DrumBeat: August 28, 2006
Posted by threadbot on August 28, 2006 - 11:27am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Higher temperature fallout from global warming will require greater energy expenditures and that will generate demand for smaller, easier-to-heat-and-cool homes.[Update by Prof. Goose on 08/28/06 at 11:27 AM EDT] Apparently, our friend Paul Salopek has been arrested as a spy in the Sudan (perhaps for a previous piece on oil):"There is no way electric bills are going to go down. They are going to do nothing but go up and it will be more severe if you live in the suburbs or 'exurbs' (the ring of rural communities beyond the suburbs). It will also cost you more to cool your house than it does to heat it and that is related to global warming as summers continue to get hotter. The amount you save in the winter is not going to be enough to cover the extra amount you need for the summer," said McIlwain.
Paul Salopek, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was charged with espionage and two other criminal counts in a Sudanese court Saturday, three weeks after he was detained by pro-government forces in the war-torn province of Darfur.
U.S. rails seek ways to haul more Wyoming coal
GILLETTE, Wyoming (Reuters) - The long trains that seem to be everywhere in this sparsely populated stretch of land haul nearly 1 million tons of Powder River Basin coal to power plants daily, but that's simply not enough.Utilities are clamoring for more of this fuel, which has become a popular alternative to costly natural gas. The mines in this region, dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of coal," say they are able to increase production.
Disaster-prone China takes heed of global warming
BEIJING (Reuters) - Storms, floods, heat and drought that have killed more than 2,000 people in China this year are a prelude to weather patterns likely to become more extreme due to global warming, the head of the Beijing Climate Center said.China was braced for further hardship as rising temperatures worldwide trigger increasingly extreme weather, Dong Wenjie, director-general of the climate center, said.
Industry thwarting efforts to keep fuel pumps honest
The Hawaiian gallon contains nearly 234 cubic inches of fuel -- about three cubic inches more than is dispensed in the rest of the United States.The extra volume, required by state law, helps offset the hotter temperature in this tropical climate, which causes the gasoline to expand. If the gallon wasn't temperature-adjusted, Hawaiians would receive less energy per gallon than called for under the government standard.
For struggling West Texans, giant turbines bring winds of change
Japan, China clash over gas site
Foreign oil producers put Arroyo on notice
PRESIDENT Arroyo’s decision to revoke a contract awarded to a foreign company for oil production in the Philippines has sent a shudder through the heart of the foreign investment community.The President’s Executive Order 556 effectively terminated Malaysian-based Mitra Energy Ltd.’s rights to take part in the development of oil deposits in the Camago-Malampaya field off western Palawan Island.
As a market researcher by trade, I'm always interested in taking the pulse on things. So, what do folks think about TOD in general? What is it good at / Not so good at? Less of? When you describe TOD to friends, family or whoever, what's your one minute description? What would you like to see more of? What topic areas should we be looking at for the future.
I also extend another call to NYC folks to contact me about any post ideas and I'm always on the look out for new blood to help contribute.
TOD has the usual flaws of blogs. Discussions are fragmented, and hard to find later. It's a very transient method of communication. Don't know that there's really anything to be done about it, though.
That aside...its greatest strength is also its biggest weakness. This is a really geeky place. Lots of tech sorts hang out here, which means there are great discussions, analyses, graphs, charts, etc. The best, IMO.
The flip side of that is that it is not terribly accessible to non-tech types. Many here seem to want to spread the word to the masses, without realizing that even their "simplified" articles and graphs are incomprehensible to the average Joe.
I don't know if this is a problem or not. Personally, I'd be happy for this site to remain a "geeks only" hangout. There are other sites (PeakOil.com, LATOC, Kunstler) with more mass-market appeal.
OTOH, if we do want to appeal more to the mainstream, some technical writers, marketing types, or others used to translating difficult ideas for the masses might be useful.
Add to that journalists, which I see as my proper role. IMO, it's terribly important to communicate well to the mainstream. As for remaining a "geek" resource, I kind of disagree. I prefer a good mix -- both the graphs and the more easily accessible stuff that does an accurate translation.
Now, if we could only get everybody on board in understanding what an exponential function is and the implications of that... Al Bartlett does a great job there.
Finding "geeks" who can actually communicate and use A and B in their communication. Well, there you have it. That's TOD.
People will come here for the ideas and the research, but they might go elsewhere to spread that knowledge. I am ok with that. We can't do everything, but we can continue to do things that matter well.
That's why I haven't been averse to going down the ethanol path for a while. It's an important and related debate. There will be many other debates that come and go inside this much larger one.
I guess my point is this: we need all types here, but most of all we need people who give a crap and can understand the scope of the problem, which is a really difficult thing to do.
Exactly. I run into this frequently when meeting with local residents and politicians to discuss projects. These are not stupid or uneducated people, but they can't understand charts, graphs, or plans. In my office, we are all engineering geeks; most of us have spent years working with blueprints, plansheets, etc. It's so obvious to us that we can't imagine someone not being able to understand. Until we go to a public meeting, and get slapped in the face with our own geekiness.
Yep. Welcome to enlightenment. Pull up a chair, grab a cold one, and watch the show, courtesy of those too stupid to understand an exponential function or read simple graphs.
To be fair, we have companies like ExxonMobil and allegedly intelligent people like Peter Huber and Daniel Yergin promising vast quantities of oil.
Then add the caption:
Is our Oil Economy trying to take off
on the Short Runway to Nowhere?
No graphs.
No numbers.
Just an image the public can connect with at the moment.
A good cartoon- or song- or even bumper sticker, is closer to an effective way to spend time than a ton of applied physics, if we are really concerned about the future.
So, that said, back to simple engineering- I put that cistern water circulator in my living room, and in all this heat and mug the room is at a comfortable 75% relative humidity and 24C at an expenditure of 85 watts of (very inefficient) fan and pump. The copious condensate goes back into the cistern.
My neighbors' house is way less comfortable with about 4kW of AC.
Wits-for-Watts. Bumper sticker.
I'm inclined to agree, at least for the U.S. JibJab.com or Michael Moore are more likely to get the word out than graphs or scientific credentials.
That's one thing that really strikes me whenever I'm in the U.K. The evening news there is so much more intelligent than it is here. The stories are so much more in-depth. And they seem to expect the viewers to have a basic knowledge of science, which is not expected on this side of the pond.
Listen carefully to how people around you talk. Do they see your point clearly? Do they empathize with your feelings? Do they like the sound of your "sound' logic, or does it simply "move" them?
Often people reveal what kind of thinkers they are by the way they chime in with your music. I myself am heavily into the visual communication thing. Others march or sing to different kinds of drummers. There is no one message style that fits all.
I cant draw for the life of me, but I wonder if TOD and it's wonderful pool of members might be able to come up with a topical cartoon of the week.
In order to initiate this, I imagine a competition of some sort would be the best way to go. If the response is large enough, it may be feasible to institute an ongoing cartoon of the week feature, which might appear just below the "quote of the day", for example.
In addition to a cartoon, the other area I think the TOD could improve is with interfacing with journalists. It is true that the general public is unsuited to digest the information presented here. Perhaps the better route is to invite journalists to act as an interface between TOD and the public. I'm not sure how this could be achieved.
People like to have their daily dose of Dilbert or Doonesbury.
But as you imply, not everyone can draw and it is also a lot of work. Personally, I don't have the time to devote to coming up with a clever cartoon every day --that's a full time job. And then, getting community consensus on which of competing cartoons should be the toon of the day, that too is a full time job. (Ah, civilization and it's complexities.)
As for using journalists to "translate" our postings for general consumption, that is a really really bad idea. (Does not take away from your good toon idea!) Every time I read a story in the paper about an area I know something about, I see that the reporter (and his grammatician editor) got it wrong. I don't think they intentionally get it wrong. It's just that the world is complex. Certain subject areas call for a great deal of specialized education before one can understand what is going on. Journalists usually do not have that education. Certainly not in every field of specialization. So it is understandable why 98% of the time they get it wrong.
It is up to us to learn how to communicate effectively with the general public.
It would be worse than bad to delegate that job to a never-gets-it-right journalist. I can see the first wrong worded editorial now: Are we "running out" of oil?
This, unfortunately, IS the problem.
A "good cartoon" can be made about any ridiculously irrational claim.
The competition is then about who has the best cartoonists NOT best content.
A lack of intelligence CANNOT be compensated.
P.S. That's why I am getting angry at times against idiots, or worse, THOSE PANDERING TO THE IDIOTS.
I am afraid Nuke their Ass--I want Gas! will be the most popular SUV and HUMMER bumper-sticker of all time. Sad.
Check out this image:
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Nothing wrong with applied physics, I was physics myself.
One of the primary trends in human development has been a long term shift from production oriented work to design oriented work. Take a look at software. No production at all, just design. This is true to lesser degrees about cars, planes, computes, etc... The amount of thought that goes into things before we first tell the robots to build it is growing all the time. Another example is wall street. I'm not sure if it's happened yet, but very soon the programmers and quants are going to outnumber the traders and bankers. More and more, when something becomes routine, the computers do it. The bankers mostly do one-off projects (that themselves require quite a lot of research).
I think this is eventually where we're heading. Soon enough a very substantial fraction of worldwide jobs will essentially be research and development. Probably a larger fraction than will actually be production. Applied physics will fit in here just fine.
A note of caution though, as this happens the disparity in incomes will tend to rise. It already is rising (due to aweful economic policy, not really this effect), but this sort of effect will amplify it. Nobody wants to be operated on by ten terrible doctors, or have five bad lawyers plead their case. Similarly, nobody is really going to want a batch of bad physicists or programmers, as one good one can do things that 100 bad ones will never accomplish, no matter how much effort they put in. A dangerous little evolution going on....
We are screwed if people cannot even understand this very simple graph. If this graph won't pique their curiousity enough to read the included text, and then mentally extrapolate to our world at large: then it is hopeless!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
World population growth is clearly leveling off, and most of the world has already gone to or below a replacement fertility rate which is stable in the longrun (most of the rest is close behind). World population is still growing, but it's no longer a simple exponential function: it's closer to linear growth due to the demographic transition to stable population, and is very likely to level off and start dropping around 2050.
Now, it's possible that we've overshot the world's carrying capacity (although I doubt it: in the LONG run energy from renewables will be more than sufficient, and we could cut our food production by half and still grow enough calories for human consumption - we might have to reduce our meat consumption a bit, and possible be a little less overweight...we could also gain a lot of food producing farmland by reducing coffee, tobacco and coca...), but so far the leveling off of population has nothing to do with overshoot (except, perhaps, for foresighted chinese policy makers planning to avoid it).
Thxs for responding. Most Americans can mentally relate to Dieoff [as in the previous simple Reindeer Graph], then move on to understanding this next simple graph. It is not intuitively difficult to grasp that the population curve will largely mirror the fossil fuel downslope. That is why I hope the world's experts will accurately determine the global depletion rate: not only of oil, but all resources [water, mineral, and living species], so that mitigative planning can begin.
Mitigating Olduvai Gorge will be a real postPeak obstacle because of shrinking supply spiderwebs. Already, we see newsarticles of detritovore riots by the un-informed masses instead of a mass cooperative action to conserve, then sharing the residual energy flow. Burning a bus needed for mass-transit, bombing an electric train, or stealing an electric utility's copper wire are not mitigative actions.
Our global leaders have condemned the masses to terrible conflict by repealing the proactive concepts inherent in Pres. Carter's Sweater Speech. My guess is that Bush & Cheney are not postPeak planning on the neighborly sharing of their PV energy from their advanced Eco-Tech ranchettes, nor allowing their Secret Service motorcades to welcome car-pooling. Such is life.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Garbage disposal is another limiting factor, perhaps much more severe.
On the population issue, while the rate in some parts of the globe is declining rapidly, global population is still growing at 1.3% the last time I looked. That's still exponential growth. If it does continue to fall, and stabilize in 2050 at 10+ billion, how long do you think we can support that number? LTG estimates we are already 20% into overshoot, meaning that a sustainable population is, in their opinion, about 5 billion people. However, there is a kicker - it's 5 billion only if the underlying resource base has not eroded irretrievably. They make a clear distinction between overshoot followed by population oscillation and overshoot followed by collapse, the difference being that the former is only possible if the necessary resource base is still intact following the correction. Do you believe that to be the case?
No, I'd like to. I read the first one very carefully 30 years ago, and I thought it was pretty worrying, though clearly insufficiently detailed for really good system's effect projections, especially with respect to technological change and substitution.
"1.3% the last time I looked. That's still exponential growth."
Exponential growth has a technical definition: it means growth that is proportional to the base. So, the linear series 10,11,12,13,14,15 shows a growth rate of about 7% at the end, but it's not exponential. The population growth we're in right now is something closer to linear.
"Do you believe that to be the case?"
I'm not sure what will happen, LTG-wise. As I just posted elsewhere, I'm not sure about the sustainable level. I'm pretty sure energy doesn't have to be a bottleneck. The rest, especially water, I haven't researched yet.
Sometimes it's helpful to evaluate people's track record. Someone who predicted Certain Doom for Y2k has less credibility. When people make strongly pessimistic predictions about energy, but know little about wind and solar, I tend to not worry so much when they predict certain doom (A fascinating counter-example is Jay Hanson, who in his writings provides ample information to support the value of solar, and then at the end dismisses it with a very brief statement that it's too "dilute" - something which is contradicted by everything else he writes about solar...puzzling).
LTG I find credible. I suspect they are a little too pessimistic, but as I understand it even they don't predict certain doom.
Let me be clear: I think we're in for a lot of pain with the cost of the transition to renewables, with GW, with species extinction. I see no reason for complacency, I just have not yet found a reason to predict certain doom.
The final chapter of the book is decidedly optimistic, as they present a set of five tools they believe we need to help us transition to a sustainable future. While these tools sound a little new-agey, they reinforce my belief that the solution to this problem lies not within our technology but within our nature, as expressed into action through our beliefs and value systems. The tools are: visioning, networking, truth-telling, learning and loving. There's not a word in the chapter about nuclear power or biodiesel.
I'm sure most people would understand that graph perfectly: if you are a reindeer on an island, your population may skyrocket and crash. Not being reindeer, people will look at that and lament the fate of poor, stupid animals that lack our wisdom and technology.
Then they'll turn around and say it obviously has nothing to do with them. The smarter ones will say you're just being a Malthusian, and Malthus has been debunked countless times. Even the best graph hits a wall of denial and becomes meaningless. Besides, everyone knows that they would be one of the 42 left alive...
That is so sadly true--we are not peaceful reindeer, but incredibly violent individuals who will resort to cannibalism when the need arises. IF, in a postPeak world: we mutally decide to starve to death instead of striking our neighbor--this would be the best outcome possible. For a start, we have to figure out how to stop the '3 Days of the Condor' scenario, as this is no long-term mitigative solution.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Per the UN: During the period 2000-05, 65 countries (43 of them located in the more developed regions), with a total of 2.8 billion people and accounting for 42.8 per cent of the world's population, had fertility levels below 2.1 children per woman (table III.1) http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WPP2004/WPP2004_Vol3_Final/Chapter3.pdf
"But the overall population rate of the planet is not at or near replacement"
It's getting there: see figure III.2 in the reference above.
The UN projects a replacement fertility rate by 2050. Depends a lot on Africa - the rest of the world is likely to get there in the next 15 years. Their high growth rates are clearly due to poverty and under-development.
But let's assume that this is what happened. Do you really think we can support 6+ billion people for 70 years?
You were right about one thing though -if birthrates continue to drop like they are, population would stabilize at 2050 if things go on as usaul. At about 11 billion people. It would take another 70 years to halve that number, and another 70 to halve it agaon to a level that might be sustainable (assuming we haven't degraded the Earth's carrying capacity too much by that point). So, basically your numbers claim that we can support business as usual on this planet for another 200 years?
I am not a doomer; far from it. But I try to constrain myself to scenarios that are plausible.
Growth is slowing down because of affluence: better public health, better nutrition, better government, better medicine.
The sustainable level is another question. I don't think energy has to be a bottleneck, or agricultural food production. The rest, especially water, I haven't researched yet.
Let me be clear: I think we're in for a lot of pain with the transition to renewables, with GW, with species extinction. I see no reason for complacency, I just have not yet found a reason to predict certain doom.
http://uk.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/27/112828/434#more
Sorry for the delay in my reply. I just emailed the Southern Demographic Association the following text, hoping I get a reply:
-------------------------
Hello SDA,
Thx you in advance for responding to this request. We are having raging debates at TheOilDrum.com over the likely population decline once the world starts experiencing oil production depletion. There are hundreds of websites, books, and many forums discussing this Peaking of fossil fuels. I will point you to EnergyBulletin.net, LifeAfterTheOilCrash.net, ASPO.com, and Dieoff.com as good places to start your research. We would gladly welcome a demographic expert to join TheOilDrum.com, or if you have some official position papers that incorporate Peakoil, Global Warming, & Population, feel free to post them on our humble forum. Many of our members are familiar with the 'Limits to Growth' from the Club of Rome and Paul Erhlich's 'Population Bomb'. Many of us are also familiar with the concepts of Overshoot & Dieoff too, as it happens all the time in Nature, but it is difficult to reach a consensus on how that will affect nearly 7 billion humans going postPeak. Thx you.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
-----------------------------------------------
If we can get an expert Demographer to this forum--it would be most excellent. But normally, no one ever replies to my emails: Nat. PTA, Congress, Amnesty International, Google, Bono, ...on and on. But I keep trying!!!! I prefer to let the experts present their facts while I run rampant with speculative scenarios.
Well, I was just trying to answer your question: "Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?" i.e., do humans reproduce uncontrollably until they hit a resource wall, and then and only then does population growth end?
I think the answer is clearly no. But...maybe I'm taking it too seriously...
Yeast don't believe in Rapture.
(How do I know? I asked one.)
Luckily, we human creatures are way smarter than Yeast.
Yeah, we're a long ways from perfect. Fortunately, the average citizen is a lot smarter than our flake-in-chief.
I saw the aftermath of a crash recently........
The aquarium in the coffee shop.....
There's a coffee shop near me, that's a really cute little place. I used to go there quite a bit when I first moved here a few years ago. It had the neatest freshwater aquarium, lots of nice fish and weeds and snails and happy stuff...... whenever I'd go there I'd watch the fish. I kind of drifted out of the habit of going there though, and recently it changed owners. Now it's scruffier, and while still cute, seems less people go there. I went there since it's right next to where the bandstand's set up when there's a band playing downtown, and got a coffee. Time to visit the aquarium. Woops! Looks like they've decided not to pay my friend at the pet store, who'd been maintaining it. Call him... Chevron.
So, now you have an aquarium with lots of plants, in fact quite a lot growing in there, it was pretty verdant and green. But. no fish. I looked and watched and waited, and it seems there's no life form higher than a snail there. Chevron, had been putting in fish food, making sure the filter was clean and the pump running right, etc. and that hadn't been happening. I've seen tanks crash where there was a fish or two left,. but this one really crashed big, There's a fair amount of natural light input to this one, maybe the plants were able to grow a lot and somehow in conjunction with a sudden lack of fish food, made the water not hold enough oxygen for the fish, which then died. Who knows. But it's back in an equilibrium now, one that works, it's healthy and green, with no higher life forms.
Plants produce oxygen during the day, but they absorb it at night. If you have too many plants, some will block out light for the others, and they won't produce as much oxygen during the day. But at night, all the plants absorb oxygen, and the fish will suffocate. It can be very sudden. You just wake up in the morning, and the fish are all gasping at the surface, or dead.
Plants can also screw up the pH of an aquarium by absorbing CO2. (This is why those who are really into planted tanks use CO2 injection systems.) Fish can adapt better to pH changes than most people think, but a brightly-lit aquarium without enough CO2 can suffer pH swings that are fatal to fish.
Also, the reindeer finally succumbed from a very challenging winter, an environmental condition that compounded what was apparently a strained situation. Peak Oil might have the same effect on human populations--the "harsh winter" of strained fossil fuel resources.
-best,
The reindeer story is perfectly consistent with the normal "ecological overshoot" idea, which is that reproduction, fertility and population growth stay very high until the resources in the environment are exhausted, and then cannot be sustained by the resources, resulting in suddenly skyrocketing malnutrition and death rates.
In the human case reproduction, fertility and pop growth have declined in an orderly fashion, and declined most in the most affluent areas. Death rates have fallen, and stay very low, and are lowest in the most affluent areas.
The boom in pop growth in the mid-century was caused by declining death rates. Now birth rates are matching that decline. In fact, the only reason growth rates aren't even lower is that death rates keep declining.
It's a completely different picture. Now, might we still go into overshoot? Maybe, but we're clearly not seeing a decline in growth because of it. Instead, it's because of affluence. That suggests that the best way to reduce pop growth in the developing world (which is the only part of the world still growing) is more affluence - better education, better health, better nutrtion, more old-age security for parents, etc.
For concrete examples of this trend in humanity, you have to look at historical examples. To wit: Easter Island. It was an island that used up its resources, overshot its population, and crashed.
Other: the Anazazi, the Mayans, much of Mesopotamia, Europe in the Dark Ages (black death = population control), various polynesian islands, and so on and so forth ad nauseum. Read Jared Diamond's Collapse or Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Socities to find out more.
Oh, and as for the argument I've heard that we are 'different' because our technology and knowledge base are different: technology has changed; knowledge has changed; the laws of physics have not. And neither, unfortunately, has human nature.
Don't get me wrong. I want to agree with you. A population crash is horrible, awful, and seriously thinking about it makes me want to vomit. But I just don't see the alternative your predicting as probably. Possible yes, but not probable.
I hope and pray that you're right. But if you're not, then God help us all.
First, if people want to argue that we're crashing, they have to offer concrete evidence. Lack of disproof is not proof. So, saying that we may be the same as reindeer is not helpful, without specific reasons. I've offered concrete reasons why there is not sign YET that we're in overshoot, at least where population is concerned, and how human population growth behavior is concretely different from ecological overshoot, so there's no evidence there.
Secondly, there's controversy over Diamond's analyses. You have to remember that there's very little documentary evidence left from places like Easter island (some people suggest that the appearance of Europeans had as much to do with the collapse of Easter Island as the natives' behavior), and I have the impression that there's no mystery quite as deep as the disappearance of the Anasazi.
I don't think it's fair to say that the Black Death had anything to do with overshoot: rats brought a new pathogen, and people died.
I dunno. As I understand it, both Tainter and Diamond are mostly warning against the hubris of thinking that collapse can't happen to us, as opposed to saying that it's inevitable. Remember, they're dealing with history, which can give object warnings, but doesn't give you an econometric model.
Now, the Limits to Growth people are trying to develop a predictive econometric model. I read the first version 30 years ago, which was instructive but far from definitive. I'll have to read the latest.
Just keep in mind, though, that a lot of the pessimism in TOD is associated with peak oil ala Kunstler, Heinberg, Savinar and Hanson, and those guys deal with renewables (wind, solar, wave, etc) in an astonishingly superficial fashion. They don't even really try, they just dismiss them as unworkable. Kunstler clearly wants a crash that will end suburbia. As best I can tell Heinberg and Savinar seem to want to scare people into thinking about the problems, and don't want to admit there might be solutions, lest people stop paying attention. Hanson gives a great deal of info about solar that makes it clear how much potential it has, and then dismisses it as too "dilute". Very puzzling.
People like Goodstein, Simmons, Hirsch and Deffeyes say explicity that they think that renewables are perfectly viable - they just want to make clear that the transition is very difficult, and needs to start now.
Deffeyes writes that "there are plenty of energy sources other than fossil fuels. Running out of energy in the long run is not the problem. The bind comes during the next 10 years: getting over our dependence on crude oil."
Simmons: "I happen to think the world can make the transition into what we might call the post-Saudi oil era in some very rational way that will limit economic disruption. As a perpetual optimist, I believe the world still works beyond Peak Oil. While oil prices in this new world will obviously rise, this rise can be a blessing, not a curse. Far higher oil prices make all other forms of energy more competitive and spur on energy research programs that might discover some real long-term fixes."
You might ask: Can improved technology help if we always grow exponentially?
The answer is that we don't - people really do "get enough" of things that they need.
Look at the car industry in the US: it matured in the middle 70's, and car sales have leveled off since, growing at less than the rate of population growth.
So...these are just hints of information, but I think they're helpful.
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate hearing other sides of the argument having factual support.
I think you make some valid points but I want you to help me understand how renewables will overcome the problem of scale on a real-time basis to correct for the depletion of oil.
You always like to point out that the energy potential available for solar and wind is huge and I don't think anyone disputes that fact. I believe the more relevant question is how much of that energy can we harness and how quickly can we harness it? As Savinar accurately notes, a 10% reduction in our oil energy usage would result in a need for a 2,200% increase in wind and solar growth.
I don't anyone here doubts that wind & solar have excellent EROEI, but the question is can they be scaled up fast enough in real time to offset oil depletion. Do you have an explanation for how this might occur?
In addition, I think there is no disputing that peak oil will reduce the amount of oil available for export faster than the decrease in production. With the United States importing about 2/3rd of its oil, and that amount expected to increase, the United States supply could fall much faster than the projected 5% decline rate even backed by CERA. Accordingly, it must be assumed that the price of crude available for export will have to increase greatly as we hit and begin down the backslope of the peak.
I've read some of your other posts where you say that this increase in oil price will only sligtly affect the price of producing these renewable sources since the portion of the cost attributable to energy is small so that even a huge increase in price would only affect price slightly. That's a good point but I think it is incomplete.
I've never looked into the cost of making a solar cell or a wind turbine in detail but I figure that the main components would be: (1) materials (2) labor (3) energy to construct. Your position is that the energy to construct is a small portion so a huge increase in price of fossil enerby would result in only a modest gain in the price of the renewable cell or turbine.
But I think you are failing to see the interconnectedness of life by only focusing on this part of the cost. A large gain in the price of fossil fuels would result in the mining and processing of silicon becoming more expensive--not to mention the huge demand on silicon causing price to rise greatly. In addition, labor will become more expensive. The people that make the turbines and the cells have to pay for gas for their car, and nat gas to heat their house. When this gets tight, they will need raises thereby raising the cost. In addition, all of the other items that they buy (food, clothing, etc., etc.) will become more expensive since they are either (1) made from oil feedstock (2) need oil in their production or at a minimum (3) need oil to transport them to the laborer.
Maybe renewable energy sweatshops overcome the labor cost?
"I don't anyone here doubts that wind & solar have excellent EROEI"
If, so, that's great. I've not been sure that we had a consensus on that.
"I believe the more relevant question is how much of that energy can we harness and how quickly can we harness it?
Well, I agree that's important too.
"As Savinar accurately notes, a 10% reduction in our oil energy usage would result in a need for a 2,200% increase in wind and solar growth. "
I assume what you mean is that wind and solar would have to be 22 times larger than they are now to replace 10% of our oil usage.
First, that's incorrect. We could replace 60% of oil by replacing gasoline personal transportation with electrical. That would require a roughly 15% increase in electrical usage. As wind alone will produce about .9% of US electricity by the end of 2006, that's a 1700% increase in wind to replace 60% of our oil.
Second, they're very roughly doubling every two years in the US (40% growth rate per year). That means in 10 years you would get 5 doublings, or 32 times as much.
Actually, we have plenty of coal for electricity for the transition (if you ignore GW, of course), the much bigger problem is accelerating the conversion to electrical transportation. We're roughly at .6% electrical for personal transportation new sales (1.7% of light duty vehicle are electric-gas hybrids, and they're roughly 1/3 electrical - yes I know their power source is 100% gas, but the powertrain is what I'm focusing on) now, so we have (ahem!) a little ways to go. That's the big problem, not renewable energy supplies.
Of course, we reduced gas usage in 79-83 by 7%just with driving better, and switching to smaller cars, and overall oil usage by 16% (because businesses are more sensitive to energy prices than consumers), and ethanol will help a bit (it's likely to contribute at least 3% in the next 5 years, even with it's current excessive nat gas consumption problem), so we can likely muddle through a 10% drop.
"the United States supply could fall much faster than the projected 5% decline rate even backed by CERA." Well, I don't think CERA has backed 5% anytime soon. But, I agree that depletion could be higher than that. That would be mighty painful. I don't see collapse, but I suspect 5% would stop economic growth, and higher would cause recession/depression. No question, we have serious risks here.
"A large gain in the price of fossil fuels would result in the mining and processing of silicon becoming more expensive"
It would raise costs a bit. Silicon is astonishingly plentiful (think sand), so mining is easy. Melting into PV grade purity takes a fair amount of energy - it's by far the lion's share of the energy input for PV. Still, the energy required is dropping very quickly, and ultimately the high E-ROI of PV means than the output of PV would be that much more valuable.
"--not to mention the huge demand on silicon causing price to rise greatly."
It already has, to ration supplies. That's mainly why prices of PV have risen in the last couple years: silicon supplies have been rising by 10% per year, while demand has been rising by about 65% per year. It's an investment lag, which will be mostly fixed in a couple of years: the silicon supplies are expanding like mad. Of course, PV producers are reducing the thickness of their PV wafers like mad too, which is the main reason they've been able to keep production rising at 40%. That's why energy required to make PV has been dropping rapidly, as noted above.
Finally, you ask if spiking energy costs will raise labor costs. Sure, but the increase is a small % of the increase in energy costs. The CPI has risen about 6% total in the last 2 years, while oil prices have roughly doubled. Everything may need oil now (mainly for transportation), but the oil is only 40% of the US's energy, and a much smaller % of business costs.
Actually, if oil tripled it would mainly put us into recession rather than raise inflation, as the Fed would raise rates sufficiently to keep inflation low. That would keep labor costs stable. Interestingly there would be an enormous amount of cash going to oil states, which would likely go in part to investment funds which would channel it indirectly into energy investments like renewables. Why would oil-states invest in renewables? Well, they wouldn't, but there would be so much cash floating around looking for a home that even if they consciously avoided funding their competitors, their money would displace other funds which would go to energy investments. Short term rates, those controlled by the fed, would rise, and long-term rates would fall, encouraging long-term investments. We're already seeing this, as the "rate-curve" inverts.
Already venture capital funding has doubled this year from last into energy, to about $1B I believe.
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate hearing other sides of the argument having factual support.
I think you make some valid points but I want you to help me understand how renewables will overcome the problem of scale on a real-time basis to correct for the depletion of oil.
You always like to point out that the energy potential available for solar and wind is huge and I don't think anyone disputes that fact. I believe the more relevant question is how much of that energy can we harness and how quickly can we harness it? As Savinar accurately notes, a 10% reduction in our oil energy usage would result in a need for a 2,200% increase in wind and solar growth.
I don't anyone here doubts that wind & solar have excellent EROEI, but the question is can they be scaled up fast enough in real time to offset oil depletion. Do you have an explanation for how this might occur?
In addition, I think there is no disputing that peak oil will reduce the amount of oil available for export faster than the decrease in production. With the United States importing about 2/3rd of its oil, and that amount expected to increase, the United States supply could fall much faster than the projected 5% decline rate even backed by CERA. Accordingly, it must be assumed that the price of crude available for export will have to increase greatly as we hit and begin down the backslope of the peak.
I've read some of your other posts where you say that this increase in oil price will only sligtly affect the price of producing these renewable sources since the portion of the cost attributable to energy is small so that even a huge increase in price would only affect price slightly. That's a good point but I think it is incomplete.
I've never looked into the cost of making a solar cell or a wind turbine in detail but I figure that the main components would be: (1) materials (2) labor (3) energy to construct. Your position is that the energy to construct is a small portion so a huge increase in price of fossil enerby would result in only a modest gain in the price of the renewable cell or turbine.
But I think you are failing to see the interconnectedness of life by only focusing on this part of the cost. A large gain in the price of fossil fuels would result in the mining and processing of silicon becoming more expensive--not to mention the huge demand on silicon causing price to rise greatly. In addition, labor will become more expensive. The people that make the turbines and the cells have to pay for gas for their car, and nat gas to heat their house. When this gets tight, they will need raises thereby raising the cost. In addition, all of the other items that they buy (food, clothing, etc., etc.) will become more expensive since they are either (1) made from oil feedstock (2) need oil in their production or at a minimum (3) need oil to transport them to the laborer.
Maybe renewable energy sweatshops overcome the labor cost?
Replacing heavy truck shipments with electrified rail shipments gives a direct ~20 to 1 savings.
Going from an "average" commuter car/SUV to electric Urban Rail gives ~6 to 1 direct savings. Changes in the urban form multiple that with indirect savings that get close to 20 to 1.
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm
(joule instead of BTU for the metric)
Good debate you've sparked here.
My opinion has always been that with very aggressive government leadership the US could/can begin cutting total energy consumption immediately. It would involve a bottom-up restructuring of our economy and total redefinition of incentives.
If Westexas's argument about the availability of oil-for-export is correct (and I find it convincing), then a barrel of oil is going to be very freaking expensive from now on. Nothing I've seen about CTL or unconventional oil has changed my veiw that crude is headed well into the hundreds (and "not the low hundreds" as both Simmons and Jim Rogers have quotably phrased it.) It's a scenario that will play out certainly within the next 5 yrs.
Huge portions of our economic infrastructure are simply incompatible with petroleum being that expensive. Which will cause huge economic dislocation -- on scale that has historically sent societies into chaos. I've been reading Columbia econ professor Nouriel Roubini recently, who says much about the massive systemic risks of the housing bubble. It's a very convincing case.
Now, when I think about the likelihood of societal collapse, my first question is whether our civilization is capable of that sort of massive readjustment. Personally, I don't think it is. The much more likely scenario (to my mind) is one along the lines of Orwell's 1984 -- a repressive and propagandistic political system governing a resource-poor society (people cold, facing chronic shortages, etc.)
People always have noted that Orwell got that wrong -- I think he might actually have gotten it right.
If not probable, I do think it's possible that we can clear the energy bottleneck, and still remain intact as a society (if not a rich, liberal democracy as we've come to define ourselves in that past century or two.)
But the brick wall in my extensive reading is the one that James Lovelock's throws up. This, of course, is the guy who figured out how the planet works as a system -- simply a remarkable piece of scientific insight.
He gives us 0% odds of surviving the next century. Sees global warming has already entered runaway mode. Best we can do in his view is enjoy the next 30 years or so before things start to get truly catastrophic. Most of the globe will be uninhabitable by 2100. Life will be eked out near the poles in his view.
With stories like this creeping into the press, it's hard not be swayed:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10392615
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/06/MNGSPJQ8221.DTL
Then of course there are all the other feedback loops: methane hydrates are now thawing in the pacific; the world's largest bog is thawing in Siberia (containing serious quantities of methane, etc etc etc)
The fallacy in our popular debate is that somehow we start driving hybrid cars and putting up wind farms that these mechanisms wont continue (and continue to accelerate) for decades and centuries. Basically, it seems like we need some as-yet-unfathomed technology for planetary engineering or we pretty much know (even if we pretend not to) the trajectory that this is all taking.
Lovelock is more of straigh shooter than many climate scientists who are incredibly timorous about what they say or pointing out both the first and second derivatives of most measures of climate change are positive.
If you're serious about these questions, you really have to start with Lovelock and consider what's realistic after that.
I hope to hell he's wrong, but I don't see that being the case.
I think he's right that CO2 growth is unlikely to stop, or even slow down much.
"We should be very clear. No one, not Lovelock or anyone else, has proposed a specific, quantitative scenario for a climate-driven, all out, blow the doors off, civilization ending catastrophe. Mr. Lovelock has a feeling in his gut that something terrible is going to happen. He could be right, but for what it's worth, there aren't any models that explode as catastrophically as this. We can never say that it's impossible that something might fall out of balance, something we haven't thought of. But I think in general the consensus gut feeling among small-minded working scientists like me is that the odds of such a catastrophe are low.
Low odds of catastrophe does not imply negligible. Nordhaus [2001] considered the possibility of catastrophe in his analysis of the economics of climate change. He defined catastrophe as comparable to the Great Depression, a 25% decrease in global economic activity that lasts for a long time. The probability of such an event he estimated by polling the gut instincts of a group of climate scientists; for what it's worth, they came up with probabilities of a few percent. Economically, Nordhaus found that this possibility imposed the largest cost of adapting to climate change, greater than the costs of sea level rise, potential change in storminess, and so on. My own belief is that economics is a flawed tool for managing global climate, because it neglects issues of fairness, and reduces the value of the natural world to units of money. The point is that, within this framework, a small possibility of a large catastrophe looms large as a practical issue."
...The argument for approaching doom is made by analogy. (Again I feel compelled to editorialize. Argument by analogy is a powerful rhetorical tool, at which Lovelock is a master. Reasoning by analogy however is not a reliable divining rod for scientific discovery. "As above, so below" was a central tenet of the alchemists. We don't do that anymore.) The analogy is to the failure of natural regulation of a human body, requiring artificial intervention. If the kidneys fail, a doctor has to take over regulation of blood chemistry using dialysis. If the pancreas fails, the patient requires manual regulation of sugar metabolism by insulin injection. It is generally bad news when the doctor tells you that your body's natural regulation mechanisms are failing, because artificial, technological fixes are typically not as reliable as the natural ones. There is no doubt that mankind is taking over the reins of global geochemical balance. Industrial production of fixed nitrogen for fertilizer now matches the natural rate of nitrogen fixation on the planet. Rates of fossil-fuel CO2 emission dwarf the natural rate of CO2 release in volcanic gases. Lovelock's conclusion, by analogy, is that the biosphere of the Earth will soon be beset by all manner of unanticipated complications. "
This is a very important red flag, but not a hard warning of certain doom.
It does reinforce my sense that GW is more important than Peak Oil. Peak Oil, at least in the US, can (and probably will) be pretty well solved with coal as a transition to renewables. That doesn't work for GW.
Certainly, Lovelock's argument is not mainstream among climate scientists.
I read that realclimate essay when it was posted -- good comments as well.
Dismissing it as logic-by-analogy is a mistake. He hasn't built a model to show it -- but trusting our species to computer models is a bad idea. Four Nobel prize winners came up with the LTCM model. Climate models have hardly been spot on. Many didn't predict the rapid recent accelation of CO2 in the atmosphere (within last 2-3 yrs). That's exactly the sort of thing that Lovelock is taking about though.
The point is we need to act logically -- that means figuring out the reasonable scenerio that is most destructive and take immediate action as though it were the most likely one.
I'm not a straight doomer -- I just think the US needs to go into wartime mode, and completely revamp our power generation and transport infrastructure, and threaten breaking off trade with countries that dont follow our lead.
We all know how likely that is, of course.
It's quite remarkable to review what the US was able to do in 1-2 years, in WWII. We really could solve this problem pretty quickly, if we just came to a strong consensus to do it.
I have come to a conclusion that is similar in some respects to Lovelock - I don't believe the solution to this nexus of problems will (or even can) be technical. As a result I think that arguing the relative merits of wind vs. solar vs. nuclear vs. biofuels etc., while useful, is not likely to point the way out of the promised petro-land as an intact species. I am still convinced that we are faced with the fundamental problem of growth within a finite niche - not only growth of population, but also a well-demonstrated growth of appetite. This is a situation that will inevitably manifest itself in an overrun of limits unless there is a bedrock change in the values and organizing principles that drive our behaviour - competitiveness, individualism and short-term thinking. I do not believe that we will be able to change these attitudes in any situation short of physical constraint, a constraint reached only by exceeding some essential source and sink limits of our planet - exactly the situation we are trying to avoid.
This understanding puts the discussions here on TOD in a much different perspective. After a while they come to seem nothing more than an intellectual diversion. An interesting and enlightening one, certainly, and one that is likely to help in the short term, but in the larger view of the problem created by a reproducing species with global scope and no predators, this is the wrong place to be looking for "solutions".
Have you read about Maslow's hierarchy of needs? I think it's a helpful model. It suggests that people can (not necessarily will) move from basic needs to psychological and spiritual needs. In general, people are able to move up ONLY when the lower need is satisfied. An example would be someone who has a successful career that makes money, but isn't meaningful, and who has a midlife crisis where they realize that they want more, and do something more meaningful like, say, teaching.
I think a lot of people are stuck at the lower, materialistic steps because our culture hasn't gotten to the point of having a lot of info about higher steps.
An important implication of this model is that resource limits (aka poverty) are an impediment to this process, and that if we become poor it will become much, much harder for people to think about more meaningful things. I think a lot of people are deceived by the example of people who choose poverty voluntarily. The trouble is, a voluntary choice of poverty really isn't the same. You may have the power to reverse the decision, and even if you don't you still had the power to make the choice in the first place. True poverty is about being powerless, and is a very different experience. It isn't conducive to higher realms of rational and spiritual experience.
I think we are deceived by the example of stable and poor cultures which had a very small elite that had spiritual practices with which we are familiar. The vast majority lived brutal lives in which they were told what to do, where to live, who to marry, and worked hard and long. They weren't individualistic because the economy had no room for it, and as soon as they showed signs of independent thinking it was beaten out of them.
We are also deceived by the example of very small hunter-gatherer cultures. They may have had short work days, and eaten well (sometimes), but they had very short lives, and more violence than even the most violent spots on earth today.
I believe our best hope is to find a way to maintain affluence, to give people time to simplify their lives voluntarily, and find ways to live both well and sustainably.
If we hit a resource wall and crash permanently, it won't be an improvement. Ever.
I think Lovelock's message about aggressively building nuclear plants is spot on. I think he has his head up his keyster saying that about wind. That said, I'd give priority to the nuclear plants. And simultaneously say that you'll impose trade sanctions on countries that don't pursue a realistic plan to CO2 neutral within 2 decades. I said it in another post a few minutes ago, but if you think we're going to smelt steel, run bulldozers, and power supertankers with wind and solar, you're in la-la land.
And lots of people are in la-la land -- especially people in liberal dreamland of relocalized utopia. Nuclear spoils that neat little dream by being too realistic. "Why should we need steel or bulldozers or tanker ships?" those people would probably ask. For them, alas, there is little hope.
Nick, you are totally spot on in what you said about WW2. That needs to be our model now. Our war isn't against terrorism, it's against climate change, widespread energy shortages and the civilizational threats posed by the two.
The only exception, and this is a less important point, is that I'd put priority on wind and solar, but I would agree that nuclear may be necessary. I'd be happy to discuss why I would do it that way further, if you want.
roflmao!!!!
Now you have to explain how the Sun is gonna get 22 times bigger. Finish your beer-pong game. I was just kidding. I know a 10% reduction would result in a whole bunch of different things.
Nick's post above is a "Best of its Type".
It appeals to a basic human emotion:
our own memory of how we "grew up"
to be of a "just right" height in our personal life.
We tend to think in linear terms because of our shared experience regarding personal growth. It seems to validate the notion that "people really do "get enough" of things that they need" (quoting Nick).
But we are not talking about individual people here. We are talking about population, about a mathematical concept that gets hidden into complex census and demographic numerologies. Yes, we can look at graphs of exponential growth functions (y=e^kx) and say to ourselves, "I get it". But then again, seeing is believing. We believe what we see in our everyday life. We believe that plants, people, etc. grow slowly and controllably over long periods of time. We tend to disbelieve concepts that are not validated by our everyday experiences. There lies our problem, our own lying eyes. We dont' truly grasp the exponential function. We don't truly believe that we are already rolling down that short takeoff runway to hell.
For more info on Doc Bart's essays, click on his photo to the right. Also click here.
I'm at about a defcon 3. We're due for a crash.
As to people getting what they need: that was way too short. What I meant was:
People often assume that exponential growth in resource consumption will continue forever. As Doc Bart points out, that can't happen, and if it is attempted it can cause an overshoot. As it happens, however, unlimited exponential growth is not a necessary assumption. Very often what happens is a kind of flattened S-curve, where there is exponential growth for a while, which flattens out. He notes this in section VIII, and calls it "curve B", though he doesn't discuss it further.
That's what is happening with population. That's what happened with cars in the US. Think of people buying a big house to raise kids, then when the kids leave down-sizing. As a general thing, people get enough of material things. Not everyone, of course, but those are people who don't know how to make themselves happier in any other way, and I am hopeful that eventually we will teach them a better way (I know, this is a very big topic).
Now, it's possible to have something where the growth curve hits a plateau and then the resource runs out, in which case you have to recycle, or substitute something else (note that very roughly 95% of steel is recycled in the US). If you can't, you have big problems. But, and this is my point, it is a mistake to just assume that growth in resource consumption will continue forever. Some people confuse economic growth with resource growth, but it's perfectly possible (and it's happening) for economies to stabilize their resource consumption and continue economic growth, with "services" and other things which don't require growth in resource consumption.
I looked at the Doc Bartlett essay you linked to. First, I would note that his main point was that fossil fuel consumption can't go on forever - I would agree with this. It's absolutely clear that Pres Carter was right that something needed to be done, and the annoying people, that Bartlett quotes saying that there is no problem, were wrong.
Second, we should note that the original essay is almost 30 years old. Here is what he said:
"(iv) We must recognize that it is exceedingly unscientific to promote ever-increasing rates of consumption of our fuel resources based on complete confidence that science, technology, and the economics of the marketplace will combine to produce vast new energy resources as they are needed. Note the certainty that characterizes this confidence.
Coal could help fight a rear-guard action to provide time for scientific breakthroughs which will move the world from the fossil fuel era of wood, gas, oil, and coal to the perpetual energy era of infinitely renewable energy resources.41 The supply (of coal) is adequate to carry the U.S. well past the transition from the end of the oil and gas era to new, possibly not discovered sources of energy in the 2000s.42
There seems to be an almost complete absence of the caution that would counsel us to stop the growth of our national energy appetite until these "unlimited energy resources" are proven to be capable of carrying the national energy load. We must recognize that it is not acceptable to base our national future on the motto "When in doubt, gamble." "
Well, even when he wrote this there was perfectly good reason to believe that renewable energy could probably be developed: wind turbines and solar were being developed. OTOH, his feeling that it was a gamble was right. It was irresponsible for the world not to plan better, and at the very least accelerate renewables. Carter, our first and only engineer president, started a very good program, without which (even with the sabotage from Reagan, etc) we'd be in much more trouble.
But now it is perfectly clear that renewables are up to the job. The only question is how difficult will be the transition. I would agree that there's a risk that it will be very difficult - it all depends on how well government, business and individuals step up to the problem.
... or complacently "step back" and watch it all go to hell :-)
The fed government is like a big boulder in the river of progress, for energy and a wide range of other things.
Very frustrating.
What does your handle "step back" mean?
Basically, step back and see the Big Picture; step back and don't get overly emotional in the debate, that kind of thing.
Too many people, I find, fall into a tunnel vision view of the world. There are many views, many truths. It's worthwhile to step back and evaluate them all.
This is difficult, emotional stuff, but I think we're making progress.
No it ain't what you want, it's what you need (fascist/communist, Kantner/Slick)
Nick,
I think there's a problem of definition here. You claim there's no evidence we're in overshoot : what you seem to mean is, there's no evidence we've hit the wall yet.
It's like when Wiley Coyote turns and looks at the camera after running off the cliff. He's just realised he's in overshoot, and there's no escaping the crash.
Look under your feet!
-----------------
I'm not a doomer really! Just pointing out that we are clearly in overshoot in a number of specific resource questions : Water, for example. It is perfectly clear that aquifers are being exhausted all over the planet, and hundreds of millions of people are going to face extreme hardship because of it. Perhaps a miracle solution will come (energy cheap enough for huge-scale desalinization?) but I don't see it arriving in time, for the moment. "Overshoot" means that we have passed the point of sustainability.
Likewise for energy (you can fill in the details on that one). We haven't hit the wall yet, but we are on an unsustainable trajectory. Just like the coyote. That's overshoot.
There is no point arguing with Nick he is not here to be convinced or informed, just to hammer again and again the message :
- World population growthis clearly leveling off
- My main point is that population growth is slowing down dramatically
- In the human case reproduction, fertility and pop growth have declined in an orderly fashion
Without any other consideration or knowledge whatsoever :- now we're wandering into areas where I'm not thoroughly informed, so I can only offer bits of info that are suggestive.
- "Have you read the latest version of "Limits to Growth" yet? "
- The rest, especially water, I haven't researched yet.
Any reply is just an opportunity for him to spatter the threads with the same MISLEADING statement : The rate of growth is slowing.No, I'd like to.
But the GROWTH is still there.
This has been debunked by optimist and GliderGuider to no avail :
You were right about one thing though -if birthrates continue to drop like they are, population would stabilize at 2050 if things go on as usaul. At about 11 billion people. It would take another 70 years to halve that number, and another 70 to halve it agaon to a level that might be sustainable (assuming we haven't degraded the Earth's carrying capacity too much by that point). So, basically your numbers claim that we can support business as usual on this planet for another 200 years?
(my underlining)
We have specialized trolls at TOD.
By their selective blindess/deafness/dumbness ye shall recognize them.
P.S. Kantner/Slick... your age is showing!
It's not the growth that's the problem. Even if the human population stopped growing today, that wouldn't resolve the question of overshoot. The problem is the absolute number, and the exhausting resources they consume.
Kantner/Slick : I'm not that old, I have older siblings. I am the world's youngest boomer.
A modicum of mathematical ability is needed here: Multiplication.
Take the absolute number of humans and MULTIPLY IT BY the amount of energy they consume as they climb up the standard-of-living curve. Then you get a better picture of where total consumption is heading.
You have probably seen this picture a number of times:
(Bigger view here)
Thank you, that's exactly what I'm saying. It is certainly possible that we've gone off the cliff. What I'm arguing about is a narrower point: that pop growth is currently slowing down, and that it is doing so not because of hitting a wall, but because of affluence.
Why is this important? Because it influences our perspective. If we recognize that pop growth is stabilizing because of human ingenuity, not because of resource constraints, we recognize that...we are not yeast. We have a great ability to adapt and improve. Again, not a reason for complacency - exactly the opposite - just a reason not to dismiss our ability to cope with the adversity which is coming.
On depletion of clean, freshwater - yes, I agree that it's clearly an enormous problem, especially for developing countries, which I haven't researched yet.
On energy I disagree. Clearly in the longterm there's enough energy from renewables. The transition will be painful - how painful depends on a lot of things, some of them unknown, like the depletion rate. At the worst it could be a major depression. But, a transitional problem is not the same as overshoot.
Now, could a transitional problem overstress our society to collapse? It's certainly conceivable - nuclear war and nuclear winter would do it. We still have the weapons. I was fairly optimistic about our ability to avoid completely irrational war until GWB took us into Iraq. Now....I'm not quite as optimistic.
Still, when the people who argue for collapse say things which are divorced from reality, like that pop growth is out of control, that if it is stabilizing that it's only because we've hit the wall, or that replacing oil is just flatly impossible, I can be confident that they are not completely informed in general and relying on bad sources like Kunstler. If they hold fast to those ideas in the face of evidence to the contrary, then I surmise that that they: 1) are willing to exaggerate becaue they think that's the only way to get people to move on the serious problems facing us, or 2) saying it more out of an pessimistic instinct than from the evidence, or 3) are motivated to believe it by a primitivistic impulse and/or the misguided idea that people can be made less materialistic by making them poor.
OK, so my insight of the day relates to rolling out alternative energies. I am optimistic that the developed world will survive, because it has the intellectual, technical and financial resources to roll them out (and will buy or steal the necessary material resources). I am pretty pessimistic about the Rest of the World.
Example : Nanosolar may well, all on its own, resolve a sizeable chunk of the energy equation. From one factory in Silicon Valley, on the cutting edge of high tech. There may well be similar breakthroughs, they will almost certainly be similarly high-tech, e.g. in batteries. The US and Europe may transition successfully to electrical transport.
Are we going to roll all this out to the Third World? How will they pay? They will not be able/allowed to develop high-tech solutions of their own. I think we will end up with immense regions of basket-case failed states.
What about the intermediate players : China, India, South America ? On a knife edge, I suspect.
---------------------------
With respect to the notion of overshoot : It seems clear to me that both sides have misused the analogy.
I agree with you that the levelling off of world population is not evidence of overshoot, but of demographic maturity. This is where the analogy with the animal kingdom breaks down : we are neither yeast, nor mooses, nor mice (lemmings).
On the other hand, I maintain strongly that we are in ecological overshoot. This is analogous to (say) a herd of buffalo who have migrated to a rich new plain, where they are prospering, but eating up 10% of the food resource every year, without regeneration. The wall is there, they don't know it, they only have a few years left.
I feel confident that, once you have researched issues such as water, you will realise that the problems extend far beyond energy.
If we've run off the cliff in terms of energy, it may well be that we'll learn to fly before we hit the ground... but we may have nowhere to land.
(how's that for a pompous analogy!)
And of course, we as the superior, all-seeing human beings; are up in our helicopter overlooking the great grass plains and wondering why the leaders of the bufallo herd don't see what we see. Why can't they "get it" that they are indeed at the edge of the ecological cliff, and actually on the Wiley Coyote side of things?
Maybe it is because we cannot perceive the world the way each individual buffalo perceives the world?
Maybe for each individual bufallo it is the smell of the sweet green stuff below his snout that counts and he never thought of taking a helicopter's eye view of what is happening to him and his kind?
Maybe the buffalo is too involved in his everyday job, in tending to his family, in attending church & praying to his diety, and in worrying about which sports team is going to win (The Sapien Bills versus the Miami Monkeys) to have time to concern his overwhelmed skull in such flighty thoughts as the view from above?
When you are full in bull pride and at the top of your stride, there is no time to "step back" and contemplate about your world from helicopter heights. The green stuff smells sweet. The herd economy is "strong". All is good with the world.
Most certainly when the purpose of the debate is understanding or negotiation.
NOT AT ALL when the purpose of one of the participants is to befuddle the audience and push a covert agenda.
For an example look at the exchange between BaSE and Robert Rapier in the last ethanol thread.
So, everybody should stick to his most valuable skills and use them when appropriate.
BTW, a personal note, I disagree on most points with Roger Conner (ThatsItImout), you may notice the difference in my arguments with Roger versus my arguments with odograph, eric blair, slaphappy or Nick...
Yeah. Fun and interesting, isn't it?
"Are we going to roll all this out to the Third World? How will they pay? They will not be able/allowed to develop high-tech solutions of their own. I think we will end up with immense regions of basket-case failed states.
What about the intermediate players : China, India, South America ? On a knife edge, I suspect."
I think China will be fine energywise: I believe they have plenty of coal for a transition (though that's horrific GW-wise), and they have a very agressive energy program which includes a lot of renewables. India certainly also has technology expertise, though much less native fossil fuels, and not very good government - I think they'll have a hard time. South America has a lot of native fuels, but terrible governments - hard to know how they'll go. Africa....sigh. They've been a basket case for a long time, and PO will only make it worse.
As far as overshoot in general - yeah, could be. It seems to me that desalination will provide water for more affluent areas, but I'm not sure. As far as soil goes - I would guess that just cutting out eating meat would triple our food resources, or allow permaculture at 1/3 the yield, but I'm not sure. The thing that makes me saddest is the vast species extinctions that we're causing - I'd like to see everyone crowd into cities, and leave native habitat alone. When I watch PBS programs about tourists in wild areas, I want to yell: "go to disney world, leave it alone!". sigh.
Interesting things to find out about.
Some scientists argue that it wasn't bubonic plague at all, it was something else. Maybe a bunch of different diseases.
Many believe that the root problem was overpopulation. Malthusian causes. The Great Famine of 1315 was only a few decades earlier, where even some of the wealthy and powerful starved. This may have weakened the population for the epidemics to come. Also, there were sanitation issues, because a shortage of firewood put heating water for washing out of the reach of ordinary people. (Peak firewood?)
Really? I thought washing more than once per month was considered very weird until the 20th century. I'm told perfume was invented for this reason...
"Peak firewood?"
I understand that the royal forests, like Sherwood in Robin Hood, were royal preserves precisely because of peak wood...
The idea that "we" (on planet earth) are in overshoot is based on an average across nations with vastly different population densities.
I think the world would be a nicer place (from my perspective) if human birth rate had naturally fallen 100 years ago, but the whole idea of declaring "overshoot" is in some dangerous sense ... optimistic. It may be even worse than that. The planet may support a whole lot more of "us," without crashing, but with continued mass extinction in the non-human biosphere.
I find this diffuse, rather than brass tacks.
Do you have some "good model" for those claims?
Numbers instead of "a whole lot more"?
Evidence that "mass extinction in the non-human biosphere" would not damage agriculture, water, oxygen and CO2 cycles?
There are many other scenarios, besides "china everywhere" but "china everywhere" is one that gives me some concern.
I make no claim to odds or etc. on that happening, just observing the possibility.
I'm perfectly happy to debate with you, but if you're going to play with the big boys, you need to at least know your stuff. Go read Diamond and Tainter. Don't take someone else's word for it; read it and evalusate it for yourself. Find out what the status of critical resources (water, land, pollution) is in various parts of the world. Discover how modern agriculture is done. Then come back and we'll talk.
Oh and while you're at it, study up on human nature as well so you can discuss the 'people get enough' idea from an informed perspective.
On the rest of the literature: I agree, it there's a lot out there that would be good to find out about, and it's frustrating to try to discuss it without a deep background. It's tough to become an expert on all this stuff. I suppose I should resist the temptation to comment when I don't have the details, the way most people do on TOD (though I try to make clear the limits of my comments, which a lot of readers don't seem to read carefully enough). OTOH, I have to say that it's very clear that a lot of people are more pessimistic on energy than they should be, which suggests to me that a lot of the pessimisim in other areas might be similarly unwarranted.
On human nature, please see my earlier reply.
When Malthus is finally proven right --and he is mathematically correct of course-- because we do after all live on a planet of finite size, there will no one around to appreciate that the debunkers have been debunked.
Only 42 left behind? Hey, I thought we get The 4400 to return as the survivors. I'm number 4321 on the list. Damn.
My favorite "last man on earth" story is Tiptree's Houston, Houston, Do You Read?
Just read it...
it's tasty.
"It's a little hard to explain, unless I tell you this story about the woman you knew as James Tiptree, Jr."
The Last Flight of Dr. Ain
In the land of "Math is hard" Barbie, a lot of people are just turned off to math and science. Even if they could understand it, they don't want to.
And it's occurred to me recently that the peak oil crowd a lot more fragmented than I realized. I found out a few months ago that a long time friend of mine is a peak oiler. She's a doomer, stocking up on canned goods, guns, and ammo. But she'd never even heard of TOD. Or PeakOil.com. She spends a lot of time online, but it's mostly at Kunstler's site. She seemed surprised to hear that there were other peak oil sites, and that I preferred them to Kunstler's.
Here in "Math Is Hard" country, indeed you can get through high school with only about a year of math, up to something called pre-algebra if that's all you want.
I got through first semester calc and through part of 2nd. So I'm not a math whiz unless compared with most fellow Empire-ites. I've tried a couple of times to complete my college degree (I'm kinda stupid) and would end up being told to take this or that math class... OK.. so we have to graph a function and the other kids are using graphing calculators, and taking more time than I am using the mental tricks learned in trig and geometry and calc. like, Where is X = 0? and Where is Y = 0? And is it linear or 2nd order etc.? Nope.... they just ask the machine. And Glory Halleluja if the batteries are dead......
Optimist, you're making TOD sound very much like a religious institution. What do you mean by a 'very good PR person'? Should we try to recruit Sharon Stone?
PR persons are manipulators, not truth-seekers who follow the argument wherever it goes. What TOD needs is a good reputation in the scientific communities. You don't get a good reputation in those communities via PR. You get it by making claims that are backed up by the evidence. You don't get a reputation by sweet-talking and soft-soaping the general public. Let Joe Schmoe have his drink with Johnny Six-Pack and let TOD leave the publicity business where it belongs -- in the hands of the pols.
at this point? hell no. 15 years ago, yes. today, no oh no.
"middle aged woman" and "48 year old skank with bad plastic surgery" not the same thing.
;)
But that's girth.
(Here we go again, back into the phallic preening mode. Oh the humanity. When will they (we) stop being such social show off animals?)
Tarzan, are you a 40-something? I have to admit, as a 30-something, I have no idea who Gong Li is.
Of course, George Clooney was sexiest man alive in 1997, and he is on our side. Hasn't done that much good yet (though I really enjoyed the movie.)
A good PR person is someone who can take a truthful message and craft it in such a way that anyone can understand it. Mainstream acceptance is much different than acceptance into the scientifc communities.
Take Global Warming for example. Its been accepted by the science folks for at least a decade, but has still not been fully accepted by the public. That started changing this summer with the heatwave and a little movie called An Inconveinent Truth. A book called The Weather Makers is also available, and contains the same information couched in scientific terms. Both are factually correct -but which is more intelligible to the general public?
BTW, your assumption that we should just let average people enjoy their drinks and 'Be Happy' is very arrogant. Remember on the Titanic when the crew locked the doors to the stern so the First Class people could reach the life boats but not Joe Schmoe? Your statement smacks of the same arrogance, only for the intellectual community instead of the wealthy.
Yes. Try Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard's columns at http://www.psandman.com/col/col-list.htm - think Malcolm Gladwell or Paul Graham, but PR.
My assumption is that this site should let average people enjoy their drinks. Other sites are welcome humbly to bother them if they please. It's just a question of the division of labour.
Your mention of global warming is interesting. You write: "Take Global Warming for example. Its been accepted by the science folks for at least a decade ... "
The problem with peak oil is a different one: peak oil has not been accepted by science folks, or at least not by many such folks. As regards GW, I can simply say: look, the smartest minds are unanimous, it's happening.
What can I say about peak oil? What percentage of the smartest minds are in agreement on the matter? If peak oil guys are so smart, why aren't more smart people saying so?
Something to mull over.
Ah yes, Logic and the Law of Large Numbers.
But if true, one should consume excrement. 10 trillion flies can't be wrong. :-0
I very much "enjoy" reading, and occasionally to post a comment.
I guess it is a matter of interest, but I find TOD pretty accesible, also the techno stuff
I began to subscribe to Sci Am in 1957 and dropped it in 1990 because it was, a) comparatively emaciated, b) more like Popular Sci or Discover in content. National Geographic seems to have morphed in a similar way, but it is still coming -- habit, I guess. Inflation takes many forms.
Seems like instead, they ditched the calculus altogether.
Instead of coming out with the simpleton's "Technology will save Us", the Sci Am issue fluffs it up a bit by saying: We have these Plan A technolgy wedges, 7 of them, to save us. If that doesn't work, we have a Plan B with more wedges.
The naive reader may come away with a feeling of: "Wow there are so many wedges! So many Save-Our-Sorry ass technologies they make my head spin just to read about them. Those genius nerd geek types have once again used "the numbers" to "prove" that everything will be A OK for us. I don't know what a "wedge" is, what it means. But they seem to. So I say to myself: Be Happy. Everything is under control. Runway 22 here we come. Full speed ahead." ;-)
If everyone really wants to get the word out, it would seem we need a couple of good sound bites, a stand alone website with the basic message and a few nice graphs, and then some nice mass media advertisements taken out in new newspapers or magazines (any lurking millionaires out there want that want to pay for this?).
I'm in the social sciences with just enough sense of the hard sciences and math to understand the graphs and the analysis. I find Stuart's work especially valuable and compelling.
On the one hand, it is very important to communicate the state of things (oil production etc) as best as things can be sorted out - in full complexity. Someone really needs to be doing this and TOD is where its at. The informal peer review is a huge plus.
I think there are several kinds of people out here - a taxomony of consumer/citizens if you will
One group, prevalent where I live, is not interested in facutal analysies. They're what I loosely refer to as the "rapture crowd" and variations thereon - not interested or swayed by the facts. They will interpret all events in the framework of systems of meaning alien to TOD.
But there are others. TOD should, in my view, find ways to present the discussion to less technical folks - strip away all of the more involved math and state the state of things in as simeple and straightforward a way as possible.
I like the second website idea for this. But I would really hate to see TOD - which is actually a process - become in any way watered down in any such effort.
More like a meat-grinder.
(but then again, I am just pissy with a set of reviews I got back today...heh.)
I do not come from an energy background but I am learning about all aspects of the energy industry here. I came here during your excellent Katrina/Rita coverage, and have stayed. Before TOD, I had no real idea what it took to get a barrel of oil out of the ground and converted to something useful at the pump. I knew about peak oil via the Heinberg books, but here I have seen the data to back up what I had come to believe.
I am a tech writer, not a physicist, geologist, or engineer (I have mental block against calculus), but I married a mechanical engineer. The few times that I have read a graph on TOD that confused me, I have dragged my wife over, forced her to look at the website and explain it to me. She, too, is a peak oiler, btw. She is just less obsessed with it than I am so she doesn't read about it constantly.
I wouldn't change a damn thing about TOD. I love this site. It has only gotten better with Leanan's news articles and the drumbeat section.
Johns, liberal-pinko pacifist and slow-crash doomer, living in Costa Rica
IMO the site could be enhanced by an "annual editions" type of paperback collection of some of the best articles and comments--perhaps about sixty thousand words a year--aimmed for a mass market.
Sometimes I go to the extreme of printing out some of the best threads, but this uses up huge amounts of paper and rapidly fills three-hole-punch binders, but it is nice to have an easy way to be able to look back in August to see what was said in February. I think an anthology of TOD articles (maybe year after year reprinting some of the most fundamental ones) would have best-seller potential, and getting permission from people to use their words should not be an unduly daunting task.
Royalties would probably be something like fifteen percent of cover price, and that could be a very nice income for somebody.
I am not volunteering to be editor nor do I have time for such a project, but it would be helpful to find somebody with editing and publishing experience, possibly somebody with connections to the publishing industry or somebody who is or knows a suitable literary agent. Also, we need somebody who can take risks, because any publisher's advance is likely to be small compared to the perhaps two thousand hours of work needed for the project. IMO a single editor would be much better than two or three or more, but if exactly the right two people could be found for the editing task, a two-person team can be highly efficient.
In general, first editions do not make money; it is as circulation builds over the years that the coin comes rolling in.
Even modest success, such as I had with my economics text, can bring in a six figure income--and a super duper return on hours of work invested.
Hope you got the "free" study guide that accompanied the original book in a shrink-wrapped package; some have said it is the best piece of writing I've ever done. It includes, for example, a section on how to draw and how to explain and how to understand graphs--capabilities that people need before they tackle economics.
I hear you when it comes to the level of modern freshman texts. I kept all my old textbooks and find them far more useful than brand new ones for many things. Language textbooks seem particularly poor these days - all full of pictures and devoid of grammar excercises (style over substance).
Great site -- quality of articles and discussions very high. My only complaint concerns the technical aspect of the comments posting, what with all those vertical lines and having to look for the 'new' comments the morning after. KISS - keep it simple, stupid. Last comment in goes to the bottom -- and number comments serially so that commenters can specify what they are replying to.
One point other (this is a reply to other comments on the subject): I don't think TOD should be a peak oil agitprop department. It's a place for discussion, not for spreading the gospel truth, especially because there are so many gospels. It's also because we are not apostles, but scientists (or wannabe scientists). We are willing to change our minds if the preponderance of the evidence shows that we are mistaken. For example if CERA's forecasts prove to be right (heaven forfend!) then so be it.
Truth is a moving target, just like the peak oil year and those pesky URRs.
Here is what TOD doesn't want:
http://www.peakoilblues.com/peakoilblues.index.com_files/Page401.htm
Satire writes itself, dunnit?
Why is that necessarily silly?
If it turns people into advocates for scientifically and ethically justified amelioration for future generations instead of heavily-armed hermitdom---or self-destructive nihilism, that's a great idea.
I'm totally non-geeky background but I can read most of the graphs here. I'm a humanities backgroun in education and a librarian--legal these days by profession. I understand af least 80% of what is said here.
I think it takes a willingness/openness/imaginattion to hear what is said here on the issue of peak oil as a big step to understanding what you're saying.
thanks for this site,
Move the blogroll to its own separate page and use the sidebar space to help readers find archived posts and categories.
You are using Scoop, and maybe it's time to enable user diaries. The current volume of comments is unwieldy for the present format. It's very difficult to keep track of the complicated threads, who is responding to whom, etc. Either go to flat comments (most recent at the bottom), or provide more avenues for commentary.
Seek advertising or grants to at least pay for adminstrative expenses. Is there some way to do that without compromising neutrality or creating conflicts of interest?
A nice feature esp when the number of posts get large is to be
able too just show the new posts. With the rest partially hidden.
</BLOCKQUOTE>Centrica, owner of British Gas, said new pipelines from Norway and the Netherlands coming on stream over the next couple of months would help, but the supply and demand situation would remain tough.
"Doubts are still there. Yes, the new infrastructure will be there, but will the Europeans deliver gas through their infrastructure when it is needed?" said Bruce Walker, head of Centrica's gas storage division.
[...]
Centrica is mindful that in previous years continental supplies have not arrived, <b>as the Netherlands and others served their own markets first despite higher wholesale prices in Britain.</b>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Tut, tut. National interests to the fore, even between neo-liberal paragons like the Netherlands and the UK!
Makes the privatization of French gas utility GDF seem all the more nonsensical.
The Bacton-Balgzand pipeline was scheduled to come online last year, but was severly delayed for some reason(I heard rumors the drilling thrue the dunes failed due to WWII bunkers)
Anyway, it now has been done.
http://www.bblcompany.com/
Note that this pipeline will also serve to divert RUSSIAN NG to the UK.
Tut, tut. National interests to the fore, even between neo-liberal paragons like the Netherlands and the UK!
Makes the privatization of French gas utility GDF seem all the more nonsensical.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6DAAE7B6-744A-4FFB-AF50-20C6A733C45E.htm
"Beginning 10 to 15 years ago, the number of builders who comprised a small cottage industry of infill housing began to grow and diversify with urban divisions. For more than a decade, they constructed more and more low-, mid- and high-rise developments, mixed-use developments, neo-traditional walkable communities and transit oriented developments (TODs), all higher density developments featuring homes with smaller, more compact floor plans."
"They sold like hotcakes."
Contrast the foregoing with the reports of the suburban McMansion meltdown, e.g., the WSJ case history of the large house in suburban Virginia that just sold for 48% of its 2005 appraised value.
Jim Kunstler was mistaken about the severity of Y2K, but he appears to be dead on right regarding suburbia. Those who did not need Kunstler's advice regarding the 'burbs, now have reason to regret not listening to him.
Unfortunately, we are all going to pay the price as the Fannie Mae shoe drops, even if we are not commuting to and from large suburban mortgages.
(BTW, Leanan continues to do great work.)
<<Unfortunately, we are all going to pay the price as the Fannie Mae shoe drops, even if we are not commuting to and from large suburban mortgages.>>
From Nouriel Roubini's blog (he's an econ professor at Columbia) -- housing and systemic risk:
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/143257/
The recent increased financial problems of H&R Block and other sub-prime lending institutions may thus be the proverbial canary in the mine - or tip of the iceberg - and signal the more severe financial distress that many housing lenders will face when the current housing slump turns into a broader and uglier housing bust that will be associated with a broader economic recession. You can then have millions of households with falling wealth, reduced real incomes and lost jobs being unable to service their mortgages and defaulting on them; mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures sharply rising; the beginning of a credit crunch as lending standards are suddenly and sharply tightened with the increased probability of defaults; and finally mortgage lending institutions - with increased losses and saddled with foreclosed properties whose value is falling and that are worth much less than the initial mortgages - that increasingly experience financial distress and risk going bust.
One cannot even exclude systemic risk consequences if the housing bust combined with a recession leads to a bust of the mortgage backed securities (MBS) market and triggers severe losses for the two huge GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Then, the ugly scenario that Greenspan worried about may come true: the implicit moral hazard coming from the activities of GSEs - that are formally private but that act as if they were large too-big-to-fail public institutions given the market perception that the US Treasury would bail them out in case of a systemic housing and financial distress - becomes explicit. Then, the implicit liabilities from implicit GSEs bailout-expectations lead to a financial and fiscal crisis. If this systemic risk scenario were to occur, the $200 billion fiscal cost to the US tax-payer of bailing-out and cleaning-up the S&Ls may look like spare change compared to the trillions of dollars of implicit liabilities that a more severe home lending industry financial crisis and a GSEs crisis would lead to.
Which type of mortgage would be better for the borrower (homeowner) in the case of a GSE crisis? A mortgage obtained from a nationwide mortgage lender, or a mortgage obtained from a local credit union? Or would it even matter (i.e., are both fully dependent on the GSEs)?
All mortgages get sold to Fannie or Freddie, but if one of them go under they won't take your house. You only lose the house if you default.
What good are millions of homes to a bank, if no one is paying them any money for these homes?
One of my hot buttons ....
So I'd like to say thank you, once again, to those anti-nuclear environmentalists and Concerned Scientists who objectively did so much for the cause of Big Coal, due to there hysterical opposition to using the cleanest non-renewable fuel there is.
Oh, and thanks also for objectively promoting the onset of `peak oil'.
When will they ever learn?
When will they say: we apologize, we got it wrong, we erred, and now we will change our wicked ways?
.
Have you ever looked at the studies of the total greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact of nuclear plants?
I'll focus on the former. Of course, actually running the plant produces no greenhouse gases but let's see -the construction depended on fossil fuels. The dismantling of the plant will depend on fossil fuels. Mining, refining, and transporting the fuel depends on fossil fuels. Ditto with the waste. When you add all these up, it turns out that nuclear isn't as 'green' emission wise as its been made out to be. In fact, some studies have shown that they produce more greenhouse gases over the course of their lifetimes than some other sources.
No, I'm not a die hard nuclear opponent. I just think all the facts need to be laid on the table.
Of course you are correct -- and some nuclear power advocates have been all too happy to overstate their case and ignore uranium's overall lifecycle from 'earth unto earth' (advocates of all energy sources, renewable and non-renewable, are a dab hand in that department).
If we had unlimited nuclear energy (thought experiment here, assume hypothetically that we get fusion figured out), we could live quite easily without oil as an enrgy source. It would mean transitioning away from the internal combustion engine, but it is quite plausible.
Nuclear energy will become a larger share of the energy pie. Partly because fossil fuels are depleting, partly because of environmental awareness. Nuclear is the cleanest large-scalable energy source we have. That's not to say it is perfect, just better than the fossil fuel alternatives. We'd all love to live off solar, wind, and hydro, but they just don't add up.
Wind electrical generation potential in the US is about 900 GW average production (not peak), about twice US consumption.
Solar insolation is about 100,000 quads, human consumption is only the equivalent of 4.5 quads. US electrical generation could be met by PV on rooftops, assuming only the current 15-20% efficiency.
What makes you feel they don't add up?
My favorite solution for day-to-day variation is charging of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. The batteries still, at this moment, make PHEV/EV's a little more expensive than gas vehicles over their lifecycle (at current gas costs), but battery costs are dropping very quickly.
I like your hybrid house idea - you might want to check out a device now being marketed for this purpose - see gridpoint.com.
Seasonal variation may be harder. Solar and wind complement each other here to some extent. Biomass, pumped storage, overbuilding of capacity, hydrogen (stationary) are all workable possibilities - it's really a question of which will be cheapest.
Electricity storage. hybrid house good, but also mini pumped hydro. Every neighborhood with its own water tanks. Big megawatt-hr meter on the side giving everybody sense of pride and prudence. Nod to Alanfmbigeasy.
essential base- functional sense of community.
Editors, couldn't you set some sort of trigger that takes any Nuke advocate's "They just don't add up" and automatically tacks Nick's right after it?
Gawd, am I tired of seeing that "just don't add up" thing.
Full disclosure- if somebody gets it (research proven hardware) all together (manufacturing company) and they start to add up, I'm gonna be wealthy. All of us will be, so you needn't waste any time on envy.
I'm heavily pro-alternatives, but I still think we'll need nukes for those loads which just have to have power 24/7. (Air conditioning isn't one of them.)
There's a huge amount of sheer waste. Energy using things are sometimes poorly located, And there are unexploited storage methods.
From a strictly technical view, I have no problem with nukes, it's the human factor that seems to me highly threatening and near impossible to fix. Look at that wrong runway thing!
As a former very bad little boy, I can say that my playing around with poorly made gunpowder was threatening enough, and I am lucky to be alive. If I had had the chance to play around with more potent stuff, I and maybe a lot of other people might not be here.
YES
How is it not OBVIOUS to everybody that we CANNOT operate nukes SAFELY because there will always be this kind of errors???
Exactly, it is a bit foolish to think of the EROEI of such or such supply while forgetting it is the EROEI of the whole supply chain which matters.
From the SOURCE (oil field, corn field, solar captor, wind turbine or mine) to the POINT OF USE (stove, lamp, fridge, jet engine) and in the APPROPRIATE FORM.
I still think we'll need nukes for those loads which just have to have power 24/7.
This is only because oil made us forget about the STORAGE problem, another double edged "blessing".
Instead of having nukes I would rather have the storage problem solved, even if this necessarily involve a loss for double conversion.
If you want to look at "potential" in that same way for nuclear, you'd then consider the potential for burning most of the decent uranium ore which conceivably exists in the USA.
If you computed that you'd undoubtably get something titanically larger.
I think wind power is great, myself, but there are major real logistical problems, as there are similarly for nuclear.
Fortunately almost all of them do not intersect and hence we ought to pursue both as much as possible to stop coal.
If humans developed an unlimited energy source such as fusion, I'm pretty sure what's left of the natural world would be gone in a few decades. We can't help ourselves.
World wide oil production is now 30-50% less than in 2006.
Most large scale organizations have broken down. Those structures include, The Global Economy, The $USD as the world reserve currency, Global Companies, Many large goverments, etc.
Everything is either produced locally or cost much money, if you can get it at all.
Delta, and everyother commercial airline is out of business, GM, Ford, Chrysler are out of business. NASCAR and every t-shirt, decal, and momorabilia are no longer being sold. In essence western life is over as we knew it.
Now, against that backdrop, what do you do with umpteen Nuclear Reactors and ALL THAT WASTE? Are they still running? Was the US GOV or what ever GOV of the countries that they exist dismantle them before funds and know how and DILLIGENCE to the task ran out? How many Chernoble's will there be around the world by 2025?
How many goverments/countries went under in a not so "Controlled" manner? Did they stop the Revolution, and say, First we have to dismantle this reactor before it does a "ChinaSyndrome" while all the people who work at the plant disappear to care for their own family?
Just a thought.
If you build it, it must be taken down sometime.
Will the "Time and Setting" of that out in the future dismatle date be "conducive" to the task?
Instead of, "You Break it, You Own It"
For Nuclear it's "You Build it You Own It"
What will those who are left 15-20 years from now do to "Decommision" aging powerplants?
JC
Increase efficiency by 50%, and drop the 25% most superfluous energy uses, and we're there.
Isn't that something akin to the line in the project plan that looks something like this;
...
47) a miracle occurs.
48)...
The average household has 2.1 cars, and many could switch much of their driving to the more efficient vehicle in a heartbeat.
The vehicle CAFE could be doubled in 8 years, and the 40% of cars that drive 60% of the miles could be replaced in 5 years.
From 1979 to 1983 US oil consumption dropped by 16%, while GDP went up slightly.
It's not easy, but it's not that hard - just a matter of deciding to do it, and planning a little (like how to not kill Detroit in the process).
These are also not mutually exclusive.
Finally, light vehicle consumption is about 60% of oil consumption in the US. The rest is actually easier to reduce, as industrial/commercial entities are much more sensitive to price signals than consumers (most of the 16% reduction in 79-83 was non-auto). For instance, Walmart announced a plan to cut it's trucking gas usage in half.
Another case of not understanding the exponential, strange for a financier :
1 "could" 95% chances of being OK.
2 "coulds" 95%*95% = 90.25%
3 "coulds" 95%*95%*95% = 85.7%
...
10 "coulds" 95%* ... 95% = 59.87%
...
20 "coulds" 95%* ... 95% = 35.8%
...
50 "coulds" 95%* ... 95% = 7.7% 1 chance in 13
How many COULDS with how much probability for each?
Let's try with 70% :
1 "could" 70% chances of being OK.
2 "coulds" 70%*70% = 49%
3 "coulds" 70%*70%*70% = 34.3%
...
10 "coulds" 70%* ... 70% = 2.8% 1 chance in 35
...
20 "coulds" 70%* ... 70% = .0798% 1 chance in 1253
...
50 "coulds" 70%* ... 70% = .0000018% 1 chance in 55,602,971
Does 70% chance (average) for EVERY "factor" sounds high or low?
Quoting Nick :
Just requires a little imagination.
CERTAINLY!!!
Of course you tweaked my argument the wrong way to fit your purposes.
The "coulds" are NOT about the parallels potential solutions, like :
Nuclear "could" be a solution.
Ethanol "could" be a solution.
Coal "could" be a solution.
Etc...
Not this way , it is the sum (actually a product) of CONSTRAINTS for EACH solution which hinder the feasibility of each.
For Nicks' proposal :
doubling the CAFE is politically difficult x% chances OK?
find a way to subsidize detroit to compensate for it x% chances OK?
giving up on SUVs x% chances OK?
replacing the car fleet x% chances OK?
Etc... x% chances OK?
For nuclear :
cost of ensuring safety x% chances OK?
cost of waste disposal x% chances OK?
uranium ore availability x% chances OK?
avoidind NYMBYism x% chances OK?
cost of new power plants x% chances OK?
deployement schedule x% chances OK?
Etc... x% chances OK?
You may of course have partial success for each solution and sum up the total energy output/savings (the most likely outcome), but WHICH is the best investment plan in terms of relative percentages for each solution?
NO ONE has the answer, you MAY NOT pretend to have one just pulled out of your arse.
I think it would take a miracle to change by 2007. I think 19 years further out only requires a cultural shift like the one we saw at the end of the 70's. (The last time Detroit died.)
I did a lot of driving today and yesterday, and wow. This is the San Francisco Bay area - supposedly a more enlightened area, and yet it's entirely possible to be in traffic surrounded by SUVs. Often. I was strongly reminded that the American landscape is not intended for people, it's intended for cars. The few walkers I see are nervous as jackrabbits, in general walking in the US is not recommended unless you have lots of fast-twich muscle, the peripheral vision of an NBA pro, and your life insurance paid up - remember if someone kills you with their car, it's never murder in the Land Of The Free (to drive).
'Murricans are not going to give up their SUVs etc until they absolutely have to. Remember the biggest E. Island statues were built right up at the end.
And while there are still too many SUVs out there, their sales have a least slowed, and the fastest groing segment of cars in the US are the smallest and thriftiest:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/08/california_new_.html
For it to be "Olduvai" we have to respond to more evidence with less action ... I don't think that's likely.
NASCAR and every t-shirt, decal, and momorabilia are no longer being sold.
I was channel surfing this weekend, and the IRL (Indy Racing League) is already using Ethanol as 10% of it's fuel. Next year they are going 100% ethanol.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?id=2003457
Things ARE changing.
G
The amount they burn during the race is probably a small amount compared to the overall industry. (just a guess).
Kevin
as for production of it, top soil and petrochemicals are a requirement for any scale large enough for them to use.
Also, in the 15 to 20 year time frame we may have global warming issues - rising sea levels, sometimes near nuclear reactors. This may create even more problems with spent nuclear fuel.
NOT what it may be like in the next 20.
If things go bad as Simmons and Kunstler and alot of us think, WHO will make sure the Nuclear Fuel and reactor will be decommissioned Safely?
Imagine the Reactors around the world(NOT just the US) are surrounded by chaos? GOV's collapsing, etc. We may have 15-20 Chernobles.
All this grand technology will have to be maintained/lived with by who is LEFT standing.
Most people today cannot even program a vcr or can tell you how their cell phone works.
JC
So what?
Survival of the fittest.
Have a look, the story is a hoax but the photos are real.
These ones are real for sure, less entertaining...
That is a good reason to build even more nuclear powerplants in Sweden and also other kinds of power production. I want to live in one of the worlds most energy rich, stable and prosperous regions in the world. It will require a lot of work but we have plenty of electricity and can make much more. This electricity can then replace oil via railways and plug-in hybrids, replace biomass for heating when biomass to liquid fuel is scaled up and attract industry to make us able to bid higher for the oil we need.
Don't laugh, they are dumb enough to try it.
If you think people are careful with their oil supplies today, just think about what that means for energy supplies which form an ever-growing fraction (because they aren't declining) tomorrow.
I am beginning to wonder how much you know about nuclear power plants.
The core of the reactor and all parts under high radiation hopelessely decay and CANNOT be maintained BECAUSE of this very same high radioactivity level, they have to be entirely replaced.
This amounts to decommissioning and rebuilding.
It is not worth the trouble to reuse the non radiocative parts (power turbines and part of the cooling) because after 20 or 30 years they are obsolete anyway.
I am not a nuclear engineer, this is inside information from french EDF.
For instance, I not only know that the problem isn't "hopeless" (it's called "radiation embrittlement", which can be removed by heat-treatment), I know that remedies have been tested and there is even an ASTM standard for it.
Try to point out and defend just one of those "so many levels". Otherwise your statement is nothing but a pure noise.
To play one out against the other adds nothing to these assessmants. Well, nothing but noise. There is no objective proof of nulear's superiority over other energy forms. If there were, this forum would either cease to exist or at the very least look entirely different.
The coal vs. nuclear debate is simply the lesser of two evils debate. Both energy sources are the worst ideas humanity has ever had. The best place for coal and uranium is exactly where it was--buried in the ground.
I think the reason Roel declined to argue examples is that there are so so so many problems with coal and nuclear. It is intimidating and not worthwhile to list them in a forum like this. I could write an entire book on each.
It basically comes down to this: coal and nuclear power destroy the ability of humans to live on earth. They are two of most environmentally destructive activities we do. They power even more destruction. If you destroy the life that supports you--game over.
I'll throw out 2 examples for each.
Nuclear:
- "Depleted" uranium accounts for 98% of all uranium. It has a 1/2 life of 4 billion years.
- Radioactive mine tailings seep into water supplies
Coal:- produces massive quantities of acid rain that destroy forests--the lungs of the planet
- emits millions of tons of toxic heavy metals
Using nuclear power is suicide.Using coal power is suicide.
Choosing between the two is like asking "should I blow my brains out or jump off the bridge"
Pat (crazier than fuck? or is it you is the one who is crazy?)
Just take a look at those statements of yours:
Using nuclear power is suicide.
Using coal power is suicide.
Have you ever tried to live without them? Can you show me a society that does? How do you convince all people in the world to go back to a middle ages, because you claim we are commiting suicide with our current ways?
There are problems with each energy source, with each human activity. Some people are choosing to live in the real world and to deal with them. Others are choosing to stick their fingers in each and every problem and just reapeat their NO, NO and NO.
Just because you can only imagine the world as a straight line progression from barbarism to civilization does not mean that such is the case. There may very well be many options open to us for living quality lives in a reduced energy economy. It sounds to me like you are busy defended the very lifestyles that got us into this trouble. How about using your imagination to envision other ways to live?
That's the problem my friend; you are relying on your imagination to construct some fantasy world we will all live in, while others are working hard to solve the problems of the real world we have now.
Yes, I have tried as hard as I possibly can (and continue to try every day) to live without coal and nuclear power. It is not possible to do so in industrialized America.
Yes, but not an industrialized one. Society is a very broad term, but I think you are using it as a synonym for industrialized civilization. You should deeply question your assumption that industrialized life is the best way to life. Are you satisfied with your industrialized life? Are you relaxed and happy? Do you live in a healthy, peaceful community? I know for damn sure that I'm not. My life in the city is full of stress, pollution, and uncaring faces.
It is not a claim. I can back it up with thousands of scientific studies. Every major ecosystem on earth is in decline, and many are on the verge of collapse. The climate is irreversibly changing. There is an ever-increasing hole in the ozone layer (you know, the one that filters out life-exterminating cosmic radiation). Don't accuse me of not looking at the whole picture, I would suggest that you are the one with a limited scope of vision.
I'd like to point out that over 4.5 billion people LIVE IN A WORLD WORSE THAN THE MIDDLE AGES. They have no electricity, no running water, no healthcare, no shoes. They have nothing. What they do have are the "externalities" of our industrial civilzation--toxic waste, air pollution, water pollution, and wage bondage.
And what, sir, are you doing to deal with these problems. I'm talking actions, not words. Talk is cheap, but counts for nothing.
NO NO NO. I SAY NO TO INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION. I SAY NO TO YOUR DESTRUCTION. I SAY NO TO YOUR TYRANNY.
YES YES YES. I SAY YES TO LIFE. I SAY YES TO OTHER LIVING THINGS HAVING A RIGHT TO EXIST. I SAY YES TO THE GRANDEUR AND DELICATE BEAUTY OF THE NATURAL WORLD. I SAY YES TO MY DESCENDANTS HAVING A FUTURE.
Seriously though, there's no thought that is more sad to me than to see the destruction we've created for all of the other living creatures on Earth.
WHO said that?
WHERE?
Countering an argument that nobody made!
Getting more contrarian than me?
"we have met t