Energy Transitions and the Next "Paradigmatic Image of the World"
Posted by David Murphy on February 15, 2010 - 10:20am
The history of modern humankind has undergone two major energy transitions, marked by the invention and development of agriculture and the discovery and exploitation of oil. The two energy transitions partition human history into three phases: hunter-gatherer, agricultural, and industrial. Faber et al. (1996) refer to these phases as “Paradigmatic Images of the World,” because they describe the common structure of societies throughout the world. The most important question is “what is the next paradigmatic image of the world?” (Figure 1. A !Kung hunter-gatherer from the Kalahari Desert in Africa, image from here)
Each major energy transition in human history shared a common trait: they provided society access to larger quantities of higher quality energy. An analysis of the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, one of the only hunter-gatherer populations remaining in the 20th century, revealed that the entire societal structure, including migration patterns, gender roles, and work schedules, was dictated by the availability of water and food (energy) (Lee 1972). The development of agriculture supplanted most hunter-gatherer populations because it focused the energy from the sun into food-bearing crops, which created much larger amounts of food per unit land area. As a result food storages accumulated, populations grew, and settlements began to flourish. The food surpluses created by the development of agriculture allowed some people to focus their attention off the farm, leading to higher education, trade specialization, tool development, etc. But even the most productive of ancient farms can't compare to the productivity of a modern, industrial farm (i.e., in terms of gross output).
The modern industrial era began in earnest in the late 19th century with the discovery of oil, and today is defined by the exploitation of the three major fossil fuels: oil, coal, and natural gas. Never before was society exposed to energy of such a high quality and in such large quantities. For example, harvesting a ton of wheat in the US at the beginning of the 19th century required 30 hours of work, but by 1970 that number had decreased to less than 2 hours (Smil 1994). The decrease in labor hours was due in large part to the use of fertilizers and mechanized farm equipment, both of which rely on fossil fuels. Exploitation of fossil fuels in all sectors of the economy led to vast increases in productivity, which was the driving force behind the transition from an agricultural to industrial society in the early 20th century. But economic theories developed during industrialization failed to reflect the value of fossil fuel energy in the transition from an agricultural to industrial economy, with theorists claiming, “The world can effectively get along without resources.” (Solow 1974)
Historically, economic theories of value have reflected the “Paradigmatic Image of the World” at the time they were developed. For example, in the mainly agrarian societies of early 18th century France, a few academics, called Physiocrats, posited that land was the ultimate source of value as they noticed how higher quality land produced more food and hence profit for the farmer. By the turn of the 19th century, European society began to industrialize, and the focus of economists switched from land to labor. These economists, called the Classical Economists, focused on labor as the primary source of wealth as they saw that the output from a factory was directly related to the productivity of the labor force. By the turn of the 20th century, a new school of economists called Neoclassical Economists, began to focus mainly on the market, and believed that the value of any object should not be measured by either the amount of resources or labor that went into producing it, but rather by the value it commanded in the market. Accordingly, the welfare of the people under the neoclassical economic paradigm was equal to the amount they could consume in the market, and as a result income became the yardstick by which human welfare was measured. Since a person’s welfare was directly proportion to their income, increasing income, or growing the economy, become the de facto goal of neoclassical economics.
But today’s world is much different from the world that existed during the beginning of industrialization, with far more people and countries vying for an increasingly small resource base. The failure to realize that fact is one of the reasons why the less developed nations of the world today struggle to advance out of poverty. Most of the modern development policies crafted for the less developed countries emphasize internal industrialization for export-led growth, and for numerous reasons they have often failed to meet their goals (Kroeger and Montayne 2000). Many of these less developed countries even have large endowments of natural resources, including fossil fuels, yet remain poor. Simply having access to high-energy fossil fuels does not necessarily translate into a wealthier life. Other variables, such as corruption, education, trade and investment must be accounted for when analyzing the causes of economic growth (Papyrakis and Gerlagh 2004).
The widespread adoption of the idea that economic growth will increase human welfare is essential in understanding why countries around the world continue to pollute the air, water and earth in the name of economic growth. Growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) above all was and still is the focus of neoclassical macroeconomic theory, and as such, it has been coveted by almost all economies around the world as the yardstick against which all must measure human welfare. But infinite growth on finite resources is not possible, and at some point, the fossil energy supply will decrease and the type of economic growth that occurred during the beginning of industrialization will no longer be possible.
Whereas past energy transitions have exploited new, larger sources of energy that enabled exponential growth in many areas of society, the reality of the geologic constraints imposed upon today’s society relegate unbridled economic growth, the defining economic characteristic of the industrial era, to be a thing of the past. A new economic model is needed--one that focuses on human welfare as being separate from income, and one that focuses on the resiliency of society rather than the growth of society over the long term.
Abandoning the previous economic paradigm of growth is paramount because, unlike previous energy transitions in history, the next energy transition will most likely involve a reduction in the energy available to society. But reducing energy consumption should not be viewed negatively. There is evidence that raising the incomes of all does not increase the happiness of all (Easterlin 1995). Furthermore, people that engage in local, low-energy food programs, such as Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) or farmer’s markets, tend to have not only a healthier life but also more of a connection with the local community (Wells et al. 1999). These are very basic examples of the type of low-energy solutions that the world must begin to adopt for the next energy transition.
There are no substitutes for oil, natural gas, or coal at the scale needed to maintain the economic status quo into the future, and there is absolutely no reason to expect that technology will yield a silver bullet solution. However, with the appropriate mix of reducing energy consumption (by a lot) and instituting energy-saving techniques (passive solar, local food, etc), society could transition to the next “Paradigmatic Image of the World” without huge catastrophe. Whether this is possible given the current financial issues and governmental structure is another issue that I will not get into here, aside from saying that a pivotal part in beginning this energy transition will be to change the attitude and behavior of people (hence governments) around the world from the belief that the only way to happiness is through financial wealth.
The run-up in the price of oil and ensuing economic collapse of 2008 are evidence that the world is dependent upon a depleting stock of fossil fuels, and change is coming. Society has one of two options: 1) acknowledge that fossil fuels will sooner or later run-out and begin to prepare to transition to a much less energy dense society, or 2) maintain the status quo, hoping that the economy can grow in perpetuity as the stock of fossil fuels declines.
References
Easterlin, R. A. (1995). Will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all? Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 27(1), 35 - 47.
Faber, M., Manstetten, R. and Proops, J. (1996). Ecological Economics: Conepts and Methods. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Kroeger, T. and Montayne, D. (2000). An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Structural Adjustment Policies in Costa Rica. In C. A. S. Hall(Ed Quantifying Sustainable Development (pp. 665 - 693). New York: Academic Press.
Lee, R. B. (1972). !Kung Bushman Subsitence: An Input-Output Analysis. In A. P. Vayda(Ed Environment and Cultural Behavior) Garden City: Natural History Press.
Papyrakis, E. and Gerlagh, R. (2004). The Resource Curse Hypothesis and its Transmission Channels. Journal of Comparative Economics, 32, 181 - 193.
Smil, V. (1994). Energy in World History. Westview Press.
Solow, R. M. (1974). The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics. The American Economic Review, 64(2), 1-14.
Wells, B., Gradwell, S. and Yoder, R. (1999). Growing food, growing community: Community Supported Agriculture in rural Iowa. Community Development Journal, 34, (38-46).
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My family and I just finish watching "The Gods must be Crazy".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2IxsfUpBck
Very funny movie with much criticism at the time. I found it interesting that upon further study that the sho bushmen women due to their low fat diet are unable to have children until the age of 19yrs. After having a child they may not have another one for 4 more years again because of diet and low milk production.
The Gods Must Be Crazy is infotainment. It is good because it brought the San to the attention of the world.
Please forgive my rant. I shall be a brief as I can.
The San are the indigenous people of Southern Africa. They were(are) hunter-gatherers. The ecology that supported them had reached equilibrium.
They were "displaced" by iron age pastoralists from the North (the aBantu}, beginning about the same time the Portuguese were setting up shop in Mozambique.
My family returned to Africa in 1834.
I was working on an World Bank Project in Zimbabwe. I was surrounded by aBantu and Pommies.
When who should walk by but A SAN!!! They were meant to be extinct in that part of the world.
I was so excited. I baled the man up an would not let him go until I had found out all about him and his family.
Number of children 2, a pigeon pair. His daughter is a lawyer and his son a doctor. Yes. Yes. Yes.
He had sold his cattle as he knew the drought was coming.
Basically he was doing just fine.
Here is my point. Neither the aBantu nor the Englishmen knew why I was excited. To them he was just another black man.
How wrong and how racist they were.
I am still warmed by the thought that they are not extinct, just hiding. Their time will come again. The veldt will return.
Arthur
One of the funniest movies I've ever seen.
As was the sequel --- The Gods Must be Crazy II. At least the actor who played the part of N!Xau was wise enough to hold out for decent compensation the second time around.
good essay Dave.
I would amend that to be 'modern' humankind. Because the energy transition from darkness/cold to having Fire was a pretty major transition too.
Nate,
Good point, changes made.
The next paradigm: Solar thermochemical liquid fuels.
Given vision and understanding, it can be done.
Yes, it can be done... in the lab.
But you will need much more than "vision and understanding" for this process to make a real contribution to our fuel stream. How many decades do you need to perfect and scale this system up to serve an industrial civilization chugging down 85 million barrels of oil a day? See RR's February 12th thread on scaling up from "the magic of technology" in the lab.
Who knows, maybe we'll have fusion reactors too in 30 years...
Who knows, maybe we'll have half the world population and only one industrial society left in 30 years...
To fully appreciate the challenges to growth rates, see the Hirsch Report. You are welcome to go into business building coffins. However, solutions and survival will drive change faster than you dream of. I am working on ways to provide solar liquid fuels cheap enough and in the volumes needed.
Full faith and no skepticism in your approach will lead to full employment for coffin builders. I wish you luck and gods speed providing "solar liquid fuels cheap enough and in volumes (85 million barrels a day???? or what fraction there of??) needed."
I am working on ways to provide food, shelter and energy cheap enough and the volumes needed for our local communities to survive this energy transition.
Edit - I am assuming you are currently employed and working on solar liquid fuels projects. I hope our Federal Government can afford to continue your project and keep you employed. What seems possible on paper is not the same as what is probable in the Real World.
Try some realism, not just "skepticism". "Faith without deeds is dead". On challenges to conventional fuels, see:
Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production M Höök, R Hirsch, K Aleklett - Energy Policy, 2009;
Physical Limitations on Mining Natural Earth Systems Tad Patzek, 2010
Need to target fuels with more than a 3:1 EROEI preferably more than 30 EROEI, especially in liquid fuels/fossil fuel input.
1) To break OPEC cartel's stranglehold and bring fuel costs down, need to provide alternative fuels in larger amounts than OPEC can decrease production. See Robert Zubrin, Energy Victory, especially Zubrin's presentation, and talks
2) Globally, need to shoot for growth rates to exceed the projected decline in total production with ongoing conventional petroleum production. 5%/year?
3) Then target the IEA's 6.7%/year decline rate in existing production, plus at least 1.5%/year growth just to accommodate population growth.
4) Then provide higher growth to give fuel for the 2/3rds world to develop. ie. provide fuel cheap enough for 1 billion living on less than $1/day and another 2 billion on less than $2/day. (85 million bbl/day is defeatist status quo. Need to shoot for at least 100 million bbl/day (or equivalent combining alternative fuels, plug-hybrid vehicles and energy efficiency etc.)
On what has been done under existential threats, note the 160,090,000 aircraft produced in WWII between 1940 and 1945, compared to 6,000 planes in 1939.
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Comparing mid-1900s economic production of assembly-line produced aircraft apples to 2010 still-on-the-drawing boards, super-duper techno miracle oranges is not reality - it's fooling yourself and others who fall for superficial, misleading nonsensical comparisons.
So, again, how long until you have a functionning commercial-sized system producing affordable energy products - IF EVER? And at that time how many millions barrels per day to you think you can commercially produce (or how much by ramping over what time period)?
Faith without deeds are indeed dead, so find realistic things to have faith in, and then do realistic deeds. Having faith in unrealistic fantasies is a distraction and it leads to expensive boondoggles paid for by the rest of us.
""Having faith in unrealistic fantasies is a distraction and it leads to expensive boondoggles paid for by the rest of us.""
Is that not, what is called Religion??
Or is that just my imagination (Running away with me)?????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNn361umypM
Let's not get into religion ;).
how long until you have a functionning commercial-sized system producing affordable energy products
Wind provided 40% of new US electrical generation for the last 2 years running.
The Chevy Volt is in pre-production, and will be in full production in...9 months.
So, the future is here.
The future is always here - sometimes too early!
Wind power and the Chevy Volt are not exotic technologies in their infancy, on the drawing board, in a trial-run in a lab.
I love alternative energy. As long as we are honest and do not over promise a system's performance (or sell an untested system based on what we hope to achieve someday).
The Volt yes, but Wind turbines are approaching the mid-point to maturity. It has been 25 years since the California wind rush (i.e. where the Volt is today, roughly).
Alan
where the Volt is today, roughly
Ferdinand Porsche came up with the design over 100 years ago - http://www.greenpacks.org/2010/02/15/porsche-unveils-911-gt3-r-hybrid/
Diesel submarines are over 90 years old - that's a demanding application for reliability and safety!
GM has been selling diesel trains with roughly the same drive-train for many decades.
This is not new tech!! Just a little polishing and fine-tuning of a very old idea...
Sorry I wasn't clear - I was trying to make your very point. The technology he is talking about is still on the drawing boards and in labs - the Volt and Turbines are not.
Thanks for catching that Carl
Should be: 160,090 in 1940 to 1945 vs less than 6,000 in 1939.
Note: "The dollar value of the industry's 1939 output rose from $225 million to some $16 billion for 1944"
A 71 times growth in five years!
Does the dollar value of the aircraft industry include the net dollar loss of the bombing of Hiroshima and Dresden? Just curious. Seems holistically that should be on the balance sheet somewhere. No doubt someone made a buck or two though. Who would dispute that?
I have absolutely no faith in the fact that "technology" will save us, and for a very simple reason. We've a completely viable and immediately applicable and proven "technology" that would solve the peak oil, climate change, and world debt crisis problem in one application. It's also a cheap solution. It's called "restraint" meaning that one personally exercises a deliberate and credible thought process and quits consuming like a kind of maniacal addict. Considering that the average westerner consumes 10 times or better their share of global GDP it's pretty obvious that the solution to our pressing problem isn't so much a technical one but a psychological one. Just how well fed do we think we deserve to be? I mean really? A bed can only so soft. You can only sit in one chair at a time, not matter how rich you imagine yourself to be. Until we face that fact that without addressing our sociopathic tendencies it's obvious that any technological solution isn't a solution at all--it's only an "enabler" that allows us to continue our destructive habits. Simply and only that--an enabler of destructive behavior. One may postpone the inevitable, and especially with clever posturing to mine grant and research funds one may postpone the inevitable personally for some time. For myself, however--it seems like a much better plan to simply kick the habit.
First significant coffee harvest yesterday. 'Twas good coffee, shade grown in the rain forest. It takes about 2 hours in the absence of machinery to pluck, clean, and roast enough beans to make a pot of coffee. Welcome to the new paradigm.
jawfitz
Richard L. Hirsch observes:
Any voluntary reductions in OECD in transport energy use will be overwhelmed by rapid fuel increases in China, India, Russia, South Africa and Brazil. The only effective solution to maintain the economy and jobs is to rapidly develop alternative fuels, especially solar thermochemical fuels.
Competitive intermediate fuels will likely be liquid fuels from underground coal gasification. See Linc Energy projecting syngas at $1/GJ and $30/bbl for liquid fuel.
PS When you stop consuming, snarlin aardvark may have a coffin for you.
"The only effective solution to maintain the economy and jobs ..."
What if the problem is not "maintaining (this global) economy and jobs" ??? What if your solution never materializes? How many coffins will you need for those who died waiting decades for the techno-miracles you promise but never deliver? Will you supply the coffins ?
Again, how much and when will you produce it?
You may see two alternatives - try to sustain the unsustainable(continue chasing the previous malinvestments) or just role over and die. Others among us see alternative economies, alternative ways of living to cope with the current unfolding disasters..
Just taking the obvious interpretations to your comments.
On commercialization, Linc Energy is building a 20,000 bbl/day plant with Aker Solutions.
I honestly hope Linc Energy is successful. I would love to see more alternative arrows in our quiver - especially something that would consume CO2.
Linc Energy converts coal into liquid fuel which is burnt to CO2 (plus the inefficiencies) which generates CO2 like other coal / fossil fuel combustion.
Solar thermochemical can convert CO2 to CO or H2O to H2 and then CO2+3H2 to CH3OH + H2O; which is burnt back to CO2 so is CO2 neutral.
The only alternative is to equitable distribute the resources of the planet. That means most of us get less. Otherwise, it's just another "enabler" in the consumption race and we'll bust its limits too. Once again, of course, finding ourselves in the same spot.
I'm no bullshit about what I'm suggesting, by the way. It's wholly technically feasible to live sustainably even with the worlds population as it is. It's how I personally live and have for years. It requires abandoning a sociopathic addiction and embracing a moral responsibility to other people, even those you've never met. Gasp. I know that's a tough mental stretch for some. It also requires sacrifice. Sorry to break that out, but it will.
I doubt I'll stop consuming, but I've stopped consuming more than I produce already. I suggest that the coffins will be used elsewhere.
Living sustainably actually is not really that hard to do. It just takes living on a scale that the world can produce. Most of the world does so already. The role of technology as I see it is to take low impact lifestyles and make them more comfortable. Using technology to subsidize stupidly consumptive living is a road to ruin.
The key, of course, it consume little and produce a lot.
I really like that. Bears repeating. Should become the mantra of a new political faction. I'd vote for it.
Thanks, appreciate that.
Here's links to explanation of psychopathy and the diagnostic risk factors used in clinical settings. A bit of reading on the Hare protocol is also interesting. But grim. We've got a culture where individuals feel entitled to consumption regardless of the fact that the scale of which necessitates poverty and death in others, extracts environmental costs likely irrecoverable, and in fact even destroys the survival potential for its children. If that isn't psychopathic, I don't know what is.
In the face of that psychopathy, it seems to me that the main role of technology will be to enable the more rapid and complete extraction of resources and the more efficient conversion of those resources into consumables (disposables).
I tend to see technology as both the evidence and agency of our separation from nature. The psychopathy you mention is evidence of a separation as well, separation of the self from the other. The two seem to work hand in hand in a vicious feedback loop.
Sure. I think it's clear that adding technological tools without limiting consumption solves nothing. Likely even postpones nothing.
Fortunately more people recognize that reality all the time, and it's even becoming a bit of a movement.
Consumption isn't the problem, it's environmental impact.
Consuming electricity isn't bad for anything. What's bad is generating CO2 and other pollutants. If you get your power from wind-power, electricity is just fine.
well sort of. That electricity is running something that was produced somewhere serving people who are using other stuff (and possibly using more of it because of the extra wind gen juice available) and on and on, you can't look at wind gen as being produced in a vacuum--there is not any wind in vacuum anyway ?= ) Just amping up electrical generation from renewable sources without any other changes in the way we do business as a society will just exacerbate the situation. Resources in general must be used more effectively, efficiently and be recycled more thoroughly for a start.
Well, on the one hand, if you look at most measures of human sustainability, you'll find that energy is 60-80% of the problem. Fix energy (mostly by substituting wind, solar, etc), and you fix most of the problem.
OTOH...I can't argue with efficiency and recycling.
Actually I am most interested in the more effectively part. By that I meant the best bang for the buck humans can get from the resources all costs and benefits included. I figured that was about as broad a stroke as I could have painted with a single word ?= )
With cheap enough energy we may be able to synthesize near anything sometime upon a time. A truly livable habitat is not something more energy, however cheaply and sustainably harnessed, will just magically manufacture for us. The way we chose to use that energy makes all the difference in and for the world.
I agree.
Actually, as far as habitat goes...I'm not so worried about effective use of resources -that's pretty ambitious. If we could just stop destroying things unnecessarily (e.g., stop catching and killing dolphins when we just want to catch cod....), we'd be light years ahead.
Sure, but a responsible person quits consuming cod until the "dolphin" safe technology actually exists. We're justifying present consumption assuming the good of fictitious technologies that may or may not ever exist. At the moment, the only proven technology we've got is "conservation." No one wants to do that because it isn't fun. Sure, of course not, but it's the only demonstrably valid current solution. Everything else is pie in the sky. It's insincere to ignore that fact. That's my gripe.
At the moment, the only proven technology we've got is "conservation."
At least for energy, that's not really true. On a social level, we have clean, low-impact electricity, and ways to shift our consumption to that electricity. On a personal level, we have ways to be much more efficient without sacrifice.
There's no need for a hair-shirt.
The only "clean energy" converter I'm aware of is a tree. That's what I use. Elsewise it's a hell of a stretch to call anything else clean.
Even in the cleanest case of "clean energy" it has a significant financial footprint. No body is building "clean energy" using clean energy, or earning money to purchase such things by sustainable means. Our clean energy is merely "less bad" rather than good.
Having worked with addicts, I've often found that there's a period of time where one realizes that they're going to have to kick the habit, and they go through this whole ritual to try to determine alternative means of abusing the substance. Alcoholics especially might shift from beer to vodka, as an example because it's "cleaner" and has "fewer calories" or some such. At the end of the day it's pretty clear what such exercises really constitute.
I might be wrong. Once you guys figure out clean no impact unlimited energy sign me up for a starship. In the mean time I'll focus on attempting to build quality lives based on demonstrably sustainable values.
Wind power has an E-ROI of about 50. That means that 1 unit of input energy produces 50 units of clean energy.
So, wind power puts out about 2% as much CO2 as other sources, on average. As wind power becomes a larger part of the grid, that will fall even further (wind turbines are manufactured, and manufacturing primarily uses electricity).
That's good enough. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Furthermore, that's much better than a tree. Burn a tree, and you'll put lots of CO2 in the atmosphere. Use wind power instead, and just bury the wood (or build something with it, or put it in the bottom of a lake, etc) to sequester the carbon. You'll actually be carbon negative.
Though in your neighborhood deforestation is probably not a problem, using trees for cooking and heating fuel is a huge problem in the third world. This whole system is hooked together, switching to cleaner alternative electrical power sources in developed countries will push those technologies forward and speed their installation in the third world.
Having caught a dolphin in a relative's subsistance net, and made a living harvesting resources I may be far to unclean to speak in the eyes of the 'holy ones' but I do have a very good handle on where the rubber meets the road in this world.
switching to cleaner alternative electrical power sources in developed countries will push those technologies forward and speed their installation in the third world.
Like replacing kerosene with PV-powered flashlights. An enormous improvement: much cheaper, cleaner.
Yes, if we depend on trees then every tree and bush (in fact, every woody plant) on earth is doomed...
I guess I'm thinking more along the line of "eating the fruit of the tree" and biking to town rather than cutting it down and burning it.
Even if you believe the 50 to 1 figures of EROI of wind power--using less of it is better. That's my point.
Well, if you want the best, lowest-CO2 transportation, use an e-bike.
You see, your body isn't especially efficient - maybe 25%. And, the average US food calorie requires 9 fossil fuel calories for farming, transportation, processing, refrigeration, cooking, etc. So, for each unit of energy at the pedal, it takes about 36 units of fossil fuels.
Conventional electricity only takes 4 units to produce 1 unit at the pedal. Plus, charge your battery at night, and you'll encourage wind power (contrary to popular belief, excess night time production is a bigger problem for wind than intermittency).
So, unless you really love biking or you need the exercise, you should get an e-bike.
I understand where you're going, but I own 3 acres of such trees, so maybe that take doesn't so much apply here. The track is sunlight, tree, my mouth, my ass, tree.
So yup, I do see, and my farm uses no fossil fuels at all. I don't want to be snarky about that, I'm just saying that there's demonstrable projects where that isn't the case. So when I eat taro, or bread fruit, or sweet potatoes-- Well, actually, I eat sunlight. And while I'm sure I give off CO2, and no doubt a bit of methane too, I'm sure the timber on my land will absorb it. Full disclosure. I drive a car. Not so much. I account for my consumption and plant trees and biochar. I also use a honda EU 2000 for electricity. I'm using it right now. Sometimes it runs on gasoline. Sometimes it runs on papaya juice, some times it runs on both. All in all I'm in 100 percent control and knowledge of my usage and footprint. It's accounted for. It's not impossible. This isn't a boast, but more of a "what's up!" Critique this approach when you can demonstrate better, and do so personally. That doesn't mean raise "whizz-bang" hopefuls in e-cars or wind or whatever. That means demonstrate. Got any pictures, or something? Surely you've got more going on than wishing. . . Believe me, I'll adapt immediately to anyone who demonstrates better. None of this is, at least from my point, about ego or who's greener than who or whatever. That much is self evident and I'm afraid the pretty girls don't care anyway. At this moment I'm doing the best I know to do as I'm able. For me, it's wholly a practical concern. When I see--I mean see-- someone else do better I'll change my ways. None of this is hypothetical for me. Excuse me if I'm non-nonplussed about others hypotheticals.
Take this with a bit of humor. I'm not really busting anyone, but frankly, let's talk about reality not elsewise.
100% control and knowledge of your footprint is not likely though I'm sure you have a far better handle on the impact of your Hawaiian hillside operation than most who make similar claims. You are a man that understands there is a a big picture and the all costs must show up on the balance sheet somewhere--you are also a property owner in a US state that is on the high side of average to defend. Whether you like it or not, that makes you responsible for a portion of the US military's gigantic footprint (see Socrates in the 'Apology' for related reasoning). That 100% claim has a whiff of pride and maybe some arrogance in it, qualities you probably need a bit of so you can keep yourself up enough to keep kicking the flywheel. What you are doing on your own is certainly not for everyone. Good luck, hope your health and energy maintain. Of course once you start selling the self sufficiency starter operations that others can buy into for a fair flat rate you will have achieved the age old American dream ?= )
I do appreciate your having taken the time in the past to somewhat explain your operation. Your basic premise 'use less and be happier' is really the best way and probably the only way to go--but the 'dreadnaught' we are riding upon probably can't be slowed with peripheral efforts (that doesn't mean those efforts shouldn't be made). Something big is going to have to happen in its engine room. A good start is changing fuels, but it must be slowed as well or it is very likely too run aground or worse in the tricky channels ahead.
I mislead you above, I believe that was a porpoise in our subsistence net, it was a sad day and didn't cheer our week. We did all we were allowed with it which was to let it drift and sink out of sight, I'm sure something ate it. But we got over it, commercial season started and we netted better than a hundred thousand pounds of returning red salmon at our commercial beach sites. Heck of a fine, and sometimes fun, way to harvest the oceans bounty with an intense but relatively short spurt of effort. Humans do like a rush you know. The only bycatch in those nets were flounder, some of which I must have caught and dumped right back twenty times in a season.
I assume you do all of the weeding and pest control by hand, and use no fertilizers or pesticides, as those would raise your CO2 emissions fairly quickly. I assume it's just fruit trees - no tilling, bringing in grains or other conventional farm products, no livestock of any sort.
I assume you don't buy any food at all at conventional grocery stores - that you live on just fruit.
If so, that's great that you can do that.
But...it's really not doable by the vast majority of people. Most people don't have the land, or the time (especially to do all of the weeding and pest control by hand).
Plus...you'd be a lot better for the environment if you sold your fruit at the roadside (displacing industrial food production), and used a bit of your revenue to buy grid power. A single apple at $.25 would pay for a couple of kilowatt-hours that would power an e-bike for 100 hours. Plus, that generator is dirty and expensive.
As for me? I live in a big city, and drive very little - most of my vehicle miles are on electric trains (my walkability score is 92). My house is insulated so that I don't have to turn on the furnace until it gets below freezing outside. I use CFLs and LEDs. I do my part.
Let me say it again - what you're doing is not a model for the rest of us. Very few people can live off the land. Most people will need to be a part of a complex society in which someone else produces their food and power. Renewable electricity will be the way to power that sustainably.
Everyone lives off the land. Some people do it directly. Other people consume what those who do it directly produce. Suffice to say while perhaps most everyone can't, an awful lot of people can, and should, as far as I'm concerned, as if done in a thoughtful manner provides a unique opportunity to escape the victimization of being swept along by a culture's psychopathic and self destructive tendencies and in a real and measurable manner start personally working for a better world. That's pretty hopeful.
It seems to me suddenly people are applying a level of criticism and rigor to my project that they're not so eager to apply to panaceas such as wind power. . .that's fine. LOL. Let's just be assured we apply the same integrity to claims of wind power at 50 to 1 efficiencies. I can also see there's not a lot of understanding in how one effectively can measure and control flowthrough on such a project as mine, but I could go into some detail on that if people were interested. Nor much understanding of agriculture let alone silvaculture. That's pretty normal though. The model of some hippy living on fruit in a shack is not what I'm suggesting and wouldn't be very effective anyway. I don't have any intent to go that feral.
A KW of power here in Hawaii is almost 60 cents. Or was, I don't follow it really, perhaps they've recently lifted some of the surcharges. Helco exclusively runs on diesel, geothermal, and wind power. The wind power locally has been mostly a disaster. I can generate power on site cheaper than I can buy it by some measure as grid power here is many times more expensive than it is on the mainland. . .just food for thought, actually, there. What we've got here in Hawaii is exactly what many of you are wishing for and it's prohibitively expensive for industry. Electricity is expensive once you've got no coal.
My main point in this conversation again is this: conservation works. By living minimally one can indeed work for a better future, and in a demonstrable fashion, and can do so right now without relying on the future delivery of fantastic technologies. There's an added benefit as well--if those fantastic technologies end up being just that, and collapse in inevitable--well, you'll be prepared for that too. . .
Why then, do we refuse to accept that "consuming less" should be CENTRAL to our conversation--not tangential? Well, because our crisis is largely a psychological issue rather than a resource one. We feel entitled to have whatever we want. If you're willing to do without a little bit, well, we'd get a lot further.
I appreciate the conversation, actually, and the feed back. I think it's an important issue and one that can only be solve by serious and thoughtful critique.
Sure, gardening is good, where people can do it. Many can't. Many people find it very therapeutic, but I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all aid to mental health.
suddenly people are applying a level of criticism and rigor to my project
I think your project is just fine - it's just not a model for the rest of us, that's all.
The wind power locally has been mostly a disaster.
I'd love to hear more about that -what happened?
Electricity is expensive once you've got no coal.
Diesel is much more expensive than wind power. I'm really curious why wind isn't doing well in Hawaii - it really should. Did you see the recent article by Jerome a Paris about the Caribbean wind farm? Very successful - it should work for the Hawaian islands just as well.
conservation works
Sure - I do it. It's especially necessary in the short run. But, in the long run, wind power and electrification is a lot easier. Really - it's good enough.
Why then, do we refuse to accept that "consuming less" should be CENTRAL to our conversation--not tangential?
Because it's not necessary, at a social level, with a bit of time. Renewable power and electrification is affordable, effective and clean. We, as a society, simply haven't chosen to implement it aggressively because of political opposition from those whose careers and investments would be hurt. That's all.
If we could convince everyone to take aggressive action on our energy problems, we'd have no problems at all. It wouldn't be that hard, but it would be painful for people in the FF-related industries - suddenly their skills and investments would be obsolete. They're fighting hard to prevent that.
The main problem with wind is that it doesn't meaningfully contribute to the power grid and really can't. That's the fact of the issue. Here's why--even if we assume that the most modern turbines are as efficient as claimed--sure, why not, you can only mount so many of them per acre and only harvest so much of the wind. The fact is here in Hawaii the amount of real acreage that's viable for wind farming is pretty limited, and even if it were paved solid with turbines, the total contribution would be a drop in the bucket compared to the average persons consumption. If consumption were cut 80 percent or so, well, suddenly it would look viable. Of course that's what I'm suggesting. Without a cut in consumption, it's pretty well just fashion. And a fashion statement that requires keeping diesel turbine spun up and on stand-by to maintain a certain "appearance" of progress.
The limiting factor of wind production has little to do with the efficiency of the turbines, it has to do with how much space it takes up to mount them. It's not a matter of how many turbines, it's a matter of how many acres. Those who promote such technologies focus heavily on the wizz bang factor of the efficiency of the powerhead. Wonderful. Where are you going to mount the thing? They take up a lot of space.
They other problem here is that the machines have simply fallen apart. I'll take a picture next time I'm down at South Point. It's pretty grim and apocalyptic to see a field of wind turbines all blown to bits.
Here's a good link to the physics of the matter.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c4/page_32.shtml
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cB/page_263.shtml
This very thoughtful treatise illustrates the problem with the "wind power fantasy" very well. Really the only one can make the claim about wind being cheaper than diesel is if one deliberately ignores the fact that one is (at least here in Hawaii) is taking prime oceanfront/ocean view real estate on a tropical island and trying to make an average of 2 to 10 watts a square meter off of it. Fat chance that THAT will pay.
Well, Mackay is back.....
First, his analysis just applies to the UK. It doesn't tell anything useful about the US, or Hawaii.
2nd, Mackay never says wind isn't feasible or useful. He commits the common error of evaluating wind's contribution as if we might expect it to provide 100% of grid requirements, when I don't think anyone would contemplate wind providing more than 50-60% of total KWH's, even with a 100% renewable grid. He claims that wind can't provide 100% of the UK's needs, and on that basis implies that it's useless.
3rd, Mackay's book is really quite unrealistic. He skews things against wind & solar at every turn.
We can get a clue to his attitude towards renewables from the second quote at the beginning of the chapter on wind, where he quotes Lovelock: "Wind farms will devastate the countryside pointlessly".
Here's an example - he says "if we covered the windiest 10% of the country with windmills (delivering 2W/m2), we would be able to generate 20 kWh/d per person, which is half of the power used by driving an average fossil-fuel car 50 km per day."
Well, that's just goofy. We're not going to power FF cars with electricity, we're going to power electric cars. Further, the average km/day/person in the UK is only 30, so we'd only need 4 KWHs (20% of the figure given) to drive that far.
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Mackay claims that UK residents use 125KWH/day claim here http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c18/page_104.shtml.
He's talking about "“primary energy” (which means the energy contained in raw fuels, plus wind and hydroelectricity)". That's so inaccurate that it amounts to deliberate deception: the number of KWH's needed to replace primary energy is roughly one third as large, due to heat-engine inefficiency.
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Neil1947 had the following comments May 6, 2009
MacKay has made a serious error in his calculations of on-shore wind energy resources. In the interests of simplicity he has taken the average wind speed (6m/sec at 10 meters height). In fact the better locations in Scotland and off-shore islands have much higher wind speeds at the 100m hub height of wind turbines(10-12m/sec). This means MacKay has underestimated the potential of these regions by X5-X10. These regions are also distant to villages and more likely to be used in future wind farms once transmission lines are built.
Some of the wind farms initially built were in poorer locations but close to electric transmission lines, so his calculations are not good examples of what is possible in UK.
there's more discussion: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5354#more
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Here's more:
anyone on August 20, 2009 - 4:35pm Sorry I couldn't resist. I just followed the link of that MacKay and first he gives every person 10 m2 of roof area and then claims that there IS only 10 m2 of roof area.
Let’s give every person 10 m2 of expensive (20%-efficient) solar panels and cover all south-facing roofs. These will deliver 5 kWh per day per person. Since the area of all south-facing roofs is 10 m2 per person, there certainly isn’t space on our roofs for these photovoltaic panels as well as the solar
thermal panels of the last section.
Actually, the total area that is used by the households, the service industry and the production industry in Germany is according to the facts: 24,294 km2. http://tinyurl.com/ktt3ke
With a German population of 82,220,000 that leads to almost 300 m2 of built area per person...In addition: This built area obviously does not even include any facade area.
Someone who claims that there is not enough area for a considerable solar hot water or PV production, simply ignores the simple facts.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5677/531630
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I don't know why South Point has some wind turbines that have fallen apart, but...have you ever seen an old coal mine? There are 70,000 abandoned coal mines in the US. Just because you see some old wind turbines that have fallen apart doesn't really tell you anything.
I've looked a bit for info on Hawaii's wind resources, and haven't found anything really helpful. I gotta say, though, Hawaii is in the middle of the ocean, with pretty strong trade winds - it has wind resources, either onshore or offshore. On the one hand, if the residents decide that they don't need it because they'd prefer not to have it in their ocean view, well...that's their choice. That doesn't mean the resource isn't there. OTOH, they could always site it offshore far enough to be invisible.
I've got to add: if we as a society aren't willing to accept the very, very minor cost of putting wind turbines in our ocean view, we certainly aren't going to make major changes like moving to a farm.
I'm pretty familiar with wind, having installed both power systems and designed sailing rigs for sailboats for years. Mackay is hardly wrong, he's simply not very clear and too many look too hard at the numbers and not enough at the technical feasibility. The main issue is that with any airfoil section, sails or vane blades you've got to optimise the shape for an optimum wind speed. And that's the trouble. Just like you can't build a sail that works in 5 knots of wind and 50 knots of wind--neither can you build a turbine that efficiently manages that range. That's part of the problem here in Hawaii. The trades blow very irregularly. Sometimes not at all, some times ferociously especially at South Point. The first generation of turbines they put in were built too light and they got blown to bits. The second generation of vanes can handle more wind, but they don't even turn on typical days. And that's the problem. So looking at wind speeds isn't very helpful, and the technical application of is more complicated than is being given credit to. I expect one is going to find that numbers like 2 to 10 w/m2 is pretty realistic for what you're going to harvest all in all once everything washes out.
No, feathering blades don't solve the problem. The reason is "velocity veer."
It's hardly a minor to ignore the costs of real estate that might sell for 200000 dollars an acre.
Mackay is hardly wrong, he's simply not very clear and too many look too hard at the numbers and not enough at the technical feasibility. The main issue is that with any airfoil section, sails or vane blades you've got to optimise the shape for an optimum wind speed.
You're talking about intermittency. That's not what Mackay is talking about. Mackay is talking about resource adequacy.
The second generation of vanes can handle more wind, but they don't even turn on typical days. And that's the problem.
Intermittency is a well know problem, and it's not that hard to handle. The variation in wind production is of the same order of magnitude as the variation in demand, which can vary from 30% of average load to more than 200% of average load. Utilities know how to handle this.
No, feathering blades don't solve the problem. The reason is "velocity veer."
Could you explain further?
It's hardly a minor to ignore the costs of real estate that might sell for 200000 dollars an acre.
Well, 1st, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder - some turbines in Europe are tourist attractions.
2nd, that could be solved by going sufficiently far offshore.
Finally - which are people going to choose - raising their own food inland, or living with a few wind turbines in the view (or paying a bit more to put them out of sight offshore)?
Btw, you have strong feelings about energy issues. How do you expect Peak Oil affect Hawaii?
Well put. The trick of course is to work that change in mindset on the fly into a society where just about everyone's livelihood has been based on constantly increasing consumption for a goodly spell.
I agree, Luke. That's part of why I felt an ethical imperative to take this project on. If one can demonstrate the viability of such lifestyles it takes away a lot of excuses and encourages others to try the same. There's a temptation for many to frame the consumption question in false alternatives--that it's an issue of living either conventionally or like a subsistence farmer. Nope, not true, but one needs to living minimally by US standards--I'd suggest a gross income of about 10k is about as much as one can justify. 3 times global GDP or so. Less is better. Honestly, it's not such a bad living if your small house and land is paid for, and you grow the majority of your own food--it's actually a fairly comfortable living. As well, I'd really like to counter the notion that "what" you consume is more important than "how much." I can't find much evidence to support that contention in any but the most ridiculous examples. I think most of the time "consumption is consumption" and getting too fine about the details is really only an attempt to confuse the issue for self serving reasons.
And again, I think you're framing this in the wrong way: consumption doesn't matter - environmental impact is what matters.
I'd really like to counter the notion that "what" you consume is more important than "how much." I can't find much evidence to support that contention in any but the most ridiculous examples.
That contention is really, really easy to support: do we consume fossil fuels, or renewable energy (wind, solar, etc)? Fossil fuels are depleting and polluting, renewable energy is sustainable and non-polluting.
Further, the notion that more than about 2% us can live on 3 or more acres and raise our own food is highly unrealistic.
And I'd say that response is really really ridiculous, because fossil fuels are still the vast majority of the game. Once that changes, if that changes, then consumption won't matter. At this moment, unfortunately, it matters in a huge way, and there's really no way to escape it.
What about solar water heating? That's pretty popular in Hawaii, and it uses no FF at all. How about electric trains (which are the majority of my vehicle miles traveled) and EVs, which will become available this year? How about PV which, while still more expensive than wind, is still much cheaper and easier than moving to a farm?
More importantly, we're not going to solve this with a small minority making personal changes. We're only going to solve it by shutting down coal plants en masse - by far the cheapest and easiest way to do that is with wind power.
We are not talking some hypothetical world here. FF are not the only resources consumed that have major environmental impacts. Mineral resources are often located in inconveniently delicately balanced environments.
I will just use one example, copper. We use plenty and even if all we used were recycled (lots of room for improvement) increasing consumption would eventually require new deposits to be mined. Of course we do not recycle all that well so new deposits have to come on line more quickly. Pebble Mine on the Alaska Peninsula is just one example of inconveniently located resources. Increasing consumption does have negative environmental consequences and will for all the foreseeable future, arguing about a dream world situation where the environment won't be impacted be increasing consumption rates of the seven billion people around is very pointless. The more we consume the more decisions involving habitat like I just linked will have to be made.
As an aside you suggested offshore wind in Hawaii?!? Those islands, I believe, are among the tallest mountains in the world when the measured from the sea floor up--offshore there seemed an odd suggestion. I know wind generation has come a long way in the near forty years since an experimental wind turbine was blown out to sea from my wife's Alaska Peninsula hometown by the first hundred mile an hour wind that came through but high variability in wind speed is still a difficult issue. We will keep getting better at dealing with wider wind speed ranges per location, but there haven't been any magic bullets.
Mineral resources are often located in inconveniently delicately balanced environments.
I agree. OTOH, energy by itself consistently represents 60-80% of our environmental footprint, in various studies. Mineral extraction would be in the single digits, percent-wise.
Increasing consumption does have negative environmental consequences
No doubt. But which makes more sense - trying to get at the problem indirectly by reducing consumption, (especially one person at a time), which might reduce the problem by 10 or 20% if we're lucky, or reducing the impact directly by 50-90% by finding substitutes, ways to recycle, alternative mine locations, other ways to reduce direct mining impacts, ways to restore habitats after extraction, etc, etc?
Those islands, I believe, are among the tallest mountains in the world when the measured from the sea floor up--offshore there seemed an odd suggestion.
Deepwater offshore windfarms are being done with floating platforms.
high variability in wind speed is still a difficult issue.
Turbines are now designed to hand 185 MPH winds.
Just what is the productive low end of the wind speed range for a turbine that can handle 185mph winds? There is generally a high/low trade off and substantial one. High variabity of wind speed per location is still a big issue. Do you have a reference for the design? I found this when I googled 185mph wind turbines
It gave me a laugh anyhow.
Floating deepwater wind farms sound a bit spendy, any been in operation for ten years yet? I've spent a little time keeping things running in a marine environment, there are more forgiving places. I'm guessing the money feels the same way, and would want big guarantees before sailing wind farms out to sea.
The alternative mine sites tend to be in third world countries in spots that are at least as delicately ecologically balanced as the Pebble site but have far less environmental regulation. As in oil most of the easy stuff has been grabbed. I actually prefer a well designed mine site at Pebble to an atrocity in New Guinea. The current business model is to increase demand and get us as many of both as can be financially managed, that last phrase being a fair caveat at the moment. I truly hope our economic system can keep its balance somehow because any environmental costs caused by resource extraction and goods production will be totally ignored in the last great gasp of the dieing machine if it comes to that.
The economic downturn hammered a lot of established recycling businesses, that wasn't encouraging. Its a nice dream--cheap, renewable energy recycling everything and reducing the human footprint as the living standards of the masses rises. Don't give it up...and don't hold your breath until it happens....fossil fuel is just so danged easy to get hold of now and the future is always so far away.
Just what is the productive low end of the wind speed range for a turbine that can handle 185mph winds? There is generally a high/low trade off and substantial one.
They don't produce power from Cat 4 hurricane force winds, so it's not a question of designing for a higher speed and reducing power output at lower speeds. They're just designed to survive those winds. Here's a reference: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94568478
Floating deepwater wind farms sound a bit spendy
The tech has been developed primarily for oil drilling, so it's reasonably well developed. I'm not sure how costs compare, but 1) those conventional bottom-mounts can get pretty expensive, and 2) further out you get better wind.
any environmental costs caused by resource extraction and goods production will be totally ignored in the last great gasp
Yes, I'm really puzzled that anyone could think that economic collapse would be good for the environment. Collapse would strip the earth bare like a wave of african ants.
cheap, renewable energy recycling everything and reducing the human footprint as the living standards of the masses rises. Don't give it up...and don't hold your breath until it happens
It's doable, and the best thing in the long-run. Will we do it anytime soon? Deep sigh....
Quite a bit taller tower than the four legged one left sprouting from the sandspit my wife's hometown sits on (I think the light on that tower still serves as a night navigational aid), must be quite the mounting system at the base of the hurricane ready turbine.
Possibility of offshore placement, floating or stationary, at Hawaii is well beyond my guestimation powers but I was quite impressed with the north shore Oahu surfing I saw at the IMAX while visiting that island. Long unimpeded storm generated waves running from giant and deep Gulf of Alaska low pressure systems can really hammer the north shores. Storms generated waves from any other direction have every bit as much open ocean to run on before arriving at the islands. Building on the 'shelf' could be more than tricky and it does get deep fast offshore.
Possibility of offshore placement, floating or stationary, at Hawaii is well beyond my guestimation powers
Yes, it's an unusual problem - info from elsewhere may not be that helpful. OTOH, problems in Hawaii don't tell us much about 99% of the rest of the world - this may be of interest only to people living there. Perhaps solar may play a bigger part in Hawaii than elsewhere - isn't solar hot water now mandatory there?
Long unimpeded storm generated waves running from giant and deep Gulf of Alaska low pressure systems can really hammer the north shores.
Well, if you're far offshore in deep water, the wave heights aren't nearly as great.
Here's an article on TOD: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4849
Just had a glance, look at it better later. This will be closing soon. Don't have to go far offshore most directions to get to 10,000-15,000 feet of water, those offshore fathoms add up six times faster than those on shore feet. Thanks for the links.
Our problem is trying to maintain a BAU status, we need to forget that.
We Can have living food wages, without having to go to work to get money to get food. We have to work at living closer to the land. And by that I don't mean farming in the style we have been since we started farming. Maybe more like some native peoples who, if they ate of a plant, they spread it's seeds around some more so they had extras.
That is not farming, that is plant management.
I have been studying for years ways to live off the land, and with a bit of restoring the wasted out-of-date farming method lands, we can live off the land in a better way.
If everyone that has a yard started planting it with food plants, not just short term ones, but long term ones as well. Looking for plants that have a well rounded diet and grow in the area you are living, and not just native species, but ones that will grow where you are, and give you better food value. It might take a few years to be able to live off the land you have, but you can do a good job toward that in a few seasons, every little bit helps.
We could start to stem the flow of having to live in a BAU environment. We might have to scrap the model we have been living under, it seems to be failing, why try to rouge the cheeks of pig to say you still have a date to the prom?
Charles.
Conservation is indeed a virtue. In theory, at least, consuming less energy would seem to be a good thing. But which "sociopathic tendencies" exactly are you talking about? And who are you talking to?
It's one thing to chastise the average American consumer the mindless spending and driving and everything else. But what about the emerging middle classes in China, India, and other developing nations? There lies the real issue, to my mind. Since the advent of widespread internet access over the past decade, hundreds of millions of aspiring Chinese and Indians have gotten a good, strong whiff of the Western lifestyle, and want a piece of the pie. So in the next few decades, there will be millions of new cars on roads in China and India. Millions more people running computers and cell phones and TVs and every other power-consuming gadget we in the West have taken for granted for decades now.
And why not? Why should or would people in developing nations shun technologies and consumption patterns that have allowed Americans to enjoy such a relatively high quality of life?
We can quibble about the precise definition of "quality," but the fact remains that people in developing countries want what we have, and neither they nor we are going to change our habits and aspirations based on vague theories about the greater good.
Technology is indeed not a silver bullet. It's part of the picture, obviously. Advances in wind and solar and nuclear and geothermal will, to a limited extent, play a role in transforming how we produce and consume energy. But there's no magical solution to what ails us. If conservation is to play a significant role, it must be economically motivated. If there's a cheaper, more efficient way to heat and cool our homes, people will go that route. And if that route is also environmentally friendly, then all the better.
But protecting the environment is probably not going to happen at the expense of maintaining our accustomed lifestyle. It would be nice if people could be convinced to do the right thing, to consume less and put the greater good of the planet before our own individual needs. But that's not how it works. At least not so far in human history.
"people in developing countries want what we have"
And this is exactly why it is so important to get the revolution in redefining success going in the developed world. As we realize that happiness does not greatly increase once you get beyond a certain level of consumption, and that community, security, and various other cultural criteria are better indicators of wellness than high consumption, this view may quickly spread through the rest of my world.
This message is coming through in more and more recent books, from McKibben's "Deep Economy" to Speth's "Bridge at the End of the World." While it may seem unlikely that this will take hold, without such a reassessment (and really even with it, at this late date), I see little chance of a sustainable future.
Most of those 160k airplanes were built of aluminum, which require huge electrical inputs to refine. The US was able to outproduce other nations in that area because we had constructed some massive hydroelectric dams in the 30's as NW make-work projects, and had a massive spare electrical capacity. Had we not built the dams we wouldn't have had the capacity, and if we had built them much earlier we would have seen the spare capacity soaked up by the growth of population or other industries.
In any case, US aircraft production in WWII was a one-off event. Its used sometimes as an example of how determination=production, but everyone seems to miss the essential "energy" part of the picture. We had it at the time and won, while other countries had plenty of determination but not enough energy and lost. If things were different, things would have been different.
Interesting. I knew that industrial and aircraft production was critical, and I knew that Bonneville Dam was the reason we could refine the aluminum that was needed, but I'd never heard the discussion on the timing -- that Bonneville was spare capacity before the war.
Regarding WWII and productive capacity, David Halberstam's book "The Reckoning" about the auto industry made the case that the US was ahead of the other industrial nations because it was the first to move from coal to the oil economy.
Surplus hydropower was a factor, but a relatively small one IMO. Civilian uses of electricity could have been severely curtailed if need be.
One of the researchers from Oak Ridge (Project Manhattan) gave a pep talk to workers on a new TVA dam (another New Deal program) during WW II, pointing out that a "world changing" technology, still secret, needed the extra electricity.
Hydro has an advantage over coal (once built). MUCH less labor and materials are needed to produce electricity. Just as wind does.
Alan
Lake Santeetlah, in Western NC was purpose built @1928 for the aluminum industry, and predates TVA (1933). The the lake is still owned by Tapoco (Alcoa) and the electricity produced is used for their plants near Maryville, TN. US 129 borders the lake and is a mecca for the motorcycle crowd, known as "Tail of the Dragon". Beautiful country!
http://www.grahamcountytravel.com/activities_santeetlah.html
http://www.alcoa.com/tapoco/en/home.asp
I must disagree here about the signficance of that "surplus" power.
My low energy lifestyle and the excessive amounts of free time resulting from it gives me too much time to read.My military history books, some of them, credit our winning the war to control of the air and strategic bombing, and that to our high production of aircraft.Several authors , I can't remember the details, credit the big hydro projects as being lucky breaks for us without which we could not have won the war.Authors who don't credit hydro power as a game changer simply don't say much about primary energy at all as a rule.
I'm no engineer, but civilian use of electricity was pretty low in the early forties.Even the well to do had very few electricity sucking appliances, as most of them either had not yet been invented or else were still novelties-an electric toaster in those days was somewhat of a status symbol.The real hogs, such as airconditioning, electric heat, and self defrosting appliances simply weren't yet invented or else had again not yet been widely sold.
But maybe the real killer would have been the fact that with a forties grid, we would have had to build numerous small and probably inefficient aluminum processing plants rather than a very few big ones.Finding the necessary transport and skilled labor might have been real hard nuts in that case.
Of course Alan may be right;I cannot remember reading anything that would specifically disprove his argument.
My modest knowledge of the nation's electrical industry comes mostly from reading this forum, and a lot of it -directly from Alan!
But it's an open forum, and I have been wrong before.
This depends upon one's view of military history. I think steel was more important than aluminum (and plywood a/c were viable, see the de Havilland Mosquito and Hawker Hurricane). With less Al, the USA would have designed smaller planes (no P-47 for example).
Large numbers of small nimble fighters (some made out of plywood) could have gained air superiority over the battlefield (filled with steel tanks).
The USAF wants to think strategic bombing was important in winning WW II. I disagree.
Germany increased war time production as bombing increased due to a change in management (Albert Speer). That is, one man was able to more than offset the combined bombing efforts of the USAAF and RAF. Lack of fuel and pilots hurt the Luftwaffe more than a lack of aluminum.
Japan was crippled by steel submarines, not aluminum bombers. Battleships and cruisers could have done much of the damage to Japanese factories that bombers did if need be (the British had an entire fleet that was not really much needed in the Atlantic after 1943).
Absent TVA & Bonneville, I suspect that the USA & Canada would have developed Niagara Falls fully (4+ GW) and based aluminum production there. No dam required. Plus more coal mined and Al smelters on rivers close to the coal fields.
No doubt it was a strategic advantage to have surplus electrical power with no labor required. Greater advantages were a free and highly motivated labor force, idle industrial capacity and Texas oil fields under proration.
Just my POV of military history,
Alan
Now I'm scraping up decades old memories here but it seems strategic bombing of fuel facilities had a significant impact, and that it took long range aluminum bombers to reach those facilities. If I recall battleships and cruisers had a hell of a time with those alumimum 'hornets' that took off from aircraft carriers. Contolling a complete set of island hopping airbases was a huge part of Pacific theater operations. Steel may have been more important but it would have been an entirely different war if we did not have aluminum to piggy back on that steel.
It was sinking the oil tankers that made all the difference. My uncle was a bomber pilot who served two tours of duty, bombing Germans just about everywhere there were Germans to bomb. He said toward the end of the war he would go up, fly around all day looking for a German ship to bomb, and then go home. There was nothing left to sink.
Bombing German ball-bearing factories was more effective than they realized at the time. After the war, they learned that they had knocked out almost all the German ball bearing factories and nearly brought the German war machine to a screeching halt due to a lack of ball bearings. Had they known this at the time, they would have kept on bombing ball bearing factories.
The P-51 Mustang could do anything over Berlin that the Spitfire could do over London. The main difference - drop tanks to carry extra fuel to get them to Berlin. The drop tanks were made out of cardboard. Two advantages - 1) they're cheaper, 2) the Germans couldn't recycle the aluminum.
Didn't know the drop tanks were cardboard, but the strategy to keep the Germans from getting their hands on aluminum drop tanks does point up the strategic value of that metal ?= )
So Black Thursday was actually a success? Near fifty years since I read about that mission.
It's a lot more energy-efficient to recycle aluminum than to refine it in the first place. The Germans were desperately short of energy toward the end of the war.
Black Thursday cost the Germans 1.5 months of ball-bearing production. If they had kept it up, Germany would have run out of ball bearings fairly quickly. The life span of the average German tank was measured in weeks, so they needed a continuous supply of them for the new panzers.
Lack of fuel and pilots hurt the Luftwaffe more than a lack of aluminum.
IIRC, strategic bombing of the CTL facilities was a key to the lack of fuel.
The only reason the Germans needed coal-to-liquid plants was that they didn't have oil to refine. If they had captured the oil fields in the Middle East and Russian Caucasus, they wouldn't need to have bothered with CTL.
As it was, because of the shortage of fuel the German fighters couldn't protect their fuel supplies, and ended up with no fuel at all.
No argument from me on the importance of oil during the war. Like I posted once before, once the war was going it was all about oil whether those making the grand strategic decisions knew it or not. I have always wondered why the Japanese didn't think hitting the oil storage at Pearl was worth the risk of a third wave. It had taken a year to accumulate those stores with the tankers of the day. The US fleet could not have sailed very far without them.
Do you have numbers on what those ancient poorly insulated refrigerators with those beastly heat generating compressors on top used? I once burnt myself on ours when my high chair was set to close.
The modern self defrosting refrigerator uses from about 1/2 Kwh a day up to 4 Kwh a day for the giant beasts full of bells and whistles. I am truly curious about how much juice the really old models used. A couple years back our refrigerator went out and I drug back in a decades old unit with a freezer box inside the main compartment which we used until our new fridge came in. Our electrical use appeared to jump noticeably when we fired up the old beast but that may have been due to other seasonal factors.
We can do a lot better on refrigeration. People run these things solar direct:
http://www.sunfrost.com/refrigerators_main.html
PR Hype
A Sunfrost may use 1/3rd less than a comparable model by a major manufacturer (*IF* you shop the best available).
A list of EnergyStar refrigerators (not ranked by efficiency but by make).
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.display_products_html
Best Hopes for Energy Efficient Appliances,
Alan
Oil was probably the key strategic resource in WWII. The fact was that the supergiant East Texas oil field could keep the US awash in oil, while Japan had to try to get its oil from Indonesia, and Germany from various countries in Europe.
The US Navy sank all the Japanese oil tankers, and cut off Japan's oil supply. Allied troops in North Africa blocked Rommel from seizing the Middle East oil fields, and Russia stopped the German troops from reaching the oil fields in the Caucasus. Meanwhile Allied aircraft closed the "Greenland Gap" and sank any U-boat that tried to stop the tankers from reaching Britain.
It also helped that US could build ships faster than the German submarines could sink them. They were banging them out at the rate of about one ship per day.
The bottom line was that the Allied aircraft, ships, and tanks had all the fuel they could use, whereas the Axis ones were always running out of gas.
Aluminum wasn't all that strategic. The British Hurricane had a fabric skin, which mean that 1) it only cost half as much as an aluminum Spitfire to build, 2) it had nearly as much performance, and 3) if it got shot full of holes they would just glue patches over them and send it back into action. The Spitfire needed to go back to the factory for repairs.
The Mosquito light bomber was made out of wood. It had the advantages that 1) it could be built in woodworking shops without impacting the production of other aircraft, 2) because it was so light and had two Rolls Merlin supercharged V12s it was faster than the German night fighters, and 3) it had four cannons and four machine guns in its nose. The Germans couldn't catch it, and it could catch them any time it wanted to, so for the most part they just tried to stay out of its way.
Realizing this, toward the end of the war the British used the Mosquito as a night-fighter-killer which ran interference for the bigger bombers. It would sneak up behind the German fighters sneaking up on Allied bombers, and use its four cannons and four machine guns to turn them into tinfoil. This resulted in a common mental disarrangement of German fighter pilots they called "Mosquito panic" in which they saw Mosquitoes everywhere in the dark.
8000 aircraft were ferried through your and my neighborhood on the way to the Russian front. Can't off hand find out what percentage were aluminmum bodied, but I wouldn't underestimate that metal's impact on the war. It certainly would have been a different war if all the aircraft were wooden. Any numbers on how quickly facilities for aircraft made of each material could be scaled up? There was an incredible number of DC-3s & C-47s left at the end of the war, their impact must have been significant.
The USA (and Canada) would have produced significant amounts of aluminum even if we did not have a surplus of hydro-power pre-WW II. Certainly more than enough aluminum for fighters to gain air superiority. Just no P-47s (BIG gas guzzling a/c) and perhaps some wooden ones added to the mix.
In 1960, New York replaced a 400 MW hydropower plant @ Niagara with a 2,515 MW hydropower plant. *IF* the USA needed more power for aluminum, we could have started in early 1940 and had it on-line sometime in 1941 or 1942. Duplicate on Canadian side. Manitoba and Labrador also have some cheap quick places to put large hydropower plants. Coal and natural gas can also be used to generate power to make aluminum.
Perhaps the best alternative (absent surplus hydro-power) may have been to build aluminum smelters in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma and run them off of natural gas fired power plants.
Strategic bombing had little effect on the war. It certainly did not win it. A single man (Albert Speer) did more to increase German war production than the entire USAAF & RAF strategic bombing effort did to decrease it. The ball bearing issue was never pursued (besides Germany just bought ball bearings from Sweden and relied on stockpiles till new factories were built and old ones repaired). Sure, oil production was decreased some (10% ?? 15% ??) by strategic bombing but that did not win the war.
IMHO, the effort (men & materials) expended on strategic bombing would have been better used elsewhere. True both for the Allies and Germany.
And the Allies would have won with just a third of the aluminum we did use. The P-47 could only have been designed by a military with a surplus of both aluminum and oil.
Alan
I'll buy that we could have got our aluminum without the surplus hydro, but it likely would have cost more, you are far better informed in those matters than I. I've a soft spot for the P-47 though, my last motorcycle was a BSA 650 Thunderbolt, most certainly named for that heavy flying beast ?= ) I kind of miss its successor the A-10 since they have been removed from our local airbase.
Strategic bombing of the Coal to Liquids facilities certainly didn't help the Luftwaffe stay in the air. But I'm not privy to what effect it all really had. I'm sure the PR value that 'we were doing something' was a big part of the strategic bombing campaign.
But your mentioning battleships and and cruisers in the war where it was mostly submarines and destroyers doing the work was interesting. It kind of seemed like they were used like the queen and king on a chessboard, and since the allies never got down to an endgame with their naval forces the kings and queens were mostly kept out of harms way. Battleships and cruisers lobbed loads into fortified beach sites for hours on end before assaults, but the defensive positions were still very effective in mowing down the troops we landed, at least that is what my dad told me and he was part of something like seven South Pacific beach assualts. He was really impressed with how far they could fire though, so I guess the big warships presence was good for morale and that was no small thing. I don't remember him talking much about air cover much at all.
Lots of issues left to discuss :-)
Yes, battleships & cruisers had "moderate effect" on entrenched infantry. But they could have done as much damage as B-29s did in bombarding steel plants, rail yards, radar sites, etc. (as they in fact did in July, 1945).
As far as blowing up civilian housing & infrastructure, a fleet of battleships, cruisers and destroyers sitting offshore for an extended period could certainly equal any aerial bombing. One 16" or 14" shell every half hour and a 5" to 8" shell every ten minutes for several weeks would demoralize any city and disrupt all normal economic activity. More so than a 250 bomber attack one night.
Aerial bombardment often went on for months on Japanese held island before the Marines assaulted. Even less effect than naval gunfire.
PS: I remember reading than 1/3rd to 1/2 of the Japanese might be killed or wounded by naval bombardment before landing, but the remaining forces were hell to overrun.
Alan
Within a dozen to twenty miles of the coast on fully controlled oceans the big guns could do a whole lot of damage for an extended period of time. I don't know what level of supply would be required to maintain their magazines. Not likely to lay those big ships out there very long if viable air and submarine defenses were still in place...such bombardment would kind of be like bringing the queen out against overmatched opponent in the end game. Of course my ability to speak of that kind of activity in game terms is sobering when one considers the pieces that have been in play most of our lives...after hopscotching the South Pacific my dad was in the buildup for the invasion of mainland Japan...
On a more benign subject, do you have any idea how much juice those old refrigerators with the top mounted compressors used to burn? I didn't have much success searching that out. I'm curious about whether the very convenient modern two door with bottom freezer drawer modern machine actually uses less power than those tiny boxed little beasts.
Yes, the Japanese were down to their land defenses and kamikazes by 1945. Battleships were best prepared to defend against kamikazes (few were even lightly damaged by them) and depleting the stock of kamikazes made the invasion easier.
The Imperial Army strategy was to concentrate the kamikazes on troop ships during the homeland invasion. Unless the US sent a feint assault first, with empty troop ships, this strategy might have worked.
BTW, my father was at Paris Island (USMC boot camp) when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He went to China to accept the Japanese surrender there (they would not surrender to the Chinese). I am here today because we dropped the atomic bomb.
Alan
My father's original platoon got down to about single digits survival by the end of the war. After VJ he went immediately to the abandoned Japanese facilities in Korea, where he liberated a very fearsome German Sheppard that was very happy to get food and water from him. Very little chance his luck would have held in Japan itself, he would have been pretty far toward the front of the push. His Chicago area HS graduating class didn't have a much better male survival rate than his original platoon. He was just the wrong age I guess. I never take my arriving here for granted.
Did he bring the dog home??
No, can't remember what he said became of it when he got redeployed, might not have been a happy story. Few from the war really were. The photos he brought home, mostly from Korea as his other personal effects from earlier in the war disappeared when he was hospitalized with a bad bout of malaria, showed a lot of old looking young guys in faded uniforms. I felt pretty fortunate not to have been among them.
I don't really know, but...I think it's very likely those old refrigerators burned a lot more power than the latest ones.
Heck, a 22 cubic ft fridge uses an average of about 50 watts these days - that's not much!
Here's a comment about a very old fridge: "Old compressors are very cool. The slow speed and all the mufflers make them exceedingly quiet. Not very efficient though, the pancake one draws the same power no-load (150W) as my ~15 year old fridge running. "
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPnwdOqldrk
That suggests that the old fridge might use 3-6x as much power!!
Thanks for the link.
The compressor I was talking about was even older, I got burnt on it before 1952. If memory serves the cooling fins were circular cast rings that surrounded the unit on top of the old refrigerator--looked a little like something out of an old Dr. Zarkov lab. It wasn't all that bad a burn, I think it made me more of a believer when I was told not to touch.
I wouldn't doubt that old fridge dated from before the war. We got that apartment by buying all the furniture of the people who held the lease and were moving (Chicago apartments were in short supply at the beginning of the baby boom). My mom had held down a decent war production job at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant and had saved enough to buy us into the flat. I'm guessing a lot of returning GIs future wives had a bit of money saved from working war time jobs and that nest egg gave many of us kids a little leg up we never would have had otherwise.
It's pretty clear to me that the credit system is going to give out before we react meaningfully to these existential threats.
And it's a stretch to think that the body politic will wake up and react in that way even if the credit system held out as long as we need it to. What we are facing will not occur to people in the same way a war does and people respond to how the world occurs to them, not how it actually is.
We are faced with 'death by a thousand cuts' or 'the boiling frog' (choose whichever metaphor suits you) and by the time a sufficient number of people have connected the dots it will be far too late.
If you have any doubt of this, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw
For instance, during a conversation discussing plans for the future, my wife protested that she now understood that we should have sold the house when it was still worth more than the mortgage, as I had been pushing for before the bubble popped. However, I pointed out, coming to the right conclusion doesn't do any good if it isn't arrived at when it can still make a difference. In other words, time matters. A lot.
I often hear the comparison you made (WWII vs now) and I think it is a fantasy, no different from Kurzweil's Singularity. It is a variant of the "superhero fantasy," that just in the nick of time we will collectively come to our senses or a leader will emerge to unite the warring tribes (a la Braveheart) and take action, thus saving the day. Of course that is technically possible. It's just exceedingly unlikely. We can't even agree on climate change and the science for that is, to me, overwhelming.
Listening to Ben Stein is worse than sound of someone dragging their fingernails over a chalkboard. Pathetic!
Great video. Schiff sure nailed it. Now he's capitalizing on his calls and running for the senate.
http://schiffforsenate.com/
Too bad he's clueless on peak oil.
The people encouraging Schiff to run are politically tone-deaf. He's a Wall Street guy, end of story.
About two years ago some people here were saying that tar sands were net energy negative. Most said that gas shale would not scale. Until a post a few days ago showing the feasability of scaling up to 10 mbpd of oil shale from the US, I had never heard anything positive about oil shale, only that it was eroi negative. Why are you so skeptical of everything? Skepticism is worse than blind optimism.
Also, we don't need 85 mbpd of liquid fuels to run an advanced society. Nowhere close to it. The waste of liquid fuels is a result of how abundant they were.
Speaking personally, it is because I grew up in the fog of blind optimism, only later to realize that the world has been turning to crap around me for much of my life. Affordable solar never arrived, unlimited cheap energy (code for fusion) never arrived, hunger never got solved, poverty never got fixed, efficiency and new technology hardly made a dent, and for most people (even in our richest-of-the-rich nation) the last thirty years or so have seen real living conditions go downhill. Globally more people are hungry than ever, more people have inadequate fresh water than ever, the average individual is getting poorer by the year, the planet is in the worst shape its seen in millions of years (set to possibly get much worse), and the energy source this whole wretched mess was built with is about to decline. The whole narrative of cheerful linear progress is pretty tired; what we've been doing as a species for a long time now is desperately treading water against the tide.
I've a reserve of natural good nature to keep me going, and I enjoy what I have, but I sure don't apologize at being skeptical over the next big "solution". I've heard plenty, but at some point you just make other plans.
"to run an advanced society"
- advanced in what exactly? what's your definition of an advanced society then i wonder?
That is ever evolving. I guess I would say one where science, politics, and culture play a large role in everyday life. I don't think it has to include convenient personal motorized transport. The internet would be nice. Jobs too.
Andrew - any links, references to EROEI of bitumen/oil sands?
I'm pretty sure you can look that up here easily. My understanding is that common quoted eroi here is about 3:1, give or take. Much of that energy though comes from stranded gas or the resource itself. So as long as it is positive, I don't see that as an issue. Especially given how we waste liquid fuels. The economy didn't seem to care much as we moved from 100:1 down to 10:1 (approx?).
Energy and growth are correlated, but they are not a perfect continuum... I would argue that the correlation is nonlinear and full of discontinuities and accidents of history. We don't need 85 mbpd.
A massive fuel tax might go a long way to speed up any necessary "corrections"...
I think you misinterpretted the tone of Rockman's 10mbpd oil shale production proposal ?= )
No, I didn't. He seemed to argue that it was very doable, given the necessary capital expenditure. Most people chose to take that and run with "see it's impossible"... I don't believe capex will be an indefinite limitation. If it can be done, and we need the resource, it will be done.
Read the entire thread again, including just what kind of build out that producing that level of oil from oil shale would require. The 10 mbpd proposal just isn't going to get us the best bang for the buck. Rockman said unlimited budget could build such a system not that building it would be the best use of unlimited budget, big difference.
First off, that thread is not the word of God. Everything you read isn't necessarily true, even when written by an expert. No one really knows what is going to happen over the next few decades other than that light sweet crude will almost certainly decline. I was referencing the thread, but that doesn't mean I have to buy into every comment made there. And I don't.
Second, I never argued that it was the best use. I said that it was possible, and that IF we needed it done, and it was possible, it would be done. But probably we won't need it. It would likely make a lot more sense to use oil shale the way Estonia does, as cheap coal, to create electricity and fuel electric (scaled-back)transport.
I think the biggest constraint on oil shale development will be time, not money. The US (despite what some people seem to think) has plenty of money. However, it is lacking in time. I would estimate it would take 20 years to go from a working pilot to a full-scale 1 million barrel per day operation, and another 20 years to go from 1 mbpd to 10 mbpd. US conventional oil production peaked about 40 years ago, and that would have been the time to launch a crash oil shale development program. 2010 is very much too late.
There isn't a working pilot at this time and there are some basic technical issues to resolve, so I would say the US is at least 50 years away from solving it's oil supply problems with oil shale. It might become a major source of oil in the second half of the 21st century, or maybe in the 22nd century.
Full scale commercial mining operations started in the Canadian oil sands 43 years ago, and they're now up to 1.3 million barrels per day. I doubt they'll ever reach 10 mbpd (due to environmental constraints), but they might hit 5 mbpd about the middle of this century. The vast majority of that would go to the US since Canada doesn't need nearly that much oil. Unless of course China and India outbid the US for the oil.
Thank you David for the link. Even though many here including myself are "Doomers" we do wish you and yours God's Speed. If even the production of Solar Liquid Fuel can slow the decline down a bit, every bit will help.
Don't take all the CO^2 out of the air though because my garden and fruit trees need some. :-)
Thanks Lynford
You can find more benefits for CO2 at CO2 Science and Climate Change Reconsidered
Doomers can take courage by the example of Swedes making 100,000 wood gasifiers to run their cars on during WWII. You can find details on wood downdraft gasifiers at WoodGas The Swedish downdraft gasifier was further perfected into the System Johansson Gasproducer (SJG) in South Africa. Johansson's design is produced by Carbo Consult -Tar is so low that Caterpillar will guarantee its engines on an SJG gasifier. It may not be Madison ave, but it works.
We're supposed to celebrate deforestation? It will be hard enough for people to heat their homes with wood let alone power happy motoring. There are TOO MANY OF US.
I've built a dozen gasifiers myself. They work. The problem isn't tar. It's the hydrogen. The hydrogen is absorbed by the higher grades of steel in the engine(rings, valves) and makes them very brittle. It's a solution, but again a desperate solution meant to keep something unsustainable running. There's a place for it, I don't doubt. Is it hopeful? Hell no, not by a long shot.
Hi Jay,
Have you run a truck or car engine long enough to have it fail due to hydrogen adsorption, and if so, about how many hours did it last?
I am seriously interested in this subject and would like t exchange a few emails if you can spare the time, thanks!
Not a truck but a generator long enough that the valves started to stick(valve stems increased in diameter) and would start to drop push rods. It wasn't too hard to lap them back down but that's the kind of thing one will deal with pretty regularly I expect. It wasn't that long. 200 hours? Part of the issue would be solved by running very inefficient very sloppy kinds of engines with low rpm and low compression. You'll gain longevity but lose efficiency. It's a dirty solution and I don't recommend it except in dire situations or large scale applications, like 30 kw or better. For my needs, steam is a better solution and will likely be my next project. I've got a lot of poor grade wood and a lot of water.
Don't waste your keystrokes here, David L. Hagen, you will notice that solar, the ONLY real source of energy for the earth (leaving aside cracking open atoms), is pretty much sacrilige here.
RC
ThatsItImout/RC
When OPEC is destroying the livelihoods of three billion people in developing countries living on less than $2/day, by raising fuel costs out of reach?
When OPEC is extracting oil tribute as high as the West can survive, bleeding it dry?
When more sunlight strikes the earth in one hour than is used by the world all year?
When there is the potential to make solar liquid fuels cheaper than fossil fuels?
The judgment must be:
"Let the lord of the Black Land come forth,
that justice be done upon him!"
"When opec is extracting oil tribute...bleeding it dry."
Sometimes I wish the so called leadership of the so called conservative faction of this countery and the west in general hadn't submitted to self castration at the hands of the panty wearing faction-never in history has a more powerful country or coalition allowed itself to be bearded in such a fashion by one it's decided inferior in terms of power.
Only for a minute , of course, only for a minute.
But we have made a whole series of potentially fatal mistakes.The first one, depending on the world view, was either to allow ourselves to get into this situation without doing the hard work necessary to escape it without a fight; or else trying to avoid the fight, pretending it would not be necessary.
Fights avoided out of weakness eventually must be fought anyway-better earlier, when the relative strength favored us more so.Now we fight piece meal , over decades, paying the entire price of empire, with only the minimal profit thereof.
The big fight has not been avoided but only postponed and when it comes will be the worse for the postponement.
Back on the home front we failed to do the hard work necessary to avoid the long slow bleeding by paying the price of conservation and efficiency , even as we recognized (the more intelligent ones of us at least)that NO MATTER WHAT, we would eventually pay the price nature demands in terms of conservation, efficiency, research, etc.
Meanwhile blessed with no ethnic problems , a culture enthusiastic about hard work, and above all no need for a military of thier own,courtesy of Uncle Sam ,the mighty Japanese midget grows into the worlds second greatest economic power.
Western Europe is just as bad, lecturing us on our morals, berating us for ou military reach , all the while sheltering under our defense umbrella , building thier welfare state at what is essentially our expense.
I find the happy go lucky lack of historical memory of the Germans in particular simply astounding-they are climbing in bed with the Russians like a niave sixteen year old with an old time outlaw biker.
Anybody who thinks oil wouldn't have gone thru the roof and stayed there in the early nineties if Bush the warmonger hadn't chastized the Hussien regime rather severely has his head up his butt, and a long way up it.Of course that might have been a good thing-but we were no more ready then to do something constructive than than we were in Carter's day , or today.
We look for reason where there isn't any , or reason to expect any, if one understands the nature of the beast.
The world is a Darwinian place, and it is enjoying an impersonal, entirely accidental, long running giant cosmic joke at our expense.
But to us it is going to play out in the style of a Greek tragedy.
After all the rules of the game are known to us,but in our arrogance we think we we are exempt.
How does the quote go?
Those whom the gods would destroy , first they raise on high, that's close enough for me.
Right now we as individuals are in the position of troops in an army run by generals who know less than we do about the enemy, and the ground on which we will be fighting.The generals do not see, cannot see, that the fight is irretrieveably lost.
The army is lost.
But individual tropps who desert soon enough, far enough away from the battlefield, before the actual slaughter begins, may escape , may even prosper .
It is time to desert the figurative army of our modern society, to drop out and do what's necessary to live as a guerilla peasant in a very hostile and extremely dangerous world.
Just having some random nasty thoughts of course.All I need to set me right is a be happy don't worry pill and a ittle comfort talk from the comforter in chief, or one of his priests, right?
"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" is the usual old quote, though Karl Rove said once more recently "Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud". I think in either case you could apply it to a culture as a whole (which needn't be named) and it makes sense.
never in history has a more powerful country or coalition allowed itself to be bearded in such a fashion by one it's decided inferior in terms of power.
You're being unrealistic. We couldn't successfully occupy the whole of the middle east and extract oil. We could successfully occupy the ME, but only by mass murder, and the chaos that would follow wouldn't allow oil extraction.
I agree with you that we never should have allowed ourselves to become so dependent - thank Reagan/Bush and their oil-industry backers for that (Ford and Carter started digging us out of the hole, and Reagan dropped us back in...).
Agreed completely. Reagan and Bush traded US energy independence to S Arabia for a few pieces of silver for themselves and friends.
We could VERY EASILY occupy the parts of the ME where the oil fields and pipelines and processinfg and handling facilities are located and keepthe oil flowing, but doing so would be a very bloody process indeed.
People who are opposed to war and fighting on principle are quick to grasp at what seems to be good evidence that aggressors can't win fighting against insurgent local peoples with blood in thier eye.
The argument held when The limeys were in Afghanistan due to logistics problems, and the fact that both sides were armed with the same weapons-rifles, althought the Brit's were much better.
But if one reads the history of small modern British armys fighting thier way thru the depths of India, or the experiences of the Spanish in the Americas, it is obvious that such wars can be won, and sometimes at trivial cost-to the aggressor, that is.
Looked at from the viewpoint of a soldier who is tasked with simply conquering the territory and siezing the resources, the problem would be trivial, in concept, for a general with our resources and no scruples at all.
Fortunately , we are as bullies go rather effiminate ones, and lack the will or desire to act like the Nazis we are so often accused of being, mostly by pacifist types hypocritically sheltering under our military umbrella.
But there could concievably come a day, if our backs are to the wall, and tptb in the capital buildings, in consultation with the Pentagon,whereby the generals are given the go ahead to simply boot the press out,and get on with exterminating the local people by the most efficient means possible.
It might take a few weeks or maybe even a few months-Sherman put the south down by burning her out in a very short while.A few large planes spraying weedkiller and a naval embargo closing the ports would get it done without a single atom bomb probably. In a few months the rest of the area in question would be as empty of people as the Empty Quarter.
I pray nothing of this sort will ever come to pass, but I have been scribbling a few outlines of a REALISTIC post collapse novel, and this scenario is realistic to the nth degree..If I ever finish it my first criteria is that it be REALISTIC.
I think you might be wise in a real-life scenario to re-analyse the opposition's strengths and your own weaknesses. The process you propose (extermination of all middle-eastern peoples) would very shortly find you up against a coalition of the remainder of the world. Do you really propose that you could maintain oil transport routes from the Persian Gulf to the US with China, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, UK all determinedly opposing and willing to take serious casualties? Sounds a lot like the beginnings of the last world war. Sure, none of the opposition had the necessary tools in hand to defeat, but they do have enough to impede long enough to implement the technology required. Could the US Navy find and defeat every attack sub of the Swedish, British, Chinese, Russian, German, Japanese navies quick enough to keep merchant seamen at sea? Can the US build attack subs faster and longer than the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, etc. etc. ?
Think again.
First, keep in mind that it would be infinitely cheaper to simply eliminate our dependence on oil by electrifying transportation. We're in the middle of a $2 trillion war right now - that money could have completely eliminated our oil dependence.
2nd, we're not dependent on oil because of anything done by anybody in the Middle East, it's because of our domestic politics.
3rd...I'll say it again: you're being highly unrealistic. We couldn't successfully occupy the whole of the middle east and extract oil. We could successfully occupy the ME, but only by mass murder, and the chaos that would follow wouldn't allow oil extraction.
Of course we could exterminate everyone in Saudi Arabia - we'd have no technicians to run the equipment, of course, assuming that the equipment hadn't been sabotaged or destroyed by our bombing. Then we'd have to exterminate everyone in Iran (because Saudi oil has to get through the straits of Hormuz), and Yemen, and Afghanistan. Then we'd have to airlift the entire population of Israel to the US, before they got exterminated, or we'd have to exterminate the West Bank and Jordan.
Then we'd have to fortify the entire US and Europe against the suicide bombers sent by a unified population of 1B muslims, whose holy lands we'd just devastated. Then we'd have to face the whole world united against us because of our moronic, unnecessary, unprovoked, satanic actions. And, we might have a revolt by our volunteer military against such moronic, unnecessary, unprovoked, satanic actions.
The fact that Cortez was able to intimidate the Aztecs with a tiny force of mounted soldiers with rifles tells us nothing about a modern war of occupation. The Aztecs thought that they were facing Quetzalcoatl returned, that they were fighting the gods. People in the ME have no such illusions.
We're only succeeding in Iraq because most of the population has decided to work with us. If they perceived us as the kind of occupier you're suggesting that we could become....the place would become hellish, and we would achieve none of our goals.
Actually the type of situation Mac is speaking of might have everything up the Mediterranean side from the Egyptian border to Turkey's rendered unihabitable in short order just as a show of force possibly entered into jointly by ancient cold war rivals. Airlift would not be necessary. We are talking ugly here. I'm sure multiple such scenarios have been drawn up by the major powers think tanks. I really can't imagine trans oceanic oil shipping surviving such a scenario, or any other that involves taking of the mid east oil fields by force for that matter, too many players with long reach if the applecart gets upset that badly. I'd rather not see my imagination put to the test in such matters.
As much as this sounds like a cool process, as an energy researcher this looks very impractical. It takes all the problems that exist with the fischer-tropsch reaction, combines it with all the problems of solar power, and adds to it a whole set of new problems...
15-20 years... yeah, just like fusion power.
I agree that fischer-tropsch is complex - why not Methanol? Its very simple proven commercial production. Already about 50 million tons/year. China is moving to methanol for transport. It has domestic coal like the US.
Just to point out that these previous transitions were much more evolutionary than intentional. Is it naive to suggest that the next transition can be intentionally managed? It's more likely, IMO, that the next transition will be forced upon us by circumstance rather than by choice.
I am extremely bothered by the word "transition." It implies (to me, at least), a smooth continuum of change Given the present circumstances of financial crisis, resource depletion, etc., etc. I simply see no way for a "transition" to occur.
Rather, I foresee a multitude of collapses that eventually lead to a new stasis of some kind but certainly not a seamless "transition."
Todd
transition:
1.Passage from one form, state, style, or place to another.
Collapse is just a subset or form of "transition". Seamless is an ideal form of transition. I agree that "seamless" is unlikely in our future transitions.
However, the worst case scenario is not necessarily the most likely. I hope...
This group has an interesting set of scenarios. They call their ideal outcomes the Great Transition as opposed to, I suppose, the lesser transitions like Transition Towns and other "extreme localization, eco-communalism" scenarios favored by "anarchists" and environmental "subcultures."
Idealists for sure.
http://www.tellus.org/
Ghung makes a point that almost always is ignored yet it goes to the very core of the problem. We like to tell ourselves that we are in charge; that we make intentional, rational choices for the greater good. We plan. This is not true. Never has been. Instead we make up stories. Human intelligence didn't evolve because the world would eventually need scientists so we could plan our next step just in time. Our intellect is just a lucky byproduct of a brain that evolved to handle social complexity. We are not so good at affecting the real world, but we are really great at making up stories. We take credit for the good stuff that happens and blame someone else when bad stuff happens. It may be unsettling, but we don't have any control at all. We did not "plan" our history and we will not "plan" our future.
That's a great way of putting it...if only more people understood that aspect of the problem!
Yes, but may I offer the friendly amendment--"We are not so good at affecting the real world" IN THE WAY WE INTENDED TO.
We have had enormous negative effects on the real world, mostly unintended.
My sentiments exactly.
Quiet now. Your distracting me. American Idol is on and i'm trying to finish my $5 foot long. :) I agree with you, however!
While I agree with that line of thinking, I don't really see how it follows that industrial society is therefore ending. The transition will not be planned. It will be managed as it happens, largely by market forces. Just like all the others.
Managing this transition "as it happens, largely by market forces" is the defacto plan. It's how things have always been done while we make up stories about planing things to come out the way we intended. Unfortunately, we are vastly underestimating the scale of the problems we face. We are facing an evolutionary event. We are biological organisms living in a system that has already begun to collapse. As biological organisms we must eat to maintain our metabolisms. Our industrial farming system depends heavily on fossil fuels for mechanical operation, transportation, and fertilizer. As we begin to run short of oil and natural gas we will be able to produce less and less food every year. There is no way to solve this whilst simultaineously maintaining our numbers. Famine is inevitable. When we look at natural systems we notice periods of relative stability punctuated by periods of rapid change. That's what Stephen Jay Gould was on about with punctuated equalibrium. Once a certain point is reached, positive feedbacks rapidly overwhelm the system. When any species overshoots it's resource base, a relatively rapid die-off will occur. There is no way out of this for any species, no matter how intelligent. The human population overhang is so massive, the harder we work to avoid collapse, the worse the collapse will be. I guess the direct answer to your question would be that our emotional need to feel like we are masters of the universe interferes with our ability to see the big picture. This usually doesn't matter much but it just so happens that in this case it does. The point also is that in a massive die-off very little of our modern industrial society could possibly survive.
The world is not one island, I'd consider individual countries their own islands. Worse case scenario, the few safe havens manage the lock themselves in while other countries fold.
That may be the best option.
What is wrong with Sweden continuing with an improved, if different, quality of life while the USA dissolves into anarchy and local warlords ? Why should the wise and prepared with good social cohesion join the conservatives ?
Best Hopes for those that prepare and stick together,
Alan
Alan,
This may seem samantically picky but I guess I have a problem with the word "option". It implies we have choices. Of course nothing is wrong with Sweden or any other country doing anything it wants. I just think that the circumstances will impose the "choices".
The characterization of this as a battle between liberals and conservatives with wise, socially cohesive liberals being good and anarchistic, conservative warlords being bad reveals that it's just another story. Complete with heros and villans.
But please don't get me wrong, I would agree that preparing(at least trying to) and sticking together is the right thing to do, at least in the present circumstances.
Respectfully,
Loren
As of today, February 18, 2010, we still have options. As time, and oil depletion, increases, our options will narrow, but still exist. We are NOT on a "straight & narrow" path to hell without meaningful choices to make (yet).
The "conservatives" comment was a dig at Floridian, but also represents a truth. The best options appear to flow from policies advocated more by liberals, although they are still miles short of ideal.
Best Hopes,
Alan
I think geography and human nature will favor your "worst case scenario". You could also look at dispersion/isolation/specialization model of evolution and say that's just how it works on a large scale..."worst" is a word we use that nature doesn't seem to mind.
In fact the world is one island. Why do you suppose the problems will stop when we reach your worst case scenario? Which countries are completely self sufficient? Is your worst case scenario really the worst case you can imagine? I imagine the worst case scenario would be a complete die-out and the extinction of our species. I don't believe that is a likely outcome, but I don't arbitrarily refuse to consider it either. My point is that people are not generally designed for worst case scenario thinking. It's a natural human blind spot.
I guess it wouldn't be the "worst" scenario, but it's not BAU. Food will still be grown and transported assuming no serious black swans occur in the U.S. Net food importers may be affected but that doesn't really affect me. Obviously if countries near us start to collapse, depending on how far off BAU is politicians may take different choices. If they give the "refugees" amnesty because they think this is temporary that may cause problems, if it's long after BAU and the world is radically different and people are starving on the streets of New York City they may just be met with machine-gun fire.
I would not consider shooting people sneaking into the U.S. as BAU, perhaps in North Korea but certainly not here just yet. Countries that can sustain themselves would naturally isolate themselves and attempt to deal with their domestic problems.
Or perhaps Yergin is right and BAU will continue indefinitely.
"our emotional need to feel like we are masters of the universe interferes with our ability to see the big picture."
Another good mantra.
Individual places may hold out for a while, but we are all connected in myriad ways, and we are all dependent on a survivable environment.
(Double post)
I just don't agree. Agricultural activity only takes up a few percent of global energy use. Happy motoring takes up what, roughly a third? Inefficient use of utilities a quarter or more? Agriculture will be the last thing we let go.
Die-off due to agricultural collapse does not have to be the inevitable result of peak oil. Not this century. Your assumption is based on the premise that people will continue doing things the same way no matter the costs. This is illogical.
Making the problem worse than it is, while dramatic and eye catching, also has the effect of taking focus off the real problem: how oil shocks will disrupt the economy. How best ot manage a transition.
This isn't a critique of your argument, or a personal attack, but an honest question: If you trully think that there is no hope, why come here? Why care? What precisely is the point?
There are a number of problems with that statement:
1) Outside of the US and Europe, the farming system is much less dependent on mechanical operation. A lot of it still uses animal and human labor. An oil crisis doesn't affect this much.
2) Even if they use machinery, farmers are more flexible than you might think - for instance, there are kits available to convert tractors to run on straight vegetable oil. A farm can easily produce more than enough vegetable oil to run all its equipment.
3) A lot of agricultural production goes to market by rail, and outside of the US the railways are much less dependent on diesel fuel. China and India, in particular, have massive projects underway to electrify their railways.
4) Nitrogen fertilizer is increasingly being produced by countries with stranded gas reserves. There's an awful lot of stranded gas in the world. It's a lot easier to build a plant to produce fertilizer using natural gas than it is to build a liquefied natural gas operation.
I could go on, but the basic point is that a shortage of oil does not necessarily result in a shortage of food.
"A new economic model is needed..."
Developed world will not accept this unless you can guarantee that all or most of their wealth remains intact. In which case nothing has been accomplished.
Developing world will not accept this as it translates to "you all must remain at the economic level you are now at...forever". The idea that the developing world can rise to first world standard of living while first world maintains its status is fantasy.
You can argue that this is not true, say things like "wealth will be measured in happiness" or "standard of living should be measured in happiness" but everyone knows that that is hollow speak.
To shift into a new economic paradigm would require that either the top 25% voluntarily commits the bulk of their wealth for the common good, or a radical and violent uprising that literally TOOK the wealth of the top 25% and used that to establish a fair and equitable global standard of living, or maybe a combination of both.
I submit that economies evolve on their own. Economic models are only attempts to define economies, real or imagined. We will get a new "economic model", and I doubt it will be predefined.
Since most of what we define as wealth is a form of fiat wealth, it won't be of much use to the angry masses (not 6.8 billion of them). Much of what qualifies as real wealth in today's world will evaporate or has already been exploited. This will require that wealth be redefined. The evolution of wealth will be concurrent with the evolution of economies. Humans will have little control over either.
You speak in abstracts.
Real wealth buys real things. Right now people are turning fiat wealth, regardless of how it was acquired, into real things, real estate, farm land, solar panels, stock piling supplies, resources, prius, windmill, minning rights, the list goes on and on.
Who is getting all this? Who is hedging their ability to survive by applying their wealth accordingly?
Who will be the first to die off? NO, correct that, who ARE the first that ARE dieing off right now and whos numbers will continue to increase?
You make it sound like it will all average out soon enough BS.
"Humans will have little control over either."
You are obviously comfortable with your preparations and position and believe that you and yours will fair better than most and I believe you are correct. You will undoubtedly out live many billions in die off. I am sure there are many who are even better prepared, better off than you are and will last even longer. I am relatively certain that there are some who are so wealthy the can almost certainly guarantee the survival of their family and themselves.
Sounds to me like one hell of a lot of control... it's just not spread around very evenly.
I was using "humans" as a collective term, mainly in response to the idea of "we need to create a new economic model". Many are in the process of adjusting their own concepts of what wealth is in order to mitigate their own situation. This is reactive for the most part, which means that, in my case, my economics have evolved along with my perception of our collective situation. I have redefined for myself what is of value. Any feelings of being in control, outside of limited control of my own little world, would be delusional. An economy of any scale is a collective thing and will evolve out of the successes of those who survive. I don't consider the things we do to mitigate our individual or (small) community circumstances as creating an economy, yet a viable economy may well be the result.
"Developed world will not accept this unless you can guarantee that all or most of their wealth remains intact. In which case nothing has been accomplished."
They will accept something new as long as the old economic system is no longer working. I think things would have to crash pretty hard first. But nothing is going to happen while they still think they can push through with exponential growth.
That's about what I was thinking. Very rarely in history has it ever made any difference whether people accept what they get. Its not like various futures are laid out and you get to pick what is most acceptable to you.
Maybe when we were scattered groups on the savannah...but 6.8 billion people? Nature acts, and our reaction as a species is virtually predetermined. Individually there may be a little leeway, depending.
All their money is already doing something today, perhaps sub-optimally, but actively. From a stability perspective your view might help, but it won't make much of a difference on average. A few billion people would bump up in notional wealth a buck or two while a minuscule fraction of wealthy would become poor.
We can all be poor; we can't all be rich.
Paleocon-
It was best said in "Office Space"...by a Mr. Michael Bolton "No, you're working at Initech because that question is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean shit up if they had a million dollars."
!
There is no solution to Depletion that allows for continued growth.
Bingo.
Therefore, whatever paradigm we end up with will either limit growth deliberately (and there are some pretty good historical models of such paradigms) or allow for growth regardless, limited only by the misery and deprivation of the whole population and the steady devastation of the rest of the natural world.
Jupiter
"What's wrong?"
EARTH
"I've been diagnosed with cancer, it's a malignant Humanoma. I've had it for a while, but now it's really growing fast."
"It started in my Europe, and spread to my America but now it's spreading fast to my China and India."
Jupiter
"Can the Galactic Docs., remove it with a comet?"
Earth
"I don't know if I have enough time..., this Humanoma Carcinoma is really picking up speed..., it just may kill me first!!!"
Leduck
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell."
Edward Abbey
The Doomer's Lament
Once upon a when,
On this planet it may have been.
Life erupted from the ooze.
We weren't there, not asked to choose.
Live we will, if we can.
Die we must, we are but Man.
Hot and dry or wet and cold,
Hungry always if truth be told,
We fitted ourselves to nature's mold.
The loin roared to show his might.
Round the fire we huddled in fright.
Now Leo's throne belongs to us.
Our fight dijour-who's allowed on the bus.
In asphalt jungles, the alpha rules.
Those near the bottom are his footstools.
The alpha thinks, they are but tools.
The footstools think, "We aint mules."
In real jungle green and wet,
the alpha's life hangs on a bet.
He's whipped every monkey he's ever met.
The other's won't try him ,not just yet.
Age soon robs him of his bloom.
Not for long can he dodge his doom.
Nature works on many scales,
To Her mountians are but alpha males.
Nature's getting tired of us.
Soon she'll kick us off the bus.
Our time is short,doubt about it.
Her decision's made , we can't flout it.
The bus itself has played it's role,
We drove too close to times Black Hole.
Nature ranks our value less than cost,
but all my friend is not lost.
It's back to days cold and wet,
above all hungry, you bet!
But in the days when loins roared,
Of one thing rest assured.
We weren't BORED.
The roar of the loins made Malthus shudder.
Personally, I enjoy making roaring loins shudder. LOL. A too rare pleasure it seems, especially if you're into sustainable living.
Lee Rust nominated for best TOD comment ever.
there is absolutely no reason to expect that technology will yield a silver bullet solution
BS !!
Existing, mature technology exists for a BETTER quality of life with appropriate investments.
Transportation - Walkable neighborhoods, bicycling, Urban Rail and some electric trolley buses, battery trucks for short deliveries, electrified railroads for most inter-city transport, some agro-diesel for farm equipment that cannot be electrified (mainly harvest) and limited diesel trucking
Stationary power and heat - HV DC grid across continent, balancing out renewables & nukes (90% non-carbon grid doable with existing tech in North America) (wind, more hydro in Canada, small hydro in USA, geothermal, solar PV, limited biomass, lots of pumped storage). Biogas & wood for some heating but most heating from heat pumps. Conservation reduces demand, retail space shrinks back to 1950 levels (1/10th per capita today), efficient industry. Efficient appliances & lighting.
Not BAU, but better,
Alan
Alan, you're my hero.
When I first started here at TOD I thought that energy was going to be the biggest constraint, but I've changed my mind. Lack of wisdom is hands down the limiting factor.
Keep up the good work.
There will be a transition but it will not be smoothe or planned. A few million may survive worldwide. Mother
Nature has the power and I doubt that more successful and widely available technology will arrive in time.
Thank you for the compliment.
I think we all agree that BAU is going to die. When this realization begins to appear a panic response is, IMHO, likely. The USA has, in the past, done nearly incredible things when motivated strongly (WW II production & logistics are the best example).
I want to pre-position ideas and plans for the moment of panic (and make baby steps in the right direction till then).
Some straws in the wind. The UN's "Green Economy Initiative" (run under their Environmental Program) has contacted me for data and to clarify ideas and I am reviewing a first draft ATM. I made unsuccessful input into the jobs bill. Three speeches in DC last year. etc.
Just because it has not been done (yet) does not mean that it cannot be done.
Best Hopes,
Alan
PS: College graduates that keep bicycling after graduation will live longer (10+ years) and healthier lives.
PPS: Touching on Love Oregon's comments; my mantra is that "there is a BETTER way". As above, bicycling to work adds a decade to life expectancy (and better years as well). I am trying at cluster positives around the change and avoid, as much as possible, the negatives of "giving up".
Even to the closing "Best Hopes" that I coined a few months after Katrina in New Orleans.
"there is absolutely no reason to expect that technology will yield a silver bullet solution
BS !!"
I agree.
More accurate would be to say;
there is absolutely no reason to expect that there will ever be a gun nor a person to shoot the gun that can fire a silver bullet solution
Does this mean I don't have to worry about overpopulation anymore???
"Conservation reduces demand"
If you, as a consumer, conserves energy then what does the utility provider do with the spare capacity? We have been conserving energy for years and yet consumption has been increasing year on year at least until the credit crisis hit and demand destruction kicked in. If you want to save energy dont conserve have a financial crisis.
Alan,
I agree with you when you state
My statement that "there is absolutely no reason to expect that technology will yield a silver bullet solution" is in reference to those who believe that a singular technology will come along that will save the world - hence the phrase "silver bullet."
You called BS, but I can't quite figure to what extent you're actually arguing with the main post... this looks like a list of "silver BB's" rather than a "silver bullet", which seems to leave the original point at least partly standing. And it's troubling because the items seem headed for interminable delay - many of these BB's will incur (or have already incurred) nearly insurmountable political obstacles.
Obstacles seem to range from flaky NIMBY neuroses (weird that our so-called "democracy" gives absolute veto power to an insignificant handful of petty crackpots) over power lines, nuclear, wind, pumped storage, and maybe even solar; to the likely unwillingness of most people accustomed to suburban privacy and open space to be crammed and jammed into places dense enough (and thereby noisy, sleepless, airless, and stressful enough) to be 'walkable'; to what seems to be a sheer inability to run electric trolley buses (or anything else) in a manner such that the noon bus actually departs when the little hand and the big hand are both on the twelve.
Oh... then there are the obstacles yet to become political. For example, considerable numbers of forlorn bicycles with increasingly rusted chains and fittings and ever flatter tires still remain strewn about my neck of the woods, abandoned to the elements by December graduates harboring not the slightest intention of riding a bicycle again, not ever, come hell or high water. For now this seems not to be a big political issue (except in Australia, where columnists and bloggers routinely fulminate against bicyclists as an apocalyptic threat to ordnung.) But anyone trying to force those December graduates to ride bicycles again should be prepared to incur tea-party style political wrath...
Alan,
I am in almost total agreement with you, depending on the time span you have in mind.
There is no doubt in my mind that if we were to get started on the path you outline, and stay on it, we would not only be ok but just fine.
But I just can't see us making the decision, unless some sort of very large,very dark gray swan scares us into it, and fairly soon at that.Or maybe a series of really black but smaller swans might do the job.
Maybe a three month war with no oil, grain,coal, iron ore, or consumer trash moving on the oceans might do it-or it might just cause us to spend the money on a bigger navy.
What we need here in the states to wake everybody up is an Australian summer , maybe three in a row of the sort they've been getting lately.But as luck would have it, we got the exact opposite this winter.
Our problem is that we bond together in factions to look after ourselves.
In any given town, the lawyers of the left may utterly detest the lawyers of the right , who will reciprocate of course with all thier might.
But as soon as reforms are proposed that will cut into this parasitic professions spot at the trough, the left and the right will cleave together as one, and look after THEMSELVES .
Agree. Possibilities are there. But silver BB's not Bullets. Lots of wedges. Changes in values, leveraging knowledge, cooperation and political will. It starts in our own back yards, over the fence.
Keep up the good work.
Some of my all time favorite discussions of the future were in the articles by the physicist and population activist Charles Galton Darwin and in his 1952 book "The Next Million Years" The book is available in large libraries, through online book stores and as a free download.
He has not been neglected at TOD
http://www.theoildrum.com/search/google?cx=000874532052579887663%3Amezzm...
The history of modern humankind has undergone two major energy transitions, marked by the invention and development of agriculture and the discovery and exploitation of oil...The modern industrial era began in earnest in the late 19th century with the discovery of oil
This is highly unrealistic. The Industrial Revolution started with coal. The Industrial Revolution was well underway by the end of the 19th century - Oil didn't make a real difference until the 20th century.
at some point, the fossil energy supply will decrease and the type of economic growth that occurred during the beginning of industrialization will no longer be possible.
This too is highly unrealistic. Wind, solar, nuclear, etc can provide all the energy we might want. The next energy symbol will probably be the wind turbine.
The Industrial Revolution started with coal.
Yes, which is why I said the "modern" industrial era.
This too is highly unrealistic. Wind, solar, nuclear, etc can provide all the energy we might want.
I disagree. The net energy ratios for all of those technologies don't compare to conventional oil, natural gas, or coal.
You are absolutely correct on both points. And since the net energy ratios of all the alternatives combined won't replace oil, we are headed for a rapid collapse. And much sooner than most can imagine.
"The net energy ratios..."
OK, "all we might want" is infinite, so I agree that's out. But OTOH, no one in the USA bats an eyelash at spending around 11% of GDP on the fatuous pretense of providing useful medical care in the last month of life. No one bats an eyelash at squandering another substantial portion of GDP on the first month of life-that-will-never-be. In a scenario that's not at least BAU ultralite, virtually no one will be able to afford either of those two kinds of "care" anyhow. So there's nothing whatever to be lost by shutting them down and diverting the resources to the energy sector, should that be what it takes to avoid regressing to something akin to Mad Max.
Really, in the end it's not clear to me why 'we' couldn't have something resembling modern life with the energy sector at 20% or even 25% of the economy. Of course, as I implied elsewhere today, we'd simply have to shove some of our crackpots and fanatics (religious, primitivist, and otherwise) aside, but that can't be helped unless we intend all of us - including, ironically, those very crackpots and fanatics - to just roll over and die.
why I said the "modern" industrial era
By then the US was already industrialized. Further, we could have continued without oil. Oil was more convenient, and a bit cheaper, but hardly necessary.
The net energy ratios for all of those technologies don't compare to conventional oil, natural gas, or coal.
Sure they do. Wind has an E-RIO of at least 20 (actually, more like 50), and wind could provide the bulk of what we need. Solar is a bit lower, but at least 5, which is high enough. Nuclear is in the range of 50.
Timing is important, and the EROI ratios don't consider timing. On a "energy flow" (like cash flow) basis, the results are not good for wind, because of the big upfront investment required and long payback.
The EROI calculations also don't consider the whole system that has to be put in place to use these resources. We already have the oil and gas systems in place, but it will take quite a lot of energy to upgrade transmission lines and convert the auto fleet to electric.
Gail, you are just WRONG !
the results are not good for wind, because of the big upfront investment required and long payback.
The energy payback for wind turbines themselves is on the order of two years. Add externalaties (transport to site, grid expansions) and one would add months, perhaps even an extra year.
Three years (or less) energy payback is pretty good and will allow a transition in a timely manner.
Alan
The energy payback for wind turbines themselves is on the order of two years.
Vestas says the payback time for the turbines is 7 months.
Here's an article (edited by Cutler J. Cleveland) that gives a payback of less than 12 months: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Energy_return_on_investment_%28EROI%29,_e...
Given that Charles Hall got an E-ROI of about 20 with much, much smaller and older turbines, I think we can rely on these sources.
Alan, I think you hit the key point that the problem is largely one of logistics. The open question is whether we will gain sufficient motivation and vision in time to conquer the logistics issues. I am unconvinced that it will ever be "too late" overall -- it will simply be "too late" for some of the weakest/poorest at the point we decide to change.
I personally am pessimistic that we'll have a smooth transition versus a sharp crash, but though we may lack collective vision we can still act with personal vision (as you often do).
In country music it's said, "A little less talk, a lot more action."
If fuel prices double, why not just buy a Prius (which will reduce fuel consumption by 50%)? Or, if Priuses are suddenly back-ordered (because everyone else has the same idea), put in your order and carpool with one other person (which will reduce fuel consumption by 50%) until it comes??
If they double again, put in an order for a Volt (which will reduce fuel consumption by another 80%), and carpool in your old vehicle with 3 other people, or your Prius with one other person until it comes.
Carpooling - the horror.
-----
Ok, let's deal with problems.
A Prius is expensive.
It's only about $24K - that's less expensive than the average new US car, at $28K.
A big piece of the oil price savings is built into the front end cost.
A little of it is - a Prius maybe costs about $3k more than other comparable cars with similar size and options - something roughly in between a Corolla and a Camry.
You can buy a whole lot cheaper car.
That's true - you could buy a $12K very small car. Not as large, or as nice to drive, but it will get you there.
and the total of the car and gasoline price for the alternative will be less than the Prius + gasoline (unless gasoline is very expensive)
True. But, all in all that's not very much money. There's worry about people going broke because of gas prices. Here, we're talking about not that much money - less than people spend, on average, right now. On average, people buy $28K cars, and get about 22MPG. A Prius, at $24K, and 50MPG, would be much less expensive to run than the average car now. Gas could go to $6/gallon, and the overall cost of running the Prius would the same or less than the average car right now.
Why would this be a problem for people to afford?
What about premature obsolescence, which reduces the value of a car buyer's low-MPG trade-in?
A significant portion of new cars are bought in cash. Another large % of buyers could afford to throw in enough cash to offset any loss of trade-in, if they had to. The primary problem will be a lack of supply.
Carpooling only works if people who live beside each other work in the same place, on the same schedule.
Not at all. They only need to live and work somewhat near each other. Keep in mind that one only needs a 2-person carpool to cut costs by 50% - that's not hard to schedule. Also, keep in mind that the potential pool of partners is huge - just look around at how many people live within 2 miles of you: what % will work in the same direction as you do? Also, keep in mind the potential of online matching.
I find it absurd that people won't find a way to get to work, by bicycle, motorcycle, or carpool. The average commute is only about 16 miles...
Yeah, it'll take a little while to changeover. A good 20 years to substantially complete it even if we work faster than we are now.
Bicycling, carpooling, PHEV taxis..it'll take a lot of strategies.
I'm grateful that I can manage to be in a city with excellent electric rail, as I know you are.
There are many tens of millions of people in this country who are car dependent who cannot a ford a Prius, or even a 10,000 car right now.
I will harazd a guess that you think the average poor person makes fifteen dollars an hour or more.If so , guess again.
There are many tens of millions of people in this country who are car dependent who cannot a ford a Prius, or even a 10,000 car right now.
Of course - that's why they'll have to wait, and carpool in the meantime.
A Prius costs less than the average light vehicle. They'll just have to wait until used ones are available.
I am of the opinion that they cannot wait-that things are spinning out of control too fast, that motor fuel costs, combined with higher grocery costs, higher utitity costs, etc, will push them over the edge.
The positive feedbacks we are looking at are ugly indeed.
I don't expect anything like a recovery in the usual sense of the word-we're probably going to be lucky just to hang on to a functioning civil society over the next decade or two.
I'm a Darwinist myself, but I also have a very keen understanding of poverty and sympathy for people trapped in it thru no fault of thier own.That's most of them.
"They'll just have to wait" ain't gonna cut it -people with money tightening up may "just have to wait" another year before they trade in a perfectly good car or spend a few thousand on a week at the beach.
The bottom quarter or so of the working class in this country can't afford to get thier teeth fixed, or paint thier shack , or much of anything else-things that would be considered absolute necessities by people making forty grand are impossible luxuries.
Somehow I get the impression that very very few regulars here really know jacksxxt about being poor.
things are spinning out of control too fast, that motor fuel costs, combined with higher grocery costs, higher utitity costs, etc, will push them over the edge.
It's not happening yet - if you look at CPI statistics, inflation hasn't changed. You can argue that official inflation stats understate inflation (an argument I think is exaggerated), but the inflation counting methodology has stayed consistent.
The bottom quarter or so of the working class in this country can't afford to get thier teeth fixed, or paint thier shack , or much of anything else
And they also don't own cars nearly as much as those with more money - they already can't afford them. The rate of car ownership for the lowest quintile is much lower than for more affluent quintiles.
Further, ask yourself: how many poor folks that you know are driving pickups, SUVs or large cars (Crown Vic's,Lincolns, etc)? A lot of poor folks are smart about having a small fuel efficient car, but a lot aren't.
Finally, there's always carpooling - how many people complaining about fuel prices have actually tried it?
Often times they are stuck with the car they have-- even trading in their SUV or truck means having to pay fees for title transfer, or getting it smogged, or an increase in insurance policy. Those one time fees that you might think are no big deal may be too much for them to afford.
It simply might be more bearable to just keep paying the extra few dollars for more gas each time they add fuel to the car (not likely able to fill it up).
Sure you spend more over the long term, if you already have $0 extra cash from your paycheck after paying for rent, food and light, you are thinking of your survival right now, not about when your break even point on a new car will be years from now.
I have spent my life more in the company of poor people than in contact with the well to do.
I am conservative, but not the smug self righteuos and above all IGNORANT type ho talks about a new Cadillac in front of share cropper shacks.
Poor people do very often drive older , even ancient, fullsize dinosaurs.They drive these cars because such cars are so cheap to buy and maintain that even though they use a lot of gas, they are the cheapest transportation available , on a per mile basis, even when gas is three bucks or more,especially if they are driven relatively few miles.
People who talk blithely about carpooling have damn little experience with it, or else they tend to work for very large institutions that run on a fixed schedule, eiggt to fiveish sort of places,.Poor people have jobs that TAKE them all over FROM all over, and at the convenience of thier employers, not a carpool.
And they live on places far from public transport and the amenites of the happy city where everybody can walk to stores , restaurants, and jobs because housing in such communites is simply BEYOND THE REACH of the poor.
The calculus for several decades has worked out in such a way that by far the best and cheapest lifestyle has been available to the working poor via means of commuting in a clunker.
When every commuter tries to move into an apartment or rental house close to a major employer, rents there skyrocket-and landlords out in the boonies cut rents , so where does this leave the poor working jerk?
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, GOT THE TSHIRT PERSONALLY but fortunately not for long.But I know lots of people STUCK on this treadmill.
Scrooges comments about the jails and workhouses come to mind.
There is another model of the poor, the urban poor. Living in inner cities without a car and depending upon public transportation.
The race of the poor often determines where they are poor.
Alan
a new Cadillac in front of share cropper shacks.
I'm not talking about new ones bought by the dirt poor, though I have seen them bought by working class people who ought to know better.
Poor people do very often drive older , even ancient, fullsize dinosaurs.They drive these cars because such cars are so cheap to buy and maintain that even though they use a lot of gas, they are the cheapest transportation available , on a per mile basis, even when gas is three bucks or more,especially if they are driven relatively few miles.
You make my point for me - there's a lot of room for people to switch from fullsize dinosaurs to Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas of the same vintage, and cut their overall cost by 50%. Pickups and fullsize cars are a cultural thing in some places - they really don't make much sense.
People who talk blithely about carpooling have damn little experience with it, or else they tend to work for very large institutions that run on a fixed schedule, eiggt to fiveish sort of places,.Poor people have jobs that TAKE them all over FROM all over, and at the convenience of thier employers, not a carpool.
10% of commuting in the US is done via carpooling. A lot of people who complain about fuel costs just haven't tried it. Of COURSE it's inconvenient, but modern online ride-matching could work extremely well, if enough people demanded it. Heck, just a return to the culture of "hitching a ride" on the side of the highway would do it.
And they live on places far from public transport and the amenites of the happy city where everybody can walk to stores , restaurants, and jobs because housing in such communites is simply BEYOND THE REACH of the poor.
As Alan notes, many of the poor live in big cities. The reality: most people live in large metropolitan areas, and most people aren't dirt poor. Yes, Peak Oil will cause great misery for many rural poor - that doesn't mean the country will collapse.
The calculus for several decades has worked out in such a way that by far the best and cheapest lifestyle has been available to the working poor via means of commuting in a clunker.
Yes, Alan will attest that I've been telling people this for years on TOD. Still, most of them can carpool, and eventually get more efficient cars. Yes, that won't work for a small %, but it's a small %. Their misery is real, and important, and we should do something to help them. But...even if we don't, the country won't collapse.
Time flies but one more go here-a fifteen year old Corolla or Sentra is apt to seel for about three times as much as an old Impala or Crown Vic in comparable condition.
I muck around with cars regularly-for the last ten or fifteen years you could always find a dinosaur for nearly nothing in fairly decent running order.
A car that is not run a lot costs more in fixed overhead such as taxes , tags, insurance and depreciation than fuel.
Now this may be hard for somebody who does not actually drive old cars to understand , but you just can't save enough on gas to take on a car payment if you've got a running clunker, unless you drive a lot of miles.
I drive old cars, and I have at various times worked on cars for my daily bread.
I agree. There's no question: the older the car, the cheaper it is to run, until it structurally rusts out. And, yes, a 15 year old Corolla with low mileage will go for what, maybe $2.5k? (wild guess), which is more than some people can afford. I'm very familiar with this - we just got rid of our 1985 Corolla last year (sold it to a homeless guy for $5, who repaired it and used it to deliver food and get off the streets).
But, the point is this: most people have $2-3K to buy a car. 50% of all vehicle miles come from cars less than 6 years old - the % from 15-year old clunkers is small. Most people live in major metro areas, and most people aren't dirt poor. The rural deep poor deserve our empathy and help. But, if they can't get to work, employers will either send out vans to pick them up, or hire someone else - the economy certainly won't collapse.
I'd say that upping the monthly food-stamp allocation and dramatically expanding the cash for clunkers program would be a whole heck of lot cheaper, infinitely more effective, and a lot more moral than exterminating everyone in the Middle East.....
"Somehow I get the impression that very very few regulars here really know jacksxxt about being poor."
+1!
An old poster from a few months ago would have loved the line about not knowing about being poor.
I have never been poor in my life. I don't consider myself poor now, though most everyone else might consider me poor, at under 9,000 $US a year. I have a roof over my head, it is paid for, I have plenty of tools, books, and even some small amount of space to grow things.
I just ordered some Wheat, Jicama, Amaranth, and chard seeds. I am going to make out a little plot of the wheat seeds and white clover ala Mr. Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution. But instead of barley as the second crop I am thinking of something else, just have not decided yet. Likely fall crops like turnips, and spinach.
Yields can be dicey form year to year, but this yard can put out a lot of stuff.
No I am not poor. If I were poor, I'd have to have had someone else buy me those seeds.
But people can be poor in other things besides money. The biggest is poor in spirit.
Charles.
+2
A second to that! I've referred to myself as poor on occasion, being technically at 50% of the poverty level for income, but I'm still boggled sometimes at how nice our house is, how well we eat, and the amount of stuff we can afford.
that very very few regulars here really know jacksxxt about being poor.
I worked my way through school for 7 years (full time work + part-time school most of the time). I never worked for minimum wage, but I did work for minimum wage + a dime and 15 cents/hour. Lived in a mobile home, ate cheap, shopped thrift stores (I still do), etc.
I never felt poor, but I did stretch pennies for many years.
Poor ? Depends on your definition.
Alan
I've posted before about the documentary, Mountain Talk, about the people in southern Appalachia talking about when TVA came in and things started to change. One woman laughs about being 'poor'. "We didn't even know we were poor 'til the government came in and said we were."
Maybe it's the govt that decides who's poor ;-)
Nobody needs a Prius, and the Prius solves nothing for anybody in the long run. I don't get the whole thing about another car that burns about as much energy as any other car, and will be lucky to last 15 years anyway. Magically trade out every car on earth for Prius's and you just wind in the the same craphole of demand over production again in 3 years, and hardly a dent in CO2 or any other mess the whole fossil fuel for personal transport idea got us into.
People have feet for a reason, and bicycles are fine if you're in a hurry.
A Prius uses only 40% as much gasoline as the average US car. If everyone drove one, US oil consumption would drop by 30%, and imports would drop by 60%. That's pretty good.
For a little while its pretty good, but if you look at US oil consumption over the past century 30% increases in consumption occur regularly over fairly short time periods. I'm just saying if we all drove Prius's, we'd still burn through all the oil we could get our hands on. In itself, its just another car, and far from being a game-changer.
US oil consumption is now falling. There's very little chance it will grow again significantly.
A 60% reduction in fuel consumption is indeed a game-changer. OTOH, I agree that a greater reduction would be better - that's why I like the Volt, which gets us a 90% reduction.
why you like the Volt is why I like my bicycle - 100% reduction.
People who are not driving because of the cost of fuel and the poverty of their budgets would happily drive more if it cost less. Driving less is a temporary inconvenience for most people, and lower fuel prices or a big economic rebound would lead to pretty immediate reversion to old patterns of consumption, or at least that's my guess. But I really don't see either happening, so my not considering the Prius as a game-changer is kind of a moot point anyway.
My Girlfriend has a Honda Insight. It's a rough riding, gutless, piece of crap that gets the same gas mileage as my '60 Beetle did, and much less comfortably and sustainably. The car has gone through 3 warranty backed battery swaps already and when it happens again, hell, I don't know. I'll tear all the hybrid garbage out and I'll put a Rotex in it and get 100 mpg. It is indeed a pretty trick lightweight body. The rest is gingerbread.
In the tropics in season you can routinely buy a 1000 pounds of papayas or what have you( a truck load, mostly) for whatever you offer--20 bucks isn't uncommon. I could fuel this car for a long time on that. .
gets the same gas mileage as my '60 Beetle did
No, it doesn't. '60 Bugs got half the mileage. They were just better than the other stuff on the road, which were even worse.
and much less comfortably and sustainably.
'60 Bugs were go-karts. If you sneezed on them you could blow them off the road. You're looking back through a gauzy nostalgia haze.
I guess you're not factoring 3 5000 dollar battery swaps into the mpg.
The 60 beetle would mash the Insight. It's vastly more robustly built, which is obvious as people are still driving them. How many Honda Insights do you expect will be on the road in 2050?
As a mechanic, I can say that the electronics in modern cars across the spectrum are trouble right from the get-go. Too much complexity, too many things to potentially go wrong, too many branches in the diagnostic flowcharts...I know several people who have sold fairly new cars because they didn't trust them any more, and I think if I were back in the market I wouldn't buy anything newer than a 99 or so.
Maybe the Insight is a bad car - I've been hearing bad reviews. That doesn't make the 60 beetle a good one. It was a great, cheap, car for the time, but it was a gokart - aircooled, tiny and light, and really, really not robust. People can keep any car going for decades - that doesn't make it a good car.
A better comparison is a Prius: for 99.999% of them so far, the battery lasts for the life of the car, and the electronics (while apparently not absolutely perfect, based on what we're hearing about the brake system) are very reliable.
The Prius is also expensive, and a small efficient commuter car can be had for near half the cost. Earning the money to buy a more complicated car has a ecological impact too, you know--unless the efficiency savings justify the added costs, well, it's just a "fashion" statement.
The Prius is also expensive
The Prius is less expensive than the average new US light vehicle.
a small efficient commuter car can be had for near half the cost
Sure, if that's what you want - most people don't. The original Honda Insight was cheaper and got 60 MPG, but it really didn't sell.
OTOH, smaller, less expensive hybrids are coming out. On the 3rd hand, maybe what you want is an electric bike, which is the most efficient form of transportation possible (even better than a push-bike).
"Magically trade out every car on earth for Prius's and you just wind in the the same craphole of demand over production again in 3 years, and hardly a dent in CO2 or any other mess the whole fossil fuel for personal transport idea got us into."
-totally agree with that, it's just another economic growth idea, with a greenwash..
Prii and other high-mileage vehicles buy time for transition, mostly. Once you come to grips with the notion that we're going to use ALL the oil, then spreading it out over a longer period makes a lot of sense. Slow shifts are much easier for society to deal with, on aggregate and personal levels.
Gasoline needs to be $10 a gallon.
you got to get a new handle ?= )
I always read yours as 'my momi shot' and before breakfast that can just about gag me ?= ) Births are pretty messy.
In order to be less creeped out by it, I've decided that it's a global warming reference. As in Mother Earth. My mom is hot = Mother Earth is suffering from AGW.
Thanks ?= )
"Wind, solar, nuclear, etc can provide all the energy we might want. The next energy symbol will probably be the wind turbine."
For how many people? 10+ billion?
Sure. Humans produce maybe 12 terawatts of power, and there's a good 72 TW of wind power available, and 100,000TW(!!) of solar.
"The Industrial Revolution started with coal."
That was my first thought. How one can write an essay on energy transitions that leaves out the wood->coal transition is beyond me. That was the start of the industrial revolution. It makes more sense to call the oil transition a coal->oil transition than the start of the industrial revolution.
And Magnus is right below when he asks where electricity fits in. Sure, coal is the fuel for electricity right now, but in reality most of the world runs on electricity. The bigger question is whether we can transition from electricity running on stored solar power to electricity running on current solar power + nuclear (recognizing that wind, hydro, and biomass are just solar power in other forms). Or more immediately, from the most concentrated form of stored solar power we've found to less concentrated solar power + current solar + nuclear.
The heart of the matter, IMHO, affecting how successful transition to a new paradigm may be, is the degree to which cultural inertia will stymie technological, social and other changes (which many of us loosely label "political"). As a cultural anthropologist, I'm (slowly) trying to get my head around this problem. I think of culture (which I prefer to "paradigm", which is awfully formulaic, even structural) as being like an iceberg - most of it is unconscious, below the surface. I explored this “iceberg model of culture” in a 2008 presentation to our local peak oil group (the link is broken for the moment it appears, I'll repost when/if it gets fixed). I say that I’m proceeding slowly because a) I’m busy with my teaching and family, b) I’m not sure we can quickly draw parallels from other cases (e.g., Tainter’s work), c) the paradigmatic transition David argues we’re inevitably facing appears to be without precedent in our relatively short experience with complex, highly institutionalized societies, and d) the social sciences, let alone religious studies and other humanities fields, have barely begun to systematically engage the ways cultural inheritance intersects with our genetical inheritance system - i.e., to what degree are our species-wide predispositions toward competition, increased consumption, aggression, etc. are malleable vs. "hard-wired". Nate Hagens has explored a lot of this terrain.
In the context of the issues David raises, I think we need to focus on “religion”, broadly construed. I’d argue that the most exciting examples of attempts to change the social order are religious (e.g., various utopian/agrarian experiments), because religion engages these deep, unconscious levels of culture in ways that ideologies based on rationalist, Enlightenment science don’t. Also, much of social science as developed over the last two centuries is not immediately useful, for the most part, as it has focused largely on growth, progress and continuity, not abrupt change or regression.
Well said, L-O. Look forward to your link and further expansion of your thinking. Are you familiar with the documentary, What a Way to Go, where our cultural stories are examined?
I tend to agree with you. One can argue that the rise of Christianity within the decaying Roman/Greek civilization of about 1800 years ago was no less a "paradigm shift" than the technological changes David refers to. I think it is even more difficult for people today to understand the moral mindset of pre-Christian cultures (or pre Islam/Buddhism/Confucianist cultures) than to imagine decline/collapse in an age of growth. John Michael Greer has repeatedly suggested that it may be this type of shift that turns out to be the important one of our time, rather than a change in our sources of energy. I'm not sure whether I think such a thing probable, but it is food for thought.
Imho its electricity that is the game changer, not oil. Humanity mastering electricity were as important as farming and only second to mastering fire.
Simplistic believers that give any (convenient and optimistic) word from granted.
So, wind has an EROEI of 25 and most probably of 50, ah?
Where does these figures come from, apart from a biased industry? What is the energy content therein in detail? Have you double checked any of the detailed figures of the invested energy, to be sure of that figure of wind EROEI = 50?
Because if wind energy EROEI is 50 and the life cycle for a wind generator is 25 years, that mathematically means that ALL the energy invested by all concepts and means is recovered in just 6 months of operation.
I do not know the reason then why:
a) The wind energy industry still asks for subsidies and threatens the governments from which they receive subsidies or premium tariffs or tax holiday or tax rebates to be responsible for tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs to be lost. Spain has now some 14% of their national energy consumption from wind, with close to 20 GW of installed power (and also 3% of the national energy consumption from solar PV, with 3.8 GW of installed power) and the industry still sucks from mom fossil State breasts, and cries every time the exhausted government threats with retiring the breast forever, to be so adult.
b) Out of the 158 GW of installed power, more than 90 percent are installed in countries which favour subsidies, offer premium tariffs or give special fiscal treatments from a fossil fuelled society, evidently, from its economy (ergo energy) surplus.
c) The wind industry has not started a breeding program to self serve their own industry first with all the energy inputs required and use the huge excess of net energy, either directly or through vectors, to boost the growth of this type of energy systems to replace the dwindling fossil fuels systemms as soon as possible. With an EROEI of 50, the acceleration rate must be impressive.
I would recommend a review of wind energy EROEI’s, a little bit more skeptical of given figures from "experts", sometimes circular sources, a little bit more critical and a little less gullible. And not to give EROEI, even if it is an important and clarifying concept, the last word in energy feasibility and sustainability for a given source in a given society.
Something must be wrong in the maths, if oil in the States, for instance, has an approximate EROEI of 20, wind energy has one of 50 and the fossil fueled society still subsidizes wind.
Pedro from Madrid
I believe that the higher EROEI numbers (I am not sure) come from the salvage value after 25-30 years.
The towers should last for 2 generations of WTs with just regular paint and perhaps a few welds. After that, they can be recycled (recycled steel can be done with electric arc and with far less energy than iron ore).
The worn out turbines themselves contain easily recycled copper, steel and aluminum. The current blades are a likely waste (the blades could be made out of Ti or Al or Al-Li alloys that could be recycled for generations).
Alan
Keep in mind that energy costs aren't the most important input for manufacturing. The difference between an E-ROI of 20 and 50 means that the input energy varies between 2% and 5% of output: this isn't very important.
Skilled labor is the important thing.
And don't you think that skilled labor is one of the major energy inputs? A skilled engineer working in the wind industry is usually a 30,000 watts average power machine. Or how do you allocate his/her energy expenses when travelling in a fossil fueled car from his/her home to his/her work and when is taking a plane for a meeting in another country?
And don't you think that skilled labor is one of the major energy inputs?
No, I don't think that makes sense.
A skilled engineer working in the wind industry is usually a 30,000 watts average power machine
I'm not clear what you mean. If we average out all energy used in the US per capita, and ignore the difference between primary energy and electricity, we still get only about 15KW, 50% of that figure.
Humans are an end in themselves, so you can't count most of their food, personal housing and transportation, which is for convenience, presentation, etc. If humans' only purpose was to be an input to manufacturing (of products to be used by aliens, I guess) they'd be warehoused in dormitories next to the factory, living on rice and beans, which would require about 5% as much.
Really, you can only count the marginal amount used in the pursuit of their profession. They can work on laptops that consume less than 100 watts, in offices lit by about 50W of flourescent bulbs.
Long distance air transportation is very rarely really necessary. People do it for competitive sales advantage, or because they enjoy it. In any case, it would be a small % of overall manufacturing energy consumption (air travel is not that bad - about 50 MPG - it's only the distances involved that make it add up).
I respectfully disagree, Nick.
When I mean 30,000 Watts I mean a person higher than national average. My last calculations of the per capita in the US were closer to 20,000 W average power per capita than to the 15,000 W p/c you indicate. However, in any case, the average income (and average expenditure, including energy, as well) of those working in a high tech industry, like solar PV or wind energy factory, is very likely to be over the average. That is the figure and it is not important if it is 30,000 or 25,000 W p/c.
Of course I MUST count everything in the basket, if I do not want to make myself tricks playing solitaire at the EROEI game. Humans, as such as 100 Watts per capita average power machines, from the metabolic point of view (in hunter-gatherer mode), but these humans are obviously not capable to produce solar PV modules or 5 MW wind generators, are they? This is the unsolved question about LCA and EROEI current analysis. How to allocate all and every bit of indispensable energies needed in a lot of factors in a fossil fueled society to secure production of this so called renewable systems.
Therefore, if you count only the marginal amount used in their profession, you are falsifying the figures. (I am I and my circumstances. Ortega y Gasset) They could not produce a single PV module or wind generator if they did not have courier services a costly and expensive telecom and data network; a powerful fleet to bring row materials from all over the world, notary publics to give promoters and owners the legal security to socially exploit a plant for 25 years; No one single module, if Tedlar is not produced in China and brought to the assembler door by an efficient (fossil fueled) transport; if engineers, living 30 miles from the factory can not go in their cars (fossil fueled) to the factory. If they can not cover their children’s schools which use school buses (fossil fueled). No one single PV module will be produced if the garbage is not collected every night by a fossil fueled automated truck, in the factory and at every home of every PV factory employee, obviously fossil fueled. If gallium is not mined and collected in a remote place in a remote country, by people with similar personal aspirations, today only satisfied, if a fossil fueled society is working like a Swiss clock. You will not install and put into production a single PV module or a wind generator, if the advanced financial services will not prepare adequate project financing schemes for a considerable volume of the renewable outputs. And imagine how much energy consumes a financial skyscraper of Lehman Brothers and the people inside, even if you count only those devoted to the Clean Energy Fund division (at least before they crashed)
You can not count, at your convenience, the energy spent by a 100 tons crane to install or repair a wind generator, only when it is necessary to these purposes. If you want to have a honest calculation, part of the energy of the factory of cranes, not only for the production, but also for the maintenance of this factory and supply of its spare parts would have to be added. At present, most of the biased calculations solve this n derivative problem by using “energy equivalents” and this is, in my opinion, very reductionist and interested. The weakest link of the long chain of supplies in a modern society is what it counts. If the failure of just one link of this complex process, makes impossible the production, installation, operation or maintenance of the NON RENEWABLE SYSTEMS, all the energy costs (usually heavily fossil fuel based) of this link will have to be included. In summary, you would have to count with all the indispensable energy expenses of a society needed to be able to produce a given system. This is how a society works in each of the evolution stage. And PV modules and wind generators can only be produced in very, very energy consumerist societies (mainly fossil fueled)
Or otherwise, it may happen that you are given FOR GRANTED (and therefore you allow yourself to discount from the cake all the above energies, with a pure financial approach that is not suitable to these calculations in my opinion) that our present consumerist world society (that consuming an average of 2,000 Watts power per capita at world level for 6.7 billions, from which 80% of it has a fossil fuel origin, is going to continue as if anything would disturb it. And this is not true. Precisely, we are talking about the foreseeable gradual and irreversible lack of the basic pre-requisite of this society: the energy, most of it today being fossil and if the renewable sources could take over, breed themselves and continue, with a huge surplus of net energy this wasteful way of living. And when talking about energy, the essential pre-requisite of all other goods and services, and to replace it by another source, conventional accountability of flat Earth economy, on how to define and allocate expenses, does not fit with real world.
Modern renewables only work in a modern society, which is undoubtedly based and pinpointed on a fossil fuel scheme. For the sake of clarity, we should all start acknowledging that solar PV or wind energy systems ARE NOT RENEWABLE ENERGIES. Just non renewable systems able to capture a portion of the energy of renewable sources. Why then, you should discount all the above listed, complex, but indispensable energy requirements?
Just as an example, try to manufacture PV modules in an agricultural society, which does not depend on fossil fuels
This looks like a difficult discussion.
Let me repeat: humans don't exist to serve their energy systems. Energy systems exist to serve humans. We can't count most of the energy consumed by humans as an input to energy systems, because that consumption is for the sake of living a good life. If all we need is to maintain servants to the energy economy....well, that's a very spartan existence, indeed. Think in terms of Marx's vision of a proletariat reduced to the very minimum of existence.
People like Charles Hall, who analyze energy inputs, certainly do include all of the energy inputs involved in manufacturing, transportation and installation etc, including the cranes (nobody counts only part of the cranes).
The fact is, if you go over the costs of manufacturing, energy will only be a small portion of their costs, and most of it will be electricity. It's not hard to go back a few iterations and look at the energy inputs of their suppliers (and package delivery couriers, financiers, etc). Those inputs become very small, very quickly, relative to the primary inputs in the first or 2nd level.
Modern renewables only work in a modern society, which is undoubtedly based and pinpointed on a fossil fuel scheme.
I'm not quite sure what your point is here. Sure, modern society uses fossil fuels, and is dependent on them in the short term. But, there's nothing magical or irreplaceable about fossil fuels. They can and will be replaced by wind, solar, nuclear, etc.
Air transport is the most difficult area in which to eliminate fossil fuels, but 1) it's not impossible to power air transport without fossil fuels, just inconvenient and somewhat more expensive, 2) air transport is very nice to have, but it's certainly not essential, and 3)We're going to have fossil fuels for many decades, should we want them, albeit at lower levels than today - we have time to figure out how to replace the small % of FF consumption which is most difficult to do.
Nick,
My comments interspaced.
(N) This looks like a difficult discussion.
(PP) I agree. Talking on EROEI or net energy is always a difficult question.
(N) Let me repeat: humans don't exist to serve their energy systems. Energy systems exist to serve humans. We can't count most of the energy consumed by humans as an input to energy systems, because that consumption is for the sake of living a good life. If all we need is to maintain servants to the energy economy....well, that's a very spartan existence, indeed. Think in terms of Marx's vision of a proletariat reduced to the very minimum of existence.
(PP) Not needed the repetition. I know that humans THEORETICALLY should not exist to serve their energy systems. It happens, however, that sometimes humans do not behave as expected and end serving their theoretical servers.
I was not trying to count ALL the energy consumed today (mostly fossil and I hope you agree with that) as an input to the modern renewable systems. It is enough if we agree that the available fossil fuel energy systems are indispensable to make modern renewables minimally feasible to cope with the present gigantic consumption.
(N) People like Charles Hall, who analyze energy inputs, certainly do include all of the energy inputs involved in manufacturing, transportation and installation etc, including the cranes (nobody counts only part of the cranes).
(PP) I have had some discussions with Charles Hall in this respect and I know very well his methods and analysis. He has been somehow my master in realizing/suspecting that some energy systems may have a lot of hidden energy input costs and has encouraged me to publish the abundant data base we have now in Spain as a learning curve of modern renewables, something I will do with pleasure when I have some more time.
(N) The fact is, if you go over the costs of manufacturing, energy will only be a small portion of their costs, and most of it will be electricity. It's not hard to go back a few iterations and look at the energy inputs of their suppliers (and package delivery couriers, financiers, etc). Those inputs become very small, very quickly, relative to the primary inputs in the first or 2nd level.
(PP) I am not so sure that iterations are so easy to be calculated and I am not so convinced that FEW iterations are enough to end with the total energy costs, in this very much interrelated society (complexity increases the iterations and if you have read Tainter, will have to agree that in reaching to a certain degree of complexity in a given society stage of development, some movements trying to save energy or money, may end in fact in additional burdens and extra costs. This is very well known since the Babel Tower myth.
Modern renewables only work in a modern society, which is undoubtedly based and pinpointed on a fossil fuel scheme.
(N) I'm not quite sure what your point is here. Sure, modern society uses fossil fuels, and is dependent on them in the short term. But, there's nothing magical or irreplaceable about fossil fuels. They can and will be replaced by wind, solar, nuclear, etc.
(PP) This is precisely the central point of my argument.
When humans were hunter gatherers (that is, human beings living like a 100 Watts average power per capita machine ≈ 3,000 Kcal/day from the pure metabolic and thermodynamic point of view), sun and food (animal + vegetal) was the only energy input. They could not even dream of going from San Francisco to New York in 6 hours. That was this stage. But they were not dependent on any other energy source.
When Prometeus stole the fire to the Gods some 300 to 500,000 years ago, as per the anthropologists, they jumped, as society to another stage in the range of the 150 Watts average power per capita (Earl Cook et al). First time when humans used (apart from naturally received sun) exo-somatic energy. They used wood as energy source and fire as automatic, self multiplier of this energy system.
They kept stable in this level for all this period, until Neolithic, when they learnt to domesticate animals and orderly grow plants with seeds (agriculture) in Jarmo, some 7 to 9,000 years ago. They jumped then to a society of humans behaving like some 300 Watts average power per capita machines.
Each of the previous steps of an increase availability of energy was accompanied in parallel by jumps in human population, usually proportional to the increase of available energy.
The next big step took place in 18-19th Century with the simultaneous invention of steam machines and after a fast degradation of wood availability, the need to go to coal. The first time humans exploited (massively and from the energy usage point of view) the third dimension, the lithosphere apart from the exploitation of biosphere (traditional renewable systems: sun, wind, hydro-mechanical and wood and biomass)
The jump in energy consumption was spectacular and German citizens, at the end of XIX century behaved like some 3,000 Watts of average power per capita machines. But energy usage multiplied n-fold, not only because the increase in energy availability and consumption per capita, but also by the increase in population, acting this as a follower of energy availability & technical progress combined as a driver in iterative form.
Internal combustion engines and liquid fuels (namely oil) came to accelerate. Today, Western countries move from 6,000 Watts average power per capita machines for the Europeans or 12,000 Watts average power per capita for North Americans. World average power per capita consumption for the 6.7 billions is 2,200 Watts. Population went in little more that one century, as you may very well know, from 1 to 6.7 billion, in this evil iteration with energy availability and technical progress.
Hydroelectric energy started to develop in late 19th. Century, complementary to other energy sources. Nuclear energy started by mid of last century and has also kept, ever since, a secondary role in energy supply.
After this long introduction to the different energy sources, now we come to the modern renewable, and as I said, they are not ‘renewable’ but rather non renewable systems, able to capture a portion of energy from renewable sources. But they are neither ‘modern’ but in the concept of photovoltaic effect and its technical complexity, because sun is the oldest and most vital source of energy in this planet and wind is known and used since at least probably five thousand years.
The interesting thing to relate to EROEI, however, is the interdependency of some sources of energy with respect to others. This is precisely the point where I disagree on your comment:
But, there's nothing magical or irreplaceable about fossil fuels. They can and will be replaced by wind, solar, nuclear, etc.
Because it very much depends on the context and purposes of the energy usage.
If you look to wood and biomass, you must accept that for the early societies and their given population levels and per capita energy consumption, this source DID NOT NEED of any other energy source, nor depend of it.
Domestication of animals and use of agriculture as new energy sources, for that given stage of human development (still today working in many world societies) only needed biomass, as a dependent energy source of this other new energy source, but these soccieties can live at their known levels WITHOUT the need of fossil fuels, for instance.
We go to coal now and observe that coal replaced in about 5 decades to biomass and animal force as the main energy source for more humans that never until then, even it depended, somehow and mainly in the initial stages, on wood (pillar in coal mines, rail beams, building beams, etc.), but in a later stage of development, they did not them so much. Coal as a main energy source demonstrated that could boost population and sustain, at least for decades, a continuous urban growth, economic growth, infrastructures growth, etc. And that was able to surpass biomass in the global supply, even a little bit dependent.
Oil took the relay to coal and was even much faster in replacing coal as the main energy source, than cola did it with biomass. Of course, at the beginning, the dependence of coal was obvious an visible: the first oil tanks were moved by Rockefeller with steam locomotives. Steel and pipes were made (and still are made) in coal furnaces and mills fed with coal. But nobody would argue that oil is the most versatile source of energy of all the reviewed ones, at least to sustain for decades a spectacularly growing population, with spectacular increases of per capita uses of energy, increase mobility, infrastructure creation, etc.
Even if depending of coal, oil helps more to coal extraction than vice versa. These energy sources do not need to demonstrate that they were able to create the gigantic infrastructures you see today worldwide, because THEY ARE THERE. They do not need to demonstrate that these energy sources were able to deal with the increasing complexity of our societies.
However, I do have serious doubts that hydropower, nuclear power and modern renewables will have such a capacity. There is no equidistance among them; there is an asymmetric interdependency with fossil fuels in the capacity and ability to keep our present world society up and running. This is where I think we have the biggest discrepancy. You give for granted a sort of “automatic replacement” of fossil fuels by modern renewables when required. And this will need much more that good will.
Hydro has been present and known for more than one century. It is very useful quite clean and with a high efficiency conversion factor potential/kinetic. But has been unable to give a relay to fossil fuels in more thna a century. Big world basins are already occupied in a 25% and the primary energy share of hydro is just a 3-4% of our present gigantic consumption. It does not seem that this will replace the present level of consumption (2,200 Watts average power per capita, times 6,7 billions, just with the present unbalanced world, full of poor and with few affluent)
Nuclear energy has been present for more than half a century in our lives. And has been very asymmetrically dependent on fossil fuels and still is. Nuclear energy represents today only the 6 percent of the world primary energy. The approximate 440 nuclear existing power plants in the world have an average age of more than 20 years, being the North American plants the oldest, together with the exUSSR plants. They will need a replacement of not less than 90 only in the US within three decades from now. And about 300 plants to be replaced worldwide (unless extensions are granted automatically detrimental to the security) in 35 years from now. The one-two plants approved by president Obama are a drop in an ocean of necessities, just to stand still, not to talk to replace other much more important and contributing energy sources. There are no reasons to believe in an automatic replacement with nuclear, taking into account the limited existence of proven reserves, at reasonable extraction energy costs, even for pure replacement.
And with modern renewables is the same. They can hardly reach today 1 percent of the primary energy consumption needs. There are no signs in the horizon that they can replace fossil fuels in an automatic mode or driven by price raises (price raises for everybody, including the so called renewable, which are not renewable systems). After more than 500 years of use and knowledge of how to harness wind for energy (apart from navigation, much, much older), they still heavily relay in fossil fuels (steel for the towers or infrastructure, trucks for transport, factories consuming electricity from mostly coal, mobility of the employees, technology depending on a whole society working like a Swiss clock, basically with fossil fuel energy, etc.).
From the 150 GW of wind energy installed power, more than 90 percent are fully subsidized by developed countries with a fossil fuel based society, by using the (fossil energy) surplus of this society. And there are signs, for instance in Spain, where 14% of the electricity is from wind, whose promoters threaten the already exhausted government with a lock out if they do not keep the subsidies and premium tariffs schemes sine die, or at least to an uncertain horizon. Even worst with solar PV or solar thermal (CSP). Already 3 percent of the electricity consumed in Spain comes from solar PV, the highest penetration in the world. But has been built by heavily subsidized schemes, with high premium tariffs, from an (until now) affluent fossil fueled society. No one single MW would have been installed if no high premium tariffs (30 to 47 cents of Euro/kWh would have been granted for 25 years with the CPI update included.
This is what I call a heavily pinpointed energy system. And it is obviously pinpointed by a versatile, powerful, concentrated type of energy: fossil fuels. Should any of the developed, affluent countries retire the premium tariffs (sign of fossil fuel surpluses or available net energy for other purposes) and the installations will collapse worldwide.
Modern renewable systems are, in my opinion, far from having granted an automatic replacement clause to the fossil fuels.
The development of a coal based society and surpassing within 50 years to the biomass based society, while increasing at the same time the volume available, did not need subsidies from biomass.
The development of an oil based society and surpassing within 40 years of the coals based society, while increasing at the same time the volume available, did not need subsidies from coal or biomass. Today, on the contrary, oil heavily subsidizes the extraction and transport of coal and subsidizes the extraction and use of biomass (mechanized agriculture and power saws to cut trees, for instance)
More than 50 years have elapsed since the discovery of the photovoltaic effect and more than 500 years since utilization of the wind energy and they are still claiming that they need to continue breastfed from mom oil and grand-mom coal to become adults and self sufficient. I do not see clearly these wind and solar PV babies, already 50 years old, with energy and power and versatility enough to take the relay of the other supporting sources. A clear asymmetric interdependence of the various energy sources.
“We all are equal, but some more equal than others”. (Animal Farm. Orwell)
I hope I have clarified my points now.
Yes, wind and solar power are still installed using diesel transportation. And, yes, they both get financial subsidies.
But, that doesn't really tell us anything. Every form of energy (wood, coal, oil or modern renewables) when it's new, by necessity is installed and maintained initially by it's predecessors. It's just a matter of size: as long as a new energy regime is small, it's very inconvenient for it to power itself. When it supplies a majority of the power in the system, then it will supply a majority of it's own power inputs. This idea that a new power source should provide it's own inputs is very arbitrary - it comes from energy geeks who are worrying about E-ROI, and no one else cares about it.
Wind power doesn't get much in the way of subsidies, at least in the US. Wind power subsidies are arguably much lower than those received indirectly by oil. Again, energy inputs aren't the most important - skilled labor is. Wind power still needs a bit more upfront skilled labor than does coal, but in the large scheme of things this difference is very small.
Yes, wind power is still relatively small. But, there are no physical limits to it's growth (though some countries have local resource problems). In the US it's providing more than 40% of new electrical generation, and it could easily provide 100% in 2-5 years.
Solar is more expensive, but it's cost continues the steady decline seen for the last 30 years - it clearly will get there.
Yes, wind and solar are still a bit more expensive than old, dirty coal plants (excluding external costs like CO2 and other pollutants), but they're already more than cheap enough to run an industrial society, and they continue to get cheaper.
now we come to the modern renewable, and as I said, they are not ‘renewable’ but rather non renewable systems, able to capture a portion of energy from renewable sources.
This doesn't make sense. I think perhaps the crucial point here is this: there isn't any fossil fuel that is required to build wind power. FF is still much larger than renewables, and so FF is used to install and maintain renewables, but this is transitional - it isn't necessary.
I have had some discussions with Charles Hall in this respect and I know very well his methods and analysis. He has been somehow my master in realizing/suspecting that some energy systems may have a lot of hidden energy input costs and has encouraged me to publish the abundant data base we have now in Spain as a learning curve of modern renewables
In other words, Charles is open to the idea, but would like you to provide some data to back it up. It's not proven until you do, and I think you'll be surprised by what you find.
More later...
Thanks Pedro,
Enjoyed your narrative. Lots in it, but I do have a bit of problem with the relay metaphor. It makes for good story telling but might obscure the picture some. The visual that popped in my mind was more like a continuous run with each new runner of the relay actually picking up and carrying all the earlier runners piggyback rather than just passing the baton. In the case of fossil fuels at least it appears they piggybacked runners take turns doing the carrying with oil having the longest turn. This percent of time carrying the load might be applied to all the piggybacked runners but that seems to muddy things more than I like, maybe not though.
In the case of fossil fuel you have the big diesel/electric coal mining machines produced in plants with coal fired electricity with coal brought in by diesel powered trains and on and on. Very much an alternating scheme of runners carrying one another at different points for longer and shorter duration of the race.
That said, you are absolutely correct that no new runner has begun to pick up and carry the enormous load that the fossil fuel combo has brought into the race. It is a troubling picture.
no new runner has begun to pick up and carry the enormous load that the fossil fuel combo has brought into the race.
Wind has indeed begun to pick up the load. Wind provided 42% of new electrical generation in the US last year. It could provide 100% very easily in 2-4 years.
When you visualize the percent of time each runner carries the full load of our societies' consumption I don't know that wind rivals wood just yet...I'd love to some ambitious, but honest and as informed as possible animator create such a clip, fossil fuels carrying time dwarfs all others right now and the inroads into that have been slow in coming.
I agree that it would be very, very desirable to have wind be larger.
It's already large enough to be able to provide whatever we need in just 2-4 years: the barriers are only political - the resistance is from those whose careers and investments would be threatened.
Nick,
Even if we have disagreements on this subject, I appreciate your mood and courtesy. Let me go deeper and produce some comments interspaced:
(N) Yes, wind and solar power are still installed using diesel transportation. And, yes, they both get financial subsidies. But, that doesn't really tell us anything. Every form of energy (wood, coal, oil or modern renewables) when it's new, by necessity is installed and maintained initially by it's predecessors. It's just a matter of size: as long as a new energy regime is small, it's very inconvenient for it to power itself. When it supplies a majority of the power in the system, then it will supply a majority of it's own power inputs. This idea that a new power source should provide it's own inputs is very arbitrary - it comes from energy geeks who are worrying about E-ROI, and no one else cares about it.
(PP) I do not agree. Wood did not need subsidies from other sources, but human force and skills. Coal was only very little helped by its predecessor, wood. It very soon took the relay of wood and passed it in about 50 years in volume and then, immediately helped wood to be overexploited (coal steam sawmills). The problem of renewables (solar and wind) is that they are known and have been used since millennia, but had never had the opportunity to power the consumption level of modern society in its modern versions (PV + CSP * wind generators). The idea that a new power source is automatically aimed to become a majority one, has not been fulfilled (and I do not think is going to be ever fulfilled) by, for instance, hydro. It is not only a matter of size, but also, in my opinion, a matter of versatility and suitability, power density to perform given functions, and of course, EROEI.
(N) Wind power doesn't get much in the way of subsidies, at least in the US. Wind power subsidies are arguably much lower than those received indirectly by oil. Again, energy inputs aren't the most important - skilled labor is. Wind power still needs a bit more upfront skilled labor than does coal, but in the large scheme of things this difference is very small.
Yes, wind power is still relatively small. But, there are no physical limits to it's growth (though some countries have local resource problems). In the US it's providing more than 40% of new electrical generation, and it could easily provide 100% in 2-5 years.
(PP) I respectfully disagree. I do not know any country that has developed wind power (modern wind generators) without either subsidies, premium tariffs or tax holidays/fiscal benefits. And this includes the United States with basically tax schemes.
I also disagree that there are no upper limits to wind. All winds in the world, at all latitudes (with ¾ of the world covered by oceans) and all heights (from 0 to almost 100,000 ft) contain about 70 times the energy consumed today by humans, which is about 12,000 Mtoes/year.
The capture limit of a perfect wind generator with perfect blades is 59% of the energy contained within the wind stream crossing the circle of the rotating blades. Trying to cope, for instance 1% of all world winds will be an impossible task and will cover only 0.7 of the energy consumed today.
There is plenty of energy contained in winds at 30,000 feet that will never be harnessed by man. Plenty of it in sea winds beyond the offshore possibilities; plenty of it in polar latitudes. Plenty of it dispersed at speeds that can neither be harnessed. Plenty if it at speeds beyond the upper working limits of the parks that force generators to put the blades in flag position (= zero energy). There is plenty of it in the Amazonia, in national parks in Spain or in mountains, to which the access is not viable, either because they are protected or too much cliff. It is not how much is the theoretical upper limit (which exists, of course), but the real possibilities.
Let me give you an example. Even the States has already passed to Spain in wind energy with 35 GW installed power, it gets only 2% of the electricity consumed nationwide (which is much less than the primary energy). Spain, with 18 times less surface than the States, and 14 times less energy consumption, has got 14% of the national electricity consumption, with 20 GW.
We discuss every day the upper limits and have analized them with much more detail than you in the States. Spain is a country INVADED by wind farms, wherever you look at. Iberdrola, the biggest power utility, believes that our PHYSICAL upper limit might be in about 50 GW. Of course, Greenpeace says that we can satisfy several times our needs in primary energy just with wind. I tend to agree with Iberdrola.
The promoters, started installing in class 6 fields with about 3,000 nominal hours a year, including some 3,500 hours/year in Canary islands with exceptional trade winds. Today, promoters, headed by the Asociación Empresarial Eólica (the Asssociation of Wind Enterprises) are struggling to get 2,000 hours wind fields and in some cases 1,800 hours.
The adequate fields are not wherever one wishes, but very special places and locations: Gibraltar Strait, mountain passes, hill edges or river basins specials wind ducts. A range of wind generators in the edge of a mountain giving X, when placed in the very edge, may generate less than half (exactly with the same equipment power) just 100 m. Below that landmark. This is real life, not theoretical.
The Spanish government has fixed already a limit to some 26 GW, tired of financing and subsidizing wind parks promises with the alibi that investments of today will give them self-sufficiency “tomorrow”. The industry is desperately asking the government to raise it to 40 GW. They publicly accept they will be happy if the government keeps the subsidies to that level, which is very, very far from being able to cope with the Spanish primary energy (not to talk about the energy costs of energy storage and energy costs of mediation devices or carrier systems).
Finally, when you mention
Wind power subsidies are arguably much lower than those received indirectly by oil
You are committing a very common mistake, in taking for granted that an oil society is financing (or even worst, heavily financing) the oil prices. This is a very common economicist approach, very much liked by superficial environmentalists, as a valid argument. But is far from being thermodynamically possible. An energy system can never subsidize itself. The surplus of a fossil fueled energy can not be considered, strictly speaking, a subsidy, in the same form an employee can “subsidized his son or another person, but can not “subsidize” himself. I would have accepted that a fossil fueled society, producing a lot of energy surplus (high EROEI), that can be transformed in economic measures or values, like activities heavily taxed, like gasoline or diesel consumption for cars, is perhaps subsidizing kerosene for civil aviation, but generalizing that a fossil fueled society subsidizes oil is a terrible oxymoron. I hope you understand this.
(N) Solar is more expensive, but it's cost continues the steady decline seen for the last 30 years - it clearly will get there.
Yes, wind and solar are still a bit more expensive than old, dirty coal plants (excluding external costs like CO2 and other pollutants), but they're already more than cheap enough to run an industrial society, and they continue to get cheaper.
(PP) It is not a problem of being more expensive in economic terms. The big question mark is to know and realize if solar PV or CSP systems or wind power systems will one day be able to cope with all the present functions taken and carried out by a 6.7 billions times 2,200 Watts average power power capita. If they will be versatile enough, concentrated enough, self bred enough, if they will be able to last the nominal 25 years given for granted and if after that, they will be replaced by themselves, when already the breeding functions work perfectly. If they will be able to move the mining machines to obtain the minerals, metals and so needed to replace the NON RENEWABLE SYSTEMS called renewable energies. Or if they will be able to replace the whole world existing infrastructures (not only those of the United States, because the world is terrible interconnected and interdependent).
I am afraid that your wishes for solar PV to become in a steady decline are far optimistic and not sustained in reality. All the calculations made by this industry in Spain (I have helped to install some 30 MW of solar PV plants with different technologies) are based in that assumption and in the dream to reach the so called “grid parity”. They seem to forget or fail to realize that if reaching to grid parity, is probably because the fossil fueled society in which they are heavily underpinned (apparently without solution) will be in a terminal stage and be unable to keep maintaining the solar PV installations.
Photovoltaic effect has been invented more than half a century and is still heavily dependent on the fossil fuel society. I have not seen so much progress, even I have installed PV arrays in telecom remote systems more than 30 years ago (TV repeaters or microwave devices for telecommunications).
I am now in close contact with Chinese manufacturers, leading R&D and cost reduction programs. As you can imagine and I imagined already, they admit they are in the asymptotic part of the cost reduction curves and every bit of gain in cost, it costs to them huge investments (the principle of increasing complexity). They are working in all fields: mono, policrystaline, thin film, nanotubes, organic, titanium dioxide, etc. I do not know where you get your optimism from, frankly speaking.
We get here in Spain modules at 1.16 €/Wp. Many things can not change; thickness of tempered glass (3.5 mm) to avoid fractures with hail; cooper content, silver connections, aluminum frames, etc. And with prices to consumer of 12 cents of Euro/kWh, the equation does not fit, if subsidies are not in the range of 300%. Costs can not go much beyond and are very heavily dependent on raw material prices, more and more dependent...on fossil fuel prices.
(N) In other words, Charles is open to the idea, but would like you to provide some data to back it up. It's not proven until you do, and I think you'll be surprised by what you find.
(PP) Of course he does want me to provide contrasted data and he is such a respected authority that he will not give anything for granted if not totally proven. And I still have many doubts, to be sincere. But do not miss interpret me.
With the data collected in Spain for abut these 30 MW of solar PV plants, from which some are with monocrystaline and double axis trackers, some others of HCPV, some others in thin film fixed plants, in several latitudes in Spain (the sunniest place in Europe) and some others, I have data enough to prove already that they have an EROEI lower than 5, that Charles Hall considers I(see his balloon diagram) the “minimum required for civilization” and I presume he refers to THIS civilization of 6.7 billions consuming 12,000 Mtoes/year. Or perhaps, even worst, to the 20% of the privileged civilization consuming the 80% of the world primary energy.
But, first, I have all this information subject to confidentiality agreement clauses signed with promoters, that can not be released, until several years from the commissioning dates.
Second, the situation is slightly changing from time to time (in Spain, worsening, as the prices (costs) for many parameters are being increased (i.e. the cost of land, rights of way of power lines, taxes from municipalities, which have to be entered into the energy expenses equation. I believe that if a municipality takes 2 to 4% in taxes on the total project price (initially, they took as work license some 2% on civil works), this is an obvious energy expenditure, even if the municipality spends this revenues in fireworks in the fiestas or in paving a new road in the village. Don’t you think so?
Third. in a country with 14% of wind electricity and 3% of solar PV electricity from the national consumption, it happens more frequently than ever and for the first time in the history of renewable, that sometimes, the electric regulatory body has to switch off part of the renewable sources from the grid. We are a peninsula behaving almost like an island, with some 38-44 GW daily peaks and 20-23 GW valley consumption levels.
The production level of our nuclear park plus the coal park, which have to be operative for security and back up to intermittent sources in 24*365 (less maintenance or emergencies) mode, is close to the valley lows.
If under these circumstances, there is a windy night (i.e. 17 GW extra production), there is no way to fed in all this production into the national grid. Sometimes, we have reached daily maximums of close to 50 percent of all our electricity demand covered by wind plus solar PV. Every maximum is being announced as a big success. However, there is another edge to this success because sometimes, in these circumstances the regulatory body has to decide to disconnect some wind parks, if our neighbors do not need the small amounts we can exchange, or the excess amount of electricity is far beyond our pum-up capacity (already important). And this is only with 14+3% of modern renewable and the best management network system in the world.
How do you think these losses of revenue have to be accounted for the operators of the wind parks? This is, in my humble opinion to be discounted and totally lost to the nominal theoretical production of the about 2,000 hours/year, thus extending the energy and economic payback periods and getting the wind operators furious about this.
To whom you think the losses of the many new combined cycle gas power plants recently installed in Spain, whose accountability was presuming to be operative for 5,500 nominal hours per year for amortization, and that are now producing at much lower rates, due to the excess, but intermittent production of modern renewable, should be allocated?
This is the changing data that I have not yet finalized; that is why, the efficiency and feasibility of modern renewable to replace 10,000 MToes/year of fossil fuels is an open question mark .I work hard to disclose this, but I can not give for granted superficial wishful thinking ideas on renewable.
I hope I have clarified a little bit more my position now.
Luke has got it right: no new runner (as energy source) has begun to pick up and carry the enormous load that the fossil fuel combo has brought into the race. It is a troubling picture. And the new wind installations in the United States as you mention so proudly (about 9,900 MW) are to generate some 25 TWh/year. This is 0.6% of the electricity consumed in 2009, for the sake of clarity in a good context (being electricity a minor portion of the primary energy consumption). All the new wind installations in 2009 in all the world, 37,5 GW (which is what it counts in an interrelated world) will generate some 93 new TWh/year. To put it in a real context, the world increase in electricity consumption was 20,201.8 TWh in 2009 – 19,889.5 TWh in 2008 = 312 TWh. This is more than three times more than wind helped to generate.
If being in the top of the subsidies and premium, it is only helping to advance the wind power three times slower than fossil fuels in providing new electricity to the world, imagine how on Earth are you going to be able to replace the existing fossil fuel installed base and then take over all the primary energy consumption in time, before fossil fuel deplete.
Whooh! That's long.
I'll try to answer incrementally, as I have time. We're nearing the expiration of this post, so I may get cut off...
OK, here goes:
Wood did not need subsidies from other sources, but human force and skills.
Humans were food powered - food power was essential to everything done with wood.
Coal was only very little helped by its predecessor, wood.
Coal was transported in wood, dug with metals smelted with wood, etc, etc.
It very soon took the relay of wood and passed it in about 50 years in volume and then, immediately helped wood to be overexploited (coal steam sawmills).
I suspect you're talking about a single industry, in a single country. Do you have numbers?
The problem of renewables (solar and wind) is that they are known and have been used since millennia, but had never had the opportunity to power the consumption level of modern society in its modern versions (PV + CSP * wind generators).
Wind powered shipping quite well. Coal was a bit better, but it was incremental. Oil powered shipping a bit better than oil, but again, it was incremental. Each successor out-competed it's predecessor, but that didn't make the predecessor non-feasible, just not...competitive. Do you see the difference?
The idea that a new power source is automatically aimed to become a majority one, has not been fulfilled (and I do not think is going to be ever fulfilled) by, for instance, hydro.
Yes, hydro has resource limits (though some are political). Wind and solar don't, as a practical matter.
It is not only a matter of size, but also, in my opinion, a matter of versatility and suitability, power density to perform given functions, and of course, EROEI.
Electricity is very dense, and wind electricity is very high E-ROI.
I do not know any country that has developed wind power (modern wind generators) without either subsidies, premium tariffs or tax holidays/fiscal benefits. And this includes the United States with basically tax schemes.
I agree. But, the financial subsidies aren't large, and are arguably smaller than those received by fossil fuels. There is no energy subsidy - that would suggest a negative E-ROI.
I also disagree that there are no upper limits to wind.
That's not what I said. I said the limit was about 5x larger than current US consumption.
All winds in the world, at all latitudes (with ¾ of the world covered by oceans) and all heights (from 0 to almost 100,000 ft) contain about 70 times the energy consumed today by humans, which is about 12,000 Mtoes/year.
I suspect that the true total wind energy is much larger than that. Where did that number come from? The estimates I've seen of usable wind resource at 50 meters (IIRC) are about 72 TW, about 5x as large as human consumption of very roughly 15TW.
Even the States has already passed to Spain in wind energy with 35 GW installed power, it gets only 2% of the electricity consumed nationwide (which is much less than the primary energy).
The US could easily produce it's current average power of 450GW from wind. Heck, the Dakotas alone could power half the country.
Iberdrola, the biggest power utility, believes that our PHYSICAL upper limit might be in about 50 GW.
Could you be thinking of studies looking at the practical limits of wind integration into the Spanish grid, due to wind intermittency? That's very different. OTOH, if Spanish consumption is about 32GW, than 50GW of wind would be about 48% of KWHs. That's about the maximum anyone would hope for wind's contribution.
Greenpeace says that we can satisfy several times our needs in primary energy just with wind. I tend to agree with Iberdrola.
That's a big difference of opinion. I suspect the reason for the discrepancy is that the studies were looking at different things.
I sense you're very frustrated with wind development in Spain, but I can't quite tell what the real source of the problems is. Don't forget, very small differences in cost make the difference in competing with other energy sources - just because wind costs are a bit higher than FF costs doesn't mean that wind isn't viable.
An energy system can never subsidize itself.
You're greatly exaggerating the importance of energy. Labor cost is the important thing here, not energy costs. Energy pricing tells us very little about E-ROI, and vice versa. OTOH, if you want to think solely in terms of energy, then look at it this way: oil's E-ROI has never been as high as we thought. Pollution (including CO2), and the cost of oil wars and other forms of security, have to be included: wind & other renewables don't have those costs.
Photovoltaic effect has been invented more than half a century and is still heavily dependent on the fossil fuel society. I have not seen so much progress, even I have installed PV arrays in telecom remote systems more than 30 years ago
I think you're having trouble "seeing the forest for the trees". PV cost $30/Wp in 1980: to achieve 1.16 €/Wp is enormous progress.
First Solar reports cost/Wp for panels of less than $.80. Overall prices in the industry fell by 40% in the last 2 years. That's enormous.
thickness of tempered glass (3.5 mm) to avoid fractures with hail; cooper content, silver connections, aluminum frames
Those things are still a small % of cost.
with prices to consumer of 12 cents of Euro/kWh, the equation does not fit, if subsidies are not in the range of 300%.
If panels cost 1.16 Euros/Wp, I would expect one could build a large installation for 3-4/Wp. That means a cost of about 15-20 cents/KWH. That's not bad.
Costs can not go much beyond and are very heavily dependent on raw material prices, more and more dependent...on fossil fuel prices.
No, most of the cost is still from skilled labor.
I have data enough to prove already that they have an EROEI lower than 5
How much less? And, what quality are the input BTU's? After all an electric BTU is worth 3x as much as a heat BTU, right?
I think an E-ROI of 5 is a reasonable requirement, overall. But, as long as wind is much cheaper and higher E-ROI than solar, I would expect wind to provide 3x-10x as much energy as solar. Then, solar's E-ROI doesn't matter as much.
the cost of land, rights of way of power lines, taxes from municipalities
Those definitely are not energy inputs. One could plausibly argue that there is some overhead cost of energy from the municipality, but it would be a small % (perhaps 5%) of the municipality's overall costs. Further, if there is no marginal/incremental infrastructure investment required from the municipality, probably that cost shouldn't be included at all.
This is an important point: an energy analysis needs to confine itself to energy - it can't include financial inputs or outputs. If you try to estimate energy inputs by using financial proxies you have to be extremely careful, or your analysis will be completely worthless. In this case, you've included perhaps the very best example in the world of a financial cost that has nothing to do with energy: land rental. Land rental is passive income for a land owner who has nothing to do with the project. There's no work, nothing. In fact, "rent" is the term used by economists to denote income that involves nothing on the part of the recipient that makes them "deserve" the payment - no work of any kind - just sitting around and collecting checks. If this is an example of the kind of analysis used in the E-ROI study you've been involved with, then you really, really need to redo the analysis to make it rigorous.
If under these circumstances, there is a windy night (i.e. 17 GW extra production), there is no way to fed in all this production into the national grid.
Yes, I'd expect that. Windpower in Denmark, and nuclear in France, both have this problem.
How do you think these losses of revenue have to be accounted for the operators of the wind parks?
It certainly reduces the value of windpower. OTOH, there are ways to fix it. The most obvious: building transmission, so that Spain is a peninsula, not an island. Of course, France is in the way, and they have their own power surplus to export... 2nd, moving to electric vehicles charging at night - in the long run, this will be essential.
To whom you think the losses of the many new combined cycle gas power plants...that are now producing at much lower rates, due to the excess, but intermittent production of modern renewable, should be allocated?
In the US, this is handled in a straightforward way: plants are paid separately for their availability, and for their KWH production. Wind power has less firm capacity, so it gets smaller payments for capacity. If a gas plant is underutilized because it's operator didn't plan for competition from another source, like wind, they understand that they'll get paid less. That's not wind's fault.
that is why, the efficiency and feasibility of modern renewable to replace 10,000 MToes/year of fossil fuels is an open question mark
There's no question that in the short term there can be limits to the percentage of the grid that wind can supply. OTOH, in the long run we'll have to go to electric vehicles, and they'll charge at night - that will solve most of the problem. In the medium run, we'll have other strategies, like France's exports of nighttime nuclear power, and Sweden's storage of Denmarks night time wind power.
As far as wind's growth compares to fossil fuels: you're telling me that new wind construction in 2009 (93TWH) handled 30% of new demand (312TWH). Actually, that's very good news. That means if we continued operating just as we did last year, in 50 years the grid would be close to 30% wind. Now, obviously, that's not fast enough. But wind construction only needs to be expanded by about 3x to handle all new demand - we could do that in 5 years, if we wanted to. After than it could start replacing old fossil fuel generation. That's very good news indeed. Combine that with an mild expansion of nuclear and a smattering of solar, geothermal, etc, and we'll be making decent progress.
Whew! Finally done...
A good point: 50 seems really high for wind, given the numbers I've seen most often. Still, suppose wind was only, say, 15, and oil was 20. Wind could have a fairly high EROEI and yet it would still make sense why it gets subsidized.
Robert Rapier estimates oil's current E-ROI at about 10.
And very probably still diminishing. Not to mention that the entire existing infrastructure was heavily susbsidized by the cheap energy of the past.
Magnus Redin -
Good point! And one that is hardly recognized.
While 19th-Century America and Europe had become relatively 'energy-dense', on a personal use basis most people were not huge direct energy consumers. Electricity changed all that, as it made it possible to bring highly usable and versatile energy into the home. From that sprang all sorts of energy-related consumer products, from the light bulb, to the washing machine, to the personal computer.
The value of electricity, and hence its higher cost, is its usability on a small scale. In the US this feature used to be called 'form value' by some, but I think that term has become obsolete.` There is a very good reason why we don't have coal-fired vacuum cleaner or oil-fired hair dryers.
A basic problem is the paradigm of "progress": the assumption that human history must be a story of ascent onwards and upwards. This paradigm is open to question and critique.
An alternative that perhaps fits what actually has been and will be happening is the evolution of species. It used to be thought that there was a tree of life, and that evolution "progressed" until it produced we humans on the very top branch. Onwards and upwards.
Now, the thinking is more one of simple radiation outward in all directions, with increasing and differing levels of complexity. It is not so much a matter of any one species being "better" than another, just different.
Applying this to the evolution of human culture (which is what we are really talking about here), I'm more inclined to conceive of this in terms of increasing differentiation of cultures over time as they have radiated out across the globe. Maybe it would be helpful to see agriculture and fossil fuel powered industry as adaptations that have arose repeatedly across lines of descent, just like flight arose multiple times amongst insects, fish (barely, sort-of), reptiles, birds, and mammals (bats).
This evolutionary model also has the advantage of recognizing that cultures have gone extinct, just like species have, and extinction has been uncomfortably "equal opportunity". Under the "progress paradigm", the implicit assumption is that if any cultures go exticnt it should be the more "primative" hunter-gatherers, while the most "advanced" industrial societies should move forward to the next step upward. Yet here we are, in the 21st century, and the San are still here. On the other hand, where are the Minoans? Wiped out suddenly, just like a lot of very charismatic and seemingly "successful" species have been.
What are the implications of this evolutionary model?
First, it means that there are no guarantees that our present FF-powered industrial cultures will continue to survive or evolve into the next thing, whatever it may be. Cultural oblivion, the equivalent of extinction, is uncomfortably on the table. Sometimes, things might happen that are totally unexpected and totally and suddenly devastating. "Black Swans", we would call them now. The Minoans learned all about that.
Second, it means that things can and will change. While a few cultures may settle down into their isolated niche and remain relatively stable and unchanging for many centuries, this is an exception to the rule that few enjoy. More commonly, people face the challenge of living in a world that is constantly changing, and in a culture that is forced to change along with it.
Third, that means that if our culture is lucky enough to avoid a trip to extinction, then the odds are that our culture WILL change into something very different than it is now. Given that the eventual depletion of FFs is now highly predictable and entirely certain, we can say with confidence that our culture will have to evolve into something that doesn't use FFs. What is uncertain at this point is the pathways it might follow and the profiles of how it might end up. One thing that is certain to me is that there is no basis for saying that this future culture (or more accurately, any of the many possible alternative future cultures) is necessarilly going to be "better" than our present culture, nor maybe even "worse", just "different".
To illustrate my point:
A future without FFs is quite possibly going to be one with far more limited mobility, and in particular is likely to lead to a culture where small motorized vehicles to move people around are less common and less used. Surely major changes in the pattern of the built environment and in the whole way of living must flow from this, just as our present culture is so "automobile-centric". Is this "worse"? I'm not so sure. There has been a lot of criticism toward the automobile and the automobile-centric culture on this website, and many here would argue that the loss of the automobile really wouldn't be that great a loss at all - indeed, that the upsides would be considerable. Is that "progress" or "improvement", though? I'm not sure that could be said either. If it were possible to ask people living in that future culture if they wish they could move around as freely, quickly, and cheaply as their ancestors did, I suspect more than a few would say "yes". Thus, the future may not be so much "better" or "worse", just "different".
WNC, I extend to you an invitation to stop by for dinner (and a layover if needed) anytime you are travelling through central VA (Charlottesville area). I find your viewpoints as revealed in your posts well-thought out, and would be glad to discuss energy descent and all its implications w/you sometime.
Thanks so much. Unfortunately, since I am trying to be ahead of the curve in our decent toward a post-automobile culture, I find myself on the road very rarely these days, so I'm not sure when - if ever - I would be in your area.
Pretty much the same here, whereas when we lived in the Triangle, we used to be in your part of the state once a year or so. I generally only get in a car about once every two weeks or so these days, and trips beyond 'town' are much rarer still - ahead of the curve and all that as you say...
Those members of the future should also be informed of the intertwined negatives of better personal mobility.
- They must breathe polluted air.
- Hundreds of thousands of life altering injuries and 40,000 deaths/year (for the USA).
- Reduced life expectancy and becoming obese (with early onset diabetes, heart disease, etc.)
- Altering the earth's climate for the next thousand years or so.
- Living in a built environment designed for the automobile and not people.
- Increased social isolation. In part due to spending two or more hours/day sitting alone in their car (required to go ANYWHERE). And when they are too old to drive, sitting alone at home, watching TV.
I suspect that VERY few members of the future will want the complete package that comes with increased mobility.
Best Hopes for a Better Future,
Alan
Probably true, but don't underestimate the power of nostalgia on the human psyche. There have always been people who whistfully - and selectively, inaccurately - long for "the good old days".
"Is that "progress" or "improvement", though?"
Again it depends on what you are talking about when you talk about progress.. or improvement. What are humans progressing to? Why do we as a race seem to consider any kind of step back or restraint as a bad thing?
Quality of life seems to be a much neglected element in talking about progress. Do we have a better quality of life as opposed to 50 years ago, a 100 years ago? Are we just a more stressed out version of our ancestors, with some fancy toys? ;-)
I tend to see it as a mixed bag.
I am glad to live in the US at a time when minorities are not subject to the legal discrimination and brutal treatment that they used to get. I very much benefit from not being forced to constantly breathe ubiquitous second-hand smoke from selfish, discourteous smokers. It is good to actually have the choice of buying some non-factory-farmed, organic foodstuffs that were totally unavailable in the groceries of my youth. I've seen smallpox eliminated in my lifetime, and treatments are now available for a great many more diseases than previously. And of course, here I am typing away on a computer screen, about to post something that will instantly be available for viewing by (potentially) billions of readers around the globe.
On the other hand, we've lost a lot, and are losing a lot more. There are many, many, many ways in which things have gotten worse over my lifetime. There is a very great deal of life in today's America that I do not like at all, not as well as I did when I was younger.
I am thus inclined to see the future as a mixed bag as well. It won't be all bad, and it certainly won't be all good. Things will change, it will be different.
One thing I should add is that organisms HAVE gotten more "complicated" over time, evolving from procaryotes to eucaryotes, and then from single cellular to multicellular organisms, and from there to organisms with increasingly complicated specialized organs. The evolution of the human brain is the latest series of steps of increasing complexity in biological evolution.
Human cultures also evolve in terms of increasing levels of complexity, and here is where we get a direct tie-in to Tainter. His thesis is that as a society evolves increasing levels of complexity, there are decreasing returns on that complexity, and it eventually ceases to be worthwhile to continue the process, or even sustain the highest levels of complexity. Thus the collapse back to lower levels of complexity.
In biology, the equivalent that we see is an ecosystem that experiences some sort of shock and reduction in carrying capacity. This tends to trim back populations all the way up the food chain. Because the food chain is a pyramid, with the apex predators being largest and arguably most "complex "(at least relying on the most complex "supply chain"), but also the smallest population (see Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare for an explanation), they are the ones most vulnerable to extinction. Sometimes, too, some species simply become so specialized (and thus so complex) that they simply narrow their niche down to the point where the smallest change in the environment removes it, and them, entirely.
Getting back to human culture, then, the question is whether we can evolve our culture into one that can shift from the declining fossil-fueled niche into a new niche that is powered only by renewable resources or by nuclear (and possibly someday fusion) power? The thing is, the nuclear pathway is clearly in a direction of even greater complexity, which makes our culture even more vulnerable to sudden shocks and at risk of sudden collapse and extinction. A fission/fusion technosociety is going to be one that is not very resillient. It becomes more like those highly specialized species that are spectacuarly well adapted to a spectacularly narrow niche. While there are renewable energy technologies (like PVs) that are also pretty complex, it is also quite possible to tap into a very great amount of renewable energy resources with some pretty simple (and thus non-complex) technologies. The renewables pathway is thus potentially one that can lead to a culture that is more generalized, robust, and resillient, and thus potentially more durable than the fossil fueled one we have now. Such a renewables-powered culture may feature lower levels of complexity than we have now, and very likely will be "poorer", however you choose to define that in economic or material terms. However, it would have the benefit of being much more survivable and durable, and thus sustainable; there would be gains as well as losses.
Yes the complexity thing could be like the funnel on a fish trap.
the question is whether we can evolve our culture into one that can shift from the declining fossil-fueled niche into a new niche that is powered only by renewable resources or by nuclear (and possibly someday fusion) power?
There really isn't much question that we can - we have plenty of coal to allow a smooth transition to wind, solar and nuclear. We won't run out of electricity.
The real question is will we phase out coal fast enough to prevent AGW? But, that's a very different question from running out of power - we're never going to let the lights go out.
Hi WNC,
There is little doubt that the personal automobile has an extremely powerful appeal to nearly all of humanity. Cycling in US, Ireland, France - talk to children who are still on their bikes - almost universally (in these countries) they know to the exact date (probably hour) when they will be eligible to take their test for a driver's license.
How unfortunate is this car worship! A bicycle has all the mobility potental of a car with none of the drawbacks. I've done 500 mile bicycle tours where most of the folks were around 70 and have their share of health problems (I have a total knee replacement, bad back and personality disorder :-) If we could take a load of rugged bikes and trikes back in time (say 500 years), I suspect most of those folks would marvel at the mobility they could enjoy - even on dirt and cobblestone roads. It is just a matter of your mindset.
The idea that many people can't ride a bike or trike is not very credible - last year on the MS 150 ride here in WI, I noticed one person who did the entire 150 miles without the use of his legs - and I he finished the ride about the same time as I did.
Bicycle riding has 3 major components that actually matter:
- Safety from motor vehicles
- Paved roads (save the ff to maintain and plow roads)
- Mindset
Physical condition is a factor that is pretty far down my list - certainly some people could not ride a bike/trike under any circumstances - but this is a very small percent. Today, we think that teenagers need a car or bus ride to go 5 miles to school - insane.
A future without FFs is quite possibly going to be one with far more limited mobility, and in particular is likely to lead to a culture where small motorized vehicles to move people around are less common and less used.
Not if personal mobility is desired. Extended range EVs like the Chevy Volt can provide all the mobility one might want.
The Chevy Volt requires liquid fuels for extended range.
Alan
Absolutely - but they don't have to be fossil fuels - the Volt reduces fuel consumption well into the range to which bio-fuels can scale.
Even with today's patterns of driving, someone driving a Volt uses only 10% as much fuel as the average US driver (they'd drive on electric 80% of the time, and get MPG about 2x the average the other 20%).
So, if everyone in the US drove a Volt, they'd only use about 14 billion gallons of fuel per year - ethanol production is already at about 10 billion, IIRC(keep in mind that the 30% MPG ethanol fuel penalty can be almost entirely removed with compression optimization if one knows that ethanol will be the primary fuel).
Of course, that fuel consumption could be reduced by yet another 75% (for a total reduction of liquid fuel consumption of 97.5%) pretty easily: the % of electric miles will rise with a larger battery; and MPG achieved by the range extender (the onboard generator) will rise sharply with optimization (better aerodynamics*, purpose-built engine**, optimized accessory loads)
Finally, people could transfer half of their long-range travel to medium-distance rail with no sacrifice in mobility/convenience, and get to 98.75%.
* The Aptera's aerodynamics reduce energy consumption by 65%.
** the current engine is off-the-shelf, in the interest of fast production and capex minimization.
The next paradigm?
Perhaps it needs to incorporate some "what's the meaning of life?" in it. "To live a life of meaning" might be a good start, but let's move on from there. Unfortunately, while there's been plenty of positives (medicine, the internet, etc), I suspect the last one hundred years has been largely wasted in pursuit of "less important" goals. Like making money.
Then again, what the hell would I know?
Regards, Matt B
I think any mindful person (of current times or any other historical period) thinking out a paradigm for the future is likely to think in terms of mistakes made and lessons learned, and ignorance left behind; its very tempting to conclude that the people of the future will be wiser and better people than ourselves...but then again if you look back at all the people and cultures who thought so previously, who were inevitably replaced by more of the same old model, making the same old mistakes.
If I'm ever tempted to idealize the people of the future, I just think about the kids at my daughter's junior high - as careless and comic and unteachable as I ever was!
"its very tempting to conclude that the people of the future will be wiser and better people than ourselves..."
Yes (dang!), good point. I stand corrected, as always.
Regards, Matt B
stone knives and bearskins. that is the new paradigm. after the supplies in the bug out bag are gone that is all that will be left.
99.999% reduction of current human population. pain and suffering everywhere. the poor eat the rich.
but a ray of hope?
and let us now use a new acronym....EAM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/12/earth_abundant_solar_cells/
"Big Blue boffins hatch dirt-cheap solar cells
'Earth abundant' materials
By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco
Posted in Physics, 12th February 2010 08:02 GMT
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer: 30-day free trial
IBM researchers have developed a new class of solar-powered electricity-generating cells that they claim will bring photovoltaic cells closer to cost parity with conventional energy sources."
stone knives and bearskins. that is the new paradigm
UHm'm, No.
Not enough bears. Maybe none in the near future.
Stone knives require specific rocks (certain types of flint are best) and high skills in knapping them.
Not going to happen,
Alan
Wow. Another dooms day on the Oil Drum.
This is getting repetitious.
Mainly people obsessed with money issues and political nonsense.
Peak Oil is only an issue in a political price system. EROEI is only an issue in a monetized energy system.
'Invested' unless you are talking 'natural capital' is about as phony a concept as one could possible think in 2010.
Yes that is about right in combination with oil though of course. We can live without the oil now... but probably not electricity so it is the 'thing' that can run our modern industrial society.
If the doomers here do not like all the chaos and waste and fear and loathing that breeds ill will and struggle in the current price system, why do you stick with it? Technocracy design using thermodynamics has been a way out for a long time
Not that this hasn't been gone over a hundred times here...but ???
Why do you say this: "EROEI is only an issue in a monetized energy system."? EROEI is the only thing that really matters REGARDLESS of monetary considerations -- it's the crux of the physics, the thermodynamics, of the situation. You MUST get more energy out than you put in, else you've developed an energy sink not an energy source.
Energy returned on capital expenditure might be more arguable, but even then you have scaling issues if you can't produce a lot of energy for relatively few dollars.
I am beginning to hate this site and the comments on it.
Think.
Energy conversion is monetized.
That is part of the political price system.
If that method is not used then energy is not monetized.
Then things are done not because they are cheaper but because they are better done a certain way for the environment and other factors.
Natural capital is a real concept.
That measures environmental destruction.
'Invested' is a key word here.
Obviously thermodynamics makes either energy slaves or energy appliances.
That obvious enough?
We have a backward system that cares not a wit for environment.
That is the problem.
Wake up.
You live in an antique social system that is super NOT creative.
I think I get your point, and bookmarked the site referred to for further reading - another new concept, thanks!
Thanks daxr.
It is fun and creative.
Science also.
According to Leslie White, the next energy transition would be nuclear energy. M. King Hubbert and Hyman G. Rickover also believed this. And apparently now even Bill Gates does as well:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/12/highlights-from-ted-2.html
Wrong.
Hubbert who at first advocated nuke power switched because of the obvious dangers involved.. and was an advocate of solar.
The first 4 minutes of this video will reveal one of the biggest oil scandals ever forced on the unsuspecting American public and years later, it’s still impacting our energy and environmental policies today... not to mention keeping the U.S. in war to protect oil interests.
Interview with Peak Moment TV
http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/node/529
I would argue that your statement of the question points out "the problem", which is our addiction to the hunt for the next paradigm rather than living and gradually adapting to whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. Becoming active in legitimate political activities, trying strenuously to change what needs to be changed for good reasons well analysed are ok, but an addict's hunt for the next major upheaval simply for its own sake indicate a problem. A problem easily observed on popular mainstream media, particularly newscasts, political talkshows and faction-sponsored broadcasts.
We will go slowly into a new era of having to fend for ourselves out of the wreck of the last era we all lived in. But it won't be all doom and gloom. There will be those people who thought ahead and started planning for this time. Some of them started over 50 years ago.
Sustainable intensive Edible Landscaping systems, where you let nature do it's thing, and you only guide it in the seeds you plant with the lowest intrusion methods available. SeedBalls.
You mix Red Clay and compost and seeds up into a compact package that can weather the test of drought, animals and bugs, to wait till they have the right conditions to sprout. Roots form first and then the plant's green shoots emerge. Not all of them will live but that is the nature of nature.
The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka practiced a form of getting back to nature that everyone who is a Greenie Hippie gardening wannbe has always dreamed of doing.
Some people still don't understand the methods he used, and his simple way of explaining things, and his world view can lead people to believe he might not have been all that smart. But he did have a degree in the biological sciences. It is just that we have been doing things our own way for so long that changing now is hard on us.
We are going to be forced to change or die.
We can not support the people we have, most people say on this forum and other places, as well as they see us traveling toward the cliff of peak energy production with those old geologically stored years of sunlight, we have been using like there were no tomorrow these past few decades.
But if you look at what we could be doing, something that we have not been doing for so long most of us doubt it is even possible. We need to throw all our farming guides out the window and just start all over.
What if you did not do anything but select seeds for plants that can grow in your location, form them into the seedballs mentioned above, and scattered them all about. You could grow lots of plants, ones that given the right conditions will sprout and provide you with annual crops, that you can use in a few weeks. To crops that you can use in 5 years, and then for decades on, because they are trees and bushes.
You could work with marginal lands, and plant things that do well there, and have not grown there in centuries. You can still grass feed goats and cows and chickens and ducks and cows and geese and rabbits and keep fish in ponds. But you also don't have to work so hard at Farming.
This plan for a lifestyle change can't happen overnight, Gov'ts and people will tell you that it is crazy, that they don't want to allow thier energy slaves to get free food, because that will limit their control over others.
You will have to work from the grass roots up, in small plots of land all over the place, and given enough people doing it, the results will be world changing.
If his results can be repeated, Which have been by others, doing forest Gardening methods that they have pioneered themselves. We could feed everyone on earth on only 5,000,000 square miles of land. Given the numbers Mr. Fukuoka claimed, the 5,000,000 sq miles is ten (10)times what you would need, if you followed him exactly.
We don't have to go about being hunters again, we can raise the meat animals on the other bits of land left over out of what is left from the 5,000,000 we have the forest gardens on.
If it can be done in a model, can it be done in practice?
I don't know.
You might have to convince a lot of the people we call TPTB and those that want to continue BAU and those that will go NIMBY but if you do this on enough of a grass roots level, the above folks, will either join you, try to kill you and take your food, or die.
Cheers,
Charles.
I suspect I would like to see the analysis of net crops out vs. seeds in to the system you propose before signing on. After all, every fruit-eating animal (mice, rabits, birds, monkeys, etc.) has been doing what you propose since the beginning. Many of them live short difficult lives, being lucky to survive to age of first reproduction.
Check out Mr. Fukuoka's published works. Go to youtube and type in Marvin Crawford, or Ken Fern, Or Robert Hart. They all have been doing about the same thing but with different twists.
As to the most animals, we humans can eat them and have down through the ages.
Living a short lives is what we have in store for us if we do not find a way to change what we know to be something that is unsustainable.
I'll get back with you on the data of survivability in a few decades? or do you want it to be until I can bare childern (not going to happen, medically unable).
Just wondering.
Charles.
Well I am finally giving up on this whole "civilization" thing. I was an Entomologist for a large GMO seed company and I am sick of this whole sham. The seed companies are just using Genetics so they can patent the new seed lines. They are no better and oftentimes lower producing than conventional breeds of Corn and Soybeans.
We need to double food production by 2020 and there is nothing in the works that has even a shot at doing that. There are some corn varieties that need less nitrogen and the Gates foundation is producing some bio fortified Sorghum. Unfortunately these will not be enough.
I see big famines in the coming years especially since we are already scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of oil as it is. There was a large oil discovery in the Lake Turkana area of Kenya but it is not economical to develop because it is very viscus "the consistency of shoe polish" and a pipeline to the coast would have to be built.
We need to double food production by 2020
Why do we need to do that? Population won't go up by more than 10%, and there are more obese than starving right now.
We just need better distribution.
We could easily double food production, but not with the BAU model we have been practicing in the farming of today.
Everyone who has space to grow food, can start doing so in an edible landscaping method, where as many plants as possible that are grown are useful to humans. You can go the route that Mr. Fukuoka goes in his books, or you can go the route of Marvin Crawford in his books, or any of a number of others that have gotten back to nature in how they think about growing things.
Tilling the soil and burning it up by letting the sun bake it, won't last much longer, soon we will be forced to do something else, why wait?
Using the methods of the people I listed in my post above, you could easily feed everyone on less land than we do now.
We have to change our mindset, go back to living closer to nature at least for our foods. Then maybe we can get on to going to the moon and the stars. I know you are all saying it is a pipe dream, but at least if we are all well fed without running farm trackers all day long, maybe we will have more time to do other things.
Charles.
I thought at least on this site that the argument had progressed past "what will replace fossil fuels" . Nothing hopfully, what we need is not a new energy,new energy is one of those solutions that simply puts off the problem,grows it to even larger proportions.We need a new vision of what we are up to on this planet,what are we trying to accomplish. Trying to fit as many peaple on the place at one time is . . . unsound. We need a new economic modle one that is more human, one that considers more than profit as its 1# justification. How do we stop growth,how do we restrain ourselves,how do we get all working in concort towards the long veiw. This is the real difficulty and the reason i am a doomer not because we cant find enough energy.But most of all you know this and more as i learned it here so why are we engageing in the wrong argument?
Charles Bukowski “Dinosauria we"
Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that its cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much its cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dantes Inferno will be made to look like a childrens playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter
...harvesting a ton of wheat in the US at the beginning of the 19th century required 30 hours of work, but by 1970 that number had decreased to less than 2 hours (Smil 1994). The decrease in labor hours was due in large part to the use of fertilizers and mechanized farm equipment, both of which rely on fossil fuels.
A key thing: Natural gas ammonia fertilizer isn't essential (think soybeans, and electrolytic hydrogen), and farm equipment can run on electric motors just as well as infernal combustion.
Farming (and the rest of society, for that matter) doesn't have to rely on fossil fuels.
Farming (and the rest of society, for that matter) doesn't have to rely on fossil fuels.
BINGO! I think that's a key point. I have a picture here of my grandfather's farm taken about 100 years ago. There's my grandfather, and a bunch of hired hands holding pitchforks. There are a large number of horsed hitched to wagons. And there's a steam-powered threshing machine which they fueled with straw.
I doubt we will get back to the steam powered thrashing machines because, of course, diesel engines can be modified to run on vegetable oil.
I'll leave the discussion of wind-powered electric trains for another day.
infinite growth on finite resources is not possible,
No one suggests that it is, or that it's needed. Overall OECD resource consumption flattened out a while ago.
at some point, the fossil energy supply will decrease and the type of economic growth that occurred during the beginning of industrialization will no longer be possible.
Economic growth doesn't require fossil fuels. Wind, solar, nuclear, etc, will do just fine.
There are no substitutes for oil, natural gas, or coal at the scale needed to maintain the economic status quo into the future
There certainly are. Wind at about 5x our current consumption, and solar at about 5,000x our current consumption, can certainly do the job.
and there is absolutely no reason to expect that technology will yield a silver bullet solution.
Renewable electricity and electric transportation are already here - Wind is already at roughly the scale needed, and EV's just need a few years to ramp up. No breakthroughs needed.