I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:40 am Post subject: Re: Technology and Peak-oil; Cause and Effect.
MonteQuest wrote:
John, you are putting words in my mouth that I never uttered. When did I ever say technologies were immoral?
You said this, didn't you:
"History has shown us that every technological breakthrough has produced unforeseen secondary effects more disastrous than if it had never been invented."
How am I supposed to interpret that? Technological breakthroughs lead to horrible disasters, but you think technology is good, and should be promoted?? Your contempt for technology oozes out of everything you write. Don't be disingenuous.
MonteQuest wrote:
Quote:
Consider a specific example: smallpox vaccination, invented by Jenner. It seems, according to the Monte Theory, that this invention should be regarded as a disaster. It saved untold numbers of humans from early death, allowing them (and their descendants) to reproduce at a higher rate, and thus accelerating the speed with which humans in general will hit the wall of the earth's carrying capacity. Correct?
No, you are applying cause and effect, not physics. Smallpox, however insidious, is a life form that had a purpose. Its purpose was to help keep our population in check. There are no unneccesary lifeforms.
I guess you just came clean and admitted it: You're pro smallpox.
Just because I say technology is a transformer, doesn't mean in the same breath we should go back to being cavemen!
MonteQuest wrote:
living in a cave may be sustainable, while fusion is not.
Dude, yer waffling around worse than John Kerry. I hate technology, I don't hate technology. Living in caves is cool. Living in caves isn't cool. Effficiency's going to kill us. We need to be more efficient. Make up your mind for chrissake.
No machine-made assembly, hand-assembled. Hand-assembled means less entropy created. You save energy.
How so? You mean that all of us are going to be whittling dishes and forks and insulin syringes out of wood like Santa's elves, and this is going to be more energy efficient than just stamping them out by the gross in a factory?
Monte, look at your agenda (which you claim you don't have):
No power grids.
No pipelines.
No mass-production.
No trucking systems.
No machine assembly.
No children.
No fun.
You're a raving extremist, standing up on the stump like some bizarro-Moses, waving the "Supreme Law of the Universe". As a humble representative of all the normal people in the world, I'd just like to say: we don't buy it. You're a fruitcake.
John, you are a prime example of just how hard this transition is going to be. A paradigm shift in understanding and thinking is required. You are not there yet. You have great difficulty conceptualizing 2nd Law. It goes against everything we think we know. If you wish to argue physics, I'm open, but not to name-calling and derision. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
In my previous post, when I said "create" energy, I didn't mean so in the pure sense of the word. Most of our technology consumes energy rather than harnesses it.
Drilling for oil, refining it, and burning it is one example of harnessing energy into a usable form. However, we have come to depend too much on this process. New energy sources aren't truly breaking any laws of physics. They are just attempting to find new processes to transform energy into something usable.
Matter is a form of energy, and I think there still many ways that we still don't understand where we can use a form of matter in a specific process to gain energy. Monte, you should read about cold fusion. We have made great strides in better understanding the process for generating energy. We have discovered how to make the process more efficient over years of research.
What makes the 2nd law complex is that we don't have a very accurate way of measuring energy. For example, barrels of oil, pure uranium, and triated helium aren't all going to be creating the same amounts of energy when applied in the proper processes. Also, some processes will allow us to harness more energy than others.
Even if we did find a new process for harnessing energy from an abundant form of matter, it won't necessarily help us. The problem is human nature. If we never discovered fossil fuels, it would be other things that would cause social strife. If we do avert peak oil with a groundbreaking energy process, we would just keep growing our population. People mostly aren't apt at seeing the big picture and the long term. I honestly think most animals are superior to humans because of their ability to come into balance with their environment.
Most energy generated by animals can be reused. When animals poop, insects and plants can use that waste to grow. The animals can then eat the insects and plants. It's a reciprocal system. Human technology is not reciprocal. The carbon gases fly into the air, never to be used by another living thing. I think that entropy doesn't apply to everything, because the ecosystems of living things are circular. A circular system can both improve or decay. _________________ "If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn
I honestly think most animals are superior to humans because of their ability to come into balance with their environment.
Animals come into balance with nature the samme way that humans do. When we exceed the carrying capacity of the environment, there is a die-off back to the level the environment can support.
Most energy generated by animals can be reused. When animals poop, insects and plants can use that waste to grow. The animals can then eat the insects and plants. It's a reciprocal system. Human technology is not reciprocal. The carbon gases fly into the air, never to be used by another living thing. I think that entropy doesn't apply to everything, because the ecosystems of living things are circular. A circular system can both improve or decay.
This isn't about the cycles of nutrients. It is about the the universe constantly moving towards random disorder. It takes energy to put things in order. If you transfer energy from one form to another, you make more disorder that requires energy to put it back in order. The energy required to create order is always greater than the energy required for disorder to happen. Entropy applies to everything. No exceptions. Technology is complex. It requires a lot of energy transfers. In each transfer there is a loss of usable energy creating an increase in entropy, that requires even more energy to deal with the disorder. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
You're a raving extremist, standing up on the stump like some bizarro-Moses, waving the "Supreme Law of the Universe". As a humble representative of all the normal people in the world, I'd just like to say: we don't buy it. You're a fruitcake.
This is what you are reduced to? The straw man devolves to the ad hominum attack? His argument is not hard to summarize, but it is very difficult to refute.
He is saying that technology can't fix the energy problem because technology a) can't create energy, and b) it uses energy. We use energy to create technology and inevitably more entropy. After Peak Oil we must have less technology, not more. Otherwise we create more entropy than we overcome.
I don't think his ideas around power down have a snowball's chance but that doesn't make me feel any better so I'd rather not argue with him about it. You mock his solution - that isn't hard - but that doesn't solve the problem. What is your solution?
Matter is a form of energy, and I think there still many ways that we still don't understand where we can use a form of matter in a specific process to gain energy. Monte, you should read about cold fusion. We have made great strides in better understanding the process for generating energy. We have discovered how to make the process more efficient over years of research.
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1322 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 12:34 am Post subject:
MonteQuest wrote:
The carbon gases fly into the air, never to be used by another living thing.
The CO2 in your vehicle exhaust is exactly the same as the CO2 you exhale. This is absorbed by plants.
Interesting aside: I'm just reading a book "Lonely Planet" that points out that free O2 in the atmosphere is not produced by inorganic processes. The atmosphere was originally mostly CO2. When plants evolved the ability to extract CO2 from the air to build their carbohydrate structures, they produced O2 as a waste product. O2 was toxic to most life forms at the time so they had to evolve an immunity to this nasty pollutant. Eventually animals evolved the ability to get their energy by breathing the O2 and eating the plants.
He is saying that technology can't fix the energy problem because technology a) can't create energy, and b) it uses energy.
The argument is easy to refute, and here's why: It may be the case that technology CAN fix the energy problem. As time goes on, we may have a technological breakthrough (or a combination of breakthroughs), and peak oil is solved. Your argument cannot rule that possibility out.
Of course, you keep saying: That just postpones the problem. But that's not a proven fact either. We may be able to keep using technology to postpone our energy problems indefinitely, and nothing you have said rules that possibility out.
So, to sum up, you have not "proven", and you do not even *know*, whether technology can fix our energy problems. Maybe it can, maybe it can't. We don't know yet. Hence, your "proof" that technology cannot solve our energy problems is a fraud.
Your argument doesn't prove that peak oil cannot be solved with technology. It simply assumes that from the get-go. It is a fraud cooked up by a person with an obvious anti-technology bias, and is only regarded as convincing by those who share that bias. The whole entropy bit is a bunch of pseudo-science malarkey.
Do you disagree? Then show me how the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics implies the impossibility of any future breakthroughs in energy technology. That's what you must prove, and you're not cutting it. You're not even getting close.
Quote:
I don't think his ideas around power down have a snowball's chance but that doesn't make me feel any better so I'd rather not argue with him about it. You mock his solution - that isn't hard - but that doesn't solve the problem. What is your solution?
Well, immediately, the solution is obviously to develop and pump as much oil as possible. After that, we will compensate with natural gas, and after that with coal liquefaction. Meanwhile we'll be beefing up the nuclear and coal, and hopefully cutting deeply into energy waste. If we're lucky, prices will get out of control, and focus our minds on the issue at hand: developing new energy. The long term solution is to more effectively tap the sun and other space energy sources.
As for the ad homs, Monte deserves them. Anybody who gets up in public and avocates draconian, anti-democratic policies, is a legitimate target.
The whole entropy bit is a bunch of pseudo-science malarkey.
Known physics is malarkey?
Quote:
The argument is easy to refute, and here's why: It may be the case that technology CAN fix the energy problem. As time goes on, we may have a technological breakthrough (or a combination of breakthroughs), and peak oil is solved. Your argument cannot rule that possibility out.
Of course, you keep saying: That just postpones the problem. But that's not a proven fact either. We may be able to keep using technology to postpone our energy problems indefinitely, and nothing you have said rules that possibility out.
Oh, I think 2nd law definitely rules that out. Explain to me how using more energy and creating more disorder by increasing entropy solves the energy problem. Maximum entropy results in a watershed. If you believe water will flow uphill, you can get your lunch for free, and get something for nothing, you are going to have to prove it, John. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Animals come into balance with nature the samme way that humans do. When we exceed the carrying capacity of the environment, there is a die-off back to the level the environment can support.
I strongly disagree with that comment. Ecosystems don't work like that at all. Oftentimes, two species in an environment will be checks and balances against one another. Caribou are able to feed on the lush grasslands of northern Canada, and they probably would breed out of control if not for wolves and other predators. Wolves also eat other animals such as rabbits. Wolves are keeping rabbits' and caribou's populations in check by eating them, but at the same time wolves are being held in check because they are limited to how much they can eat. You can almost call it an even and balanced flow of energy.
Humans in the fossil fuel age we have now is a completely different situation. Instead of having traditional checks against our population, we actively act to push aside those checks, and we have had great success with the help of fossil fuels. Now that our population has grown so much, we completely depend on fossil fuels to hold those population checks at bay. Now it is possible to measure our success and stability by fossil fuels, hence the doom and gloom theorists.
As to your comments on entropy, I think you're oversimplifying the situation. An ecosystem where differing species keep their populations in balance can evolve into more complex organisms and more complex ecosystems. If entropy applied to ecosystems, then the lost energy in the various transfers would cause ecosystems to erode, and animals to become smaller and weaker. Animals wouldn't have the energy to expand their ecosystems and evolve to be stronger.
I really don't think that an energy breakthrough will happen before an oil crash. We are already on the oil plateau and the perfect storm is brewing. It's just not realistic to think that we will be bailed out by some new process for harnessing energy. The US only has around 5 years before financial meltdown, maybe less. We probably have the basic knowledge to start building a small cold fusion power plant today, but nobody seems very interested. I almost feel like the powers that be want an economical crash. _________________ "If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn
Animals come into balance with nature the samme way that humans do. When we exceed the carrying capacity of the environment, there is a die-off back to the level the environment can support.
I strongly disagree with that comment. Ecosystems don't work like that at all. Oftentimes, two species in an environment will be checks and balances against one another. Caribou are able to feed on the lush grasslands of northern Canada, and they probably would breed out of control if not for wolves and other predators. Wolves also eat other animals such as rabbits. Wolves are keeping rabbits' and caribou's populations in check by eating them, but at the same time wolves are being held in check because they are limited to how much they can eat. You can almost call it an even and balanced flow of energy.
Yes, you are correct. I was referring to carrying capacities corrections. Feedback loops, as you state keep a balance in a sustainable environment, but if the wolf goes, Liebig's Law takes over and there will be a die-off. So, I think we are in agreement there, right?
Quote:
As to your comments on entropy, I think you're oversimplifying the situation. An ecosystem where differing species keep their populations in balance can evolve into more complex organisms and more complex ecosystems. If entropy applied to ecosystems, then the lost energy in the various transfers would cause ecosystems to erode, and animals to become smaller and weaker. Animals wouldn't have the energy to expand their ecosystems and evolve to be stronger.
Entropy apples to everything. It is how the world works. Ecosystems do erode, and the ones who can adapt survive. We call it evolution. Entropy produces evolution.
Quote:
I really don't think that an energy breakthrough will happen before an oil crash. We are already on the oil plateau and the perfect storm is brewing. It's just not realistic to think that we will be bailed out by some new process for harnessing energy. The US only has around 5 years before financial meltdown, maybe less. We probably have the basic knowledge to start building a small cold fusion power plant today, but nobody seems very interested. I almost feel like the powers that be want an economical crash.
That I agree with totally. And any "breakthrough" will just make the inevitable crash harder. End runs around 2nd Law are only temporary. The increase in entropy that results just makes more mess to clean up than we started with. Water does not flow uphill, only down. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
You mean that all of us are going to be whittling dishes and forks and insulin syringes out of wood like Santa's elves, and this is going to be more energy efficient than just stamping them out by the gross in a factory?
John, 2nd law tells us just exactly that. I'm not saying we need to go back to hand-whittled existence, but we do need to reduce the complexity of our technology. The more complex, the more energy transfers, the more transfers, the less usable energy available. In increasing technology, we decrease the amount of energy available. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
As for the ad homs, Monte deserves them. Anybody who gets up in public and avocates draconian, anti-democratic policies, is a legitimate target.
No, they aren't a legitimate target, but that's beside the point. The point is that it is a logical fallacy that reflects on your arguments, not his. I don't take straw men arguments seriously and I consider anybody who uses an ad hominen attack to be childish.
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