DrumBeat: July 27, 2006
Posted by threadbot on July 27, 2006 - 1:21pm
Topic: Miscellaneous
[editor's note, by Prof. Goose] Articles moved under the fold.
[editor's note, by Prof. Goose] There's a news story hitting the wires about a leaked memo from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) which reveals that big coal is planning a major blitz against efforts to fight global warming.
From Ross Gelbspan's blog on the DeSmogBlog (Link 1 and Link 2):
The plan is a retread of a similar campaign launched in the early 1990s by coal interests. The latest version is spelled out in what is dubbed a "Vampire Memo" because it resurrects an earlier campaign which was discredited and abandoned in the mid 1990s. It draws on the work of such industry-funded skeptics as Pat Michaels, Fred Singer, Robert Balling and Craig Idso -- as well as such ideologues as Richard Lindzen and William Gray who have long been laughingstocks in the community of mainstream climate scientists. It notes that the IREA alone has paid Michaels at least $100,000 -- and is soliciting more money for Michaels et al from other coal outlets. Among other initiatives, the memo notes that several of the participating companies are planning to finance a major film to counteract the influence of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."[Update by Prof. Goose on 07/27/06 at 4:53 PM EDT] OPEC can't bring down prices: cartel president:
"There is no shortage in oil supply. The current geopolitical conditions are out of OPEC's hands," the visiting Nigerian petroleum minister was quoted as saying by the Iranian oil news agency Shana Thursday.Exxon Mobil 2Q Profit Jumps 36 Percent
Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday it earned $10.36 billion in the second quarter, the second largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.
[Update by Super G on 07/27/06 at 5:00 PM EDT] Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) wants to rename the energy bill the The Lee R. Raymond Oil Profitability Act.
"While gas prices have soared, the Republican Congress has showered oil companies with special favors," The New Jersey lawmaker said in a statement. "These companies reap record profits while consumers struggle. Lee Raymond symbolizes the excesses of Big Oil, so this bill should carry his name."
What organizations do people know are at least aware of peak oil?
For pro-environmentalists / democrats, PO means having to think long and hard about nukes and coal as alternatives to oil. But they have spent the last 40 years opposing both very strongly.
For pro-business republicans, they have been talking about technology and freemarkets for even longer. Moreover the oil and car industries underwrite much of the political lobby and advertising space (ala Westexas's Iron Triangle).
This is why (IMHO) despite a high level awareness generated out there, no one with a vested interest is really talking about PO.
When people are hungry and cold, they're not going to ask where their energy is coming from or how or why....... No, toto(neila), humans are not smarter than yeast.
For added drama...
http://tinyurl.com/letyk
=AC
Unless??? Completing that would logically lead to a hundred mile march in support of More Breeder Reactors Now!
One of my fears is that if we wait too long, we will burn through the rest of the coal left in the ground really quickly, superheat the atmosphere and be no closer to sustainability.
Thanks
Google TOD for RR (Robert Rapier) for tons of discssion on ethanol EROEI. I think he might allow a maximum of 1.2 : 1 :)
But even 1.2 : 1 is a 20% return! Most people would die for that (I wish my 401k was making 20%). Of course, you have to factor in the capital to make that 20% return happen. RR's point (I think) is that after you've done that then ethanol doesn't pay (before subsidies).
The other thing to consider is the most effective usage of your BTUs. This is not investing, where a 20% return is fantastic. The BTU inputs could be directed toward other areas where the EROEI is much higher. A return of 20% means that you consumed 1 BTU just to net out 0.2. Just using gasoline as an example, directing that BTU toward gasoline would net out 4 BTUs.
Cheers,
RR
Here is an article by Joseph Tainter et al. where they look at how communities of animals [not just humans] differ substantially depending on EROEI of energy sources.
Resource Transitions and Energy Gain: Contexts of Organization
It's not often that beavers, fungus farming ants and imperial Rome are mentioned in the same abstract!
Tainter, of course, is well-known for his book, "The Collapse of of Complex Societies". This is scholarly writing, however. Not a popular rant predicting the downfall of modern civilization. Tainter offers no predictions.
Not on a specific date or triggering event but he does say p209 of the 1988 hardcover edition :
Although collapse is an economic adjustment, it can nevertheless be devastating where much of the population does not have the opportunity or the ability to produce primary food ressources. Many contemporary societies, particularly those that are highly industrialized, obviously fall into this class.
Deals with the unfeasibility of powerdown, on p214 :
Here is the reason why proposals for economic undevelopment, for living in balance on a small planet, will not work...
Does not offer any kind of "solutions" but staying the course, on p215 :
A new energy subsidy is necessary if a declining standard of living an a future global collapse is to be averted.
And challenges the naysayers, on p216 :
However much we like to think of ourselves as something special in world history, in fact industrial societies are just subject to the same principles which caused earlier societies to collapse.
My underlining.
I hope we will prove him wrong but I have no "faith" in incantations and wishful thinking.
The biggest problem with the people discussing Peak Oil, and remember we're the free thinkers, the "early adopters", etc., the vanguard, is we're scared shitless by the idea of lowering our standard of living. So, the talk is of how to run our cars on other stuff, very very little discussion of getting rid of our cars.
But then he adds in parentheses:
But the main theme of the book is that increasing socio-political complexity yielding diminishing returns is the immediate factor that produces the collapse. Not the energy shortfall.
This is not particularly comforting. According to Tainter (based on his historical studies), society will come alive in a flurry of activity. There will be plenty of "scanning behavior" to find solutions. New complex systems and regulations will address the energy problem. Coercion will be applied. Collapse postponed but not averted since there is no escape from the law of diminishing returns without a new energy subsidy.
But the upshot is that collapse comes, not because there is no gas for your car, but because you come to hate your country. ie. The burden society places on you to keep things going will make parts of society seek alternative arrangements to membership in the complex socio-political entities they belong to. Tainter wrote pre USSR breakup. But it illustrates things beautifully.
We may well find a much lower standard of living easy to bear compared to the incessant demands of the state as it stuggles to hold itself togther.
That would seem to vindicate the old gold bugs - always supsicious of the fedz and stuff.
If not for Peak Energy and Matter, we would probably have a run-of-the-mill type of Depression like each of the past several centuries is my guess.
But because of Peak Energy and Matter, we will probably have run-of-the-mill Die Back this time...
Even if no one believes it before, during or after...
(Tick ... tick ... tick .. A saud said nasty stuff that sounded similar to what Osama's side-kick said today... (click those fucking heelz together NOW dorthy godzdammit! - LOL.)
"But the main theme of the book is that increasing socio-political complexity yielding diminishing returns is the immediate factor that produces the collapse. Not the energy shortfall. "
Good job in catching that. What most people fail to notice in any "diminishing returns" theory is that it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with oil depletion" or peak oil.
It is an absolutely fatalistic theory. Fatalistic theories are easy to recognize: They state as ABSOLUTE IRREFUTABLE FACT (thus, they permit no difference or discourse, they are essentially absolutist, you either accept the idea one hundred percent, or your in denial) that a. It's going to happen, b. There is nothig you can do about it, and c. The harder you try to do anything about it, the worse you will make it....change can only be negative.
Frankly, even if it's true, as an intellectual position, it's completely useless, because it gives no usable course of action. It makes one think of the little negative sadsack robot in "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy",
"I would calculate your odds of survival, but you really don't want to know."
Perhaps true. But completely useless.
Roger Conner known to you as ThatsItImout
WRONG!
depletion of ground oil fields -> deep water drilling less cost effective
depletion of light crude -> sour crude less cost effective
depletion of sour crude -> shale oil MUCH less cost effective
Etc...
Is that "diminishing returns" or not?
"It is better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
Frankly, even if it's true, as an intellectual position, it's completely useless, because it gives no usable course of action.
Tainter does not give any usable course of action.
But this is not a cult!
I am not a member of Tainter's Church and I doubt most readers of "The Collapse of Complex Societies" see themselves as cult followers.
This is only an usefull model of an existing state of affairs, and it stands quite well to scrutiny.
WE have to find an "usable course of action".
Expecting ready made answers from some "higher wisdom" or going into denial of inconvenient evidence (even if it's true!!!) is the hallmark of religious thinking, and, YES, religious thinking is one among the many hindrances and impediments faced by mankind to cope with such a challenging predicament.
Tainter is definitely saying that large socio-political entities eventually die. Their life-spans, however, are quite varied and subject to many factors, including the behavior of their members.
Roger, you and I shall die too. I'm not sure believing that makes us fatalists! There is so much that we can do with a reasonable chance of preserving and enhancing our individual lives.
Tainter gives us a lot of useful insight into how things work. And, at the very least, he may help us avoid promoting schemes that would shorten the life of the collective. Personally, I'm very comfortable with powerdown options. At some points in my life I've used 1/5 the energy (for years at a time) that I've used at other times. But Tainter gives me pause about the applicability of a policy of pre-crisis voluntary powerdown to the rest of society.
Asebius
It's like if you invested a dollar, tore that dollar up and then got excited because you earned 20 cents on that dollar. Great! You now have 20 cents but no dollar. Go find another dollar to get another 20 cents. Yep. You really just can't pass that investment up.
Investing in infrastructure for ethanol, of course, is another story. Who knows, you might get lucky, and get bailed out by the government.
Much better for farmers to get wind farms...
Since you can't work 200 hours/week, your only choice is to drastically cut back your lifestyle.
Going to an alcohol based system may be possible, but only if we drive 10% of the miles we currently do.
But there is no water shortage, right?
Don't mention tar sands...gads. Can you say rivers running dry?
===========It's all about population!
But it's not a question of 'IF' 2nd generation production paths make it out of the lab but rather 'WHEN' they do.
For further details, Drummers are invited to www.syntecbiofuel.com
Not holding my breath, but I hope you're right. Could use some of that algal biod in my VW. Won't solve the problem, but it will help.
http://gog2g.com/2006/07/27/looking-into-the-eroei-of-ethanol.aspx
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/RealFuelCycles-Web.pdf
Here is the abstract: