PrisonerX

I was expecting some sarcastic but realistic comment but Simon Cowell was 100% pleasant. Did I miss something?

Korg - you definitely need to listen to Connie singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow"

Re: Japan, there was amention later in the Jily 2 Drumbeat: "Japan's population is aging. Old people don't drive much if at all. Japan's population is shrinking. Less people, less cars. People are moving from the rural areas to the city area. You need a car in the boonies but in the city its a huge pain."

So there you have it: electrify transport (politically OK, but you need the investment); move people into cities ("End of Suburbia" - not popular idea in USA, not much more so in UK, better in rest of Europe); end "car culture" (big problems - powerful lobbies, people's freedom, aspirations, etc.).

The bit with the oil peak is real stealth. Governments are keeping it hidden even as they use global warming as the excuse to pull off the policies to try to deal with the peak. A government will want to keep the oil peak hidden so as not to panic the financial markets. But nonetheless, the oil peak is needed to understand why the world operates as it does.

Without knowing about the oil peak, the world makes no sense. But once you know about it, suddenly, the world makes, well, all the sense in the world. The prime example is the Iraq war. The war makes no sense until you find out about the global oil peak. "It's the oil, stupid!" That paraphrase sums up the bit with the war.

The original Iraq war of 1992 was also about oil. Saddam got greedy and we had to push him out of that oil patch called Kuwaut. We could not let Saddam Hussein corner the market. Once Saddam sent in the troops into Kuwait, we had to act. We had no other choice. And now, with the repeat Iraq war, we had to act. After all, Iraq represents the last largely untapped oil reserve of a significant size. Of course, we want to plateau the peak. The only way to do that is to tap the reserve in Iraq.

But beware. The repeat Iraq war is not working out. But it could end up being a good thing. Plateauing the peak might help a politician, but it also means a steeper decline. You don't want a steep decline. A 3%/year decline is going to be maddening enough. A 10%/year decline would be absolutely disasterous.

Petrol prices high enough yet? Just wait!

Our only hope

Is to get the Pope

TO HAND OUT CONDOMS

Consider:

(1) Self-imposed population stabilization or even slowing of growth so as to reach an asymptotic limit.

(2) Democracy - rule not according to what's true, but by brute force of the most people voting for the prettiest face on the emptiest head, or the zingiest nonsensical sound bite.

(3) Tribalism and nationalism - nowadays driven by political correctness and ethnic special privileges, ever more firmly enshrined in law. If we can grow to outnumber you, or, failing that, at least grow enough to become able to deafen you with our whining and sniveling, then democracy authorizes us to loot you rather than earn our own living.

So pick any two from the list. You cannot ever have all three unless population magically stabilizes on its own. And if we're in for a rough patch, the often-mooted universal demographic transition based on everybody becoming rich simply will not occur for the foreseeable future. Nor will exhortation have more than a transitory effect, as the subsequent generation will simply consist of those who are not amenable to exhortation.

In reality, the unshakable modern simultaneous insistence upon (2) and (3) renders any serious discussion of population taboo, as we have seen from the periodic fireworks in the Drumbeat thread. No go.

The real question I'm posing here:- "is powerdown essential?"

Powerdown will happen because the collection apparatus for photons when you have to PAY for the externalities of collection. Memory of not having to pay for that act as a block. The present society has alot of energy spent supporting what could be called 'not useful' activity.

The "However, I don't see peak oil as an immediate catastrophe for two reasons. " position seems to ignore how people who remember keeping their homes at 80 degrees in the winter and barely had a balanced budget react when another stressor like a sick child hits. Echos of interviews where people say "I'm gonna do what I have to do" during Katrina, combined with trains being stopped over the theft of 200 feet of wire and 'slogans' like "nuke their ass, take their gas" make me ask How does this all end well?

The memory of how things where and the promises that 'if you just do this and you can get back there' is powerful mojo.

"[I] don't see a future with everyone living once again on family farms and communes.."

Who says 'Everybody' will have to be doing the same thing to solve this problem? That is one of those hyperbolic stereotypes of those who say there are things we CAN do, that there are ways to improve our chances. It's one of the big marketing challenges for solar electric, and even for efficiency measures, which is that it has 'Hippy' written all over it, as much as this is a silly anachronism at this point. Just the same, the image sticks, as shown by your commune comment.

'A problem that was created with intelligence won't be solved with ignorance.' Einstein

Are there sufficient alternative energy supplies (nuclear, wind and direct solar) to enable industrial civilisation to adapt to a new, sustainable energy future? If the answer is no then we are well and truly stuffed.

The answer is no. We must consider that the harnessing of renewables (I'm discounting nuclear, since it is not renewable) requires non-renewable resources. And that leads to the more general case of the world using up (and usually at growing rates) other finite resources. Yes, population growth is possibly the number one problem (and, the latest CIA World Fact Book estimate has it up to 1.167% growth now), but our refusal to give up economic growth and rising living standards (not necessarily equated to quality of life) is just as big a problem, particularly with the rapid growth in China, India and some other countries.

Unless we change course, in both population and how we organize societies, we're stuffed.

Name ONE civilization of any importance (and large) that has powered down successfully.

That's why we shouldn't do it. "Power down" means decreasing the standard of living as fossil fuels deplete, and trying to maintain networks without the wherewithal to run them. This would be very difficult to do even without politics in the way.

We have no shortage of energy. A 1/4 acre lot in Kansas receives an average of 1.5 megawatt-hours of sunlight per day. There's an estimated 72 terawatts of available wind power world-wide (current human energy consumption from all sources is roughly 13 TW). We do not need to power down, we ought to re-power.

I recommend Thom Hartmann's book, "The Last Rays of Ancient Sunlight". Less energy, simpler living do NOT equate to a lower 'standard' of living, but higher. The current measure of our standard of living seems to be tied to our consumption, rather than quality of life. Instead of measuring property ownership(which equates to additional government protection, disposal, clutter, and overtime worked), we should measure the standard of living by how much time is actually spend working (for someone else?). People who are constantly worried and working are constantly buying and burning energy they don't need to get to places they don't need to go. If we are forced into a more laid-back, conserving lifestyle, perhaps we wouldn't be going to war to prove we can go to war. Just because no other civilization hasn't powered down intelligently doesn't mean we CAN'T. We have the technology, the networks, and the resources to do it. We only need the right motivation. Almost everyone polled wants a simpler life, so why make it complicated? Give people what they want. Turn off the switches, park the cars, set up systems of shared transport and shorter work weeks. Most people are 'working' at jobs that don't produce anything necessary to the future of the human race, anyway.
Put them at home in a garden. It doesn't have to be a commune. $500 billion doesn't even begin to cover the cost of Iraq, especially when depreciation and wear and tear on the equipment is considered. Plus interest.
"Doing more with less" doesn't mean doing things we don't need done. It means doing more USEFUL things with less resources wasted. If we COULD have fusion or some other cheap energy, then what? What, exactly, should be done by humans in the long term. I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve blowing up things for the sake of blowing up things, or buying things (eventully, leading to blowing up things) for the sake of buying things.

The US has spent perhaps $500 billion on the Iraq war thus far. That $500 billion could have paid the $3000 premium to put hybrid technology in 100 million cars (roughly 6 years of US purchases), plus buy 40 GW of PV systems at $5/watt. That money could have gone a long way toward eliminating the problem.

E-P, the current course of action may not seem rational to you and me, but it seems to make sense to someone, does it not? So, we have two problems here -- one technological and the other (far more difficult to deal with) political.

We have no shortage of energy. A 1/4 acre lot in Kansas receives an average of 1.5 megawatt-hours of sunlight per day.

I find this a particularly unconvincing argument, yet I've heard it often. It implies that we have the resources to harness as much of that energy as we want, that diverting any amount of sunlight to our own use will never have any side-effects and that energy is the only resource problem that we'll ever have (and also that it is the only problem we face).

It's also a fallacy to assume that because you see a solution (regardless of the validity of it), then that solution will be implemented, either at all or in a timely fashion.

Great comment. However, I do not see the majority of corporates joining in this ideal...

"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein

thomas, funny that you should first name Denmark. Denmark is a Bush ally in the "War on Terror."

With all due respect to you, it strikes me that your point that "a large percentage of the earth's surface has been free of open warfare" is a bit sheltered -- even naive. First of all, we live now with "the bomb" and this -- so far, anyway -- has served to discourage open hostilities amongst major powers. But how long will this hold, especially as petroleum, nat gas and other resources become limited?

I don't have the time to add up all of the numbers but I would remind you that, since 1945, several million have died in America's wars alone -- and those are just wars in which America was directly involved. Throw in the proxy wars and the number is certainly several times that. Then, you've got Rwanda, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, etc.

The old methods of fighting wars are fast becoming obsolete -- much to the frustration of those with half-trillion dollar military budgets. Going forward, it's going to be 4GW and 5GW. These conflicts may not make the imperial history books but they will be costly and bloody, nonetheless.

* 1945-1949 Chinese Civil War
* 1945-1949 Indonesian National Revolution
* 1946-1949 Greek Civil War
* 1946-1954 First Indochina War
* 1947 Paraguayan Civil War
* 1947-1948 Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
* 1947-1948 Palestinian Civil War
* 1947-1949 First Arab-Israeli War
* 1948 Costa Rican Civil War
* 1948-1960 Malayan Emergency
* 1948-1965 Sino-Taiwanese War
* 1949-1959 Chinese Invasion of Tibet
* 1950-1953 Korean War
* 1950-1961 Indonesian Civil War
* 1952-1955 Tunisian War of Independence
* 1952-1960 Mau Mau Uprising
* 1954-1975 Second Indochina War
o 1959-1975 Vietnam War
o 1962-1975 Laotian Civil War
o 1967-1975 Cambodian Civil War
* 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence
* 1955-1972 First Sudanese Civil War
* 1956-1957 Suez War (Second Arab-Israeli War)
* 1956 Hungarian Uprising
* 1956-1959 Cuban Revolution
* 1957-1958 Ifni War
* 1958 Lebanon Crisis of 1958
* 1958-1987 Columbian Civil War
* 1960-1965 "Congo Crisis"
* 1960-1996 Guatemalan Civil War
* 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion
* 1961-1991 Eritrean War of Independence
* 1961-1974 Portuguese Colonial War
o 1961-1974 Angolan War of Independence
o 1963-1974 Guinea-Bissauan War of Independence
o 1964-1974 Mozambican War of Independence
* 1961 Invasion of Goa
* 1962 Sino-Indian War
* 1962 Indonesian Annexation of Western New Guinea
* 1962-1966 Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation
* 1962-1970 Yemen Civil War
* 1962-1975 Dhofar Rebellion
* 1963 Sand War
* 1963-1967 Shifta War
* 1964-Present Colombian Armed Conflict
* 1965 Dominican Civil War
* 1965 Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
* 1965-1993 Chadian Civil War
* 1965-1989 South African Border War
* 1966-1988 Namibian War of Independence
* 1966-1979 Second Chimurenga(Rhodesian Bush War)
* 1967 Chola Incident
* 1967 Six-Day War (Third Arab-Israeli War)
* 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War
* 1967-1989 Second Malayan Emergency
* 1967-Present Communist Insurgency in the Philippines
* 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia
* 1968-1970 War of Attrition
* 1969-Present Islamic Insurgency in the Philippines
* 1969 Football War
* 1969 Sino-Soviet border conflict
* 1969-1994 The Troubles in Northern Ireland
* 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War
* 1971 Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
* 1972 Libya-Sudan conflict
* 1973 Yom Kippur War (Fourth Arab-Israeli War)
* 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus
* 1974-1991 Ethiopian Civil War
* 1974-2002 Angolan Civil War
* 1975-1991 Western Sahara conflict
* 1975-1991 Lebanese Civil War
* 1975-1978 Indonesian invasion of East Timor
* 1975-1998 East Timorese War of Independence
* 1975-2006 Independence War in Cabinda
* 1975-1989 Cambodian-Vietnamese War
* 1976-1983 Argentina's "Dirty War"
* 1977-2002 Mozambican Civil War
* 1977 Libyan-Egyptian War
* 1977 Hutt River Province-Australian War
* 1977-1978 Ogaden War
* 1978 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon
* 1978-2005 The Aceh War
* 1978-1979 Uganda-Tanzania War
* 1978-1987 Chadian-Libyan conflict
* 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War
* 1979-1982 First Chadian Civil War
* 1979-1989 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
* 1980-1992 El Salvador Civil War
* 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War
* 1980-present Internal Conflict in Peru
* 1981 Paquisha War
* 1981-1986 Ugandan Bush War
* 1982 Falklands War
* 1982 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon
* 1983 U.S. Invasion of Grenada
* 1983-Present Sri Lankan Civil War
* 1983-2005 Second Sudanese Civil War
* 1984-present Kurdish insurgency in Turkey
* 1984-present Free Papua Movement
* 1984 Siachin War
* 1985 Agacher Strip War
* 1987-1993 First Intifada
* 1987-present Second Ugandan Civil War
* 1988-Present Casamance Conflict
* 1988-Present Somali Civil War
* 1988-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war
* 1989-1991 Mauritania-Senegal Border War
* 1989-1990 U.S. Invasion of Panama
* 1989-1992 Afghan Civil War
* 1989-1996 First Liberian Civil War
* 1989 Romanian Revolution
* 1984-present Kashmir conflict
* 2003-present Balochistan conflict, Pakistan
* 2003-present Central African War
o 2003-present Darfur conflict, Sudan
o 2004-2007 Central African Republic Civil War
o 2005-present Chad-Sudan conflict
* 2003-present Iraq War
* 2004-2006 Waziristan War
* 2004 Haiti rebellion
* 2004-2007 Sa'dah conflict
* 2004-present South Thailand insurgency
* 2006 Israel-Lebanon War
* 2006-present Palestinian Civil War
* 2006-present War in Somalia
* 2007 North Lebanon conflict

"A top-down money system (the consumer does not get the prime rate)"

Why should they? That's an honest question. I don't see any particular reason why a consumer should necessarily be able to borrow at the prime rate. Economies of scale would be a good reason why the consumer should *not* be able to borrow at prime.

"The need for interest, the need for economic growth, borrowing in the future"

Like investing, borrowing is a way of moving capital to where and when it is most needed. There is nothing wrong with that. Now, the current low interest rates, they are the source of many problems, but that's turning around.

Economic growth is fine as well. Certainly, I want it to continue (but know that its nature will change). But exponential economic growth is a rat's nest. What we can reasonably expect is asymptotic growth. Luckily, asymptotic growth will be enforced by the laws of nature. I would argue that we're already seeing that and that peak oil is just one aspect of it.

I think we can agree that the current economic system (which encompasses government) needs to be more honest and transparent. The fiat currency and reserve banking concern of yours goes to the heart of this. (This is one of the reasons that I am leaning more and more to commodities investments or buying hard goods, like solar panels, that I'll use in the future.)

One thing I'd be interested to know Luis is the energy deficit that the world will face post peak oil - and I was wondering if you may fill in some numbers here. Lets assume oil declines at 1.5% per annum post-peak. How much energy is that? (in joules) and what % of global energy consumption does that represent? Lets also assume that growing energy needs are taken care of by conservation.

How many nuclear plants / windmills / direct solar generating plants are required per year to replace the energy decline from peak oil?

Your chart above says oil is 39% of total global energy consumption (2005) so a 1.5% decline in oil represents a 0.59% decline in total energy per year (consumption and other sources staying the same). Again looking at the graph the 2005 total seems to be around 76 billion barrels of oil equivalent so 0.59% of this represents a shortfall of ~440 million BOE per year.

One BOE is 5.8x10^6 BTU or in real units 6.1x10^9 J or 1.7 MWh. This is thermal energy.

Sticking with MWh, 440 million x 1.7 MWh = 760 TWh per year.

A nuclear power station is perhaps 40% thermally efficient so a 1GW plant operating with an 80% load factor produces 7TWh of electricity from 17.5TWh of thermal energy. So our 760TWh of thermal shortfall represents the output of 43 1GW nuclear power stations.

Given that it takes around 10 years to build a nuclear power station – we really needed have started construction of ~43 in ~2000, started construction of another ~43 in ~2001 and so on. Today we would need to have 7 x ~43 = ~300 1GW reactors under construction based on a 2010 peak.

I’ve just used nuclear here as an example – replace with your future energy supply of choice. It also assumes a TWh of thermal energy in a nuclear power stations is equivalent to a TWh of thermal energy from oil burnt in an internal combustion engine, clearly it isn’t so there is additional infrastructure to build.

we will still have excess supplies of natural gas that can substitute for gasoline in LPG form.

I think that's called LNG - Liquefied Natural Gas. About this, transportation to the West will be an issue.

As a quick response, if we take a peak in 2010 at 85 Mb/d, with a 1.5%/a decline, we’ll be below 40 Mb/d by 2060. This a bit optimistic but let’s take it that way.

Now we can apply directly the numbers from That Cubic Mile of Oil, by simply halving them, meaning the build up of about 1250 Nuclear power plants over that same period (~ 25 per year). That will equate to more or less every state of the EU building a new one every 4 years and every state of the US one every 8 years – far from impossible.

A bit more on this by Pierre-René Bauquis here (pdf). Basically we can substitute oil with 3000 Nuclear power plants worldwide.

Euan, I really don’t think we can start a Nuclear program like that right away, without first resolving some of the Waste disposal, Uranium resource problems. But then again these numbers are far from being insurmountable.

My bleaker view is indeed on that move from Growth to Steady State. Even if Conservation takes care of it, the changes implied to our Society are enormous: money, et al.

P.S.: If anyone can give a bit of insight on this kind of numbers for CSP it’d be great.

Nuclear is hardly "all eggs in one basket".
A single nuclear power-plant doesn't come close to the energy needs of any given developed nation...an equivalent renewables-based project (wind/solar/geothermal) would surely be just as huge an undertaking.

This is an article I posted in another forum recently regarding nuclear power, full of errors I'm sure:

Hmm, well we certainly have a problem at the moment - there's only about 36 power plants even being built at any one time, globally.
At that rate, given that it takes 10 years to build a plant and they last about 30 years, in 50 years time we'd be down from 430+ plants to barely 120. In order for us to double the total number of operational power plants, from 430 to over 800, we'd have to be building at least 220 at any one time, which is about two a month.
On a planet with 6.5 billion people, that doesn't seem that unrealistic.
BUT...that would we need to do this assumes that there are no technological advances allow us to a) extend the life of a power plant b) extend the maximum capacity of a plant and c) reduce the building time.

As it is, the largest nuclear reactor being built (in Finland) has a capacity of 1600MW, whereas the current average capacity is about half that.
So if all the new reactors were built with 1600MW capacity, we'd only need half as many - down to one a month.
If we could figure out a way of extending their lives by 10 years, then all the power plants completed in 10 years time would still be operational in 2050, reducing the required build rate a bit more. On top of that, there has been talk that the time required to build a reactor could be shortened to by as much as 5 years. If we could do that, we'd be down to needing to build less than one power plant a month, anywhere in the world, in order to double the existing global capacity.

Whether doubling is enough remains to be seen. While a significant program in improving energy efficiency could easily see most western countries cut their electricity consumption in half, once the oil is all gone, and all transport is run off electricity, this will probably eat up almost everything that we have gained through efficiency. So the existing developed world would probably be using about the same amount of electricity it does now. But in that time frame, China, India, Brazil and other large rapidly developing nations could expected to be essentially at "developed world" status, hence using vastly more electricity than they do now.
And then of course the there's increase in global population, although I expect that will be mostly in 3rd world countries with limited usage anyway. But all in all it's not unreasonable to assume that in 50 years time we might need as much as double what we do now.
So if nuclear power was to increase its share from 16% to 33%, then needing to build 2 plants a month seems about right to me. Given that just China alone (a 6th of the world's population) is building one coal power plant every week, then for the whole world to be building one nuclear power plant every 2 weeks doesn't seem so unreasonable.

A big part of the financial risk owes to the vast overempowerment of NIMBYs and BANANAs, which causes it to take an endless time to permit and construct a nuclear plant. Maybe, if things become harsh enough, it will be time to roll over the NIMBYs and BANANAs, pay a little heed to the greater need of the greater number for a change, and get the job done. Heck, in the USA, we can't even build wind turbines without enduring years of Luddite whining and obstructionism.

First, thats a strawman; More economically competitive is not the same as absolutely less expensive.

But we have reason to assume that if many standardized plants are built nuclear costs will come down overall; The big cost is in the first plant of a particular design, covering the learning curve of plant construction.

Euan,

Try this source: Uranium Distribution
It also touches on EROI of low quality sources. Each reactor requires only 200 tons per year.

The views are extremely contrasting because one side is impervious to the facts.

Sterling

Luis,

I read the posts by Torres at the time and was appalled by the inaccurate, highly politicized information presented. I challenged him in the first thread but found him unwilling to consider evidence. TOD readers deserve better. It was clearly demonstrated by knowledgeable posters that there are millions of years of available resource.

Unlike many such disputes, one side here is completely wrong. This is not a split the difference situation. Nuclear science and technology are complicated but many people in this dispute seem to be willfully ignorant.

Sterling

Ok, found an acceptable explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration

You could also consider organizing your presentation around the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear.

Gravity = Hydro*, Tidal, Wind*, Wave*

Electromagnetic (photons courtesy of strong nuclear via the Sun) = Solar, Biomass, Fossilized Biomass

Strong nuclear = Fusion reactors (theoretical)

Weak nuclear = Fission reactors, Geothermal

* I recognize that latitudinal and seasonal differentials in insolation also contribute to wind and wave action; I am assuming that given the rotation of the earth and the action of the moon upon the earth, we would have wind and waves even in the absence of any thermal differentials. I also recognize that the water cycle is driven by insolation; however, it is the force of gravity upon height differentials in water flows that is being exploited in hydropower.

I had to think for a couple of minutes about why Euan had classified this as 'fossil supernova' energy, but after that! I think he's right - tides= rotational + gravitational energy of the moon around the sun = not simple GMM=R2 gravity

Cuchulainn

Hey, I’m an old drag racing fan from youthful days. Per Wikipdedia,
A drag race is an acceleration contest from a standing start between two vehicles over a measured distance. The accepted standard for that distance is either a quarter-mile (1,320 feet) or an eighth-mile (660 feet)

I actually over estimated the size of an eighth mile box because my aging memory failed and I remembered a quarter mile as 1,620! :-) blush...

RC
Remember we are only one cubic mile from freedom

So this is the back stop; the worst case scenario. If power prices triple, this would be annoying, but it would not be the end of the world. And the supply of power at this cost is effectively limitless.

Kagiso - I agree with some but not all of what you say. More hydro, more wind and more direct solar combined with imporoved batteries I see as major part of the solution.

But I see temperate latitude ethanol as part of the problem. Too many folks latch on to the Brazilian sugar cane ethanol story (ERoEI in vicinity of 7 to 10) and believe this can be replicated at temperate latitude (ERoEI currently around 1.2). The fact is that Brazil sits on the Equator and receives more and more regular solar energy than temperate regions. I believe there's also something with Sugar cane that fixes nitrogen in the soil - so it doesn't need to be fertilised. So I see temperate latitude ethanol as the way to the abyss - same reasons as solar will never work in Scotland - the sun rarely shines.

Direct Solar looks like it has a massive future - but most of Europe does not receive enough Sun, though Greece, Italy and Spain are well positioned. Going the solar route, Europe I believe will be dependent upon N Africa.

kagiso, you paint a pretty picture of the future -- sort of like watching the Jetson's with green-tinted eye-glasses.

All of your points seem to hinge on one very big supposition: That the cost of the raw materials and energy required to build all of this new infrastructure will not rise significantly. Personally, I find that to be preposterous. But maybe you have some evidence that oil is the only natural resource that is limited.

It will be swell if things proceed in the frictionless manner that you describe. When I see the US military leave the Middle East, I'll have a pretty good idea that things are "working out."

Until then, color me skeptical.

'Crisis, what crisis?'

Kagiso,
This used to be the way Infinite Possibilities would put it, too.. 'There's plenty of Sun, it's just a matter of putting up the hardware!' Well, that's the rub, ain't it?

We have a LOT of little BB's to pull all together to balance out those big, old cannonballs- and probably not enough time, and clearly not even the right priorities yet to be heading in that direction with any appreciable speed. Will we pull off some fine, Hollywood '11th hour miracle' ? To that point, we all can start guessing and bickering some more.

There are technologies out there that clearly work, and can help. Start a company already, write a brilliant op-ed or screenplay.. I'm going offline to work on my stuff some more.

Bob

According to this article Brazil only exported a small amount of ethanol.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40012/story.htm

Domestic oil consumption was also increasing on an annual basis as the Brazilians try to raise their standard of living and support more population growth.

The high cost of enzymes used to make cellulosic ethanol rule out the use of cellulosic ethanol as a "cheap" fuel. It would be cheaper to burn cordwood in small local boilers to generate electricity or in wood burning stoves to displace fossil fuels. This was already being done. Where the cost of home heating oil was higher than cordwood and there were no natural gas pipelines the rural people had woodpiles in their backyards and it was hard to find old growth forests on the hills.

Considering the subsidies in the US, 1 gallon of gas should cost $13 to $14. How does solar relate to those real costs ? If congress threw 6 billion in tax breaks to big oil last year, how far would 6 billion go in solar?

"it appears that solar electicity is already only two to three times the cost of other sources of electricity."

I just dont see it that way..

Excellent comment and goes to the foundation of the human species. I am a victim/beneficiary of each of your points. We are social animals as well as ones that need security, so those competing interests are satisfied in my life by being able to drive to different social settings while maintaining the security of my personal space by fleeing the social setting that goes beyond the bounds of my security.

I think your point about number 4 is especially under played as divorce is one of the main drivers of sprawl as families that were once in one household, sharing resources, are now in two. More housing required, more energy to get the kids back to each parent.... However, I do not believe that taking care of chickens will solve the problem as people are social animals and in spite of popular myths, men and women need more contact with beings than the wife and the kids.

Wimbi, I always love your comments - keep them coming! I suspect oil will not always be cheap. And good luck with your Stirling engines :)

Nice comments, educational demand destruction and social re-orientation it is then!

There's a huge market IMO for cheap, simple 1-5KW class stirling engines -good luck in your search!

Nick

I still want to see pics of your Stirlings, and notes on construction.

The fact that this quantity seems to be "small" to a human really doesn't, how should I put this, matter, IMHO. Thoughts?

I agree, the comparison is quite meaningless. But it's no more daft than other tag lines people put on their posts.

waffe7,

First, let us admit that volumetric comparison alone is indeed a very limited tool to use as a comparison.

Having said that, a few points about the "one cubic mile from freedom thing" and why I want to keep it at the front of my mind, and hopefully cause a few people to think about it:

-Whether or not many here at TOD are aware of it, many newcomers to peak oil awareness are absolutely beside themselves with despair. Make no mistake, the issue as it is being portrayed, as the absolutely assured destruction of all we now know, all that our whole culture has worked generations for and all we understand, with the possible destruction of millions of human lives....gee, for some reason that rattles some people, and all the more so if the person was already in some crisis anyway.

-The "cubic mile of oil" came from an absolutely fascinating post by khebab, the one that is linked in my earlier post. I use the line partially as a bit of tribute to khebab and the others like him who have done such stellar work here on the mathematical and statistical issues as they involve oil and energy. I know that he extracted the comparison from a primary source quoted in the article, and I owe them for the birth of the idea.

-waffe7, you ask, "I mean, are you basically saying that because the idea of a cubic mile seems "not that big" to an average person, that it means it is somehow "not that bad" of a problem?" No. Anyone who has read my posts over time on TOD know that I repeatedly stress that we need to change, we need to change big and we need to change now, and by change, I mean one thing and one thing only: The humane reduction of fossil fuel consumption. To me, that is the first and absolutely imperative goal, the prize, the crown jewel.

Will it be easy? NO. It will be very hard. It will require the efforts of all the institutions of our nation. Educational, press and public relations, technical, banking and investment, business, government, non profits and civic groups will have to be in on this effort if we hope to succeed. It will rival America's "great causes" of years gone by, such as abolitionism, the Industrial Revolution, WWII, and the Cold War. Massive reduction of fossil fuel use is the great campaign, the "job" if you will, of this generation. I have NEVER made the claim that it is a small undertaking or "easy".

-So what does the "one cubic mile" measurement tell us? Simply this: The job is possible. Not easy, but possible. There is no technical or scientific or wall of "physics" that keep us from MASSIVELY reducing our use of fossil fuel.
For those who are made distraught by reading totally unscientific doomer scenarios, the one cubic mile is something of a reality check. It gives us a mental picture (by the way, another responder to my post mentions a fascinating one, that one cubic mile is the approximate volume of the now destroyed World Trade Center Towers formerly in New York City. That is a MENTAL IMAGE that can be very useful to the layman.

-Those who complain about the daftness of the comparison must be careful about throwing stones: Very often, alternative energy schemes are "shot down" here on TOD on a particularly volume or weight based set of comparisons, that is, they do not compare well to gasoline or Diesel fuel on a BTU's per pound, or BTU per cubic meter basis....or that another option requires too many cubic or square meters. If a volumetric measure is useless in one case, then should it not be useless in most, even all cases? Volume is a primary means of measure, Only heat content or price per unit as a method of measurement can be considered as useful or more useful.

-"The fact that this quantity seems to be "small" to a human really doesn't, how should I put this, matter, IMHO."
That it is a relatively small volume in comparison to a human being I had no interest in. But that one cubic mile is so tiny, not just small, but TINY in comparison to the size of the Earth interested me greatly. That the volume, when translated into other methods of measure (such as BTU's or Kilowatts) was so miniscule in comparison to the energy pouring down on Earth everyday was what interested me. I was made aware of something that I had allowed all this "doom" talk, all this "growth is the enemy" talk, all this "Earth is a closed system" talk to cause me to somewhat forget: When it comes to energy, the Earth is ANYTHING BUT A CLOSED SYSTEM. Of course if your talking about that tiny pocket of oil we use a year, yes, the planet is a closed system. But energy (which is what we use the oil for, after all), energy is NOT oil. Oil is a form of energy. (and actually, a pretty sloppy, filthy troublesome one in many ways...)

-So the tag line, "We are only one cubic mile from freedom" keeps the real scale of the task in front of me. It should cause some who have been made despairing by wild fantasy scenarios based on the absolute impossibility of a modern technical cultures ability to continue existing to stop and take a bit of a deeper look.
And, it is oil related, and it seems to be causing some folks to squirm, That makes it well worth the effort. :-)

Roger Conner Jr
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom

Its never been demonstrated...

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the usual "way of the weasel".

So, virtually all of the available data fit the net export position--based on the HL method and the Export Land Model--that I took last year, and contradict Robert's position, and you listed no reference to my work?

I assume that you saw the article about Saudi Arabia looking into importing coal in order to meet rapidly increasing domestic energy consumption?

You may want to peruse some of the headlines over on Drumbeats that Leanan posted, regarding two other regions--the North Sea and Mexico--that like Saudi Arabia and Russia, that fit their HL models.

In regard to population growth, I would assume that we saw the same pattern in the US.

The key pattern that we are seeing now is higher crude oil prices = lower crude oil production worldwide (EIA, C+C), which is what we also saw in the Lower 48 in the Seventies, when the Lower 48--like the world now--crossed the 50% of Qt mark on its HL plot.

I think westexas's articles should be included in this general summary. A lot of very valuable discussion was had through Robert's and westexas's debates.

I think it is a mistake not to include that in a summary of the last 12 months. Robert certainly convinced me that there may be other reasons for the current production plateau but Jeffrey's position has not been refuted and consequently it should be included.

On a related note, thanks for all the great work you do, it's one of the reasons that lurkers like myself can come and discover so much!

Your population and oil graph shows a rather poor correlation.

for instance, if oil fell in the 80's why didnt world population, or even world population growth?

global population kept on ticking upwards.

give me a graph of oil growth rates versus population growth rates and then we can talk more.

otherwise quit blowing smoke

"Global oil production has been rising at 1.5% per annum for the last 25 years and as mentioned this is correlated with population growth (why the correlation is so good is another issue)"

As we both agree that correlation does not by itself sufficiently imply causation, then what is the underlying reason?

What is the model that ties population growth to the rise in consumption of oil?

Or is it a combination of various factors:

population growth + global tourism growth + urbanism growth + global trade growth + growing industrialization of farming + ...

... and are all of the other factors in addition to population just results of population growth?

Or do they just happen to line up historically?

I am glad your techno geek optimism continues to shine, BrianT. However, in a rational world, threats would be legitimately evaluated and risk management techniques would be applied against those threats. This is not occurring globally yet and every day we lose makes the adoption of alternatives harder.

Here is the problem we face - if we move to alternatives too soon, there will be an "opportunity cost" lost to that choice. But if we move to alternatives too late, the real cost will be far higher in terms of real human suffering and death.

I still do not see a sense of urgency in the US, in Europe, or in Asia at all. And if we get a real depression, something that even Greenspan and the Bank of International Settlements have warned about, and if you expect technology to continue to roll out in massive waves, you are ignoring history.

Yet despite the clear positives from alternatives like solar, wind, and nuclear power, we continue to move at a snail's pace. And that includes Europe. I certainly hope that we land on our feet but I am not going to count on it.

P.S. George Bush is prepared to unleash a nuclear first strike on Iran involving at least 40 thermonuclear warheads. The chosen device is the B61 "bunker buster" bomb. Exploding below the surface, if the yield is dialed above about 5kt, there will be horrendous fallout across the entire southern half of Asia. This is one real action being considered by the Bush white house in response to oil issues. (Iraq was invaded primarily for the oil.) I do not think the Bush administration is the only entity on earth considering military action of this sort either. This is just a tiny bit of the human, the political part of peak oil. There is no IPod or technogeek toy that will solve such issues. So far other factors have stayed Bush's hand. Let's hope that he doesn't do this but if this is one possible response when the oil situation has not even become critical yet, do you really think that more extreme responses will not be considered or taken if conditions worsen?

Speed is of the essence. We need to move ASAP to alternatives and damn the so-called opportunity cost.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett

BrianT
I live in Europe(Sweden), and i have not heard or read a word about preparing for PO. It´s all about GW and reducing emissions. AFAIK PO is unknown to our politicos.

Kunstler calls suburbia the greatest misallocation of resources in human history. He may be right.

One thing that Paul Roberts wrote about in The End of Oil was about investments that have been made. Our civilization has extensive investments in a fossil fueled infrastructure. Once again you seem to assume that just because we can do a thing that it will occur. Tell me then why didn't we just restart all the factories when the Great Depression happened? As I've pointed out elsewhere, Hubbert notes that he was there and we had the manpower and resources but civilization essentially stopped, barely holding together in some places and allowing horrible people to rise to power in other places.

Just because a thing is technically doable doesn't mean it will occur. Why isn't New Orleans rebuilt 23 months after the hurricane? It's not for lack of technology, Euan. Why is genocide not being stopped in Darfur? It's not for lack of technology. Why isn't there peace in Iraq? It's not for lack of technology.

Too many people honestly do not seem to comprehend the controlling system of world civilization, which is economics, a hoary pseudo-science grown from myth and legend clear back to our days in the caves. Current economics makes assumptions that are flat out physically impossible (though there are some brave souls trying to change that, with little success so far). And economics, not science, is what drives our collective global decisions. We can't move to alternatives yet because we haven't gotten our money out of our former investments. That is the point that Roberts makes very clearly in The End of Oil. This is the problem that Roger Connor has pointed out where alternatives are under attack by mainstream energy sources... because the investments have not fully paid off yet. But if we allow economics to control when we move out of oil and into alternatives, we may wait too long.

No one, particularly here at TOD, has ever demonstrated why we should assume that the political problems will all inevitably work out. The political problems of the civil war did not work out and we nearly destroyed the country, over an issue that today seems horrible - slavery! We created the political problems that led to WWII by letting the victors be too punitive at the end of WWI, trying to grind Germany into the dust for what it had done. And these events all happened when our energy base was still growing exponentially and cheaply.

I am not afraid of the technology, Euan. I am afraid of men like Bush or Putin, or women like Hillary Clinton or old Maggie Thatcher. That is the caliber of the people who are leading, have led, or will lead the world in the near future. And I must state that I have very little faith in what they will choose to do. In fact, I am rather certain that these types of people will resort to force rather than undergo a massive reorganization of society that might cost them their power.

Peak oil is not happening in a vacuum and anyone who ignores the rest of what is going on around us does so at the peril of all of us.

And as for population, let's not even talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the room. No one really wants to talk about that so it's not going to ever be cleanly solved.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett

Not only pestilence and famine, but also the less dramatic declines in public health measures and growth in chronic undernutrition are likely to be the big positive checks on population growth. A resurgence of malaria is already happening, and the numbers of the undernourished have been growing each year for (I think) more than a decade and certainly for the past several years.

Today there are more undernourished and malnourished people in the world than ever before--and their ranks (mostly children in Africa and Asia, some in Latin America) increase each year. I can see nothing that is likely to reverse this trend.

What the world's population will be when it finally stabilizes in a century or two is impossible to say, but my guess is that it will be between one and two billion, with possibilities that it will be lower or higher than this range about equal. Death rates will exceed birth rates for some time to come before they come once again into the rough equality that held for humans' first million years on earth.

Wow, Mr. Dezakin!
Rather prickly today, eh?

I think other upthread tidbits have pretty well addressed what is seen as the flaw in your point of view, viz., what is possible or even reasonable is not what happens in an environment of desperate people. Call it the Second Law of Anthropology, but that crackhead who inadvertently stopped the trains in NYC for some scrap copper was not the exception to the rule.

When my employer offshored manufacturing to India several years ago, it was terrific on paper, even including all the baksheesh require to lubricate the process. But everything screwed up, and ground to a halt. We couldn't build parts because the latex gloves had all disappeared, one box at a time. The professionals hired for skilled assembly were so underpaid that they could double their takehome pay with a box of gloves sold on the side. And so they acted in their best short-term interest. They were poor, and didn't have the luxury of taking the longer view on preserving their employer's viability.

And then there's the Tragedy of the Commons - When systemic failure is perceived as inevitable, why be the last one to grab a box of gloves?

I suppose we could put half the population to work as security guards, to keep an eye on the other half. That's pretty much what I see in every large city in China: Lots of bored, restless young men from the countryside, without training or abilities, "guarding" apartment buildings and shops. Give 'em a uniform and tell 'em to stand by the door, and they're not out making trouble. Who knows, they might even deter some crimes, too.

I am going to be producing an interesting set of analysis about replacement power and growthrates thereof.

I'll send you a forward copy. Tell me what you think of it.

probably 2weeks-one month for it to happen.

Thanks, Bob! I appreciate your perspective.

The Oil Drum has become a daily read for me...at least in the past few weeks. I'll stick around and hopefully become acquainted enough on the topic to add to the discussion once in awhile.

Debbie

I don't see the market reacting until it becomes dead certain that oil is in peak or plateau and cannot rise to meet demand - at this point energy prices should be going through the roof - feeding inflation, interest rates, and impacting consumer's ability to pay debt.

Here's a hypothetical question: Suppose the market does show foresight and decides to tackle the problem immediately. For example, some technologies are only "worth it" if a barrel of oil remains at, say, $80 or more. Are such technologies just waiting in the wings, ready to ramp up and save the day? In other words, can these technologies "turn on a dime" and avert an iceberg? Or is a "messy outcome" inevitable, but only differs in degree?

Here's the reason I ask. CERA's "rosy" projections are based on (what appears to be) quick and easy access to oil sands, oil shale, deep water, arctic, etc. Is there a price that indeed makes these sources quick and easy? Or are they smoking a crack pipe? :-)

Thanks again! I have learned alot from your posts and admire what you are doing!

Debbie

Odds are that the people running the US don't care about implementing new technologies. They realize that once the economy collapses the whole Peak Oil thing is going to be taken care of by "above ground factors".

And if it doesn't happen this way they will make sure it does.

No difference in who wins the elections, anyone with a shot at winning has already sold their soul to the same puppet masters.

The demographics basically preclude any armed uprising of the people except against each other, nothing good can happen when 50% of the population is but a huge millstone around the neck of the other 50%

Hard to swim this way.

While I agree that, in this case, market forces are unlikely to be able to save us from the impact of peak oil, the reason isn't because market forces fundamentally don't work, just that they don't work fast enough, for two reasons a) there is a lot of resistance to change from big corporations who have a lot invested in the status quo, and b) to replace SO much infrastructure with one that requires far less oil (and ideally none) will necessarily take a very long time.
Market forces will encourage more efficient cars to be made and sold (already happening), they will encourage producing alternative fuels, and will eventually encourage cars that don't require any oil to be made and sold. But unless peak oil gives us a decent plateau and a very gentle decline (which seems highly unlikely) they won't work fast enough to avoid leaving a substantial amount of the population stuck with cars that they can't afford to run, leading to serious economic and social consequences.
In principle, if the reality and proximity of peak oil had been recognised by major market players 10 years ago, then by now we would already be a long way down the necessary path. That didn't happen, and still isn't happening, and the opportunity to provide for a smooth transition is pretty much lost. My big hope is a decent global recession will shake off the attitude of certain big market players that sticking to the status quo is always preferable to anticipating future changes, even though the future is always uncertain. Indeed, many of those big market players may not even survive such a recession.

Because oil prices are going up, all other energy prices are going up, too, as demand shifts to other forms of energy.

This much is as close to an absolute certainty as it is possible to get.

That's not so clear.

Electricity in the US in 2006 cost 8.38 cents per kWh (average over all customers). In inflation-adjusted dollars, electricity in 2001 cost 8.30 cents per kWh, or just 1% less.

While it's true that electricity is an energy carrier rather than source, it's one of the main ways most people use energy - indeed, it's about 30% of the US's natural gas consumption, 90% of its coal consumption, and a surprising 3% of oil consumption (EIA numbers), for a total of about half the US's energy consumption.

So while there may or may not be a problem with oil supply, there is not yet a problem with energy supply in developed countries.

Obviously, there are a lot of rich and powerful people that would very much prefer the slow, soft decline to the plunge over the cliff. They would undoubtedly prefer continued onward and upward, and at present are apparently still deluded in thinking that is possible.

Perhaps because it is possible, at least technologically - wind, solar, and nuclear are all proven technologies that are price-competitive with fossil fuels and that have maximum production levels well in excess of current consumption levels.

If you want to argue that increased energy consumption is not possible for much longer, you'll need to provide evidence, rather than simply assuming it. You might try arguing sociological factors, or time-to-scale factors.

As far as the MSM are concerned, you must understand

You do realize that anyone who starts ranting about how "the MSM" does cover his personal pet issue "properly" tends to sound like a nutjob to people outside his circle?

Just so you know.

If there is anyone in the KSA that would nevertheless talk, they will only do so if it were profitable enough to do so; there is no profit in simply spilling the beans on a blog.

You assume that people only do things for profit. Not only does history show that to be a flawed assumption, biology shows that to be a flawed assumption - altruism is wired not only into humans, but into our close relatives, such as chimpanzees. The altruistic tendencies present in most people would be likely to be activated by an opportunity to save the entire world, no?

So your "no-profit" argument doesn't hold.

Look at the graphic

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/operat1.gif

DD fusion is easier. Which is why Kulcinski & Bussard started there.

Hirsh is a supporter of Bussard.

Tokamak advocates protect their turf and their budgets. Hirsh & Bussard advocated for Tokamaks after the Soviet declaration in 1968. They now advocate IEC. as well as Dr. Kulcinski & Krall and urbana has an IEC program.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/potential_uses.htm

Dr. Kulcinski has demoed D-He fusion in steady state operation.

I have absolutely no faith that ITER will lead anywhere. And I dont appreciate, nor trust, the ITER cathedral and its supporters.

-sigh-

Bremsstrahlung occurs when electron density and velocity is high. The only place in a polywell device where electron density is high is the potential well... where electron velocity is low. Additionally if ions dont thermalize how do you get Bremsstrahlung losses significant enough to swamp the device. Bussard has brem loss figures here:

http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTR...c=GetTRDoc.pdf

Riders thesis , sure. Rider was paid by ONR to write it...
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/1721...1/31763419.pdf
Rider left the field and has had nothing to do with Physics, a strange path to take if one has just written a paradigm shaping paper, that really deserved a PHd effort. But alas he ran away.

Please read Riders acknowledgements, specifically look for the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Page 3 of the pdf. Looks like the ONR gave Rider a fellowship...

"the author is partially owned and operated by a graduate fellowship from the Office of Naval research"

Additionally Rider doesnt deal with fuel density or any number of varibles, and Riders model assumes no ion accelerator. Stranage you should cite Riders paper because a polywell is an ion accelerator, but you knew that ... right ?
see also: results from reasearch done since Riders thesis. Since WB6 produced fusion events (based on neutron counts) 100,000 times higher than any IEC device, operated in near steady state ,

either Bussard forged his results, or Riders paper is now moot.

Heres a dozen papers that say that Riders paper is obsolete

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/inertia..._confineme.htm

Peer reviewed work from U of Wis. #10 looks good.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/peer_reviewed.htm

Riders "maximally efficient system for maintaining a non-equilibrium distribution", the basis of his model, (page 69 if you're looking at his dissertation) is an unnecessary application of heat thermodynamics that leads to the search for "recirculating power," a nonsense concept for an accelerator.

I still dont understand pulling out a single 1994 MS thesis to rebuke the work of a dozen researchers and IEC devices all done since 1995. Tri Alpha Energy just got 40 mill in VC to explore p-B11 fusion, 40 million that in essence says Riders paper is moot. The DOD funded Bussard to the tune of 14 million 1995 to 2005... why? Because Riders paper was the say all on IEC.. nah, not really.

Correct 200 million is the price tag. 200 million is a series of devices, starting with 2 smaller devices using DD fuel...

1) WB7 a trunacted cube about 15 inches,

2) WB8 a truncated dodecahedron same size,

3) WB9 the 3 meter proof of concept 100MGw electrical generator using p-B11 fuel.

3 to 5 years. BUT 2 to 3 million keeps Bussard working. ITER looks to cost 13 billion over IIRC 7 years.