Some very good points.

I view this paper as a manifesto to younger generations. I believe these generations need to grasp the idea, that there could be possible famine, even in Europe. We need to prepare.

However, I agree that societies will change when they will be well aware of PO. But why do you think that time to react isn't like yesterday? Maybe we have run out of time to perform a gradual transition.

In my town (Koper, Slovenia) we are building giant shops, roads, suburbia like there is no tomorrow. Is this a smart thing to do? People have absolutely no idea.

BTW: I am sure that governments are fully aware of PO, but they rather look the other way (for obvious selfish reasons) than actually do something.

Almost every time I fact-check something I see breathlessly claimed in online discussions, I find the truth is less extreme than the assertion, regardless of the issue or the viewpoint doing the claiming.

Oh shit yes, this is so true it should be on the banner of every site like this.

"Solar PV never produces more energy than it took to make!"
"Solar PV can be made for a dollar a watt!"
"Nuclear is perfectly safe, just put the waste in a barrel and bury it."
"Nuclear is really dangerous, everyone near the plants is heaps more like to get cancer."
and so on.

So, as Pitt says, when we meet statements like,

"We're facing a dieoff."
"Science! and The Market! will save us the trouble of actually doing anything."

we have to be sceptical...

Perhaps your nom de plume should read Pittbull the Elder.

I myself found Francois' article stimulating but you are certainly correct in questioning his assumption that for Switzerland nuclear energy is dead in the water. If the cost of fossil-fuel-generated electricity continues to skyrocket consumers' attitudes to the pros and cons of atomic power may change radically. After all, it was access to cheap and abundant fossil fuel that enabled the innumerate general public to be ueber-fussy about imagined risks of exposure to ionising radiation in the first place. When the cheap fuel goes, the ueber-fussiness may also fade away.

As to peer review, perhaps you are a little too harsh. On the other hand, perhaps harshness is just what the doctor ordered. The problem is that it's hard to combine peer review with life's running commentary. Time's accelerating arrow doesn't make it easier either.

On the subject of teaching and learning, I found a wonderful passage in Schopenhauer the other day which TOD readers might find interesting:

It must be borne in mind that constant lecturing and the writing of books leave scholars little time for close study. Docendo disco is not absolutely true; on the contrary, it might occasionally be parodied as semper docendo nihil disco and even what Diderot puts into the mouth of Rameau's nephew is not entirely without foundation: " 'And do you think that these teachers will understand the branches of learning in which they give instruction? Nonsense, my dear sir, nonsense. If they possessed enough knowledge to instruct in them, they would not teach them.' 'And why?' 'Because they would have spent their lives studying them.' "

[Schopenhauer, On The Basis Of Morality, pages 72-73]

Docendo disco: 'I learn by teaching'
Semper docendo nihil disco: 'By always teaching I learn nothing'

Replace 'teaching' by 'blogging' and you'll see what I mean.

Famine and social disruption are already starting in some densely populated third-world countries

You say that as if it were a new occurrance.

In order to draw the conclusions you are from that observation, you need to demonstrate that the current shortages and/or disruptions are significantly worse than other, similar ones we've seen in recent decades.

Otherwise, you're just projecting your personal faith onto anecdotes.

Pitt, those who do not realize that the social disruption in the third world is worse today than at any time in the last century simply haven't heard the news. Every third world nation on earth is diminishing natural resources. I cite Haiti as just one example.

Forest land in Haiti fading fast
SEGUIN, Haiti -- Desperate to survive, Haitians are slowly gnawing away at their last one percent of forest, turning trees in state preserves into lumber, firewood and charcoal and burning the grounds to plant vegetable patches....
"They do it because they need money," Exantus said, a simple but brutal reality in a country where the average person survives on less than $1 a day.

That was in 2003. It is far worse today. Water tables all over the world are falling, in some places meters per year. Rivers are drying up. In 1997 the mighty Yellow River of China failed to reach the sea for seven months of that year. On the banks of the Aral Sea once sat the largest fish factory in the USSR. The Aral Sea does not exist anymore and the rusting factory sits on a dry salt bed. The water was diverted to grow cotton but now the cotton fields have salted up and they produce no more than before irrigation. (Source: When Rivers Run Dry

It is the same story all over the world. Lake Chad, in Africa, is now a shrunken shallow mud hole. The Sahara Desert is expanding miles each year.

All this is due to an ever expanding population, especially in third world countries, a declining water supply, and most of all a declining food supply due to higher cost of food and the production of food. And of course the root cause of much of the cost of food is due to increasing petroleum prices. This drives up the cost of food production.

Pitt, just news.google "food riots" and you will immediately understand that the situation is far worse (worldwide) today than it has ever been in history. Sure there have been deadly famines before, some causing the starvation of millions. But those were all local phenomena. This is by far the worst worldwide crisis in history.

UN moves to head off food riots
THE United Nations' secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, yesterday said he was setting up a task force to tackle the global food crisis, in an attempt to avert "social unrest on an unprecedented scale".

The rising cost of wheat, rice and other staples has put extreme pressure on aid providers, such as the World Food Programme, a UN agency aiming to feed 73 million people.

Concern about soaring food costs and limited supplies has toppled Haiti's government and caused riots in parts of Africa.

People simply can no longer afford to feed themselves. The millions, perhaps as many as one billion people who live on less than a dollar a day simply cannot afford to buy food. Worldwide it is worse today than at any time in modern history. This is not surprising since there are more people alive today than ever before.

Ron Patterson

The EU-27 produced roughly 15% of the world's major food crops (grains and oilseeds) in 2006, with just 7% of the world's population. By value, Europe is the world's largest food exporter.

I was more thinking in terms of Rumsfeld's "old" Europe: UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria... These nations have a high population density. They have also a high degree of industrialization, i.e., the amount of arable land available per capita is relatively low.

Europe maintains excellent agricultural equipment and is rich enough to buy as much fertilizer as the land can use. Once Europe can no longer import as much fossil fuel as we would like, we won't have as much fertilizers available any longer (as producing them consumes lots of energy) and we shall have to rely again more on manual labor. At that time, the high population density will become a problem.

Switzerland is in a particularly bad shape. Our statistical population density is a little lower than that of France or the UK, for example, but 30% of our land is covered by ice and snow, while another 30% are steep slopes at high altitudes. Thus, the available per capita arable land is lower than in most European countries.

I know for a fact that Switzerland cannot feed its current population of 7.5 million people under local conditions, because Switzerland was barely capable of feeding 4 million people during WW-II with seven times more farmers and twice as much arable land.

However, even inflation will not be able to save the banking sector.

Do you have any evidence for this?

If I have money that I don't need right now, I may deposit it in a bank account against the promise of a fixed interest rate. Thus, leaving the money in the bank promises exponential growth.

Evidently, the bank must be able to reinvest my money in some business that offers a higher interest rate, i.e., faster exponential growth. Without it, the bank cannot pay the salaries of its employees, and the cost of constructing and maintaining its buildings.

Thus, banking is invariably linked to a pattern of continued exponential growth.

The only way how this can be offset is by accepting an inflation rate that equals the interest rate that the bank is paying for its investments, but in that case, the customer has no longer any incentive for depositing his money in the bank.

As long as we live in an economy that grows exponentially, banks can indeed pay out interest without losing money in the process, but once we have reached steady state, they can no longer do so.

Yet also in Switzerland, more than 50% of the current energy will be gone 50 years from now. Furthermore, Switzerland produces 21.72% of its energy from nuclear power stations. Since the Swiss people are in favor of moving away from nuclear power, only 25% of the currently available energy will be left by 2058. As we are now consuming 6 kW of energy per person, we can reasonably expect to have only 1.5 kW per person available in 50 years time without the oil, gas, and nuclear power.

Your "conclusion" that Switzerland will have 75% less energy in 50 years is, frankly, nonsense. You assert that the current dislike of nuclear will persist even when half of Switzerland's energy is vanishing...why? What is your basis for that assumption? You assert that no meaningful amount of alternatives such as wind or solar will be installed in the next 50 years, despite their track record already proven in nearby Germany and Spain...why?

You're assuming a fictitious world where nobody will do anything to prevent their own demise...why?

I wrote explicitly: "without the oil, gas, and nuclear power," i.e., under the assumption that Switzerland will let go of its nuclear power.

Will this happen?

I agree with you that the Swiss people will change their attitude towards nuclear power, once the alternatives become unavailable. However, all of our current nuclear power plants will have to be decommissioned within the next 50 years. Thus, new power plants will have to replace them, and this doesn't happen over night. It takes at least 10 years from the initial planning until a new nuclear power plant starts producing electricity.

Whether we will have nuclear power stations in operation in 50 years time will depend on how fast the people of Switzerland get to feel the crunch and therefore can be convinced to change their attitude.

Another potential problem is that the uranium mines currently in operation produce just about as much uranium as is needed to feed the current power stations. A rapid increase in the number of nuclear power stations world-wide is not feasible either, because of the limited production rate of uranium.

Alternate energy sources will hopefully compensate for some of the shortfall, but it cannot compensate for all of it; not by a long shot.

The world currently consumes more than 85% of its entire energy in the form of fossil fuel. The total amount of solar and wind energy together covers currently less than 0.5% of our total world consumption according to the IEA.

Let us assume we manage an annual growth rate of 7%, i.e., a doubling time of 10 years. Under those assumptions, we may be able to cover 16% of our current energy needs by solar and wind power 50 years from now.

In my view, this scenario is overly enthusiastic.

Three cheers for Pit the Elder. Thank you, thank you, thank you!