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DrumBeat: November 1, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 1, 2006 - 9:19am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Study: Arctic reserves won't replace OPEC crude
HOUSTON (Reuters) - There isn't enough oil under the Arctic Circle to replace crude from OPEC, according to a study released on Wednesday by analyst group Wood MacKenzie and seismic research firm Fubro Robertson.Under the circle, 233 billion barrels of oil equivalent in crude and natural gas have been discovered and 166 billion barrels of oil equivalent are thought to remain undiscovered, said the study's lead author, Andrew Latham, vice president of energy consulting at Wood McKenzie.
Eighty-five percent of discovered reserves and 74 percent of expected reserves is made up of natural gas, Latham said.
"The oil-gas mix is not ideal because remote gas is often harder to transport to markets," Latham told reporters in Houston.
"In addition, export and technology constraints are expected to delay production as a large portion of the communal gas until 2050," he said.
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending October 27, 2006
Oil prices rise as U.S. crude supplies rose 2 million barrels, less than expected
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged nearly 15.3 million barrels per day during the week ending October 27, up 406,000 barrels per day from the previous week's average. Refineries operated at 88.9 percent of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production increased last week compared to the previous week, averaging nearly 8.8 million barrels per day, while distillate fuel production also rose, averaging nearly 4.2 million barrels per day.
If we build it, will they come?
The "we" refers to North America. The "it" refers to liquified natural gas (LNG) ports. And, the "they" refers to LNG tankers from exporting countries. Unfortunately, the answer to the question is "probably not," at least not in the numbers we would like them to come, according the energy investment banker Matt Simmons and resource economist Douglas Reynolds, both of whom attended the recent Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas - USA conference in Boston.
Whatever happened to Peak Oil?
Just one year ago, we were all beginning to think that the end of oil was fast approaching. According to a growing chorus of industry watchers, we either had or were about to reach something called ‘Peak Oil’, the point at which the amount of oil left in the ground is less than the amount that humankind has already extracted.
Saudi Aramco still targeting 12 mbpd
Saudi Aramco has restated its determination to increase oil output to twelve million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2009. Abdallah S. Al-Saif, senior VP of exploration and production, said last month that the Khursaniyah, Shaybah, Nuayyim, Khurais and Manifah fields would be the source of the additional output.
Safe nuclear power can avert the energy crisis
Thorium reactors could solve the current energy crisis and the world’s energy problems for the foreseeable future. This is the opinion of Physics Professor Egil Lillestøl, who travels around Norway with this message, meeting few counter-arguments. So why didn’t we built these reactors a long time ago?
South Korea signs oil storage deals with Kuwait and Total
SEOUL - South Korea signed an agreement yesterday with Kuwait for joint storage of 2 million barrels of crude oil, adding to the country's emergency stockpile.The country's energy ministry also said state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) signed a joint crude stockpiling agreement in September allowing French oil major Total to store 2.2 million barrels of crude in KNOC's storage units.
The agreement with Kuwait gives South Korea first rights to purchase the crude from state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, which it could exercise in case of an oil shortage, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) said.
Brussels takes fresh aim at EU energy giants
EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes has vowed to break up Europe's major energy companies in a bid to stimulate cross-border competition in the bloc's energy markets.
Vietnam may have to import coal from 2015
Uganda:
World Bank to assist with power crisis
The story begins in the 1980s. Large traditional companies like the oil majors came under pressure from the stockmarket to cut their costs. And cut they did by shedding many of their staff scientists and engineers.
Biofuels: A Disaster in the Making
Mitsubishi Heavy eyes tie-up with GE on nuclear plants
Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and General Electric of the US have agreed to begin talks on forming a partnership in nuclear power plant operations.Under the alliance, GE would likely provide support to Mitsubishi Heavy to sell in the United States a large pressurized-water reactor (PWR) system developed by the Japanese firm, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Tuesday.
Solar to become top alternative energy, author says
Solar power will become economically viable and available to almost anyone in the next 10 to 15 years, Travis Bradford, a former corporate buyout specialist, says in his book "Solar Revolution."
UAE cuts oil production by 100,000 barrels per day
Bolivia president says army was ready to take gas fields
Bolivian President Evo Morales said Tuesday he ordered troops to be ready to invade oil and gas fields in case foreign firms refused to sign new production contracts by an Oct. 28 deadline, the Brazilian Estado newswire said.
Petrobras Faces Down Bolivia, Averts Asset Seizure
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, faced down Bolivian President Evo Morales, averting the seizure of energy assets in the country and signing a 30-year contract to continue production.
Bolivia minister says oil firms can expect 15% profit
Gas prices fall in California, rise in nation
The U.S. average cost increases for the first time since early August, but experts don't see another big price surge.
Filmmaker a big donor behind the scenes: Stephen Bing spends $49.6 million backing oil tax proposition.
David Parker Speech: The end of cheap oil
Major energy science and technology plan needed, federal panel says
A federal advisory panel is calling for a "major, long-term" effort to develop sustainable energy science and technology, warning that failure to do so could have major economic repercussions for Canada.
Prudhoe Bay pipeline badly corroded
ANCHORAGE, AK, United States (UPI) -- BP PLC, which closed a leaky crude oil pipeline in Alaska, says a close survey of the line indicates vastly more serious problems than initially thought.
BP to Replace Leader of Alaska Unit After Pipe Leaks
BP Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company, will replace the head of its Alaskan unit after inadequate maintenance led to leaky pipelines, the shutdown of the largest U.S. oil field and an investor lawsuit.
Here (pdf)
Thoughts???
Considering that all of this will be to produce the energy equivelent of a couple of the latest nuclear reactors... what should my comments be? Another episode from the european fiction of achieving energy independance with the wrong technologies.
Now having said all of this you will be surprised that I would still support the project. Wind can help the european energy balnce, but betting [almost] all chips on it is plainly stupid.
Sometimes, I wonder how lead times work into this debate - what is the lead time for a nuclear reactor? How long before the unspecified wish today becomes electricity?
Wind and solar do not share one of the deepest flaws surrounding new nuclear plants - wind and solar can be installed now, in increments. Nuclear means waiting - and when the question is how do you provide power today, or next month, or next year, for all their clearly defined limitations, wind and solar at least are producing electricity. Nuclear fails that test utterly.
And let's not even get into the whole future aspect either - no one is seriously concerned about dealing with worn out turbines or dead PV panels either.
But the Finns, who are building the first one, are as much as 18 months behind, AFAIK.
So say 5 years+ 6 months, plus site planning. In the UK a public planning enquiry (to make a like for like comparison with wind) which can add up to 3 years (but say 18 months).
I would say, realistically, on a crash programme, 8 years. The French (EDF) at Flamanville, an existing site, are talking 2014 for commercial power from their first 3rd Gen reactor.
There is as yet no solution to the UK waste problem. Private industry has said it will not build these things without:
- a guaranteed power price (this is why British Energy went broke, and nearly had to be renationalised)
- a long term solution to the waste problem
The former is no different from wind power (except: if we impute a CO2 price of £85/ tonne, £311/ tonne of carbon, which is what the Stern Report suggests, then the economics of both look good against fossil fuel).Nuclear waste repository is a show stopper.
If we ran a centralised electricity system where the financial risk is passed off to the consumer, and if the nuclear reactor industry, the utility, and the regulator work closely together, then we would be France. And we might get a sizeable nuclear reactor programme at a reasonable price.
So far, none of the above exist in the UK. Nor would it be possible to renationalise the electricity supply system-- the Torys very specifically made sure that would be practically impossible for a future Labour Government (because Labour threatened to do just that).
TXU has applied for nuclear. Given that they have also applied to build 10 coal plants, I am cheering their nuclear efforts on. Once those nuclear plants are switched on, they will be run, and will displace fossil fueled plant.
I think some US states (like Texas) will prove to be much more nuclear friendly than New England or New York.
We have heard the nuclear argument before. We know what is missing. Nothing has changed with regard to processing and disposal.
Storage would be considerably less complicated due to the properties of thorium. Th-232 captures a neutron and (through two beta decays) becomes U-233. It takes another FOUR neutron captures to turn U-233 into U-237, which can decay into neptunium; another neutron capture is required to create Np-238 which decays to plutonium. To get there, all the intermediates have to avoid being fissioned by any of the neutrons. The consequence is that the spent fuel of a thorium reactor would have only minuscule amounts of plutonium.
Nuclear is an alternative - with extemely heavy political brakes on. Until people can agree on what to do with the waste and that Pu is not evil if managed properly and fuel recycling is established (which would be economically devastating for Uranium mining...) nuclear is not a viable option.
And now we factor in the growth and projected price slump of PV... by the time nuclear lifts a leg, PV and conservation have run circles around the block.
In a year or two PV will deliver the equivalent of one nuclear reactor a year. At a 30% growth rate that looks like follows:
- 1.0 reactor, cumulative 2.0 reactors
- 1.3 reactors, cumulative 3.3 reactors
- 1.7 reactors, cumulative 5.0 reactors
- 2.2 reactors, cumulative 7.2 reactors
- 2.9 reactors, cumulative 10.1 reactors
- 3.7 reactors, cumulative 13.8 reactors
- 4.8 reactors, cumulative 18.6 reactors
- 6.2 reactors, cumulative 24.8 reactors
- 3.3 reactors, cumulative 28.1 reactors
- 8.2 reactors, cumulative 36.3 reactors
- 10.6 reactors, cumulative 46.9 reactors
- 13.8 reactors, cumulative 60.7 reactors
- 17.9 reactors, cumulative 78.6 reactors
Now add another 50 reactors saved by conservation measures.Is the world going to build 130 new reactors until 2020?
And replacing the old ones is not even factored in, yet.
Which politician wants to run on the nucleat ticket?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#Worldwide_installed_photovoltaic_totals
...shows what looks like about 1GWE (peak power) installed wordwide in 2005. That's about 1 reactor at peak, or maybe 30% of a reactor allowing for daily cycles and seasonality.
Are you numbers peak output or annual average?
Note that this source http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/electricity.html gives world electricity consumption of 14800E9 kWh in 2003. There are about 8000 hours in a year, so let's say a nice round CONSTANT 24/7/365 load of 2000 gigawatts. So by 2020, on your projections, solar PV could be producing 4% of the 2003 average demand (or 2% of 2020 demand on the EIA's estimate). Assuming the solar cells never age, of course. And assuming the supply chain doesn't get bottlenecked somewhere.
- nuclear - 8 cents/ kwhr (case can be made long term why that might fall towards 7 cents)
- onshore wind - 4-9 cents
- offshore wind - 5-11 cents
- CCGT - 4 cents (depends massively on gas price)
- Coal - c. 5 cents (higher capital cost than CCGT, but much lower fuel cost)
- IGCC Coal - c. 6 cents
- solar - 15 cents (in some applications)
Carbon sequestration will add 1-5 cents/ kwhr to coal and CCGT.You can see that no one would build anything other than coal and (a little) gas turbine power unless you have carbon pricing.
In practice no one source solves it. You can see how the UK can get to 20% wind, but its hard to see, practically, without new power storage technologies, how we would get to more than that.
I assume this is total Capital construction and operating costs to provide electricity at rates you quote. If your costs are only construction than the monthly consumable cost on coal and NG are variables that will increase in the future.
In any case what the costs don't include are the carbon implications (that you show need to be included for parity with wind) but also the unseen costs of obtaining the coal and NG supply. IMHO one of the reasons coal is so cheap is that the environmental impacts of coal mining are delayed way into the future. Before 1981 or '82 strip mining operations had 7 years to return the land to similar vegetation as before mining. Under the Reagan administration that time frame was delayed to (I think) 20 years. This means a lot of natural weathering can occur on the spoils piles before they need to be re-vegetated. I remember this because I interviewed at a company that had a huge business in using plants to reclaim disturbed land. They went bankrupt 5 years or so later because their entire business model disappeared.
The reason the 7 years was tough on strip miners is that you need specialized plants to be the first communities to establish. Lots of heavy metals and acids that require phytosequestration to clean up the soil allowing conventional plants to grow. After twenty years the soils are leeched and lots of stuff will grow. The problem is, where does the leech water go? It may run off or it may be contained and go down. In all cases it is going to impact aquafers negatively. These costs are then picked up by entities other than the miners. This keeps the cost of coal cheap but adds to the other problems of burning coal
Don't get me wrong, I think coal mining is a valid way to provide energy. I am just of the opinion that it can be done in a much less ecologically destructive way, albeit at a higher cost. But the rules and framework have to apply (and apply to all) or there is no incentive for the operations that want to do things right. They have a lot of added costs without being able to ask more for the coal. More likely the price for coal will go down if we allow the "most efficient" ways of extraction to be used without regard to down stream consequences.
(some of the people who post around here who are pro nuke use much lower numbers 4 cents even).
A massive factor is capital cost-- even in a gas fired CCGT, where fuel is half the lifecycle cost, capital costs matter. Change the real interest rate (interest rate after inflation) and nuclear and wind look a lot worse, or a lot better.
This is why gas turbines took off in the 90s. Gas was cheap, and capital costs were the most important costs. There was also an important efficiency shift (the Combined Cycle bit) which raised efficiencies from c. low 40%s to nearly 60% now. Gas is however no longer cheap.
Conversely nuclear plants wound up being delayed by several years, and in the high inflation/ high real interest rate environment of the late 70s and 80s, that meant their total costs were several times initial estimates.
If we can assume a world where nuclear plants really do get built on budget, in 5 years, then nuclear will look a lot cheaper but you will still have the waste problem and cost.
Good point about the true cost of coal. I think most US power coal now comes from the Powder River Basin Wyoming, which has low sulphur coal and high productivity open-pit mining. One of the big costs is then rail transport, whereas ocean transport of Australian coal is relatively cheap.
I think Appalachian coal is a decreasing fraction of coal consumption except for coking coal and for power stations that are very close to source.
The reality is, ex environmental considerations, any US utility (virtually) would rather build a coal fired station. The risk is low, the technology proven, and the economics straightforward.
I live near the Ohio River at the WV/ Ohio border and I was confused when I first moved here by the fact that coal moves in both directions on the Ohio River. There must be at least 5 to 10 coal barges with 12 full containers each going downriver from WV daily. This really surprised me at first until it was explained to me that Iowa coal is brought upriver to WV to mix this expensive low sulfur coal with the inexpensive high sulfur WV coal so WV and Ohio coal burning plants can use their cheap coal and not have to use expensive scrubbers. Also WV coal is shipped to Iowa and other places and mixed with their coal in plants there. Cost/ benefit ratios force everyone to keep their sulfur emissions right at the legal limit even if it creates absurdities like shipping dirty WV coal west where coal is plentiful and cleaner.
Whatever happened to Free-Wheelin Franklin & Fat Freddy?
In countries without such activist capital sabotage, you have very inexpensive nuclear power, and it is good to remember that nuclear plants have operational lifetimes of over 40 years, often 60.
But nuclear waste costs almost nothing to manage. You stick it in a pool for a couple of years then stick it in concrete in a parking lot. The largest cost that US nuclear plants have to pay in regards to waste is the tax for the geologic repository that is still not built.
Once the thing is built, and once the debt raised to finance it is paid off or discharged, then the operating costs are massively cheap.
This is especially true for nuclear (pure maintenance and fuel costs probably 1-2 cents/kwhr) and wind (free fuel, minimal maintenance, complete replacement every 20 years).
But is also true of coal (probably the operating costs are c. 2.5-3 cents/ kwhr).
The economics argument is useless. We are talking about politics here. If the voter votes for it, clean energy is going to be built, even if it costs 10 cents more per kWh.
I certainly can afford to pay that much. So can many others.
I certainly can afford to pay that much. So can many others."
Unless they ban coal fired generation or impose carbon taxes, the voter has nothing to do with it. It boils down to a straight economic evaluation. Utilities have to install the most cost effective option, which will usually be coal.
Also, overwhelmingly, people will not willingly pay a single penny more per kwh, if they have a cheaper (dirtier) option. Did you notice how poorly the green energy companies did trying to sell their higher priced, cleaner electricity?
I am a big fan of a carbon tax, but I see no chance of it happening in the US.
Now at a load factor of 30% (conservative for offshore) that is:
26,280 Gwhrs or 26.2 TWhrs (7.5% of annual UK consumption).
At a Load Factor of 80%, equivalent to 3.75GW of nuclear capacity.
At the same price as Sizewell B, that would cost (historic cost so ignoring inflation) about £16bn or 21bn euros.
I would be optimistic that we could build 1GW of nuclear capacity for, say, £2bn, so £8bn. But that's a forecast, not a certainty (and the technology is much more complex than that required for offshore wind).
And we don't have a waste disposal solution. So you have to price that into the above, on top of the above. As well as a decontamination liability (not the same thing).
So I agree with you 20bn euros is light for a wind power solution, but it is not the case that nuclear provides a radically cheaper alternative.
I guess if these wind turbines are built by the same guys that built Sizewell B the price tag will be ~40bn. The Russians are builfing their nukes for $1.5-2 bln/a reactor, so I suggest invite them to build the wind turbines too.
And we don't have a waste disposal solution.
This is pretty ridiculous and politicized problem. Technically if left to the private sector, a long-term storage would be built for some couple of bn without all that fuss it is gathering around it. BUt since now it is in govenments hands it is used to earn cheap political dividents by playing on the "insolvable nuclear waste problem" tune all over again.
I have often said - once the shortages start the plants will be built anyway. I leave it up to you to decide whether the time wasted in meaningless debates now will help them to be built safely.
Your point about wind turbines is a straw man, and irrelevant as such.
The people who build wind turbines in the North Sea, will be the same people who built offshore oil structures in the North Sea. The turbine part is a fast-developing, but proven technology. The construction part has been proven, but in a different industry, with different applications.
It's worth noting: the private sector will finance offshore wind structures (with appropriate subsidies reflecting carbon costs), it will not finance nuclear power stations without effective guarantees from the central government.
On Sizewell B I was actually a little offended by that remark. The nuclear builders I met were professional and careful engineers. It was the first (and so far only) British pressurised water reactor, and so there was not the advantage of learning efficiencies.
Sizewell C, had it been built, might have cost half as much. But that would have necessitated maintaining the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (the 'nuclear levy') and the pressure from consumers and industry was for lower electricity tariffs.
The technology is expensive on a life cycle cost basis. You can't avoid that conclusion, however much you seek to blame it on individuals and organisations.
The Russians:
- given they orchestrated some of the worst environmental crimes of the 20th century, and the worst nuclear accident ever recorded, I don't trust them to build nuclear reactors. Yes we are in a post-Soviet world, but this is still a society which is not open, obsessively secretive and centrally controlled, has no reference to minority stakeholder and shareholder rights. Not the people with whom to entrust a sensitive and complex technology with longterm environmental consequences.
On $ v. £ costs, however you mark it, the tendency is for UK construction costs (in £s) to equal those (in $s) of other jurisdictions. There are a host of reasons for this (it's true in housebuilding and commercial construction as well AFAIK) which seem to stem from: the UK's restrictive planning, UK labour practices, high cost of skilled construction labour in the UK v. other countries.
The point then becomes how much of the thing you are building can be manufactured rather than constructed ie fabricated off site. Manufacturing costs are more or less common across the planet (give or take transport costs).
In the case of a wind turbine, and possibly an offshore structure, a lot.
Less in the case of a nuclear power plant, but hopefully more than was historically the case.
The problem then is if you build a generation of reactors on essentially the same design, manufactured rather than customised on site, then if it turns out that 5,10,25 years down the track there was a design fault you lose all your reactors at once.
So far this hasn't happened to the French. It has to the Japanese.
(the same is true of a wind farm station, and indeed it has happened, but you can replace an individual unit much more easily)
On nuclear waste: no private sector company could 'solve' it, because no company can take on an unquantifiable liability, infinite in time. Companies have gone broke because of just that problem (asbestos, toxic chemical dumps etc.). In the end, this is a pure case of market failure, and you have to have government intervention.
(the same will be true of Carbon Capture and Storage-- the government will have to underwrite the risk of a leak from a long term geologic depository).
It is precisely the urge to rush, without adequate attention to building public consensus, which got the nuclear industry into this pickle in the first place, with enormous long tail liabilities. It was an industry founded in the Cold War, on secretiveness, and on a blind faith in engineering technology.
There is a (good) case for more nuclear. But if that case is not made, and made correctly (ie not because its cheap, but necessary in an age of Carbon Emission control), then when the first (or second, or third) bumps are hit further down the road, the public support will evaporate.
We could be left with another generation of half-finished nuclear power plants, dotting the landscape.
There needs to be at least a Parliamentary Inquiry, if not a Royal Commission, to build all-party support for the nuclear option. The government is mistaken to try to do this by stealth, bypassing Parliament.
If we start that process now, then a new generation of plants could be operational by 2020.
I am trying hard to understand where your point lies. We have (actually more than one) proven and relatively low-cost reactor designs. If our goal is to fix the energy balance 10 or 15 years down the road all we need is take and mass-produce them. It is hardly a time for experiments right now. I understand UK's experience is not such, but this problem as far as I am concerned is up to UK to handle.
Of course the technology may evolve in the meantime (as with 3rd generation reactors) but this naturally will take much more time than those 10-15 years.
As for the Russian remark - this time I feel a little bit offended. I have had contacts with the russian engineering school and if you can accept a personal judjement it stands quite above its western counterpart. It is largely the rotten economic and political system these people were put in after graduation that caused all the troubles we know of. For example the RBMK reactor (as the one in Chernobyl) was largely developed for military reasons, we all know of the deliberate radiation exposures of civilians during the Cold War, etc.
As for the alternatives - people are largely dismissing the fact that wind power has not yet grown to the point where the fundamental deficiencies of the technology will start kicking in a big time. Just like anything else it is also subject to deminishing returns. I think we should definately make use of the "low-hanging fruit", but not rely on it to get us any farther than that.
Though I regularly come out firmly against Nuclear as it now stands, I do appreciate that there is a great potential in some version of the technology, if it gets through the safety hurdles that now surround it, and I'm still curious to know where the new research is going.
The Thorium Reactor article was appealing, tho' it didn't go into the chemistry/physics at all. Do you have a sense of the arguments for/against Thorium, and the challenges the technology faces (beyond getting research funds, which of course might be the facet blocking the first question from even having an answer yet..
Regards,
Bob Fiske
The more I read his condescending drivel, the more I question the sanity of those who think he should have an undue influence on our energy policy.
Be sure to check out the comments after his essay. :-) Just in case some of you thought I might be going soft on the guy.
But then again, so was "the shot heard round the world".
(It too was unsustainable.)
If California passes 87, that may be a new shot heard round the over-warming globe.
We, humans, have to find behaviour that comply with these ecological laws. A paradigma shift is needed. This will be the challenge for this century so we can deal with PO and GW.
Bart
-------
The First Law
For every action on a complex, interactive, dynamic system, there are unintended and unexpected consequences. In general, the unintended consequences are recognised later than those that are intended.
The Second Law
Any system in a state of positive feedback will destroy itself unless a limit is placed on the flow of energy through that system.
The Third Law
Any sedentary community, by virtue of its sedentism, will encounter problems of sanitation. The manner in which sanitation is managed will affect the manner in which supporting agriculture is managed.
The Fourth Law
For every increment in the agricultural surplus there is a corresponding increment in the volume of urban sewage.
The Fifth Law
Stability or resilience in ecosystems requires that all essential reactions within the system function within ranges of rates that are mutually compatible
The Sixth Law
The long-term survival of any species of organism requires that all processes essential for the viability of that species function at rates that are compatible with the overall functioning of the ecosystem of which that species is a part.
The Seventh Law
If any species of animal should develop the mental and physical capacity consciously to manage the ecosystem of which it is a part, and proceeds to do so, then the long-term survival of that species will require, as a minimum, that it understands the rate limits of all processes essential to the functioning of that ecosystem and that it operates within those limit.
The Eighth Law
Long-term stability or 'sustainability' in ecosystems (including agricultural systems) is dependent in part upon the recycling of nutrient elements wholly within the system or upon their replenishment from a renewable source, provided such replenishment is not itself dependent upon a finite source of energy.
The Ninth Law
If a population continues to grow exponentially it will eventually consume essential resources faster than they can be replenished. The provision of or access to additional resources will extend the 'life' of such resources, and hence the duration of growth of the population, only to a very small extent.
There is no such thing as a paradigm shift in human behavior. As far as arguments are concerned, people will believe the most comfortable one, the one that gives them the most security for themselves and their offspring. That is the way people have always behaved and that is the way they always will behave.
Only events can change human behavior. People will respond to global warming and peak oil when the actual effects of these two events become undeniable. That the consequences of these two events are so horrible is the very reason they will not be believed until the actual occurrence of such consequences.
Ron Patterson