Don’t worry, just a little bump - $70 is just around the corner. Short traders just keep making those margin calls, mortgage the house if you have to. Fortunes await you! PO is for pansies and doomers. At $70 short some more ..... it is going back to $22 .... the world is awash with oil ........ reality has nothing to do with it, its all in those charts!!!!!!!!!!
Joined: Dec 16, 2004 Posts: 705 Location: Santa Monica, CA
Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:36 pm Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
nth wrote:
dub_scratch wrote:
It would be far better if the US car fleet does not improve in MPG and having that fleet die with the American motoring way of life. We need some forms of inefficiency to force more worthwhile systemic energy efficiency.
So you want PO to hit sooner, so we change sooner.
You are assuming any change will be change for the better. I don't agree with that. Change maybe for the worse. More people will die of hunger and maybe even war. It is a judgement call.
Absolutely, PO sooner is better for humanity than a later PO date. The longer & higher we go up energy mountain the further and harder we have to come down. The best case would be to have oil peak not at the Hubert half of URR but much sooner. That situation would provide the signal to society to stop wasting oil (on cars mostly) while giving a lower rate of decline to invest in post petrol systems. The cornucopian promise that PO will be later would mean the transition will be much more difficult if true.
I hope oil is peaking right now. We need this crisis.
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 1:04 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
dub_scratch wrote:
Absolutely, PO sooner is better for humanity than a later PO date. The longer & higher we go up energy mountain the further and harder we have to come down. The best case would be to have oil peak not at the Hubert half of URR but much sooner. That situation would provide the signal to society to stop wasting oil (on cars mostly) while giving a lower rate of decline to invest in post petrol systems. The cornucopian promise that PO will be later would mean the transition will be much more difficult if true.
I hope oil is peaking right now. We need this crisis.
And with regards to alternatives, there is no guarantee that the next best alternative will be as good or as efficient as what it replaces? It is just the next best alternative. But the search for alternatives can also yield unexpected positive benefits as well. Many discoveries that became economically useful were made during the process of trying to solve another unrelated problem, or were built on seemingly useless technologies or processes that in themselves seemed to be dead ends. Lasers for example.
I am certainly not an expert on the energy return on investment of various energy alternatives, but for some processes where there is no viable alternative they will be indepensible. For example, bio-diesel may not have a great EROI now using existing processes, but who knows what break throughs in production efficiencies will come as post peak oil shifts into rapid decline? New enzymes, faster growing plants, and new species that grow under less ideal conditions on marginal land. Or in some cases even help to avoid soil erosion, are part of a crop rotation, or suck soil salts out of salinated lands.
And, if I have the only tractor in a village that runs on bio-diesel in a farming community, not only will my share of the harvest cover the cost of producing that bio-diesel, but the village will reorganize itself around my tractor, like gang harvesting in yesteryear or contract harvestors now, if the alternative is harvesting with draught power or thrashing grain by hand.
Only the availability of bio-diesel in the future, not its EROI today compared to fossil diesel, matters. Once the fossil diesel is depleted we move onto the next best alterative, even if that means lower productivity and falling standards of living. Certainly it takes less energy inputs, and less land, to covert grain into ethanol or produce bio-diesel than it does to return to an agrarian economy based on draught power. However, I am sure in some instances they will compete with one another or be another alternative. A horse is a good option if the alternative is walking 20 miles into town, although a bicycle has lower maintenance and doesn't eat part of your agricultural surplus in the process.
So the flip side of Jevon Paradox may be that as crude or coal are depleted their rising price and scarcity make other sources of energy more competitive, if the alternative is draught power for example. Even if it means reorganizing the means of production, through relocation for example.
Of course, part of that calculation is taking into account legacy investments, which may completely lose their value when the cost to service them outweighs their benefit. But even then an abandoned shopping mall is still worth its value in salvaged materials, and can be coverted to other uses such as factory farming, a granary, hay barn or even a livery stable. No one said its original investors or owners were guaranteed a positive return on their investment! ; - ) _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:11 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
dub_scratch wrote:
Absolutely, PO sooner is better for humanity than a later PO date. The longer & higher we go up energy mountain the further and harder we have to come down. The best case would be to have oil peak not at the Hubert half of URR but much sooner. That situation would provide the signal to society to stop wasting oil (on cars mostly) while giving a lower rate of decline to invest in post petrol systems. The cornucopian promise that PO will be later would mean the transition will be much more difficult if true.
I hope oil is peaking right now. We need this crisis.
Agreed, that would be the best case. People then may even begin to understand how important oil is..
However, with all the demand for pushing fields to the limit, I don't see the decline being gentle at all. _________________ "One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me, and I discovered that my castle stands upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand."
Joined: Dec 16, 2004 Posts: 705 Location: Santa Monica, CA
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:20 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
MrBill wrote:
So the flip side of Jevon Paradox may be that as crude or coal are depleted their rising price and scarcity make other sources of energy more competitive, if the alternative is draught power for example. Even if it means reorganizing the means of production, through relocation for example.
That may be true, that rising fossil fuel scarcity will make alternatives more competitive, but as long as fossil fuels are needed to make alternative energies-- and as long as those have a relatively low ERoEI-- the scaling up of those alternatives will have to accompany a serious downscaling of our uses for energy. In light of that, the best alternatives we have are systemic, not energetic. Bicycles and low-travel urban patterns are far better alternatives than biofuels and EVs.
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
I do agree about the higher the harder we crash.
I think a long plateau would be the best. In that case, I am on the same boat. The sooner we peak and plateau is the best.
I was imagining a peak with an accelerated drop as most models I have seen here.
Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:04 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
dub_scratch wrote:
MrBill wrote:
So the flip side of Jevon Paradox may be that as crude or coal are depleted their rising price and scarcity make other sources of energy more competitive, if the alternative is draught power for example. Even if it means reorganizing the means of production, through relocation for example.
That may be true, that rising fossil fuel scarcity will make alternatives more competitive, but as long as fossil fuels are needed to make alternative energies-- and as long as those have a relatively low ERoEI-- the scaling up of those alternatives will have to accompany a serious downscaling of our uses for energy. In light of that, the best alternatives we have are systemic, not energetic. Bicycles and low-travel urban patterns are far better alternatives than biofuels and EVs.
You're right, and that is why at no point have I ever argued that we will be able to sustain the existing infrastructure that we have. Vice versa. We will likely be forced to gravitate to traditional clusters of economic activity such as existed in the past with farming communities, guilds, manufacturing located near atomic power sources, etc. People close to centers of production that have access to stationary energy run on geothermal, solar, wind, coal, nuclear and where bio-fuels can be produced.
Raw materials mined and processed near sources of energy rather than shipped to where labor is cheap for example. Mining landfills and recycling will become more cost effective as energy becomes more expensive and base metals more scarce. When you think about it, almost all the metals ever mined, and all the plastic ever produced, are sitting around somewhere? It has not disappeared at least if you believe the environmentalists?
If you switch to an energy source that is not as efficient as fossil fuels have been then you can no longer support a far flung supply chain management system that relies on cheap energy for inexpensive transport. Therefore, look to which cities and areas had a natural advantage in so far as trade patterns and look for these centers to regain some lost competitive advantage, if for example they are located on major rivers, lake heads, canals or deep water ports and are accessible by rail, which will remain the cheapest, most efficient means of transport after trucking for example declines, and JIT transport becomes a thing of the past replaced by larger cargos and more inventory delivered to central points.
And the flipside of that as someone like Kunstler might argue would be to abandon the burbs that are not close to anything and are energy intensive to maintain. However, so a certain degree I disagree. As we have seen for example in the change of landscape from Victorian England to the modern UK a lot of those large mansions that housed large families plus a domestic staff were subdivided and sold off into self-contained units and apartments as family sizes shrunk and keeping domestic staff became too expensive.
As much as some might not like it, many McMansions could be also turned into multi-family housing, serviced by commuter bus lines (again quite prevalent in and around London), if the economics supported such a shift or made the alternative simply to expensive for your average wage slave. That would be an intermediate step between commuting by auto and installation of light rail transit or in fact the buses might link to rail.
As a matter of fact even now I have colleagues who live 50-70 kms away from work that come into work everyday in a omnibus, that carries 10-passengers say, as it is cheaper than commuting by car. So it means changing lifestyle patterns and expectations. They then have to stick to a schedule and have less personal freeedom, but that is now a volunary trade-off whereas in the future it may be a economic necessity? _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:25 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
All previous posts on Jeavons Paradox seem to assume unrestrained market forces and no role for public policy. Are you all market fundamentalists, as if the market were God? Sure, capitalism, especially in the US imperium, drives human behavior toward the Jeavons Paradox, but government acting in society's long term interest can prevent that and direct energy policy toward saner options. And it is not a pipe dream. Better policies, however mild so far, are operating in certain parts of Europe, the global south, and, my favorite, Cuba, where the policy response to its own 'peak oil' in 1989 was a sustainable agriculture revolution.
...my favorite, Cuba, where the policy response to its own 'peak oil' in 1989 was a sustainable agriculture revolution.
Ever been to Cuba? _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:10 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Aaron wrote:
Wow... forgot all about this thread...
Quote:
...my favorite, Cuba, where the policy response to its own 'peak oil' in 1989 was a sustainable agriculture revolution.
Ever been to Cuba?
Hey Meester, buy my seester? She's only fourteen 'n real clean? _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 10:18 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
nth wrote:
If today's Cuba is what happens to US after PO, then I am happy. It sure beats what most people here are predicting.
Yes, except Cuba always had an external sponsor to pay its bills and provide them with energy - Spain, USA, Russia, China and now VZL. Who will pay our bills or give us energy we can no longer? _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 1:03 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
nth wrote:
MrBill,
I believe you are talking about something else.
No one is saying Cuba is energy independent, much less fossil fuel independent.
No, but my point is that far from being self-sufficient and an economic model for any other country, Cuba has been mainly propped-up and kept from dying by external sponsors like Russia, China and now VZL. However, this model does not travel. After PO in the USA there is no one who is going to bail-out Uncle Sam and keep the country running. Therefore, a Cuba is the wrong template to look at for a base case scenario. _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:21 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
MrBill wrote:
No, but my point is that far from being self-sufficient and an economic model for any other country, Cuba has been mainly propped-up and kept from dying by external sponsors like Russia, China and now VZL. However, this model does not travel. After PO in the USA there is no one who is going to bail-out Uncle Sam and keep the country running. Therefore, a Cuba is the wrong template to look at for a base case scenario.
I agree that Cuba gets subsidized fuel from Soviet Union which became Russia and then VZL and China.
I thought we were talking about their aggie policies.
*shrugs*
If we are talking about the whole state of Cuba, then that is something else.
Joined: Apr 28, 2006 Posts: 2897 Location: East Texas
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:39 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Granted, I don't think there is a REAL example to use for US adaptation; however, Armenia might be a bit more relevant, just from what I was reading in the CIA factbook last night.
We'll always have more oil per person than they do; but it is an example of a country with skills, suffering some energy difficulties, yet managing to cobble together something that vaguely looks like an economy. _________________ abundance fleeting
men falling like hungry leaves
decay masters all
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