita for the remaining crew of spaceship earth.
As for your concern regarding a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think the time to be concerned with that is long gone. I believe that there isn't anything that can be done to avoid petrocollapse now — we needed to start decades ago. Now the important thing to do is, in my view, tell everyone about petrocollapse so that we can prepare. That is exactly what I do in my public speaking in which I call for leaders to emerge from the audience to start organizing us. I set it up as a game and everyone can play one of four roles:
There you have it: my take on our collective future and what to do about it.
-Andre'
www.InspiringGreenLeadership.com
Sorry but that is all built into the near 100 EROI for nuclear. The real problem is not budgeting waste disposal for coal, especially greenhouse gases. If that were done, no one would build any coal plants and most of those displaced would go to nuclear.
Hi, Sterling.
Perhaps I'm being obtuse but I'm not seeing what you're pointing to. If:
where are you expecting to find the energy to decommission the nuclear plants and safely store the fuel? I just don't see how the EROEI is even relevant in that context. It becomes a budgeting exercise: how do we use the remaining energy from all sources?
-André
Simple you fund the development of the waste handling with the first generation of nuclear powerplants and build all the waste handling equipment, waste cannister factories and start putting waste in final storage before those plants close down. And you build the next generation of nuclear powerplants with part of the revenue flow from the first generation and then the next generation pays for the handling of the rest of the first generatio waste if the set aside funds fail for any reason. And so on with more generations of nuclear powerplants or other power generation.
Hi, Magnus Redin.
I encourage you to tell everyone who will listen to do exactly as you recommend.
Unfortunately, I cannot find any evidence that this consideration is even being discussed.
-André
The first generation of commercial nuclear powerplants in Sweden has funded the RnD and a large fund for decomissioning and waste storage.
The high level waste encapsulation plant is designed and might start building in 2012 and it and the final repository is planned to be ready for use in 2018.
The schedule will probably slip some as it has done before but the waste handling effort has allways been taken seriously and I am absolutely sure it will be be completed as a true best effort.
If I assume a start date in 2020 and that the reactor life lenghts will be around 60 years it gives an overlap between power production and repository use of 10-25 years.
I realy hope we get a political go ahead for a new generation of nuclear powerplants in Sweden. Its an intresteing thought that it is certain that those will run their whole life lenght during the peak oil downslope. Wonder what their value will be in 2040? I dont have a good idea on how to calculate it. I hope they will be built for easy replacement of the preassure vessels, the concrete parts might be used for a very long time indeed if we dont get a wonderfull technology development.
Finland is ahead of us. They have started building their final repository as a pilot effort that will become part of it if it turns out ok, they will use the same technology asSweden. They are building their first new generation reactor and have three competing efforts for the next one.
Hi, Magnus Redin.
Very good (that cleanup is being considered).
However, what I was referring to is the necessity of setting aside energy for cleanup during energy descent. Is that part of the conversations Sweden is having? My fear is that cleanup will be pushed aside.
-André
We are going to have plenty of electricity as long as we dont start destroying infrastructure instead of investing. And anything made from oil can be made from biomass and electricity but not in the volumes we are used to even if we have a fair ammount of forest growth each year.
I dont fear for the chainsaw oil and petrol, diesel for the logistics that is inefficient to do by rail, hydraulic fluids, transformer oil and so on. It will also take a long time before heavy oil becomes scarce enough to force a switch of everything to biomass or coal. In the mean time we can for instance turn scrap and electricity into ball bearings and trade those for heavy oil that needs a lot of hydrogen for upgrading.
Hi aangel,
It seems to me that you are over-estimating the difficulty and energy costs of decommissioning - at the moment we use gold plated methods suitable to a very rich society.
If you leave a reactor, it gets cheaper to finish the decommissioning the longer it is just shut up - you don't have the heavy expense of dealing with very hot material, so essentially after, say 100 years then the problem is a heck of a lot less.
As for the fuel, you put it in water and again leave for 20 years or so, and after that it is sufficiently cool to be dry stored in casks.
The problems of waste are greatly exaggerated in my view, and are in fact far, far less than those of the coal industry - it is just that that has never paid to clean them up.
I would not favour deep underground storage of waste - it seems to me that it is in fact a very valuable resource, which can be used as fuel for reactors we are now designing.
Here is one design which should be in mass-production by 2025 - it is mostly licensing that is going to take that time:
http://nextbigfuture.com/search/label/thorium
So that is the nuclear prospect - hundreds of times better fuel efficiency and 1000 times less waste than currently.
Even before that date, present generation 111+ reactors are much more fuel efficient and produce less waste than previous reactors, and in fact most of the waste anyway is from the weapons program, not the civil program.
So in fact an expanded reactor program will not increase the present level of wastes much at all, by most metrics.
The reason is that the waste already in storage is decaying, so that it is less radioactive, so you can add to the stockpile whilst overall radioactive levels are fairly constant or even go down a bit.
I don't mean in your case, but the public is perhaps a little confused by some of the issues in nuclear matters.
For instance, some radioactive waste is radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, and some are very lethal.
The point is though that is is the speed of decay that throws out loads of radioactivity, so the real nasties don't tend to hang around for long, and the ones which do hang around for ages do so precisely because they are not giving out much radioactivity.
The issue is more complicated than that, as how readily the body absorbs the particular element also varies, but in general holds good.
That is why the vast majority of the problem is solved simply by putting the very hot fuel under water for a couple of decades.
I hope you find some of this useful.
Dave Mart-
Being somewhat kind...
Actually, none of it.
You have admitted to not being an engineer - thus strongly implying that you are not a physical scientist - therefore I forgive you for your egregious errors and false conclusions that you have arrived at and have been posting - repeatedly - to TOD.
You have recently been joined by friends (using the term loosely) Charles Barton, Joseph Somsel and perhaps Sterling and you are all seriously underestimating the long term storage problem of high level nuclear waste (not spent fuel, but fission products). I gave a brief mathematical and physical description of the enormity of the problem back on Feb. 10 in DB but got no response from you.
I will gladly refute your claims (and the others as well) but perhaps this thread (begun yesterday) is no longer the choice location for the discussion... should it be moved to a more current location?
Skip
Absolutely fine - I always welcome reasoned discussion, but as you say another thread might be the best place for it.
I am also very encouraged that you seem to think that I am not confusing the issue by a misunderstanding of the science, other than if most of the scientific community who support that science are also mistaken.
I might add that that body would include not only the names you mention, several of whom I believe are well qualified technically to form a judgement, but also the recently retired British Chief Scientist, and such green luminaries as Lovelock.
If it is indeed a misapprehension that I am suffering from it can hardly be said to be one which is outside of much scientific opinion, or to be a personal misunderstanding of that opinion.
If I have not unfairly represented that body of opinion perhaps it would be best if you took up the debate with those better technically qualified to represent it, as I assume your own training is in nuclear physics and engineering.
All of us are presumably trying to find the best solutions, and to me at the moment it seems that nuclear is by far the most developed alternative, and also that strategies developed in France actually run most of the electricity of that society, whereas the notion that you can run most things on renewables alone is theoretical at the moment, and current costs are very large.
Jump not to conclusions - particularly those not supported by the data ; >) First Rule of Rational Thought: Assumptions are Evil.
My training(? whatever that means) is neither in nuclear physics nor engineering: I'm a Ph D (trained?) theoretical physicist, long in the tooth; my dissertation advisor worked with Einstein back in the late '30s early '40s. General relativity and gravitation; cosmology; quantum field theory; the fundamental mathematical structure of the Universe... simply put, first principles and not quoting authority must be the basis for analysis and conclusion.
You are erudite and an excellent debater - no doubt, and I credit you with that - however, as I enjoyed the performances of William F. Buckley, Jr, I find your comments in these discussions works of art, I also find them lacking in substance. You, in particular WRT nuclear power, simply quote authority; but wrongly and poorly. As I would not go to Bill Buckley for advice on any *real* scientific issue ( or for that matter, any issue of substance), I can not consider you (or your *friends*) a knowledgeable source.
Therefore:
I will not debate you.
I will not accept (or follow) any effort on your part to introduce *strawman* arguments or that which is simply, a bagatelle. Your post above, to which this is a (belated) reply does contain scarecrows which neither scare nor require me to respond to - with one exception (being one mentioned in a post below): I care not (and neither does the rest of the inhabited planet) what Lovelock might harbor in "his shed at the foot of his garden"... unless they are 79 virgins.
I will address only comments posted by you and others addressing the contents of links so posted (by you folks) on the issue of nuclear power generation of electricity and how the information contained has been either misinterpreted or possibly manipulated to conform to *support* a possible predetermined position held by the posters...
...in other words: how some are cruising the internet as itinerant farm/orchard laborers seeking the low hanging fruit (re: cherries) in support of the *family back home*, ie. what is most seemingly desirable for them (the posters) in their future.
I hope that I'm wrong. Prove me so...
Pick the field... the weapons will be keyboards.
If I do introduce any strawman arguments, it will be inadvertently and I will welcome rebuttal.
Whenever someone has shown me to be mistaken, I have always immediately withdrawn.
At the end of the day, I don't have a dog in this fight, and welcome any contribution renewables can make, it is just that I can't see renewables doing the trick at the moment.
It is just that AFAIK nuclear power is the only means which can be mass-produced and make power almost everywhere, and like yourself I get annoyed with strawman arguments - I feel that some of the people who argue against nuclear power do so from a priori grounds, and in fact no matter what answer is given them regarding a solution to a particular technical argument they might offer, that will never touch the real grounds for their objection which lie at a deeper level than that and they will simply shift the ostensible argument - the real reason for their objection might be a feeling that the nuclear program is a result of the American industrial-military complex or some such.
For those of us who think that GW is a real phenomena, even supposing the risks of nuclear power are at the level of the extreme projections of it's enemies, even supposing we had had a Chernobyl every year, which is fact is impossible as Chernobyl had no containment vessel, that would hardly have caused many more deaths than are attributed by most reckonings to the coal industry over the last 30 years, and in retrospect it seems clear that a mistake was made in discontinuing the nuclear program, as CO2 levels would now be substantially lower, and the deaths from, say, a 3 degree temperature rise would be of a different magnitude entirely to any the nuclear program night have caused - and in fact no deaths at all have been attributed to the civil nuclear power generation program in the West since it's inception,
The risks therefore remain theoretical, the dangers of running out of power or contributing to greenhouse warming real and substantial.
Risk is always assessed against other alternatives, so it seems clear that not only was discontinuing the rapid expansion of nuclear energy a mistake, continuing to do so now that the risks to climate are clear would be a disaster.
I await your response with interest!
Skipinbluff said:
It is perhaps worth pointing out that the same could be said of your own critique, as you have in fact said nothing of substance, just gave an accusation of general wrong-doing.
Of course any debate I could possibly participate in will not operate at fundamental levels, you surely would not expect, say, a newspaper article to do so either, but presumably feel it is right that matters should nonetheless be debated by the more general public, as we all have the responsibility of making up our minds on numerous issues in which we lack full expertise, for instance in which doctor we should trust, which we decide without a medical degree.
Specifically, although you may disagree with the overall risk assessment of nuclear waste handling, it is surely correct of me to point out that although nuclear waste remains radioactive for a very long time indeed, most of the real nasties decrease in potency in a relatively short time, precisely because they are so energetic.
You may also care to confirm that to the general public this is not always clear, and so my own comment on this is likely to increase understanding to the general populace, and is, in fact, accurate, and it is a fair statement that risks do decrease rapidly with time, and also that spent fuel has been dealt with successfully for many years in France by exactly the methods I describe.
Regards,
Skipinbluff and others who have joined this thread.
Would you like to have an open thread to debate nuclear waste storage, reactor maintenance and decommissioning?
You'll find my email in my details. If you send me a 500 to 1000 word submission laying out your position then this may be posted at the top of a new discussion thread where we can gather the various points of view on this important issue together.
Euan
Euan-
Thanks for the offer.
My submission will follow later today - I'm located in SE Utah (USA) and on Mountain Standard time so expect it this evening...
Skip
OK Skip, I'll look forward to it. Lets hope others commit their views to writing too.
A Word file is fine. If you have any charts or figures attach these as jpg or png files.
We have a fairly busy schedule this week and both PG and Nate are away - but I'd hope this may find space some time during the week.
Euan
Skip,
looking forward to it. I looked up your comment on Feb. 10. Very enlightening.
-André
Euan, can I suggest at least two topics?
It seems to me that weapons proliferation is the most important problem with nuclear power, and that it's only tangentially related to waste storage, reactor maintenance and decommissioning.
If we are ever to have any hope of beginning to approach consensus on these things, I think we have to narrow our focus, and deal with one thing at a time.
Personally, I think that nuclear is an inferior option to renewables, but that we'll need nuclear in the current climate emergency. I think others, like even the most dedicated German opponents to nuclear power, will come to the same view. But, I don't think we can understand why they would prefer coal to nuclear without considering the weapons question, and I think it needs its own topic.
The cost of Yucca is measured in 10's of $billions. The cost of the Iraq war, justified with WMD, is measured in 100's of $billions, or even $trillions. The cost of sanctions for Iranian uranium enrichment is measured in 100's of $billions, just in the form of a risk premium for oil markets.
Weapons proliferation deserves its own topic.
Ok Nick, so all the risk issues are:
Safety of U mining operations
Operational safety of reactors
Waste storage
Decommissioning
Weapons proliferation
That's pretty good. If you wanted to broaden the definition of risk, you could include security of uranium fuel supplies (IOW, risk of not having enough), risk of inadequate speed of ramping up nuclear construction, and risk of excessive construction cost.
Personally, I would rank these issues like this:
Most important: Weapons proliferation
2nd: Risk of inadequate ramping speed
3rd: Operational safety of reactors
4th: Waste storage
5th: Security of uranium fuel supplies
6th: Excessive construction cost
7th: Decommissioning
8th: Safety of U mining operations
I would combine #2 & 6, and 4 & 7.
Another very good topic would be comparison of all of these, vs. the risk of climate change (and probably including the risk of peak FF).
Just my perspective.
I think any debate about nuclear needs to be holistic. Its not possible to weigh all the pros and cons if you spilt the arguments up.
So we will be having one big bun fight - but I'm noting all your points.
If you want to be holistic, then you should discuss its advantages and real potential as well.
Of course.
"I think any debate about nuclear needs to be holistic. Its not possible to weigh all the pros and cons if you spilt the arguments up."
I really think it's unlikely we'll make significant progress in this manner. There won't be sufficient space and time to address each of these areas, and nothing will be resolved.
We continue to have on TOD endless circular arguments about the simplest of issues, such as whether there is sufficient uranium to fuel reactors. I think it will be a very difficult challenge to begin to come to some kind consensus on even the easier topics, let alone the harder ones, like reactor operating safety, or proliferation. A post which tries to handle all of these at once is doomed to get bogged down - there simply isn't space and time.
It's true that all of these topics are somewhat related, but most of them are sufficiently different that a thorough treatment can be done without definitive answers about the others.
It is in fact going to be very difficult to come to resolution even if the scope of discussion is limited. So many people have idee fixes, and are willing to post without doing research or having relevant or detailed knowledge, that it's going to be lucky to make progress even in a narrow discussion. We might only succeed with a series of posts for each sub-topic, in which basic issues of fact are settled (what are costs? what materials are involved? what are their properties? what are the processes by which things happen? and so on...).
Just because you focus on one piece at a time doesn't mean that you don't eventually get to that holistic picture. I would suggest that the best way to handle this kind of thing is old-fashioned analysis. Analysis involves breaking things into manageable pieces, working on each piece until there is understanding, and then bringing those pieces back together again in a holistic picture.
Once we have a beginning of that kind of overall picture, we can start to evaluate nuclear's role vs other energy sources, in the context of climate change and peak FF.
I'll think about it. But I still haven't received a submission from Skipinbluff.
The end of his handle is bluff.
My apologies on lack of submission... I'm presently wearing 'too may hats' and got called away from it - which is leading to my necessity to go on the road for a few days this coming week. I hope to have it out to you before setting out late Tuesday afternoon.
Commenting on the recent collection of posts concerning the scale of the new topic: nuclear power generation requires mining; refining; modifying, 'burning'; collection and treatment of the resultant burned; recycling and/or the safeguarding of the burned; transporting the various phases of the fuel and the burned; designing, prototyping and building the various pieces of capital equipment to accomplish all; cleaning it all up afterward; finally, having it really work!
It won't if decisions are made not based upon hard science. In the best case it would work for a while... in the worst case it would create major and irreparable damage... the likely would be never finishing it before running out of (whatever).
A very complex thread indeed.
I will focus on the clarification of the issues of waste management that have arisen and the apparent misunderstanding of the physical science governing it - some posters have seemingly been led to believe that issues have been solved in reality when, in fact, they have only been speculatively and prototypically discussed.
Back to it...
Skip
And theory needs to be tempered by practicality and probability. For example, it may be theoretically possible to build reactors at a fast enough rate but is it likely (with planning, objections, diversion of resources, etc)? And the earth may theoretically contain enough fuel sources for thousands of years but what is the likely ramp up speed for the needed technologies? In the end, any conclusions should ask: is this conclusion based on what we know to be true (supported by data) or what we think might be achievable over some period?
Hi, DaveMart.
Thank you for your input but I must confess that I'm not really interested in pursuing the nuclear thread very far. I don't think we'll have much money to build the plants and one can't put their product into a gas tank, so it doesn't help with the liquid fuel shortage that we're going to have to deal with first.
As for your implied assertion that the waste products of the nuclear industry are not far from being easily handled, I'm inclined to want to take good care of our long-suffering planet and the people on it so I would like the waste to be addressed with due care. Everything you say may be true but for the moment I'm going to assume that your proposals are at best the barest minimum and are more likely to be insufficient when examined closely.
-André
You must form your judgements on whatever basis seems most appropriate to yourself, but perhaps it is worth pointing out that the electricity from nuclear power could be put into a battery to run a car, and that it is the only technology that we currently have which has been proven to be able to provide most of the electricity for a modern society, as France currently gets 75% of all electricity from it, and that we simply have not got that sort of experience with suggested alternatives.
Since it is also reasonably cheap - see French electricity rates - and low-carbon, if we think that GW and energy shortage are likely to be problems it would seem, to me at least, that you would need the strongest grounds possible to rule it out as a solution, and it would be folly to lightly dismiss it.
So perhaps it might be time well spent to check the assumptions - Lovelock actually offered to store nuclear waste in the shed at the bottom of his garden, so perhaps I am not being quite so minimalistic as you think! ;-)
Hi, DaveMart.
True, true...I will say that I have no trouble moving to an electron economy. What I don't see happening is a wholesale move to electric vehicles given the economic conditions we'll soon be in. Nor do I think we will have the money to build nuclear plants.
What I find lacking in these types of conversations is any significant appreciation for the effort and expense of changing our infrastructure in any significant way in any appreciably short amount of time before civilization collapses. On last count there were over 800 million vehicles in the world that operate on liquid fuel and the money to move them to electric motors will soon be in very short supply.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe that we will enter energy descent largely with the infrastructure we have. We may sneak in a few electric vehicles for first-responder units (ambulance, fire, etc.) if we're smart — maybe a few police cruisers — but not much more, in my opinion.
Best,
André
What I always find rather weird in these conversations is that many of those most convinced that civilisation will collapse due to energy shortages and/or that Global warming will lead to mass deaths, seem most determined to rule out using nuclear energy to avoid this.
Even if you accepted the most extreme fancies about the risks of nuclear power, surely those would be entirely trivial compared to the alternatives presented?
In the worst possible case, Chernobyl, according to Greenpeace around 60,000 people will eventually die due to it (according to the World Health Organisation the figure is around 100, and that is the figure that forms the basis for present risk assessments in medicine, for things like x-rays and so on - risks from low doses of radiation are now assessed as being much lower than once thought, but Greenpeace has chosen not to adjust it's estimates, though if Greenpeace ever assumed anything other than the worst possible case for nuclear I have yet to hear about it)
That accident occurred in a reactor without any containment vessel at all - none are now built that way, and Three Mile Island proved that containment vessels work, no-one died.
Compared to that, all the risks from waste etc are trivial, and even the occasional Chernobyl, which is now impossible, would do tiny amounts of damage compared to the fall of civilisation or massive climate change.
The line of reasoning of those who are not doomers is that renewables will do the job - well, maybe, but we have no advanced society at the moment that substantially runs on them, other than hydroelectric where available and geothermal in Iceland, so we really don't know.
In any case, I am perfectly prepared to use renewables wherever they are practical and affordable, so the difference in opinion just means I have more alternatives.
The main point though is that risk assessment is always relative, and if things are as bad as you think the risks of nuclear are tiny by any reckoning against the catastrophe you feel will happen if we don't' have carbon-low power.
This is the reason given you (also given by me, perhaps others):
To which you "answered":
He pointed out in the second post that a primary issue was time, not just safety. This is not something you can't figure out, it is something you intentionally ignore. The point has been made to you several times. You have thus far refused to answer it. Your reasons thus far, if memory serves, are:
- I'm just not interested in talking about the issue en toto; I just want to talk about nuclear energy without regard to the constraints placed by current reality. (I paraphrase.)
- I don't like you. (I paraphrase)
To reiterate: the reason we place the question to you, and the reason the above-quoted poster has no interest in discussing this further with you is simple: if either short- or mid-term peak is the reality, your nuclear option is a no-go. Period. Given short-term peak (pre-2020) is by far the most likely scenario, your focus on this solution is tiresome.
Do yourself a favor and answer the questions posed to you. If you continue with putting your fingers in your ears and singing la-la-la's, you're going to find yourself increasingly marginalized.
Cheers
Eaun has asked us to take the debate to a separate thread, and therefore I will do so.
As a brief response, you have not demonstrated beyond any doubt that the time is too short and so it would be incredibly stupid to act on that assumption if there was even a 1% chance that this was incorrect, I would also point out that this goes beyond the normally accepted situation outlined by the IPCC and relies on the work of Hansen and perhaps others, but is no no means the generally accepted view.
Also, reasonably responsive dialogue is needed before there is any point engaging - in your present response you could not resist the opportunity for sarcasm, and I really can't be dealing with your attitude - if you want to stick to the point, great. If you want a response, try having normal manners.
I didn't actually bother reading your posts, as I found the attitude tiresome, and did not answer because I was unwilling to wade through the verbiage, and so was entirely unaware of whatever you were on about, not because you had made such an irrefutable point
Do yourself a favour, and drop the snotty attitude, you have already marginalised yourself.
I am not the only person with whom you have used this childish tactic. There are at least two others I have noted. You get your ass handed to you for ignoring valid arguments with the pretense that you have been treated uncivilly.
You are a joke.
BTW, your reasoning is idiotic. I haven't "proven" the short time frame? When the hell do you anticipate that will ever happen with any of the arguments we are discussing? We are discussing opinions in the end. We could agree on every technical point and still completely disagree about the overall topic and viability.
How do you not understand this?
Further, your logic is completely backwards: my stance has almost zero risk while yours is nothing but risk. The reasons have been listed before. Perhaps you can drop your persecution complex long enough to read them. And learn something.
Cheers
Agreed.
One example from Davemart above:
For all of Dave's holier-than-thou attitude when it comes to "debating", he is very big on childish statements like this and then dispensing random insults to anyone who disagrees.
Hopefully we'll see a better discussion of the risks of nuclear power in a dedicated thread, instead of having this stuff endlessly repeated on unrelated thread after semi-related thread after tangentially-related thread...
bigGav, if you must make comments such as that renewables can do the whole job of running the economy without the assistance of nuclear power, and then apparently not have thought through the argument in any way or have any back-up for your statement, then you can expect to be questioned on the basis of your claim.
All reactors, at least in the West are built with a containment vessel, and hence a explosion with the same result as Chernobyl is not possible, so long as the containment vessel does anything at all - it worked rather well at TMI.
Maybe you are right, Andre, but the thing is there really does not seem to be much advantage to operating on that assumption - I don't think that we will all carry on business as usual, particularly since we have delayed so much about nuclear power, but we might at least be able to run trains and so on whilst we build more capacity, both nuclear and renewables.
It still seems odd though that you should be so concerned with the possible problems of nuclear power, when they pale in significance against what you project!
You are talking about billions dying, and massive climate change I would guess, although you do not specify, so the risks of nuclear must be tiny in comparison, and isn't it worth giving it a go with all we have, on the off-chance we are not so doomed as you suppose? :-)
I've seen this kind of argument from nuclear supporters before. It goes like this:
Since the energy problems we face could cause widespread pain, why not try to avoid such pain by ensuring nuclear is brought in to fill the energy gap.
It's an appeal to emotion, though I've no idea if the proponents actually do fear for the condition of billions of people around the globe. The problem with appeals to emotion is that they aren't rational. Maybe it's impossible to find a totally rational argument for or against nuclear power but, for me, it boils down to this ...
We've seen what a reliance, and growing reliance, on finite sources of energy can do. Isn't this why we've got the problems we have now? The proponents of nuclear swear blind that there is an abundance of fuel sources and that we will never run out. Isn't this what we used to hear from big oil? A small group of people argue, and have researched, that the nuclear fuel source position may not be as rosy as some would have us believe. Isn't this how the peak oil movement started out? If we somehow plug the energy gap, how would we be positioned, in 50 years time, in terms of sustainability? There could be 9 billion of us. The global economy could have tripled. Resources scarcities could be facing us in all aspects of our lives (if they haven't already). Would nuclear have no environmental consequences in that time? Would we be well positioned to reduce our impact on the planet where we live, or not? Would we be facing even large numbers of starving people by 2060? There are many other issues, including those connected with the possibility of nuclear societies collapsing if the attempt to bridge the gap fails.
I've been a nuclear supporter in the past. Today, it just seems like totally the wrong solution.
Your argument against nuclear power could basically be made against anything that postpones hardship and tries to bridge a gap to a sustainable future with breeder reactors, solar power of fusion power.
The billions will hurt argument is not a good one since few can feel the difference between one hurting person and a billion hurting. One perfectly taken picture of one starving child moves people much more then statistics about a million dying. Realy trying to save billions is more about working with abstractions then feelings since we are not wired for it.
I dont know if I realy feel for the billions hurt if peak oil is handled badly and we dont do all good things that can be done like building more nuclear power. Perhaps I do it to a degree since I try to focus on other things like how to solve small parts of the problems.
My take on more nuclear power for a better future is that it would be good for us where I live and that we could export a lot of that benefit and that would help manny millions and the trade makes it possible for us to buy stuff we need. That we can provide energy and energy intesive goods makes it easier for other prople to solve problems.
Each reagion or country that do the same takes an additional part of the preassure and makers more resources available. This creates a positive competition instead of a fight for a shrinking cake.
This is of course bad if you are sure that we are doomed and that an immediate dieoff is the best "solution".
Magnus,
I find the whole thing happening just to the north of my home inHamburgh up in Scnadinavia encouraging according to your description, that with a good mix in 15-20 years you guys can make a sustainable future. You seem distressed about greens turning off the nukes in Norway and I would presume in Germany, as it reduces low C02 flexibility during the transition. This all sounds sensible. I appreciate noridc common sense as I do generally German common sense (being anglo saxon by birth and seeing how they are living off credit and how manufacturing is going down the tubes along with engineering /technical skills).
I would like to add however that Sweden, for example has not fought a land war for several hundred years and very little physical fighting occurred in the other scandinavian countries as well over that time period.
I wonder however what would have beenof any nulcaear power plants under such circumstances as described here in 1942:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II
I think a sense of continuity of scandinavian nuclear power plants over a couple hundred years is based on the peaceful past of hundreds of years and arguably sensible given that past. Larger powers like Germany are more competitive generally and can expect to be attacked and to get more involved. Neutrality is unlikely long-term so that war is almost assured. Will another operation Gomorrah hit Hamburg ever again? Unlikely but who knows. If USA loses its global role (bankrupt, wahtever) and the EU falls to bickering again then with high European unemployment and / or inflation certain types of parties could come to pwower in France/UK/Germany/Russia causing similar European civil wars as have occurred again and again over the last centuries. Maybe Scandinavia will reamin isolated and neutral, but Germany is a transit land if not a participant in a major war, as it has always been one or the other. Nukes are not safe in central Europe inlight of future economic instability. I would not recomend it here, technically sound(see Dave Mart,etc.) or not.
Norway only have at least one research reactor but yes I am distressed about "greens" wanting to shut down nuclear reactors during global warming when we are close to peak oil.
Thinking about the possibility of running industrial sites during centuries and how to handle things in a multi thousand year perspective is probably influenced by the nuclear power debate and I like things that work well.
We have been extremely lucky to not have had any wars during the 1900:s and most of the 1800:s. Part of the luck has been that we have traded with threathening powers and been more valuble to them alive then invaded. We can provide other countries with wood products including chemicals and fuel and we can export electricity and electricity intensive goods but this only works well if nobody attacks us and trashes the effectiveness of our society. Our productivity and realpolitik value is not from more or less single point sources as in Irak.
If the world would becomes tougher I would very much like to have a lot to trade with and this also helps to stabilize our neighbours.
Would you find it a good idea to buy more power from Sweden?
Or to move energy intensive and man power lean manufacturing to Sweden?
Like with solar in the south and wind on the north sea an hydro where it occurs as well as large amounts of wood, these enrgy sources can be traded or used to manufacture where they areto resource poor areas like Germany. If the people in Grmany percive the political and milityry risk for nukes too high they should remove them and perhaps build twenty of thm on the arcic circle wher perhaps nobody is living and no armies can march to quickly and thn send cables to central Eruope (just an idea). At any rate wars always happen, just like technical mistakes. I just think nuclear has a too high level of need for zero mistakes over a too long period of time. We're only human after all. I jut don'T buy it. Thepopulation is getting older and will b poorer, maybe north Afrcians and so on will slowly "invade" Europe,etc. Who knows the future?
Indeed it could, if the attempt is intended to allow business as usual until the world's population is satisfied with its lot. Realistic attempts at sustainability start now, with powering down.
I've heard an alternative argument on this theme. There is some level of population that can be sustained indefinitely, and reasonably comfortably, on this planet. No-one really knows what that level is but let us suppose it is 3 billion, for the sake of argument. If the population decreases from here, we lose 3.7 billion people. If we artificially support an increasing population to 9 or 10 billion, we lose 6 to 7 billion people to reach a sustainable level. So which is the greater evil? To force a continuation of growth to hurt more people in the long run or to accept earth's limits now, knowing that it means a smaller reduction?
Now, that argument would be valid if the sustainable population is anything from 2 people to 6.7 billion people, and even up to about 8 billion people (unless we stabilise there). Only if one believes that the sustainable population is above about 8 billion would that argument start to make some sense but, even then, it requires fingers crossed that population will stabilise at between 9 and 10 billion (the estimates for the last 4 years have not shown a declining growth rate).
The indefinately sustainable population level must be extremely dependant on the technology level and the wisdom in the technology use.
It is a good thing to use better technology and live good lives with it while thinking and acting for long term. And this do not result in a power-down if you in a benign way can produce what other people need.
Unfortunately the wisdom in leadership and local culture varies, some places will be turned into garbage heaps like Naples.
If it were correct that we would run out of uranium and thorium after about 50 years or so, which I do not accept as remotely likely, as it is utterly unlike oil and gas and is not a rare material only produced under specific circumstances, has a very low cost for finding more resources as opposed to the very high one for oil and gas and is very energy dense so you don't need much of it to produce a lot of power, in short it is the opposite of constrained oil and gas resources in just about every way, even if this were the case, those 50 years could be invaluable.
Whilst I think that renewables are far too immature to take the strain of running the whole of society in the immediate future, I am sanguine that 50 years of progress would radically transform the situation.
So in other words, if it did nothing else, nuclear power would tide us over.
There's your problem. That has not been demonstrated. There are large available resources of nuclear, wind and solar. We just need to transition our energy infrastructure.
It is possible that we will not do it but I think it is unlikely. The urge for survival is too strong.
aangel-
Re:
The economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen addressed your last blunder above - in terms of entropy (which determines natural energy flow) - in his book entitled The Entropy Law and the Economic Process
Skip
Hi, Skip. Thanks for that. I may check it out but had you seen what the sole one-star reviewer at Amazon said? I checked out the reference he gives and indeed there seems to be a shift away from entropy as disorder to simply entropy as 'leaking energy' (my term).
If you think the analysis stands despite Lambert's efforts to propagate a more accurate explanation of entropy (http://www.entropysite.com) than the one Georgescu-Roegen uses (and that everyone else uses, including me until I just read Lambert's work), I may pick up the book. Otherwise I'm very satisfied with Ayres' and Warr's paper.
-André
Well, you don't know me from Adam's Housecat...
...but the ninth reviewer (and Lambert) are lacking in depth of understanding of entropy.
However, do not interpret the above to mean that I accept the definition of entropy as, simply,
*disorder*.
I do not... perhaps chemistry texts define it such - but that could be one reason that so many chem students are poorly educated.
Skip
Hi Andre,
Thanks and just chiming in to ask if you received an email from me and/or could you possibly get in touch? (Mine is listed.)
The idea of wealth at all is unsustainable. I know it sounds so very "Red", but it is inescapable. Both usury and the pursuit of profit lead to unlimited growth and poverty. Do I expect this to change? No. The 20/80 rule has always applied and likely always will. It's a matter of human nature. But, any sustainable system must do away with both of these ideals and/or accept the inevitable cycles of rise and fall, build up and collapse.
I first had the epiphany that led me down the non-acquisitive lifestyle I lead when I read The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key. There was a single line in the book that not only encapsulated the essence of the values the book espoused, but put into question the very nature of the current paradigm. For me it was a Socratic moment, with me in the role of the student.
The protagonist, after his benefactor marvels over the value of the gems in the hand-made knife he carries, and confused that his knife might be more than a tool lovingly made and used, he asks, "How can a thing have two values?" (May be a misquote.)
Great question. If I wasn't an idealistic little twit before reading that line, I certainly was after.
Cheers
Ya think?
I would have to say that is a bit of flabby analysis. The profit motive has turned out to be the most relible way to motivate people. The threat of poverty also helps. If you really think "the idea of wealth at all is unsustainable" then why do you not expect it to change?
Given the way the world has developed in the last 50 years I am not betting on the Marxists.
I am not sure that the term sustainable in this context means infinite. It might mean that there is a source of replenishment to the stock of energy. If it took a long time to create the coal field, nothing is really replenishing it in a short time frame. If you consider solar, the sun will continue for a long time and every day that your part of the earth faces the sun the energy is replenished.
Hey JD, a post full of cheers for 'Olduvai Duncan', whom you despise and consider a crackpot, and you just drop by to say 'Let's get to work?' Come on, man, put in the boot!
Not only that, JD once referred to de Sousa as "the stinky liar."
Luís, good post - many thanks for all the work (incl. Euan).
Several pieces caught my attention, but this in particular:
Can you already now explain shortly why?
Does this mean in your model, that district heating through combined heat & power (aka co-generation or tri-generation) would see a ramp down?
Granted, the past 10 years have not been so good to district heating markets due to rising temperatures and this may continue to be so (the end of the warm cycle in northern hemisphere soon will let us find out).
However, from the point of view of energy generation efficiency and existing infrastructure, I'd think that co-generation would at the very least stay where it is at now, or increase.
This would mean that heat would remain an important vector for residential energy use in those countries that already deploy it, and that 'everything electricity' scenario wouldn't be as plausible everywhere.
Or did I misunderstand what you were trying to explain?
Ok, SamuM let's try to make it more clear:
Co-generation requires a heat engine. Now, from the four alternative sources considered above only Unconventional Coal can provide you that. I'm not saying that co-generation will disappear completely during the period we analysed, but it will possibly loose some of the importance it has today.
Electricity seems a straight forward answer because it can serve all energy sources we considered. But especially on Transport, electricity poses itself today as one of the best candidates to replace oil-products. Why? Because the main advantage of oil based vectors is their volumetric density. Hydrogen, ammonia, and other light molecules are today just dreams.
But this work is still under way, so please wait a little longer and continue checking TOD:E regularly.
From the four alternatives showed, only wind does not have a heat engine. Solar may have or not depending on how it is implemented, nuclear and coal eletricy generation are based on heat engines.
Again about solar, the best ROI, EROEI, and efficiencies seem to be reached from heat engines nowadays. Altought that may change on the future.
District Heating & Cooling
In the near term Heating and Cooling Districts, given sufficient density, diversity and proximity, of thermal and power loads can susbstantially increase our yield from natural gas from 50% (aasuming combined cycle less T&D losses) to 80%+. A Smart Energy District,one where indvidual building automation systems are clocally monitored and managed, can dynamically shed and shift loads and susbtantially reduce generation. At the ssame time, this becomes a cost-effective means to incorporate geothermal, solar thermal and PV at a scale that is more economic than it might be for individual buildings (for example, well-spacing distances would be insufficient for large buildings in a dense urban setting).
Luís, I understand how co-generation and Carnot heat engine works.
But I'm afraid I cannot understand how the scenario envisions we will go into less efficient power systems, by abandoning co-generation and moving to pure electricity generation from the primary fuel heat engine process.
There is no way to capture as much energy from a BTU of heating oil/natgas/coal to electricity vector alone as there is to electricity+heat combined (i.e. co-generation).
This was the point that I tried to make and I am still quite baffled how any energy company would :
- abandon existing paid-for infrastructure (co-generation)
- go to less efficient energy conversion systems (pure electricity, which has a lower total system conversion efficiency, thus increasing their fuel bill and decreasing their sold energy output)
... especially in a world of starving primary energy fuels & restrictive emission cuts.
So, going for all electricity infrastructure: currently I see this as theoretically possible in the very long run, but not yet very believable.
I agree on the issue of coal. It looks like the only source for now that scales up. Solid bio-fuels, bio gases and energy waste are for the most part niche fuels in OECD countries.
Which is also what I'm afraid of. Coal is too cheap, too readily available, with existing plants, with working markets and it we know how it works providing base load electricity (unlike wind/solar, which in many parts of the world are still seasonal/intermittent and provide a challenge for demand load balancing).
I also agree on the electricity vector (in some carrier form like chemical batteries) providing the bulk of the transport energy need.
However, when we hit primary energy fuel crunch, I'd be surprised if we didn't try to make every last bit of BTU count from every drop of fuel we burn.
This would necessitate using excess heat from the heat engine that the electricity generation cannot capture and try and capture it into another, lower quality form. For transport I can't be sure what this could be, but perhaps compressed air storage would be a possibility (heat->pressure exchange).
However, this doesn't change the big picture in your scenarios, that I agree on.
SamuM - I'd understood this somewhat differently to Luis' explanation. My understanding was that all energy sources were rebased in electrical equivalency to ease comparison. TWh is easier to use as a base than BOE when comparing wind with gas for example.
With respect to my opening comment up top I see energy efficiency as the main driving force behind energy policy. Thus, combined heat and power reported to have 90% efficiency must be expanded to replace large inefficient coal fired electricity only plants which are 30 to 45% efficient. This doubling of efficiency halves your CO2 per unit energy. In effect, in the UK you would displace the gas fired domestic central heating boilers - saving gas and CO2. So why is this not happening everywhere? I'm writing this up today.
Ah, ok. Then I misunderstood. That would make sense.
At this point, I'm concerned about the use of nuclear weapons in the not-so-distant future. The global military apparatus will not be marginalized, it will go out kicking and screaming.
the efficiency wedge implies i have to be sleeping right now (0100) instead of reading TOD! ;)
if everyone surfed only during daylight, that would save at least 5% of our energy usage... (lighting/cpus)
Do the authors think that if we can somehow rise to this challenge and smooth the way down to 5 boe/person/year, that our collective societies will have no further resource problems? Are other resource (in the broad meaning of that word) problems likely to kick in and derail any efforts to address the energy problem alone?
I've read some optimistic opinions that resources are just a matter of energy (and substitution). If so, isn't it likely that one or more vital resource will draw more and more energy to ensure its availability, thus rendering the 5 boe target obsolete as a measure of what can maintain a reasonable lifestyle by 2100?
Nice work, by the way!
Guys,
A great deal of very interesting and thought provoking workd, thanks and well done!
Clearly we need to begin a economic, social and cultural realignment of our civilization as a priority, and soon. Yet I believe this will prove far more difficult than most people imagine or hope.
We are talking about fundamental, structural changes in the way we organize society on a global scale and first and formost a radical change in the way we think, our ideas about the world, and a redistribution of wealth and power on a far more equitable basis. We need more democracy and political reform in order to engage people in the necessary changes in consumption and lifestyle which are so urgently required. I believe we could 'cut a deal' with people; less consumption of crap, in return for an increase in democratic participation and control over there one lives, not 'more' but 'better'.
However, this will bring us head to head and into conflict with the fundamentally undemocratic and hierarchical structure of modern corporatist/capitalist society. This is a big problem. We are talking about confronting and defeating a set of socio/political/economic ideas that have dominated the western world for a least thirty years in their most extreme form.
Such a 'counter revolution' is going to be very, very, difficult to achieve. Yet all over the world there is a feeling that we have been moving in the wrong direction. It's wrong to underestimate the latent 'revolutionary' potential contained in the populations of many countries, and not just the poor ones.
However, it would be a fundamental mistake to underestimate the opposition to fundamental change from those sections of society that benefit so disproportionaly from the current socio/economic paradigm. The ruling elite will not sanction reforms that threaten their hegemony and rule, pleading with them that it's in their own best interests too, unfortunately won't work.
Their answer to the energy crisis is war and occupying the countries that contain the resources we reguire to maintain our way of life, which is really a way of death. Think if the 3 trillion dollars wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 3 trillion dollars wasted by the other nations involved, had been invested more wisely. 6 trillion dollars in alternative energy sources, conservation, efficiency drives, energy education programms, better insulation of homes, an alternative, integrated, transport strategy... 6 trillion dollars could have made a real difference and put us on a pathway to change. Yet we've pissed it all away in the sand and are likely to continue and accelerate down the road to disaster, unless we take control of the fundamental heights of society, break the power of the aristocracy and change course.
Peak Oil and Peak Fossil Fuels in general are fracturing events. This kind of events are always, and will always be, used as pretext to put forward ideological agendas.
TheOilDrum has no ideological line behind it, and considering the multitude of backgrounds of the different people involved, I'd say it is pretty much shielded against any attempt of high-jacking.
Dear Luis,
I appriciate your work, but I don't believe I was using Peak Oil as a 'pretext' for putting forward an ideological agenda, and I certainly had no intention or even desire to 'high-jack' anything. I thought I was just desecribing the world as it is!
As a rather well-off and successful 'champagne anarchist' I and my family are going to be shielded from the worst effects of Peak Oil, climate change and societal breakdown, for a long time, and if things deteriorate substantially we'll just immigrate to New Zealand or buy some land in Argentina, which I've been seriously considering of late.
So I benefit directly from the current, grostesquely unfair, wasteful and environmentally unsustainable corporate/capitalist system. I detest the way we worship the market and have washed our hands of responsibility for its destructive effects, concentrating exclusively on the positive aspects. What bothers me is that it isn't sustainable in the long term. I also have problems enjoying my success when so many people are starving and living in abject poverty. I feel this deminishes me as a person too. Hegel felt the same way about slavery, as an institution it simply corrupts everyone involved, though some more than others.
I think rampant, unbound, turbo capitalism is doomed. I wish it wasn't as I profit so handsomely from the world corporate/capitalist economy. I'd like my children and their children to live as well and comfortably as I have, only it's not possible, or the price we pay is going to explode. I'm worried about the consequences of its death throws and what eventually might replace it. I'm not really happy with the idea of sending armies of our 'peasants' out to fight wars against other 'peasants' over scarce resources, just to keep me and my family in luxury, though I've met influential people, the Davos crowd, who don't agree. They think our foot soldiers are just stupid, ignorant, brutes who need to be herded off to war every now and then, rather than let them hang around getting into mischief and worse.
Politically I consider myself to be very pragmatic and non-ideological. I'm not really a very dogmatic anarchist. My wife's family are 'fallen' european patricians/aristocrats, but rather cynical about where the money comes from. Once they owned slaves. Because of my very priviliged position I can stand back and observe the system from a 'neutral' perspective.
I'm very cynical about it, and its ability to change very much. I wish it wasn't so, but alas.
I am, however, an implacable critic of the present western ruling class and the system which serves them so well, believe me, it's far beyond what they deserve. At the very least we need a good shake up and an infusion of new blood into the ruling elite. It has become fossilized and is full of enetia. These are people who are currently squandering six trillion dollars on grostesque, imoral, insane, imperial wars. I only mention my complete disdain for the ruling 'aristocracy' because I wander in and out of these circles and I have observed nothing that leads me to conclude that they have any sense at all of the real magnitude of the challanges we face, or have any idea whatsoever of what to do about them!
Changing society and implimenting the necessary 'reforms' is going to be a real uphill struggle, especially with the current crop of leaders who are in charge of the world. Waste six trillion on stupid wars, they can do that, but use these resources wisely, no way! Think about it for a second, we have leaders who can piss away trillions on war, yet they cannot even tackle world hunger at a time of unrivalled prosperity! What does that tell us about them? Are we really supposed to believe they are capable of addressing the far greater chanllanges of Peak Oil and Climate Change? I remain to be convinced and I am sceptical in the extreme.
Of course one can argue that precisely because Peak Oil and Climate Change will also effect them, that they have an interest in finding solutions to these monumental problems. I doubt this very much. I believe their 'solution' will be more war and violence directed at the poor, making them pay an obscene price for our gross over-consumption. Make no mistake, we will go over the cliff edge unless we change, any fool can see that much surely?!
I hope this doesn't sound too 'political'. It wasn't meant to. I was just trying to examine the socio/economic obsticles to change realistically. We won't deal with the problems we face unless we change the way we organize society. We need an alternative economic paradigm. Now whether this will actually happen, whether it is possible, or even diserable, given the collosal wealth, economic and military power of the 'ruling class' is very debatable and 'political'. I was just attempting to point out that implimenting structural reforms to the way we do things, isn't going to be easy or without cost. Especially now as we enter the twilight of the 'democratic' age, and the shadow world of brutal, raw power, once more.
I would advise you to move now while your money is worth something. A very large fraction of New Zealand's population is overseas and will be coming home if the shit hits the fan. If you aren't already in New Zealand, you won't be able to move there for any amount of money.
The the environmentally destructive effects of our current economic system and the potentially huge social discontinuities which might be brought about by resource depletion have been evident to thinking people for many decades. The fact that even with the evidence for global warming and fossil fuel depletion becoming stronger every day no intelligent strategy for dealing with the problems posed by human economic activity has emerged is a reflection of the underlying structural nature of our economic and political system. To claim that narrowly focusing on technology and ignoring larger social issues puts you above the fray of political ideology is complete nonsense. By refusing to discuss issues of political and economic power (They cannot really be separated.) you are effectively promoting the ideology of the dominant culture which (in my view) is dragging us down to destruction. Would a person who criticized the Roman power structure rather than concentrating on how to conscript more troops and slaves to shore up the declining empire have been guilty of pursing an 'idealogical agenda'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer
I really appreciate the honest research and hard work that Luis and others do on this web-site. I re-read the original Olduvai Gorge theory and the original premise about the third phase of civilization: "...de-industrialization phase...limited by the exhaustion of limited non-renewable resources and continuing deterioration of the natural enviroment".
I'm with writerman, I can't be optimistic about our ability to solve the problems in an energy scarce world. In a democracy the status quo will always move to disenfranchise. When circumstances thrust events upon us we might or might not adapt but humans are evolved to deal with the "tooth and claw" not obscure speculations about the future.
I am building a web-site www.lasvegasthecrash.com
based on the notion that Las Vegas NV, Americas shadow capital, will be the first city in America to fail. I base my predictions on A. Las Vegas being a zero sum economy (they produce nothing) B. geographically isolated C. overextended local resources (particularly water)
The question I present in my web-site is: Will a far poorer American economy, with the end of cheap energy (particularly gasoline,)continue to swarm to Las Vegas NV via roads and Jet travel in sufficient numbers to support the massive infrastruture that is Las Vegas.
I think not...
I grew up around Las Vegas and I have seen booms and busts come and go but I wager that this bust will be of a scale that will be unprecedented.
Joe - I think you are spot on with Vegas - apart from one minor detail - the neighboring Lake Mead and Hoover dam which churns out a vast amount of electricity. Part of Roosevelt's post depression new deal I believe. Its just a pity no one came up with a better idea of how to use all that dirt cheap electricity. Vegas sure is a lot of fun though:-))
On a more serious note our UK politicians are always harping on about expanding tourism. Its about the only "industry" they harp on about endlessly.
So when they breathe in its tourism, tourism, tourism. And when they breathe out its CO2, CO2, CO2.
Meshing social and political agendas with the harsh reality of energy decline is not an easy task.
I agree that Vegas will return to dust.
I think that the Vegas/Hoover Dam issue is analogous to one that we will see play out repeatedly (in the US & elsewhere) over the next few decades.
The US Bureau of Reclamation owns Hoover Dam (as well as Flaming Gorge, Glenn Canyon, Davis, & Parker Dams that constitute the "Colorado River System"). The primary purpose of the system (including the primary purpose of Hoover) is to provide water for industrial agriculture to the states that are members of the Colorado River Compact. The secondary goal of hydroelectric generation works well when there is plenty of water in the system to meet commitments. However, the water from the Colorado River is overcommitted (the allotments to the states was set at a period we now know was an anomalous wet period), and this is becoming especially problematic as Colorado is now planning to take their allotment under the compact (they have not previously, as there is little population in Colorado West of the continental divide, but now there is massive water needed to invest in things like coal-bed methane recovery, not to mention the water need should people begin to exploit Colorado oil shale).
Bottom line: Vegas has one of the modern civil engineering wonders of the world sitting right next door, that is capable of generating huge volumes of water and a fair amount of electricity. However, the politics of that system are not under their control, and the demand (accompanied by the legal/political weight of California, etc.) for water will likely begin to compromise the ability of Hoover to generate power sufficient to meet the needs of Las Vegas. Maintaining water levels behind Parker and Davis dams (downstream from Hoover) will take priority, as those are the irrigation diversion points (which function only at sufficient waterboard levels) for California and Arizona agriculture. If, as many expect, we have entered a period of long-term drought in the western US, meeting the primary commitment of the system (irrigation) will compromise the hydroelectric potential.
None of that really undermines your conclusions re: Vegas, which which I agree, but I think the irrigation/hydro problem is interesting. The Majority of the major dams in the western US are set up similarly--irrigation is their primary legal commitment, and hydro is second (to include Grand Coulee, which is the largest hydro generator in America).
Jeff - thanks for your well researched insight into the "politics of water" that is moving at a speed noone could have imagined ten years ago.
Currently in Las Vegas the municipal water authority has just passed a rate hike of 36% for water customers. They have also approved a 2 billion dollar pipeline to siphon off the Great basin Aquafier. The Great Basin Auqaufier is the last unspoiled area in NV and is the remanants of the last ice age retreat 15,000 years ago. The ecosystem is one of the most delicate in the world. The estimates are with NV draining 20,000 acre feet of water a year it will deplete Great Basin in 7 years.
But in the the cash is king world of Vegas fish and raptors are "fer huntin' and fishin'". They don't carry much "juice".
Las Vegas gets only a scrap of the energy out of Hoover Dam. CA gets almost all of it. You have to remember that when they built it (with federal dollars) Las Vegas was a dusty little town of drifters and grifters not two million plus. They recently built a solar generating station north of vegas that is generating enough energy for 72,000 homes. Nevada as a solar source is unmatched. The biggest problem for Vegas is water.
Interesting piece; you've shown so well why we are all headed down the Road to the Olduvai! Great job! Duncan is vindicated.
Perry
I'm puzzled that two graphs show coal peaking about the same time as gas. However that could be plausible if the world economy hits a plateau driven by oil and gas shortages while political conditions make it difficult for coal to fill the gap.
More specifically I think existing forms of coal use will be surreptitiously increased (out of sight, out of mind) while well publicised new forms (CTL, ICG) will be condemned. As an example of sneaking increase Australia's new government is speeding up railways, new mines and export terminals for coal while talking tough on GHGs. So far Joe Public hasn't noticed.
I also think ICG may be overhyped as a way of getting at low EROEI coal. Experiments to date seem unconvincing plus it seems implausible that scrubbed CO2 can be reinjected into the same coal basin from which the producer gas was created.
RE: Coal
People frequently forget that when one type of resource becomes too scarce/expensive, other resources are used as substitutes. Thus, as oil and NG peak and decline, people will turn to coal as a substitute. This is why a mere extrapolation from present levels of usage is unrealistic.
If we look like falling off the olovidi cliff nobody will be much concerned about co2 emissions, exept those middle class hippy types who eat lentals. If people think greens are endagering their survival they will be strung from lamposts.
you talk about "stringing" greens up fairly often
in my worldview, the first up against the wall are those who denied AGW, who ignored the pleas of "the Greens" to reduce, recycle and reuse, who squandered the resources of the planet and in the process polluted, poisoned and used up what we were given - how about Westexas' Iron Triangle - who continue to promote endless growth and a "everything is fine, keep spending - go big" mindset? You don't think those folks should share the blame? It's the GREEN'S of all people who are to blame?
keep in mind the violent protests at events like meetings of the WTO or burning down ski areas or spiking old-growth redwoods weren't Humvee owners angry at the cost of gasoline...
but this kind of fingerpointing is destructive and pointless - but very indicative of politics and mindset, we'd be a lot better off trying to convince people to conserve, insulate and put up solar arrays than sitting here fantasizing about which particular group should be the first to be blamed and suffer the consequences
Can I just point out again...
These mathematical models take nice, steady state, uniform views of human systems. But guess what, it's the unevenness, the human dimension that governs what is really likely to happen in reality.
Take exportland as an example. Taken as a global whole the decline rate could be considered to be gradual and replaceable (as shown above). However when nationalistic and commercial concerns are bought in, we arrive at precipitous rates for some areas and growth in others. What price mass construction projects if fossil fuel availability is declining at 20% pa nationally? Are you going to focus on energy efficiency when there is no food?
I think we really do need CAS/agent based sim view of this to make sense of future scenarios and planning. We need a Peak Oil Wargame to explore the human dimension to potential decisions.
Somehow I think that's already been done behind government doors.
I completely agree. If the rest of the world increases their per capita energy use closer to that of Europe or the US, the peak could get earlier and the downslope could get steeper. That's exactly what the rest of the world is trying to do. We saw the Tata Nano, right here in the oil drum, just 10 days ago!
Garyp, I had to scroll down this far before finding a comment about the effects of the human factors on the decline of world energy usage per person. Thank you.
Any projection that leaves out how humans will react to shortage is not complete. I am not trying to diminish the fine work that went into the 'New Olduvai Projection' by all who contributed, but to project a future course for energy consumption I think that a look back at how humans have reacted in the past to resource constraints should be part of the projection. Of course, no two situations in history are quite the same but there are plenty of situations to draw upon to get a good idea of how various populations will react to energy constraints.
In my estimation, as resources are constrained a series of wars will insue. Wars effect economies, economies effect attempts to diversify energy sources. If the current US deployment of hundreds of bases around the world, while fighting several different conflicts, is not a good example then I would be hard pressed to present one. Does anyone on TOD think that the US military machine is going to sit idly by while their funding is transferred to PV, wind turbine manufacture, etc.? An understanding of our history reveals what brought us to the place where we are...A look back at our history can help remove the veil that partially obscures where we are going...and, combined with an understanding of human nature, will help us to understand how the future will likely unfold.
Tremendous work - many thanks!
A couple of notes:
The figures on energy efficiency do not include Japan, which is a large enough player to affect the overall results, and whose high energy efficiency perhaps indicates where the rest of us can hope to be within a reasonable time span, especially high density countries like China and perhaps India.
It would also be useful, if the figures are available to distinguish how far different economies have moved from FF economies already - ie France is a considerable way down the route of moving away from FF already due to it's large nuclear fleet, so the energy use includes more 'good' energy and less 'bad' energy.
So in essence what I am asking is if it would be possible to indicate how far down the road different countries have got, and to show one of the leaders, Japan.
As an aside it should perhaps be noted that the Canadian CANDU reactor is already able to burn thorium, so it is not 20 years away, I understand.
Thank you for questions.
Japan generates 1760$ per boe, you can check these figures for all countries listed by the BP Statistical Review in Annex A.3 of the spreadsheet. Table 3 list the countries that presently generate more than 2000$/boe yearly plus a few others for reference.
Those 20 years is a ballpark figure that is usually what a new energy source takes from entering commercial production to reach 1% of the market. That's what happened with the first generation of Nuclear reactors.
Thank you for the response - the figure is not as good as I expected from Japan.
I wonder if you have any comments or links to offer on the second part of my question, regarding present energy mix of renewables and nuclear to FF?
It would give us some idea of how far different countries have to go, although the figures might be difficult to access.
You could always go and browse the BP statistical review on that matter, but in my opinion the GDP/boe figure is a good proxy for that.
We at TOD:E have this old