This past week, I gave a presentation to a group interested in a particular type of renewable energy–solar energy that is deployed in space, so it would provide electricity 24 hours per day. Their question was: how low does the production cost of electricity really need to be?
I gave them this two-fold answer:
1. We are hitting something similar to “Peak Oil” right now. The symptoms are the opposite of the ones that most people expected. There is a glut of supply, and prices are far below the cost of production. Many commodities besides oil are affected; these include natural gas, coal, iron ore, many metals, and many types of food. Our concern should be that low prices will bring down production, quite possibly for many commodities simultaneously. Perhaps the problem should be called “Limits to Growth,” rather than “Peak Oil,” because it is a different type of problem than most people expected.
2. The only theoretical solution would be to create a huge supply of renewable energy that would work in today’s devices. It would need to be cheap to produce and be available in the immediate future. Electricity would need to be produced for no more than four cents per kWh, and liquid fuels would need to be produced for less than $20 per barrel of oil equivalent. The low cost would need to be the result of very sparing use of resources, rather than the result of government subsidies.
Of course, we have many other problems associated with a finite world, including rising population, water limits, and climate change. For this reason, even a huge supply of very cheap renewable energy would not be a permanent solution.
This is a link to the presentation: Energy Economics Outlook. I will not attempt to explain the slides in detail.
Slide 1
–
Slide 2
Some people falsely believe that energy supplies are “only needed for industrial purposes.” Energy supplies are, in fact, needed for many things: cooking our food, keeping our homes warm, and creating the clothing we expect to wear. It would be impossible to feed, house, and clothe 7.3 billion people without supplemental energy of some kind.
Slide 3
–
Slide 4
Slide 4 suggests that the world economy is heading into recession, because recent growth in the use of energy supplies is very low recently. Another sign that we are headed into recession is that fact that CO2 emissions fell in 2015. They usually don’t fall unless a global crisis exists. Emissions fell when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and they fell during the economic crisis in 2008. Perhaps the world economy is hitting headwinds that are not being picked up well in conventional calculations of GDP growth.
Slide 5
Slide 5 shows a chart I put together, using data from several different sources, showing how growth in energy consumption has compared with growth in GDP. Growth in GDP tends to be somewhat higher than growth in energy consumption.
Economic growth (and growth in energy use) was low prior to 1950. There was a big jump in economic growth immediately after World War II, in the 1950-65 period. There was almost as much growth in the 1965- 75 period. Since 1975, economic growth has generally been slowing.
Slide 6
Between the years 1900 and 1998, the use of electricity rose (black line) as the cost of electricity fell (purple, red, and green lines). Electricity consumption could rise because it was becoming more affordable. Rising electricity consumption allowed the economy to make more goods and services. Workers (with the use of electricity) were becoming more efficient, so wages could rise. With higher wages, workers could afford more products that used electricity, such as electric lights for their homes and radios.
If electricity prices had risen instead of fallen, it seems doubtful that this pattern of rising consumption could have taken place.
Slide 7
The comments in Figure 7 represent my own view. It is based on both theoretical considerations and historical relationships. Many who have studied the economy believe that energy is important for economic growth. In my view, the real need is for cheap-to-produce energy, not just any energy. If cheap energy is not really available, then adding more debt can somewhat make up for the high cost of energy production.
Debt is important because it makes goods affordable that would not otherwise be affordable. For example, having a loan for a house or a car makes a huge difference regarding whether such an item is affordable.
Even when energy products are cheap, debt seems to be needed to get oil or coal out of the ground, or to make a new device such as a wind turbine. Part of the problem is the cost of the capital equipment needed to extract the oil or coal, or the cost of the wind turbines themselves. Another part of the problem is paying for factories to make devices that use the energy product. A third problem is making it possible for users to afford the end products, such as houses and cars. It is much easier to borrow the money for a new tractor, and pay the loan off as the tractor is put to use, than it is to save money in advance, using only the funds earned when farming with simple hand-held tools.
Slide 8
I mentioned the need for $20 per barrel oil on Slide 7. This is a very inexpensive price. Slide 8 shows that the only time when oil prices were that low was prior to the mid-1970s. (Note that the amounts in Slide 8 have already been adjusted for inflation, so my $20 per barrel target is an inflation-adjusted amount.) The cost of oil production is now far above $20 per barrel. The sales price now is about $37 per barrel. This is below the price producers need, but still above my target price level.
Slide 9
Slide 9 explains where I got my $20 per barrel price target. Back prior to 1975–in other words, back when oil prices were generally low, $20 per barrel or less–the increase in debt more or less corresponded to the growth in GDP. Once prices rose above $20 per barrel, the amount of debt needed to produce a given amount of GDP growth rose dramatically.
Slide 10
Slide 10 shows interest rates for US debt with 10-year maturity. These interest rates often underlie mortgage rates. As interest rates fall, homeowners can afford increasingly expensive homes. If shorter-term interest rates fall as well, auto loans become cheaper too.
Slide 11
The value to society of a barrel of oil is determined by how many miles it can make a diesel truck go, or how far it can make an airplane fly. This value to society is more or less fixed. The only change is the small increment each year from efficiency changes, making a barrel of oil “go farther.”
In the 2000-14 period, the cost of new oil production was increasing very rapidly–by more than 10% per year, by some estimates. The rising cost of oil production occurred much more quickly than efficiency changes. The result was a falling difference between the value to society and the cost of production. When oil prices are high, oil-importing nations tend to suffer recession. When oil prices are low, oil-exporting nations find it hard to collect enough taxes to support their many programs.
Slide 12
The fact that we need energy for economic growth means that we somehow must obtain this energy, even if doing so costs more. The big run-up in oil prices is a major reason for the historical run-up in debt levels. China’s big build-out of homes, roads, and factories was also financed by debt.
The higher cost of oil affects many things that we don’t think are related, including the cost of building new homes, the cost of building cars, and the cost of building roads. As consumers are forced to buy increasingly expensive homes and cars, and as governments find that the building of roads is increasingly expensive, more debt is used. The terms of loans are often longer as well, to hold down monthly costs.
If we still had cheap oil, this oil by itself could provide a “lift” to the economy. An increasing amount of debt can “sort of” compensate for the absence of cheap oil.
The problem we encounter is that neither cheap energy nor the continued run-up of debt is sustainable. Cheap energy tends to change to expensive energy, because we use the cheapest sources first. The continued debt run-up becomes more and more difficult to handle, unless interest rates fall lower and lower. At some point, interest rates can’t fall enough, and the whole pile of debt tends to collapse, like a Ponzi scheme.
Slide 13
I gave this talk on December 15; the first increase in interest rates took place on December 16. With rising interest rates, we suddenly have “the prop” that was attempting to hold up economic growth taken away.
We need ever expanding debt–that is, debt rising faster than GDP levels–to try to keep the world economy growing, so that the whole pile of debt doesn’t fall over and collapse. If we are to have non-debt growth in the future (because we are reaching limits on debt), it needs to again come from cheap energy alone. We need to get back to something similar to the low-cost energy that fueled the economy before the debt run-up.
Slide 14
Most of us have heard the Peak Oil story, and assume it represents a reasonable view of where we are headed. I think it is close to 180 degrees off course.
Slide 15
M. King Hubbert talked about a very special situation–a situation where another cheap, abundant fuel took over, before fossil fuels began to decline. In this particular situation (and only in this particular situation), it is reasonable to assume that production will follow a symmetric “Hubbert Curve,” with half of the production coming after the peak, and half beforehand. Otherwise, the down slope is likely to be much steeper.
Many peak oilers missed this important point. We certainly are not in a situation today where another very cheap fuel has taken over.
Slide 16
Slide 16 represents what I see as the predominant “Peak Oil” view of the oil limits situation. Some individuals will of course have different opinions.
Slide 17
Peak oilers certainly did get part of the story right–at some point, the cost of oil extraction would rise. What they got wrong was how the whole scenario would play out. It turns out, it plays out pretty much the opposite of what most had supposed–that is, with stagnating wages, loss of buying power, and prices of all commodities falling because of lack of “demand.”
We seem to be hitting energy limits, right now. That is why debt is such a problem, and it is why prices of many commodities, including oil, are far too low compared to the cost of production.
Slide 18
Slide 18 shows the fall of commodity prices up through 2014. The fall in commodity prices has continued in 2015 as well. The story we frequently hear is about low oil prices, but there is also a problem with low natural gas prices. Coal prices are low now too, and, in fact, many coal producers are near bankruptcy. Prices of iron ore, steel, copper, and many other metals are very low, as are prices of many kinds of staple foods traded internationally.
Slide 19
The problem with low commodity prices is that there are many loans that have been taken out to support their production. There is a significant chance of default, if prices remain low. Also, low commodity prices affect asset prices–for example, prices of coalmines, or prices of agricultural land. As the prices of commodities fall, the price of the land used to produce those commodities falls. When this happens, it becomes difficult to repay the loans on the property.
Slide 20
Peak Oilers were right about the cost of production continuing to rise. What they missed was the fact that prices would at some point fall behind the cost of production because of affordability issues. Low prices would then bring the economy down, as it did in the Depression in the 1930s, and in quite a few earlier collapses.
I think of increased demand, provided by debt, as being like a rubber band. Just as a rubber band can stretch for a while, the price of oil can rise for a while, fueled by more and more debt. At some point, debt can’t rise any higher–the rate of return on investments made using debt is too low, and defaults become too frequent. Instead of continuing to rise, commodity prices fall back. Market prices of commodities fall to much lower prices than the costs of production.
In order to get oil prices up higher, the wages of factory workers, restaurant workers, and other non-elite workers need to rise, so that they can afford to buy nice cars and nice homes. Commodities of many types are used both in making homes and cars, and in operating them.
Slide 21
If space solar (or for that matter, any renewable energy) is to be helpful, it needs to be very cheap, so that products made using renewable energy are affordable.
If the replacement energy source is cheap enough, perhaps there will not be a huge run-up in debt to GDP ratios, to finance the new devices used to provide electricity or other energy.
We are encountering problems now, so we need a replacement now, not 20 or 50 years from now.
Slide 22
We cannot expect the cost of electricity production to be more than the current wholesale selling price of electricity. Thus, it needs to be four cents per kWh or less. Ideally, the price of electricity should be falling, as in Slide 6.
Another consideration is that we need to be able to operate our current vehicles using a liquid fuel, made with electricity, because of the time and materials involved in switching over to electric vehicles. This requirement likely reduces the maximum cost of electricity even below four cents per kWh.
Slide 23
It is possible to run into many different kinds of limits, over a period of time. In my view, the first limit we reach is an affordability limit. We can tell we are hitting this limit when high prices reverse to low prices, as they have done since 2011. The fact that prices are continuing to fall is especially worrisome.
Slide 24
There has been a popular myth that it is OK for energy costs to rise. We will just choose the least costly of the high-priced alternatives. This approach doesn’t really work, because wages do not rise at the same time.
Also, we have to compete with other countries. If their energy costs are cheaper, their manufacturing costs are likely to be lower.
Slide 25
If conditions existed that allowed oil prices to rise endlessly (in other words, rising wages of non-elite workers together with debt that could spiral ever higher, as a percentage of GDP), we wouldn’t really have a problem–we could afford increasingly expensive substitutes. Unfortunately, the story of ever-rising oil prices is simply fiction. It is a pleasant story, but not really true. I explain some of the issues further in “Why ‘supply and demand’ doesn’t work for oil.”
Pingback: Oil Price Rock and Roll | al fin next level
From “Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail” by William Ophuls:
“As Livy famously said of his own civilization:
“Rome was originally, when it was poor and small, a unique example of austere virtue; then it corrupted, it spoiled, it rotted itself by all the vices; so, little by little, we have been brought into the present condition in which we are able neither to endure the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them.” ”
Climate change + peak oil + peak finance – can we endure the remedies we need to cure them? (Rhetorical question!)
Rupert, and everyone, watch this film. Take off 100 minutes of your day. It’s well worth it, very relevant to this blog.
Some will already know it. It’s from 2011.”The Four Horsemen”;
Thanks for the link- four horsemen. Started it and will have to finish later today. Really good start to it though.
Bit of a slow start, but well worth watching. Real analytic insight from insiders and former insiders, related in a compelling manner but without hype.
“Oil, smoke and mirrors” (2006) is another classic, well worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVzJhlvtDms
and also “The Crisis of Civilisation” by Nafeez Ahmed:
“The historian Livy thought the Roman empire started to decay when cooks acquired celebrity status.” Quoted in The Economist .
Storms, floods in England:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/12072322/UK-floods-Storm-Frank-Leeds-York-Manchester-live.html#update-20151229-2033
Police condemn looters
Police have hit out at thieves who looted flooded homes in York. Several houses were targeted into in a city street while they were submerged in dirty water, North Yorkshire Police said. It came as a huge clear-up got under way in York as falling river levels and repairs to industrial water pumps saw many flooded streets drained of filthy water.
Acting Superintendent Mark Grange said: “It is extremely disappointing to see victims of the floods being targeted in this way.
“It is impossible to comprehend why anyone would want to bring further suffering to those who are already in a very vulnerable situation.”
The homes were targeted in the early hours of December 28 in Huntington Road, which was submerged by the River Foss at the time. One home was burgled after the back door was forced, while at a second tools were taken from a shed.
Absolutely despicable behaviour on all accounts
You ain’t seen nothing yet….
Just wait until the global collapse hits… and the police aren’t around to stop this…. and 7.5 billion people are desperate for food and water….
Ohhhh, you are scarring us so much, I’m about to pee in my pants….LOL
Eddy, please change your underwear, because you also must have done so!
Like if what you write happens, anything we do really matters. OY.
How to Reduce Population(?)
Jungle Jim Says:
December 29th, 2015 at 11:52 am
Intelligence collection analysts collaborate with a number of other analysts and collectors throughout the Intelligence Community, which allow them to identify any gaps in intelligence and develop strategies to close these gaps. These CIA professionals must produce written briefings that detail their findings to U.S. policymakers.
Intelligence collection analysts also seek to develop current collection systems and acquire new collection systems that represent the interests of the CIA. Intelligence collection analysts also partner and collaborate with other collection professionals in intelligence collection strategy forums and sensitive collection programs.
Understanding the Process of Intelligence Collection
Intelligence is said to be the fuel on which the Intelligence Community operates. And the first part of the intelligence process involves its collection. In fact, everything and everyone in the process depends on the collection of intelligence.
Intelligence collection analysts of the CIA are therefore responsible for ensuring the successful collection of all relevant intelligence, which is then used to produce the finished intelligence reports that are provided to U.S. policymakers when making crucial decisions.
Intelligence collection analysts may focus their efforts on any number of avenues when it comes to the acquisition of raw intelligence, including:
Signals intelligence – Involves the interception of signals between people or machines
Imagery intelligence – Involves obtaining information using radar and infrared sensors, lasers, and visual photograph, just to name a few
Measurement and Signature Intelligence – Involves using scientific and technical intelligence information to locate and identify the special characteristics of specific targets; this may include nuclear, acoustics, seismic, optical, or materials sciences
Human-Source Intelligence – Involves the collection of intelligence from human sources
Open-Source Intelligence – Involves obtaining intelligence form publicly available information, such as television, newspapers, the Internet, or commercial databases, just to name a few
Geospatial Intelligence – Involves imagery and mapping data gathered from commercial and government satellites, commercial databases, census information, or GPS – See more at: http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2015/10/nuclear-dump-fire-epa-shuts-off-not.html#sthash.vwWc94Mx.dpuf
What Gail is doing is a new language. No matter the information, or information gathering techniques, if the language is wrong, the information gathered doesn´t make any sense. If neocons objectives are hammers, everything looks like nails, so, the CIA information briefs are wrong.
From a scientific point of view, if your paradigm is false, no matter the empirical evidence it doesn´t change the paradigm. But when the paradigm changes it´s a Revolution! Check Thomas Kuhn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions
The limit of CIA (or anybody for that matter) is the language, the tools, at hand. If there were a super advanced faction (or Elders etc.), then we would know about it because the language would not stay a secret (memes). Clandestine operations can be handeled with doublespeak, but research and development can not.
I´ve been advicing my sister on how to build AI tools for the Police to use in the Deep Web to find the things they need to find, and language is a tool that very accurately can pick up on whatever activity you want to find. If your tools are a hammer and a nail, its exceedingly difficult (incredibly unprobable) to end up with a finished Large Hadron Collider..
I didn’t get into the subject nearly this deeply. My superficial takeaway i s that, at high levels of power, there might be plans to quickly dispatch millions or billions of us. I assume that the reason for this is to quell unrest, more overshoot, serious, unmanageable problems of every kind. Again superficially, I propose what I propose anyway: The best way to stay alive is to organize and manage ourselves in small, relatively self-sufficient groups that don’t make trouble for TPTB. That may not help us either, given the odds, but I suspect that it’s the most rational approach to the predicament.
TPTB must be really fast, because in the long run, the only lawful authority is one which can guarantee the survival of the majority.
Somebody might argue what the point in lawfulness is. Well, the lawfull government can seize any and all resources from TPTB and tell their soldiers and minions they are on unlawful, in other words seize everything TPTB have.
What is yours, is no longer yours, its seized by the lawful government, by law.
I agree that we need to organize and manage ourselves in small self-sufficient groups, but that is not because TPTB are just looking after themselves (might be) but because they are incompetent to do it for us.
Just hoping at least somebody in the U.S. understands law. Then FEMA camps can be used to what they ought to be used to, seized, and hold the U.S. shadow government, officers and neocons..
“Then FEMA camps can be used to what they ought to be used to, seized, and hold the U.S. shadow government, officers and neocons..”
No, Van Kent. 🙂 We can’t get organized, much less. No organization = No power. And the thing about a shadow government is that you have no idea where it is.
Shadow government = follow the money. Yale educated, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Export-Import Bank, CIA etc. directors. Not that hard if you want to do it.
Yup, I understand, people are living their lives and organizing would be “socialism” “communism” whatever -ism, demonizing, TPTB want to call organizing. There are very few that would do what Chris Hedges did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedges_v._Obama
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=yge
A while back I mentioned there was a Chinese solar company I considered buying some shares cause they were so cheap I could get a good multiplier on even minimal boost in the market, ticker symbol YGE, Yingli. This story has a really interesting punchline of deceit at the end. I figured if the Paris accord had any teeth, i.e. mandatory emission reduction via huge growth in renewables, namely solar and wind. But my best guesstimate was the boost would be too little because the agreement would be weak so I did not dip in and grab a bunch of YGE at .57 cents a share.
Great decision because not only did it not bump even a tiny bit after the Paris Accord, but it has just done a 10/1 reverse split. So if you had a 1,000 shares on the end day stock would shave down to 100 and that’s what you’d read in your stock account. The price initially went up but has caved since to 5.06 cents a share but you have to divide 5.06 by 10 to find the new value which is 50.6 cents (the market is still open but that’s where it was when I pasted the link).
But here’s the punchline, the payoff, the ripoff, the DECEIT, the Fraud!
The graphs associated for the stock’s valuation have been BACKDATED to reflect the current number of shares. In other words you can’t find an easily discernible change in the value graph across time to see what even happened, i.e. the &^%$*# reverse split – you see them now you don’t see anywhere near as many shares). It doesn’t show up because they backdated the stock’s value using the new total number of shares. I know this because I specifically follow this stock daily and have done so for about a year and the stock for the past year was well below a dollar ranging from 50-75 cents a share. Now going back months it shows the valuation in dollars. For example, they show some peak in late October 2015 at 7 dollars and something. Crapitola! it was less than a buck. Talk about corrupt. That’s corrupt in the worse way possible because it exonerates the company from suffering the bad press it would have if they price chart changed suddenly in a bad way.
So you cannot rely on the graphs, you must rely on their stream of news events. But that takes diligence many investors miss the deeper research.
Now that’s a news story ZeroHedge could carry.
Stilgar, the whole market is corrupt, I’ve known this for some time.
The only winning move is not to play.
Agreed, dolph and as of that event I am no longer interested. By the way, I contacted the SEC and reported it. If I get something back later from them I’ll share it on here. But I also wonder if the SEC is complicate with these new tactics to bilk the investor. The country doesn’t have much left to generate growth so probably anything corrupt goes as it relates to Wall Street.
New drama at Hong Kong-listed solar company as boss sells stake at massive discount
http://hongkong.coconuts.co/2015/12/29/new-drama-hong-kong-listed-solar-company-boss-sells-stake-massive-discount
I recall reading about this investment last year …. and thinking … who is this idiot? And how did he get to be so rich by making stupid decisions like this. No doubt he came about his cash through corruption….
The thing is …
All those solar groupies out there who believe solar jesus is the saviour — a question for you — if you believe this is a certainty — then are you buying shares in solar businesses? Do you even have solar panels in use at your home?
Here’s a guy who believed — he danced around the fire to Koombaya….. and he go to drunk on the kool aid that he fell into the fire.
That is not a story I have heard previously. But things are done differently in China. You can’t assume that things will work the way they do here. I was told that you don’t bother calling the police for a lot of things we call the police for here, for example. And I know that auditing of companies cannot be relied. You have provided another example.
Even here, those creating market averages regularly remove low performers and substitute high performing stocks, so that the average will look better.
Gail, looking for new sources of energy, have you seen the technology of the Steorn Orbo? Currently, it only produces a few watts, but idc will be ramped up for heating etc. It’s a question of whether this can be done quickly enough. Progress has been slow to date because conventional, conservative scientists are dragging their feet, but commercial production is imminent in spite of their skepticism. Soon they will be obliged to examine this potentially limitless new source of energy.
https://www.facebook.com/thebatteryisdead/
I think the idea of creating energy is a misnomer. The idea that technology creates energy is wrong. Technology USES energy to do useful work. If one were to create a closed system that would liberate more energy than uses it would be called a perpetual motion machine. This is a physical impossibility by all the physical laws we know. If we cannot create net amounts of energy then we really cannot create energy. The holy grail fusion god itself, our sun, was gifted a finite amount of fuel to burn. We too were gifted a finite amount of fuel to burn. The major difference between humans and the sun is we are much less efficient using our energy supplies. Burning fossil fuels release heat energy that was captured from the sun. The earths crust is the battery used to store it. It took millions of years to charge this battery and we are depleting it in a matter of decades. When the net energy available from fossil fuels becomes negative technology as we know it will disappear. It would be nice to be wrong but that is how I see it.
“The earths crust is the battery used to store it. It took millions of years to charge this battery and we are depleting it in a matter of decades.”
That’s a profound way to put it.
+++++++++++++++++++++
In another 250 million years, let’s say, the Earth will have regained the energy resources it had before we used them. Only then could we arise again or there be successors capable of doing such a thing as they will need the energy that endowed us and it will take eons to regenerate reserves.
That time scale is a trifle in the life of the planet!
I suppose the 7 billion plus die off will aid in the ingredients of biomass to form the next layer of carbon base fossil fuels. What goes around, comes around.
A good book to read is “Rare Earth”. Intelligent life on Earth is/was a one trick pony. Our Sun is a variable star. It consumes hydrogen in the core fusing it to helium. This process occurs for most of its life but it is getting brighter and swelling, in the final stages it consumes helium and due to gravity losing its hold, it will swell to about Earth’s present orbit. Also the Moon is moving away from the Earth and our days are getting longer as the rotation slows.
In about 350-750 million years the Earth will be uninhabitable for mammalian life and not too long after that, most life of any sort. If intelligent life is swept away now or in a million years, there is no coming back. The time for evolution to work it’s wonders will be too short.
Good points!
Interesting. I noticed that the book was published in 2003–but I suppose these things were known then.
I am doubtful that the Earth will have regained the energy sources it had before we used them in another 250 million years. We would have to recreate the situations that led to the build-up of fossil fuel resources. It is not clear that it is even clear that the recharge is possible. This academic article says it can’t happen. https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/pnas-2015-schramski-1508353112.pdf
That’s OK. It’s well beyond anything we will ever know about. I suggested 250 million years because that’s how far back the Permian Extinction even occurred. I didn’t think we had any plant life “battery effect” back then. But if it’s longer, so be it. The Planet has 5 billion years of existence forecast before it burns up.
See Bandits101 comment:
Coal was laid down in the window of time after trees evolved and before microbes that can eat dead trees evolved. We now have the dead tree digesting microbes we will never again gets coal beds.
We’ve got ourselves a one-hit wonder…..
Good point!
“Coal was laid down in the window of time after trees evolved and before microbes that can eat dead trees evolved. We now have the dead tree digesting microbes we will never again gets coal beds.”
That’s nonsense. Coal is still being laid down. Peat bogs are the first step. All it takes is anaerobic conditions.
Most of us rarely pick up a piece of coal these days, but if you do find a lump of the black rock, you’ll be holding a piece of geological history.
“In general, a high quality black coal seam would take millions of years, if not hundreds of millions of years to form” says Dr Judy Bailey, coal geologist at the Discipline of Earth Science University of Newcastle
The process of coal formation is still taking place today, says Bailey.
“The precursor to coal is called peat, and that is just uncompressed plant matter.”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/02/18/3691317.htm
In another 250M years, the output of radiation from the Sun will increase exponentially as more Helium is fused than Hydrogen. The temps on earth and the high energy radiation making it through the ionosphere will be greater than eukaryotic life forms can withstand. Life on Earth is in its senecense, it’s the equivalent of being 90 years old with a max life span of 100. There will be no rebound of sentient life on Earth in 250M years. Perhaps on some other planet around some newer Sun still forming, but not here.
Here’s my recap for 2015, Descent into Darkness. Should cheer you up this New Year’s Day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyuXtUhqLas
RE
Have you got any evidence for that prophecy? I’d like to see it. Otherwise my assumption is just as valid, or invalid, as yours. We know science changes all the time so I might not have heard the latest. A bit like knowing that Jupiter went on a tour through the early solar system, something we only recently deduced.
Actually, technology can disappear even sooner than when the net energy from fossil fuels becomes negative. The economy needs a growing (net) energy supply to continue to grow. Perhaps efficiency and technology changes can change this relationship slightly, but this is approximately the situation.
So instead of the Second Law of Thermodynamics being what brings about the end of technology, it may by Roddier’s Third Law of Thermodynamics that brings about collapse and the end of technology, even though some net energy might theoretically be available, if debt could rise endlessly.
There seem to be all kinds of claims to be able to provide limitless and cheap energy. We need this energy now, in 2016. There is a long ramp-up time, and that itself is a problem.
And that ramp up time is very likely to use a lot of fossil fuels. So, whatever is ramped up has to replace fossil fuels as well or it is a wasted effort. I have resolved myself to just enjoy what we have built and be thankful I was born into a land and a period of plenty.
From their site, “The Orbo power cell pulls energy from the environment, so it’s a small solid state power station that never has to be recharged or plugged in.”
Use the force, Barb. Use the force!
I have a bridge for sale, Barbara. It is old, but lightly used. All you would need to do is put up your own toll booths to cash in.
Dear Gail and Finite Worlders
A quote from Michael Burry’s interview, which is currently on Zero Hedge:
‘Fundamentally, I started looking at investments in water about 15 years ago. Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not — water is political, and litigious. Transporting water is impractical for both political and physical reasons, so buying up water rights did not make a lot of sense to me, unless I was pursuing a greater fool theory of investment — which was not my intention. What became clear to me is that food is the way to invest in water. That is, grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas. This is the method for redistributing water that is least contentious, and ultimately it can be profitable, which will ensure that this redistribution is sustainable. A bottle of wine takes over 400 bottles of water to produce — the water embedded in food is what I found interesting.’
For extra points, compare the strategy of Singing Frog Farm with Michael Burry’s strategy in terms of water. You will see that he is also bullish on medical technology. For more extra points, compare dollar investments in health care technology with the investments recommended by Montgomery and Bikle.
Don Stewart
” That is, grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas. ”
Water poor places might be sunny. I’ve wondered what they could sell back in return. I’ve thought of products that require drying…
The result of the observation made by Mr. Burry if you happen to be from Saudi Arabia is the creation of huge alfalfa farms in the Salt River area of Arizona. Grow the alfalfa in AZ and ship it to Saudi to feed dairy cattle.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/02/453885642/saudi-hay-farm-in-arizona-tests-states-supply-of-groundwater
So, Artleads, the water goes to Saudi Arabia and what comes back is jihadis. Fair trade.
Phew! It’s all too complicated for ordinary folks!
Transporting water rich foods for a long distance will one day become impossible. Then knowledge about more traditional methods will be valuable to replenish the aquifers http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/annamdas/artificial.pdf and if only seawater is available, we`ll need new methods of desalination http://www.gabrielediamanti.com/projects/eliodomestico—how-does-it-work/
When looking at products like this, for transporting water http://wellowater.org/ I can´t but wonder why they´re not using heavy duty rickshaw bikes with a 1000L watertank to do the work of several people at once.
Dear Gail and Finite Worlders
This will be a few final thoughts on some of the straw men which continually appear on this blog.
As an introduction, neither Thoreau nor the Nearings were trying to design a life which was ‘primitive’ or ‘able to survive Peak Resources’. The Nearings, living during the Deression, were clearly concerned about things like debt. But both can be summarized in the phrase the Nearings used: The Good Life. Trying to bend their messages into a 2016 Collapse Scenario is not at all straightforward. Critics should stop lambasting them for failing to solve 2016 problems.
So….what is the challenge facing us in 2016, provided we have some understanding of Limits to Growth and Resource Depletion and Science? I think our challenge can be summarized as follows:
Strive to identify the capital one can accumulate, by spending current income in 2016, to make life possible and humane over the next few decades, Take the actions in 2016 which will lead to the accumulation of that capital.
In my opinion, the accumulation of stocks and bonds and promises to pay aren’t likely to pay very good dividends over the next decades. So, instead, I will focus on other kinds of capital.
If you are a reasonably well educated person, but not an expert scientist specializing in the Life Sciences, then I think an excellent place to start is David Montgomery and Anne Bikle’s book The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health. You will follow the discoveries of a couple of scientists who really understood little to nothing about microbes, and how they have changed their lives as a result of those discoveries. You will understand why von Liebig was seriously in error, why all the statements about how long it takes to grow soil are grievously wrong, why you should never trust Agribusiness, and why everything you hear on late night television about healthy elixirs is fraudulent.
You can delve deeper into these topics, but I think this literate and compelling book is an excellent place to start. You will have invested some income (money and time) to create a capital good (knowledge) which will stand you in good stead in the coming decades.
In order to take full advantage of what you will know after having read the book, you need a garden or a small farm. Montgomery and Bikle are gardening in Seattle, so their advice is about creating productive soil (which is capital) by collecting and manipulating urban refuse (which is income which has been thrown away). I have also referred you to the Singing Frog Farm, which accomplishes the same mission on a small farm in Sonoma County. If you have in mind a large farm, I suggest you search on Gabe Brown in North Dakota to see how the big boys do it.
None of the people I have referred you to are Spartans. None of them undergo hardship in order to purify their soul or punish their sinful bodies. They simply use what they have today to create capital which will be useful in a future where incomes may be a lot reduced and industrial resources scarce. I don’t think any of them believe they are sacrificing ‘quality of life’.
If you listened to Toby Hemenway’s short talk about Singing Frog, you know that the farm is putting very large quantities of carbon and water into the soil. Both are capital for the future. To criticize the farm for using irrigation for plant starts and plastic tubing to deliver the water and a metal nozzle to turn the water into a spray is to reveal vast ignorance. It is to miss the whole point. The point is the accumulation of capital, using current income, which the Farm is doing in spades.
A second book would be Twelve by Twelve. It describes a middle aged man living in a house which is 12 feet square (and so immune to taxation and regulation as a ‘house’). The house is owned by a pediatrician. I have visited the house. It has no running water and no heat (other than body heat) and no air- conditioning. The toilet is a five gallon bucket.
A piece of land which has been restored to fertility, the knowledge of how to grow more abundance than unaided nature could manage, the knowledge of how to promote health, some hand tools, a source of water, and a twelve by twelve would get you ahead of the game If you can arrange for some like-minded neighbors, you are way ahead of the game.
One can, of course, be such a doomer that one believes that the future is going to be so bleak that no capital of any kind is going to be useful. I can’t really have a conversation with someone who thinks that, other than some loved one with whom I can try to ease the pain. It certainly makes little sense to discuss such a scenario on the internet with a stranger.
Don Stewart
“I don’t think any of them believe they are sacrificing ‘quality of life’.”
Between intermingling with family I slipped in a bunch of NFL ticket shorts, which makes a game film out of just the plays themselves with no ads and no need to fast forward on a full game on DVR. It take less than an hour to see a whole game – normally it is 2:50 to 3:15 time to view a game. I would feel like it was a sacrifice if I couldn’t watch those games. That probably sounds like a terrible attitude in light of peak oil, but I admit to having gotten hooked into some stuff during the oil age. Drambuie – where we going to get that stuff?
Disclaimer: Not hooked on Drambuie, but like to get a bottle every other year. Well, when that every other year comes around and collapse has happened, i’ll think about the fact it can’t be had any longer. That’s a sacrifice.
Stilgar
My point is that many of the people who are doing ‘sustainable’ or ‘regenerative’ things think they have made good choices. I am sure some of them drink Drambuie. I know a diet doctor who will tell you that alcohol is poison, but then he waffles about red wine and staunchly defends his right to drink it.
A conservation organization I support just signed an agreement for a conservation easement on a local dairy farm. The dairy family looks really happy as they get their certificate. I don’t think they feel deprived of, having signed away the right to sell it to the highest bidder.
If things go bad quickly, then those who have chosen to build deep soils with lots of carbon and water holding capacity are likely to reap the rewards. In the meantime, they can feel virtuous, like the dairy family. In many cases, they will make as much or more money doing the virtuous thing, anyway.
Don Stewart
Dear Don
Much good sense as ever.
Perhaps we could phrase it another way, and say that whatever one sees being enthusiastically recommended as sound ‘investments’ and ‘capital’ by the hucksters and sharks, just take the opposite path: they do not talk about flourishing drought resistant gardens with rich soil producing a wide range of high-nutrient crops, or the virtues of a well-stocked pantry, thrift and parsimony, etc, ever….
At best, they produce a parody of the real virtues of the kind that helped our peasant forbears to survive, such as PM Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, which amounted to nothing except a sound-bite. And rhetorical promises of future greatness and wealth (‘the most prosperous country in the world by 2040…reallly!)
At the same time every real effort is devoted to the further destruction of agricultural land; the neglect of farmers (common in Britain since the early 19th century and the growth of industry); luring people into debt; and creating ‘luxury’ housing with ‘gardens’ that can barely contain a small table and two chairs (this seems to be accelerating here in England, or at least in this part which is a ‘growth’ region of national strategic priority.)
They really are living in La-La land aren’t they!? Lots of smart people, but with zero understanding. Cameron is as bad as was Abbott here in OZ or Harper in Canada. Delusional dreamers causing havoc every step they take. When the hell are we going to wake up from this Neo-Liberal driven nightmare??
Thanks, Don, for another thoughtful, considerate and helpful insight to what we are discussing here among ourselves. If Fast Eddy feels the way he does, why on Earth is he beating his doomsday drum to death? Odd fellow, but I suppose we all are a bit strange to participate in this forum. Yes, there will be left over “capital” and for those that are wise, purchase a Smith and Hawkens shovel. We had fun with one fellow that had purchased one, such a elite, high brow, status symbol. One thing it will last a lifetime!
Are you listening, Fast Eddy?
http://www.houzz.com/photos/6214419/Smith-and-Hawken-Premium-Quality-Solid-Forged-Treaded-Rabbitting-Spade-traditional-shovels-and-spades
Ironic as it is we may be facing a deflationary spiral like the Nearing dealt with in the 1930’s,. How about those apples?
It would seem no matter how I try to present this in the most simple of terms — you will never ‘get it’
You are too fast forward in the future and dead set convince your outcome will be the one that presents itself.
MJ,
you say “I suppose we all are a bit strange to participate in this forum”. (NB: no offence, I’m just bouncing on your remark)
I don’t know in relation to what norm we appear ‘strange’, but for me it’s perfectly sensible to try better understand the reality we’re facing, even if the outcomes are unpleasant (thus leading you to change mindsets and revise your ambitions and beliefs).
And where else do you find essays and discussions ranging from thermodynamics to finance, through biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology and many other fields, with a host who tirelessly answers all our questions and constantly helps us connect the dots and build up a clear and consistent picture of the whole story?
Moreover, OFW is connected to the -important- news, allowing us to witness how this mess is unfolding in real time, and better understand what’s happening.
That’s priceless. Thanks again Gail.
Let’s try to keep up with good level in the comments, too.
Really now, talking me down are you? Strange you did not address the individual that really needed a talking down to, Stefeun. Furthermore, I was not directing my post to the general audience here, but one individual that need it. OK? So mind your own and if you had not noticed, I myself have contributed much important news.
BTW, next time look up the definition before you lash out
Strange….unusual, extraordinary or curious
Not at all, MJ, not at all.
Please read again, especially my NB.
Strange, I would expect your post would be deleted by now.
Thanks for your vote of support, Stefeun!
So funny!
Don,
You have made many, many fine comments on this site, but this ranks IMO as the best, or most important.
“I think our challenge can be summarized as follows:
Strive to identify the capital one can accumulate, by spending current income in 2016, to make life possible and humane over the next few decades.”
This is a terrific statement of “What Is To Be Done – Burning Questions of Our Movement” (w/ apologies to Valdimir Ilyich).
Thanks for the lead to Montgomery and Bikle.
Just in case anyone missed the key point in that rather important research:
Iron was scarce and costly, and production was falling off because England’s forests could not supply enough charcoal for smelting the ore.
These developments (coal technologies) ended the supremacy of wood as a construction material and fuel and it was replaced by steel as the chief construction material and coal as the major energy source.
https://www.eh-resources.org/the-role-of-wood-in-world-history/
And thus — the forests of the world were given a reprieve…. by fossil fuels…
The reprieve is about to end
Because the Koombaya Krowd will want shovels — and hoes — and blades — and weapons — and ploughs… They’ll even want tractors and cars and airplanes (if it were possible)…. because they really do love BAU…. they just won’t want Facebook …. you gotta draw the line somewhere eh….
Excellent presentation, Gail – something of a neat Chrismas present 🙂
I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that relate to this: Given time, and ingenuity, and commitment to a goal, it is amazing what can be achieved – something similar to compound interest can work; and average values – why do these have to occur? are lower interest rates the result of excessive rates in an earlier period?
Both of these highlight much of the thrust of your presentation – we have wased too much time.
In order for debt to “work,” it is necessary to be able to repay debt with interest. An analyst looking at the situation is likely to conclude that interest rates can be quite high, when the economy is growing rapidly with the use of little debt. Having a high inflation rate is helpful as well. The actuarial profession and MBA programs grew rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s, to take advantage of this great growth opportunity. Those who put these programs in place never looked back at history before WWII. History looked great until about 1975.
No one realized that the high rates of return were a temporary gift, enabled by the rapid growth in the use of fossil fuels (and later nuclear energy). Instead, they assumed that pension plans could be set up with high rates endlessly. (My mother is today collecting monthly payments on an annuity based on an interest rate of 7%!) Unfortunately, a lot of analysts assumed that we could always have very high rates of return. Some pension plans assumed annual returns of 10.5% (mixture of stocks and bonds, including dividends and interest).
It is not clear that we can really transfer very much wealth out of the system through interest payments, and keep the system operating (unless perhaps the system is really growing very rapidly indeed). The money really needs to go back into wages, not feeding pension plans, banks, and insurance companies.
Michael Hudson in “Killing the Host” says that historically, most debt was owed to governments and temples. The use of interest payments tended to create inequality in society, so it became necessary to frequently forgive debt. Since it was always a top-down arrangement, this was relatively easy to do. Now we have created an arrangement where banks, insurance companies, and pension plans all depend on these programs. The debt can’t just be forgiven now, so we have a real problem. We have convinced ourselves that something that is not sustainable, is sustainable. It is doubly unsustainable when economic growth rates fall, because we have both the low economic growth and the growing disparity of wages.
“In order for debt to “work,” it is necessary to be able to repay debt with interest.”
Unless there are negative interest rates on deposits, and the purchasing power of the units of currency increases due to deflation. Then, you can lend money out at negative 2 percent, and still end up able to buy more with the money in 5 years. At least, that’s the theory; we’ll see how it works in the real world soon enough.
First up; no debt = no money. Bank and central bank created money is only possible when there are debts due. Also it is logically impossible to collect money such as taxes unless there is money sufficient in the economy.
Bank money, which is a liability, does not figure in central bank operations. Their money is not double entry accounting – although they do keep a record of it in Treasury. Tax money is never reused, just noted in accounts in Treasury for accounting purposes.
For money to be in the economy there has to be deficit spending which gives the non government sector funds to a] do work and b] pay taxes.
The discussion about two kinds of debt is not important theoretically, but it’s certainly more useful for the nation to not spend government created money on financial speculation. The Federal government is empowered to spend money by buying stuff and paying bills. It can fund infrastructure projects directly without borrowing from outside sources.
The fact we do see governments borrowing is a sign the government and its advisors are in thrall to banksters, not to mention being idiots as well.
Borrowing from external sources can triple the cost of a project. While the government can use fiat currency to pay the banks fees and interest, it is just wasteful money lost to bank profits.
When the can can’t be kicked any more because the economy is legless, then the government can simply wipe out all the unproductive fiat created debts. That will mean all mortgages will revert to the customers, and all shadow banking, off the books stuff will be illegal.. These are debts which cannot be paid back. So they will never be paid back. The banks got that money as a “free lunch” – so to speak. so we can ignore their complaints. They will have shed their power by then.
I am having a hard time seeing how such negative interest rates will allow pension plans to function, for example.
The key part of your response “It is doubly unsustainable when economic growth rates fall” should perhaps speak of falling productivity, to separate the effects of increasing population from that of economic growth. Falling productivity is broadly equivalent to falling ERoEI, except that the energy sector tends to be a narrow slice of the total economy, and thus far, we have worked around the energy problems.
I would perhaps argue that we knew for a long time that pensions were unsustainable. When I was young and foolish, pensionable jobs were rare, and no-one questioned the logic. Death, Taxes and Pensions were the sure things in life. In those days, inflation was the thing to fear. A world of low inflation was so last century. How things have changed since then, essentially moving risk onto the shoulders of those worst placed to bear it, and hence similarly for interest rates. There are plenty of people paying interest rates well into double figures on their credit card debt, but not much of that reaches pension funds.
The fundamental problem all civilizations reach is falling resources per capita. They can get to this problem either of two ways: (1) Rising population, or (2) Falling resources, because of erosion, depletion, overfishing or some other problem. We could also possibly add (3) the need to spend more resources on pollution control, leading to falling net resources per capita. The fundamental problem with falling net resources per capita is that return on human labor tends to drop. The amount of farmland per farmer falls. As a result, wages tend to fall, especially for new entrants to the economy–recent graduates, etc.
We use fossil fuels to leverage human labor. I see falling productivity of human labor as generally being the result of a smaller quantity of fossil fuels (or other supplemental energy sources) leveraging human productivity. There may to some extent be a technology factor as well. In a way, I think of EROEI changes as being one of the factors that explains the difference between energy consumption growth and GDP growth.
“we knew for a long time that pensions were unsustainable” is not correct. The other shibboleth is that paying for pensions will burden our children’s future etc. is also false. It’s all utterly untrue.
It doesn’t take much to see that we are not still paying for pensions paid out to our elderly even yesterday or at any time in the past. The future will be no different. The government will pay as and when required. Our children will have their own debts not ours as far as the government sector is concerned. Private pensions are a separate matter as funds have to be reserved to pay for them in the future. Federal governments have no problems there. “Pensions” and “unsustainable” do not go together.
““Pensions” and “unsustainable” do not go together.”
You should do stand-up, that is pure comedy gold.
You should understand that your opinion is based on falsehoods. You think the mainstream economic opinion is reality, when in fact it is from living in a world of academic fantasy.
I challenge you to justify your opinion. Don’t walk away from it now!
“I challenge you to justify your opinion. Don’t walk away from it now!”
So, you want to claim that all (government) pensions are always sustainable? That no government pension funds have ever failed, or ever will? Do you include municipal and State governments, or only Federal? Only if the government has the power to issue its own currency?
Do you count Detroit, Greece, Zimbabwe?
Do you claim that only the nominal amounts of the pensions are retained, or that the real purchasing power promised to all workers can always be fulfilled?
Basically Yes. Even Detroit, Greece and Zimbabwe can always pay pensions, but they would have to be bailed out in Greece and Detroit’s cases by the federal currency issuing government. In Zimbabwe the pensions would be more complicated by currency debasement, but they could still be paid, but whether the purchasing power is enough I couldn’t say. Too dysfunctional there.
The point is that they can always be paid. It would only stop when the government ceased to exist.
This is GOOD NEWS. It is the reality of the currency world we live in, no joke!
Just imagine if there was a collapse and 50% of the population became unemployed. The Federal governments could pay these people pensions, and their purchasing power sustained. The Government in such a dire situation would have to take over distribution of essentials and use coupons etc to spread food etc around, a wartime footing, which some of us here will remember.
It would last as long as the government lasted, and the banks, which is not assured, depending on the magnitude of the collapse. As to causing excess inflation the usual limiting factor, nobody would care.
It is fortunate we have a fiat currency system. In a gold based system it’s not possible.
In collapses, the problem is that governments fail. Also, programs such as Social Security and Medicare are not guaranteed. They can disappear or be greatly reduced with a congressional vote. This is why governments do not carry a balance sheet liability indicating their promise to pay these amounts.
Governments fail. Well then we’re stuffed, royally. It’ll be FE’s worst nightmare. It would also be just about as bad if the governments are caught unprepared – an all too likely phenomenon. There are certainly no signs of any plans.
Did you ever think that one of my unintended functions here is to voice things that Gail prefers not to do….
As she stated a recently if she were to write an article detailing how she expects this to end …. that would throw readers into panic and depression….
That said — if we could get a little lead time on such an article…. that would give everyone the chance to make some cash going long the stock of the company that makes this https://www.abilify.com/
You know there is something seriously wrong with the world when you open that site and see:
https://abilify.com/images/saving-card-program/saving-card-program-dollar-desktop-print.png
I probably need to write a post on this.
As long as a person believes in infinite growth on a finite planet, pensions are sustainable. Once a person figures out how the financial system works, then it becomes clear that we have a real problem–at some point the whole system necessarily collapses, in the manner of a Ponzi Scheme that cannot be kept operating, because the whole system cannot keep growing fast enough. Once it collapses, banks collapse. We have a hard time producing much of anything. The amount distributed per person must necessarily be very small, assuming governments continue to exist.
I doubt a full understaning of the workings of the financial system is necessary. I suspect that everyone understands that negative interest rates are a signal that the financial system is broken. I will admit that I am unsure whether this is the onset of a controlled demolition, or whether something else is in play.
If I had to point to a particular area, I would look at the change in petrodollar cash flows. If these are no longer recycled into finance, and thence into pension payouts, something has to change there. We now know that QE doesn’t print money in the usual sense, so there should be signs of stress somewhere by now.
Before you do that [write a post] Gail, please bone up on MMT. MMT describes the economy as it ACTUALLY IS not the Truman’s world dreamed up in academia, basing assumptions on rational beings[!] Start with this post by Warren Mosler. Then there are many others; Rodger Malcolm Mitchell, Bill Mitchell [exceptional detail here] Stephanie Kelton, W Randall Wray , Michael Hudson and more. Modern Monetary Theory is all about the Real world. Every post I write, although I am an amateur, is based on the logical carry through of MMT
For example Pensions are not really a burden on the state. They look like a cost, but we see this week that free education in the USA would be cheaper than all the multiple deals surrounding it cost now. Pensions are an absolute necessity as we shave away job opportunities with the rise in automation and now robotics. These threaten 702 jobs from accounting to menial tasks, and there is almost no prospect substitutes can be found in our “mature” economies. The past is another country.
Government pensions are paid with current sums, not with savings, nor loans. You need to know this is not a scheme for the future, it is today’s reality. Paying pensions benefits GDP as pensioners spend it into the economy. Something we need right now in the deflationary economies. The Fe d needs never to save or to borrow,
It’s all down to Monetary Sovereignty. Independent nations write all the laws which made the currency and can change them at any time, set any value etc. They are all capable, and only fail if they give it up, which the EU nations have done and why Greece et al are in trouble. They have become users of another currency, the Euro and that can only be created by the ECB. Remember too that taxes pay not one dollar towards spending. It all an accounting procedure. Tax dollars are withdrawn from the economy, not for fiscal reasons, but for reducing the federal money supply, to stem inflation.
If there was no taxation, spending would not be affected. There would be effects, [ a point for another discussion] If economies are in decline then pensions and welfare need to reflect that. But it should be automatic as purchasing power in a reduced economy will need less money or be inflated away.
With MMT we have reality in economics. What we lack is understanding.
How about PEMM….
Perpetual Economic Motion Machine…..
Nobody works … yet everyone lives large….
Nobody has ever tried this in practice but in theory it sounds good therefore it must be feasible
Another option here the PDM – Perpetual Dream Machine….
Like an alternative matrix in which your dream is your reality — nobody really needs to eat or drink in a dream or put gas in a car — so that overcomes the finite world problems — if we can put people into perpetual comas then they can just live perpetual dreams….
Sounds pretty cool.
Profound ignorance, loudly shouted from the roof tops. Perhaps you should join The Donald and make music with him. He’s your kinda guy!
Hey what’s up with that — my ideas on saving BAU are just as good as the one you posted!!!
Did you think you had market on nonsense all to yourself?
Don’t be all modest on us now . Your FE-vered economic nonsense would dovetail right in with the Donald’s nonsense.
Warren Mosler’s post is;
http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
Or try this in Forbes Magazine;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2011/04/08/why-social-security-cannot-go-bankrupt/
I have seen this before. It is nonsense.
The hole in your understanding in this field is vast. Such a pity.
““we knew for a long time that pensions were unsustainable” is not correct.”
Fair enough : “I knew for a long time that pensions were unsustainable”
Happy?
I’m not a pension expert BTW – my point related to expectations that promises would and could be kept, and that inflation would solve the residual issues.
I’m no “expert” either, Richard. My posts are just consequential on the logic set out in the reality of today’s fiat currency world. No more, no less. Being an “expert” is less important than understanding. As far as understanding goes I feel confident. There are legions of clueless “experts in economics today.
Where the Heck is the “Dumb Bid” in the Junk-Bond Rout?
This “dumb bid” that bids on anything without paying attention isn’t directly the retail investor but fund managers whose products, decorated with appealing and conservative sounding names, were sold to retail investors.
And that “dumb bid,” which is now sorely missing, disappeared during the Financial Crisis when, as Fridson put it, “calamitous trading losses have eliminated those dumping-ground investment organizations from the scene.”
While this elimination process has been going on for decades, “new dumb bidders” would crop up to replace some of those that collapsed. But the Financial Crisis was “a more thoroughgoing exterminator than past downturns, a sort of financial Black Death that wiped out nearly every dumb bidder.”
After the Financial Crisis, only those with “a well-honed understanding of corporate credit were left standing.” But they’re not willing to pick up damaged junk at inflated prices that a bond fund under duress has to sell.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/12/28/where-the-heck-is-the-dumb-bid-in-this-illiquid-market/
And what about all these fire sales of assets from failing companies like Glencore?
Are there enough stupid fools out there who fail to understand that a supposed fire sale is not a fire sale rather it is true price discovery based on current and projected market conditions i.e. that this is as good as it gets and that the fire sale price is no deal whatsoever…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-28/ship-carrying-over-11-tons-low-enriched-uranium-leaves-iran-russia
In a world of lots of bad news, here’s some good news. Iran as part of their denuclearization just sent a ship holding 11 tons of enriched uranium to Russia.
Dear Gail and Finite Worlders
This will tag onto my recent post about Lynn Margulis and the origins of multi-celled creatures such as humans in the ancient events whereby certain single celled creatures merged to form symbiotic units, opening up new possibilities. At each stage, more complex creatures were constructed with careful attention to detail…we don’t find many thermodynamically wasteful critters in Nature.
David Stockman has a current essay wherein he predicts that we now face a decade or more of depression because of the mal-investment brought on by massive money printing by the world’s central banks. The question I pose to you is: Are we about to see symbiosis in reverse? Will the fact of the massive mal-investment mean that so much of our infrastructure turns out to be useless junk that the economy will literally be set way back in terms of succession…even putting aside purely financial concerns.
The scenario does not seem implausible….Don Stewart
You would think David Stockman would know what he is talking about. But he is as much a manipulator as anyone else in the 0.1%. His stating the fed money printing causes the inflation/mal investment troubles is, and he undoubtedly knows it, just bullshit. We punters are meant to believe it and many do, but the real story is not his story.
Yes we do face a depression/recession/deflation decade [at least] but it is due to demographics far more than for investment. You’d do better to consult Harry Dent’s blogs. He explains it. The mass retirement of the boomers generation is causing a slow down in spending and the next generation which would take over has, due to neo-liberal policies, not enough spending power and too much debt to fill in the missing money. Take no heed of David Stockman. He’s a fake analyst.
The invisible hand of free markets will fix it all….LOL
Yes, and if you would first just forward a few dollars to Nigeria you will be wealthy beyond your dreams.
Stockman is very good with his analysis …. most of what he says is true … the central banks are destroying the global economy with their actions…
However the problem I have with him is that he believes the central banks are corrupt and incompetent….
He fails to ask the question — why would you blow up the system that has enriched you?
Post 2008 I agreed completely with him — but then I came to my senses and said — is Bernanke stupid – corrupt? How can he not see this will end badly?
Of course he can see.
And that changed everything….
Why in the hell would you blow up your house? What is in your house that is so evil that you’d blow it up and yourself up — to keep that evil away from you and your family for as long as possible???
And down the rabbit hole I went — searching for the answer — and by digging through the MSM looking for needles I found a few articles explaining the problems related to high extraction costs etc….
I distinctly remember being in an Edinburgh hotel — and reading something in the FT.com…. very late into the night…
It was like that scene from Apocalypse Now — when Kurtz states ‘it was like I was shot with a diamond bullet’….
It was then that I realized the true extent of what we were facing — I realized why Bernanke was doing seemingly insane things …. not insane at all …. actually brilliant…. desperate — yet brilliant…
He was fighting to keep civilization going for a few more years….
I went 180 on shale turning on a dime — I realized that without Drill Baby Drill (oh how sick hearing that phrase once made me feel…) was what stood between us and death…
I realized there was no way out…. so I began searching for hedges…. how to survive the end of BAU — a google search related to the feasibility of a no growth economy lead me to an FW article on a steady state economy…. and here we are…
Surely David Stockman — and Paul Craig Roberts — and Zero Hedge —- are all capable of asking why the house is being burned down —why do this?
And surely they are capable of working out that there is something very sinister involved…
Which makes me wonder — do they exist primarily as venting mechanisms to keep the sheeple calm?
There are many sheeple who do not buy into the MSM narrative of recovery —- is it not better to just deflect them from the real problem by accusing the decision makers of being stupid… corrupt… incompetent?
That the good ship capitalism is basically sound — that it just needs an overhaul of the rigging to get it back on the water…
Nearly everything we have today requires electricity or oil to operate.
To artleads. There is no reason to think about improvised structures post collapse. Anyway you look at it there is going to be a lot less people.. There will be no gas for autos. The autos have glass and the front windshield is omost ideal angle to catch the suns energy. A nice mini van can be pointed south and insulated as a solar collector.. Voila Home sweet home. Look at all the vehicles. Once gas goes away they will be re purposed. After the gas goes away who will care? Once things settle down post collapse everyone will have a nice home in North America
I see it!!!!! Been saying this for a long time. But no need to wait for full blown collapse. People are dying by the millions now. Homeless men are freezing. Meanwhile, abandoned factories just sit there till all their windows break and developers tear them down. Total dysfunction, all happening now.
Come full blown destruction and no prior preparation, you have a much harder transition. The transition, to the maximum possible, must happen now, while BAU is still in the pink. And I disagree slightly. There will be extreme need for shelter. Old vehicles alone won’t be quite enough.
Home Sweet Home!
http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000090181/polls__39412641_car_3558_694161_answer_1_xlarge.jpeg
Dear Gail and Finite Worlders
For an example of a ‘light and fast’ solution, see Toby Hemenway talking about a farm in his neighborhood in California. Start at 4 minutes and listen for about 3 or 4 minutes.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6vCYwsvwu0
The link to the farm website, which is being rebuilt, so many links don’t work, is:
http://www.singingfrogsfarm.com
Note ‘excellent soil biology’ and ‘high organic matter’ and ‘regenerative’
This is a good example of the ‘microbe revolution’ that I described as being ‘light and fast’. While I have not studied this farm in detail, all the symptoms point to a laser focus on feeding the microbes. If you feed the microbes with plenty of organic matter, and do not till, then you put lots of organic matter into the soil and you regenerate the productive capacity of the soil. Note the increased water holding capacity quoted by Toby Hemenway.
This farm started with 1 percent organic matter 5 years ago. I have currently taken on the management of a small plot which is currently reading 0.23 percent organic matter, with soil compaction beginning at 3 inches. I’m too old to take on 4 acres, but I figure tackling a small plot will keep me out of trouble.
Don Stewart
PS You will note that they have what appear to be permanent raised beds. I would not be surprised if a tractor was used to build those raised beds to begin with. An example of how the fossil fuels we have left can be used to build capital. Also, I would not be surprised to learn that their distribution is heavily dependent on fossil fuels….one reason I prefer gardens wherever possible.
Another guy completely plugged into BAU.
I’d be interested in hearing his thoughts on what it would be like to farm without any steel tools… without a wheelbarrow… or a shovel … without any irrigation pumps… without any rubber hoses….
Don’t worry so much Fast Eddy…with the die off of populations we can expect something like this to happen again
1616-1619 “Great Dying,” a three-year pandemic begins to decimate the native population, actually wiping out some coastal groups altogether. This was just the first of several epidemics that killed as many as 90-95% of Maine Indians in an area from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod. It’s believed that the plague, smallpox, cholera, measles, hepatitis, and whooping cough transmitted by Europeans were responsible for the Indian deaths. Some survivors move to older villages to the east and in Canada. It’s unclear whether the epidemics had as great of an impact in eastern Maine
http://www.mpbn.net/homestom/timelines/natamtimeline.html
I also remember reading a sign post stating a group of European settlers starved during their first winter rather than heed the warnings and advice from the natives because they were thought to be savages. I have no doubt many will ignore Don Steward and his teaching also, because they do not wish to get their hands dirty. It’s so uncivilized.
Nah – plenty are followers of Don’s way — which is just a regurgitation of one of the stages in a process leading to where we are now…
What people abhor is returning to a truly sustainable way of living…. that of the hunter gatherer.
Nobody wants that.
Fascinating stuff this small house discussion… permaculture farming … etchetera etchetera…
But what I don’t understand is why there is no discussion of a truly sustainable lifestyle …. that of the hunter gatherer…
Why is it that nobody appears to be interested in this topic? We are overwhelmed with the Little House narrative….
Is that because of the Tee Vee show and all the books written about this wonderful era?
We’ve even had a taste of Edo Japan man here….
Why nothing on Hunter Gatherers?
How unfair. I will take it upon me to go one for one with Little House brigade and post some crucial information on how you can go about living a sustainable life post BAU…
No need to burn down trees to beat metal into hammers and shovels and knives… we are talking true sustainability here – not the Koombaya version… surely a worthy topic.
Meet Grok. According to his online profile, he is a tall, lean, ripped and agile 30-year-old. By every measure, Grok is in superb health: low blood pressure; no inflammation; ideal levels of insulin, glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. He and his family eat really healthy, too. They gather wild seeds, grasses, and nuts; seasonal vegetables; roots and berries. They hunt and fish their own meat.
Between foraging, building sturdy shelters from natural materials, collecting firewood and fending off dangerous predators far larger than himself, Grok’s life is strenuous, perilous and physically demanding.
Yet, somehow, he is a stress-free dude who always manages to get enough sleep and finds the time to enjoy moments of tranquility beside gurgling creeks. He is perfectly suited to his environment in every way.
He is totally Zen.
Ostensibly, Grok is “a rather typical hunter–gatherer” living before the dawn of agriculture—an “official primal prototype.” He is the poster-persona for fitness author and blogger Mark Sisson’s “Primal Blueprint”—a set of guidelines that “allows you to control how your genes express themselves in order to build the strongest, leanest, healthiest body possible, taking clues from evolutionary biology (that’s the primal part).”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat/
Sound appealing — no?
Despite the innovations that sprang out of agricultural societies, Jared Diamond and Richard Manning both argue that the first farmers were actually less healthy than their ancestors.
We can look at this question from a lot of different angles, by comparing the skeletons of the first farmers with the skeletons of contemporaneous hunter-gatherers or by looking at modern hunter-gatherers.
In both cases, average height is a basic indication of nutrition, and hunter-gatherers come out literally on top nearly every time. Did you know that only in the last century in the richest parts of the world have the statures of agriculturalists regained the heights of ancient hunter-gatherers?
Other indications of ill health abounded among the first farmers. Tooth decay became Hunterprominent along with high infant mortality, iron deficiencies, and an increase in disease. Farmers also had a significantly shorter life span than contemporaneous hunter-gatherers.
More http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Health_of_farmers_and_hunter-gatherers/
To hell with Little House…. totally uncool…. how can one learn to be a hunter gatherer?
I went to the Amazon once…. this place specifically http://www.ariauamazontowers.com/
And I went out with a guide into the jungle …. he was a true hunter gatherer … in fact he sometimes went off into the jungle on his own for weeks — with nothing …. anyway … we went through the jungle and he showed me how to open logs and find these white worms … like you see on Nat Geo shows…. we ate some of the white worms….
I reckon anyone who really wants to survive post BAU needs to find a mentor like this … someone who walks the walk…. get out into forest or the jungle — and learn how to live off the land…
Hands up?
Oh I see — too difficult…. don’t like eating bugs… prefer shovels… and stoves… and houses… and complaining about people who consume too much….who ruin the planet
Yes … I see… plain as day…
And with that… I’ll slink away back into my hole…. and the Little House discussion can begin again … as if this interlude did not happen…
Lol.
The industrial infrastructure is not disappearing overnight. Some of it will, yes, but much of it will live on.
And even then, humans have been living a largely settled, agricultural existence for thousands of years before the industrial revolution.
Think of the year 1900 for how things will look decades out from now. Think of the year 1800 as how things will look further from that.
“Think of the year 1900 for how things will look decades out from now. Think of the year 1800 as how things will look further from that.”
Once the oil and coal stop being produced, it will be more like 13th century black death Europe for a decade or so. Then, if the reactors and spent fuel ponds are controlled, it will be at best like 15th century Europe. Then, after a few decades, the radiation will eventually start seeping out as the facilities start to leak. The best case scenario is to die of old age before the radiation sickness gets you.
Unless, somehow, tending the nuclear waste replaces religion, and the spent fuel ponds and old reactors become the new cathedrals and Vatican City, with the survivors channeling their surpluses to maintain the waste for thousands of years.
“Unless, somehow, tending the nuclear waste replaces religion, and the spent fuel ponds and old reactors become the new cathedrals and Vatican City, with the survivors channeling their surpluses to maintain the waste for thousands of years.”
Exactly!
Again — there was a deforestation problem that resulted from making tools and weapons from metals…
If we had not harnessed fossil fuels — we would have cut down every tree on the planet (just as we have burned up all the accessibly fossil fuels now) to feed our insatiable appetite for more….
And we would have met the fate of Easter Island over a century ago….
Fast Eddie, pardon me for writing so, but sounds a little of reality is hitting you in regard to your post BAU project. I’ll be honest, if I were younger, I might be more serious about it, but just doing a little prep in case a slow collapse. I do not expect to be around after the big 70 or ten years from now. No problem, I lived in the Power Age and can’t complain.
My post about housing was to point out a lot of the leg work was already figured out and seems the wheel is being reinvented.
Not to bust chops, Helen and Scott Nearing built a massive stone house in Harbor side Maine and even have a book.. Our Stone House…built when Scott was in his 90’s and Helen in her 70’s! It’s mainly a photo album with Helen writing a bit and her own view it is probably best to live up in a tree!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d9o2HMw523Y
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Home-Made-Stone-Seventies/dp/0892721758
Used copies at amazon for $2.99!
Scott Nearing was plugged into BAU — he used roads – he had a pick up truck – he had tools made in factories…from iron that was mining using machinery — that was smelted using electricity….
Not to belittle them — but his way of life was not sustainable…
His way of life was simply another step up the ladder to the disaster we are facing.
When we realized that farming could support larger populations in a given territory — farming became the trendy new technology of the time (the first farmers were comparable to the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of our era….) ….
And populations exploded…
When that wasn’t enough (see Malthus) — we reinvented farming using petro chemicals and electric pumps…. that allowed us to run the population up even more rapidly….
There is absolutely no way that ‘freezing’ civilization in a ‘Scott Nearing world’ was or is possible.
If that were tried it would collapse the world immediately — it would result in a deflationary implosion — and the shovels and roads and other tools that people like Nearing take for granted… would not be available…
We would quickly be thrown into a very primitive state — the mines would close — the oil would stop — the electricity would go off — the factories would be shuttered.
And we’d back to where we started…. scratching at the ground with sticks trying to grow enough food to stay alive….
There will be plenty of steel tools left behind post BAU — but those will wear out … and we will burn down the forests trying to recycle metals into more tools….
This means that if anyone survives they will go from living a brutal harsh existence — to something far worse….
The only truly sustainable option is hunter gatherer — we need to live like the animals that we are.
I can see how this has zero appeal.
Maybe watch some of those old Tarzan movies instead of reruns of Little House on the Prairie…
Ahhh, come on now, Fast Eddy, did you watch the video?
The Nearing would of just moved in their Yurt and they DID live without (is electricity, refrigeration, flush toilets and indoor plumbing, and no car…used horse power) for many years in Vermont. I think you are envious of their kaputz because you just have the spunk yourself to meet the task at hand.
Don’t feel too bad, many are called, few, if any, can cut the mustrard.
BTW, I was there this past simmer at Forest Farm….they (the stewards), will do just fine without BAU. Eliot Coleman and his wife Barbara live next door!
Maybe you should consider a move? LOL
I posted an interview with Nearing some months ago — in which he discussed using concrete and owning a pick up truck….
You are missing my point — I don’t care about the Yurt and organic vegetables — he was plugged into BAU – the minute he picked up a steel shovel he was plugged into the system — the minute he visited a doctor he was plugged in — the minute he used a road he was plugged in.
He was NOT living a sustainable life.
You cannot just pick and choose — oh I will use concrete and a pick up truck and a steel shovel and electric lights –but I will eschew a television and a mobile phone…
And then say look at me — I am a hero — I am living the life we were meant to live — I reject modernity (except when it suits me)
He is no hero — he was either delusional — stupid — or a hypocrite (he was also a communist at one point – which demonstrates extreme delusion) …
You want to point to someone as a hero — pick anyone of these guys
http://www.roughguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Final-West-Papua-Jungle-IndonesiaDF3D8M-1680×1050.jpg
Scott Nearing was living large compared to them — he was Paris Hilton compared to them.
I do not understand this Scott Nearing myth. It is pure nonsense.
Hmmm, you are missing my point 100%. That naked fellow would not do too well in the New England winters at all! Nor would his spear catch him much up there.
As I repeatedly pointed out, the Nearing suffered Depressionary economic collapse when they first set out in Vermont. Lived without BAU for many years and adapted.
So, your point is mute to me.
I suggest you and Mrs Eddy apply to their seasonal host opportunity
Nearing Residency – Description & Application Process:
Remarkable and unique opportunity on the Maine coast for responsible couple. Live at Forest Farm, historic homestead of Living the Good Life authors Helen and Scott Nearing, on spectacular Cape Rosier peninsula overlooking Penobscot Bay and the Camden Hills. Located near Blue Hill and Deer Isle, Maine, an hour from Acadia National Park with their galleries, restaurants, beautiful public beaches, biking, kayaking, sailing, and hiking.
Responsibilities include caring for the Nearings’ organic vegetable garden, light maintenance, welcoming visitors, providing tours, and introducing educational programs. A simply furnished wood heated resident apartment is provided, along with a modest stipend, garden vegetables, special access to the Nearing library, and the opportunity to meet like-minded people from around the world. You will receive support and supervision from the site manager and the head gardener.
The season is Memorial Day through Columbus Day and requires 25 hours of work per week per person with two days off per week. Applicants must be nonsmokers, have hands-on gardening experience, and the capability to commit to the full season. Vegetarian meals while on grounds. Knowledge of the Nearings’ writings and philosophy a plus.
Please send resume and letter of interest by January 31 to: Nearing Residency, The Good Life Center, P.O. Box 37, Blue Hill, ME 04614.
For more information email: information@goodlife.org
The Good Life Center is a 501( c) ( 3) nonprofit established in 1998 to preserve the house, library, and garden of social, political, and environmental activists Helen and Scott Nearing. For more information, contact The Good Life Center at 207-374-5386 or visit http://www.goodlife.org.
‘Lived without BAU for many years and adapted.’
Did he not use anything made of steel during this period?
A fork – a blade – a shovel — a hoe?
You are on a slippery slope…..
Small houses are one thing, and the paleo diet (first I’m hearing about that) is another. As far as I can tell, most of us from the recent discussion are doing what you’re doing–trying to be as self reliant as possible under daunting and possibly terminal circumstances. It sounds as if you’re just looking to rattle somebody’s cage. 🙂
None of us have the slightest desire to return to a pre-agricultural lifestyle (as in living without the products or knowledge-base provided by agriculture) We don’t know how. It’s way too counter intuitive, given that we manage to stay alive through the continuing (if destructive) miracle of BAU. Given these facts, what are you trying to say?
What I am saying is that there is no way to live in the manner that you and Don and others are discussing.
That lifestyle requires metal tools — these will not be available for very long post collapse. These things break — they wear out — and as been mentioned we had a deforestation problem pre-coal and oil…. so we will quickly denude the planet of trees if we try what you are suggesting.
If your purpose is to provide a way forward for younger people who might be so unfortunate to survive the initial collapse — then you are wasting your time.
The only way forward is as a hunter gatherer. That is the way we lived before we got onto the treadmill to hell…. that’s the way we will live post collapse….
Because there will be no other options … there will be no way back onto the treadmill…
Of course it will be rather difficult to live like a hunter gatherer if the survivors insist on trying to get back on the treadmill by burning down the remaining trees in an effort to maintain ‘BAU ultra lite’
By Ultra Lite I mean trying to continue to farm and producing the implements required to do so by burning trees…
That will result in a global Easter island….
In conclusion — your way forward is no way forward at all — it is a step towards guaranteed extinction.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0AEj3LA2vSo
“Of course it will be rather difficult to live like a hunter gatherer if the survivors insist on trying to get back on the treadmill by burning down the remaining trees in an effort to maintain ‘BAU ultra lite’”
Today’s hunter gatherers carry around boom boxes and use cell phones. But they don’t burn down all their trees. It’s way too misleading to generalize about these things.
“By Ultra Lite I mean trying to continue to farm and producing the implements required to do so by burning trees…”
I suppose by ultra lite you mean a life style that has recognizable similarity to today’s. It’s complicated. Building without lumber and exclusively in cities is one of many ways I could see that happening.
“That will result in a global Easter island….”
Under no circumstance (although one should never swear to anything) would I consider deforestation as the solution to anything.
“In conclusion — your way forward is no way forward at all — it is a step towards guaranteed extinction.”
Your alternative appears to be “hunter gathering.” That makes no sense. Every environmental system has been cut in half during the past century–top soil, water, forests, grasslands, ocean life, wild creatures. Yet, speaking just for myself, global population has just about quadrupled since I was born. What are these new hunter gatherers going to hunt and gather? All 7+ billion of them?
Very obviously 7.5B are not going to survive the collapse….
I seem to recall a few of Gail’s articles suggesting that the only truly sustainable way of living is that of the hunter gatherer …. I think I also recall her commenting that the harnessing of fire was the beginning of the end for us…. everything beyond that point was unsustainable….
I have absolutely eviscerated the Little House on the Prairie camp — your argument is walking around with his entrails dragging on the ground… his jaw and both eye sockets are busted…. all of his teeth have been kicked out of his mouth …. and he’s looking for a dark corner to crawl into and die…
And yet you insist on continuing to post comments what suggest the Scott Nearing myth is the way forward.
Cognitive dissonance… heavy duty stuff….
When you are proved wrong — why not just admit it and see it as lifting yourself to a higher level of understanding — I do it quite frequently …..
In fact I used to think Scott Nearing, Thoreau and Joel Salatin were the way forward — then I thought it through and realized they were nothing of the sort — they were as much a part of the system as the guys flying around in private jets… as much a part of the problem of the first dude who worked out that rubbing sticks together could make fire….
You are so fortunate that you have me to explain why they are just bullshit…. I’ve done all the hard work for you on this one….
Saved you from your endless research on how to build a warm house — how to keep remnants of the system that destroyed the planet in play post BAU…. basically how you want to keep more of the same in the ridiculous belief that you are somehow saving the planet…. saved you from making yourselves look silly day after day…
Perhaps a thank you is in order….
Just to make it clear, I am very grateful for your presence here and for you intelligence. It’s clear, however, that where you lack understanding you can’t face up to it. You must always be totally correct. This is not a behavior trait that leads to common understanding. Nobody, not even you, can be so knowing to justify the vaunted heights you claim. And nobody is so clueless as to not occasionally have some truth to offer. But no, you must always win the argument, as I’m sure you’ll “win” this one as well. 🙂
Happy 1916!
Not at all. I’ve on numerous occasions acknowledged that my positions were not correct – and swung 180.
Sometimes I change my position because I have come across research that demonstrated I am wrong — and sometimes I read commentary on FW that demonstrates I am wrong.
I have no problem with being wrong — it generally leads to a greater understanding of the issues….
The onion has many layers that need to be peeled back…. a sharpened knife is best…
Happy 2016 to all!
“Happy 1916!”
Sorry, I meant 2016″
“I have absolutely eviscerated the Little House on the Prairie camp — your argument is walking around with his entrails dragging on the ground… his jaw and both eye sockets are busted…. all of his teeth have been kicked out of his mouth …. and he’s looking for a dark corner to crawl into and die…”
Colorful.
And yet you insist on continuing to post comments what suggest the Scott Nearing myth is the way forward.”
I have NEVER mentioned Scott Nearing (or even Thoreau). Since I know so little about them. But for full disclosure, I see no reason to renounce them either. What great harm did they bring to human society?
Here’s what doesn’t help. You are probably incapable of understanding (or noticing?) that you are making wildly inaccurate and unjustified statements about some posters.
So now, go ahead. Shrug it off as unimportant and only a small omission in relation to the wrongness and harmfulness of what I’m doing. Underneath a tiny detail is a mountainous wrong that you have correctly identified. The inadequacies that go beyond words to describe. Serious things that matter in the real, suffering world. Things, probably, that my Koombaya helped to cause. Better still, ignore the subject, Don’t apologize. Don’t respond at all, or respond about something DIFFERENT. Change the subject, That works. We’re getting really close to psychopathy here…if we aren’t there already.
All that said, I like you. You are very entertaining and smart. But please don’t tell lies about me.
I have a pet peeve that I would like to air here…
It relates to the use of you. My understanding is that you can be used to address one person — or many people
So let’s say you are speaking to a group of people and you want to ask one of them to accompany you to the hot dog stand at a sporting event. ‘Would you like to come and help me carry the hot dogs’
The problem is obvious — does this mean you are inviting everyone to help or just one person?
Anyway….
When I reference you or your — I am speaking about anyone who believes Scott Nearing or Toby Hemmingway or Joel Salatin or Thoreau are ‘the way forward’
I do not have any problem with any of these people — I think they truly believe that they do have the way forward.
Just as people who believe PV or EV or thorium or space solar are the ways forward really are the ways forward.
The issue I have with all of this is that all are wrong — all positions are intellectually wanting — none can be supported by the facts.
As I (and others) have eviscerated solar, PV, thorium etc…. so too have I turned the focus on ‘Little House on the Prairie’
I’ve been down that path myself — and my position here is not just a random attack on Scott Nearing and others — the position has been considered at length — the facts have been gathered and presented – as have the conclusions.
And at the end of the day — is that not what this site is all about?
Do we get angry and insulted when confronted by facts that disprove (or at least bring into question) an accepted narrative?
While I can understand the inclination to reject facts when the narrative is something we have invested money and time and hope into — when we have spent untold hours looking for a model that we believe offers a way forward — a future for our children…..
I thought this site was about pursuit of the truth.
As I have mentioned I was down the Nearing path — I have wasted time and money in Canada in pursuit of this path — I continue to waste money in New Zealand.
Yes – if the fuel ponds are contained by some miracle – there is a slight chance of surviving the catastrophe that awaits us…
But ultimately adopting the Nearing lifestyle just puts us back on the same wheel to hell — we MUST have energy to live like this — and energy means trees — there is no way around that.
We’ve been there — done that before …. we were approaching collapse 200+ years ago — figuring out how to get energy out of coal postponed that collapse.
Unless we innovate our way out of this then we’ll turn back to the forests.
And that is almost certainly going to lead us to extinction.
Easter Island is a powerful metaphor.
Eddy, you know there are stages. BAU. Imminent collapse. Day 1 in Post BAU. Day 100 in post BAU, day 1000 in Post BAU, day 10.000 Post BAU. You know there are stages
Each of the stages have their own optimum strategy, you know that, so, lets work on the appropriate strategies, OK?
Will 400 nuclear reactors that have melted down soon after the collapse and their waste dumps, have stopped spewing forth radiation 10,000 days post-BAU?
“Will 400 nuclear reactors that have melted down soon after the collapse and their waste dumps, have stopped spewing forth radiation 10,000 days post-BAU?”
Maybe their meltdown COULD be avoided, depending on whether some serious and rational action happened now or not.
As to stages of collapse, I can assure everyone that the medical care I get now is extraordinarily inferior to what I got 40 years ago. Something has collapsed, I think. But it wasn’t sudden. Or maybe decline is a better term for it than collapse.
The reactors are not the problem — the fuel in them could be moved to the ponds just before collapse and the reactors decommissioned.
The problem is the storage of the fuel….. we need BAU to keep those high tech facilities operational
A lot has changed in 100 years:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/82920/watch-world-emits-more-and-more-carbon
Dear Gail and finite Worlders
Adding on to my recent posts with the ‘toy model’ and the ‘lateral gene transfer’ concepts. This is particularly germane to the ‘toy model:
“Short, how do inventories continue to grow if wells are shut in? Would it not rebalance or is that economy 101 bs?”
Petroleum is one of the primary energy sources for the economy, when its production falls so also does the economy. As the economy contracts the demand for oil contracts. The amount of oil in demand is dependent on the amount of economy that exists to produce the demand. Because petroleum production has passed its energy half way point, demand will fall faster than production. The production of petroleum is now the largest user of energy that comes from petroleum, and constitutes the largest piece of its own demand. The supply of petroleum and its products to the economy went from being a positive feedback to the economy, to a negative feedback at the energy half way point. Producing more petroleum no longer produces more growth in the economy, it slows its growth down. Since the petroleum industry will always attempt to maximize its revenue they will continue to produce as much as possible at any price. Prices will fall until they can no longer cover lifting costs.
Please note that I DO NOT vouch for the numbers involved in these equations. But I think that the concepts in the model are valid….
IF we make the assumption that ‘big and slow’ is the only way to go. A disruptive ‘light and fast’ transition could upset the timing by postponing the crisis until some time in the future. Eventually, the piper has to be paid.
Don Stewart
Dear Gail and Finite Worlders
This is a response to the issues raised by the email comment suggesting that the Maximum Power Principle is not entirely correct, and that the interactions between ‘big and slow’ and ‘llight and fast’ may play a critical role.
I suggest that there is a recent controversy which will reward some study and some thinking. The reference here is to The Hidden Half of Nature, Chapter 4. The text describes the conflict between orthodox Darwinism (competition between individuals with survival of the fittest resulting in slow evolutionary change) and Lynn Margulis (fast symbiosis and lateral gene transfer resulting in rapid change). The famous paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould was able to publish as late as the year 2002 a massive tome reviewing evolution without giving any significant notice to Margulis’ ideas. I don’t think anyone taking a broad view would do that in 2016.
‘The ways in which Margulis and Gould viewed evolution sprang from how they viewed biology in general. The different things they each saw—Margulis’ emphasis on microscopic life and Gould’s on plants and animals in the fossil record—led them to very different views of how evolution occurred….Marulis believed that acquisition of whole genes and genomes through horizontal gene transfer rather than small mutations within a single gene had been critically important in the early evolution of life. A one celled organism like a bacterium that merged with another bacterium would double its genome.’
Most of the people who comment here are in the Gould camp. We MUST have massive amounts of cheap energy and vast amounts of debt and a throw-away economy which is perpetually growing. After all, that is what we find in the fossil record going back at least 500 years. Couple that basic outlook with the potential for resource depletion and the exhaustion of debt resources and the future looks bleak.
But now look at what cell phones actually do, stealing from Sherry Turkle:
*You will be heard
*You can put your attention where you want it to be
*You will never be alone
*You need never be bored
I suggest that the cell phone is very similar to a lateral gene transfer….very suddenly, we have acquired a symbiotic bacterium. And it really is not more of the same old BAU.
I have made the argument, which is also one element in The Hidden Half of Nature, that food production and the protection of our health are undergoing a similar ‘horizontal gene transfer’ as the microbial revolution continues. Fast Eddy’s repeated attempts to cast the microbial revolution as reversion to some previous primitive state are about as useless as trying to call cell phones just fancier smoke signals.
Did Margulis’ work make everything that Gould and his fellows had done obsolete? No, I don’t really think so. We humans are not like microbes. While we contain and harbor vast numbers of microbes, we also have a large superstructure which is more like the ‘big and slow’, which is resistant to change. It is worth noting that almost all of the ‘big and slow’ creatures who have ever existed are now extinct. Whether some humans will be able to partner with ‘light and fast’ memes and survive the changes in the environment remains to be seen.
It is also worth keeping in mind that some of the ‘light and fast’ may be inimical to our health, although we are loath to recognize it. Sherry Turkle thinks that the above list of functions performed by cell phones is not in our best interests. Those functions, as performed by cell phones, are incompatible with the superstructure which we have evolved. Montgomery and Bikle, in contrast, think that gardening with microbial partners and relying on microbes for the preservation of health are entirely positive.
Don Stewart
Pingback: Peak Oil has ARRIVED! | Doomstead Diner
Look Mom! I can print trillions of yen and still no hyperinflation!!! Isn’t this cool?
With recent JPY strength not helping, last week ended on a down-note for Japan as its jobless rate ticked up from 3.1% to 3.3% (the biggest rise since January) and Household spending collapsed. However, as the last week of the year begins, things have not improved as a double whammy of awfulness just hit the shores of Abe’s nation with retail sales (worst since the tsunami) and industrial production ugly and missing across the board. We are sure, of course, that just one more dose of faith-based QE will fix this.
Household Spending has been a disaster…
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2015/12-overflow/20151227_JP2_0.jpg
And Retail Sales is therefore terrible… (away from the effects of the pre- and post-tax hike moves, this is the worst monthtly drop in Retail Sales since The 2011 Tsunami!!!)
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2015/12-overflow/20151227_JP3_0.jpg
More http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-27/abenomics-dead-japanese-data-collapses-across-board
Not sure if this is a hoax:
http://pro.moneymappress.com/EADSLR3979/PEADRBCS/?iris=439466&h=true
I’ve been wondering about it as well. Whatever, it is talking about solar power but not in any familiar way.
That’s another red flag. Dressing up old concepts with marketing buzzwords. Anyway, it’s all to do with saving the flagging fortunes of a company called SunEdison, which is on the skids and its principal shareholders, including no doubt these spruikers. You can read all about it in the review of this “energy breakthrough” here, http://goo.gl/m6lQPp.
Seems like someone is “talking their book”… 😀
Thanks for that. As FE puts it, it’s Nigerian Banking scam equivalent.
The breathless language is nearly always a dead giveaway. And if it was as good as they say, why advertise it when it could be all theirs?
Tip: when there is eerie music playing in the background…. it’s a scam.
Yeah, it’s a scam. If you wait for a while through the idiocy and over the top snake oil sales, you get to an energy production cost of $0.05/kWh, which isn’t all that impressive. It compares it to the old days when solar power came in ar $76/kWh. It’s still solar PV, but they’re claiming some transformational efficiency and cost gains that simply don’t compute to a revolution in how power is generated.
They also pronounce “Si” as “psy” instead of “silicon,” which is strange and surreal.
$0.05/kWh isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t revolutionary. Even if it was infinitely expandable (it’s not), since it is essentially solar PV you still need to expand the electric power system well beyond where it is now to support its use and then also use electricity in non-traditional uses to replace liquid fuels in transportation and other things.
The biggest thing that flags this as a scam is that people like you and I can get in on it on the ground floor with a once-in-a-lifetime-of-lifetimes opportunity.
I always wondered who the people were who gave money to those people in Nigeria who promised to deliver untold riches…
Who in the &^%$ *&^%$ hell would be so *&^%%$$#@ stupid to fall for that &^%$….
Now I know.
Earlier I think someone questioned my understanding of QE…
Like I was saying… bullshit…. double bullshit… triple bullshit….
http://www.dharmaworks.net/Tim/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ali.jpg
So why has QE not caused a big bout of consumer price inflation? Because the money has been channeled to big financial and corporate entities, and they plowed it into financial and other assets (including share buybacks and other forms of “financial engineering”), thus pushing up asset prices.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/12/27/i-was-asked-whatever-happened-to-inflation-after-all-this-money-printing/
Another excellent article from Wolf…. that blog may not provide the quantity of ZH … but it definitely wins in the quality dept…
It’s my belief that the big banks are sitting on a lot of it. It’s parked in bonds.
I prefer facts over beliefs….
Get busy then and find them.
Everyone knows that the Fed, through the bank excess reserves/cash deposit pathway, participated in indirectly purchasing some $1 trillion in risk assets in 2013 through POMO – a process that many have confused with economic recovery. It is also known that corporate stock buybacks have managed to keep S&P500 EPS rising by removing the total number of shares outstanding (and thus lowering the S in EPS in a world where absolute E stubbornly refuses to grow): after all, someone has to keep those activist shareholders happy or else they release unpleasant letters about corporate CEOs.
However, what may not be known is just how large the total amount of corporate buybacks in the past year was. The answer: the second highest in history, just shy record of 2007 (when there was no additional $1 trillion in stock purchases coming from the Fed/Primary Dealer complex), amounting to $500 billion (even if non-US buybacks have been a tiny fraction of US).
Presented otherwise, corporations injected roughly half of the total POMO cash used by the Fed to push the S&P straight-line higher.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-06/500-billion-2013-corporate-buybacks-half-qe
As a matter of fact, both phenomena reinforce themselves, pushing stock prices up. On the $85 B of QE in 2013, $45 B go to buying Treasury bonds, thus financing the budget deficit, and $40 B go to buying back dubious mortgage-backed securities (MBS), in order to prop up the real estate market. This way, $40 B go to the banks, and they can also borrow from the Fed at 0%.
Then the banks reinvest these monies in the stock markets, notably on Wall Street, which helps boost the shares… It’s like a two-tiered rocket, sort of : more money is circulating and, at the same time, less shares are available.
https://www.goldbroker.com/news/how-qe-stock-buybacks-reinforce-each-other-445
Savills’ head of research, John McCartney, told the Irish Independent the strategy would likely lead to the banks lending more for house buying. “One of the objectives of QE is to flood the banks with capital,” he said.
“When that happens the banks will have put that money to work and much of that will go into mortgage lending so there would naturally mean more people will have the ability to buy houses, pushing demand up.”
British families are also buying individual properties in Ireland as they take advantage of the favourable exchange rate, he added.
http://www.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/property-prices-likely-to-rise-thanks-to-ecb-move-savills-30929903.html
I can go on … and on … and on …. and on ….. but apparently you will just continue to ignore the facts…
As you ignored Wolf’s article — which is probably the best I have seen on the impacts of QE….
Boy, Fast Eddy, you showed that fellow. Keep it up’ you are the STAR attraction here in the comment section. I know Gail appreciates your support. I know I do.
In accepting this award ….
I’d like to say thank you to Google …. without you this could never have happened… I am so grateful for all the support over the years… all the fantastic research and evidence you provide…. truly invaluable…. Without you I’d just be another blabbering idiot….
Everyone — please — a big round of applause for Google…. my precious…
http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2014/09/google_tunnel-100432147-primary.idge.jpg
Wolf’s article says that the fed’s monetary intervention has caused asset inflation for the large financial institutions, It has, at the same time contributed to stagnation of working class wages. I don’t see how stagnating working class wages can create an environment for increased mortgage lending. I do absolutely agree with you and Wolf that Fed’s intervention has contributed to asset inflation.
He also says:
‘Because the money has been channeled to big financial and corporate entities, and they plowed it into financial and other assets (including share buybacks and other forms of “financial engineering”), thus pushing up asset prices.’
As do the half a dozen other articles I posted confirm.
Over the past 6 months I’ve posted dozens of other comments supporting this…. so nothing new here…. it is common knowledge that the central banks — not only the Fed — are propping up the stock markets…
They are indirectly doing so – by providing zirp cash to corporations — but they also have Plunge Protection teams stepping in when the markets falter.
I really don’t see what the big deal is here — the only people who would disagree are those who get their information from the MSM….
How exactly has the QE money been channeled to big financial and corporate entities?
I’ve already posted a number of articles that explain how QE shows up in the real economy…
if you want specifics… someone pushing a button on a computer on the orders of the Elders…
You are just requoting phrases from within the articles. Some research! Corporate buybacks are indeed a sign of trouble with growing the economy. As I said in a reply to Wolf’s article, QE is a useless exercise [Note to you; try to be informed before spouting ah hominem stuff about what I have read or seen] His article is not perfect, but Bill Mitchell is perfectly on the money with his article.
You haven’t acknowledged it. Still unread?
I suggest you do before you dig a deeper hole for yourself.
I am well aware of the mechanisms involved with QE and interest rates. Thanks for the link…. but I have read a thousand articles on this.
If you want to dispute that corporations are tapping QE cash and dispute the claims in those articles —- then fantastic — but ideally you might support your position…
If you think they are not buying back shares then feel free to demonstrate what is causing their share prices to increase when profits are dropping.
Or if you agree they are buying back shares — but that they are not using the cash that central banks have pumped out — then is it up to you to explain where the money is coming from for these buy backs.
If you cannot support your positions then its like claiming red is actually blue …. that 1+1 = 7 …. that up is down….
And you will quickly be the new court jester on FW…. providing a little amusement…. or just ignored…
So once again you have chickened out. Why bother with responding to your stuff when the evidence is there before you? The joker is you. You show a resolute rigidity in the face of evidence, since only what you like is evidence. Once you take the time to read it and say what you do or don’t like about QE as he has put it, maybe we can get somewhere[?].
I have previously and more than once explained why corporations are indulging in share buybacks.
Take a look and learn. It’s up to you to support your position since it’s erroneous. Look at my blogs and you should see why.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2015/12/Goldae%20gold%20ATM.jpg
Ck. out the gold dispensing vending machine. How much gold would you like?
From the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/27/living-dangerously-2016-light-fuse-impending-explosion-global-economy
This article concludes that:
“The biggest immediate risk to the global economy comes from the emerging world, especially those parts of it affected by the crash in the cost of commodities.
“Brazil is the country to watch out for. It is the biggest economy in Latin America and in serious trouble. The economy is contracting at its fastest rate since the 1930s, inflation is above 10%, the currency has collapsed and the finance minister has just resigned. A visit from the International Monetary Fund may be unavoidable.
“This is a case of history threatening to repeat itself, because the buildup to the 2008 crisis began on the periphery of the global economy. So, here is my final prediction: there will be no explosion in 2016, but a fuse will be lit.”
Dear louploup2
A few more thoughts about modeling ‘how humans tickle their synapses’.
Carl Woese discovered archaea in the 1960s and 1970s and forced us to rethink the Linnean system. His method looked at the variable part of a single gene. The gene is the 16S rRNA, which makes ribosomes. Ribosomes are so essential to all cellular life that the gene is highly conserved across all living things Yet there is a part of the gene which is variable Woese began to develop the methods which permitted him to look at the variation. He also thought that the variations would let him retrace the path that evolution had taken…far more reliably than Linnean classifications might do. The decisive discovery was a strange creature which lived in sewage.
Woese was, of course, upsetting a long established apple cart. ‘The discovery of big news from the smallest of creatures laid the groundwork for rancor and controversy among biologists, for it hd opened up a twentieth-century Systema Naturae of sorts. Woese saw a new way to categorize all life, but most biologists smelled heresy. Many did not understand how Woese and Fox had arrived at their conclusions. Of course the naysayers had not pored over the patterns of life on Woese’s viewing film, nor had they figured out a way to translate their information into evolutionary relationships. They had, quite literally, not seen what Woese saw in staring at thousands of images. Bitter and ugly arguments ensued.’
Eventually, of course, Woese was vindicated as other scientists replicated his work. Now let’s take a step back from the Limits to Growth style modeling and look, instead, at the notion that human behavior is driven by the desire to tickle certain synapses in particular ways.
Just as an example, do we explain the sudden rise in hostility in Official Washington toward Russia in terms of competition for oil? We can observe that the fall of the Soviet Union led to the ascendancy in Moscow of Boris Yeltsin, a drunkard who gave away Crimea. So long as Bill Clinton had to help the visiting Yeltsin look the right way into the cameras, everything was fine. But, in the course of time, Putin came to power and it became evident that he was not going to be turned around by any US president to smile at the cameras. Any number of observers have written that the US officials and media blame everything that is wrong in the US on Putin. Besides simply serving as a scapegoat, I suggest that someone who gets to be President of the United States or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is likely to be twisted in certain ways. They are used to getting their way, by brute force or by more subtle methods such as building coalitions or by fooling enough of the people some of the time. If it becomes apparent that they are not getting their way, then they will do irrational things to try to get those synapses firing.
We can also look at Turkle’s list of the functions that cell phones are actually performing. Turkle thinks that the promise of cell phones is vastly overrated, but that their use is addictive and ultimately destructive. You will have to read her book to fill in the details.
However, my observations about the Green Revolution and Turkle’s observations about the digital revolution offer this hypothesis:
*Science has revealed the weaknesses humans have which can be exploited by corporations and politicians
*Capitalism and democracy both reward behavior which capitalizes on those weaknesses
*Therefore, many new technologies are ultimately destructive.
This Luddite view of civilization would be, I submit, just as contentious as Woese’s reordering of our ways of thinking about evolution. Model’s which started from tickling synapses coupled with advanced technologies which permit counterproductive tickling coupled with fabulous rewards for those who enable the tickling would look a whole lot different.
Don Stewart
3 car factories in Slovakia (and the 4th one is currently being built), but 25% of the young people between 25-29 do completely nothing (they do not study, do not work neither as employees nor as trainees, undergo no training). This problem is especially present in the Roma population. The share is not changing since 2006. The worse situation is only in Spain, Greece, Bulgaria or Italy, where this share is about 30%.
http://ekonomika.sme.sk/c/20068943/stvrtina-slovakov-vo-veku-25-29-rokov-nerobi-vobec-nic.html
Ahhh, let them all be slackers, when the SHTF will be pay payback time.
Hope they can enjoy some “freedom” before they are roasting rodents.
This is sad.
The depopulating Japan – shrinking population does not have to mean lower energy and resources consumption:
http://www.academia.edu/6336840/Ageing_and_Depopulation_in_Japan_Understanding_the_Consequences_for_East_and_Southeast_Asia_in_the_21st_Century
Some more ideas about proactive shrinking in Japan:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2014/11/15/environment/shrinking-well-depopulation-affecting-japans-energy-climate-goals/#.Vn8VVvnhAgs
There is a big question on how this all plays out. In the US, we are turning some roads from paved to gravel, in rural areas with less population. Will Japan do this as well? How can it afford to keep them up? There are also water pipelines and sewer pipelines, and electricity transmission. All of these need to be kept up, if population can live as today.
For the last 40 years, I’ve been hearing environmentalists calling for removing paving so as to promote more rainwater percolation into the ground. They wouldn’t consider de-paving to be a loss. They are probably missing a lot in their considerations, but their concerns can’t be (appropriately) dismissed without looking into them from their perspective.
And what is the situation in Slovakia (i.e. EU)?
I add the awarded documentary about the depopulating Northeastern Slovakia (represented by the village of Osadne, in the area where Andy Warhol ancestors were born):
The trailer with English subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEe3mkIlmtk
The whole movie in Slovak:
There is also the question of what the aging population can afford. Can they really afford more energy resources? Can the government’s QE lead to their cornering a larger share of the world’s energy resources?
Re Japan and the future of energy, they are more interested in power satellites than any other country in the world.
Japan paved over an entire country and built high speed rail to nowhere in an effort to keep GDP positive…. They need new stupid ideas to keep that GDP number above 0….
I heard that there is even a Stupid Ideas Department in the Japanese government – stocked with PHD economists…
This was one of their most recent stupid ideas that received QE funding http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/12/japan-extract-frozen-gas-seabed
Japan is fairly close to desperate for energy–even human labor is a problem now with aging population. They have learned that “debt works”–at least as long as it is possible to keep adding more and more, and interest rates are virtually zero. So they do things that others might not do. I understand that Japan is working on a project:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/how-japan-plans-to-build-an-orbital-solar-farm April 2014 article
http://www.jspacesystems.or.jp/en_project_ssps/ (Summary of early work)
http://www.gizmag.com/japanese-breakthrough-in-wireless-power/36538/ (Announcement of successful test – May 2015)
China says that it is considering space based solar: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2903588/china-considering-space-based-solar-power-station.html
I know the people in this field are concerned about EROEI. If an analysis indicates it is too low, then you might as well cross that one off your list. EROEI for drilling shallow oil wells was in the 100 to one class.
A related number which is better suited to renewable energy is energy payback time. Given all the energy that goes into an energy project, how long does it take to pay back that energy?
The two can be related, for example, if a PV plant takes two years to pay back the energy that went into building it and it will last for 20 years, then the EROEI would be about ten. So how do power satellites stack up?
Energy invested comes from both the energy involved in making power satellite parts and that used to lift it to GEO. Most of the energy investment comes from transport. Aluminum is about the most energy intensive industrial material at ~15 kWh/kg. At a specific power of 6.5 kg/kW, the materials energy cost is around 100 kWh. The lift energy would be around 7 times that much even if we had an elevator. We don’t have an elevator, but we do have rockets.
Consider the projected Falcon Heavy, 53,000 kg to LEO, 121,400kg of RP-1. That’s about 2.3 kg of fuel for every kg lifted to LEO. RP-1 is 42 MJ/kg, so the energy expended to LEO per kg is about 96.2 MJ/kg or 26.7 kWh/kg. You also have to lift the reaction mass for the LEO to GEO leg so the fuel cost needs to be increased by around 20% giving 33.4 kWh/kg. If the reaction mass is hydrogen, it’s energy content is not zero, hydrogen is close to 50 kWh/kg to make it and another 20 kWh/kg to make it into a liquid. So to move a kg from LEO to GEO would take 1/4 kg of LH2 at 70 kWh/kg or 17.5 kW/kg, for a total of 51 kWh/kg. At 6.5 kg/kW, 332 kWh to move a kW of power sat to GEO plus 100 kWh embeded in the parts.
That’s about 18 days to repay the energy if it runs all the time. If the lifetime of a power sat is 20 years, that’s a EROEI of ~400. This seems a little high, though the numbers usually work out in the few weeks to a couple of months range. If anyone is inclined to check my numbers, please do.
It takes about 22 kWh to accelerate ¼ kg of reaction mass (LH2) to 25 km/s to move the parts out to GEO (or 143kW for 6.5 kg). But it is powered by from sunlight in space, so that energy does not apply to the EROEI though the capital cost does apply to the lift cost.
“I know the people in this field are concerned about EROEI.”
I think trying to sum everything up into a single metric is folly.
A starting list of information to make truly informed decisions:
1. Total energy invested as CapEx
2. Total money invested as CapEx
3. Total carbon emitted as CapEx
4. Dispatchability / downtime
5. Mean Time Between Failure
6. Probability of catastrophic failure, and its consequences
7. energy return on investment during operation
8. money return during operation – price needed for profitability to operate, excluding initial investment
9. carbon emitted during operation
operation including maintenance, repair, replacement.
Of course, for a new thing that does not exist yet, it is hard to get a good idea, since on the one hand the supporters will be really optimistic and the detractors will be really pessimistic.
If we are talking about attempting to transition to an all renewables zero carbon future, you should not be saying what is needed for a solar farm to run for 25 years; you should be saying what needs to be invested to run the solar farm in perpetuity.
“I think trying to sum everything up into a single metric is folly.” Matthew Krajcik
It depends on what you use the number for. It’s a very quick way to reject a proposal as stupid if it has a really low EROEI.
(snip list) every one of the topics you ask about except carbon can be subsumed under “levelized cost of electricity.” That’s what I used to determine $2400/kW capital investment from 3 cent per kWh power.
” you should be saying what needs to be invested to run the solar farm in perpetuity.”
Why? This is not required for any other source of energy. I should note that I would expect power satellites could be updated in place when they need it. Or re manufactured out of materials salvaged from worn out ones.
I might add though, that I have a some concerns. If power satellites became the major world energy source (and they could) then we could lose the whole fleet of them in less than a second if the control electronics are not properly shielded from a GRB like the one that hit the earth in 774 or 775.
I wouldn’t be relying on space for much longer. Quite apart from the survival of the technology we have the space junk problem. Already we have satellites disabled by flakes of paint etc. Soon it will become too hazardous to reliably launch anything into space.
“I wouldn’t be relying on space for much longer. Quite apart from the survival of the technology we have the space junk problem.”
Boeing was originally, that is in the late 70s, going to build the power satellites in LEO and fly them out to GEO under their own power. Until someone at Boeing calculated how many times one would be hit on the way up. Oops. Even in those days the junk was kind of thick. I reworked the problem recently and got 39 hits. However, that’s for something gaining altitude very slowly and on the order of 50 square km.
My transport models include a fairly rapid transit of cargo stacks that are relatively small in cross section. They get hit very infrequently. However, to get the energy needed to get cargo up, we start with one mini power satellite operating at ten times the normal frequency. Almost all the junk is below 2000 km, so the plan is to push the initial Propulsion Power Satellite or parts for it out to an orbit above 2000 km using chemical fuels, almost a thousand tons of LOX and LH2.
This is an alternative to an 8 GW ground transmitter that requires flattening 110 square km of jungle. It also looks to be somewhat less expensive.
In the long run we can put up big lasers in GEO. A multi GW ablation laser will evaporate the little stuff and lower the big stuff to the atmosphere rapidly. We could reasonably clean it all up in a few months to a year.
Is this from an episode of Star Trek? Or a scene from Star Wars new movie?
No, there was a TV documentary last week about it and how to manage it.
“s this from an episode of Star Trek? Or a scene from Star Wars new movie?”
Eddy, it’s historical fact. I know you either want or expect a collapse, but you don’t have to make fun of the people who are trying to solve the problems. If we fail, you get your collapse. But if it does happen, I bet you will wish it didn’t.
You’ve got Fast all wrong …. I’ve said on 98768.5 occasions that I all for anything that buys another day or month or even a year…
In fact — if I had two buttons to push:
1. Push this button and BAU continues for 10 years then the world explodes in a fire ball
2. Push this button and BAU ends tomorrow and the earth survives and a few thousand humans.
I am like those Black Friday shoppers — I am punching and kicking and pepper spraying — I am pulling out my Uzi automatic weapon and spraying people with bullets…. because I am gonna get to those buttons before anyone — and I am going to pound on option 1. as if it were the ‘Door Close’ button in the lift….
The last thing I want is collapse…. LONG LIVE BAU! HAIL BAU!!!
But alas I am a realist — it is delusional to think that this late in the game that we will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat…
Surely the fact that the Elders threw everything into fracking would give you a clue that we are down to our last card?
Do you see a ‘Manhattan Project’ involving any of these technologies?
Surely given the dire nature of the situation we’d see tens of trillions of dollars being thrown at anything that might buy us time….
We are in the final days of civilization — and what are we doing? – printing money and fracking ….
This is not a Hollywood movie — Superman nor Batman is going to swoop in and save the day…
Rather than fret over what is not going to be — you might as well try your best to enjoy BAU while you still can….
Sucks if you have kids but hey — we’ve know for a long time this moment was coming…. there was always the option to opt out and save yourself the grief….
Space junk is an issue of concern. It is less of a problem in GEO than in LEO, but a problem nevertheless. Control of space junk somehow needs to be considered as part of the overall cost.
Amount of debt generated is important as well, and how that rises as well.
Running the solar farm in perpetuity can’t really happen, because we are running into so many limits simultaneously. Also population continues to rise, leading to less resources per person. At best, this is an attempt to kick the can down the road a little further.
@hkeithhenson
Interesting numbers on payback times. I had not given much thought to that but it is useful. These types of economic indicators are worrisome if used as the sole arbiter for decisions, so another number is welcomed. Have you any reference sites that prefer this approach?
Energy payback periods and EREOIs seem to be fairly similar in calculation. Both define energy costs quite narrowly. For example, wages are not considered energy costs, and interest on debt is not considered an energy cost. Lease costs aren’t an energy cost either.
I still prefer to look at total costs, because of the problem with the calculations leaving way too much out. Also, timing differences are important, because of the debt requirements to try to bridge the timing gap.
“I still prefer to look at total costs, because of the problem with the calculations leaving way too much out.”
EROEI is just a sanity check for this reason. If it is lower than 40 or 50, you should keep your project in the design phase. I agree with you about total cost and have worked the numbers, though not with the most recent improvements. The capital payback came in about 8 years, but for that to mean much, you need to dig into the footnotes.
BTW, eventually, TPTB are going to realize that having the electrical supply fail means that most or all their wealth vanishes. It’s just magnetic spots on spinning platters of rust, and when the power goes, they go as well.
Just running some numbers on the Falcon Heavy. The optimum payload ration from way back was 9. The Faclon ratio to GTO is 7, though yet to operational it sounds doable.
Your fuel quantity sounds in the right ballpark, but the fuel is LOX/RP1. So, you need to have two numbers: the specific energy of the fuel and its embedded energy. Of these, the embedded energy is the more important.
After that you need the KWh per annum per satellite kg, and the efficiency of the rest of the satellite-earth system to deliver power to the grid.
I’d expect much less than an ERoEI of much less than 400.
“Just running some numbers on the Falcon Heavy. The optimum payload ration from way back was 9. The Faclon ratio to GTO is 7, though yet to operational it sounds doable.”
Using chemical fuels above LEO is a bad idea. The delta V cost of a spiral orbit is higher than a Hohmann transfer orbit, but if you have the energy available, it saves a great deal of expensive reaction mass (which has to be hauled up from Earth).
“Your fuel quantity sounds in the right ballpark, but the fuel is LOX/RP1. So, you need to have two numbers: the specific energy of the fuel and its embedded energy. Of these, the embedded energy is the more important.”
Good point. Let’s see. A Falcon heavy needs 286,400 kg of lox to launch 53,000. Or 5.4 kg of LOX/kg of cargo to LEO. It takes around .3 kWh/kg to make LOX or 1.62 kWh/kg. So to put a kW of capacity in orbit the oxygen energy cost would be about 10.5 kWh for some 300 kWh for the fuel. The embedded energy in the LOX is small.
“After that you need the KWh per annum per satellite kg, and the efficiency of the rest of the satellite-earth system to deliver power to the grid.”
That’s already in the calculations. The 6.5 kg/kW is referenced to the output of the rectenna on the ground and includes a 50% transmission loss. The utilization is expected to be over 90% and may hit 99%.
“I’d expect much less than an ERoEI of much less than 400.”
Including the energy cost for the LOX changes EROEI by around 3%. At this stage of design, that’s a rounding error. But please check the math.
Is this from an episode of Star Trek? Or a scene from Star Wars new movie?
Agreed 100%. If solar is uneconomic on the earth’s surface how is it ever going to work in space with the added “astronomical” cost of getting the materials into orbit? I appreciate the panels can always be facing perpendicular to the sun and are never in shadow, but do these efficiency gains really outweigh the cost of launching materials into space (plus transmission costs)?
“If solar is uneconomic on the earth’s surface how is it ever going to work in space with the added “astronomical” cost of getting the materials into orbit?”
Turn this into a question. To make solar from space economical, what specific mass and transport cost would it take? From levelized cost of electricity, the capital cost can’t exceed $2400 if power from space is to undercut coal. The cost for the ground rectennna, parts in space, and labor to put them together is about $1100/kW leaving $1300/kW for transport. If the specific power of a power sat is 6.5 kg/kW, then the lift cost to GEO can’t exceed $200/kg. Neither of these numbers are easy, but they do look to be possible.
“I appreciate the panels can always be facing perpendicular to the sun and are never in shadow, but do these efficiency gains really outweigh the cost of launching materials into space (plus transmission costs)?”
It looks like solar power from space will seriously undercut solar power on the ground. Ground solar is unlikely to ever go below 5 cent’s a kWh when you include storage. Incidentally, thermal cycles may be better in space than PV. For a given intercept of solar energy, they are at least twice as efficient.
@hkeithhenson – Thanks for the response.
On a somewhat different track, how well is this likely to scale? Are we talking about 344MW from a 53T satellite? How much, relatively, would 1.25GW cost?
What area would the receiving antenna cover, and where do the 50% transmission losses appear?
“On a somewhat different track, how well is this likely to scale?”
It doesn’t scale small at all.
“Are we talking about 344MW from a 53T satellite?”
Sorry, you lost me.
“How much, relatively, would 1.25GW cost?”
At $2400/kW, 3 B. Unfortunately, the minimum size for 2.45 GHz is about 5 GW. It has to do with microwave optics and the minimum forward voltage of the rectenna diodes.
“What area would the receiving antenna cover,”
It depends a little on the latitude. At 45 deg N or south, it’s an oval 10 km EW by 14.1 km NS. You stick them over farmland for the most part. For the UK it would take about 4% of the area, but farms are 20% and pasture is 40%.
“and where do the 50% transmission losses appear?”
Every step along the way. Power loss in the conductors to the antenna, losses in the solid state transmitter, diffraction loss from the antenna path, rectification loss in the rectenna, loss converting to 3 phase AC. It’s been well understood for decades.
@hkeithhenson
I’m from an industry where 2% transmission losses are at the unacceptable limit, and satellite solar losses of 50% really takes some getting used to. Not just because of the absolute figure, it is the effect on the conductors and the flora and fauna if the radiation escapes the recttenna.
The rectenna conductors are the same size regardless of the efficiency. The beam intensity is not high enough to bother birds.
Pingback: Peak Energy Crisis and Limits to Growth |
Dear Gail and All
Here is another article explaining how the dollar might disappear…Don Stewart
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-19/how-dollar-gets-replaced
The dollar, as everyone knows is the petro dollar. It is essentially our world economic system. I believe in the thermodynamic model of the world. The world economy is slowing down. We still have a few years to go, but at some point the petro dollar will become worthless, because oil will be worthless. At that point, chaos ensues, hyperinflation, social disintegration, migration, lack of faith in the system, betrayal. At that point it will be like globalized madness. It will not happen until the empire and the empires; currency, the petro dollar begin to fail. All other systems around the world will have to fail first. In a way, China and Europe are just emerging markets that will have to fail ahead of us. We will fail last. Whatever replaces the petro dollar will not be able to supply the world with oil as it has for the last hundred years or so.
I´m not so sure about the few years, pretty sure though about the chaos. As the global financial system collapses, stocks go to zero, bonds fail, derivatives blow up the big banks. There will be no global currency, its worth would be impossible to verify in a globalized fashion. Local currencies are possible. You could start your own currency: Local Farmers Coin, one coin equals one porridge meal.
Creedon, as for Europe and China being emerging markets collapsing before the US, hmm.. if China wanted to, it could collapse US tomorrow. But China still needs US to buy its products, so it wont do it tomorrow. China is in the IMF SDR basket, it can trade oil with Russia, Europe everybody, without dollars. China can sell all US treasuries and dollars if it wants. China wont do it tomorrow, but it certainly will before its own collapse. The europeans have options, US does not http://www.usdebtclock.org/
There is no Empire, only the final death throes of a dying system. Unfortunately the neocons probably still think they have an Empire, and act accordingly.
That’s an interesting perspective, Creedon. There’s a lot to suggest that will be the case, because we must ask ourselves how the US can be doing fairly well while other parts of the world are either stagnating or in recession. The answer is the petro dollar and once that falls, “Whatever replaces the petro dollar will not be able to supply the world with oil as it has for the last hundred years or so.”
Russia can supply Russia with oil via the ruble. Russia can not supply the world with oil via the ruble, just as Saudi Arabia can supply It’s people with oil via their currency.
If you notice, the oil suppliers, Russia and Saudi Arabia are throwing a lot of weight around lately as is the U.S. Russia and Saudi Arabia have oil and the U.S. has the Petro Dollar plus a little bit of oil, which is all we need. People have no idea how important the petro dollar is, other than maybe the big bankers who control the military industrial complex. By the way, these ideas originate with Steve Ludlum. He should get credit for them, although he is basically just a little bit better then the average Joe at seeing what is there. The dollar equals oil. The transaction is done at the gas pump every single day. This from Steve Ludlum.
Van Kent; when you say that the Chinese can sell U.S. treasuries and dollars, you are making the very point I am making. They are dependent on the dollar, If the Russians and the Chinese could develop a global reserve currency they could build their own world system. They are trying. What are the going to build their system on. Gold, Bit coins, yuan, their good name. I’d say the Chinese and Russian’s are headed for collapse like we all are. The only difference with us is that we know we are going down.
The Petrodollar was born in Bretton Woods and consequently when the U.S. leadership established relations with the Saudi royal family. The U.S. would offer protection to the royal family and the Saudis would trade their oil only in dollars. The only thing that has kept the dollar from collapsing before now, is the fact that trading oil in dollars (petrodollars) has kept a constant demand of dollars, no matter the amount printed. No other country in world history has gotten away with such amounts of debts.
Yup, you´re right. The only thing keeping the global economy from collapsing, today, is U.S. consumption. But remember, we are living in a global economy, so, I wouldn´t be so sure of U.S. exeptionalism. The behind the scenes moves from Russia and China are showing some signs of utter disgust the U.S. is still trying to be an Empire.
Lets just hope the neocons wet dreams of Empire wouldn´t needlessly shorten BAU or make anybody do anything stupid with the nukes.
van Kent (or someone else)
The petrodollar system is supposed to keep up the demand on the dollar. That’s a frequently heard fact. To some degree it has to be true. But how important is it for the dollar? The volume of oil sold as well as the long term trend on the crude oil price has increased until a year ago. Thus the demand on dollars needed to buy oil has increased. If petrodollar is really important shouldn’t the us trade deficit be approximately equal to the increase in dollars used to to buy oil where the seller sells petrodollar oil and the buyer is a non-US country ? (Of course there is some time lagg.) Maybe the fact that usa is the worlds most powerful and largest economy is enough to have a large and permanent trade deficit. I don’t know, would be interesting to learn more.
In what way could the IMF SDR help the chinese? Isn’t the SDR some kind of last resort currency liquidity guarantee? It was supposed to prop up the system in the last crisis. But it’s nothing that’s used frequently. In fact has it ever been used?
“The europeans have options, US does not
http://www.usdebtclock.org/”
What options do the europeans have? Ok, the external debt may be small. But the internal debt is raising, killing more and more countries. (greece, spain, france, …. Even Finland is having serious problems.) Also, we have to be nice to Putin in order to get oil and gas.
” Isn’t the SDR some kind of last resort currency liquidity guarantee? It was supposed to prop up the system in the last crisis. But it’s nothing that’s used frequently. In fact has it ever been used?”
Greece tapped into their SDRs:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ddb97ae8-f899-11e4-be00-00144feab7de.html
Christopher, China has been trying to keep the dollar strong so that the Chinese exports will have an edge over U.S. domestic production. When China is doing something like that, it buys dollars to its central bank, then it buys U.S. Treasuries or oil, traded in dollars. The Renminbi is first traded to dollars then to Treasuries. When currencies rise or fall the country get or loose an edge in exporting/ importing. The petrodollar system has allowed U.S. to sell debt at unprecedented levels. The petrodollar doesn´t give any export benefits to U.S. production, so it does not affect the trade defecit. It just makes the dollars in constant demand from the central banks and makes the Treasuries an obvious item to trade.
Being in the IMF SDR currency basket gives the Chinese possibilities of using SDR:s. Now SDR:s can be used instead of US treasuries, much the way I described earlier. Except that the U.S. no longer can dream of Empire, because military spending is no longer payed by the Chinese.
Europeans have the possibility of quitting the Euro-area, taking back their own currencies and therefore having an autonomous economic region again. Giving them instant export edge, much like Norway has over Sweden, and Sweden has over Finland. The transition period would be bumpy because bonds have been stable in the Euro area because Germany gives stability to all. I´m not sure we have time to see the Euro unravel, because just Greece quitting it would send shockwaves globally collapsing this house of cards.
The situation in Finland is that pensions are getting out of hand, only 50% of the population are working (population pyramid skewed worse than Japan). Exports are tanking because Russia trade embargo (no food to St. Petersburg) and Germany is keeping the Euro currency too strong. But the state debt is actually balanced by private assets. If taken in to account all private assets, Finland is still one of the richest countries in the world (population/wealth). That is because 70% or so own their own property/house and doesn´t have any debts. On the contrary billions are just lying dormant in bank accounts (just in case cash I guess).
Concerning Putin, if Russia wants to build up its military, it must sell. And if Europe wants energy, it must buy. Available option are running thin all around the poker table.
Steve Ludlum. I shall find out more about him.
Ah yes, just did a search and he often goes by the moniker of ‘Steve of Virginia’. Know his posts well from The Oil Drum days, then peak oil dot com, and sometimes on this site as well as many other peak oil blogs. Always tended to agree on his views regarding the peak oil situation.
aka Steve from Virginia:
http://www.economic-undertow.com/
RE has some vidcasts, Collapse Cafe interviews with Gail and Steve.
Also, he comments on Ron’s blog occasionally.
Something is pretty seriously wrong with the petrodollar right now.
This proposed method is a little too close to “technology will find a way out.” It is hard to transfer assets when the world can no longer transfer people and goods around the world.
Several of you seem interested in new technology to get around the energy cost and limitations due to CO2. There is a low traffic google group, power satellite economics that might interest you.
Dear Gail and Finite Worlders
Following is some analysis and a and a few thoughts relative to the collapse of industrial civilization and survival into whatever succeeds it.
Let’s begin with a sort of Limits to Growth look, in very broad terms. Earth is blessed with abundant sunshine, water, weathered rocks, and microbes. The microbes make up 50 percent, by weight, of all living matter on the Earth. The microbes have been around for billions of years, and are by the far the most successful critters in terms of survival and numbers. The microbes are also incredibly diverse. Microbes have survived for 80 trillion generations, would extend out into space beyond the most distant star we can see if laid end to end, and number in the millions to hundreds of millions of species.
The combination of microbes, sun, water, and the magic of photosynthesis account for most of what we see when we look at the natural world. The plants evolved the trick of photosynthesis, which freed microbes from dependence on much more restrictive sources of energy such as sulfur, and allowed the explosion of microbe populations and species diversity. The microbes, in turn, developed symbiotic relationships with the plants and animals. For example, a tree puts about 80 percent of the sugars it makes into the soil in order to attract and feed the microbes. What the tree gets out of the deal is that the microbes along with the soil food web find and make available in soluble form the nutrients the plants need, where they need them (the root zone), at the time they need them. If humans were to disappear tomorrow, the symbiotic relationships between the plants, animals, and microbes would continue to flourish.
The microbes and plants are not free to multiply endlessly. The amount of organic matter in hot, dry deserts and in polar regions is much lower than it is in a tropical rain forest. We can think of the restrictions as arising from energy scarcity or food scarcity or water scarcity. Without water and oxygen and photosynthesis, fewer microbes can survive and hence there is less organic matter. As the amount of organic matter declines, so does the number of microbial species. The functions performed by the microbes remain the same (e.g. purifying water, decomposing organic matter, and restoring soil fertility), but there are fewer species doing the work. Please note this effect for reference below….specialization declines.
How does the Green Revolution compare to the scenario I have just described? The Green Revolution kills off the microbes to yield a pretty sterile field for agriculture and genetically modified crops. The herbicides which are used to yield sterility have now been discovered to be far more toxic than previously thought. Since the microbes are mostly dead, they cannot be used to deliver nutrients and water to the plants. Instead, soluble inorganic fertilizers, which are manufactured by humans, are applied in great quantity so that they can be absorbed by plant roots by diffusion. Rather than a ‘nutrient efficient’ system powered by the sun and microbes, we substitute a ‘nutrient inefficient’ system pored by fossil fuels. The ‘nutrient inefficiency’ results in the salting of soils and dead zones at the mouth of rivers.
Consequently, if we are thinking in terms of Limits to Growth, we need a line which is declining (Green Revolution) and a line which is increasing (Microbes and photosynthesis). How those two lines will play out in the real world is an empirical question which is yet to be answered. Suffice to say that Physics and Chemistry and Biology are not concerned about human affairs. If Physics and Chemistry and Biology were capable of expressing thoughts, they would probably tell us that humans need to adapt to reality…not vice versa.
The next topic I propose to investigate is thermodynamics and the Seneca Cliff. Can we say anything about the shape of the decline of Industrial Civilization? (I won’t look at purely financial drivers of change, implicitly assuming that civilization could go on even if the current monetary system collapsed. Russia’s apparent intention to reform money creation, and the coming referendum in Switzerland may tell us something about such an assumption.) For simplicity, assume that Industrial Civilization is entirely dependent on fossil fuels, that such fuels are subject to depletion, and that humans have some control over the shape of the decline. The major point to notice in the following scenarios is that the volume of fossil fuels produced is not a very good indicator of what will happen. The major driver in that is the narrow difference between the energy made available and the energy expended in using the available energy to produce goods and service. I label the Scenarios and give word descriptions below:
Energy Harvested Energy Spent Net Energy Volume Energy Available
(per Unit………………………………)
S (0) 10 9 1 1000 1000
S(1) 20 18 2 1000 2000
S(2) 20 19 1 1000 1000
S(3) 9.5 9.5 0 1000 0
S(4) 9.5 9.5 0 500 0
S(5) 9.5 8 1.5 500 750
S(6) 8 6 2 250 500
We might roughly label S(0) as business as usual S(1) is growth of fossil fuel production with stable cost of running the society which produces it. S(2) is decreased value of the fossil fuels produced as it takes more input to get the same output. S(3) represents a society which is getting less benefit from fossil fuels, but continues to try to operate BAU. And we see a Seneca Cliff. S(4) is a society which operates keeping an eye on production of fossil fuels, but ignores the cost of running the society which produces the fossil fuels. We might label this society as a GDP focused society. S(6) is a society which adopts a strategy (by happenstance or with malice aforethought) of reducing the middle class to lower class status. A society with increased numbers of lower class citizens will consume less, leaving more for the upper classes, even as total volume declines. S(6) is a society which has experienced severe geophysical restraints on fossil fuel production, and has chosen to severely repress the energy spent to keep some energy flowing for critical needs. You can play with this toy model to suit yourself.
Now I am going to shift gears and talk about what individuals or small groups can do to survive an Industrial crash as best they can. As Exhibit Number One in ‘why the total society won’t do anything useful’, I offer the fact that Obama came back from the tearful conclusion of the meeting in Paris and promptly flew in Air Force One to Hawaii to play golf.
Survival after a crash depends on one’s ability to restore, in a small piece of land or water, the sun, oxygen, water, microbe, photosynthesis production system. In no particular order, I offer the following thoughts:
*Huge numbers of people will be stranded with ‘useless skills’. It will be akin to moving a batch of microbes from the Amazon Rain Forest to the Atacama Desert. There ARE microbes even in the Atacama, but they are far fewer and far less specialties are represented
*The natural cycle is vitally dependent on aerobic cycling. But humans have used fossil fuels to create great areas of compaction, from Illinois corn land to Manhattan. These compacted areas make anaerobic conditions, which are inimical to plant life. If you and your partners are dealing with compacted soil, best deal with it as soon as possible.
*Silo knowledge by business and academic experts will prevent sensible solutions to basic problems such as compaction. One has to have a broad knowledge to engage in soil restoration.
*Nuclear wastes are likely to be a problem for centuries.
*It is not clear how much can be produced to feed humans IF the natural system is restored, along with the knowledge we have gained over the last couple of decades about The Hidden Half of Nature (the microbes). What I think is likely is that the glaring lack of knowledge and will to use the natural system will impose more limits than those imposed by the limits to which the natural system can be nudged by gentle gardening
*The best scenario is a small group of people with diverse skills and a strong bond to encourage cooperation growing crops on land which is at least 3 feet deep with no compaction. (I won’t speculate about water based societies). The ‘small group’ implies either a multi-generational family or Eco-Village or the simple rural cooperation described in many of the writings of the Southern Agrarians and others.
Don Stewart
PS I do not intend to discuss ‘last man staring’ strategies.
sorry, I don’t know how to make the table space correctly.
Don Stewart
Have you read the Motesharrei paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615 (“Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies”)
What is missing in that paper is the structure of a global financial collapse (the work Gail has underway). Since the collapse of our global financial system will be a one time event in human history, be sure to savour every chaotic moment of it.
Dear louploup2
Thank you very much for the reference. I had not seen it. I have scanned it, and find it very interesting.
Two observations from me. First, I agree that wealth is a major factor in collapse in societies beyond the hunter-gather stage. For example, in the US, we constantly see statistics that the wealthiest 40 families have as much wealth as the bottom 150 million families, or something like that. If half the wealth disappeared, the top 40 families would still be rich by any definition, but the bottom would be devastated. Since wealth is measured in money, all the discussions about financial collapse need to be couched in language which also talks about elites and commoners.
My second comment is about technology. Sherry Turkle, an MIT psychologist, has written the current book Reclaiming Conversation. She explains what she believes is profoundly wrong with the way we use cell phones. She lists several functions which cell phones perform for us:
*You will be heard
*You can put your attention wherever you want to put it
*You will never be alone
*You will never be bored
Trying to model what cell phones are actually doing (most of the time) by thinking in terms of industrial production is not very helpful. It is true that cell phones are indispensable for things like Uber, which does involve burning some fossil fuels to get people from point A to point B. But the overwhelming usage of cell phones is for the purpose of manipulating some synapses in the brain.
I confess that my own thinking on this subject is confused. IF we started to model human behavior based on manipulating synapses rather than moving heavy objects around, where would we end up? Perhaps at the point which Powell and Pressburger arrived in the movie Black Narcissus in 1947. The English nuns go to India and try to move heaven and earth to manipulate their own synapses. Meanwhile, on the trail, a man with virtually no belongings sits all day in meditation, looking at eternity (according to the boy). The English method of manipulating synapses is very expensive in terms of resources (although the nuns are supposed to live frugally), while the old man is consuming very little.
My only point is that if we started from functions, rather than materials, we might use very different kinds of models, and technology would be more of an issue.
Thanks again….Don Stewart
Thanks for the link.
Motesharrei says, “Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at maximum carrying capacity if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level and if resources are distributed equitably.”
Depletion of nature can’t be reduced to a sustainable level in today’s world, because there are 7.3 billon of us. We need energy of the right types to survive.
Equitable distribution “works” if there is no scarcity. If there is scarcity, then hierarchical organization is needed in order “to do more with less.” This is the need for complexity that Tainter talks about.
So the two requirements to make the system work as desired aren’t really possible.
Also, there is a tendency for populations to grow (because of humans’ ability to overcome natural selection), so that resources per capita falls. This is what causes the problem in the first place, but the authors don’t talk about this point–presumably aren’t aware of it.
Rio de Janeiro declares health system emergency as Olympics loom
“Rio de Janeiro, which produces 67 percent of Brazil’s oil and 40 percent of its natural gas, has suffered more than most after a 66 percent drop in oil prices in the past two years.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-health-emergency-idUSKBN0U716Q20151224
You have to understand, but it isn’t, that Rio’s olympics don’t have to cost taxpayers any of their hard won income. While it might [might!] add to inflation, the benefits of having the olympics via the improvements made to Rio’s infrastructure [it worked a treat for Athens] etc should make it all in the end a good deal. Their Central bank can simply pay for whatever it costs. No sweat.
It didn’t work a treat for Athens
The Greeks borrowed 11Bn to stage the olympics, most of that infrastructure is now derelict—it was used once that never again—can you imagine a nation of 11 million people needing a dedicated beach volleyball stadium??
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2015/07/29/and-you-thought-greece-had-a-problem/
Nice eye candy for the locals while the games were in progress—but then everybody went home.
That is one of the main reasons why Greece is now broke.
The infrastructure for games venues is useless now. but the metro line and other infrastructure has left a good legacy. I haven’t been there in person but I have seen first hand reports from visitors to the city, and they seem well pleased with the improvements. I am not sure about the debts. Greece might have used it’s drachmas for a lot of the work. It depends when they joined the Eurozone and lost their ability to use their own money.
Rio doesn’t have that problem. You can never go broke in your own currency and as long as the expenses don’t set off runaway inflation Brazil will be OK.
I went to Athens a few years ago to have a look around …. in the upscale central area I’d say about half the shops were boarded up …. the place was a disaster…
But at least they had a subway — that could double for a place for the down and out to sleep in winter….
Brazil has a lot of problems. It needs oil for its people, but the oil it has is too expensive to extract.
How many will really attend the Olympics, if Brazil is having problems, and financial problems abound elsewhere?
In my own imagination, I’ve been thinking of the ’16 Olympics as the last of its kind.
Or perhaps the 16 Olympics won’t really come off as planned, either.
Overnight China’s finance ministry reported the latest data on state-owned firms profitability. At a cumulative CNY 2.04 trillion (or $316 billion) for the January-November period, this was another nearly double digit decline, or -9.5% from the year ago period, following a -9.8% drop for the 10 month period the month before.
State-backed financial companies, which in China is redundant as all financial companies are state-backed, were responsible for roughly a third of the cumulative profit decline: excluding financial firms, combined revenues of state-owned firms fell 6.1% in the first 11 months from a year earlier to 40.7 trillion yuan, the ministry said.
According to Reuters, companies in transportation, chemical and power sectors reported a rise in profit in the January-November period, while firms in oil, petrochemicals and building materials – or a vast majority of them – saw a drop in earnings. Firms in steel, coal and non-ferrous metal sectors continued to suffer losses.
“The downward pressure on economic operations remains relatively big, although there are signs of warming up in some indicators,” the ministry said.
More http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-25/chinese-state-firms-debt-hits-new-all-time-high-profits-tumble
I am not clear how the authorities can continue to insist China is growing at all — and keep a straight face — in light of these numbers
This just in. The world according to Washington and it’s a mess.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43813.htm
Ying Lu hung predicts chow down ming in year of Monkey 2016
The China Central Bank has issued official report
According to Chinese Five Elements Horoscopes, Monkey contains Metal and Water. Metal is connected to gold. Water is connected to wisdom and danger. Therefore, we will deal with more financial events in the year of the Monkey. Monkey is a smart, naughty, wily and vigilant animal. If you want to have good return for your money investment, then you need to outsmart the Monkey. Metal is also connected to the Wind. That implies the status of events will be changing very quickly. Think twice before you leap when making changes for your finance, career, business relationship and people relationship.
Act accordingly
The Year of Monkey forecast is somewhat worrisome, especially in light of what we are seeing now.
China manages to do things other countries cannot manage. Employment of workers stays high, businesses continue to operate despite huge losses, and debt continues to rise. It sells its products on the world market at far below costs, exporting its problems elsewhere. Producers across the world are asking for retaliatory trade measures. http://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-growing-steel-shipments-spur-protests-prices-are-expected-plunge-2016-2241254
Perhaps the big issue is China, not Saudi Arabia. The rest of the world cannot live with its artificially low costs.
Sounds a lot of what happened during the Great Depression. Trade wars
I am afraid that what we are reaching now might be considered Depression II.
Merry Christmas to all…well, almost all
Bankruptcies in the oil and gas sector in the US have reached levels last seen in the Great Recession.
The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank put out a report on December 23 noting that at least nine US oil and gas companies with $2 billion in debt have defaulted in the fourth quarter.
“If bankruptcies continue at this rate, more may follow in 2016,” the report said.
Upstream capital spending has plummeted, according to the note, down 51% from the fourth quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of 2015.
US oil and gas employment has fallen 14.5% year-over-year from the peak in October 2014, according to the report, equivalent to 70,000 job losses.
“Job losses and falling energy prices portend continued distress for the oil and gas sector in 2016,” the report said.
OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, predicts oil won’t price above $100 a barrel for more than 20 years.
“Expectations have shifted toward a weaker price outlook because sanctions against Iran are likely to be lifted in early 2016, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has scrapped any pretense of a production ceiling, and US production declines have slowed,” the Dallas Fed said in its report.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-ugly-charts-show-just-163033752.html
The charts in the above tell it all
Be well and enjoy BAU in a nice way
Oil and gas bankruptcies now seem to be slightly above those of 2008-2009. Of course, prices then quickly started to rebound, thanks to QE.
Merry Christmas!
The economic outlined is the one we have and one wonders how far la la economics of debt fueled ‘growth’ can carry on.
The only issue I can take is the notion of cheap energy- certainly that ha been instrumental in our civilizations growth with many of us living the lives of Roman emperors and fossil fuel providing the equivalent of 300 slaves each. We have inherited a high consumption society- we drive a tonne of car which utilizes a quarter of the fuel energy it consumes to pick up a bag of shopping- we flush a pint of pee and all its fertilizing benefits away with a gallon of energy intensive drinking water.
We need cheap energy because we are careless with it. My home costs £250 to heat and light a year compared to the average of over £1000. Cheap is relative, it is to do with affordability so even if energy cost quadrupled I would not have an issue where as others would be in serious problems.
It is possible to modify our lifestyles to consume less and have an equally high standard of living- the average European consumes less than the average American. The problem appears to be two fold- being accustomed to cheap energy and being in a transition to being energy efficient – rather like owning an old v8 gas guzzler but it not being so expensive to run as to warrant the purchase of a EV Nissan Leaf.
I personally think if we are to get past the transition without hitting a collapse then the transition needs to be managed and planned for- the frightening thing is not that the best efforts may result in failure but there is simply no acknowledgement of the issue by leaders.
‘It is possible to modify our lifestyles to consume less and have an equally high standard of living’
We are witnessing what happens when we consume less —- what happens is commodity prices collapse — because commodities are what are used to make ‘stuff’
Commodity producers are starting to go bankrupt because they are losing money with the prices at these levels.
If demand for stuff does not pick up — we will see colossal levels of bankruptcies — which will result in huge numbers of layoffs — which means even less stuff is purchased — which will result in more layoffs and so on…
This will also result in the financial system collapsing because bankrupt corporations do not repay loans — nor do people who are laid off and cannot find work
Reducing consumption is not the answer — we must consume more — if we don’t we will get a deflationary death spiral – the global economy will completely collapse — and you won’t even be able to buy a tooth brush…
Like or not — that is the way this works. Grow or collapse.
Ahhh, come on Fast Eddy, after all it’s Christmas. Can’t you for once fudge it a little and have the Koombyaer’s believe in a Santa Claus?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dd6MZW78lcw
And if we believe in Santa than there must be Winter Miser!
East Coast Celebrates Christmas With Warmest Weather On Record
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-25/east-coast-celebrates-christmas-warmest-weather-record
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk
Back in the far north of northern Ontario — I understand that for the first time ever the lakes are not frozen at this time of year… the times they are a changin….
Could it be that the Elders are doing nothing other than keeping this going for as long as possible because they know that the muskeg way up north is thawing and will release massive amounts of methane which will be an extinction event? They won’t of course tell us …
I was in Resolute Bay some years ago — that is not to far from the pole — and some community leaders were showing us how buildings were sinking because the frozen ground was thawing … they explained how they had to build on much larger bases to try to spread the weight….
That must have been 6 years ago — and that was the high Arctic — so one cannot help wonder what the situation is in the lower latitudes where there are millions of hectares of frozen mud that are holding back the methane…
Tipping points are interesting phenomenon — everything seems fine — even balmy Christmas weather is something to be marveled at…. and then suddenly….
I went for a skate on the massive outdoor rink in Budapest yesterday — wonderful to have such good outdoor ice when the temperature is well above the freezing point. We have conquered mother nature – we have whipped her ass 🙂
We are toast if we do, and toast if we don’t, Fast Eddy…
Official line from Chinese Communist Party…
Chinese scientists have published two alarming reports in a matter of weeks. Both conclude that the Himalayan glaciers and the Tibetan permafrost are succumbing to catastrophic climate change, threatening the water systems of the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Mekong.
The Tibetan plateau is the world’s “third pole”, the biggest reservoir of fresh water outside the Arctic and Antarctica. The area is warming at twice the global pace, making it the epicentre of global climate risk.
One report was by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The other was a 900-page door-stopper from the science ministry, called the “Third National Assessment Report on Climate Change”.
The latter is the official line of the Communist Party. It states that China has already warmed by 0.9-1.5 degrees over the past century – higher than the global average – and may warm by a further five degrees by 2100, with effects that would overwhelm the coastal cities of Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangzhou. The message is that China faces a civilizational threat
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12052582/Even-if-the-global-warming-scare-were-a-hoax-we-would-still-need-it.html
And if that weren’t enough…you are correct, Fast Eddy, Lakes are
Indeed warming much faster and a peer reviewed research
NCISCO, CALIFORNIA—The world’s lakes are warming faster than both the oceans and the air around them, a global survey of hundreds of lakes shows. The rapid temperature rise could cause widespread damage to lake ecosystems, say scientists who presented the findings today at the American Geophysical Union meeting here. The global effects could be even more serious, because higher lake temperatures could trigger the conversion of billions of tons of carbon stored in lake sediments to methane and carbon dioxide (CO2), in a feedback effect that could accelerate global warming
http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/12/earth-s-lakes-are-warming-faster-its-air
Now, remember, there is another 1/2 degree temperature increase or so already in the pipeline to manifest itself. I was deeply involved in this issue back in 2008 until a few years ago.
What I’ve realized is we are in a Catch 22 situation and obviously if the PTB could do something, they would, or are doing what is feasible.
Consumption is a simple word. What it means, comprehensively and in detail, is not so simple.
Maybe we can consume some poetry?
Koombaya
What are you talking about?
Well, if we adjust our consumption of cerebral nature that requires non resource enrichment, that may be part of the solution to our predicament.
The classical ancient Greeks were a marvel. If not for their internal squabbles and population pressures of environment degradation, a role model.
BTW, the Latin root meaning of consume is “to destroy”.
Good point:
the population of ‘classical’ athens was 100000
plus—–150000 slaves
only adult male citizens had the vote—so much for greek democracy
just like our own time—they couldnt function without energy input
“The classical ancient Greeks were a marvel. If not for their internal squabbles and population pressures of environment degradation, a role model.”
Marvel, it’d true. But all this marvel led us to perdition. Maybe we were too worshipful of the Greeks. It may be just a phase, but now I think of leveling the playing field, and seeing everyone as a marvel. Not Koombaya exactly. More like a kind of madness.
It can also refer to the disease known as pulmonary tuberculosis.
But the definition I am referring to is the purchasing and use of goods and services.
That needs to be every increasing — or we collapse
An airplane will not fly with wings… no matter how hard you try to believe it can
“I am referring to is the purchasing and use of goods and services.”
If we burn down a forest, it requires goods and services to try and stop the fire and deal with its aftermaths.
It takes goods and services to scrape the ocean floor more effectively for the last couple of fish remaining.
Cleaning up oil spills requires goods and services.
Making cement spreads dust and pollution all over the place, while removing large expanses of hillside and mountain. Great for BOTH kinds of consumption.
OTOH, having a small farm to grow your own food probably takes resources away from BAU. This is why the open ended prescription for more consumption gets so confusing.
I can also think of activities that would make a lot of people busy, however their compensation could be arranged. Such concepts seem fitting for a sort of economic vitalization that doesn’t do the kinds of things I list above. But all I hear is that these concepts can’t work. That tends not to be explained in a way that’s convincing (and clear), enabling one to move on to next most practical thing to do with their life.
Don Stewart wrote:
“The Green Revolution kills off the microbes to yield a pretty sterile field for agriculture and genetically modified crops. The herbicides which are used to yield sterility have now been discovered to be far more toxic than previously thought. Since the microbes are mostly dead, they cannot be used to deliver nutrients and water to the plants. Instead, soluble inorganic fertilizers, which are manufactured by humans, are applied in great quantity so that they can be absorbed by plant roots by diffusion. Rather than a ‘nutrient efficient’ system powered by the sun and microbes, we substitute a ‘nutrient inefficient’ system pored by fossil fuels. The ‘nutrient inefficiency’ results in the salting of soils and dead zones at the mouth of rivers.”
So here’s the conundrum: Seven billion people couldn’t be fed but for the Green Revolution (GR). But it was the GR that produced this large population in the first place. If, by some rare miracle, one could see a chance to save civilization, one would have to conclude that the GR over did things, to say the least, leading to a literal dead end. So if you are facing a dead end, you don’t go plowing along, or do you?. Do you instead admit that something isn’t working and try to correct it as best you can? Since nobody is stopping to think how that might be done, we have a problem that is worse than it needed to be.
Dear Artleads
See this article about Alexander von Humboldt.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wulf-rediscovering-alexander-von-humboldt-20150705-story.html
von Humboldt could see the damage that was being done, but lacking an understanding of microbes, he could not really prescribe alternatives. We now are beginning to understand microbes well enough to address many of Humboldt’s issues WITHOUT resorting to the Green Revolution.
Don’t misinterpret my statement. I DO NOT anticipate that very many people will actually do what is necessary to grow their own food and reverse the ecological damage. The reasons have to do with psychology and the monetary economy more than biology. I just read an article in the Guardian talking about how everything is going to become ‘free’ due to the fact that information is bound to become free. The author of the article specifically mentions food production as something that ‘no longer requires labor’. That is simply not a true statement if one is partnering with microbes. There is still plenty of work…it’s just not destructive work. The work can be rewarding…but not in the way that the immediate rewards of digital stimulation are rewarding.
Don Stewart
Thanks, Don Stewart. I’m very uninformed, and had no real knowledge of Humboldt and his work. Glad he could be spared the agony of seeing what we made of Planet Earth. I hope you stay around.
We are well past the point of no return… no?
I have stated on numerous occasions that the villain is Norman Borlaug…
Although I will reconsider that — if he had not given us the Green Revolution the collapse that is imminent would have happened decades ago.
Feel free to explain what can be done.
” Feel free to explain what can be done.”
I’m not in that line of work. I can only see what’s several inches in front of my face. To pronounce on economic meltdown is clearly far out of my league. Leave that to folks with a business background. I can spend my time *thinking* about saving the world, but I know the limitation of that scenario. I would have to understand more than the little I do to know whether or not anything can be done. I have no opinion on the subject, except to say that I keep trying to help life just the same way I keep breathing. When I can’t go any longer it will end.
On a slightly different note: I have a nagging intuition that an individual can’t properly know anything unless the entire “swarm” (thanks Van Kent) understands it. The idea of separateness from the swarm is an illusion. Some of us on blogs like this have a strong notion that the entire swarm needs to go sharply left, but what can we do? We have no agency on our own. Those few of us look at each others and roll our eyes and shrug, while the overwhelming majority either go straight ahead or veer off to the right. It’s a fatal folly, but what can we do? It’s all or none. So people like me can only hope that our little protests and admonitions get noticed by more and more of the swarm. But that is all we can do. Use this precious moment of privilege to concoct visions that feel compelling to us. Use intuition as a guide. With no expectations of anything.
On what can be done, nothing much in the long run. Gail covers this pretty well.
On short term what can be done, look for U.S. Export Import bank policies http://www.exim.gov/reauthorization or Germany KfW-Bank policies https://www.kfw.de/kfw.de-2.html
For those who have wild imaginations, the U.S. Export Import Bank is a revolving door to the CIA directors and the KfW-Bank is very strongly associated with the Bilderberg group.
We have now entered a stage where if a company has an ability to make any kind of profits, it gets state backed loans to keep on going. Any amount necessary. In Q4 2015 this became common policy in the U.S. and Europe. 60% of all loan requests are approved and something like 90% of franchise type businesses loan requests get approved.
The only problem with this is that loaning is done to profitable businesses. Profits will eventually tank on a finite world. The only thing we could do better, is to have state backed unlimited loans to co-ops. Because co-ops don´t need profits. Co-ops can keep on going with work parties for a fairly long time compensating lacking profits. Such a policy would keep BAU intact for a few months more. And if implemented globally, would give BAU-lite a miniscule possibility.
Van Kent,
I’ve been considering a lot of what you write.
Bales from commercial stores: These are often quite large–3′ high in some cases maybe. They have massive bulk. Those very large bales might work well in abandoned malls and factories. They could be stacked up against walls, and poles anchored in cement blocks in front could keep them in place. Wall sheeting, if required, could slide on over the poles. No sweat. Added windows could rest on the piles, offering more thermal control. Batteries to run large-enough palette jacks would need to be made available somehow. Stairs could be “converted” to ramps with fairly simple wedges, and palette jacks could be hauled up by muscle. All that, in itself, doesn’t immediately strike me as undoable over a long haul. One uses every single last bit of the embedded energy from BAU.
There are other pitfalls, of course. Seeds, water, soil creation… Even more critical, there is unrest and disorganization. (Multistory factories where you can seal off the ground floor might be a plan. We’re back in the Middle Ages. )
Even more grave, are 400 nuke plants left to explode. So securing the safety of nuke plants should be the first priority. That’s where so-called renewable energy could go, almost exclusively. Solar panels covering every inch of the buildings. Geothermal. Wind turbines everywhere. Ongoing generational training to maintain the facilities. .
But nothing will work over time short of stepping back and looking at where everything comes from, what everything “costs” –in human and material terms. If you tell me it can’t be done, I won’t argue. I’m just sharing how my thoughts flow. Nothing can work over time without a globally unified plan. There has to be unity.
WE MUST AGREE ON SOMETHING.
WE CAN’T USE ALL OUR ENERGY IN DISAGREEMENT.
Some people want to decommission nuke plants. Some people want to build more. Jane Goodall wants population decrease; Geoff Lawtron says we need more people. (I lean toward Lawton.)
Right now our way of thinking and life is outward. I believe everything needs to be pulled in –psychologically, physically. It’s all about the cities. No more building outside the cities. Everybody lives within a small management hub that is relatively self sustaining. Hubs cooperate, spreading out to global extent.
Here’s another one. The metaphor for global predicament is the melting north pole. There’s diminishing philosophical ground to stand on. Nothing is firm or stable. Male maniacs with no philosophical clues are making all sorts of plans for humanity. Where are the women, the poor, the third world? That article on Emergent swarms somethingorother seems to be getting at the issue, but I’m not sure if it isn’t just a misuse of the potential. I think we should spend some time with it.
We need to do as little as possible. Pull back, retreat, save energy, reflect.
Well, enough daydreaming. Lots of work to do around the house.
Artleads, on your “we have to agree on something”.
In Climbing the Ladder of Awareness Paul Chefurka says: “So while perhaps 90% of humanity is in Stage 1, less than one person in ten thousand will be at Stage 5” http://www.paulchefurka.ca/LadderOfAwareness.html
I would pretty much agree with Chefurka on the numbers. If Gail told the whole story, including the unavoidable crash of human populations, the potential audience would shrink to perhaps one in ten thousand.
In my minds eye I can see Gail arriving to the nearest strategic command center by helicopter. We are in day 1 of Post-BAU and a four star general demands answers and options, Gail, Nicole and Dmitry in calm and consise fashion lay out the entire story. And while the four star general is shitting himself, Gail, Nicole and Dmitry enjoy some lovely tea and biscuits.
While BAU is intact we have very limited possibilities of communicating the whole story. Most people will simply refuse to accept reality as it is.
Batteries aren’t needed to operate the jacks; they operate on hydraulics. But batteries might be needed to operate the bales?
All these machines will break down, with no replacement parts in sight. It’s time, before it becomes overwhelmed by capitalism, to learn how Cuban kept them going.
There’s an incredible mismatch between what young people are learning in school, and what they need to learn. The odd thing is how little time remains to put it right!
Yup, all machinery will eventually break down. Then comes the interesting part, can we make spare parts out of something useless? Can we make spare parts out of another part? Do we have rawmaterials and machinery to make spare parts like the manufacturer did originally?
My question that I´m trying to answer is what is totally beyond the limits of any kind of possibility. And I´m trying to figure out how to make those unprobable situations a bit more probable.
I know how tied up our factories are to the JIT economy, and I know they will loose their production capabilities when BAU collapses. But at the same time it takes huge effort to go busting all the machinery up (FUBAR f-cked up beyond all recognition). Most of the heavy machinery will still be in the empty factories in Post-BAU I reckon. Then one just needs backup generators that work on biogas (diesel refurbished) or ethanol (petrol refurbished) to make them work. As for rawmaterials, yes, I understand we have picked the low hanging fruit and only the high hanging fruits remain. But at the same time one can find rawmaterials in the rubble of our civilization for a long time to come.
I fully understand the chaos that SHTF will produce, but at the same time we can use knowledge and resources if we want to use them. I will not take my tent and sleeping bag to go out in to the woods to live. I have my loghouse woodworking shed, metalworking shed, and my two hundred chicken yearround green house and I prefer them.
As long as we can remember we are the children of a highly scientific civilization, we will have options, it´s just a matter of deciding what options we will want to take. It wont be easy, it will be FUBAR, but we have options.
‘As long as we can remember we are the children of a highly scientific civilization, we will have options, it´s just a matter of deciding what options we will want to take.’
Funny how in spite of the fact that we can see where technology leads us…. we fall back on technology as the solution
Quite ridiculous actually.
Technology requires energy — post collapse the only energy available will be trees.
You are suggesting that when we fall off the horse — we just get right back on again — as if the second time round will end in roses….
I hate to belabor the point …. but if we pursue technological solutions post collapse such as making ploughs and shovels and hammers and weapons from iron (of course we will) —- that means energy — that means trees — that means scorched earth.
We will chop and burn as fast as possible — just like we are pumping oil in our dying days as fast as possible…. just like we nearly exterminated whales for their oil….
Just like we chopped and burned in the middle ages right up until King Coal came onto the scene giving the forests a couple of century reprieve….
The reprieve is ending…. and Paul Bunyan will be back in business busier than ever very soon… and when he’s through — because there are no other energy sources accessible …. that’s all she wrote…. the world will look like a bigger version of Haiti….
http://blog.kulikulifoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/haiti_deforestation.jpg
Hunter gatherers…. that is the only option….it is the only solution….
I can see from the way nobody is embracing my conclusions …. that we are headed for the Haiti option.
Most definitely.
This example is a direct result of what happens when a nation gets on the wrong side of the colonial powers. Haiti was the first nation in the Americas to become free. The colonial powers then shredded it. The Dominican republic was luckier. Argentina also got the rough treatment. They upset the Brits and from being, along with Australia, the wealthiest 2 countries in the world in 1900 to a nation always skirting turmoil. Australia ‘s position is very different today. Shows where your fortunes lie!
Science is not only technology Eddy, its chemistry, physics, maths, aerodynamics etc.
If you fly over central Europe, UK and Germany all you´ll see is town, city, urban environments after urban environments. No woods, no forests, no wilds. The options in central Europe, France in particular with 58 nuclear reactors, is very daunting. Germany has many organic farms and the river valleys that are very fertile. Spain with desertification is not far behind from France. England seems to be a suicide trap. Scotland and Ireland could manage I suppose. That means that there will be hundreds of millions on the move in Europe. Luckily most europeans think just about as you do and there will be a huge migration waves, but luckily not to northern Scandinavia or Russia. But actually the Nordics and Russia has forests more then they can burn (with this population density)
Science also means we can improve on the techniques and structures that were used just two generations ago. If we want to, we can build better, grow better, move better than our grandparents, even in Post-BAU.
If you want, I can take you on a tour in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Then you´ll see the options are not growing tomatoes year round, or living in permafrost Siberia, that there are options in between.
I wonder.. if Eddy survives SHTF chaos and happens to come across a pile of Polycarbonate sheets, would Eddy refuse that pile because its technology, big bad destructive technology.
I on the otherhand would prefer tons of Polycarbonate sheets, some riotshields, bodyarmour and green house walls/roofs would come to good use.
Again that is not my point – of course I would use technology post collapse – ‘whatever it takes’ when survival is at stake
My point is — that all these grand ideas people have are the exact same ideas that resulted in us being where we are… they are not sustainable.
My point is – that Scott Nearing’s way of life is not to be admired at all — if someone is looking at a way of life that is sustainable.
As I have pointed out – farming the land is what got us to 7.5B people — because we could feed that many —- and farming is directly responsible for the technological nightmare we are facing — from Facebook to Spent Fuel Ponds —- farming freed us up to pursue ‘progress’ — to innovate….
My point is – the only sustainable option is the hunter gatherer.
I can see how people would not want to live like that — but what I cannot see is how it can be argued that any other way of life is sustainable.
Van Kent,
I agree strongly with your view. One problem we have now is that we generalize too much. There’s an inverse incoherence in that we don’t plan or think about the planet coherently…meanwhile, at the first sign of trouble, we conclude that the world will respond uniformly in this or that way. What we might do instead, is plan and organize as widely as possible, but within modular (concentric) planning units that can influence one another. Not a blanket, top down “solution”–like a globalized economy run on oil– to anything.
People tend to behave as they do depending on their leadership strategies. We’ve been in the thrall of international capitalism for some 500 years, and industrial capitalism for some two. To believe that the structures inherent in these programs don’t influence what people think and do is unfounded. This is as far as I’m willing to go. Almost all our assumptions about the world have been carefully conditioned by a ruling strategy (entirely conscious and deliberate or not). Neither I nor most people have a handle on how that structure operated, although many breakthroughs have been made–Marx, for example. I don’t know details of any sort, but sometimes it helps to know little, just enough to vaguely see a pattern from the outside of how the system “works.” (I’m not referring to a different, more detailed sort of analysis, like Gail’s)
I also use the term “hunter gatherer” to mean something only applicable to industrial society. The pre-agricultural hunter and gatherers were not identical to those now still found in small pockets. Terrence McKenna, recounting his visits to the Amazon, talks about naked indigenes carrying huge boom boxes around with them. Maybe some even have internet; I don’t know. Nothing is pure and separate anymore. Conversely, a similar opportunism to the old HG society–you live on what you find around you, you improvise,–seems like a decent strategy toward the end of BAU. You simply make the best use of what you have. Assuming that the purpose of life is to continue life, we can use our experience to figure the best means to maintain life. We should know by now (at least) that ensuring the basic needs of anyone remotely in your geographic proximity is a reasonable strategy for protecting any individual’s life within it. So the individual is dependent on the group, and vice versa. It seems to me that this is what planning should be about. But the entire Planning profession has no clue about what Gail and others here are teaching. NOTHING planners are doing remotely suffices for facing the future.
Materials that can work without oil might be the simple things we tend to overlook or discard. Cardboard panels will be like gold. Just think of the Re-Store (offshoot of Habitat for Humanity) stores that sell used hardware/building/home supplies. Stores like that within walking distance of all, plugged in to community hubs?
“Commodity producers are starting to go bankrupt because they are losing money with the prices at these levels.”
What would normally happen is those with the strongest positions would buy up their competitors. The Banks would acquire their debtors. Once there is a massive consolidation, the cartels that emerge out the other side would control supply and price.
However, the barrier to this natural process is the politicians and bureaucrats and people who believe that there must be competition, even if it is artificially created and sustained.
During the 1930s, it is said that you could buy a skyscraper for the cost of the elevator. With back taxes and such, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see some commercial real estate clear for $1 if severely distressed.
There are no buyers lined up at the fire sales I would assume because the understanding is that this is the new normal i.e. there will be no recovery in commodity prices so even a fire sale is not a deal…
And they would be right — as we are seeing — low commodity prices are not spurring demand… not resulting in growth…
Add to that all commodity producers no matter if they are at the lower band of production costs will be pulling in the oars — what’s the point on loading up on more production when there is not enough demand for what is currently produced… that could prove to be suicidal…
There still needs to be consumers who can afford the output. Even if there is massive consolidation, the basic problem of workers who could not afford the output would not be fixed, because it is related to the fact that the cheap energy sources have already been taken. Even if direct extraction costs are low, governments are still very dependent on high tax revenue.
What would happen in normal circumstances is collapse. Collapse happens when wages of non-elite workers fall too low, so that they cannot afford the output of the system. This happens when (goods and services produced)/population stops rising. More and more of the goods and services produced needs to go into overhead for the system (government, manager higher pay, debt service, cost of dividends and higher stock prices). There is too little output for the non-elite worker to get an adequate share.
There is a lot of talk about EROEI. In my view, the only EROEI that matters is Energy Return on Human Labor invested. When it falls too low, there is a big problem. It falls too low, when there is too little fossil fuels and other energy leveraging human labor, and too much of the system’s output pulled off the top for overhead. This is similar to a fish being forced to migrate for food, but not getting enough food energy from the process to cover its own energy costs. The result has to be die-off of the population.
Yes FF’s are simply an extension of human labor. It’s from which the term energy slave is derived. In the past, slaves (the literal variety) performed the labor, their pay of food, clothing and shelter being provided as minimal as could be (efficiency). As long as their production was great enough to offset the input the system thrived…….ROI. When it all boils down though, the slaves require energy (food) to survive. Food, clothing and shelter all require energy, for production and maintenance. So the definitive calculation would be EROI.
If there is not enough return on investment to maintain the slaves, they will be worked to death and replacements acquired at a cost, possibly debt. While prices increase due to debt and inflation, the system again can thrive. FF’s provided the slaves to build, power and maintain the world right up until now and the foreseeable future. The slaves though, in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons are demanding more and more energy for less and less return. Prices are both too high and too low, too high for the consumer and too low for the producer. Debt is failing to solve the problem of replacing the dead and dying slaves. Profit is not a one way street, debt enabled profits need to trickle down to the base of the consumer stronghold.
The consumer provided the golden eggs that allowed business to prosper. But the consumer has been bled white and in the name of survival, businesses are divesting themselves of the very base that allowed them to grow…….. the worker. Governments now are providing tax breaks for business but at the same time increasing the burden on the consumer. I’m pretty sure business owners would give up tax breaks if they were provided with more customers. But growth is hard to come by and without growth, limbs are being trimmed to maintain the core. If you happen to be one of those limbs look out!
You’ve got 10 slaves who consumed 3000 calories/day working in your vegetable plantation.
After feeding them you had the equivalent of 5000 calories per slave/ day in vegetables to eat yourself and sell in the market
Now for whatever reason…. the 10 slaves need 8000 calories per day to perform the same amount of work.
Good way of putting the problem.
Note however that how well the solution works depends on a combination of things: (1) the number of slaves that can be afforded and (2) how much surplus each produces. In real life, there are two different prices involved (1) the up front cost, and (2) the day-by-day energy inputs. An analysis only of the surplus per slave based on energy out and food eaten, without considering the number of slaves that can be afforded gives only part of the answer. If slaves have an up front cost $1,000,000 each (in addition to their daily food requirements), and only one slave can be afforded, the situation still might not work well.
Focusing on only on the day to day energy inputs, and not on up-front costs that inhibit purchase can give a strange answer–not too different from some of the renewable energy calculations that seem to have a favorable energy balance on a day-to-day basis, overlooking upfront costs (human labor, interest costs, rent costs, etc.) that are not of the “right type” to be included in energy balance calculations.
“I personally think if we are to get past the transition without hitting a collapse then the transition needs to be managed and planned for- the frightening thing is not that the best efforts may result in failure but there is simply no acknowledgement of the issue by leaders.”
They are, constantly. What do you think this obsession with Global Warming is? It is the other side of the coin of Peak Oil / Limits To Growth. The same steps you should take to mitigate Global Warming, is the same steps you should take to mitigate declining oil production.
“..OPEC on Wednesday lowered its long-term estimates for oil demand and said the price of crude would not return to the level it reached last year, at $100 a barrel, until 2040 at the earliest..”
and
“..The US Federal Reserve subjects banks with at least $50bn in assets, including the US arms of foreign banks, to an annual stress test, that is designed to ensure they could keep trading through a deep recession and a big shock to the financial system. Today’s oil prices are about 55% below their level when the Fed set last year’s stress test scenarios in October 2014..”
lolz..
Via AE source:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/23/us-banks-hit-by-cheap-oil-as-opec-warns-of-long-term-low.html
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/12/debt-rattle-christmas-eve-2015/
We can’t afford high-priced oil–regardless of what it costs to extract.
Now I can’t find where this fits:
Not sure who this is addressed to, but will give one more POV on it.
“1; If you are counting embodied energy in a material I think its fair to discard the value of scavenged materials. I am open to debate on this.”
Why is it “fair to discard the value of scavenged materials.?”
“2. The amount of portland cement used in papercrete is miniscule compared to concrete. You points on energy requirements to shred and mix are quite valid.”
My dictionary defines cement as several things, including “concrete.” It causes some confusion. Cement, concrete–I’ve used varying amounts here and there to mix with paper pulp. In at least one case, It seemed that the result was too dry and flaky. Cement quarrying removes hills and mountains, and spreads dust all over. Instead of mixing cement with paper pulp, I prefer sand and silt. To harden it further against moisture, white glue and wood glue in the pulp work very well.
“3. No one is using papercrete for foundations. It is a insulator. It has many of the same characteristics of sprayed cellulose.”
Correct in my case. I’m working on a tiny experimental structure and the foundation comprises cement blocks. You don’t want a paper-mix product dealing with a flood or standing water. But it works fine above the foundation level. I don’t know if it’s any more water absorbent than mud adobe. It’s worth some testing.
“5. As one of the founders of a “green” building blog was forthcoming about- there is no green building. The greenest choice is not to build. At all. There are levels of degree.”
I’m only slightly less sweeping about this. I advocate for zero demolition and the maximum reconfiguring of existing buildings (where and how appropriate!). The “buildings” I propose would be added on to existing buildings (where and how appropriate). They would be inconspicuous, use few non renewable resources, and use passive solar..
“6 As 80 % of the energy used in a building in its lifetime is heating and cooling the embodied energy used in a building construction is small comparatively. The greenest house is the smallest house. A 10×8 shack is very green.”
Matthew has some mathematics to apply to this. I can only inquire. A small shack might work with the added “mud room” scenario Matthew speaks of. I believe it would work with some sort of second window outside the original. Theoretically, insulating the heck out of the outside walls seems like a plan. I’m working toward that for a part of my house.
“The greenest house is the smallest house. A 10×8 shack is very green.”
It’s oversimplification, IMO. The main parameters for sustainable architechture should be:
usable area in square meters / per number of inhabitants / per energy/resources required to build and maintain the building / per expected time of exploitation.
Considering the above, “smallest house” really doesn’t make sense if you are going to host 10 people. You would have to build 5 of those.
Bigger house will be much more “optimal” in terms of energy, materials, maintenance, etc. There are huge economies of scale in building home infrastructure.
In my current design I will be able to heat 300 sqm. (up to 10 residents) with single 10kW furnace/fireplace and 9kg of wood the whole day. Bear in mind this is Central Europe climate zone (I mean -15degC in winter). This is “green” solution (whatever means “green” in this case, lol).
Designer for more is not necessarily bad. IMO all the water and piping should be at the south solar end in a small enclosure. Then you have at least the solar plus heat of ten people. If you need more space you can move the heat out to successive enclosures. under the main load bearing and insulation. Keep those areas cold unless absolutely needed. Those cold areas can be used for storage. And in the summer become inhabitable again. I dislike using insulation for areas that may never see heat however. We use 6kw total a day (total not per hour)for four people in identical climate – when the sun shines. When it doesnt we use double or triple. By 10kw I assume you mean 10kw/hr? We have lived like this a long time. Everyone gravitates to the south end. You need light as well as heat.
Thanks for the advice. I have my own vision of the building. You’ll have a chance to see it soon, if you follow this blog.
10kW – it’s nominal heat power of the fireplace. 9kg of wood = ~ 20-25 kWh depending on kind and humidity.
Look forward to seeing it.
Artleads,
Did you try drying under pressure?
Standard sized blocks in moulds with small holes to let the water get out, dry for 2-3 weeks with heavy weight on top of it, to get adequate pressure.
Moulded blocks can have modular shapes, for easy assembling.
You can also design with longitudinal holes (to get empty volumes in the thickness of the block); you get a lighter block with better thermal insulation performance, and save on raw pulp. Maybe add some fiber (textile?) into the pulp, to increase the mechanical strength (in traction and bending; compression is already OK because of the production process).
Thanks, Stefeun.
What you recommend is very clear, and would be perfect to follow exactly, depending on one’s goal. And it’s a delight hearing from you anyway.
Visual art is my training, but it seems that I have architecture in my soul. I was once advised by a professor to drop visual art and focus on architecture. Supposedly, I couldn’t do both. Long story short, I come at construction out of a passion to work in my own idiosyncratic way…to honor some personal vision that, if I didn’t figure it out and bring it to fruition, would die with me. It’s just not a logical process. But enough of this.
Maybe you can advise me if I share what it is I end up doing. I’m trying to build one or more structures in unlikely ways, using the process to integrate all sorts of goals.
1) One is how to use waste–packaging, junk mail, whatever, as filler for habitable structure. I scrunch up, say, an envelope, and tape it into a sort of round to hold its form; then press on the paper pulp till it adheres and covers what’s inside. But the inside, I could use anything–a bottle cap, a small plastic container, anything light and that I want to divert from the waste stream.
2) The resulting paper-pulp-covered orbs are light and hard, seemingly usable as insulation inside a wall.
3) I’ve started using plastic or even small cardboard containers to stuff paper pulp into, appalled by the issues of drying. With better technique, the containers might function as forms, like for your pressed blocks, but I was thinking to use them, again, as insulation inside walls.
4) The basic “blocks” for the structure(s) will be cardboard boxes picked up free from any large store. I plan to stuff the boxes from what results from #2 and #3. and support the boxes with a vertical PVC pipe affixed inside a cement block. The result would be a kind of shish kebab formation, with the cardboard boxes being the food on the pvc pipe stick.
5) Theoretically, entire walls can comprise this shish kebab construction, so that the wall is modular, and can be moved around by moving one shish kebab at a time with a dolly.
6) I like the idea that each box could be removed from the stick, so that everything was movable and easy to disassemble. But either I could Velcro the boxes on top of each other, or glue them together. This is to ensure that the box assemblages are stable and don’t shift about as they are moved.
7) Waterproofing and fireproofing the boxes is not yet figured out. Deck sealant might work, although I don’t like chemical stuff like that too much. Sand dash is another thought. Wrapping boxes with plastic is the least favorite possibility. Silver tape on corners would serve some of the above goals, and it has proven to be extremely durable outside.
8) For indoor display of the structure, the shish kebabs could be spaced apart and serve as columns, with lighter, less supported sheets of something between to make walls.
9) Theoretically, this kind of construction could serve to enhance thermal stability inside any building. Just lean them up against the wall to be “insulated,” I have thought.
Thanks if you have read all of this. I hope you have a clearer idea of where I’m coming from. Your thoughts would be most welcome.
Artleads, I´m not certain what Stefeun had in mind, but compressed earth blocks (CEBs) have many different shapes they can be made into. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrg0tNclv20 the ones with holes in them would take care of the air circulation problem.
And to make sheets for insulation, a simple baler would probably do just fine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-SHtNHkUk8 these small balers can be found in every grocery store backroom. Probably good to know in Post-BAU..
I´m not an architect and I can´t understand how you plan to have enough structural integrity to hold up a roof, or support a chimney? If you plan to encorce some walls by steel bars, like the rammed earth community http://www2.cemr.wvu.edu/~rliang/ihta/papers/21%20FINAL%20Bly%20Windstorm_paper_workshop.pdf you´ll then need some sort of concrete base to hold everything together. To prevent it from becoming a wing, that catches the wind and topples over. Instead of a concrete base to make the structure stable, you could of course take one or two shipping containers to make the supporting walls http://www.runkleconsulting.com/shipping-container-engineering/
Please let us know how your interesting project develops.
Hi Van Kent,
How simple the construction and strong the product! No one should doubt how well this works and how elegant a substitute it is for cement blocks.
I’m grateful for this conversation to however help me see where I part with convention. The elegant earth blocks are substitute for less elegant materials, while serving a similar purpose: to build structures within the prevailing constructional paradigm. These make permanent, stable structures with the same design criteria as always. I want to completely eviscerate that paradigm, requiring no foundation or excavation, that you could pick up and move as thought it never was there. A kinder, gentler approach to the land, I hope. The structures I envisage could go on rooftops, abut back walls, locate in abandoned factories. Light, flexible, movable, democratic. Visual and spacial discrimination is useful, and that could be taught in kindergarten.
The features in a nutshell:
– Next to a tent, Incredible lightness and portability
– One person can construct and reassemble
– Whereas appropriate quality-earth might be hard to find, plastic, paper and cardboard trash is everywhere, creating a problem of oversupply and environmental degradation. PVC pipes are very cheap, and found in every hardware store.
– Can be constructed indoors and moved outdoors, as I am doing.
I’m trying to do something that is so simple and intuitive that it goes unconsidered
You are of course correct that the strong gusts of wind I experience here might be too strong for what I’ve conceived thus far. Remember, though, that the cement-block base the pvc pipes stick into cannot by themselves be blown over, being very heavy (but just light enough for me to move around). But the point is well taken, and bolstering the cement blocks with a few heavy rocks might help.
The Balers: These are wonderful machines, and both trash and plastic bales look like perfect insulation to me. Bales like this inside thick walls lined by sheetrock or plyboard seems like better construction than what we have now.
But you afford me a chance to see how what I’m doing is different.
I am a primitive who uses no machinery, electricity (for this work) or power tools. I have no money to spare, and so only use free stuff and manual techniques that anyone can replicate. (It’s hard to even call it technique–stuff like squeezing something dry with your hands.) So a nice blue machine would cost too much, and I couldn’t understand the dials and which buttons to push. I would describe myself as a hunter gatherer living on the detritus of industrial society. Not unlike the poorest third world people. Yet, I have a car, running water, heat…all the conveniences of our incredibly well endowed industrial society, and that it might be harder to escape than gratefully accept. 🙂
Artleads, OK, your technique sounds like something to have in a Post-BAU world where big ugly malls are still standing, but will not in themselves provide adequate housing for a family. Rawmaterials you describe are plentifull in Post-BAU, but somehow I would still take the baler from the grocery to speed things up a bit.
For further inspiration to you, of a structure within a structure have you seen this home within a greenhouse? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ghnDOFbNQ
“For further inspiration to you, of a structure within a structure have you seen this home within a greenhouse?”
The first time I saw that, I thought it was pretty impressive. Until they get to the part where it cost 60,000 euros, 10 years ago. Just to add the greenhouse.
What I have in mind is similar to the earth block in some ways, but still quite different:
– the blocks should be made of particles of different sizes (biggest ones, up to 1 cm, preferably light, such as wood) glued together with cement; maybe paper pulp can do the job, with help of some fiber,
– the pressure must be continuous during the 2-3 weeks of drying.
We should get light and stiff blocks (I’m thinking of dims like 30×60 cm and ca 15 cm thick), allowing to build a wall very quickly. The wall has to be hold at the edges by some pillar structure.
Stefeun,
I’ll post some of this, including your name, on a thread that I control. And if you object to using your name in other places, I’ll remove it from that particular thread without posting it on others. Same goes for Don Stewart and Van Kent
No problemo.
Please let me know when the first royalties start being paid 😉
Artleads,
If I may interject, I think you are on the right track in keeping your living structure small and utilizing passive solar. I’m imaging a lighter weight structure build upon a rotating ‘Lazy Susan’ foundation which could be turned to follow the sun in winter or be turned completely around facing north during the summer months or turned away from an impending storm. A dome stucture might work on a round foundation.
A friend of mine is a private pilot who owns his own plane. He had a turntable built into his hangar floor, allowing him to taxi his plane straight into the hangar onto this platform. Once parked, he can easily rotate the aircraft around by hand by himself, thereby avoiding having to physically push the plane around – a real chore for one person. After seeing this, the rotatable house idea has been a thought experiment of mine.
Cheers,
Don
Hi Don Stewart,
This is a wonderful idea indeed. I am certainly going for lightness, and if I could master the construction process (the materials cost is next to nothing, but putting them together is daunting) I could indeed pivot the construction. The project I’m working on now–to be used first outdoors next October, and indoors next November, will probably take one highly unskilled worker (me), with possible support by one or two collaborators, all year to figure out. If the shish kebabs can be as movable as I picture, a heptagonal or even circular structure could be made. For the indoors exhibit next November, wind, rain or temperature modulation won’t figure. But for the longer (or perhaps eventually permanent installation outdoors for October and beyond) we must face the most severe gusts of wind imaginable. For the November show only we perhaps need a center pole around which to construct an as-yet-not-designed roof and an art project above that, Of course, that center pole is not obligated to support significant weight, and so might even be made of rolled paper somehow projecting from the roof, and not descending below it. (I thought about that a as I was writing this.)
One question, though. Whenever we are able to make a dome (not the coming year), windows could conceivably be located all around the structure, obviating the need to pivot. But with a more BAU transitional alternative, PV solar on one side could indeed require the pivot. Well worth considering the issue!
A friend of mine lives in a rotating house. Her grandfather built the place and I got a look under it. Very impressive engineering! The water, electricity, gas and sewer all went through a series of concentric connections. The house is supported on a large number of rollers fixed to the foundation and the drive is a chain to a geared down motor. If you want to build a place with modern utilities, I would strongly suggest you try to get a look at an existing one. It’s possible I could get you a contact to see this one.
Hi hkeithhenson.
Unless it’s somewhere in northern NM, I couldn’t get there. It sounds very high powered and out of my league. But seeing a diagram of it some day would surely give one ideas. Thanks a lot!
Hi hkeithhenson,
I too would love to see the home if it’s anywhere near southeast WI. Sure enough, sombody else had my idea before me 🙂
Don B
Artleads,
It has been years since I considered building a geodesic dome home. Pushback from building departments or architectural control commitee’s finally got me to conform to the norm. Still, the dome concept has a lot going for it. The shape covers the greatest square footage for the least amount of building materials. A dome structure can handle much higher wind loads than traditional construction, something we will likely see with greater frequency in the near future. Solar panels and glazing could track the sun for maximum efficiency in a rotatable arrangement while allowing you to minimize wind and hail damage of severe weather should that become necessary.
I’ve been reading your thread with great interest. Thanks for your reply.
Don B
Drawback of Comes, they tend to leak water
Don, Artleads,
For the best concept of rotating house, please have a look at those lenticular ones:
http://www.domespace.com/en/home
For the best passive solar architecture (not rotating), pls see:
http://www.heliodome-uk.com/architecture.html
Stefeun,
Sincere thanks!
Although there’s a lot of what Gail says that is unfathomable–doesn’t sound like what I’d agree with even if I understood it–I agree with a lot else.
So in looking at these links, I ask myself why I intuitively draw back:
Too much reliance on irreplaceable materials? Unrealistic in face of the REAL economic prospect (impending sudden, drastic collapse)? Not something that every child can do? I’m just a Luddite? (Sometimes, it’s good to be a Luddite.) It’s all very brilliant, but only for the few? 🙂
Artleads >”My dictionary defines cement as several things, including “concrete.””
Limestone is quarried, crushed to a powder, and then heated in a rotary kiln at high enough temperature to change the limestone to cement about 1400C. (I had forgotten that the process produces CO2 both from burning the fuel needed, but because the carbon is driven off the limestone in the process.)
The product of the kiln is cement.
One mixes the cement with sand and gravel to produce concrete. Cement and concrete are not the same thing.
Artleads >”Instead of mixing cement with paper pulp, I prefer sand and silt. To harden it further against moisture, white glue and wood glue in the pulp work very well.”
Another thing that would work, is to replace the paper, the sand, and the gravel with scoria ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoria ) or even with ordinary cinder ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinder_cone ). You can get scoria at Home Depot where it is sold as a gravel substitute for ground cover. I have made blocks of concrete with scoria for a physics project. The block could be held in your hand while you apply a blowtorch to the opposite side, and it was quite strong. I forgot what the R-value we calculated was.
Thanks, Pintada. Hadn’t known about scoria.
“Limestone is quarried, crushed to a powder, and then heated in a rotary kiln . . . . The product of the kiln is cement.”
Not exactly. Doing this will give you CaO, calcium oxide, which can be made into slaked lime, Ca(OH)2. by adding water.
Cement is a bit different with other ingredients. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_cement has a good description.
Back in the 1970’s the owner built craze was on full gear and much was done of what you are writing here.
One excellent source is an architect named Ken Kern, along with his wife, Barbara, homesteaded in Northern California and produced a number of how to books.
The Owner Built Home, The Owner Built Homestead, The Owner Built Workshop, are readily available, and they wrote articles for the likes of Mother Earth News.
The Owner-Built Home
The Owner-Built Homestead
The Owner-Built Pole Frame House
The Earth Sheltered Owner-Built Home
The Owner Builder & the Code: Politics of Building
The Work Book: Personal Politics of Building Your Home
The Healthy House: An Owner-Builders Guide to Biological Building
Ken Kern’s Homestead Workshop
Ken Kern’s Stone Masonry
Ken Kern’s Masonry Stove
Fireplaces
A MEN article
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/introduction-to-building-zmaz70ndzgoe.aspx
And a short remembrance of him
http://www.witoldrybczynski.com/architects/remembering-ken-kern/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kChk5TbtbRE
Merry Christmas, Everyone, There is a Santa Claus…He’s Japanese….
http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN0U70A020151224?irpc=932
BOJ’s Kuroda says will do whatever it takes to beat deflation
Thu Dec 24, 2015 5:58am GMT
TOKYO (Reuters) – Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Thursday the central bank remains unwavering in its determination to do whatever it takes to overcome deflation and achieve its 2 percent inflation target
“Some people may still be sceptical. But…economic and price trends have clearly changed under QQE. This is an indisputable fact,” he said in a speech at an annual meeting of Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business lobby
Whatever it takes…..Ho, Ho, Ho….
Deflation can in fact be beaten, because deflation is a monetary phenomenon, not a physical phenomenon.
In order to combat deflation, governments have a tool called fiat currency, which can be created out of thin air in infinite quantities. When you have infinite currency meeting against a finite, and declining, world of physical goods and services, you get inflation.
This collapse is going to be an inflationary depression. This is how it is going to go down, might as well resign yourself to it.
Thanks, Dolph for making us all feel better!
Every time Japan doubles down on its printing they run into deflation …. so how much do they have to print to get this inflation you speak of?
“…how much do they have to print to get this inflation you speak of?”
It’s probably a situation in which the overwhelming efforts needed to combat deflation cause hyperinflation.
What’s the number then? Japan keeps massively increasing the print in each iteration of QE…. and we don’t see inflation – never mind hyperinflation
So more of the same is going to create a different outcome? I don’t see that happening.
Eventually if they print too much confidence in the system is destroyed and the yen becomes completely worthless….
At least in Germany you would get a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow of cash…. in Japan you won’t be able to buy anything – even with a super tanker filled with yen….
You might be able to trade it to a junk paper dealer perhaps….
Peoples notions about inflation are quite strange. In spite of being in a plunge straight into deflation for some 9 years they continue to believe that a inflationary then hyperinflationary event will occur. Perhaps in another 9 years? perhaps in 27 years?
“Peoples notions about inflation are quite strange. In spite of being in a plunge straight into deflation for some 9 years they continue to believe that a inflationary then hyperinflationary event will occur.”
It seems maybe you are the one whose thoughts are strange. Hyperinflation is not too much inflation; it is loss of faith in the currency. It is panic, and bank runs, and money printing gone wild. It is more like rapid deflation than it is like normal inflation.
In case you are unaware of all of the rest of the world, much of the world is going through mass currency devaluations. If you are talking about the mighty USD, of course it seems likely it will be the last currency standing.
In Canada, imported goods are now 40% more expensive. Whether it is a temporary phenomenon or not, butter is now 60% more than usual in my area. Lots of things are getting more expensive, and the packages smaller. CPI is a terrible indicator, seeing how it ignores energy and food. Cost of Living is a more useful way to measure, especially if compared to average incomes.
I can somewhat believe hyperinflation–money buy nothing. Inflation is a lot harder to believe.
I could see us going from extreme deflation directly to money being totally worthless. The hyperinflation stage skipped completely
The price of crude, copper is just above the lows of the 2008 event. Any scientist respects what he observes. Any scientist is willing to abandon models when proven false. We all have been indoctrinated with the idea of inflation. What is the logical behaviour if this belief is embraced? Invest in stocks bonds anything but cash to try to get yield. Its a very powerful indoctrination. Standing in the middle of a pig farm people smell nothing.
They can safely spend [stimulate] up to the limit of the output gap.
You need to get the currency to the worker, not the financial markets. China seems to be doing this, by employing lots of workers to make unneeded steel, aluminum, and other products. This mostly gets other countries angry for “dumping” products below costs. A better solution is needed.
Raise wages of workers. Get more elderly people working. Not happening! Need more cheap energy, not expensive energy plus infinite debt.
Japan is project to halve its population by the end of the century. I would call them the only sane nation in the world.
http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/Japan_Aging_Population_Wide.gif
Will it be fast enough? I expect not.
As Fast Eddy what he expects! LOL
that’s a projection that assumes almost no immigration, i.e., the current play.
But no, it won’t be fast enough. Even with a reversal of growth, the difference will only be marginal for way too long. Like FE i think it will come sooner and not later, however I am at a loss to pick which of the many triggers or tipping points will actually be the big one. I am however sure it won’t because of money scarcity.
Let’s say the global population halved in 2016.
Which direction do you reckon the line on this graph would follow?
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/12/20141222_comm.jpg
It is not possible to support a huge number of aging retirees with only a small workforce. I don’t know how they continue to import enough food for the whole group, for example.
Excellent article, but you never put political actions in your equation.
Everything is rigged by politicians.
We have the Saudi-US deal.
“The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia.”
These kind of actions have started a chain reaction that now feeds by itself. The Saudi pump like crazy and also the Russian. They both flood the market with oil.
It makes no economical sense to sell huge volume of oil at low price while you can easily cut your production and rise the price of oil to a reasonable level.
Also how long can the Saudi stand up in this environment before they go bankrupt ?
For the Russians, their money has lost 50% , so they see less pain and they have also a diversified economie unlike the Saudi that produce nothing but except oil.
We just mentioned it recently as Putin announced next 7yrs of very low oil prices, while Saudies can last 4-5yrs of burning their money reserves at maximum, coincidence? More likely a clever hint in the ongoing global power struggle. Besides Russia reorganized on domestic currency, so they can still devalue pretty hard, and as Chinese might send them some of the modern consumer trinkets via non usd dominated swaps or even help bridging under the sanction regime.. The bottom line is in the near future 5-15yrs window there will be many crazy events going on in the world, and Middle East is in the spotlight.
“7 yrs of very low oil prices”
I think it is too long, something will happen before that.
“The price of oil dropped from $115 a barrel in June 2014 to around $44 today. While it costs less than $10 to produce a barrel of Saudi oil, the Saudis need a price between $95 and $105 to balance their budget. The country’s leaders, who figured that oil wouldn’t fall below $80 a barrel — and then only for a few months — are now burning through their foreign reserves to make up the difference.
While oil prices will likely rise over the next few years, projections are that the price per barrel won’t top $65 for the foreseeable future. Saudi debt is on schedule to rise from 6.7 percent of GDP this year to 17.3 percent next year.
The country is now spending $10 billion a month in foreign exchange reserves to pay the bills and is borrowing money on the international financial market. Recently the International Monetary Fund warned that the country would deplete its reserves in five years unless it drastically cut its budget.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2015/11/22/The-Saudis-are-stumbling-and-might-take-the-Middle-East-down-with-them/stories/201511220134
Millions dependent on fossil fuels for food, water, clothing, transportation, air conditioning. Oil reserves depleting, currency failing, you thing that the migration out of Syria is large. Saudi Arabia is a ticking time bomb.
I am afraid I run out of time to follow everything. I am also not good at remembering names, so politics is not a good field for me. What I do know is that Saudi Arabia desperately needs revenue (taxes!!!) from oil exports. If prices are down, it needs to export more. Iraq is actually the country that has increased its production most. Saudi Arabia has no particular motivation to reduce its exports because Iraq is exporting more. If we add more exports from Iran, the situation becomes even worse. Saudi Arabia can’t fix the mess.
Russia also needs revenue (taxes!!!) from oil exports, so they too pump like crazy.
Saudi Arabia can’t “easily cut production and price of oil to a reasonable level.” Even if they could, they would find their share of world oil exports permanently lower because of the cuts, which would be a problem.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-holidayshopping-idUSKBN0U719A20151224?feedType=RSS&feedName=newsOne&google_editors_picks=true
After reading the following headline you’ll think Xmas sales were really troubling this year.
‘U.S. retailers at risk of missing modest holiday sales goals’
Read this next part which adds to the idea things are not good.
“Retailers are struggling to meet even modest forecasts for the holiday shopping season this year after the “Super Saturday” before Christmas failed to live up to its nickname, industry research groups said.”
But when you read this paragraph you’ll be wondering how much these greedy retail sob’s want. Geez, the whole xmas thing is a retail scam ploy to leverage huge amounts of money from people beyond the usual birthday, mother’s and father’s day present extravaganza’s, but guess what, we are apparently not quite borrowing enough money to pad the bank accounts of retailers. Next year we need to try harder to satisfy MODEST HOLIDAY SHOPPING FORECASTS, because all that happened was a 3.1% rise over last year, oh but it’s less than the 4.1% rise last year – oh no!!! Come on, milk us, scam us, run down our last dollars for the benefit of 3rd party retailers. Don’t ask what we can do for ourselves, ask what we can do for commerce!
“This year Super Saturday weekend sales in stores and online rose 4 percent to $55 billion, after a 2.5 percent gain last year, according to retail consultancy and private-equity fund Customer Growth Partners. That puts overall store and online sales from the start of November through Dec. 22 on track to rise 3.1 percent, below the 3.2 percent pace the firm forecast and down from 4.1 percent growth in the same period last year.”
Maybe I’m missing something, but if we are quickly approaching collapse wouldn’t xmas retail sales be down sharply rather than up 3.1%?
“The drop in store traffic has been offset to a large extent by online sales.”
“..home improvement items like appliances, tools, furnishings and home decor.”
Not quite sure what they are measuring, sounds like every dollar and every cent spent, by anyone with a pulse.
The only thing keeping the global economy afloat is US consumption, so, hopefully those numbers are real and not some fake stats again.
Most online purchases involved a credit card (although a debit card would also work – except most people are broke…)
So if online were compensating for bricks and mortar drop offs…. you’d expect to see credit card spending holding up….
The opposite is happening:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-09/credit-card-data-reveals-first-core-retail-sales-decline-recession
I am wondering — why does ZH not have a slew of Pulitzer Prizes? They break more stories and provide the best analysis on the planet — yet they are ignored …. (rhetorical question)
Actually, 3.1% growth in holiday sales, following 4.1% growth in holiday sales, doesn’t sound at all bad to me.
I am guessing that next year, holiday sales will be off sharply, assuming BAU continues.
US coal production down 28% year over year last week! That’s equivalent of about 2.8 million barrels of oil per day.
http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/weekly/tables/weekly_production.cfm
It is interesting that the greens claim thet there exists divestment from coal and on the other hand coal mining ist increased.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/australia-approves-expansion-of-barrier-reef-coal-terminal-1450762127
This is for the indian market of course. Seems to e cheaper to ship from australia than from the US
No CO2 koomayaa. If the australians were serious about COP21 they woulod not have approved it, right?
“No CO2 koomayaa. If the australians were serious about COP21 they woulod not have approved it, right?”
The CO2 counts for the person burning it, India. Presumably, developing countries are allowed to emit more while developed countries are supposed to emit less.
Wow! No wonder coal prices are so low! And world CO2 emissions are low. Unfortunately, we cannot keep our system operating with a much smaller quantity of energy consumption, even if “green” writers think this is the case.
Hi, Gail. Great post, I am pleased that you and the Space Industrialization folks are maintaining your connections and that they are staying informed by your work. I made sure to spread the word at IAC2014 last year (and hopefully made a strong point of it in my oral presentation) that everyone in that community must be aware of these issues if they hope to make any substantive contribution to the manifold crises we are facing.
My paper abstract, btw, if anyone’s interested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5joGyDcUo_3UlJ5dm9PQ3RRWWc/edit
Thanks again for all you do, Gail. And when are you finally going to get around to publishing a book collection of your best essays? It is *so* overdue! 🙂
Happy christmas all together!
Thanks! Belated Merry Christmas! Sorry I have been slow in answering comments. Visiting relatives. Going home, but need to start writing a new post.
Thanks for your vote of confidence.
An e-book would not be too difficult. A paper book has some difficulties, because of graphics issues and cost if I use colored charts.
I thought about writing a paper to be published in the IEEE journal, associated with my talk, but did not figure out the hurdles involved in time. The papers are limited to 6 pages, for this particular seminar. Or, if a person plans right, a person can submit two related papers, that are really Part 1 and Part 2 of the same paper. I didn’t figure out the rules in time to actually submit something meeting the requirements. A paper wasn’t needed in order to give a talk. I would have been in much better shape, if I hadn’t had the page limit issue to work around.
Or…. put all the articles onto a few dozen of these…. and toss them into the ocean… if there is any intelligence out there… and they do make it to earth post extinction …. they’ll have a detailed explanation of what happened….
http://www.usb2u.co.uk/articles/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/glass_bottle_02-branded.jpg
A few more wild thoughts about slide 9:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/9-growth-in-debt-started-about-the-same-time-as-run-up-in-oil-prices.png
Until mid-70’s, debt-increase and GDP-growth were moving at same pace. I assume that debt was used mainly for investments in productive tools and needed infrastructure and transports development.
This setup worked as long as energy was inexpensive, resource plentiful and waste-dump with no major -visible yet- impact.
Then, once diminishing returns started to hit, we decided to nevertheless keep-up with growth-rate as required by the system. The simplest way (only way?) to fill-in the gap was by using debt.
This triggered a runaway process, because we had to add debt not only for ‘normal’ fueling of the growth, but also in order to compensate for:
– diminishing returns, rising costs of extraction (all commodities: fossil fuels, mineral ores, Ag products)
– deteriorating capital (infrastructure maintenance, replacements of worn out items) and ‘natural capital’ depletion (soils, biodiversity, …)
– waste management, pollution control (carbon tax? hahahaha!)
– loss of workers’ discretionary purchasing power (due to stagnating wages and need to take private debt)
– debt roll-on (borrowing fresh money to payback old loans with interests)
– … do I miss something?
As most items of the above list are rising over time, thus putting increasing brakes on the system, it means that debt increase must not only be exponential (as is GDP-growth; well, should be), but SUPER-EXPONENTIAL, i.e. percentage of debt-increase should be bigger year after year. More and more dollars of debt must be added, for each dollar of growth.
Seems to be what happened in the decade 1975-1985, with debt increase rising from ca 4.3% to 5.5% (not even sufficient to stop the decrease in growth-rate).
After that, it looks like the high rate of technological innovation (as per slide 5) allowed to catch-up a little bit with GDP-growth, until 2005. Debt increase was still high, and much higher than growth-rate, but not rising anymore.
Then in decade 2005-2015, debt couldn’t rise fast enough, which caused a slow-down of growth.
Debt cannot rise ad infinitum, because it has its own positive feedback-loops in the system, i.e. negative impact, especially by decreasing the amounts that workers, businesses and governments can spend in the productive economy. This comes in addition to the other ‘burdens’ as listed above.
So, if the only cure for too much debt is more debt, our system is dead.
For anyone who thinks there is no entity in control….
This is a perfect case study …. there had to be research done …. and policies formulated … to get this outcome …
If a free market would have been allowed to make the decisions….
Our system would have been dead long ago…
People are making the decisions to run up debt — they are making the decisions to offshore jobs to cheaper locations — they are making the decisions to dismantle tariff barriers — they are making the decisions to allow subprime mortgages and auto loans — they are making the decisions to print money and drop interest rates to ZIRP….
These decisions are not voted on. They are far too important and too complicated to be left to the lunk-heads in elected positions — populism cannot be allowed to influence these decisions.
The very survival of civilization is at stake – there is no room for democracy in the decision-making process.
FE,
I’m not convinced this is any proof of an entity in control, because the progress in the scenario seems fully logical, with defined parameters such as mandatory growth and finite resources, and the Maximum Power Principle.
This race to the bottom seems to have a unique path.
Could be that the control would consist in being first to acknowledge the reality of the moment, and to implement adequate actions in order to stay ahead of competitors (and then be the first to crash..?)
Someone who commented to me by e-mail suggested that the Maximum Power Principle might not really be quite correct. It might be that the real situation is that the economy is a dissipative system, and what is maximized is something a bit different from power use. The comment was:
That’s right, the Max Power Principle seems to be sometimes insufficient, by itself, to fully explain situations. I’m using MPP for convenience, because well-known and understandable, but what I really mean is MEP: Maximum Entropy Production, which is a more ‘complete’ concept (and the third law of thermodynamics, acc.to F. Roddier).
What your commenter seems to be talking about is the complex interaction between r and K ‘strategies’.
Agreed that the more complete concept represents a complex interaction between r and K ‘strategies’. I hadn’t thought of it that way. The situation is really MEP-Maximium Entropy Production, not Maximum Power Production.
My commenter by mail is an author of academic articles himself.
Are these “people” making the decision to raise interest levels. I don’t think the people in control really know what is going on. They, “these people,” believe that oil is going to go back up and they are going to continue to make money. I myself believe in the thermodynamic view of the world economy. The world economy is winding down because the energy from oil is becoming less. “These people” have not yet figured that out. The general population has not yet figured that out. We have, I believe a few more years of BAU, more than I thought years ago. At some point it is going to become obvious that the sheeple have no shepherd. The sheeple will be upset, but what are the going to do. Sheep are sheep. Ba Ba Ba.
Are they making the decision to raise rates?
Flip on CNBs once in awhile and you will get to listen the spokesperson of the people making the decisions otherwise known as the Federal Reserve Chairman (see Janet Yellen).
Here’s a video of her announcing the recent rate rise…. listen closely …. her bosses raised interest rates…. and what she is doing in the video is passing on that message… and guess what … rates went up ….. i.e. someone is in command…. someone made that decision…
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/16/fed-raises-rates-for-first-time-since-2006.html
When Yellen appears on Teevee as she regularly does…. she conveys the decisions of those in control re interest rates — re all the things I mentioned in my post (there are many things that are being done at the highest levels that we are absolutely not being told about of course… because I suspect if the sheeple knew the scale of interventions that the Fed is involved in …. the sheeple would panic…)
Open your eyes. Open your ears. The edicts are raining down from above on a monthly basis — how can you not see and hear them?
Of course they know what is going on. You don’t get to run the world if you stick your head in the sand and listen to Koombaya all day long
Again – look at the policies that have been enacted for over a decade now — they are what have kept you from eating boiled rat meat. They have very obviously been formulated to attack the pernicious effects of expensive to extract oil.
Do you think they just happened by chance? Or that they were just enacted blindly and just happened to keep the hamster running?
I really get tired of reading – particularly on Zero Hedge and Paul Craig Roberts and David Stockman — of how the most powerful men on the planet are stupid corrupt bozos who have not a clue what they are doing — and are going to run the global economy off a cliff with their ‘insane’ policies….
These stupid bozos are fighting round the clock to keep BAU from collapsing …. every single policy they introduce has been thought through — it has been run through the computers — it has been debated by the smartest people on the planet — before being tried.
It is sheer nonsense to believe that nobody is in control …. it borders on stupidity to take this position… there are most obviously people in command — and they are neither stupid nor corrupt…
Desperate yes…. if they were stupid and corrupt we’d be long dead … as would they
How about you impress me and explain how I am wrong.
If I am mediocre — then surely you could easily rip holes in the argument I just posted…. it should be like arguing with a 3 year old — no?
In ancient Rome the peoples tribune was an important person. He didn´t have any other power then to say “no”. If you come to think about it, that is the most important legislative power. Its called veto-power.
To call out BS, and veto it, is an important part of any commentary and discussion.
I am not sure that decision makers necessarily see the big picture. It may simply be that the ABC Corporation sees that its profits are lower, because of the higher cost of materials. It decides it might be able to outsource production to China, where coal is a cheaper energy source, wages are lower, and no one has paid a whole lot of attention to pollution, because that will allow it to keep costs down, and thus stay in business. It will probably have to lay off US and European workers in the process. No one is really worrying about the loss of good-paying jobs in the US and Europe.
I would agree that corporations may not see the big picture… but the people who control interest rates — lending policies — QE — etc….
They surely see the big picture….
What I might add is the fact that we needed the same quantity of energy, even as the cost of extraction rose. So we needed to borrow more, just to stay at the same level of oil use, or the same quantity of nuclear electricity generation. Products made using this more expensive energy were more expensive relative to wages, so more debt was required for them. And there was also the need to import high-priced oil from overseas, again using debt.
I probably should have added something for all of the QE during the most recent periods. If I had done that, the debt growth in recent periods would have been worse than I showed it.
The Big Short — excellent book… now a movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqG3ITMv1Q
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-23/big-short-every-american-should-see-movie-be-fking-pissed
Pity there won’t be any movie houses open to play the sequel in, once this clusterf#ck eventually blows…
In the meantime …. I reckon Michael Lewis should pre-empt and go to the guys who got it right in 2008 — and ask them what they think now…
I distinctly recall at least one of these guys — I think Kyle Bass — stating in the book to the effect:
This was so massive — and we knew were so right in our positions — the only fear was that it was so big that it would bring down the entire system and we’d not collect on our short positions
If he saw that then — imagine what he is thinking now….
He still thinks he’s going to collect…
Thanks!
Gail, something occurred to me which is worth considering. We have been in this expanding debt bubble for some time now and this is why I think we got headed in that direction. When there was cheap oil economic expansion set a high trajectory, a pace that set us up later for the rising debt bubble. As diminishing returns would have put us on to a lower trajectory, it was compensated for by rising debt to maintain the initial trajectory. However, rising debt could not permanently maintain the trajectory, and as we level off and rising debt levels are increasingly becoming less viable, we are faced with stagnation, followed by a gradual or steep decline.
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy
Get this, WTI now sells for more than Brent.
WTI +1.39 to 37.53
Brent +1.24 to 37.35
Huh?!
Back a few years ago, WTI sold for more than Brent. Then we started over-producing in the US and Canada, relative to refinery space. Now we have changed the law on exports and reduced production amounts.
Back a few years ago, WTI sold for more than Brent. Then we started over-producing in the US and Canada, relative to refinery space. Now we have changed the law on exports and reduced production amounts.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20151223/NEWS/151229626
That’s an article out entitled: ‘Gains in Consumer Spending Accompanied by Rising Income’
The rising income is 6/10th of 1% equal they claim to the exact same amount of increased spending, 6/10th of 1%. How those two metrics exactly lined up across the entire nation is an interesting question, but anyway they claim the increase in spending was after taking into account inflation, which currently is very minimal. Make of it what you will.
A person wonders how good the numbers are. Also, how the changes distribute across different groups–Social Security recipients vs Low Paid Workers vs High Paid Workers. We know that Social Security amounts for 2016 are unchanged from 2015, before deductions for health insurance, so next year, Social Security recipients will not be pushing up spending.
Back a few years ago, WTI sold for more than Brent. Then we started over-producing in the US and Canada, relative to refinery space. Now we have changed the law on exports and reduced production amounts.
Good article Gail. I’ve said 30, can be 20 as well. IMF is saying it will fall between 20 and 30:
http://www.theweek.co.uk/oil-price/60838/oil-price-does-benchmark-parity-mark-the-turning-point-in-slump
At some point it will stop falling and only Iraq can deliver it, if any
I will suggest to my country ousting ISIS and getting this oil for YPF… Our military is disastrious but I am confident our couple of tanks and planes can still hit hard those Hilux!
What you think Gail, would you help me to get a loan to support the operation? We could make some money and btw get the status of (temporary) saviours of civilization, threatened by today’s barbarians
But we’ll present the request under a IMF’s 25 average assumption, you should be modest with you view in this stage
Have an uncle in the military, will ask for the costs
Cheers
I don’t see any obvious limiting factor for the low price of oil. We know that both natural gas and electricity prices are sometimes negative. Oil is headed in the direction of overfilling the reserve capacity. In theory, its price could turn negative as well.
Loans are what allow all kinds of fossil fuels, uranium, and renewables to be used. The question is how long these can go on. If the payback is not positive, then loans don’t make sense.