Peak oil

[dzogchungpa]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... scompanies

[Kim O'Hara]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... scompanies

Thanks for this and the preceding link - authoritative, and very clear about the situation and the risks it implies.
Roll on solar energy!!


Kim

[Huseng]

One good resource exploring peak oil is the following blog:

http://ourfiniteworld.com/

She points out that the real problem is not peak oil so much as financial limits. When extracting oil costs more than it produces, the system will halt. The idea that economic forces will take care of such risks is common knowledge, but actually based on false assumptions.

[Huseng]

New technologies and discoveries of course may emerge, who knows. Whenever I bring this up with one of my friends at Ames I get a lecture about how thorium reactors are going to be the wave of the future. We'll know sooner or later.

Joseph Tainter has pointed out in his work that innovation is becoming increasingly costly. We're suffering diminishing returns. It takes more scientists and more funding to get less and less useful discoveries. The amount of patents per X number of scientists has also greatly decreased over the decades. This means there are limits to innovation, which makes sense if you think about it, but the belief in perpetual progress blinds people to such a reality.

Such a belief will actually be our undoing. Instead of seriously dealing with pollution, there's discussion of geo-engineering, which requires continual dispersal of substances into the atmosphere, all of which depends on an industrial infrastructure. Technology in all its benevolence is expected to provide a salve to our environmental sins.

[Kim O'Hara]

One good resource exploring peak oil is the following blog:

http://ourfiniteworld.com/

She points out that the real problem is not peak oil so much as financial limits. When extracting oil costs more than it produces, the system will halt. The idea that economic forces will take care of such risks is common knowledge, but actually based on false assumptions.

As I have pointed out several times already, Gail Tverberg (your favourite blogger) has such an extremely narrow view of reality that nothing she says is worth listening to.
Please read more widely and more wisely.


Kim

[Kim O'Hara]

New technologies and discoveries of course may emerge, who knows. Whenever I bring this up with one of my friends at Ames I get a lecture about how thorium reactors are going to be the wave of the future. We'll know sooner or later.

Joseph Tainter has pointed out in his work that innovation is becoming increasingly costly. We're suffering diminishing returns. It takes more scientists and more funding to get less and less useful discoveries. The amount of patents per X number of scientists has also greatly decreased over the decades. This means there are limits to innovation, which makes sense if you think about it, but the belief in perpetual progress blinds people to such a reality.

True.

Such a belief will actually be our undoing.

Not necessarily true. I have great faith in our ability to avoid the worst consequences of our own stupidity - after all, we have been doing just that, on an individual level, since we were vulnerable little proto-mammals running around under the feet of the dinosaurs.

Instead of seriously dealing with pollution, there's discussion of geo-engineering, which requires continual dispersal of substances into the atmosphere, all of which depends on an industrial infrastructure. Technology in all its benevolence is expected to provide a salve to our environmental sins.

Geo-engineering is generally recognised as a last-ditch strategy by anyone with any understanding of the problems, but other technological innovations are doing rather better. In the end, we will almost certainly see a patchwork of partial solutions ... but you have drifted into climate change which already has a thread of its own. Perhaps you can continue discussing this issue over there? Especially if you have anything new to contribute ...


Kim
back from holidays

[Zhen Li]

As I have pointed out several times already, Gail Tverberg (your favourite blogger) has such an extremely narrow view of reality that nothing she says is worth listening to.
Please read more widely and more wisely.

Kim, you and your blacklists.

Joseph Tainter has pointed out in his work that innovation is becoming increasingly costly. We're suffering diminishing returns. It takes more scientists and more funding to get less and less useful discoveries. The amount of patents per X number of scientists has also greatly decreased over the decades. This means there are limits to innovation, which makes sense if you think about it, but the belief in perpetual progress blinds people to such a reality.

Welcome back Indrajala, I haven't seen you on the forum for a while.

For the most part I'd agree, but there may be exceptions if technological singularity is a real thing. I think within the paradigm of carbon based technology, there is a limit to how efficient and complex we can make the global system. Tainter writes that the time of collapses in complex systems, it's often viewed as the preferable alternative to maintaining that complex system - this will clearly be the case with carbon based technology. At the same time, I think we should be careful how much we implore governments to take the lead in this matter, because government management tends to decrease opportunities in general for obvious reasons. Where great opportunities do exist, they will be taken. The post carbon market will be a great opportunity for many entrepreneurs. The issue is, governments don't see unprofitability in the present (as continuing attempts at funding differing innovation presents, as Tainter points out), as a problem, because they don't view debt as an issue so they'll continue wasting money on it.

[reddust]

I am using compost (chicken poop) to heat my seedling cold frames and green house this year. The heat will give me a 3 week jump on planting season! I will be using no electrical to heat my greenhouse Poop energy! I grow 3/4 of all the food we eat on 1/4 acre.

[dzogchungpa]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... rate-spies

[Huseng]

I think within the paradigm of carbon based technology, there is a limit to how efficient and complex we can make the global system.

Fossil fuels enable the vast complexity we already have. Anything else would not permit such levels of complexity. A tall-ship from the early 19th century was complex, but not like, say, a billion dollar offshore oil rig complete with GPS and all the complexity that includes. So, when fossil fuels became largely unavailable, we'll not be able to support such high levels of complexity, but nevertheless our present systems all depend on it which means either rapid adaptation of simpler models or collapse.

Unfortunately as Tainter points out, you seldom see in history societies willing to voluntarily reduce their complexity.

[Kim O'Hara]

As I have pointed out several times already, Gail Tverberg (your favourite blogger) has such an extremely narrow view of reality that nothing she says is worth listening to.
Please read more widely and more wisely.

Kim, you and your blacklists.

Zhen Li,
(1) What on earth is the smiley supposed to mean here?
(2) Have you looked up Tverberg's background? If not, you have no foundation for commenting on my rating of her. If you have, how do you justify valuing her thoughts above those of http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 2006.xhtml, cited and quoted in dzogchungpa's recently-posted links?

It's all about the quality of our information sources. If we read ill-informed and biased writers, the foundations of our knowledge are as cracked as they are.


Kim

[Kim O'Hara]

I think within the paradigm of carbon based technology, there is a limit to how efficient and complex we can make the global system.

Fossil fuels enable the vast complexity we already have. Anything else would not permit such levels of complexity. A tall-ship from the early 19th century was complex, but not like, say, a billion dollar offshore oil rig complete with GPS and all the complexity that includes. So, when fossil fuels became largely unavailable, we'll not be able to support such high levels of complexity, but nevertheless our present systems all depend on it which means either rapid adaptation of simpler models or collapse.

Unfortunately as Tainter points out, you seldom see in history societies willing to voluntarily reduce their complexity.

Hi, Indrajala,
That's all true except for the sentence I've bolded and its consequence which I've italicised.
Rapid adaptation will be necessary, but "simpler models" isn't the only way forward. We can be much smarter about energy efficiency, for instance - and it's already happening. We can move to renewables - and it's already happening. We can slow our population growth - and that has already happened in the West and I see no reason the developing world won't naturally follow the same path as it follows us through the same developmental sequence.
"Interesting times", yes, but not collapse.


Kim

[Malcolm]

We can be much smarter about energy efficiency, for instance - and it's already happening.

Jevons observed that England's consumption of coal soared after James Watt introduced his coal-fired steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of Thomas Newcomen's earlier design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

So no, I don't share your technological enthusiasm. I am rather skeptical of it, actually.

We can slow our population growth - and that has already happened in the West and I see no reason the developing world won't naturally follow the same path as it follows us through the same developmental sequence.

This is certainly a desiderata. And indeed, world population appears to be declining on the whole.

[Kim O'Hara]

We can be much smarter about energy efficiency, for instance - and it's already happening.

Jevons observed that England's consumption of coal soared after James Watt introduced his coal-fired steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of Thomas Newcomen's earlier design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

So no, I don't share your technological enthusiasm. I am rather skeptical of it, actually.

Hi, Malcolm,
IMO the Jevons paradox doesn't really apply in the peak oil context, as even the page you linked to says:

The Jevons paradox is sometimes used to argue that energy conservation efforts are futile, for example, that more efficient use of oil will lead to increased demand, and will not slow the arrival or the effects of peak oil. This argument is usually presented as a reason not to impose environmental policies, or to increase fuel efficiency (e.g. if cars are more efficient, it will simply lead to more driving).[7][8] Several points have been raised against this argument. First, in the context of a mature market such as for oil in developed countries, the direct rebound effect is usually small, and so increased fuel efficiency usually reduces resource use, other conditions remaining constant.[6][9][10] Second, even if increased efficiency does not reduce the total amount of fuel used, there remain other benefits associated with improved efficiency. For example, increased fuel efficiency may mitigate the price increases, shortages and disruptions in the global economy associated with peak oil.[11] Third, environmental economists have pointed out that fuel use will unambiguously decrease if increased efficiency is coupled with an intervention (e.g. a green tax) that keeps the cost of fuel use the same or higher.[3]

In particular, oil scarcity and its consequential high price functions as "an intervention ... that keeps the cost of fuel use the same or higher."

That doesn't mean we don't have a problem, of course, just that Jevons will be the least of our worries. The next ten or twenty years are going to be enormously challenging and will reshape our world as dramatically as the original Industrial Revolution.


Kim

[Zhen Li]

(1) What on earth is the smiley supposed to mean here?
(2) Have you looked up Tverberg's background? If not, you have no foundation for commenting on my rating of her. If you have, how do you justify valuing her thoughts above those of http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 2006.xhtml, cited and quoted in dzogchungpa's recently-posted links?

It's all about the quality of our information sources. If we read ill-informed and biased writers, the foundations of our knowledge are as cracked as they are.

If everyone read only writers who the cathedral sanctioned, Galileo would be a footnote in history.

[dzogchungpa]

... indeed, world population appears to be declining on the whole.

svg

[Malcolm]

... indeed, world population appears to be declining on the whole.

svg

Right, it means that according to UN estimates, word population in 2150 could be as high as 25 trillion, the red line, or as low s 3.5 trillion, the green line. According to the report, the mathematical model favors the low number.

[Kim O'Hara]

(1) What on earth is the smiley supposed to mean here?
(2) Have you looked up Tverberg's background? If not, you have no foundation for commenting on my rating of her. If you have, how do you justify valuing her thoughts above those of http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 2006.xhtml, cited and quoted in dzogchungpa's recently-posted links?

It's all about the quality of our information sources. If we read ill-informed and biased writers, the foundations of our knowledge are as cracked as they are.

If everyone read only writers who the cathedral sanctioned, Galileo would be a footnote in history.

If you want to go back to renaissance Italy you will have to give up the internet ... which is another way of saying things don't work that way now.
Please answer my questions.


Kim

[dzogchungpa]

... indeed, world population appears to be declining on the whole.

Right, it means that according to UN estimates, word population in 2150 could be as high as 25 trillion, the red line, or as low s 3.5 trillion, the green line. According to the report, the mathematical model favors the low number.

The point being that world population is increasing, not declining. It's the rate of population growth that is declining. If that chart is to be believed world population will not begin to decline until after 2040, at the earliest. I'm sure you understand, but others might be confused. Also, you mean 'billion' not 'trillion'.

[Malcolm]

Also, you mean 'billion' not 'trillion'.

Yup.