Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 1:28 pm Post subject: THE Malthus Thread (merged)
Pop Culture Fad or Reason for Panic?
Hubbert's Peak has become a bona fide Internet fad. Even if this site is only getting a modest number of visitors, runningonempty2 is choked with messages from people worrying over the end of the oil economy. Of course, the record gas prices in the U.S. are only fueling the urgency of the message. The question you have to ask yourself is, is it real, or is it just more "Malthusian" tomfoolery.
Eschatological panic is one of the oldest and most revered of human passtimes. Millennialism, once limited to religious zealots, has escaped the bounds of a supernatural doomsday ("choose the form of the destructor!"), as we saw in the short-lived and unnecessary panic over the Y2K bug, and has taken root in science.
But just because millennialism has a deep-rooted psychological appeal doesn't necessarily mean that the concept of peak oil production and what it will mean is wrong.
Even if we assume the production peak is real and imminent, what that mean is open to conjecture. Here are some possibilities:
1) oil production doesn't peak for decades
2) oil production peaks soon but annual declines are relatively small, allowing for an "orderly retreat" of economic activity to preserve industrial civilization.
3) massive investments in alternative energies find a technological alternative to oil that can be implemented very quickly.
The only thing that I'm willing to predict for now is that by the end of 2004, "peak oil" or "Hubbert's Peak" is going to be a pop culture buzzword on the order of "global warming."
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 7:22 pm Post subject: Re: Pop Culture Fad or Reason for Panic?
I'm going with Pop Culture Fad but you knew that. Still, I wanted to address your partial list of possibilities. I'm just talking off the top of my head so feel free to correct me using sad icons.
Kenny wrote:
Even if we assume the production peak is real and imminent, what that mean is open to conjecture. Here are some possibilities:
1) oil production doesn't peak for decades
2) oil production peaks soon but annual declines are relatively small, allowing for an "orderly retreat" of economic activity to preserve industrial civilization.
3) massive investments in alternative energies find a technological alternative to oil that can be implemented very quickly.
1) It will peak in some places long before it peaks in others. It's probably impossible to tell where it will peak first but since oil is more or less fungible, other sources will take up the slack at a slightly higher cost and thus automatically reduce demand. Sources in nations with higher standards of living will suddenly find it profitable to pump oil even at the high labor costs. That pushes 1) automatically to...
2) That seems most reasonable.
3) That seems reasonable also but it's a tougher battle. Oil stores energy like few other resources, natural or manmade, and does so in a fairly safe and portable medium.
I think the people who are most afraid are the people who take peak oil and read it directly into the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth." The idea of overshoot and collapse of industrial civilization because of resource exhaution and overpopulation. The fear is that the "limits to growth" dynamic systems model may not have fully taken into account the problem of production decline at the halfway point of resource depletion, or fully understood the idea that all of the "green revolution" was a matter of pouring fossil fuels directly into agricultural production both in the forms of pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers and in the form of mechanization of production and distribution. In other words, if you believe peak oil, and you believe the Club of Rome got most of it right, then you have to assume that the problem is even worse than they claimed.
Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 9:58 pm Post subject: is this a fad
For those who don't believe in peak oil, or who believe it is a fad: link
try arguing with this approach to the problem. Solve it with money if you can, but remember, you must stay within the laws of thermodynamics.
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 12:57 pm Post subject: Malthusians ignore oceans
Peak oil is just one component of the New Malthusianism. You can't underestimate how hard it will be to transition away from oil, but you also can't ignore that the New Malthusians are making the same old mistakes in ignoring new sources of food and energy.
Aquaculture and nuclear power are both underdeveloped. Coal for hundreds of years of coal-fired electricty is still in the ground. Most first-world workers live within electric car range of their jobs. And, to top it off, world population seems to be heading for stability at around 10 billion.
Joined: Jul 17, 2004 Posts: 490 Location: Amerika (most of the time)
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:01 pm Post subject: Re: Pop Culture Fad or Reason for Panic?
Robert Espy wrote:
1) It will peak in some places long before it peaks in others. It's probably impossible to tell where it will peak first but since oil is more or less fungible, other sources will take up the slack at a slightly higher cost and thus automatically reduce demand. Sources in nations with higher standards of living will suddenly find it profitable to pump oil even at the high labor costs. That pushes 1) automatically to...
What in the world are you talking about? Oil is not fungible. The only fuel source that can remotely compare to oil is gas and that has it's own set of issues. When you talk about replacing oil for petro-chemical precursors, then oil is very hard to replace. Also you are not understanding the fundamental nature of the peak oil problem. When oil peaks, there will be no "slack" to automatically reduce demand. Oil pumping is independent of a country's labor costs. If it was dependent on labor costs, then building multi-billion dollar deep water oil platforms and staffing them with hundreds of well paid Americans would make absolutely no sense.
Now moving on to the original question. Almost every body with any type of scientific standing does agree that we will peak. The only problem that we now face (and is the subject of rather intense debate) is knowing when that will happen. So the question you have to ask yourself is what will happen when the price of oil starts to rise. Honestly, I don't agree with the whole die-off thing. (A bit too extreme for me). But I don't think industrial civilization can survive in its present form with very high energy prices. Our system is set up for continual growth, not continual decline. Also remind yourself that if you have continual economic decline, then more and more people will not be able to work/feed, clothe and house themselves unless we start sharing the dwindling resources that are left. What happens to our society then? Tough questions and noone has all of the answers.
Joined: Aug 10, 2004 Posts: 1104 Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:24 pm Post subject: Re: Pop Culture Fad or Reason for Panic?
I get the feeling poster "Robert Espy" is not famliar with the details of peak oil, hence the comment "peak in somce places." Peak Oil is a global event. Yeah, some particular regions, etc will peak (like the US thirty years ago), but the global peak is the kicker--that's when things get a little more complicated.
It's also not clear that he understand the use of the term fungible: link
Oil is fungible. All that means is that a barrel of oil of a particular grade is largely tradeable or equivalent to a barrel of oil of the same grade. Though oil of different grades is not fungible--hence the price difference. It says nothing about the equivalence of oil as a mined energy source and other mined sources, e.g. gas or oil--let alone non-mined sources such as biofuels and other forms of solar.
The free marketeers who promise technological salvation have not considered that (a) nuclear power as a technical salvation was never created by the free market and, even with huge government subsidies, is nowhere near a solution to peak oil and (b) there are no other technical solutions that provide the cheap, low EROI energy of oil. Science has progressed a long ways from the days of Malthus. Not only do we understand better what we can do, we also understand better what we cannot do. This is something the misinformed misunderstand about science: science is really about limits, in particular identifying limits in the universe. E.g. the speed of light is a limit. The first and second laws of thermodynamics are limits. Science is about limits, technology is about working within those limits. It's not clear to me that technology has a solution to the problem of peak-oil. Burning 100s of millions of years of stored solar energy in two decades is not easily replicated.
Is is interesting how many of the analysts who don't consider EROI will say that tar sands or coal synthetic fuels are economical at, say $60 a barrel, but they compute this using oil (e.g. trucks, mining equipment) that is priced as $20 a barrel. So when oil is $60 a barrel, the break even point for some of these non-traditional sources will be $180 a barrel. In other words, they've not done an EROI based analysis and therefore have no clue what they are talking about.
big_rc wrote:
Robert Espy wrote:
1) It will peak in some places long before it peaks in others. It's probably impossible to tell where it will peak first but since oil is more or less fungible, other sources will take up the slack at a slightly higher cost and thus automatically reduce demand. Sources in nations with higher standards of living will suddenly find it profitable to pump oil even at the high labor costs. That pushes 1) automatically to...
What in the world are you talking about? Oil is not fungible. The only fuel source that can remotely compare to oil is gas and that has it's own set of issues. When you talk about replacing oil for petro-chemical precursors, then oil is very hard to replace. Also you are not understanding the fundamental nature of the peak oil problem. When oil peaks, there will be no "slack" to automatically reduce demand. Oil pumping is independent of a country's labor costs. If it was dependent on labor costs, then building multi-billion dollar deep water oil platforms and staffing them with hundreds of well paid Americans would make absolutely no sense.
Now moving on to the original question. Almost every body with any type of scientific standing does agree that we will peak. The only problem that we now face (and is the subject of rather intense debate) is knowing when that will happen. So the question you have to ask yourself is what will happen when the price of oil starts to rise. Honestly, I don't agree with the whole die-off thing. (A bit too extreme for me). But I don't think industrial civilization can survive in its present form with very high energy prices. Our system is set up for continual growth, not continual decline. Also remind yourself that if you have continual economic decline, then more and more people will not be able to work/feed, clothe and house themselves unless we start sharing the dwindling resources that are left. What happens to our society then? Tough questions and noone has all of the answers.
Joined: Aug 10, 2004 Posts: 1104 Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:04 pm Post subject:
One correction: "Espy" is using the term "fungible" correctly. I re-read his post. As one region of the world peaks, oil production is increased in other parts, e.g. Saudi Arabia. And because oil is largely fungible, supplies in Saudi Arabia pick up the slack (though there is the issue of grades of oil).
Why are these the only two choices? Colour me neoMalthusian. I don't know whether Peak Oil represents a true limit to growth or not. I suspect so, but I'm not sure. Even if it is, I'm not convinced we will see a hard crash. I'm not even convinced a soft landing is best in the long run or a hard crash would be best in the long run.
I do know we face the mother of all energy crises. I lived through the last one and it sucked big time. I expect the next one will be even worse.
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 309 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject:
Just to replace the oil depletion and allow economic growth to continue as normal - pretending that electricity can replace oil and it can't - you'd need to be putting up a nuclear reactor literally every day or two for the next 40 years just to make up the energy shortfall. Each reactor is billions of dollars and 5-12 years to build, in itself.
I don't think we all have to die off... if we play our cards very right and avoid wars and stupidty at all costs... but I think the problem is so enormous there's no way life can continue business as usual. Every aspect of life will change. I don't think a person can be reasonably informed about where humanity's going the next 50 years without appreciating the impact of peak oil. _________________ "Our forces are now closer to the center of Baghdad than most American commuters are to their downtown office."
--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, April 2003
Just to replace the oil depletion and allow economic growth to continue as normal - pretending that electricity can replace oil and it can't - you'd need to be putting up a nuclear reactor literally every day or two for the next 40 years just to make up the energy shortfall. Each reactor is billions of dollars and 5-12 years to build, in itself.
Watch out when you are building all of those nuclear reactors! Just about the time you get the 5th or 6th one finished some jerk will come along and tell you "You realize of course, that there is a Hubberts Peak for Uranium too."
In fact, switching 100% of electrical demand (only electrical demand, not transportation, etc) could deplete remaining Uranium stocks within 40 years.
The job of scientists is to primarily to discover and then inform us as to what we can and can't do in regards to the laws of nature. It is not their job to continuously pull rabbits out of their hats and bail us out every time we are in danger of facing the consquences of our own stupidity.
Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:29 pm Post subject: Re: Pop Culture Fad or Reason for Panic?
Hey all,this is my first post on this board,I've been researching the whole peak oil thing for a few months now.While I'm still not 100% convinced that it will happen,given all the conflicting arguments for and against it,I'm leaning more and more towards the idea that it is a reality.
So then,assuming that it is in fact true,I see no reason to hold overly optomist beliefs like this-
big_rc wrote:
Honestly, I don't agree with the whole die-off thing. (A bit too extreme for me). But I don't think industrial civilization can survive in its present form with very high energy prices. Our system is set up for continual growth, not continual decline
I don't see how we can not have a major die off sometime in the foreseeable future,or at the very least,an extremely drastic,voluntary decline i.e.people choosing to have only one or even no children for several generations.
If you mean you don't believe there will be a major die off in the U.S. (assuming you're American) you might be right but it going to take some VERY SERIOUS CHANGES to avoid it.Many of them will NOT be PC!
First of all we have to get rid of all the freebies,both nationaly and global.By this I mean NO MORE WELFARE STATE!Everyone is going to have to pull their wieght.Many jobs that used to be done by manual labor but were replaced with machines will once again have to be done with manual labor in order to conserve energy.
Grain surpluses(if there are any without pesticides and fertilizers) will no longer be given away to third world garbage dumps as they will be needed for the production of ethenol(which may or may not be a realistic alternative to gas*) to power essential vehicles i.e. tractors,combines,and trucks for hauling comodoties.[on a side note-the greatest population growth occuring right now is in the third world.We feed them-they breed!We feed them-they breed.Population is a big part of the problem and we need to end this destructive cycle.]
Any and all illegal immigrants(Mexicans)must be as legally repratrioted as possible and the borders will have to be kept airtight.The ones that remain must change their breeding habits or face forced sterilisation.As stated above,population is a big part of the problem.
If we can't bring ourselves to do such things, learn to do more with less,and pesonally become much more resourceful then we are in fact headed for the "Road Warrior" scenario.
Having worked in retail management for the last 15 years and having to deal with the public at large almost every day of it,I can say with absolute confidence WE NEED A MAJOR DIE OFF! I don't care wether it's peak oil,an asteroid impact,or a nuclear war! The number of completely worthless a$$holes and idiots in the world is at a critical level right now and something needs to happen to bring natural selection back into the equation!
[*as for the ethenol for fuel idea,the question is,how many acres of (nongovernment subsidised)corn do you have to grow(without the use of petrolium) to produce enough ethenol to be able to power a tractor/combine to plant and harvest an acre of corn?1/4 acre? 1/2 acre? 2 acres???? I honestly don't know,but I'm sure it's not even close to what you'de get if you used oil.]
Joined: Oct 27, 2004 Posts: 221 Location: Queensland, Australia
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:47 am Post subject: Ethanol, Why the continuous need to use corn.
Howdy all, (First Type for me ' ') just needed to make a reference/comment here to what I see all the time on many sites. -
Bastardsquad > *as for the ethenol for fuel idea,the question is,how many acres of (nongovernment subsidised)corn do you have to grow(without the use of petrolium) to produce enough ethenol to be able to power a tractor/combine to plant and harvest an acre of corn?1/4 acre? 1/2 acre? 2 acres???? I honestly don't know,but I'm sure it's not even close to what you'de get if you used oil.]
Why is there a continuous push to use corn for ethanol production? I suspect there are several reasons but one of them is certainly not efficiency or productivity. I believe that we have ethanol plants in Australia (test/trial scale at the moment, although Brazil has lots of bigger ones.) that are generating 3 times the ethanol by weight than Corn and almost 5 times more by area, because they use higher yielding Sugar cane. Why then the requirement in the american press to always discuss the use of corn.
I think I know why. (tin foil time ) The major Agri Companies have huge tracts of land already set up for corn production and know they can't grow sugar on it, so they have pushed for subsidisation and major tech investment to help them. Sugar cane on the other hand is mainly grown outside of the US, (Like North Aus, Tropic lands, Brazil, Carribean etc) on small holder farms and has issues growing in colder climates. What that means is that The Big Agri conglomerates need their land, or in otherwords their corn to be used or they will see the principally smaller scale farmers in the foreign countries grab a lead on them. I suspect there will continue to be major tariffs and quotas used to keep the foreign sugar out ( Currently Oz farmers can land cane sugar in the us for between 10-15% of the price of US Sugar, Brazil even better.) while the big guys leach the public purse.
Here in Aus the sugar farmers are being driven from their farms by low international prices (sub 10 cents a Kilo) even as they appear to be getting bought up by big companies, as laws are changing and investment is beginning into Ethanol. I suspect that they are being driven under to be bought up in advance of a serious long term improvement in the market for Sugar/Ethanol in 3-5 years.
Are many aware of this, or is the corn = ethanol meme very heavily accepted.
Internet fad. Y'all are gonna feel sooo stupid in like 20 years time when the oil companies continue to find new reserves (albeit v gradually, so as to keep the oil price artificially high).
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') just needed to make a reference/comment here to what I see all the time on many sites. -
) The major Agri Companies have huge tracts of land already set up for corn production and know they can't grow sugar on it, so they have pushed for subsidisation and major tech investment to help them. Sugar cane on the other hand is mainly grown outside of the US, (Like North Aus, Tropic lands, Brazil, Carribean etc) on small holder farms and has issues growing in colder climates. What that means is that The Big Agri conglomerates need their land, or in otherwords their corn to be used or they will see the principally smaller scale farmers in the foreign countries grab a lead on them. I suspect there will continue to be major tariffs and quotas used to keep the foreign sugar out ( Currently Oz farmers can land cane sugar in the us for between 10-15% of the price of US Sugar, Brazil even better.) while the big guys leach the public purse.
