Thanks for posting this blow-by-blow.

:-}

Make that three. Healthcare and education are the last two bubbles (barring Washington DC, maybe), and I am/was in both of them. I now teach about sustainability, but not in nursing yet, as the field is not ready to listen yet. Soon, if OWS is any measure of progress in our understanding of our limits.

Nevertheless, when I read the story, at times I laughed my asp off. Great read. I empathized with many of his situations and adventures.

FM- I looked up Assburgers on urban dictionary, and Asperger Syndrome on Wiki.

I took his comment very differently, as this is people that your son is having to tolerate, a play on words. Giving credence to the difficulties of dealing with people and what passes for society and social interaction. For example; Who gives a rats ass about Justin Beeber? I surely do not. To make matters worse I get tired of talking to people who also do not but continue to talk about him anyway. Love him or hate him all this is doing is creating CO2 and wasting my time. Aggghhhh! Take those individuals with heightened sensitivity and a literal interpretation and stick them in this environment and expect what? If you think Justin Beeber is a waste of time then why are you wasting you time talking about him? This is supposed to make sense? Happens every day. How do you connect to this? Which part do you connect to? Then what about the other part?

There is a great movie - Temple Grandin - I watched it 3 times, once with her narration. To understand her side of the situation was more than a little interesting.

Having a child like yours would require and extra ordinary amount of attention and probably opens you eyes to a world view few ever experience. I suspect you act as a two way buffering agent and as best you can an interpreter. I can only imagine what it must be like trying to "interpret" and explain things that do not make sense, which isn't possible. I wish you only the best.

I tend to agree with Snarlin' we need a higher level of social interaction to get to where we need to be (evolve?) which is more visible in people with Aspergers. If I offend anyone here with anything I have written I sincerely apologize that is not my intent. "We" have a huge hurdle ahead of us, which will not be solved by the same thinking we have used before.

"To me the concept of having a whole house heated seems quite beyond belief."

Your point/idea is key for long term energy scarcity. We have wood heat and a good stove, so our house is actually too warm most of the winter. But the layout of the house is key; a central heated living space and unheated bedrooms. If it drops to minus 10 or so we might flash up a small heater in the back bedroom when we get ready for work, but the idea of keeping all rooms at 18-20 is crazy and actually uncomfortable.

R 40 in the attic, good windows, insulated floor, and a water heater for mass tied into the woodstove makes for a very comfortable existence.

The place is also cool in the summer. The HVAC culture needs to get real.

As a result of this site and a few others i moved off grid just over a year ago - and float about on a boat. Heating is one of the easiest things to crack - as the saying goes 'there's no such thing as bad weather .. only the wrong clothes'.

The sailing fraternity use the terms base layer/mid layer/top layer/waterproof(wet) layer.
So in short order:
Thermal longjohns Top and bottom - must be breathable micro-fibre .. (or wool if you can stand it)
Mid layer - again - longjohns - and a micro-fibre sweat shirt with polo neck collar
Top layer - again - all micro-fibre - zip fronted etc - (so you can take them off or at least open them as you overheat.

Finally - a proper water/wind proof top layer and boots for working outside.
I have to stress there's a huge difference between 'real' waterproof clothing and the bulk of stuff that's available that really isn't anything more than water resistant in mild shower.

Last winter when it was around minus 20 i was also wearing a micro-fibre balaclava + gloves and a couple of pairs of wool socks ( thin base layer and thicker top layer)

The increase in heating oil costs mentioned is more than required to easily get you a proper set of all weather ocean going clothing ... albeit the cheap end of the range.

You can of course complain all you want about the inconvenience of having to dress appropriately in consideration of the weather .. but then can you in the same breath complain about energy cost?
My heating bill last winter (north of England) wasn't .. £0.00 .. as I've a diesel heater i used from time to time - but only through choice - not necessity.
Exactly when did slacks and a Tee-shirt become required casual wear in Winter ?

Like I said .. there's simply no such thing as bad weather .. only the wrong clothes .. but maybe it would be better to phrase it like this:

'There's no such thing as bad weather .. only the wrong mindset.'

Now I take the point about age being an issue as well as health and I'm reminded of a friend of mine who has a wharehouse dealing in ex Forces stuff - he sits in an unheated building in the Winter and fixes electronics .. wearing a 12volt heated aviators suit.
The only thing I've ever heard him complain about is that the battery is too heavy to cart about without a sack truck .. so that's what he uses.
He's in his late 70's.

Yes. Get older, and most of us don't same the same metabolism, circulation, or thermoregulation we used to have. I threw the heat on last night, to keep it above 61F, wife was complaining. We just ain't as tough as we used to be -although for us this is the first cold snap of the season -just a week ago it was 70f or above every day, now suddenly its not. So maybe it was partly lack of acclimitization?

There's an old saying which I think I picked up from a Sierra Club mountaineering class. When your hands and feet feel cold, put on a hat. That's because the human body tries to keep the brain warm as the temperature drops, thus the circulation to the feet, legs and hands is reduced. Under extreme conditions, most of the body's heat leaves thru one's head. Thus, to warm your hands and feet, put on a hat, even indoors...

E. Swanson

IIRC there is a therapy that involves sitting in a cold room with the hands (and the feet if affected) in a hot bowl of water. It was based on the principle of "re-training" the nervous system.

Also, if you rent in an old building wich have a chimney,fully functioal,you can bet your rectum it has been plugged anyway because they don't want it to be there. And now I am talking about Sweden wich is a forest country.

Actually, I did have a rental in the AZ central highlands for 7 years that was heated only with a woodstove, but I had a rather unusual landlord who had lived there himself and pulled the electric furnace out completely. The place had a propane cooking stove and electricity on the grid. We used a small electric space heater in the bathroom during the coldest days of the year, not daily, as the woodstove kept the place pretty warm as long as you kept feeding it.

But rented an old farmhouse in Wales while I studied at UWA recently, and of course, they had knocked down the chimney and covered up what was probably a beautiful historic kitchen / dining room fireplace. The oil burning system worked well but was awfully expensive, and it was cheaper to run the shower water through the portable electric heaters. I kept the house as cool as possible and insisted everyone dress for the season.

In the US, it's often related to liability. My parents got sued when a hunter was injured on their property. They were found not liable due to the fact that their property was posted "no trespassing" at the county seat.

It's called Enclosure :-)

been going on a few minutes now.

Trailers... yeah, they are almost impossible to heat... Trailer living in a cold climate leaves you desperately dependent on electric heat... the box just can't hold the heat... building higher quality trailers with insulated walls would cut into profit margins.

This is a sad and very common myth about trailers. My 1995 doublewide has a ridiculous amount of square footage... and is the most energy-efficient, inexpensive to heat home I have ever lived in for my entire life. My power bill is lower than it was ten years ago.

R19 in the walls, R38 in the roof as well as under the floor, the heating ductwork positively buried in all that insulation; double-pane windows, insulation cores in the doors, and up off the ground so no heat is lost through the floor from contact with the cold earth. The house is oriented long-wall to the south, with huge windows on the south and few, tiny windows to the north.

I wish everyone living in fuel poverty could have a house like mine.

What has changed is with finite element analysis is engineering of tools so they will last no longer than their warranty. Thus modern tools are made with less metal.

you just agreed with him right there. they blend and smelt the steel in such a way that it only lasts as long as the warenty give or take a few months. so yes we did have better steel in the past simply because we were not able to in the past to manipulate the process of making the steel to fit the end product.

One could say that the typical human has "worse" steel while those who have the knowledge to desire it and the money to buy it can have "better" steel. On average where does that leave us?

I agree that we can make better metal these days, when we want to. I suspect whats happened with tools, is the lure (to the buyer) of really cheap competing brands. Why pay $30 for a saw, when right next to it in the display is a similar looking one selling for $6.99. The fact that the former is made out of good steel, and the later out of the cheapest metal the factory manager could find is not obvious to the average buyer.

AFAIK, potato chips and noodles are much more expensive per calorie than potatoes and rice. Junk isn't cheap.

There are lots of nice options that are, taken together, much healthier and cheaper than junk: Milk, brown rice and some veggies, good oils, cheap unprocessed meats and so forth.

Poor people in industrialised countries are quite often overweight. This means money is not much of a hindrance either, as 20 kg overweight by "Lay's potato chips" cost at least $2.92*8*20 = $467 + an additional cost for increased metabolism, and getting rid of it would save as much.

I view ethanol as an energy conversion not an energy source.

Perhaps as a way of "fixing" photons and electricity - two things Man has no real way to "store".

And like Propane, concentrated ethanol is 'forever' - as forever as its container.

"I never imagined that natural gas prices could stay suppressed for this long. Similar to the WTI-Brent spread but it has been going on for a couple of years longer and without any commentary."

Perhaps I misunderstand - without any commentary?? As if Rockman doesn't remind us at least once a week, that the market is being flooded with shale gas produced at a loss due to the necessity of producers needing to keep reserves ahead of production, in order to maintain their stock prices...which sounded insane to me too until I pondered what I would do if I owned stock in an energy company who's reserves had peaked.

Best hopes for straw bales and down jackets,
Steve

In theory, but nobody does it. Actually, EROEI probably goes down a bit because stover doesn't burn as efficiently, but the fossil EROEI would increase (as with sugarcane ethanol).

"Mr. Rapier, I have read and appreciate some of your comments concerning ethanol, but some of what you have claimed formerly has been less than correct."

Examples?

"I liked your idea of Iowa going all ethanol, but of course that was tongue in cheek...yes?"

Not tongue in cheek. People assume that I am just being a smart aleck, and saying "If it's good for the country, why doesn't Iowa use more? Hence, it isn't good for the country." That's not what I am saying. The Midwest is a critically important food-producing region. As such, I would push to make them as resilient as possible with respect to fuel supplies. They produce enough ethanol (Iowa is a good example because of the relatively low population and high ethanol production) and could be much more energy independent. Instead, they still have a system like the rest of the country that is highly dependent upon fossil fuels. I would work to change that.

One person at the ASPO conference introduced me and said "This is Robert. He hates biouels." The first thing I said was "To be clear, I do not hate biofuels." And I tried to explain my position to people. I am realistic about biofuels, but I also said that they will be required for some portion of our fuel supplies.

Several of my very bright honors students have fallen for the clean nukes meme.

That is to be expected, since it is correct.

An axiom!

I covered EROEI briefly at ASPO. Here is a summary of two of my slides:

Thinking about EROEI
The concept of energy return on energy invested (EROEI) must be used cautiously
Definitions: EROEI = usable energy output/energy consumed
Net energy = energy output – energy consumed
Global EROEI is declining
The good news is, as EROEI declines, more people will be needed to create energy
The bad news is… (followed by a slide graphing EROEI by gross energy required to produce 85 million bpd to society)

Then the caveats:

A process could have a poor EROEI and be economical (but not sustainable)
There is no time component in EROEI; If one process is 2/1 and one is 10/1 – what is the turnover time? -- Should be standardized to annual basis
Biomass inputs are frequently omitted -- Sugarcane ethanol not really 8/1; that is output/fossil fuel input
Inputs and consumed energy often conflated -- This mistake is the source of EROEI of 0.8 for gasoline and 1.5 for ethanol

Frugal - And there's a simple reason you probably understand all to well: how many $millions will you make pitching your expectations? And how many $millions will the folks arguing against you make?

The race isn't always to the swift nor the battle to the strong..but that's how the smart money bets. Sorry buddyy...I ain't bettin' on you. LOL.

For the average schmoe, I think the main barrier to understanding is not being aware of the big picture. My friends are pretty smart and have a pretty good handle their own personal finances. And most of them have a general understanding of the finances of the company they work for.

But they couldn't tell you within an order of magnitude what our state budget is. As far as national finances, maybe one guy out of my whole crowd could tell you anything about things like GDP or national debt. And even he isn't real clear on where all that money comes from and where it goes. So when they hear about our $13 trillion national debt or $100/barrel oil it doesn't mean much because they have no frame around that picture.

With that as a background, it's not too surprising that most folks just scratch their heads and shrug. If they think about national finances at all, they mostly just regard it as a force of nature.

RA - Good point. I'm not much of a historian so I wonder if any TODster has examples of slow declines as opposed to catastrophic collapses.

For this purpose (fuel synthesis) you'd need efficient electrolysis, so a high temperature nuclear breeder reactor would be preferable. For other purposes, the LFTR looks good on paper, but I don't know if it is optimal here.

describe your preferred approach for dealing with the issue of spent fuel disposal

Reprocessing and transmutation. All heavy isotopes should be burned. Perhaps there is some fission product that has a long life and isn't suitable for transmutation (Zr-93 comes to mind), then long-term geological storage is ok.

security against human malice

Fortunately, radioactive material is somewhat self-protecting and very easy to trace. Nuclear plant security should be like flight security. Also, of course, the plants themselves should be hard to sabotage and easy to rescue.

and safety features mitigating against natural disasters and potential poor workmanship

Well, there is a lot already regarding redundant safety systems, and there are some lessons to learn the Fukushima disaster, for instance when it comes to generator robustness and placement. Other than that, passive safety is always preferred. Cooling that relies on gravity and convection is nice.

excessively long preventive maintenance intervals, etc

Well, that is one design parameter.

I am also curious to know your estimate of how many of these plants are required (U.S., World)

Currently, a human in sane developed countries draws about 5 KW primary power. If you run small 500 MW(th) LFTR reactors, you'd need one reactor per 100,000 people to cover that. If you run behemoth 5 GW(th) reactors, you need one per 1 million people. So, for 10 billion humans, I'd recommend 10K-100K reactors, up from today's 430 or so. Some energy will be lost in fuel synthesis and CO2-scrubbing, so we might want to add 50%, so let's say 15K-150K.

how long it will take to build these out

Let's disregard economies of scale and say a reactor costs $9/W(e) or $3/W(th). Since a developed-country human needs 5 KW(th), he needs to invest $3*5000 = $15,000 to be supplied with nuclear energy. Since he commands a GDP per capita of $30,000, a war-time mobilization of 10% of GDP would make this happen in $15,000/($30,000*10%) = 5 years. Then you need to add a ramping phase, of course, since there'll be lots of bottlenecks.

It would be far more reasonable to build this in the pace needed for replacement later. Let's say we have a plant life of 50 years. Then we'd need to build 2% per year and be fully supplied in 50 years and then just keep on at the same pace to replace the oldest stuff. Then we'd need an investment of $15,000*2% = $300 per capita and year. That would yield the US $300*300e6 = $90 billion per year or some 15-20 reactors per year. This corresponds to 0.6% of US GDP.

Again, we could add 50% for some additional energy for fuel synthesis losses and CO2-scrubbing.

how long the plants will last

See above.

how they are to be disposed of

Most parts should be washed and recycled. Some parts whose materials have been heavily irradiated and become radioactive themselves should be put in landfills until they have "cooled off" sufficiently for recycling.

what dependencies on FFs and other resources are required, and how much this might cost?

The FF dependency is the same as for the economy as a whole. In the less agressive plan, you'd replace 2% fossils per year, so after 25 years, the FF dependency would be halved.

I'm talking about the Los Alamos Green Freedom concept.

D3PO,

Unfortunately, 'Fecundity Unlimited' is very hard to find on the Internet...Asimov's estate is doing a good job protecting his works.

I read it in a paperback book of Asimov's short articles.

In sum he made some rather generous assumptions, and calculated that even at a rather low rate of population increase, if unconstrained by realities of technology etc, every Carbon atom in the Universe would be converted to human flesh by ~ C.E. 11,000. Even if one assumed that every atom and every element could be converted to human flesh, and you hand-waved away any need for food, oxygen to breathe, shelter, warmth, etc, the year that every atom of every kind being incorporated into human flesh wouldn't be much further...CE 30,000 maybe?

It was Asimov's way of demonstrating that anything above Zero population growth is ultimately unsustainable, in a remarkably short time in the future...remember that the Universe (our Universe, anyway, if there is indeed a Multi-verse) is ~ 13.6? Billion years old.

Naturally, 9-20,00 years to fill our Universe means that a continued fraction of a percent population growth rate would utterly overwhelm the Earth in a much shorter time...if we had a 'Mr. Fusion', maybe we could get by for another couple of hundred years...likely wouldn't be many other species left though...Earth may resemble Asimov's Trantor, basically a Earth-sized 'Death Star' encased in metal structure ~ a mile high, all food and air manufactured, the original biosphere eradicated.

Of course there is the issue of waste heat being ejected into the Earth's atmosphere...another constraint.

For those who say 'Space colonization is the answer', even given light-speed travel and a sub-1% population growth rate and a bunch of other magic, humanity fills the Universe in ~9,000 years...a blink of the eye of thee Universe.

Of course, unlimited growth isn't possible with real constraints...three outcomes are possible:

1. Population booms and busts cyclically until the species goes extinct.

2. Humanity rather quickly expands itself into extinction...balloons until it drives off a cliff.

3. Humanity achieve zero population growth...not saying that humanity would not go extinct eventually anyway...but perhaps the folks who live until that time would be more in balance with their environment and more fulfilled, happy, etc.

No, phosphorus is abundant.

I can only think of hydro and PV as the only non-phase-change system humans use to make utility electricity.

It seems for all the technocorpians advocating fission and fusion, their systems all just boil a liquid (water usually), push high pressure steam through a turbine, and generate electricity.

We. Boil. Water.
- I think the fact is kind of funny and old fashioned, in a way.

For me, the only futuristic-seeming electricity generation in use is PV, since it doesn't involve phase changing (pretentious wording for boiling) a liquid.

For as long as the 99% are doing their work for them, they don't need to know!
When the money stops flowing up, then they'll sit up and take notice.
Unfortunately, it would likely take an "Arab Spring" type event in Europe or some other western country.

Since fisherman is subsistence fishing, there remains plenty of opportunity for the other villagers to do the same rather than work for said fisherman.

It’s fortunate for a great many folks (including Rockman) he didn’t decide to finish his life sitting on the beach watching the waves wash ashore. So folks need to remember where their paychecks come from.

What if none of us needed paychecks? Yeah, yeah, I know, impossible to imagine...

Are you familiar with the bumper sticker that says:

WORK IS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO FISH!

There's more than a grain of truth in there!

Rock,

I read this tale the other day, liked it, then thought a bit and realized that its is idyllic if one takes it too literally...Not all or even most of $7B people get to live in a sleepy little fishing village in a warm climate next to a sea stocked with wonderful fish. I suppose if the fella in this tale gets sick, or one of his family gets sick, he can trade some fish for some healing herbs and knowledge. He likely lives (again in a warm idyllic climate) in a small hut made of local materials, no bank mortgage to pay. hey all poop and pee outside the village in the woods,or use outhouses or perhaps indoor loos with a simple septic system, because there is a low enough population density that this is OK.

Back in the real World the population density is way too high, the human waste is fouling the waterways, they ain't making anymore land and the banksters have you in thrall for your house, etc.

I do so like this tale, because it reminds me of the sayings :No one ever said on their deathbed that they wished they worked more hours every week: and "the graveyards are full of indispensable people". I have two bossed who are working ~ 80 hours per week because our company is too damn cheap and greedy to hire more folks...it would lessen the profit margin and stock price a tad..these folks are becoming physically ill...I have refused to work more than ~55 hours per week...work =/ life...I refuse to play the money mens' game....I do great work in the time I work, and I refuse to be hollowed out and thrown in the trash, just another line-replaceable unit in their machine. Unfortunately someday it may mean I am on the streets...with a rep of 'not being a team player'. Screw them.

SO...I see your point, Rock, and I see FM's point...it depends on your paradigms. In ~3 years when my two kids are through college and out on their own maybe I will convince my wife that we should get off the rat race treadmill.

spoken like someone who is addicted to money and can't understand that happiness can come from other things. pay checks do not come from rich people, they come from the pockets of people who buy things from the company they chose to work for. rich people are like those hoarders you see on tv, only replace random junk with money. they are just as emotionally sick as the people who horde newspapers, dolls or even trash. and just like how even throwing away one piece of a hoarders horde makes a emotional wound similar to loosing a pet or family member in some cases, the same can be said for many of the rich in that loosing a single dollar, yen, euro, etc causes the same thing. to the point they start to try to skew the system so they can loose less.

Rock,

"What about the other 30 villagers without jobs? If the fisherman expanded his efforts he could improve the lives of many."

About your hypothesis that the fisherman's expansion "could improve the lives of many" - under what circumstances might this be true, and under what circumstances would this be absolutely and even horrifically false?

Also, after a few generations of "the fishing village as a business," when everyone in the village depends on the fishing business and no longer knows how to live without it - and in fact have mortgaged their children's futures to maintain the "business" - what happens when the fishery collapses due to over-harvesting or the business can't compete for customers, or... ?

How much better off really? For how long? At what cost to ALL (7 generations, etc).

"Lazy Natives" are more sustainable than the A-D-D Industrials (where discontent is a product fed to the consumers 24/7/365).

My father is self-employed (electrical, etc.) and has been since his 20's, my mother works part-time for him. My oldest brother is self-employed in a rural area and is an any-racket-going type(he has a flooring store, sells installation, and cabinets/countertops/tilework, minor remodeling, sells insurance, buys and sells motorsports equipment, has a vending machine route (started to create an income for a daughter), owned a restaurant when he lived in the PNW, etc) and has been self-employed since his 20's. My other older brother is currently an owner-operator truck driver (a recent change). I work for a rate-regulated utility. My next oldest sister lives in Taiwan on a work visa teaching English to children whose parents are poorer than she is but pay for English lessons. My next oldest sister is a part-time municipal librarian (a recent change) and a volunteer and tutor. The youngest sister is currently not employed (she's a civil engineer), but is moving to Peru with her husband after he finishes his contract with the start-up biodiesel equipment development and sales racket he and his brother started in college and sold off 2 years ago for a tidy sum. The older sister hasn't worked in years, her husband is a software consultant whose employment status varies by project.

I guess my point is, that many people make a living without the man giving them a job, and many people feel a need to do other things with their time than chase a buck. Pretty much none of the other male members of my extended family work for someone else, and pretty much all the female members do something more with their time than chase the biggest paycheck they can find. If the product is needed, somebody will supply it, and there is no great shortage of motivated folks to do it, such that we must lick the hand of those from whose table our crumbs drop. No rich man ever gave me a paycheck worth more than I made him by my ingenuity and labor.

The greedy, capitalist fisherman is then out of business, too. Except that the capitalist is in debt to the the World Bank for his fleet of modern fishing boats, and the CIA sends someone to liquidate him. The laid back fisherman shrugs his shoulders, beaches his boat, hugs his wife, and plants a garden with the help of his village.

don't forget the music in the piece. it's the kind used to instill dread and fear.

Peaceful relations with all. Entangling alliances with none. Hey they stole our line.

Remember Genghis Khan made it all the way to Warsaw without fossil fuels.

This is beautiful and wise.

Yes, and it is close to what I hope for. Multiple waves that propagate where there they can be built due to natural an cultural limitations, hydro power, nuclear power, wind and sea current power and solar power.

I think you're doing as much for the 99% as the Occupy Movement folks, not to discount them at all.

The great thing about Thrift purchasing and Freecycle, yardsales,etc.. is that you ARE looking for items with actual quality, and looking for useful things without paying into the retail truck fleets. It may feel like 'betraying the economy', but I don't think so.

You aren't betraying the economy. Your money goes back into it, and if you're paying for local goods, your money is doing a lot more good than if you're feeding the streams of throwaway stuff at primary market prices. That machine won't reform unless and until it is starved out.

I took a heap of great quality, office-type clothing from my former consulting life to an "up-scale" resale shop some time back, and they refused to take any of it, because it was "out of style".

Turns out, they only want last year's or better designer labels. Apparently, even the resale clothing market has to keep up. Sheesh...

I ended up selling most of it online.

Rootless, you're filling an important new niche in a new successional model, that of recycling agent. There's lots of room for recyclers in a society in overshoot that has previously not recycled. Rockman's a pioneer species (see above); you're shade tolerant.

The forests, being an ecological system are subject to the species succession process. There are "opportunistic" or "pioneer" species that produce great quantity of seeds that are disseminated by the wind, and therefore can colonize big empty extensions, and they are capable to germinate and grow under direct sun exposition. Once they have produced a closed canopy, the lack of direct sun radiation at soil makes it difficult for their own seedlings to develop. It is then the opportunity for shade "tolerant" species to get established under the protection of pioneer. When these pioneers will die, the shade tolerants will replace them. The shade tolerant species are capable of growing under the canopy, and therefore, in the absence of catastrophes, will stay. For this reason it is said than the stand has reached its climax. When an important catastrophe will arrive, the opportunity for the pioneers will be open again, provided they are not absent at a reasonable range.

An example of pioneer species, in forests of northeastern North America are Betula papyrifera (White birch) and Prunus serotina (Black cherry), that are particularly well-adapted to exploit large gaps in forest canopies, but are intolerant of shade and are eventually replaced by other (shade-tolerant) species in the absence of disturbances that create such gaps.

Things in nature are usually neither white nor black, and there are intermediates. It is therefore normal that between the two extremes light/shade there is a gradation, and there are species that may act as pioneer or tolerant, depending on circumstances. It is of paramount importance to know the tolerance of species in order to practice an effective silviculture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession

A mature society will pulse, with increased specialization, differentiation and diversity, complexity, with more energy being put into maintenance, replacement, and recycling. Mutualistic symbiosis will increase (reciprocity). There will be no net growth, or growth only to replace structures of value. A new premium on efficiency will develop, with a diversity of parallel units (redundancy-Mobus). A higher standard of living will develop in areas with a stable energy base (relocalization) and mixed utilization/interaction of renewable and non-renewable resources (higher and lower gain energy). Structures will be more permanent, and increased regulation will limit competition. Storage of information will increase. The system will be less productive, but more efficient. Cooperative specialization will become important to group survival.

But we've got to go through the steps of decay and invasion before we can reach this steady state nirvana. It will be a long road, because there are too many of us, and we live too high on the hog.

If someone were offering me a $15 billion per year incentive to go away, I would probably go away. In fact, I would probably go away for only a billion dollars or so.

In any case, one would think that it would begin to dawn on consumers in Western and Eastern Canada that having access of a secure supply of domestic crude oil would probably be a good idea.

Also, some of the environmentalist foot-dragging on oil projects has concealed interests:

Cash flow from U.S. to 'green' initiatives often hides private interests

Financial contributions sometimes thinly veiled attempts to help American industries gain unfair advantages over Canadian counterparts

Canadians need to be aware that the long arm of American interests is behind many of the so-called grassroots protests taking place in Western Canada.

That is, U.S.-based charitable foundations, which clearly have their own priorities, are contributing major dollars to Canadian environmental groups.

Not that I'm paranoid or anything, but I did do some network and telephone security work in the oil industry, where the competition routinely taps your telephones and watches your drilling rigs from the woods with binoculars. The industrial spies had their own professional association and held conferences where they traded secrets. How did we know? We hired them, too.