Oil's energy contribution has declined by about 12% since 1999. The world's economies have also declined by about 12%. (Using conventional metrics, which are time delayed determinations, this will only be seen in hind sight). The massive destruction of asset values now occurring testifies to it happening.
Peak is well behind us, world economies have peaked and will continue to decline.
Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:33 am Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
EndOfGrowth wrote:
vtsnowedin wrote:
EndOfGrowth wrote:
Gorm wrote:
It will be there for tens of thousand of years at least. taking it up from the ground was an excellent use of fossil fuels.
How will it? Untreated mild steel corrodes to dust within decades.
Nope. The eiffel tower was finished in 1889, still there several decades later.
Thats because it has hundreds of layers of oil based paint to preserve it.
As is almost every piece of steel you will find in service anywhere. three to twelve coats more likely. Truss bridge built in Vt 1936 was cleaned and painted 1976, I worked on the job, Hasn,t been painted or even washed sence then. salted and sanded liberally for 32 winters, 10,000 cars and 1000 heavy trucks a day. They just posted it to ten tons and threw the trucks off as some cord gussetts were beginning to fail. Maybe one percent of that bridge has rusted away just the wrong one percent. Even where all the paint is gone the rate of rusting of heavy steel sections above the salt line is such that it would take centuries not decades for it to fall down absent truck traffic.
Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:34 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Realistically I could see us falling back to levels of the late 19th century for a while with a slow climb back to a level around 1950s, just before the "modern age started".
Lights won't go out everywhere, depending on how energy is being generated. And even though Gas / Diesel etc. plays a huge roll in a lot of places, some of these can be replaced by electric or human power.
As for metals etc. We do know how to "recycle" them, we just mostly didn't bother because it just wasn't profitable. If we cannot easily get new stuff out of the ground we will turn to it.
We WILL have to do with less, but considering how wasteful the majority of us is this will hardly be a problem.
More of a concern is our current JIT culture as far as food distribution goes, not to mention that it seems there are two generations who have almost no idea how to cook.
As far as dieoff goes, it won't be universal (Asia will probably be the hardest hit) and I think a lot of this will not be driven by Peak* but rather by the current financial markets, they have in the short run a much higher probability to cause damage and I think the effects of this will be with us for at least a decade if not too.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 2:04 am Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Spot on - virtually no slack in the present food distribution chains.
I do however think that the financial markets will collapse because of Peak*.
Snowrunner wrote:
Realistically I could see us falling back to levels of the late 19th century for a while with a slow climb back to a level around 1950s, just before the "modern age started".
Lights won't go out everywhere, depending on how energy is being generated. And even though Gas / Diesel etc. plays a huge roll in a lot of places, some of these can be replaced by electric or human power.
As for metals etc. We do know how to "recycle" them, we just mostly didn't bother because it just wasn't profitable. If we cannot easily get new stuff out of the ground we will turn to it. We WILL have to do with less, but considering how wasteful the majority of us is this will hardly be a problem.
More of a concern is our current JIT culture as far as food distribution goes, not to mention that it seems there are two generations who have almost no idea how to cook.
As far as dieoff goes, it won't be universal (Asia will probably be the hardest hit) and I think a lot of this will not be driven by Peak* but rather by the current financial markets, they have in the short run a much higher probability to cause damage and I think the effects of this will be with us for at least a decade if not too.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:06 am Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Snowrunner wrote:
More of a concern is our current JIT culture as far as food distribution goes, not to mention that it seems there are two generations who have almost no idea how to cook
Thats certainly true here in the USA but how widespread is the urban inability to cook? At 300 mil./6 billion we are a very small part of world population and far from a represenative sample. Take away Buffies Lean quizine, pop tarts and frozen pizza and she will learn how to cook before she fades away. Of course there has to be something to cook and I dont want to sample her first attempt. Especally if she is cooking it on a wood fire on the back lawn.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
vtsnowedin wrote:
Snowrunner wrote:
More of a concern is our current JIT culture as far as food distribution goes, not to mention that it seems there are two generations who have almost no idea how to cook.
Thats certainly true here in the USA but how widespread is the urban inability to cook? At 300 mil./6 billion we are a very small part of world population and far from a represenative sample. Take away Buffies Lean quizine, pop tarts and frozen pizza and she will learn how to cook before she fades away. Of course there has to be something to cook and I dont want to sample her first attempt. Especally if she is cooking it on a wood fire on the back lawn.
I took cooking as one example on why I think food will be a big problem. Europe is quickly catching up to North America in the "understanding of how food is made / prepared" category, most of the people I know back in Europe have more or less stopped cooking, they just can't be "arsed" and the people ten years younger (early 20s) seem to be utterly clueless.
But in the end, cooking is a skill that can be quickly picked up and even if you don't create a gourmet meal the first time around, if you're hungry enough you'll eat, my bigger concern is that there is a huge lack of understanding on how the food is being produced.
As to my original post I would like to add I looked at population numbers in a variety of places between 1900 and 1950, Western Europe has added ~100 million people since then, but in essence Europe should be able to "carry those forward", much more so with the aging population and the not to distant reduction in numbers on that end.
Asia in contrast is mainly driven by young people which will not have that kind of a "benefit" to look ahead to. I think we will see a mass migration again, probably pushing north and west out of Asia filling the void left behind by the dropping numbers of Russians.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:52 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
vtsnowedin wrote:
The first oil well was drilled by Drake in 1859. So there is no possibility of going back to any technology level prior to that date. This would include steam locomotives , steam ships and a nationwide telegraph system.
Oil is used for so many things because it is the cheapest way to do it today. When it is no longer the cheapest we will go to the next cheapest alternative or find new ones. Get ready to wear real wool and cotton clothes and have natural rubber tires on your solar car.
Excellent, thank you. I started reading through this thread from page one and kept thinking "why the stone age" and "why 1750".
IMO, the only event that will send us back to the stone age would be a massive worldwide thermo-nuclear war. And if we slid back to 1750 then we would have no one else to blame but ourselves.
As oil dwindles so will our comfort. But there is no reason why we should have to slide all the way back, say, pre 1900. And we still have lots of coal, as well as vastly more technical knowledge than they did back in 1900.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:17 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
I think a return to 1859 will be bad enough. Slavery was the energy source of the southern US as well as much of the world. Economic cycles were frequent and severe and hunger often close at hand. A third of farm production was used to support the draft animals supplying the power and crop yields were low in both volume and quality.
Modern medical knowledge and agricultural technical expertise should make our version of 1859 quite a bit different and better just as long as we don't do it in a world full of RA fallout.
Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:46 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
vtsnowedin wrote:
I think a return to 1859 will be bad enough. Slavery was the energy source of the southern US as well as much of the world.
I don't think it was that present in Europe, I mean, compare it to today, people indebted up to the hilt (both in the NA and EU) how is that any different from serfedom in the "good old days"?
Quote:
Economic cycles were frequent and severe and hunger often close at hand. A third of farm production was used to support the draft animals supplying the power and crop yields were low in both volume and quality.
Considering the move to "biofuels" we're not far off again, now are we?
As for the cycles, they surely existed, but as far as hunger goes, I think a lot was "owned" to a lack of understanding of agriculture and monocultures ina way (e.g. the Irish Potato famine).
Theoretically we are in a better position today, but of course we have huge monocultures too (corn) kept alive by pesticides and other stuff.
Quote:
Modern medical knowledge and agricultural technical expertise should make our version of 1859 quite a bit different and better just as long as we don't do it in a world full of RA fallout.
Very true, the question is if anybody is going to get trigger happy.... I think history would indicate the possibility of this isn't too good.
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 3:54 am Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Read through the thread and there is some food for thought
The first one is what time scale are we talking about:
the world went of sustainability around 1709 when Abraham Darby I fired the coalbrookdale furnace with coke, there had been use of coal before ( and oil ) but it was locally and did not affect the overall technological base of those countries
the population base was ~ 500 millions over all ,it could be pointed out that this number is too hight for the north sea countries, already in the middle of severe power restrictions, wood was increasingly scarce hence the use of coal.
on the other hand the Americas were barely colonized by Europeans, the local organized fluvial societies in the Amazon basin and the Mississippi valley had utterly disappeared, the horse driven plough could and did open very extensive area to farming and population growth.
the picture in Africa is obscure, it seems to have gone through a disastrous epidemic of ridderpest when all hoofed animals wild and domesticated died taking with them a lot of herders, farmers and wild predators too, the relentless hunt for the slave trade by the black coastal kinglets inhibited any social recovery .
It is quite correct to dismiss recycling as a long time solution, metal has been recycled since the copper age, it only slow down the disappearance of the product .
many old societies used iron oxides from bogs (vikings and saxon)or beaches in Japan, the raw ore of samurai swords come from such a source other metals and resources are not so obliging none the less one of the most problematic is phosphate rocks , phosphates and super phosphates are indispensable to reach high food yields, in the absence of high density farming the excess food will be much smaller and not so easily transported, cities, particularly the giant megacities will suffer the most
there is no substitute, so far we have used marine fossil deposits
but now the greatest source , the Florida deposits are pretty much busted , the only equivalent is in Morocco, partly under the sea too .
It's not possible to keep a technology without using it, north Africa, after the Roman period , forgot the wheel , the Achean culture lost writing entirely so in the die back phase a lot of knowledge will perish too, it require a growing society to invent, a balance will of course be found between energy and need until further crisis drop the level lower still.
in a millennium horizon the population of the world should be stable around the 700~ 800 million in a middle age type world. No modern medicine or surgery, no large cities, broken communications would make history a very local affair indeed.
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 4:33 am Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
sparky wrote:
in a millennium horizon the population of the world should be stable around the 700~ 800 million in a middle age type world. No modern medicine or surgery, no large cities, broken communications would make history a very local affair indeed.
Why would there be no modern medicine or surgery, They are knowlege driven and not energy intensive? And what will break our communications? Will radio waves cease to work? And though we may go through a massive die off to balance population to available food produced without oil why would there not be large cities?. There were cities before oil . There will be cities after oil.
Spell out your thought process here so we can chew on it a bit. Undeveloped arguments don't stand much chance.
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:12 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
to vtsnowedin: " There were cities before oil . There will be cities after oil.
Spell out your thought process here so we can chew on it a bit. Undeveloped arguments don't stand much chance. "
A fair cop, let start digging
There were a few cities in the million range , less than ten~ twenty
the majority was between 10.00 and less, Now mega cities in the 10 million range are common , think of cities as organism who eat drink and live, the quantities needed are stupendous , the organization of its supplies alone is a marvel
all of it is based on cheap transportation. old cities had practically no suburbs and were getting their needs locally. it's not possible to support advanced medicine without the industrial infrastructure to support it , no cheap power.... no industries no advanced manufacture , something will be left for a while to be sure,
but ultimately a society has the technical knowledge it practice .
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 607 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:50 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Gorm wrote:
and then recycled, because it is valuble. It will not dissaper. And if there is a substantional die-off, there will be no lack of metal for those who live on. Metals will not run out, because we cant destroy them. It is not like oil.
The metal is NOT valuable UNTIL it is scarce. Before that, metal might very well be lost, oxidized and the oxide dissipated, corroded to fragments and the fragments scattered, etc. No, we can't destroy the ATOMS of, say, iron. But we can sure lose the use of those atoms by letting entropy mix them into the environment in concentrations so dilute that they might as well have disappeared for all the good they'll do us.
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 607 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Gorm wrote:
The only metal that rusts is iron. The rest will be there, and there is a LOT of iron in the world, so it will be there to.
That's not really true in the general sense. Iron oxidizes, and we call the oxide rust. Copper oxidizes, but the oxide is greenish instead of reddish, and it is not called "rust." It's still oxide though. Silver oxidizes and the oxide is called tarnish, which can get rubbed off with use. The tendency to oxidize is a basic chemical property of metals.
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 607 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:39 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
Narz wrote:
Ludi wrote:
Just for informational curiosity sake, Narz, what is the replacement for iron?
I don't know. I'm not worried about running out of iron in my lifetime. There's enough steel in Manhattan to last a long time, especially if there's a big, exciting dieoff like everyone is hoping.
How are you going to repurpose any of that Manhattan iron, might I ask? Are you going to be Superman, uproot a few girders from the concrete, and melt it with your X-ray vision?
Your grandparents weren't worried about Peak Oil, since it did not happen in their lifetimes. Look at what their unconcern has cost.
Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject: Re: Why Stone Age?
sparky wrote:
to vtsnowedin: " There were cities before oil . There will be cities after oil. Spell out your thought process here so we can chew on it a bit. Undeveloped arguments don't stand much chance. "
A fair cop ,let start digging
There were a few cities in the million range , less than ten~ twenty the majority was between 10.00 and less, Now mega cities in the 10 million range are common, think of cities as organism who eat drink and live, the quantities needed are stupendous, the organization of its supplies alone is a marvel. all of it is based on cheap transportation. old cities had practically no suburbs and were getting their needs locally
it's not possible to support advanced medicine without the industrial infrastructure to support it, no cheap power.... no industries no advanced manufacture, something will be left for a while to be sure, but ultimately a society has the technical knowledge it practice.
Please forgive the long gap here. I just never saw your responce.
1860 New York city held 800,000 people vs 325,000 for the whole state of Vermont. NY was served by its port, the Erie canal and rail lines to the west. Long island was potato and truck farms which shipped to the city. I would think that this population would be a minimum that you could support post oil and there is a real possiblity that using what science has learned in the last century we could do quite a bit better than that.
I don't follow you at all on medicine post peak. Most of medicine is the knowledge of what is wrong and of what can be done. No great amount of energy is required for any medical procedure or in manufacturing any medical or surgical device. Oh sure surgical tools are made from stainless steel and that requires energy but the quantities are miniscule compared to the energy needed to make rail road rails or bridge beams.
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The first oil well was drilled by Drake in 1859. So there is no possibility of going back to any technology level prior to that date. This would include steam locomotives , steam ships and a nationwide telegraph system.
I think a return to 1859 will be bad enough. Slavery was the energy source of the southern US as well as much of the world. Economic cycles were frequent and severe and hunger often close at hand. A third of farm production was used to support the draft animals supplying the power and crop yields were low in both volume and quality.
