How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:01 pm Post subject: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
If the Law of Entropy were clearly understood, society would have to face up to the fact that every time we use some of the stockpile of available matter and energy, it means two things: First, that however it may happen, we end up paying more for the disorder created in making a product than the value derived from the use of the product; second, less energy is available to be used in the future. This reality flies in the face of the way we think the world works. Sounds like nonsense to most people.
Whenever energy is extracted from the environment and processed through society, part of it becomes dissipated or wasted at every stage, until all of it, including the part made into products, ends up as waste in the end. Economists cannot accept this simple truth. They are indoctrinated with this notion that human ingenuity plus nature's bounty creates greater value, not less. They don't understand that machines and people cannot create anything. All we can do is transform available energy from a usable state to an unusable state, while allowing us some "temporary utility" along the way.
A study was done on how much energy was required to build an automobile. The study concluded that many times more energy was actually used than was necessary. Why was all the extra energy used? To get the automobile off the assembly line faster. "Haste makes waste" is a well-know idiom attesting to the intuitive reality of entropy at work. We need to start building machines that last (quality vs quantity), and to pursue the development of technologies that will operate with efficiencies closer to the ideal limits set by nature and as defined by the Law of Entropy. Implementing this last and most crucial goal are at odds with current economic policies and the general perception of reality that most people have of the world around them.
Thus our economy is dependent for its maintenance, growth and development on the acquisition of low entropy energy/matter and on the waste assimilation capacity of the environment. This means that beyond a certain point, the continuous growth of the economy (i.e., the increase in human populations and the accumulation of manufactured capital) can be had only at the expense of increasing disorder (entropy). This occurs when consumption by the economy exceeds production in nature and is seen through the accelerating depletion of natural capital, reduced biodiversity, air/water/land pollution, and climate change.
Our current economic production is utterly dependent on the availability of low-entropy inputs like oil. We basically have two sources of low entropy: the solar and fossil fuels. Solar is relatively infinite, but is strictly limited in its flow rate of arrival to earth. Fossil fuels are finite, but can be used at a flow rate of our own choosing. Industrialism and technology represents a shift away from the use of abundant solar energy toward major dependence on the scarce fossil fuels in order to take advantage of the controllable rate of flow at which we can use it.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that we should be fueling our cars with alcohol from food crops that gather current sunshine. This approach is different in practice from the money-based "least cost" method of optimizing production, so it is important to stress the differences between economic and thermodynamic analysis. Economic analysis is based upon perceptions of present value and scarcity as expressed in the marketplace, where the supply and demand framework is modeled on an instantaneous evaluation of the popular perception of shortages.
The late M. King Hubbert put it quite succinctly:
The world's present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the past four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy and the associated monetary culture which has evolved from folkways of prehistoric origin.
To put it simply: The knowledge of matter and energy + monetary policy=peak-oil.
Since the current monetary system wants growth, we need a system that wants stability. Would it be a monetary system based upon EROEI, rather than matter wealth? Instead of correcting inflation, we would correct a decrease in EROEI, or slow down entropy. A money system triggered, not by scarcity (supply/demand) but by thermodynamic flow-through efficiency. If entropy increased, you would curb the money supply. If people conserved more, you would free the money supply. The reverse of what we have now.
Money would be created based upon available renewable energy, while fossil fuels would be for key, non-profit energy use, and energy emergencies. The less energy you use, the cheaper it becomes. Bulk cost more than small amounts. The faster you drive, the more it costs you for fuel when you stop to fill up. Conservation would pay you a dividend. Perhaps we could have a carbon tax on hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) making the use of renewables more attractive.
Each person receives wages according to the amount of order they add to the system as a whole and pays fees/taxes for how much 'stuff' they turn into useless chaotic energy. Like reverse depreciation. No way to make anyone accept such a system of course, people are not intelligent enough to contemplate such a thing, and in addition you would have to have a great deal of control over people's private lives. But it is in the general direction I feel we should go governed by our decision, and not by the ruthless laws of nature over which we cannot escape.
No way to make anyone accept such a system of course, people are not intelligent enough to contemplate such a thing, and in addition you would have to have a great deal of control over people's private lives.
And isn't that a bitch? The worlds going to hell in a handbasket, and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.
I'm beginning to think that a crash is not just imminent, but necessary.
What other hope do we have of living with each other? Everyone just seems to want to kill everyone else for one reason or another. Under our current system, is it even possible to change that?
I doubt it.
Here in N.America we need a serious kick in the ass to get it through our heads that things need to change. This garbage about "the market will give signals and save us all" is practically all-pervasive on this continent.
It's sad, but it'll be a lot sadder when they start stringing up folks like Monte just because he was right and they can't accept it. *sigh*
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6368 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 7:41 am Post subject:
How Big Should A Small Farm Be?
John Ikerd
(Or “Entropy and Industrial Agriculture”)
“This dissolution of boundaries, this industrialization of agriculture, has resulted in tremendous gains in agricultural productivity and economic efficiency. As with industrialization in general, it has released tremendous stocks of stored energy that were constrained by the boundaries that once defined different fields, family functions, enterprises, farms, and even farming communities. The boundaries have been removed and the energy has been released. But, once the stored energy has been used up, where will these industrial farming operations get new energy?”
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 32 Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:01 am Post subject:
[quote="Matrim"]
Quote:
I'm beginning to think that a crash is not just imminent, but necessary.
*
Luckily, your views are the minority and your mindset prohibits your accession to any positions of authority.
I wonder what most moms and dads would think of your thoughts son? _________________ Globalization is the only meaningful path.
This garbage about "the market will give signals and save us all" is practically all-pervasive on this continent.
Here is an example of why "the market" is busted and some people do not understand the bustification of the market as taken from this very forum:
k_semler wrote:
EROEI simply proves that tar sands are just not economically exploitable
Then
JohnDenver wrote:
If that is so, then how do you explain the fact that private companies are exploiting those resources commercially?
Simple. There is no "Market" to give "Signals" The "Market" is distorted by Governments and their taxation policies. From http://www.camagazine.com/index.cfm/ci_id/6876/la_id/1.htmfor a mining operation, these expenses can be written off at 100%
The 'rebuttal' in the above case by JohnDenver ignores the Government's hand.
Another Example - US Nuclear power. The Government has limited the fiscal damages from a nuke plant accident and the Government has 'ownership' of the waste. So much for a push or a slap from the invisible hand of the market.
I'm beginning to think that a crash is not just imminent, but necessary.
*
Luckily, your views are the minority and your mindset prohibits your accession to any positions of authority.
I wonder what most moms and dads would think of your thoughts son?
I'm glad I'm not your son! Do you make them live the exact same lifestyle that you do since you seem very close-minded and troll-ish. If they have a pessimistic attitude, do you ground them for a year?
Here is a simplified version of the contents of all you posts: "If it goes against my views, it MUST be wrong"
I think the absolute core of the problem is human nature. It's human nature to want more, and it's human nature to only look at the short term. _________________ "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
How Big Should A Small Farm Be?
John Ikerd
(Or “Entropy and Industrial Agriculture”)
Quote:
If you drive right through “your” town to buy things in the city, just to save a few dollars.
Thanks Pops! Great article. Drives home my point. I have a "just right" 212 acre, Missouri, black gumbo farm with a 15 acre pasture that has never been plowed, pheasants in the hedge rows, squirrels in the groves, and no chemicals on the fields. :D _________________ 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.
Falcon - I'd differ with you there. I think what you see as human nature is just the product of America's culture and history, with a substantial grounding in European colonialist values. This is not to say that here in Europe the latter values don't still cause harm: they do, to us and others.
I'd in no way deny that the ideology of 'acquisitiveness' has been present and growing for as long as man's made cities. But I'd point out that history has not only been written by the victors, its also been written for the rich.
There have been and still are many examples of peaceable cultures thriving and respecting the wellbeing of their descendants, and yet their values don't seem to get the same coverage.
I'd suggest that the extreme societies that we see now are an aberation from human nature, which reflects their isolation from Nature, and that IMHO is at the core of their problem.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1414 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 11:03 pm Post subject: Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
One problem with looking at peak oil from an entropy point of view is that producing entropy is so much fun:
Eating chocolate,: oh all that lovely entropy.
Downhill skiing: glorious entropy.
Sex: hot and sweaty entropy!
You don't need to bring thermodynamics into a discussion of peak oil. Calling oil a "finite resource" is perfectly adequate. Talking about entropy adds nothing, and probably puts off many people. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 11:41 pm Post subject: Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
nero wrote:
One problem with looking at peak oil from an entropy point of view is that producing entropy is so much fun:
Eating chocolate,: oh all that lovely entropy.
Downhill skiing: glorious entropy.
Sex: hot and sweaty entropy!
You don't need to bring thermodynamics into a discussion of peak oil. Calling oil a "finite resource" is perfectly adequate. Talking about entropy adds nothing, and probably puts off many people.
It adds nothing to those who don't understand or dismiss it's implications. _________________ 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.
Joined: Aug 10, 2004 Posts: 1104 Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:05 am Post subject: Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
MonteQuest wrote:
nero wrote:
One problem with looking at peak oil from an entropy point of view is that producing entropy is so much fun:
Eating chocolate,: oh all that lovely entropy.
Downhill skiing: glorious entropy.
Sex: hot and sweaty entropy!
You don't need to bring thermodynamics into a discussion of peak oil. Calling oil a "finite resource" is perfectly adequate. Talking about entropy adds nothing, and probably puts off many people.
It adds nothing to those who don't understand or dismiss it's implications.
I think the entropy discussion is important. In practical terms, I agree that the idea of depletable resources and EROEI is more to the point. The only issue I raise with the entropy discussion is that, once it has been addressed, it tells us nothing about the response of industrial society to energy depletion. But entropy and more generally the thermodynamic perspective does help people understand that there are limits.
Just like I think the exponential growth and overshoot concepts are very important. The might turn people off, but I think they are a foundation for any consideration of ecological economics and human ecology.
Where I get tweaked is when entropy and die-off are used to motivate any detailed understanding of how energy depletion will play out. The response of industrial civilization is unknown. The timing is unknown. History provides clues but cannot be used to prove much of anything, both in terms of human behaviors or other matters.
Hence I get tweaked when Katrina is used as an example for the response of industrial society to peak oil Katrina indicate the response of industrial society to the loss of a coastline due to category 4/5 hurricanes. Beyond that, it proves nothing. Neither does entropy. Nor overshoot.
I used the example the other day on a different board of not ever seeing SUVs in a test tube. If you look at many discussions of peak oil, e.g. Savinar's book, the idea of bacteria and other animals are used. What these comparisons do not take into account is that most animals are highly optimized to the energy in their environment. Once the energy source runs out for those bacteria, they don't have a lot of options. Humans have more options. And humans are not bacteria.
Hence my other rant. The "humans are crap" rant in another thread was primarily motivated by the gross analogies that are often made, comparing humans to bacteria. Now I sometimes have a rather negative--and perhaps realistic--view of what humans are capable of--but they are not bacteria. Animals yes, but that does not provide me with predictive power.
Humans waste enormous quantities of energy. Because it has been dirt cheap. Bacteria don't. That doesn't mean we don't have problems. But the waste must be taken into account. The reduction of waste means loss of jobs, society slowing down, or many things. It's not necessarily hopelessly hopeless, nor hopelessly optimistic. Perhaps there is a path through the bottleneck. Entropy tells me nothing about the existence or non-existnce of that path. In the interim term. In the next five years. Or ten. Or twenty. Or thirty.
It is the response of industrial society to energy depletion that is the primary issue. And entropy, overshoot, and the derision of human nature only provide a very coarse understanding of what will happen. In the long term, entropy does indicate that--well, that everything sort of runs down. Planets, stars, universes--perhaps the latter, still not completely understood.
The key question is the response. And this is also why I still question efforts to create depletion curves. The world has never depleted energy on a global scale. The depletions we've seen to date have been local. Those global depletions are geoligical-economic-political. There is enough slop and noise that I think trying to fine tune depletion curves to mean anything in the future will prove futil. In addition, the response of the consumer--industrial society--must be taken into account. And we don't know that response.
Hence I bring up the issue of emergent systems. Cities, industrial society, etc is a complex system and the study of previous collapses is interesting but not predictive.
Therefore, I think the issues of overshoot, entropy, limits, are all important but, once understood, can be set aside. Because the reality is industrial society and political systems and the behavior of humans, both collectively and individually, are key.
More broadly--since I'm obviously pontificating now--one has to wonder whether this is the natural outcome of any evolutionary process in which a creature rises out of the muck and, at some point, discovers the means to tap into low entropy sources. Everyone discusses how great the Native Americans were, how they had a sustainable lifestyle. In some ways. But there are a lot of large land mammals that may--and it still seems to be may--have been driven to extinction when they crossed the land bridge.
So then I get to wondering: what should be the individual response to peak oil? Is it to go to whatever extremes are necessary to save my sorry ass? Isn't that part of the problem? That we're all so concerned about ourselves? Remember the entropy argument. Everything runs down. So whether it happens slowly, or quickly, it will happen. To a degree, that completely negates the argument of those who use entropy to argue that humans should slow down. Why? If it's going to run down--and it will, someday, since the sun will run down--is it so bad to go out in a big bang. Why wait?
Now I don't seriously believe that. I'm all for society slowing down. But the entropy argument is a double edge sword.
So then I start wondering: ok, all those concerned about saving themselves, they're actually part of the problem. Because they're only interest in this whole topic is to save their ass? Yes, a straw man. Not true. But a perspective to consider.
See, from one perspective, I wonder whether the real response to peak oil, for the committed environmentalists, should be to "off" themselves, i.e. suicide. And please please note I'm not proposing this. This is a philosophical speculative rant. But if they are that concerned, shouldn't they set the best example one can of saving entropy. "News flash: Members of industrial society "off" themselves in order to reduce increase of entropy."
Here's the deal. We don't know the following. When the peak will occur. What the depletion curve will be like. What the response of industrial society will be like. How long it will play out. What effiencies will be found. What restructing will be performed. All uncertainties.
Entropy is a cool concept. But it won't answer any of the above questions. At least not enough to tell me about the following 30 years. The only thing I am certain of is that there will be energy shocks.
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:32 am Post subject: Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
All things have their time. Someday the universe will end and civilization with it, the latter most likely sooner than the former. Oil may be a finite resource, it is nevertheless a resource. It would be as much a waste not to exploit and consume it for the purpose of civilization as it would be to consume it too rapidly. Should we have left the oil in the ground such that it can witness the end of the Earth having never been disturbed? Then it will have missed its role in the great project of civilization for which it was destined.
A middle ground must be found. Oil will come out and it will be depleted. All that we must resolve is what will be done with the oil, and where civilization will proceed after it is no longer oil-based.
Joined: May 22, 2004 Posts: 1414 Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 11:17 am Post subject: Re: Energy, Economics and Entropy.
MonteQuest wrote:
It adds nothing to those who don't understand or dismiss it's implications.
I can't tell whether or not you're dissing me. I think you are.
Ho hummm, I guess I must be missing all those fascinating implications, cause I can't really be bothered to respond in detail to this one liner. _________________ Biofuels: The "What else we got to burn?" answer to peak oil.
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