Powering Down to Core Consumption

highlander

lets power this thread down to core consumption

troll you said
troll no I said

I tried to think about waste and what waste we as a society we could cut.

government

but, if we eliminated government (and large corporate) waste, we cut jobs that support private sector jobs, which will go away.

That is the downside of a service based economy. We have outsourced almost all "true wealth" generating activities (manufacturing, mining, logging) and we trade our agri-wealth for energy

If we raise taxes, as was suggested, we inflate government, making more waste. It is the nature of the beast

I guess we wait for the dieoff to get to the powerdown.
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This is where everybody puts profound words written by another...or not so profound words written by themselves
Highlander 2007

MonteQuest

kublikhan

zeke · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 07, 2007 Posts: 185

yesplease · Fission Joined: Oct 03, 2006 Posts: 2568

MonteQuest

You know, I think it's time use the ignore feature. No one wants to post admid your crap.
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TonyPrep

kublikhan

ReverseEngineer · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jul 16, 2008 Posts: 1731

So what was the "energy intensity" of pre-Big Oil Civilizations like the Babylonians, Mesopotamians and Egyptians? Or the other agricultural civilizations established in othe River Valleys in China and in India (still BTW the largest Populations Centers)?

Clearly Big Oil multiplied out our ability to produce, the energy involved in food production and transportation got hidden for a century because oil came fast and cheap during this period. So now its not coming so fast or so cheap, so the overall economy has to contract around that fact of life. What is an unanswered question here is just how fast the contraction happens, and in what form it happens?

Current financial markets are in turmoil, clearly the economy is shrinking around a lot of irredeemable debt, but how far does it have to shrink before the bust cycle turns to a mini-boom cycle? Not as big as the boom before the last bust, you are shrinking ever downward here but does it necessarily have to occur in one Big Bang?

Look at the trip UP the Peak Oil Curve. It was littered with Boom and Bust cycles. It took about 100 years to make the trip UP the Mountain, how fast will we make the trip DOWN the Mountain? Possible we got to the Top of the Mountain and there is a Cliff on the other side we can just fall of and go straight DOWN, very fast. However, based on the actions of the market, this does not seem likely right now. As production falls off, as unemployment increases, as people abandon negative equity mortgages in energy inefficient suburban homes, we end up using less oil, and so the production capacity we actually have is enough to support what we are doing, briefly anyhow. Look at it this way, 2 related families own two houses and 2 SUVS. One gets unemployed, and so they go move in with the Relatives, and carpool in the one SUV. Certainly going to be an adjustment in family living arrangements, but economically speaking you just cut in half the total costs in energy for the two families. Most of our suburban houses are way overbuilt for one family, heck 20 Chinese will move into one of these houses and find it spacious Smile

This kind of adjustment is already taking place, at least in my community I see 1/4 of the properties for sale and more carpooling taking place, but not a real increase yet in Homelessness or people unable to get to work, if they still have a job in the shrinking economy anyhow. This lessens the demand on oil, and so inventories increase, which drives the price back down. Over time people adjust to a more crowded living environment and use up less energy per capita. You have at least the potential there for another mini-boom cyclet in the trip down the Peak Oil curve.

This type of cyclical economics tends to indicate that the trip back down off Peak Oil will take somewhere near the 100 years it took to climb the curve to begin with. Gradually decreasing the standard of living until the oil is truly gone for good, but maybe that 100 years gives time to readjust in energy intensity and utilize the knowledge gained in the trip up the curve to make life slightly better than it was in say 1750, before Oil came to rule the world and the Industrial Economy took over?

Clearly the world cannot support 6 Billion people in the absence of Oil. Without the Fertilizers and the portable fuel to run the tractors, just no way you could maintain the food production at the level it is right now. However, we probably could support somewhat more than the 1 Billion or so who lived on the Planet BEFORE Big Oil, utilizing the fruits of scientific research through that period. Genetic Engineering, Wind Farms, that sort of thing can be developed over a 100 year trip back down the mountain. So, say in 100 years you knock off 2/3 the population, that could occur mostly through a fairly natural die off by ageing up. Doesn't HAVE to be a catastrophic falloff in 10 years, though that certainly is a possibility.

Main problem for any individual here is how to negotiate the slide down the hill. No given profession is safe, and frankly not even Subsistence Farmers out in the Boonies are safe. Never know when the Local Police Chief might make his Cops a local Militia, Tax your Farm and if you don't cough up food for them to eat you get gunned down. Unless you happen to have an extraordinary amount of money that is NOT in danger of becoming Valueless in your Pension Fund or Stock Holdings, your ability to negotiate the trip down involves being mobile enough to move away from depressed areas and to take jobs that exist in any economy, even a shrinking one.

Some people ALWAYS survive disasters, its a combination of Luck and Planning. When Plagues and Famine hit the Egyptians, they didn't ALL die off. We all most probably will not die off this time either, unless too many Nukes get tossed around. Just a substantial number will die off, but it could take some time for this to occur. Meanwhile, you just have to position yourself as well as you can to absorb the blows as the economy contracts, which it must. Oil IS running out, and you just can't produce as much as we did without it.

ReverseEngineer