74 comments on Gail Tverberg's Talk: Expected Economic Impact of an Energy Downturn
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74 comments on Gail Tverberg's Talk: Expected Economic Impact of an Energy Downturn
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GAIA Host Collective
I think not being able to replace liquid fuels is going to be a huge problem. All of our infrastructure is built to use liquid fuels. I don't think replacing this infrastructure with anything else - electric or otherwise -- will happen on more than a very limited basis.
The other thing that I don't people realize is that the electric system is in nearly as bad shape as liquid fuels. Euan has written about the problems in Great Britain, and I have written a little about the problems in the United States. In the United States we have a combination of problems-
• Margins of excess electric supply are dropping lower and lower, due to deregulation and inability to build new plants (due to climate concern and nuclear NIMBY)
• The Northeast, California, and Florida are very dependent on natural gas for electricity, but long-term supply is not good.
• Few coal-fired power plants are being built, because of environmental concerns.
• Upkeep of the electric grid has been badly neglected in recent years. It now needs major upgrades and replacements, but funding will be very difficult to obtain with peak oil problems.
• Work force of electric utilities is near retirement age. Few young people have been hired in years.
• Water needed for cooling coal and nuclear power plants is in short supply, particularly in the Southwest and Southeast. See this article by Platts.
• Long time delays are expected before new nuclear plants can be built. Some problems include inadequate number of skilled workers, lack of (or poor quality of) specialized parts, and short-term uranium shortages. A change to thorium, or other different technology, will add time to the process.
• Solar and wind are not likely to scale up adequately in the time-frame required.
• Needed parts (both replacement and for new facilities) may not be available because of balance of payment issues.
• Peak oil will bring shortages that can be expected to affect the electric industry as well - lack of gasoline for workers to get to work, and to run trucks used to maintain the grid.
If the electric grid is not working for some reason, it spills over to the liquid fuels sector, because pipelines need electricity to continue to pump oil as usual.
I think part of the problem is the complexity of the whole system, and the fact that Liebig's law of the minimum works in so many ways simultaneously.
When you consider we built most of the infrastructure in industrial society with nothing before it to build it upon when everything was far more costly, this laundry list of annoyances doesn't present itself as any sort of threat to civilization.
I would agree that there will be severe disruption, and that shortages of oil, gas, and later perhaps coal will impact heavily.
However, in the slightly longer term it seems to me that the problems are manageable for a number of reasons.
Firstly, generation costs will still be relatively low, ie no more than twice the price of electricity generated by natural gas, using nuclear power as the base line figure to get that cost, with wind, solar thermal and PV kicking in as they reach cost targets.
The question then becomes, if you accept that alleged uranium shortages are manageable, how do you get from a to b.
There is massive waste in the current system at all levels, from ICE engines burning inefficiently, to the use of road rather than rail transport, to inadequately insulated homes and the low use of heat pumps - air heat pumps will do just fine almost everywhere, rather than the far more expensive ground source pumps.
This effectively means that vast savings in energy use can be made relatively easily.
That brings us on to another point. Many of your arguments predicate their timescales on present practice, for instance the authorisation times for uranium mines, or authorisation difficulties for coal plants, and do not take account of human adaptability, it appears to me.
IOW, the more we are hurting and we have a greater emergency, the more procedures will be streamlined.
If power shortages bite, then NIMBY's will not be popular.
The solution to many of the issues discussed, for instance dry cooling to deal with water shortages, are well known, and what is needed is the will to deal with them.
The very magnitude of the problems ahead seems likely to me to lead to a vigorous response.
None of this is to say that adaption will be easy, but most of the issues are those of realising that we are in trouble rather than fundamental problems in applying technology.
Demand for nuclear reactors from France and Japan, for instance, is likely to rapidly grow, and in France at least the power is not likely to turn off as they have so high a percentage of nuclear power, so internationally trade in their plants should be vigorous.
Demand for wind turbines and transmission lines should also be high, as will be demand for advanced batteries.
Economies such as China also tend to be very resilient at their stage of growth.
Impact in the US and the UK, and in Africa, should be relatively high, but many areas seem much better placed to cope.